Chilli, mint and lime seared salmon

Family food and weekend feasts, 244pp.
by Janelle Bloom
Random House Australia, Sydney, 2010
Cooking on page 32

Janelle Bloom is one of Australia’s most-loved TV chefs and food writers. In addition to being queen of the microwave, she is a food stylist and has written four cookbooks (I have two, including her first microwave cookbook).

Hundreds of thousands of Australians would know Janelle best from her regular appearances on the afternoon TV cooking series Ready Steady Cook. In fact, she was in the first episode, which aired in 2005.

I met her once at a cooking demo she gave in Canberra on chocolate. That’s when I bought the microwave book, which she was gracious enough to sign. Not sure how I came by the current book but it’s full of recipes with flavours I like. We’re cooking today on page 32.

Chilli, mint and lime seared salmon

Ingredients
800g salmon fillets, skin removed
1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes
3 garlic cloves crushed
1/3 cup mint leaves, chopped
1/3 cup olive oil
1 lime, juiced

Papaya and cucumber salad
1 green papaya, peeled, quartered
3 Lebanese cucumbers
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
1/4 cup Greek yoghurt
1 lime, juiced
2 teaspoons water
1 teaspoon brown sugar

Method
Cut the salmon into pieces. Combine the chilli, garlic, mint, olive oil and lime juice in a ceramic dish. Season with salt and pepper. Add the salmon and turn to coat. Cover and refrigerate for no longer than 10 minutes.

For the papaya and cucumber salad, peel the papaya into long thin ribbons with a potato peeler, then finely shred and place in a bowl. Peel the cucumber into long thin ribbons with a potato peeler, then add to the papaya with the mint. Combine the yoghurt, 2 tablespoons of lime juice, the water and brown sugar in a screw-top jar. Shake until well combined. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss gently to combine.

Preheat a barbecue grill on high heat. Thread the salmon onto 4 long metal skewers or 8 bamboo skewers. Barbecue the salmon, basting and turning occasionally, for 4 minutes for medium, or until cooked to your liking.

Serve the salmon with the papaya and cucumber salad.

Note: The acid in the lime juice will quickly start to ‘cook’ the salmon. Don’t leave it to marinate too long or the texture of the flesh will deteriorate.

How it played out
There are only two people at home this week so I made half a batch of both the salmon and salad.

I’m glad I started the salad first, because peeling and shredding the papaya and cucumber are time-consuming (much more than the 10 minutes needed to marinate the salmon). Fortunately I remembered that I own a rarely-used julienne peeler (see picture), that made quick work of the task.

I also roasted two lime halves to squeeze over the salmon—a useful trick I learned from another page-32 recipe.

Verdict
Loved the salmon and enjoyed the salad. But in future I’ll stick with the Thai papaya salad shared here last year. In fact, I think I’ll make that this week because I still have half a papaya to use.

Marinated bean sprout and sesame salad

Vegetarian cooking, 128pp.
edited by Maryanne Blacker
Australian Women’s Weekly Home Library, 1990
Cooking on page 32

I’ve been known to be a fete ‘slut’—cruising book stalls at local school, church and Lifeline events. I think I bought this book at an end-of-the-day, get-rid-of-everything moment, when whole boxes of books were going for $5.

That said, Australian Women’s Weekly cookbooks are popular around the world and I own quite a few of them.  I’ve seen them for sale in bookstores in Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. One of my favourites was bought in Beirut, Lebanon and given to me at Christmas 2009 in Damascus, Syria.

Today I pounced on this page-32 recipe because I have a glut of sesame seeds. Why do I always buy things in bulk?

Marinated bean sprout and sesame salad

Ingredients
1/4 cup sesame seeds
500g bean sprouts
1 medium red pepper, sliced
1 medium green pepper, sliced

Dressing
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 teaspoons light soy sauce

Method
Stir seeds over heat in small heavy-based frying pan until lightly browned. Combine seeds, sprouts and peppers in large bowl, pour over dressing; toss well, cover, refrigerate for about 2 hours, tossing occasionally.

Dressing: Combine all ingredients in a jar, shake well.

How it played out
Made half a batch, exactly as written. Toasted the sesame seeds in a small cast-iron pan.

Verdict
Really delicious. Served and enjoyed with two other page-32 recipes—corned silverside and roasted vegetables (to be posted soon).

Pitlai—Ayurvedic vegetables with dal

I’m so pleased to introduce a new guest contributor, Rhonda from Dubbo in New South Wales. Rhonda and I met online through a mutual friend who passed on the urls for my blogs.

Turns out we know one another much better than we first thought. We both adore almost everything about cooking and have several face-to-face friends in common. Plus, Poor John and I were there when Rhonda’s son and daughter-in-law (a friend of mine) celebrated their marriage. No doubt we all shook hands that night.

Rhonda and I hope to catch up for lunch in Canberra in September, but in the meantime you can read about her cooking efforts. She writes so beautifully and with such an engaging sense of humour that I hope she’ll be tempted to contribute again—SOON!

P.S. Guest contributions are always welcome. If you’re interested, leave a comment and I’ll send you my email address.

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Sacred food: cooking for spiritual nourishment, 256pp.
by Elisabeth Luard
MQ Publications, London, 2001
Cooking on page 23 (a dyslexic 32)

I love cooking and food. I love trying new food and new recipes. I’ve been cooking since I was 4 years old, and collecting cookbooks for nearly that long, too. I have a few hundred of them. I also collect and read books that are about food.

I first discovered Elisabeth Luard’s writing when I bought her European peasant cookery, published in 1986. It’s a wonderful read and I enjoyed learning a great deal about the history of European food. So when I came across a copy of her Sacred food a couple of years ago in a secondhand bookshop, I snapped it up. The blurb on the cover says ‘Sacred food celebrates the power of food to nourish us body and soul, and the vital role it plays in our religious ceremonies and secular celebrations.’ It sounded like my kind of book.

Sadly, I still haven’t read much of it, although it has been sitting in the ‘to read’ pile beside my bed (a pile that grows larger, faster than it reduces, and is threatening to topple over and smother me in my sleep).

Peggy’s post about a meatball recipe in another of Elisabeth Luard’s cookbooks reminded me about it. When Peggy asked me if I’d cook something from page 32 and write about it as a guest on her blog, I was thrilled to say yes. But sadly, there are no recipes on page 32 or 132, 232, 64 or any combination of 32 that I could think of until I looked at page 23. So, that’s where our recipe comes from.

Pitlai—Ayurvedic vegetables with dal

Ingredients
3 tablespoons ghee
1 tablespoon Madras curry powder
3–4 medium carrots, scraped and diced
3–4 smallish zucchini, wiped and thinly sliced
1 handful green beans, cut into short lengths
4 tablespoons shelled peas
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sesame or other seed oil
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 small cauliflower, broken into florets
1 eggplant, diced
6 medium sized tomatoes, skinned and diced
2 cups/ 450g red lentils, cooked to a puree

Melt the ghee, or butter, in a roomy saucepan and add the curry powder. Stir briefly, and then add the diced carrots and zucchini. Turn the heat to low and toss with the butter for a few minutes. Add the green beans and peas, salt and just enough water to submerge the vegetables. Cover and leave to simmer while you prepare the remaining ingredients.

Heat two tablespoons of the oil in a small skillet or frying pan. Sprinkle in the turmeric and cumin and let them feel the heat for a second. Add the cauliflower and stir-fry for a couple of minutes—just enough for the cauliflower to drink the oil. Push the cauliflower aside and add the remaining oil. When it’s sizzling, drop in the diced eggplant. Toss till lightly browned and then add the tomatoes. Bubble up and combine with the cauliflower. The mixture should be soupy—if not, add a little water. Simmer for about 10 minutes before mixing with the other vegetables, which should be perfectly tender by now. Mix in the cooked lentils and simmer for a couple more minutes to blend the flavors.

Serve with plain, boiled rice and chapattis for scooping.

How it played it out
There are two recipes on page 23. ‘Shondal—Indian chickpea salad’ and ‘Pitlai—Ayurvedic vegetables with dal’. As autumn and cooler evenings have arrived, I decided on the vegetables. The introduction to this recipe says ‘This aromatic curry combines all the qualities necessary for an Ayurvedic meal: stimulating, tranquilizing and fortifying. The Ayurvedic diet should balance the six tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, pungent and astringent; and six qualities: hot, cold, dry, oily, heavy and light.” The recipe already had a lot to live up to.

My first disappointment was with the fact that the recipe calls for a tablespoon of Madras curry powder. Curry powder?  Surely no serious student of Indian food uses curry powder, but rather a mixture of freshly ground spices! But, trying to stay true to the recipe (and living in a country town in western NSW where access to Indian ingredients is rather limited), I bought a tin of Clive of India Madras Curry Powder at the local supermarket.

There was a lot of vegetable preparation to be done, so the Kitchen Hand who is also my husband was employed to help me. The two pots and one pan were sorted, and away we went. The cooking was all fairly straightforward and relatively simple.

Although I’m glad I looked at the amounts of cauliflower, eggplant and tomatoes and decided that a ‘small skillet or frying pan’ was definitely not going to do the job. The mixture threatened to overwhelm my fairly large frying pan once I had to ‘push the cauliflower aside’ and add the eggplant. In fact, I ended up removing some of the cauliflower in order to get the eggplant browned.

The recipe resulted in a very large pot of vegetable curry, which would certainly feed more than the 4 to 6 that the recipe states. Fortunately, I know that vegetable curries freeze well, so there’ll be a couple of nights in the coming weeks that I won’t have to cook. Bonus!

And the taste? Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, there are no onions, or any garlic in this recipe. It also gives no indication of the usual substitute for these, which is asafoetida powder (an ingredient which smells powerfully like axle grease, but works very well as a substitute for the onions and garlic that high caste Hindus don’t eat!). So, when we tasted and found it rather bland, I heated a little oil, and added 1/4 teaspoon of asafoetida and about 2 tablespoons of black mustard seeds, and then stirred it into the curry.

Verdict
The book won the 2001 Gourmand World Cookbook Award and the 2001 Glenfiddich Food Writers Award, so I expected something special from the recipe. Alas, I was a little disappointed.

Our verdict is that it was pleasant, satisfying, but definitely not the best vegetable curry I have made. So, it will be back to the tried and true favourites instead. And we’re still trying to decide whether we felt both stimulated and tranquilized.

Cold baked silverside of beef

Light meals cookbook, 93pp.
by Kim MacDonald
Treasure Press, London, 1971
Cooking on page 32

This is a cookbook that I will release into the wild. I’d never cooked from it until I gave myself the page 32 challenge, and I’ll most likely never cook from it again.

I paid $1.50 for it at a secondhand bookstall. The recipes are very simple, so maybe it would serve a junior or newbie cook well, but it’s not for me. At least the page-32 challenge made me look through it carefully.

Cold baked silverside of beef

Ingredients
5–6 lb. silverside of beef or top sirloin roast (salted)
2 carrots
2 onions
1 clove of garlic crushed
1 bay leaf
6 peppercorns
2 cloves
8 fl oz beer or red wine

Method
Soak the beef in cold water for at least 2 hours before baking it.

Place the beef in a large ovenproof casserole or pot-roaster.

Peel the carrots and onions, cut into chunky pieces and add to the casserole. Add the crushed garlic, bay leaf, peppercorns, cloves, beer or wine and sufficient cold water to cover the beef.

Cover and cook in a moderately slow oven for 3–4 hours or until tender. Test with a skewer or a fork, it should come out easily if the meat is cooked.

Remove the beef and place in a large bowl. Put a plate or a board on top and a heavy weight. Leave to stand overnight if possible.

Serve beef cold with a fruit chutney, tomato salad and green salad.

Note: The stock may be used to make a delicious chilled soup.

How it played out
I used a 3-pound silverside of beef, and the full amount of all other ingredients (using beer rather than  wine). Also cut the cooking time in half.

Verdict
I haven’t made corned silverside for ages and was really looking forward to this. Sadly, the meat turned out really dry and with very little flavour.  The broth was bland too, so I tossed it.  Luckily, the cardamom mustard and the two page-32 dishes I made to serve on the side—roasted vegetables and bean sprout and sesame salad—were fantastic. Will be posting those soon.

This has been my first disappointing page-32 recipe. Don’t bother saving or recommending it. Just send commiserations!

As an aside, the recipe on page 16 looks suspicious—grapes with mushrooms, yoghurt and sugar? Strange. Not game to look at page 64.

Blue cheese sauce

The magnificent microwave book, 159pp.
edited by Ellen Argyriou
Polly Book Publishing, no date
Cooking on page 32

This book was commissioned/developed by Toshiba, and I assume it accompanied one of their microwave products.

This copy belonged to my mother-in-law. She was a very crafty entertainer when she was in her 70s.

She knew all the restaurants in North Adelaide (South Australia). When she had a party, she’d order her favourite dishes from one of these establishments, in whatever volume was needed. Sometimes she’d even deliver her own serving pieces to the restaurant earlier in the day. Then it was a simple matter of picking up the finished and filled dishes in the late afternoon. No wonder she loved her microwave and her ‘caterers’!

She never confessed her entertaining technique to her guests, and don’t any of you breathe a word of it either. I’ve been known to do it myself from time to time, but only when I’m desperate, and I promise I haven’t done it for years.

Blue cheese sauce

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
salt and pepper
2 cups milk
75 grams blue vein cheese, grated

Method
Place butter in a large glass measuring jug and cook on power level 9 (high) for 45 seconds till melted. Stir in the flour till smooth, then add a little milk and stir till a smooth paste. Add remaining mild gradually, stirring until free of lumps. Cook for 4–5 minutes stirring every minute. Remove from oven and stir in the grated cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste.

How it played out
Bad Peggy. It’s approaching winter in Australia and I have the wood cooker going, so I made this on the wood stove and not in the microwave. Couldn’t bear to waste the warmth of the fire. I followed the ingredient list and the timings were about the same, so I guess it’s easy to make on/in any kind of stove.

Verdict
How can you use a good blue cheese sauce? Let me count the ways! I added it to the pictured pumpkin soup (garnished with fried parsley), roasted cauliflower, a dip, a salad dressing, baked potatoes, and as a topping on a steak. Yummo!

How would you use it?

Albóndigas en salsa (meatballs in tomato sauce)

The food of Spain and Portugal, 224pp.
by Elisabeth Luard
Kyle Books, Maryland, 2007
Cooking on page 132

I was delighted, but surprised, to find this book selling very cheaply at Academic Remainders in Civic, Canberra’s main shopping district. I think I paid about $15.

Elisabeth Luard is an award-winning food writer, journalist and broadcaster. I consider her to be the most knowledgeable natïve-English speaker to write about Spanish and Portuguese cuisine. Critics think so too.

I have two of her 20 books and am always on the lookout for more. They aren’t all about food and I’m tempted to track down her My life as a wife—love, liquor and what to do about the other women. It recounts her turbulent marriage to Nicholas Luard, a drunk, philanderer and founder of Private Eye magazine. Here’s a riveting excerpt.

But back to this cookbook that focuses on regional dishes in Spain and Portugal. The editor slipped a bit and the recipes on page 32 are duplicates of the ones on page 30. Oops! So I moved on to page 132 and the chapter with dishes from La Mancha and Madrid.

Albóndigas en salsa (meatballs in tomato sauce)

Ingredients
The meatballs
1 lb. ground lamb, veal or beef
8 oz. ground pork
1 egg, beaten with a fork
4 heaped tablespoons fresh bread crumbs
1 garlic clove, skinned and very finely chopped
1/2 large mild onion, grated or very finely chopped
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
Salt and pepper

For finishing
Flour, for dusting
2–3 tablespoons olive oil, for frying

The sauce
2–3 tablespoons olive oil
1 red pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 large mild onion, cut into fine slivers (half-moons)
1 garlic clove, skinned and finely chopped
2 1/4 lbs. (2 1/2 cups) ripe tomatoes, scalded, skinned and chopped (or canned tomatoes)
1/4 cup dry sherry or white wine
1–2 short cinnamon sticks
Sugar

Method
Work together thoroughly all the meatball ingredients. Have a plate of seasoned flour ready beside you. With wet hands (keep a bowl of warm water handy for rinsing your fingers) form the mixture into little bite-sized balls, rolling each one lightly in seasoned flour. Heat the oil in a frying pan, slip in the meatballs, and fry until firm, turning carefully to brown each one all over.

Meanwhile, make the sauce. In a heavy frying pan, heat the oil and fry the red pepper, onion and garlic gently until they soften—don’t let them brown. Add the tomatoes, wine and cinnamon, let it bubble up, season with salt and a little sugar, reduce the heat and let simmer and reduce for 20 minutes or so. Add the meatballs to the sauce, let it bubble up, turn down the heat and cook gently until tender—20–25 minutes. Serve with saffron rice or crisp french fries fried in olive oil.

Serves 6–8.

How it played out
I made this as written, using ground (minced) beef, canned tomatoes, sourdough breadcrumbs (buzzed up in my food processor) and dry sherry.

Verdict
Meatballs always sound like so much work to me, but this recipe is really easy and tasty. Bringing it together wasn’t as fiddly and didn’t take as long as I expected, so I’m sure I’ll make it again.

It’s also a great recipe to get the kids busy in the kitchen. They love getting their hands, and everything else, messy. So make it and get them involved.

Potato salad Paula

Picasso and pie, 64pp.
by Lynne Thompson
Ure Smith Pty Ltd, Sydney, 1968
Cooking on page 32

As an incentive to get more people to come to her annual art show, Lynne Thompson started offering an ever-changing gourmet buffet at her gallery in Blue Hill. Maine, USA. It worked and, over time, the food outshone the art.

The first show, in 1952, was organised as a fund-raiser by the Ladies Social Library of Blue Hill. The menu that year was pies—hence the title—prepared by the dozens.

The tactic proved to be so popular that the Blue Hill Buffet was ‘born’ and operated each year for the entire 10-week summer season of each art show.

The public begged for the recipes and in 1964 Thompson responded by publishing an original ‘compendium’. My edition, produced especially for Australia, includes a page of ‘amendments’ at the back. Little comments on certain recipes, such as ‘clams are not obtainable in Australia’ and ‘use fresh lemon juice in place of the lemon concentrate’.

I’ve always thought this book was special, even if I bought it secondhand for $3. I’m tempted to try the cardamom cake on page 35. The notes say this is the recipe that made the buffet’s reputation. But today we are on page 32.

Potato salad Paula

Ingredients and method
Boil 12 small potatoes in their skins.

Drain and peel while warm. Cut into thin slices.

Add while warm:
4 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
1 finely chopped onion
1 teaspoon tarragon (scant)
3/4 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon ground dill
12 teaspoons olive oil
3/4 cup strong beef stock

Mix carefully with a fork until mixture looks glossy. Make the day before and keep in a cool place. NOT in refrigerator.

When serving, surround with lettuce and sprinkle with finely chopped chives and parsley.

How it played out
My eyes did a major double-take when I saw 4 teaspoons of salt and 12 teaspoons of oil were needed for 12 baby potatoes. Whoa! I used 16 potatoes, which I didn’t bother to peel. I cut both the salt and oil in half, but the final dish was still way too salty for modern tastes.

Verdict
Not your typical potato salad, but nice for a change and dead-easy to make. Just remember to go easy, really easy, on the salt and oil.

Oh, and I haven’t been about to find out who Paula is/was.