Categories
chitchat

Two things

1. I have finally discovered the level of food blogging I am capable of these days: a one- or two-sentence description of what we do for dinner each night. Idea shamelessly stolen from the far more inspirational Redfox, who also blogs, you know, properly. Anyway, our dinner reports are being logged on the page linked in the sidebar labelled Eating notes.

2. I sliced off the tip of my index finger last night, cutting fennel on the mandoline in a hurry and not using the finger guard.  It HURTS.  Use the finger guard, dudes, it is there for a reason.  Thank heavens Miffy, trained medical professional, was in the house and willing to go beyond normal guest duties and dress it for me. Thanks Miff.

Categories
fish salad

Public holiday salad

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Salad of mackerel, white beans, capers, watercress, etc.

This is to remind me that we found good tinned mackerel fillets at Pennisi in Woolloongabba, and I should go back and buy more.

Categories
mexican-ish recipes vegetarian

Seared corn, chili and mint salsa-like thing, yeah baby

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.

Categories
recipes vegetarian

Frittata perfecta

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.

Categories
mediterranean recipes salad vegetarian

Pearl couscous and roast veggie salad with feta, herbs and harissa

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.

Categories
mediterranean pasta recipes vegetarian (almost)

Yessssssssssssssssssssssss

And today I found out that I got ARC funding for 3 years so now I am suddenly relaxed like the floppiest thing ever.  Perhaps I can stop being a drama queen about my stress levels for a while!  Here was tonight’s really quite rocking dinner, serving 4, adapted from Karen Martini’s Cooking at Home:

 Rigatoni with roasted cauliflower, saffron, currants, pine nuts and caramelised onion

Slice 2 brown onions, and cook in olive oil in a large saucepan over low heat for 15 minutes.  Add 4 sliced garlic cloves and a handful of fresh thyme leaves, and cook for a further 15 minutes or more until everything is delightfully caramelised.

Cut a medium cauliflower up into florets, toss with olive oil, and roast at 180C for around 25 minutes, or until golden.

Cook 400 g of rigatoni until al dente; drain.

Add to the onion mixture 4 chopped anchovy fillets, 80 g of currants, 2 pinches of saffron threads, and half a cup of water, and simmer for 5 minutes. Add 70 g pine nuts, a dash of red wine vinegar, 150 ml white wine, the cooked and drained pasta, and a slug of olive oil.  Cook over low heat for another couple of minutes, until the sauce has adhered nicely to the pasta.

Check seasoning, add some chopped flat-leaf parsley and toss to combine.

Eat with lots of wine and a glorious, overwhelming, muscle-loosening feeling of relief.

Categories
asian recipes salad vegetarian (almost)

Small pleasures

I can actually feel the stress shredding my immune system.  My whole body aches, I grind my teeth so much it hurts, I just had a melt-down about MS Word being the piece of merde it is, and I still have four analyses on my to-do-list for this Sunday afternoon.  If I met academia in the street I would give that bitch the cut direct.

However.  It ought to be noted that it’s a lovely afternoon outside (though I am tethered to my desk).  We’ve also had a few simple but tasty meals recently that deserve recording.

Today for lunch, it was roast cherry tomatoes with thyme, eaten with a tin of decent sardines,  ciabatta toasts, and a mixed leaf salad.  Roast tomatoes and oily fish are a heavenly match.

Last month I made pesto in a mortar and pestle for the first time ever, using Marcella Hazan’s recipe. I was frankly amazed that it worked, and that I managed to pound a gigantic bunch of basil into a smallish amount of pesto, all inside the not-that-huge bowl of my stone mortar.  It was extremely satisfying and the texture was excellent, very silky.

And last week we were inspired by an asian chicken and purple cabbage salad at the Little Larder, and made our own version at home using tofu instead of chicken. A rough recipe is below.

Tofu with crispy cabbage and herb salad

Dressing
Mix together a couple of tablespoons each of fish sauce and rice wine vinegar, the juice of a lime, and  a tablespoon of grated palm sugar.  Stir to dissolve the palm sugar, and taste.  Now the tricky part begins.  If it needs more salt, add more fish sauce. If sweetness, sugar.  If sharpness, vinegar or lime.  You might need to add quite a bit of one or more ingredients to get it right – the proportions will depend on the strength of your fish sauce, lime, etc.  Keep going until it tastes good.

Salad
Mix together some very finely sliced red cabbage, chopped spring onions, and finely chopped red onion, and dress with half the sauce.  Set it aside for 15 minutes or so, tossing occasionally, for everything to get very slightly wilted. Just before serving, toss through some finely sliced cucumber and red capsicum, mixed tasty small lettuce leaves, and lots of picked mint and coriander leaves.

Tofu
Cut tofu into cubes and marinate in half the sauce, plus some fresh or dried chilli, for 20 minutes or so.  The fry the cubes, drained of the sauce, in a little peanut oil in a wok, stirring only occasionally.  Let the tofu get crispy and browned before turning.  Add drizzles of the sauce as necessary to prevent sticking. Serve the tofu on top of bowls of the salad and eat at once.

Categories
meat recipes

About 5 hour lamb

Our apartment has been freezing at night for the last week or so.  It’s finally made me understand why there are doors on every internal doorway in the place – it’s so you have a better chance of corralling the draughts that whistle in round most of the window frames.  But even sitting on the couch with at least one and in most cases two closed doors between me and the external walls of the building, I still shiver.  So I am getting all old-school and sewing draught snakes, and in the meantime cooking depths-of-winter dinners, despite the fact that I sit outside in the sun at lunchtimes in shirtsleeves.

Yesterday afternoon we picked up a small leg of lamb, which I cooked last night in an ad-hoc way, vaguely based on gigot de sept heures and modified to suit the time and what else we had in the house (it had been a disorganised and ramshackle kind of shopping expedition). I browned the leg in oil in the Le Creuset on the stovetop, then added (for a 1kg leg) 1 can of tomatoes, very roughly chopped, a couple of cups of stock, and a large glass of red wine.  Also four golf ball-sized onions peeled and halved, four large carrots peeled and each cut into three or four pieces, two fresh bay leaves and a sprig of rosemary.  Put the lid on, then into the oven at 190 C (clear sign that I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing), realised OH SHIT about an hour later and turned it down to 120 C, at the same time turning the leg over in the pot in the hope of miraculously reversing whatever drying had occured by submerging the part that had been above the waterline during the initial roasting. Left it cooking for another 3.5 hours, then pulled it out to see the results.

The liquid had reduced by about two thirds to a shallow bath of delicious juices with a concentrated flavour of the vegetables, wine and lamb. The onions had come apart, and the carrots were braised to silky softness but still holding their shape perfectly. A butter knife sank into the lamb all the way to the bottom of the pot with no effort.  We ate it, lamb, vegetables and broth, in shallow bowls, together with bread from Chouquette spread with good butter.  It was delicious, and we weren’t cold anymore.

Categories
mexican-ish recipes vegetarian

Pot liquor

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!

Categories
science

Happy Ada Lovelace Day

Yes, I’ve managed to survive grant-writing season, hurrah!  (Now we just wait for 8 months to see if funding will be forthcoming.)  I should be getting back to cooking soon.

In the meantime, here is a diversion for you: some of my favourite posts from Ada Lovelace Day (yesterday, 24th of March).

Jean Bartik, ENIAC programmer

Valerie Aurora, Linux kernal programmer

Hedy Lamarr(!), co-inventor of spread spectrum frequency hopping

Mary Somerville and Agnes Clarke, interpreters and communicators of science

Enid Mumford, sociotechnologist

Addison Berry, Drupal developer and mobilizer

Jane McGonigal, game designer and futurist

Karen Spärk Jones, computational linguist

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) wrote the first computer programs, for Charles Babbage’s analytical engine. And Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to celebrate women in technology. You can track down loads of other ALD posts via Technorati or the Ada Lovelace Day Collection – many of them are worth a read.