A Very Full Tart

Today is Valentine's Day. It's a weird day at the best of times with the "buy to show your love" rhetorics clashing with the "we don't need a holiday to show love, we do it all the time" factions, both colliding with the "I am so in love and everyone needs to know!" consortiums. I knew from the get-go this morning that I wanted a quiet day to myself. I decided I would stay in instead of going to campus and spend the day alternating between reading ('The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins) and cooking something time-consuming.

"Time-consuming" as a category is actually fairly hard to find in Plenty. Most of the recipes are fairly straightforward and remarkably swift. I'd had the recipe for the Very Full Tart in mind to make sometime this month and realized today would be the perfect time. Everything was in the fridge, the day was wide open, and I already had puff pastry in the freezer which would save me the extra step of making up a pie crust. Done and done. I assembled everything and got to work.

Saying up front - this recipe does take quite a while to put together. In addition to creating the pie crust and the multiple rounds of roasting for the veggies, the final bake itself is a healthy 35-45 minutes. I highly recommend that you read through the recipe carefully to assess the time it will take. That said, nothing about this recipe is hard and there is plenty of hands off time while the ingredients roast, caramelize, bake, etc. The other caveat I feel needs to be made ahead of time is to choose the smallest vegetables you can for this tart. I went with the smallest I could find for the zucchini and eggplant, used half of a leftover onion and sweet potato and still ended up with enough roasted veggies to make a 12" diameter tart, another 8" diameter tart, and still have a good cup-and-some roasted veggies left over (which are delicious and hardly a problem). For a recipe that says it makes a 9" diameter tart to feed 4-6 people, the yield was a LOT. So feel free to go with the tiniest veggies you can find - I can't see it being a problem. As usual, the ingredients and proportions are as indicated in the book, while the instructions incorporate my observations and alterations.


Very Full Tart
(p. 84, Plenty)

Serves 4-6 according to the book.

1 red bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
about 6 tbsp olive oil
1 medium eggplant, cut into 2-inch dice
salt and black pepper
1 small sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch dice
1 small zucchini, cut into 1-inch dice
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
2 bay leaves
11 oz pie crust dough
8 thyme sprigs, leaves picked
1/3 cup ricotta
4 1/4 oz feta
7 cherry tomatoes, halved
2 medium eggs
1 cup heavy cream

Assemble ingredients!

Preheat the oven to 400F. Use a small knife to cut around the stem of each pepper. Lift it out along with the seeds. Shake the peppers until the remaining seeds are removed and discard the seeds and stems. Place both peppers in a baking dish, drizzle with some olive oil and put on the top shelf of the oven.

 In a medium bowl, mix the diced eggplant with 4 tablespoons of the olive oil, some salt, and some pepper.

Spread into a large baking pan (I used a 9"x13" Pyrex and that was a good size) and place in the oven on the shelf under the baking peppers. Bake for 12 minutes. While the eggplant is baking, you can prep the other ingredients if you haven't already.

After 12 minutes, add the diced sweet potato to the baking eggplant and stir gently. Return to the oven to roast for an additional 12 minutes.

Add the zucchini to the pan, stir gently and roast for another 10-12 minutes.

Once that 12 minute increment has completed, the peppers should be nicely browned and all of the rest of the vegetables cooked. Take everything out of the oven. Let the vegetables sit for a bit to cool. Wrap the pan with the peppers in it in a bit of foil and let cool; once they are cool, peel the skins off and chop the flesh into rough chunks. Once everything has been taken out of the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 325F.

In a medium frying pan on the stove, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Saute the onions with the bay leaves and some salt for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they turn brown, soft, and sweet. I forgot about the bay leaves, but it didn't ruin the dish.

Once onions are soft and caramelized, remove from heat. Remove the bay leaves and set aside to cool.

Lightly grease a 9-inch, loose bottomed tart pan.  Roll out the pie crust dough into a circle roughly 1/8th of an inch thick and large enough to line the pan with some dough overhanging the rim. Carefully fit the dough into the pan, pressing it into the fluting. Trim the edges of the crust with a knife or by rolling a rolling pin over the edge of the pan. Apparently I completely forgot to take pictures of this part. Whoops. Line the dough with a piece of parchment paper and fill it with pie weights/dried beans/rice and blind bake (with weights in) for 30 minutes. Once the blind bake is complete, remove the paper and weights, and then return the crust to the oven for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until the crust starts to turn golden brown. Once the crust is golden, remove from the oven and set aside to cool a little.  I opted to use the puff pastry I already had in my freezer, but the process was essentially identical. I found the inside of the crust puffed up more than I preferred with the use of the puff pastry, which wasn't a problem; I simply used a fork to carefully pull up a few layers of the puff pastry from the inner circle of the tart, thereby deepening the centre of the crust a bit. If you use a regular pie dough crust you will not have to monkey with that step. ^_^

To assemble the tart, scatter the cooked onion over the slightly cooled crust. I decided to chop the ends of my green onions in there as well, to use them up. Why not?

Top the scattered onions with the roasted vegetables, arranging them evenly. Scatter half the thyme leaves over the vegetables. I forgot the thyme (this was about the point where I realized I had enough filling to make two tarts, so I was making a round of pie dough at this stage for the second tart and got a little absent-minded when it came to the thyme), but it's omission was not devastating.

 Next, dot the vegetables with small amounts of both cheeses. I found even with the larger tart that I didn't use the full amount of either cheese, but that might just be my preferences.

Slice the tomatoes in half and arrange them on top of the cheese, nestling them down into the filling a bit.

In a separate container, whisk together the eggs and the cream with some salt and a few grinds of black pepper. I subbed out the cream for almond milk, which worked just fine. Carefully pour the custard mixture over the tart - you're aiming to fill in the gaps between the vegetables and the crust, without completely covering the top layer of cheese and tomatoes. Scatter the remaining thyme on top, if you remember. Place in the oven and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the filling sets and everything starts to turn a little golden. Remove the tart from the oven once set and allow to rest for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Then enjoy!

I can't even begin to say how delicious this is. I wasn't sure about the eggplant because I find myself continually suspicious of that particular vegetable, but this was incredible. I'd make it again and again... and that is after having to get through the two tarts this ended up making for me! I think I'd make it as a frittata as well - the roasted veggies would work well in that context, and it would save the fuss of dealing with a crust. Don't get me wrong, a crust is nice sometimes, but for special occasions. On an everyday kind of basis, I'd rather not have the extra fuss of that step. I suggest pairing it with an arugula salad with some kind of citrus balsamic vinaigrette if you have the ability.

(Exciting) Stuffed Cabbage

Cabbage. Most people wrinkle their noses, make a face, avoid it at all costs. I can understand that. Until recently, the only way I'd eat cabbage was my Grama's cabbage rolls, dutifully devoured at special occasion family meals. They were delicious - some kind of exception to the rule. However, sometime in the last year I've figured out that I like cabbage and have started going out of my way to eat more of it. It's filling, it's cheap, and it keeps practically forever in the fridge. What's not to love?

When I first started flipping through Plenty, I noticed there was an entire chapter titled "Brassicas". I actually got excited, which must be some kind of sign that I am growing up. The recipe that I made tonight was called simply "Stuffed Cabbage"... which is exactly what it is, I suppose. But I figured if I posted a recipe called "Stuffed Cabbage" people might think to themselves "Oh cabbage, that is so bland... let's not bother". Which would be sad. Because this stuffed cabbage is DELICIOUS.

Prepping the cabbage is a little fussy, but aside from that the recipe is very straightforward and really, really tasty. Even if you don't want to mess around with the cabbage, make the filling just once to try it. Totally worth it. Now, to stop sounding so excited and get on with the recipe... As usual, ingredient list and proportions are as stated in the book and the instructions include my observations and alterations.

Stuffed Cabbage 
(p. 95, Plenty)

Serves 4 (according to the book; I think this could very comfortably serve five or even six)

2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 oz vermicelli noodles (not the rice variety)
7/8 cup basmati rice
1 1/4 cup water
salt
1 medium white cabbage
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted and roughly chopped
3/4 cup ricotta
1/4 cup Parmesan
3 tbsp chopped mint
4 tbsp chopped parsley, plus extra to finish
3 garlic cloves, crushed
black pepper
1 cup dry white wine
6 tbsp vegetable stock
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp olive oil

Assemble ingredients!

So a few substitutions to start: I used thin spaghetti in place of the non-rice vermicelli. There is no reason in the book as to why to not use rice vermicelli, and no suggested preference for non-rice vermicelli (mung bean or sweet potato, for example?), so I went with the only other non-rice fine noodle I had in the flat. Having made the recipe, I can now say that I think it should be doable with rice vermicelli and can't quite figure out why the alteration... Wish there had been a bit of an explanation. Anyway, back on point here. I also used regular green cabbage because it was available and as usual subbed out the pine nuts for chopped, toasted pecans because I had them on hand. A quick note about cooking with wine - go ahead and buy a cheaper bottle, but buy something you'd at least drink straight. I say this because the point of most liquids in a recipe is to reduce, which concentrates their flavours. If your wine is not terribly palatable, concentrating it will not help the dish any. Besides, then you can have an enjoyable rather than endurable glass while you are cooking. ^_~

Gather the butter, rice, noodles, water and salt together. The next few stages go pretty quickly, so having this part prepped in advance is to your advantage here.

I put the required salt in with the rice so I wouldn't forget it.

To start, melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.

When the butter is melted, break the vermicelli into 3/4-inch long lengths and add them to the pan. Mine weren't quite that small, but bite-size is a good goal.

Stir fry the noodles for 1 to 2 minutes. Yotam cautions here that the noodles can burn very quickly at this stage... I didn't have any problems, but I wonder what noodles he was using and whether or not that changes things. Anyway, as soon as the noodles start turning golden (or the butter foam starts subsiding) add the rice and the salt and stir well.

Then add the water and bring everything to a boil by turning the heat up. Once everything is boiling, turn the heat down to minimum, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Remove from heat after 20 minutes and let stand 10 minutes before removing the lid and letting things cool off for a while.

While the rice is cooking, prepare the cabbage. There are two ways of doing this. The first involves cutting the cabbage in half vertically, peeling off the leaves and blanching them in boiling water for 6-8 minutes or until they are mostly tender. If you have a big cabbage, this may take a few batches. Alternatively, you can trim the base off of your cabbage and submerge it in a pot of boiling water and peel off the outside leaves as they cook. I ended up using a hybrid method of sorts. I cut off the base of the cabbage, let it sit in the boiling water until the leaves were soft enough to peel back and then pulled them off and let them stay in the boiling water until they were tender. After the first 6 or 8 leaves, I had to start cutting them off of the bottom of the cabbage, which felt a bit like being a mad scientist. Not to overstate the obvious, but with either of these methods be careful. Boiling water isn't a terribly friendly substance.

Once you have as many cabbage leaves as you think you will need, rinse the leaves under cool water and pat dry with a lint free dishtowel or paper towel. Hindsight tells me you'll want roughly 12 good-sized cabbage leaves, and perhaps a few extras just in case my idea of filling-to-cabbage proportions are different than yours. Also, as I was grabbing a measuring cup from my cupboard, I discovered someone had stamped a message on the inside of my cabinet:

It made me laugh.

Preheat the oven to 350F, and pull out a 9"x13" (or some variant on large) oven-proof baking pan. In a large bowl, add the cooked rice mixture, the nuts, the ricotta, half the Parmesan, the herbs, the garlic (I chopped mine instead of crushing it), and salt and pepper to taste.

Mix everything together really well with a fork. Tasting the filling for seasoning at this point really surprised me in a very pleasant way - this filling is fantastic! I found myself thinking of it as a potential base for arancini, but that would be a project for another day.

Use the cooked cabbage leaves to create parcels of whatever size works for you - I found a ratio of one cabbage leaf to two or three generous fork-fulls of filling worked well. I rolled mine like a burrito (flip up the bottom, flip in the sides and roll all the way up), but you can even roll them like paper tubes and leave the side- ends open, according to Yotam.

Place each parcel seam-side down in the baking pan and cozy them in together. If you have gaps in your pan, Yotam recommends filling them in with cabbage trimmings. I didn't end up with any gaps.

In a separate container whisk together the wine, stock, sugar, olive oil and generous pinches of salt and pepper.

Pour this over the cabbage parcels and bake at 350F for ~40 minutes or until almost all of the liquid is gone. Sprinkle the parcels with the remaining Parmesan cheese and return to the oven for another 10 minutes or until the cheese melts and turns golden. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.

I had no idea what I would think of this recipe when I started making it, but like I said earlier, it really surprised me in a great way. I would definitely make this again. And I think I'd recommend it to people who say that they really hate cabbage. The cabbage in this dish was tender and a tiny bit sweet and almost a bit fruity from the wine and the olive oil, which contrasted nicely with the dairy and herb notes of the rice and noodle filling. As a bonus, the filling is good warm or at room temperature which means it's going to be fantastic as lunch tomorrow.

Pear Crostini and Unexpected Caramel

Outside my window, today is unexpectedly beautiful. It's deliciously sunny and warm, the icicles on the building are melting and twinkling away, and I can hear the cars down the street encounter a puddle at the corner. It seems very much like Spring might be coming, a relief after all of the cold and wind lately. I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but I can enjoy the moment. I've spent today moving between different tasks and even brains... the cleaning part of me, the school-reading part of me, the pleasure-reading part of me, the art part, the cook. I can't seem to settle to anything for more than forty minutes at a time. Which I suppose is okay, as long as things are getting done, right?

It was four o'clock recently and I realized that I haven't yet had anything to eat today. Not ideal, but I haven't had much of an appetite lately. I pondered what to make - something light and spring-like if I could manage it because the weather seems to be inspiring that kind of thing. Flipping through Plenty yielded what might be a lovely dessert or fantastic brunch course or maybe an appetizer in the form of Yotam's Pear Crostini recipe. This was an excellent set of flavours - definitely try it out. As usual, all of the ingredients are as outlined in the book but the recipe instructions incorporate my observations and substitutions.

Pear Crostini
(p. 278, Plenty)

Serves 4 generously

1/4 cup pine nuts
5 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to finish
1 garlic clove, peeled
salt and black pepper
4 large slices sourdough bread, cut 1 1/2 inches thick
3 semi-ripe pears (they need to be firm)
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
4 to 5 oz good quality goat cheese
picked chervil leaves to garnish

Assemble ingredients!

 A few omissions and substitutions to begin with - I substituted pecans for the listed pine nuts as I had them on hand, and I omitted the chervil as I didn't have any. I also scaled down the recipe as I was just feeding myself and this didn't seem like the kind of dish that would hold well for later consumption.

Preheat the oven to 400F. Place the nuts, 4 tablespoons of the olive oil, the garlic, a pinch of salt and some black pepper into the bowl of a food processor.

 Work into a course and wet paste. I found that I didn't get an even paste in my food processor, likely because it was such a small volume to work with. I think if you had a blender, that might be the better choice of appliance. Use a brush to apply the paste to one side of every sourdough slice. As my paste was pretty chunky still, I ended up using a combination of a spoon and my fingers to spread things around. You may find a brush works well, or you may need to improvise a little. ^_^ Lay the slices on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes, or until lightly golden.

 Once the bread has toasted to your desired darkness, remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.

While the bread is in the oven, prepare the pears. Stand each pear on a cutting board and trim off a very thin layer of skin from each side. Then cut the pear lengthways into four thick slices. I ended up cutting mine into five slices - the middle one contained the core. I just trimmed off the sides of that slice and added them to the other slices.

Remove the core with the tip of a knife if required. Place the slices into a bowl with the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil, the sugar, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt. Toss gently. Initially, I had some hesitation about the presence of the olive oil here, but it smelled great which eased my mind a bit.

Take a ridged griddle pan (if you have one) and place on high heat until piping hot. I didn't have one, so I substituted a large frying pan. Lay the pear slices in the pan and leave for about a minute each side, just to make char marks if you are using the griddle pan. Or you could do what I did and throw the remainder oil/sugar/lemon juice solution from the bowl into the pan and let the pear slices simmer in that for a while. Why not?

The pears started to brown after a moment or two and were flipped when they got golden. The oil/sugar/lemon juice solution started to caramelize in the pan which added a really fantastic aroma and a bit more flavour to the mix. Plus, once the pears were done, I got the treat of scraping the caramel out of the pan and eating it before it hardened and had to be scrubbed away. Why waste an unexpected treat?

Once the pears are golden on both sides, carefully remove them from the heat and prepare to assemble the crostini. Layer thin slices of the cheese (mine has been in the freezer so it crumbles rather than slices neatly) with the thick slices of pear. You want to be able to see both clearly, so let them overlap and create some height.

Return the baking pan to the oven and let warm for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the cheese starts to melt just a little. Garnish with the chervil, if using, drizzle with the additional olive oil if desired, and sprinkle with more freshly ground black pepper. Then enjoy.

SO GOOD.

Also, I think I might need to try to make that caramel intentionally...

Sweet Potato Pancakes

The other half of dinner! I had these little cakes with the Cucumber Salad with Smashed Garlic and Ginger recipe I just posted. This recipe is delicious and appears to me to be easily adaptable to include any steamed root vegetable you might prefer. I happen to love turnip and I have two in the fridge... I may experiment with a variation once I'm done polishing off these cakes. As usual, the ingredients follow the book while the instructions incorporate my observations and alterations.

Sweet Potato Cakes
(p. 32, Plenty)

Serves 4 (serves 4 hungry people - this makes a *lot*)

2 1/4 lbs sweet potatoes, cut into large chunks

Sauce
3 tbsp Greek yogurt
3 tbsp sour cream
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp chopped cilantro
salt and black pepper

2 tsp soy sauce
scant 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
3 tbsp chopped green onion
1/2 tsp finely chopped fresh red chile, or more if you like it hot
plenty of butter for frying

Assemble ingredients!

To make the sauce, combine all of the sauce ingredients in a bowl, mix well and leave to the side until you are ready to eat.

To make the potato cakes, start by steaming the sweet potatoes until completely soft, and then leave in a colander to drain for at least an hour. Trust me, you want to do this - it helps render the potato cool enough to touch and firm enough to fry. Too much extra water in them and these guys aren't too cohesive. I'm lucky enough to have a steamer - this made this task really easy. Set up, turn on, and walk away for a while.

Once the sweet potatoes have lost most of their liquid and are fairly cool to the touch, place them in a mixing bowl and add the remaining ingredients except for the butter.

Mix everything together, preferably by hand, until the mix is smooth and even. Don't over-mix - just enough so that you don't see any more white flour streaks and pockets is good. The mixture should be sticky and fairly firm. It if it is loose or runny, add more flour. I didn't have to add more flour to mine, but if you are going to, go in small increments, like a tablespoon, until you get where you need it to be. Too much flour will dull the flavour of the sweet potato. While I was mixing with my hands I was thinking of Cass' daughter Medea and how much fun she'd probably have doing this portion of the mixing and squishing... and then I realized her mother would probably not thank me for sticky sweet potato mash everywhere... ^_~ I was always encouraged to help with age-appropriate stuff in the kitchen. I think that is partly why I am comfortable in a kitchen and willing to try new cooking styles and flavours. I am hopeful that one day I can do stuff like this with my friend's kids. Anyway, back on point here...

Once the potatoes are mixed, melt some butter in a non-stick frying pan. I don't have no-stick, so this took a bit of finessing for me, but only a bit. For each cake, use a tablespoon to lift some mix into the pan and flatten it a bit with the back of the spoon. You're aiming for an imperfect disc, roughly 2 inches in diameter and 3/8 of an inch thick.

Fry the cakes on medium heat for about 6 minutes each side, or until you get a nice brown crust.

Remove from the pan and place between two sheets of paper towel to soak up the excess butter. Serve hot or warm, with the sauce on the side. Enjoy!

These are very tasty cakes. I find frying in butter to be both rewarding and frustrating. The reward is the gorgeous browned butter flavour that is a great compliment to the sweet potato... the frustration is how quickly browned butter can morph into burnt butter. I think if I were to make these again, I would omit the 1/2 tsp sugar (I found it unnecessary) and fry the cakes in a little olive oil instead. My favourite olive oil shop has a butter flavoured olive oil (sounds awful, right? It's not. It's some kind of strange magic, I swear), and I can see this recipe or others like it being a good application of that particular product. This recipe makes a lot... I got 16 good sized cakes out of it. I made four of them in the frying pan as directed by the recipe and then spooned the remainder into my silicone muffin cups and am baking them to firm them up a bit. The dip was okay, but I think these would be better with a sweet chili dip, or with the lemongrass-creme-fraiche dip that went along with the Sweet Potato Wedges. Regardless of the condiments, I'd make them again.

Cucumber Salad with Smashed Garlic and Ginger

Yesterday was one of those "Can we stop the planet and let me off?" kind of days. Luckily, a few things came together over the course of the evening and the result is that I am having a much better day today. All I've really wanted to do today was be in the kitchen, so I used that as a reward for getting other things that I should get done accomplished. I decided that I wanted something more than a one-dish kind of meal, so tonight's menu consists of Cucumber Salad with Smashed Garlic and Ginger and Sweet Potato Cakes. Both recipes are from Plenty. I am going to write up a separate post for each of them, and I'm going to start with the lovely, simple salad... As usual, all ingredients are as written in the book, while the instructions incorporate my alterations and substitutions.

Cucumber Salad with Smashed Garlic and Ginger
(p. 166,  Plenty)

Serves 4-6 as a condiment or a side dish
Note: the salad's dressing needs to sit for an hour.

Dressing
3 tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tsp toasted sesame oil

1 small red onion, very thinly sliced
1 1/2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
1 tsp Maldon sea salt
2 large cloves of garlic, peeled
4 small (or 8 mini) cucumbers (1 1/4 lbs), peeled
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
3 tbsp chopped cilantro

Assemble ingredients:

Off the bat I have a few substitutions: I don't have rice wine vinegar, so I opted to substitute apple cider vinegar, thinking that the fruity-ness of the cider vinegar would compliment the cucumbers. Also, rice wine vinegar always seems sweet to me and I thought the cider vinegar would be the closest approximation of that sweetness. I also substituted the Maldon sea salt for my finely ground fleur de sel, simply because I don't have any Maldon (I am working on it. I miss having its large flake-y goodness in the kitchen). I omitted the sesame seeds and cilantro garnishes, and I subbed out the sunflower oil for a plain olive oil because I had it on hand. Finally, I traded in tiny cucumbers for the much more affordable large one.

These are equivalent weights. 

To make the dressing, whisk all of the dressing ingredients together in a medium mixing bowl (I missed this part, made it in a smaller bowl and had to trade up later. Not such a big deal). I used my mandolin to slice the onion (and the cucumber later) because my hands were being problematic today, which always makes handling knives challenging.

Ta-da!

Add the sliced red onion to the dressing, mix to combine and leave aside to marinate for about an hour. This really helped mellow the bite of the onion. And adding the sesame oil made the kitchen smell incredible. The dressing was smelling good... and then I added the sesame oil and the whole profile changed. In a good way. ^_^

Place the ginger and salt in a mortar and pound well with a pestle. Alternatively, you could do this in a in a tiny food processor, I suppose... I actually mashed mine with the end of my marble rolling pin against a cutting board as I have yet to acquire a mortar and pestle. It worked out fairly well as an improvised method. ^_^ Add the garlic and continue pounding until the garlic is also well crushed and broken up into pieces, although stop pounding before the whole thing becomes a paste. Use a spatula to scrape the contents of the mortar into the bowl with the onion and dressing.

Stir together.

Cut the cucumber(s) lengthwise in half, then cut each half on an angle into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Again, I used my mandoline here to save myself some peril (I realize I may be in the minority who consider a mandoline less perilous than a knife... ). Add the cucumbers to the bowl, followed by the sesame seeds and cilantro, if using. Stir well and leave to sit for 10 minutes. I leave the peel on my cucumber mostly for aesthetic reasons. The ribbons of dark green look so pretty!

Yotam says that before serving the salad should be stirred and some of the liquid that has pooled in the bottom of the bowl should be tipped out. Taste it again to check for seasoning and adjust if necessary. Then enjoy. I didn't tip any out of mine, but did stir and check the seasonings.

This tastes very clean and refreshing. The cucumber is very mellow in contrast to the zip of fresh ginger, and I liked the way that letting the red onion stand in the dressing for a while made it mellow... normally I am not a fan of raw onion. The salad was a lovely compliment to the Sweet Potato Cakes that I made, which makes sense, as Yotam indicates they are good served together. Which leads me to the next post...

Royal Potato Salad

I have heat in my flat! This is tremendously exciting because I haven't had heat (as in coming from my own radiators) since I moved in here in August. I've been okay most of the time given the ambient temperature of the building overall, but I have to say, it's really nice to actually be comfortable. Hanging out today in just a t-shirt instead of a multitude of layers has felt almost like being on vacation. ^_^

I've been applying for work lately, trying to find something part time that will ideally help me pay the bills, allow me to continue to work on my thesis part-time, and (hopefully) still leave my evenings free for yoga. I had an interview at a bakery on Friday and have passed out a few resumes to some other places. Hopefully I'll hear something fairly soon. I'm not up against the wall yet, but I'd rather not get there at all if I can avoid it.

I was going through my fridge tonight, not really sure I felt like cooking but knowing I should probably have supper as I forgot about lunch. I didn't see anything that inspiring during the survey, so I sat down with Plenty and was aimlessly flipping through it. I came across the Royal Potato Salad and realized that I had almost everything the recipe called for. Done and done. As usual, the ingredients are as listed in the book and the process includes my own observations and adjustments.

Royal Potato Salad
(p. 20, Plenty)

Serves 4-6

15 quail's eggs
1 cup petite peas (frozen)
1 3/4 lbs new potatoes, such as Jersey Royals, washed but not scrubbed
1 cup basil leaves
1/2 cup parsley leaves, plus a little extra chopped to garnish
1/3 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup grated Parmesan (2 oz)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 cup olive oil
12 tsp white wine vinegar
bunch of sorrel (or mint) leaves, finely shredded
salt and black pepper

Assemble ingredients!

 Now, from the picture, it's pretty obvious that I've made a few substitutions. I did not have quail eggs and had no real desire to seek them out. I decided to use four large chicken eggs instead (my rationale was one per tentative serving, which seemed to work out fairly well in the end). I also did not have pine nuts and had no real desire to seek them out either, mostly for reasons of cost - they are a pricy item. I substituted an equal measure of pecans for them as I had pecans on hand. If I'd had almonds, macadamia nuts, or cashews, I might have tried one of those options. I had a little less than the full cup of basil, so I upped the parsley quantity a bit which worked well. The smell of chopped fresh parsley reminds me of fresh cut grass, which is kind of nice in the middle of winter. Don't substitute dried parsley for the fresh parsley in this recipe. Dried parsley is yucky and won't do what you need it to do here. I omitted the sorrel and the mint as I didn't have any.

Place the eggs in a saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to a boil. If you'd like to use quail's eggs, Yotam says to simmer them for between 30 seconds (soft-boiled) and 2 minutes (hard-boiled), depending on how you like them cooked. If you are using chicken eggs, adjust the times and cook them to your liking. I can't give you a time for soft boiled eggs because I cannot stand them and will do pretty much everything in my power to avoid them (I try them again every year to see if that has changed, so far no dice). I put my eggs in the water, turned them on to a boil and left them until I was done making everything else. They were definitely hard boiled. Once the eggs are cooked to your liking, refresh them in cold water, peel them, and set them aside.

Blanch the peas in boiling water for 30 seconds, then drain and refresh under cold water. Set aside. I popped the peas into my hand held strainer and immersed them in with the eggs for 30 seconds. Worked well and I didn't have to use another pan.

In a separate pan of boiling water, cook the potatoes for 15-20 minutes or until they are soft but not falling apart. I salted the water I used for this, as I enjoy the way the skins end up a tiny bit saltier than the insides of the potatoes.

While the potatoes are cooking place the basil, parsley, nuts, Parmesan, and garlic in a food processor and blitz to a paste.

Blitzed. Pre-olive oil, rough paste.

Add the oil and pulse until you get a runny pesto. I ended up using 3/4 of a cup of oil rather than the full cup and that was just fine for me.

When the potatoes are cooked, drain them. As soon as you can handle them, cut them into halves or quarters depending on how big they are, and place in a large bowl. You want them bite size-ish. They will absorb more flavour from the pesto the hotter they are, so working quickly is a good thing here. Add the pesto, vinegar, sorrel or mint if using, and peas.

Mix well, even crushing the potatoes slightly, so all of the flavours mix. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Be generous with the pepper.

Cut the eggs in half (I chopped mine roughly as they were larger than what a quail's egg would be) and gently fold them into the salad. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Enjoy.


I'd make this again. It's really tasty warm or cool and it could be a nice picnic salad for that reason. I think four chicken eggs was a good amount of egg for the ratio of potatoes, but the salad would still be delicious without them as well. I'd like to try the mint inclusion, as peas and mint are a lovely combination. Maybe next time.