What to do with Spiced Plums?

I love delicately spiced, stewed plums. I used to stew my plums with just a touch of sugar, but then I discover James Martin’s delicious Spicy Plum Crumble recipe. So plums at my place tend to get the VIP treatment. 

Of course I don’t always have the ingredients I need so I improvise and that’s what happened this week when I bought too many plums and needed to do something with them quickly. Nothing worse than rotting plums ...

I had about 8 small plums which I sliced in half and threw into a saucepan with 2 pieces of star anise, a few drops of vanilla essence, some grated nutmeg, a tablespoon of sugar and about 75 mls or so of water. I then just cooked this until the plums softened, cooled it down and put it in the fridge. 

As I said, I just needed to cook the plums so they didn’t go off but I had no idea what I was going to do with them.

Came Saturday and I decided to make some drop scones. You might call them flap jacks, or pikelets. These were always a treat when I was growing up. There one of my nostalgia foods. My recipe is based on the one in the CWA Cook Book. We called them drop scones and so do they. 

Beat 1 egg with 125 mls of milk (I use skim milk). Add 120 g SR flour (I can’t find that in Prague so I use 10 g baking powder and 110 g plain flour), and a pinch of salt. Mix it all together. The CWA recipe includes 2 Tbsp sugar, but I leave this out because often I like my drop scones with Vegemite (I am an Aussie after all). Drop spoonfuls of the batter into a medium hot fry pan. When the first side is cooked, flip them and cook the other side. I use a non-stick pan. Sometimes it's hard to judge when they're done. One indicator that the first side is done is when you see air bubbles breaking on top of your drop scones. Make sure the heat isn't too fierce because the bottom will be cooked before the inside.

Half way through cooking the drop scones I remembered the spicy plums.  Out of the fridge, remove the star anise and plum stones, and attack with stick blender – result! Delicious, fragrant, spicy plum spread for drop scones. 

Perfect for afternoon tea.

Let me know if you try it …

My favourite kitchen things ...

For me cooking isn't just about the food. It's also about the cooking. Sometimes I like to create something quick and easy. Other times I like to mess around for hours. But whatever I'm doing in the kitchen, I have certain bits of equipment and other things that I love.

• My camphor wood chopping board - this is a truly beautiful object - naturally anti-bacterial with a beautiful scent
• My pasta machine - because it's so much fun to roll and re-roll and create beautifully thin, silky pasta sheets
• My microplane grater - it's a fine-tooth one which is perfect for grating parmesan and nutmeg
• My Nespresso Pixie - because whenever I'm cooking (and even when I'm not) I need coffee and this one makes it quickly with minimal effort on my part
• My recipe books - food porn - gotta love it. I have the gloriously heavyweight, outrageously striped tome, The Cook's Companion, by Stephanie Alexander, A couple of books by Greg and Lucy Malouf which are definitely more than cook books, Arabesque and Saraban. Then there's Yotam Ottolenghi's beautiful Plenty and Ottolenghi: The Cook Book.
• My personal recipe collections - recipes pasted in from hundreds of magazines, hand-scribbled notes made at cooking demonstrations, courses and masterclasses, and ideas that I've come up with when I've been messing around (at the moment there are 5 books - sadly I haven't tried all the recipes yet)
• My iPhone - because I use Evernote to store recipes I find on the web, or that people email me and I using an off-line notebook, I can access these wherever I have a phone line or wifi connection
• My chef's knife - a sharp, fine blade that does everything I ask it too, and its complement - a small blade which comes into its own when I'm peeling fruit and veg

Finally, perhaps the most important presence in my kitchen is that of someone to eat the food I prepare. I don't mind cooking for one. I like it really. But just sometimes it's truly delightful to have the opportunity to prepare food for another.

Quinoa

Last night I was wondering what I could do with some quinoa I had in the cupboard that needed using up. One of the things I love about quinoa is that it’s a complete protein – brilliant for vegetarians. Anyway, I found inspiration in the June 2012 issue of Australian Good Taste magazine. Of course, being me, I had to mess around with the original recipe. So Melissa’s Quinoa Cakes have metamorphosed into a quinoa frittata. Hope you enjoy it. 

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked quinoa (about 3/4 cup raw)

100 g feta, crumbled

4 eggs, lightly whisked

1 carrot, peeled, coarsely grated

55 g (1/3 cup) toasted pine nuts

20 g baby spinach, chopped

2 Tbs fresh mint, chopped

2 Tbs sultanas

1 tsp finely grated lemon rind

1 tsp each of ground cumin, coriander, turmeric and paprika

Combine quinoa, feta, egg, carrot, pine nuts, spinach, mint, sultanas, spices, and lemon rind (everything really) in a bowl and mix it all up. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat a small amount of oil in a frypan over a low-medium heat. Pour quinoa mixture into pan and cook until base is cooked – probably about 5 minutes. Place under a hot grill to finish cooking.

This is a great way to use up any quinoa leftovers lurking in your fridge, but seriously, don’t wait until you have left-over quinoa. 

Do what I did and use the recipe for inspiration. Vary the spices, maybe add some chilli. Some fried onion and garlic would be great in it. Or ramp up the fresh flavours with loads of fresh herbs. 

(If you’ve never cooked quinoa before, just put 1 part quinoa in with 3 parts of water and simmer it for about 15 minutes. You can also add flavour by using stock, or some wine.)

Cumin has to be one of my favourite spices

Cumin has to be one of my favourite spices. I love its wonderful flavour that goes with so many things. 

A quick keyword search through my Evernote trove of recipes came up with 68 that include cumin. From carrot fritters to marinated olives, from white bean soup to a spiced chickpea and potato fry-up, it’s found its way into recipes featuring a diverse range of ingredients including mushrooms, avocado, spinach, eggplant and lentils.

Here are just a few of my quick fave ways to use cumin seeds.

Slice up some steamed or roasted butternut pumpkin (butternut squash). Toss some cumin seeds in oil in a fry pan, then throw in the sliced butternut and cook over a medium-high heat until it gets crunchy bit. This is great with leftover steamed or roast potato too – or a mixture of both.

Fry some cumin seeds with onions in oil. Toss in some chopped carrots, a potato and cover with vegetable stock. Simmer until vegies are soft then blitz with a stick-blender. Serve the soup with a spoonful of natural yoghurt.

Or for really special cheese on toast, toast ½ teaspoon of cumin seeds in a dry frypan over a medium heat until it smells gorgeous (chefs and cookbook writers seem to say until it’s ‘fragrant’). Grind the seeds until fine then add to 50 g of grated Emmental cheese. Pile onto toast and whack it under the grill until the cheese melts and goes bubbly. If you want to you could use this on top of soup too. Delish!

S is for Salads

Salads are so good for us and they have so much potential. The days of lettuce, tomato and maybe onion and cucumber are long gone. There is nothing as satisfying as a salad when a salad is what you really want to eat. You know those times when you want to feel the crunch of the vegetables, enjoying the different textures and flavours. Add to this the visual delight offered by a multi-hued array of food and what more could you want. By the way, did I mention that they’re mostly quick to prepare as well.

 Salads are a great way to get your five-a-day. And making salads is one area where cooking can be fun. Let your imagination go. Making salads isn’t a precision science. Play around with quantities and ingredients to suit your own tastes. 

Here are some of my favourites.

Spinach, Peas and Feta (thanks to Jamie Oliver for this one)

Make a salad of baby spinach, fresh green peas straight from their pods and bite-size chunks of feta cheese. Dress it with lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil (I use about 2 parts juice to 5 parts oil). Season with pepper. Taste it and add salt if it needs it (remember, the feta is salty).

 

Watermelon and Feta

Toss cubes of watermelon in a bowl with thinly sliced red onion. Throw in chunks of feta. Drizzle some good quality balsamic vinegar over the top – not a lot. 

My Version of Caprese Salad – Mozzarella with Slow Roasted Tomatoes

To slow roast cherry tomatoes, cut them in half and place cut side up on a baking tray. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast in a slow oven , about 100 C for about 90 minutes, until they’ve almost dried out. Tear up a ball of mozzarella cheese. Arrange mozzarella tomatoes and some fresh basil leaves on a plate – mix them together, make nice patterns, whatever you like. Drizzle over some extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. 

ANZAC Biscuits for ANZAC Day

In Australia and New Zealand, ANZAC Day is our day of remembrance. On 25 April 1915 our forces were part of an allied force that landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula. 

It being ANZAC Day I thought I would make some ANZAC Biscuits. The last time I made these was over 20 years ago. On that occasion I was making them to sell for a charity fundraiser and I pretty much felt like never baking ANZAC Biscuits again after making hundreds and packaging them into cellophane bags. But being away from Australia and seeing messages posted on various social media forums by my compatriots put me in the mood for a taste of home ...

The recipe I used today is by Merle Parrish (viewers of the Aussie version of Masterchef might remember her), and I downloaded it from here. I’ve also copied it for you. I made some of mine small and some larger; the photo is of some of the bigger ones. If you make them all small I’m sure the recipe makes 45, but the size I made, I think I made around 30. 

 This is a very simple recipe - great for making with kids. And it's quick so from the time you decide on the spur of the moment that you really want something sweet, to the time you bite into your first warm ANZAC biscuit is about 30 minutes. But a ward of warning, they really are nicer when you give them about 10 or so minutes after taking them out of the oven to crisp up.

Enjoy! 

Merle Parrish's Anzac biscuit recipe

Prep time: 20 mins

Cooking time: 6-7 mins per batch

Makes: 45

1 cup plain flour

2 tsp ground ginger

1 1/2 cups rolled oats

1 cup desiccated coconut

1 cup white sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

2 tbsp boiling water

1 tsp bicarb soda

160g butter, melted

1.      Preheat oven to moderate (170C) and grease two large baking trays.

2.      Sift the flour and ground ginger into a mixing bowl, and add the oats, coconut and sugar. Make a well in the centre.

3.      Stir the golden syrup, boiling water and bicarb in a small bowl until combined. Add to the dry ingredients, along with the melted butter. Mix well.

4.      Take heaped teaspoons of mixture and roll into balls. Place onto trays, and flatten gently. Bake for 6–7 minutes, until lightly golden.

5.      Cool on the trays for 10 minutes, until they firm up slightly, then lift onto wire racks to cool completely.

I Love Tomato Water

Tomato water has an intense, summery tomato flavour and with a piece of Melba toast makes a lovely, light appetiser. UK chef Gary Rhodes uses a similar concoction as the basis of his famous White Tomato Soup. Use it as stock for vegetarian risotto or mix it with vodka for an contemporary version of a Bloody Mary.  

Ripe tomatoes (one large tomato will probably yield one very small serve of tomato water – I recommend you make up more than you need. It’s unlikely you won’t be able to finish it. It keeps for about 3 or 4 days in the fridge.)

1 teaspoon caster sugar for every 400 grams of tomatoes

Salt and pepper to season

1.      Chop the tomatoes roughly and mix with the sugar, salt and pepper.

2.      Line a large sieve with cheesecloth and set it over a bowl (plastic or glass is best). Pour the tomatoes into the centre of the fabric.

3.      Strain the tomatoes, without pressing or squeezing, for at least 8 hours or overnight. If you squeeze your puree the tomato water will become cloudy. If you want to have an even clearer liquid, strain it again. And again, and again ...

4.      Serve in small glasses, at room temperature. (Some people serve it chilled, but the intensity of the flavour diminishes with cold.)

This is the most basic version of the recipe You can add other veggies, try onions and fennel. Or mix it up with white wine. The salt helps draw the moisture out, but don’t use too much or you’ll end up with a salty liquid. Leave out the pepper and the sugar if you wish. The sugar helps balance the acidity of the tomatoes. 

Some kitchen shops sell straining bags for jams which work really well for this and are easier to handle than cheesecloth or muslin. I use one that I bought at Lakeland in the UK. And don’t be tempted to hurry up the process by squeezing, poking or prodding. The result won’t look as good, although it will probably still taste okay.