I’ve got no idea if this is an authentic curry from any location at all other than suburban Australian kitchens, but it is delicious.  It’s very slightly adapted from the recipe here, where they say that the fenugreek seeds are optional. I’d argue that the fenugreek is one of the essential flavours here, along with the curry leaves and lime juice.  I used silverbeet rather than spinach and it works fine - just chop it well.

Leftovers of this (together with a panch dal) are going to be lunch for  me for several days this week. Can’t wait!

oil or ghee
1 heaped teaspoon brown mustard seeds
3 green chillies, deseeded and thinly sliced (or equivalent dried chilli flakes)
12 fresh curry leaves
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
2 onions, finely chopped
425 g can tomatoes
200 ml coconut milk
300 ml water
500g  pumpkin, peeled and cut into 2 cm chunks
1 bunch spinach or silverbeet, chopped
1 lime, juiced

Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat, then add the mustard seeds and cook for a minute, until they start to pop.  Add the chillies, curry leaves, fenugreek seeds and turmeric, and cook another couple of minutes until they are aromatic. Add the onions and a pinch or two of salt, and cook for 5 minutes, or until they’re soft. Now add the tomatoes (break them up with the spoon if they’re whole), coconut milk, water and pumpkin, and simmer, partly covered, for 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is a few minutes away from done. Add the spinach or silverbeet, stir it in, and cook until wilted. Sqeeze in the juice of half the lime. Taste the sauce and add more lime juice if needed.

Oh salsa-like thing, come and sit on my knee, honey.  You are the finest salsa-like thing ever. YES.  It’s true.

Seriously, this was awesome.  We had soft tacos tonight with chipotle black beans, avocado, and this corn salsa-thing and my god it was delicious. I totally expected the chipotle beans to be my number one love of the night, but they faded into insignificance in the face of the corn.  I ate a couple of tacos and then just sat there eating the corn with a spoon.

It’s a simple dish, riffing off this recipe for caramelized corn with fresh mint on from the Wednesday Chef.  But its flavour is complex, intriguing, intense without being overwhelming. It’s a little crisp, setting off the beans and avocado perfectly.  It’s my new favourite thing and I’ll be making more tomorrow and possibly the day after that.

 Corn, chili and mint salsa-like thing

2 cobs of corn
1 long red chili
garlic-infused olive oil
sea salt
juice of half a large lime
about 10 large mint leaves

Cut the kernels off the corn cobs. Halve the chilli, remove the seeds (or not, to taste), and finely chop.  Finely chop the mint leaves.

Heat a glug of garlic-infused olive oil in a frypan over (the high end of) moderate heat.  Add the corn and chili, and cook, stirring now and then, until the kernels are crackling and jumping in the pan, and getting browned in places.  Remove from the heat and add the lime juice and a big fat pinch of sea salt, and stir through.  Add the mint and toss.  Serve warm.

It’s the second day of the year and we’re now two-for-two for excellent lunches.  Yesterday my parents came for lunch (it was my mum’s birthday) and we had a summer veggie galette with a salad and some champagne not drunk on NYE, and then honey cake with spiced apples, vanilla ice cream and a great bottle of gewurztraminer my sister had given my parents on her last visit home.  I’d forgotten how great the galette is - an olive oil yeasted dough, easy and quick, that always cooks into a springy and golden crust for all kinds of vegetable pies.  I used to make a galette every month or so when we lived in Brighton and they need to come back into rotation.

And today we had a surprising win with a frittata put together from an almost empty fridge.  Normally I make frittatas with more vegetables - steamed sweet potato and greens, or sauted capsicum and zucchini.  But all we had was chives, flat-leaf parsley, scallions and feta so that was what went in, along with 4 eggs and some salt and pepper, into a wee frypan.  It was quite thick, so we cooked it on a lower temperature than usual to try and set the middle before blackening the bottom; browned the top under a grill while the middle was still a bit liquidy; then left it to sit off the heat with a lid over the top for a couple of minutes to finish setting. It was really perfect - light, almost fluffy, not tough like they can sometimes be, and with a lovely delicate flavour.  I realise that this is no real recipe, but I’m making a note of it to remind myself to try cooking frittatas more slowly over lower heat in the future.

It’s the season for social events 5 nights a week, which I love love love until I abruptly get the almost uncontrollable urge to go home, lock the door, and pull the sheets over my head for a few days.  I’m not quite there yet but I’ve caught myself meaningfully eyeing off the bed and making sure there’s a good supply of reading material on the table beside it.

The last week’s been lovely though.  Judy’s down from Pomona, and she came over for excellent conversation on Thursday night over a dinner of linguine with home-made pesto, a salad of cauliflower, slow-cooked onions, anchovies, currants and parsley, and some roast cherry tomatoes with spinach. She also sent me some Spirit House recipes the next morning, including one for tea-smoked duck salad that is now on my immediately-try list.

We went out with Ian and Lisa on Friday to the new Indian restaurant in Toowong, Ceylon Inn, where we accidentally banged noisily into a table and spilled red wine (separate incidents, both within the first 5 minutes of arriving and while completely sober), and I later tipsily tried to explain the mechanics of next-generation sequencing technology to Ian after the meal.  Sunday we met Francesca for a relaxing meal and chitchat at the Tibetan Kitchen in West End and I renewed my love affair with their lime and tofu curry.

And on Saturday we were at Anne and Arthur’s for a great party to which I brought this couscous salad. It’s forgiving about being made several hours before being eaten, and also about being carted across town on public transport, bless it.  It’s yet another variant of the grain/roast vegies/herbs/cheese salads that I keep making and lab people keep asking for recipes of and I keep neglecting to write down…  sorry dudes, but here is one at last.

2 large red capsicums, finely sliced
5 slender zucchini, chopped into pieces 1.5 x 1.5 cm
5 finger aubergines, cut into half-moon shapes about 1 cm thick
olive oil
garlic-infused olive oil
sea salt and black pepper
aged red wine vinegar (e.g. Forum) or sherry vinegar
cinnamon powder
harissa paste
1.5 cups pearl couscous (aka Israeli couscous)
2 cups boiling water
1 large bunch flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and chopped
1 large bunch mint, leaves picked and chopped
1 packet feta, crumbled

Pre-heat the oven to 180C.

Toss the aubergines with several teaspoons of salt in a large colander and leave to drain for ~45 minutes.

Toss the capsicum with a glug of olive oil and vinegar and some sea salt and pepper in a baking dish.  Roast for ~30 minutes, depending on size of slices, until capsicum is soft and brown at the edges. Set aside.

Toss the zucchini with garlic-infused olive oil, salt and pepper in a baking dish.  Make sure the pieces aren’t piled up on one another, so they can roast rather than steam.  Roast for ~30 mins, until softened and golden.  (If you don’t have garlic-infused olive oil, you can use normal olive oil instead and then add lots of crushed garlic for the last 10 minutes of roasting.) Set aside.

Rinse the salt off the aubergines, and toss dry in the colander.  In a large saucepan, heat some olive oil over medium heat and fry the aubergines until they are soft and golden.  This shouldn’t take too long (and they shouldn’t absorb too much oil) if they were well salted.  Mix together in a little bowl a glug of the garlic olive oil, a glug of red wine vinegar, a teaspoon or so of cinnamon powder, and harissa paste to taste (depending on how hot your harissa is, this could be a quarter teaspoon or two heaped teaspoons).  Add this to the pan and continue to cook for another couple of minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large saucepan, heat a dash of olive oil over medium heat, then add the couscous and stir until you start to smell it toasting.  Add 2 cups of boiling water and a pinch of salt.  Simmer, covered, for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  The water should then be all absorbed and the couscous cooked.  Add a little more water near the end if it is dry before the couscous is cooked.  Now spread the coucous out on a large flat bowl to cool.  Give it a stir every few minutes to break up any clumps and make sure it does not get gluggy.  (I’m not totally sure if this is necessary but I always do it to be safe.)

Make a dressing for the salad by collecting the olive oil and vegetable juices from the baking dishes of roast capsicum and zucchini, and mixing into that liquid a little more red wine vinegar, some cinnamon powder, and some harissa paste to taste.

Toss together in a large bowl the vegetables, couscous, herbs, feta and dressing. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

I have THE BEST pot of black bean chili on the stove right now.  It needs another 20 minutes or so of cooking but I just had to share the excitement immediately.

I threw ingredients in more or less at random but somehow it has coalesced into my perfect chili.  I think the secret is pot liquor.  I love that phrase (being a fan of liquor of many kinds). It’s the liquid that remains in the pot after cooking the beans.  In this case, I cooked up a big load of black beans this afternoon, and their liquor was smooth, matte,  the colour of melted dark chocolate, and, critically, very tasty.

When it came time to make the chili, I fried a couple of roughly chopped onions until they were golden and soft, added some chopped garlic, a teaspoon or so each of chili powder, cumin powder, cumin seeds and smoked paprika and cooked another couple of minutes until aromatic, then added a tin of tomatoes, about 5 or 6 cups of the cooked drained black beans, a couple of cups of the reserved pot liquor, and two fresh bay leaves.  I am currently in the late stages of simmering it for an hour, adding spoonfuls of pot liquor as necessary to keep it at the right consistency.  Shortly I will eat it in soft tacos with vegies roasted with chili and cumin, and guacamole.  I am sure I will make disgusting moans of enjoyment while doing so.  Can’t wait!