Sort-of-vegetable bhajis (Indian vegetable fritters) - recipe

I don't know about you but I find a curry always hits the spot on a Sunday night - particularly when the rest of the weekend has been a little on the boozy side!


If I make the curry myself, I like to make these Indian-spiced vegetable fritters to go with it.  Although it sounds like quite a lot of ingredients they're actually really easy to make, as everything is grated straight into one bowl.


Ingredients (makes 4):
1 medium carrot
1 small courgette
Half an onion
3cm finger of fresh ginger
1 red chilli
Handful of fresh coriander, chopped
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin
Pinch of salt
50g self raising flour
Sunflower oil for frying


Method:
Grate the carrot, courgette, onion, ginger and chilli into a bowl.  Add the chopped coriander, mustard seeds, cumin and salt.  Use your hands to scrunch all the ingredients together. 


Add half the flour and mix again.  If the mixture is thick enough to form patties, you don't need to add any more.  If the mixture is still a little wet, add the rest of the flour.


Heat the sunflower oil in a frying pan, over a medium heat.  The oil should be about 1cm depth.  Drop in a tiny bit of the mixture to check the temperature; if it sizzles and rises to the top, the temperature is right.


Form the mixture into patties - this recipe should make about four.  Fry for around 3 minutes on each side, until golden brown and crispy.


Serve with curry, or as a starter - they're really good with mango chutney.

Simple to make in one bowl

The beautiful colours of the ingredients

Perfect patatas bravas - easy recipe

Patatas bravas appear on the menu in most tapas bars and restaurants. At best, the potatoes are crisp and golden, topped with a punchy tomato sauce and a garlic spiked aioli. At worst, they're just a soggy, bland disappointment.

On a mission to use up bits and pieces, I decided to make myself a little tapas feast, including my version of patatas bravas. I was really pleased with the results. Well worth a try.

I used new potatoes but using normal potatoes cut into approximately 2cm x 2cm chunks would be more traditional.

Ingredients (Makes enough for four good size tapas portions):
750g new potatoes (with larger ones cut in half)
Sunflower oil
Sea salt

For the brava sauce:
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 chipotle chilli, rehydrated and finely chopped)**
400g chopped tinned tomatoes

For the aioli:
4 tablespoons ready made mayonnaise
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced

Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 200c

Par boil the potatoes for around 5 minutes, until starting to soften.  Drain well.

Heat a few good glugs of sunflower oil in a roasting tray.  Add the potatoes, giving them a good shake to coat in oil, and return to the oven.  Roast for 30-40 minutes, until the potatoes are crispy and golden.

In the meantime, make the brava sauce.  Gently fry the onions until soft.  Add the garlic and chilli and cook over a medium heat for a further 2-3 minutes (being careful not to burn the garlic).  Add the tinned tomatoes and simmer gently for 20 minutes.

To make the aioli, mix the olive oil, mayonnaise and garlic together.

To serve, sprinkle the cooked potatoes with sea salt and top with brava sauce and aioli.

**You can substitute 1 teaspoon of hot smoked paprika instead

Padron peppers - recipe

I first had Padron peppers in Portugal, which is slightly strange as they're actually Spanish - unique to the Padron region in North West Spain.  These are the Russian roulette of tapas - most of the peppers are very mild but around one in 20 is super hot.

Most tapas restaurants have these on the menu but if you fancy making them at home, Waitrose** at least definitely stocks them.

**And Lidl and M&S too apparently!

Ingredients (makes enough for a tapas style dish, or starter for two):
1 bag Padron peppers (150g)
Olive oil
Sea salt

Method:
Heat a good glug of olive oil in a frying pan.

Cook the peppers over a medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes, until the skin starts to blister.

Put the peppers into a serving bowl and sprinkle with sea salt.

Watch out for the hot ones!

Padron peppers

Miso aubergine - recipe

This is another of Reiko's recipes from Hashi cooking

Reiko has a recipe book coming out in October, which I'm sure will do her recipes justice much more than my amateur attempts!

Ingredients (4 generous side portions):

2 good size aubergines

3 tbsp miso paste 

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp mirin

2 tbsp sunflower oil (or whichever oil you prefer)

Using a veg peeler, peel vertical one inch strips off the aubergines (see the pic below).  Cut the aubergines into one inch thick pieces

Brush one side of each piece and place under a medium grill (oiled side up).  Grill for about 8 minutes until lightly browned.

Turn over, brush the uncooked side with remaining oil and put under the grill for another 5 minutes, until lightly browned on that side too and soft to the touch.  If the aubergine is still firm, it may need a couple more minutes.

Whilst the aubergines are cooking, mix the miso, sugar and mirin in a bowl.  Heat in the microwave for one minute (or simmer in a small saucepan for 2-3 minutes).  The sauce needs to be thick enough to sit on top of the aubergine, if it's too watery add a little more miso and sugar; if too thick, add a little water.**

Paste the miso sauce on top of each piece of aubergine, giving a good covering.  Put the aubergine back under the grill (paste side up).  Grill for 1-2 minutes, until the miso sauce starts bubbling.  Watch them carefully, as the miso sauce burns easily.

I served them with tuna steaks and wasabi mashed potatoes and saved a little of the miso paste to use as a sauce on the side.  Absolutely delicious!

**This sauce can be kept in the fridge for up to two weeks. It makes a delicious dip.

Aubergines: peeled and ready to grill

Cooked aubergines, with miso paste ready for the final grilling

Not a great pic - but miso aubergine with tuna steak and wasabi mashed potato

Quinoa salad - Ottolenghi recipe

My lovely friend Helen made this quinoa salad for me for dinner one evening.  It's a tasty, light, summery dish, which will be just perfect if summer makes a reappearance.  The roasted sweet potato gives it a bit of oomph too, so it does fill you up.  Which I like.

I first ate quinoa in South America, where the Incas have been growing it for thousands of years - amusing really when you think how we've just 'discovered' it as a superfood here!

It's really not difficult to make but it does take a little bit of time.  Recipe courtesy of Yotam Ottolenghi,
very slightly adapted by me.

Ingredients:
2 medium sweet potatoes (about 350g each)
200g mixed basmati and wild rice (I used just basmati, as I didn't have wild)
200g quinoa (I bought mine from a health food shop but I think a lot of bigger supermarkets sell it now)
2 garlic cloves, peeled and very thinly sliced
3 tbsp shredded sage leaves
2 limes, juice and zest (the recipe calls for Iranian limes but I just used regular, sorry Mr Ottolenghi)
6 tbsp shredded fresh mint
4 spring onions, green part only, thinly sliced, plus extra to garnish
200g feta, broken into chunks
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6.

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut roughly into 2cm dice. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 20-25 minutes, until tender.

Meanwhile, cook the rice as per the packet instructions. Put the quinoa in a pan with lots of boiling water and simmer for 10 minutes. Drain into a fine sieve and leave to dry. Put the cooked and dry (but still warm) rice and quinoa in a large mixing bowl.

Heat a glug of olive oil in a small frying pan and cook the garlic for 30 seconds, or until it turns light golden. Add the sage and fry, stirring, for about a minute - make sure the herbs and garlic don't burn.

Tip the contents of the pan over the rice and quinoa, then stir in the roasted sweet potato and its oil. Add the mint, spring onion, lime juice and zest, feta and salt and pepper, toss together gently, taking care not to mush up the sweet potato and feta, taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve warmish, or at room temperature, garnished with spring onion.

Courgette fritters - recipe

When I was little, I loved Roald Dahl books and the BFG was probably my favourite. If you've read it, you'll remember that the BFG lived on snozzcumbers, which to me sounded pretty much like courgettes.  Mainly because I thought courgettes were vile.

Fast forward a couple of years (/decades) and I actually rather like courgettes.  I was very amused to come across a round courgette in Waitrose (see pic) and had to buy it.

I've made fritters from various other vegetables (potato, sweetcorn, carrot etc) and thought i'd give courgette fritters a go.  Total success, they were amazing.

Ingredients:
2 medium courgettes (definitely don't need to be round!)
1 egg, beaten
Half an onion, finely chopped
2-3 tablespoons flour
Handful of fresh herbs, chopped (I used chives, mint and parsley)
Oil for frying (whichever you prefer to use)

Method:
Grate the courgettes into a large bowl.

Using either kitchen roll, or a clean tea towel, squeeze as much liquid as you can out of them.  Throw the liquid away.

Add the onion, egg, flour and herbs to the drained courgette and mix.

Heat the oil in a frying pan.  These will work better if you add oil to the depth of a cm or so (sorry weight watchers).  When the oil is hot, add a heaped dessert spoon of the courgette mix at a time, lightly pressing down with a spoon to form patties.  Leave to cook on one side for a couple of minutes and then turn over.  Cook for another 2-3 minutes until golden brown.

Drain on kitchen paper before serving - we had ours with ready made sweet chilli sauce.

Voila, snozzcumber fritters.

Saucy Sicilian lunch - Caponata recipe

Caponata is a sort of sweet and sour Italian vegetable stew.  It's delicious for lunch, served hot with some bread.  Traditionally, Italians serve it as a side dish.  I think it would be great with tuna steak.  It keeps for a couple of days in the fridge and the flavour just gets better.

There are loads of different variations on the recipe, some include raisins, others exclude pine nuts.  I based mine on this recipe from Delicious magazine but with a few tweaks.

Ingredients:

1. Good glug of olive oil
2. 1 red onion, chopped
3. 2 celery sticks chopped
4. 1 large, or 2 small aubergines, chopped into small cubes
5. 400g tin tomatoes
6. 100g green olives
7. 2 tbsp capers
8. 2 tbsp caster sugar
9. 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
10. 50g pine nuts
11. Handful of fresh basil leaves

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a deep frying pan over a low heat. Add the onions, celery and aubergines and cook gently for at least 20-25 minutes or until the pepper and aubergines are very tender. Don’t allow the mixture to catch on the bottom of the pan.  I added a couple of tablespoons of water after about ten mins, to keep the aubergine moist.
2. Add the tinned tomatoes and cook for another ten minutes.
3. Roughly chop the olives with the capers. Add to the vegetables with the sugar and vinegar, and cook for 15 - 20 minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated. 
4. Stir in the pine nuts.  Cook for a further 5 minutes.

Serve hot or cold, as you prefer.

Aubergine

Chopped celery

Caponata served with toasted ciabatta