Turkey or chicken pasta bake, inspired by Singapore Airlines

The first time I made this, I used fusilli pasta.

It is not usual that you eat a dish on a plane and find it so tasty that it inspires you to make a version of it at home. However, that is exactly what happened on the Singapore Airlines flight involving a chicken pasta bake. It wasn’t the dish that we would have chosen, but it was the only option that was left. Wasn’t that fortuitous?

It also paired wonderfully with their red wine on offer, which was glorious. I’m telling you, this was an unexpectedly wonderful food memory.

When I tried recreating the dish at home, I used a mish mash of two recipes – this turkey bolognese recipe from Delicious and a chicken pasta bake from BBC Good Food. The timing of it chimed with my housemate’s training for the London Marathon and it turns out that it’s a great dish for carb loading or nourishing athletes. The day after the first time I made it, the kids commented again on how yummy it was. Noteworthy praise, indeed.

The second time, I wanted to try out something I’d seen on Instagram. A pasta bake without cooking the pasta first. This was partly as a cost-saving activity and because pasta can become too soft in a pasta bake at times, which had happened in my first attempt at this dish. I was a little bit apprehensive about it. I’d read that if you soak the dry pasta in cold water first, then it will hydrate the pasta but stop it from going overly soft when baked in the oven. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, I’m delighted to tell you that it worked!

You can prepare this a day or two beforehand. Make it until step 5, then cover it and pop it in the fridge until you want to bake it.

Step 2 and 3
Step 4 – Bubble, bubble, simmer, simmer

Both times, I ended up using turkey, rather than chicken, mince. This was purely down to what was available at the shops at the time. My recommendation would be not to go for the lean version as turkey/chicken mince tends to be quite lean in comparison to red meat. This dish benefits from the extra juice from the non-lean mince. And if someone doesn’t like noticing that they are eating the vegetables, then I’d suggest once the vegetables have been cooked until soft (step 2), whizzing it down with a food blender until all evidence is mush.

I made an extra little one as an extra dinner as my housemate’s was carb loading pre-marathon

Recipe for Turkey or Chicken Pasta bake, inspired by Singapore Airlines. This will feed 6 people (2 of whom may have been small children with healthy appetites).

Ingredients

  • 300g penne pasta
  • 1-2 tbsp oil (olive or vegetable)
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 2 celery sticks, chopped
  • 2 carrots, chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
  • 500g turkey or chicken mince
  • 2 x 400g tinned chopped tomatoes
  • 1 tbsp tomato puree
  • 1 tbsp dried oregano
  • 1/2 tsp of each – dried rosemary, thyme, basil
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • salt and pepper to season
  • 150g mascarpone
  • small handful of fresh flatleaf parsley, finely chopped
  • grated cheddar cheese – enough to cover the dish

Method

  1. In a large-medium sized bowl, submerge the uncooked penne pasta in cold water and let it soak while you cook the sauce.
  2. Heat 1-2tbsp of oil in a deep frying pan or wok. Over a medium heat, fry the onions, celery and carrots for about 10 minutes until softened.
  3. Add the garlic and the mince and cook for 5 minutes until browned.
  4. Stir in the tomato puree and dried herbs, then add the tinned tomatoes, and sugar. Bring it to a boil and then turn it down to a simmer for 10-15 minutes. Then season with salt and pepper. Finally, stir in the mascarpone and the fresh parsley. If choosing to make this on the day, then preheat the oven now (see step 6).
  5. Drain the pasta, which should have softened and changed colour slightly by then. Mix the penne pasta into the sauce. Pour it into a large ovenproof dish. Sprinkle over the grated cheese in an even layer.
  6. Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F/ Gas Mark 6. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until it bubbles. I normally serve it with some more vegetables and an optional glass of red wine.

Enjoy and thank you Singapore Airlines for feeding and inspiring me.

A versatile herby courgette pasta

Playing around with portrait mode on my phone for this photo

For a blog titled Courgettes and Limes, I’d realised that there is a dearth of recipes using courgettes or limes. So, I started writing this post in the middle of courgette season in the UK, but have only gotten round to finishing it now when the season is pretty much over. Short story – I was working abroad, got ill and then went on holiday.

This is an easy courgette pasta recipe that I love to make because it is versatile and quick. Over the 10 years that I’ve been making it, there have been so many variations. I’ve listed a few of them at the bottom of the post. I like it because it is tasty and fresh from the herbs and lemon/lime juice, easily counts as one of your portions of vegetables per day and is naturally vegetarian and vegan. Over the summer, I experimented with it once more, substituting extra virgin oil with sesame seed oil, which added a rich nuttiness to the dish. Oh my – for me, it was a game changer.

One tip that I learned recently is for a dish like this is that to prevent burning the garlic when cooking, do not chop the garlic too finely, or crush it.

Simple herby courgette pasta for one. If you want to feed more people, then double, triple, quadruple… the ingredients list and allow a bit more time for cooking.

Ingredients

  • enough dried pasta for you (anything between 60-90g according to the internet) – fusilli, linguine, spaghetti, are some that I’ve used that work well
  • 1 tbsp of vegetable oil
  • 1 medium sized courgette – any colour (or half a large courgette)
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 1 red chilli or chilli flakes – as much or as little as you like
  • A large handful of a variety of fresh herbs (parsley, coriander, dill, mint)
  • 1 spring onion (optional)
  • 1 tbsp of sesame seed oil to garnish
  • 1 tbsp of sesame seeds or pine nuts or flaked almonds (toasted)
  • salt and pepper
  • a squeeze of lemon/lime juice

Method

  1. Before you boil the pasta, use the pan to toast the nuts or seeds. Put the nuts or seeds into the pan, heat them up on a medium heat until they turn a brown colour. Tada, they’re toasted. They will also smell glorious. Take out of the pan and set aside to cool.
  2. While they’re toasting, prep the vegetables. Finely slice the courgette, roughly chop the garlic, deseed and finely slice the chilli (if using).
  3. Boil water in the kettle to cook the pasta, and then add the pasta into the pan used to toast the nuts/seeds. Add the boiling water and salt to the pasta and cook according to the instructions on the packet. If you don’t have a kettle, bring enough water to cook the pasta to boil in a pan. Add salt and pasta and then cook.
  4. In a medium sized frying pan, add a tablespoon of vegetable oil and a pinch of salt, fry the courgettes and garlic until the courgettes are translucent and browned.
  5. While the courgettes cook, roughly chop the herbs that you’re using and finely slice the spring onion.
  6. Once the pasta has cooked, reserve half a cup of the starchy pasta water, then drain it and add the pasta to the courgettes (I guess if you quadrupled the recipe, you might want to add the courgettes to the drained pasta).
  7. Add as much or as little of the pasta water to loosen it, then mix in the herbs, spring onion, 1 tablespoon of sesame seed oil, the toasted nuts/seeds and a squeeze of lemon or lime juice. Season with salt and black pepper.
  8. Enjoy!
Mise en place
I really do chop my garlic roughly and it has kept them from cooking so quickly – leading to less charring
Ready for the sesame seed oil, juice and the nuts
A selection of herbs

Variations

  • Use extra virgin olive oil instead of sesame seed oil for a more Mediterranean flavour.
  • Use a mint and basil herb combo.
  • Add a finely sliced shallot in with the courgettes
  • If I only have one herb at hand – I like to use parsley or coriander
  • Other nuts and seeds that I’ve used: hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, mixed seed mix.
  • Instead of salt at the end, season with finely grated parmesan or grana padano, or even a strong cheddar.
  • The chilli, lemon or lime juice is all optional.
Herby courgette pasta

My version of my mum’s very easy kimchi

a hand mixing cut cabbage leaves with kimchi paste

Here is a very easy kimchi recipe for you. It is my mum’s mak-kimchi 막김치 or 맛김치 recipe, made even easier by me. Mak-kimchi is the one where the cabbage is all cut up, rather than quartered, which makes it quicker to make and serve up. The leaves are cut into bite-sized pieces. This means that you don’t have to cut them when you serve it, which you do with a traditional kimchi recipe where the cabbage is quartered and fermented thus.

In Korea it is made with Korean cabbage, baechu. I only discovered recently that it is slightly different from Chinese leaves or Napa cabbage, which is what my mum uses and most kimchi recipes outside of Korea use. In the UK, it’s called Chinese leaves; in the US it is called Napa cabbage. I haven’t provided an exact quantity of cabbage in grams as in the winter, the Chinese leaves can be so skinny that I need 3, but in the summer they are so big and I use 2.

We grew up in the North East of Scotland, where there wasn’t a big Korean community. There weren’t any Korean food shops like you got in New Malden (London) then, and the Chinese supermarket hardly, if at all, stocked Korean ingredients. So my mum learned to adapt her recipe to supplement the carefully hoarded essential Korean ingredient – the gochugaru, the Korean red chilli pepper flakes – with the ingredients that were readily available to her. This is all by way of an explanation of why this particular recipe is perhaps a bit different from the others that you’ll see on the internet.

gochagaru
An example of some gochugaru powder that I bought in the UK

By the way, gochugaru is an essential ingredient. The Korean red chilli pepper flakes have a particular flavour, that you won’t get from another chilli substitute. People have tried to substitute it with the following and then reported back to me that it didn’t taste right (well of course – you missed out an essential ingredient!):

  • chilli flakes
  • chilli powder
  • cayenne powder
  • red chillies
  • fresh birds eye chillies
  • paprika

Learn from their mistakes, go and buy some. Korean food has gained in popularity since I was a child, and in the UK, gochugaru is readily available in many Chinese or Korean food stores. I’ve even spotted it in some of the larger supermarkets.

This version is not particularly spicy. You can adjust the spice levels if you desire by adding in more tablespoons of gochugaru. There was also a period of time when my mum had to cut out all spicy food from her diet, and as she was the main chef in the home, meant that we did too. However, she continued making kimchi and the recipe evolved around her dietary requirements.

*My recipe varies from my mum’s a little (or a lot, depending on how important you think the changes are). Firstly, in our method of cutting up the cabbage. She separates out each leaf of cabbage, halves it and then cuts it into pieces. I halve the whole cabbage lengthways, then cut again lengthways so that it is quartered. Then I cut them into bite-sized pieces – about 2.5-3cm wide. I think that my way is quicker; my mum is shocked by it. I also don’t use shrimp paste, or fresh shrimps when I make it simply because I can’t be bothered to and I stick to fish sauce for ease. However, my mum does because it adds a deeper flavour to it. Maangchi’s Easy kimchi recipe and Korean bapsang Easy kimchi recipe, the other two recipes that I refer to from time to time, include shrimp. Maybe one day, I will do the same.

Equipment you will need:

  • A large sharp knife and chopping board
  • A blender or food processor. A hand blender also works. If you don’t have any of these then you’ll need a vegetable grater.
  • 1-2 large bowls, like a washing up bowl.
  • 1 large colander
  • Saucepan and spatula
  • Storage: I store the kimchi in various former large (500-700g) pickle/beetroot jars. Prepare about 5, depending on their size.

Ingredients

  • 2-3 Napa cabbage or Chinese leaves, depending on their size. Normally I use 2 medium-large ones.
  • lots of table salt
  • 1 medium white/brown onion, peeled
  • 1 ripe pear
  • 5cm ginger, peeled – it depends how fat or skinny the ginger is. Aim for 1:1 ginger to garlic.
  • 6-7 cloves of garlic, peeled
  • 1-2 red peppers, depending on the quantity of Chinese leaves
  • 5 spring onions
  • 1-2tbsp fish sauce
  • 2 tbsp gochugaru – the Korean red chilli pepper flakes
  • 1 tbsp glutinous rice powder, sometimes called sweet rice powder (GF people – this doesn’t contain any gluten but it is sticky)
  • 5 tbsp or 75ml of cold water

Method – Stage 1: prepare and salt the cabbage. This is an important step in cleaning and killing any bad bacteria.

  1. To clean the cabbage, remove any of the outer leaves that have discoloured too much or too bruised. Cut the cabbage into bite-sized pieces using either my mum’s way or my way* and put into a large bowl/basin. Fill the bowl with water to clean the leaves. Drain in the colander. You will probably have to do this in stages due to the quantity of the leaves.
  2. In a separate bowl, put one layer of cabbage in, then generously sprinkle salt over it. Next put another layer of cabbage over that first layer and generously sprinkle salt over it. Repeat with all the cabbage.
  3. Leave for about 2-5 hours, turning every 30-60mins to salt evenly, so that the salt draws out the moisture out of the cabbage. In my experience, the length of time it takes varies depending on the quantity and the weather. It is faster in warmer weather. Do not, and I repeat DO NOT, leave the cabbage to salt overnight. It will make the overall flavour of the leaves a bit too salty.
  4. You will know when it is ready when the white sections of the cabbage are more translucent, bend easily and don’t snap. The cabbage will have reduced by about half too. When ready, drain the water and rinse in clean water 2-3 times to remove the salt. Drain and set aside.
Halfway there – it’s not bendy and translucent enough yet
When it is ready, it will bend easily and be more translucent.

Stage 2: make the rice paste. Do this while the cabbage is salting to give it time to cool. This is optional, but does add make the fermentation process quicker and helps the cabbage to absorb the kimchi paste better.

  1. In a small saucepan dissolve 1 tbsp of glutinous rice flour into 75ml of cold water. Heat it on a medium heat, stirring, until your spatula leaves a line through it. Leave it aside to cool.
The glutinous rice paste

Stage 3: prepare the kimchi paste

  1. Wash and prepare your vegetables (apart from the spring onions – you’ll use them later) and pear to put into the blender/food processor. Peel and cut the onion into quarters, cut the pear into 3 cm chunks (skin on), cut the ginger and red peppers into 3 cm chunks, and pop in the peeled garlic cloves. Whizz it up so that it has all blended.

If you don’t have a blender or food processor then use a grater to mince the garlic, ginger, pear, onion and red pepper into a large bowl. The coarse side of a box grater may work or I’ve used one of the Korean vegetable graters that I listed under equipment.

  1. Mix in the gochugaru, the rice paste and 1 tbsp of fish sauce and give it another whizz in the blender.
  2. Wash and clean the spring onions. We use be using the whole spring onion. I notice that in the UK only the white part gets used, which makes me 😢. Chop the bottom off, trim the top, then slice the spring onions diagonally in 2-3cm strips.

Stage 4: mix them all together

  1. Now thoroughly mix the cabbage with the kimchi paste. Taste and if you think that it should be a bit saltier, add one more tablespoon of fish sauce. Taste again and if you think it needs a bit more then add a bit more. Remember though, you can always add salt but you can’t take it away.

Stage 5: store, ferment and serve

  1. Then it’s time to store it in cleaned jars. Leave a bit of space at the top so that any kimchi juices can bubble up during the fermentation process. I leave it out on a kitchen countertop for 1 day and then store it in the fridge. From experience, it is a good idea to put it on something, such as a plastic container in case any juices spill out.
  2. To serve and eat – it is best to leave it to ferment for a couple of days. When you go to serve some up, then turn it around a bit in the jar and get the stuff that isn’t at the top. You can also eat it immediately on the very day that you made it, if you want to. If you do, I recommend serving it like a salad drizzled with some sesame seed oil and sprinkled with some toasted sesame seeds over it.
Freshly made kimchi in their jars ready for fermenting

Enjoy and do let me know how you get on 😊.

Finally I Mastered Crispy Kale

Kale Crisps Success!

A bag of kale, reduced down to 20p, was the last thing I bought before I received a notification from the Covid-app informing me that I had been in close contact with somebody with Covid-19 and I had to self-isolate for the next 8 days. So at 6.11am that morning I sent a message to cancel a run with my friend that morning, emailed my work to let them know and we did some rescheduling gymnastics so that I could work from home. Isn’t it odd that a bag of kale holds this memory for me now.

To be honest, I didn’t mind staying at home. My housemate didn’t have to self-isolate so she could get groceries for me and update me on what was happening in the realm outside of the front door. That is an odd detail, I know. I don’t fully understand the track and trace system we have in England. We figured out that my phone must have picked up something on my 20 minute train journey to work. Commuters who don’t wear their masks properly or socially distance appropriately stress me out. I was happy to temporarily cut out that bit of stress from my life.

I still had leftover pumpkin, lentil and goats cheese salad in the fridge, so I decided that for dinner that night, I’d crisp up kale and add it to the salad. I had only just mastered it the previous week whilst making a roasted squash risotto with crispy kale.

The goats cheese, pumpkin and lentil salad with crispy kale

I have been trying to make crispy kale for about 8 years and failing each time. Somehow, I had it in my head that I had to bake the kale at a low heat and so each time it would just come out soggy and burnt: an odd combination. This was due to the fact that I had first read about crispy kale in a post by Gwyneth Paltrow that also told me how to make oven dried tomatoes and either the recipe is actually wrong or I got confused between the two recipes. Then it was compounded by other recipes which told me to bake at a low temperature for 15-20 minutes. Instead, this roasted squash risotto with crispy kale recipe told me to preheat the oven to 230°c for the baking of the kale. I read that instruction twice to check and it worked.

Top Tip: the secret to crispy kale is a short baking time in a hot oven and dry kale.

Yes, once you’ve chopped and washed the kale, leave it to dry in a colander, or even better a salad spinner, for a while then spot dry it with a clean tea towel. This saves your tea towel from getting completely soaked. That is, unless you happen to have a bag of already prepped and washed kale.

Ingredients for Oven baked crispy kale, adapted from the Cooks Cook recipe

This will feed between 2-4 people.

  • 160g Kale
  • 1tbsp Sunflower/rapeseed or vegetable oil (depends on how much kale you have)
  • Salt and pepper to season, maybe a 1/4 tsp of each.
  • 1/2 tsp – 1tsp Paprika/Cayenne pepper/Chilli flakes or whatever spices you’d like (optional but highly recommended)

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F/Gas Mark 7 and prepare two large baking trays.
  2. Prepare the kale. Cut the kale, 2-3cm long. Remove any particularly tough bits of stalk, nearer the bottom of the kale. As you can see from the photos, I don’t really bother that much with removing the stalks because I don’t mind the extra bite. Wash the kale to remove any dirt. Leave it to dry in a colander or alternatively use a salad spinner. Then use a clean tea towel or paper towel to spot dry the kale so that it is as dry as possible.
  3. Add the kale into a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle over the oil, salt, pepper and any optional spices and massage in to make sure that each leaf has been coated. I prefer to do this part in a bowl because I find it gives a more even coat than when I do it on a baking tray. However, if you want to save on washing up, do this step on a baking tray.
  4. Lay out the kale in a single sheet as much as possible. This prevents steaming and sogginess. There will be a bit of overlap, don’t worry.
  5. Bake between 8-10 minutes so that they crisp up and are a mix of darker green and brown. Some leaves will get browner than others. I think that’s okay but if you want a more even crisp, then halfway through the baking time, move the leaves around.
  6. Leave it out on the baking trays to cool a bit before munching on it. It can be eaten on its own, added to a salad or a risotto for extra texture. Enjoy.
First, cut, wash and dry the kale
Coat with oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper and optional spices. This one has paprika. Then lay out on a baking tray

Roasted Brussels Sprouts: a game changer

Roasted brussels sprouts

Here’s a seasonal recipe for you, perhaps not the sweet one that you were hoping for this Christmas from me. If you like brussels sprouts or are somewhat ambivalent about them, do me a favour and give this recipe a go. I had boiled ones the other week at my work cafe as part of a Christmas lunch, and to be honest, I was a bit disappointed by their lack of imagination with this humble vegetable, given that they teach culinary skills.

I’m obsessed with roasted brussels sprouts. I first made them 3 years ago and they were a game changer. Roasting them brings out a nutty flavour somehow that you do not get when boiling or frying them. And texturally I find it really pleasing: soft but not soggy. Another bonus to roasting is that there is no bad smell when you cook them, although at the other end, I can not promise that the gasses will smell any sweeter.

Since being back in the UK, I have discovered that roasting brassica is my favourite way of cooking and eating them. Bold statement, I know. But so far, it holds true.

Brussels sprouts prepped with the bottoms sliced off and halved.

I have not given you quantities. Sorry. I have never measured out this recipe and now I’ve become that recipe writer who might say to you annoyingly, add a glug of olive oil and if you’re like me, you’d get peeved with them because how many millilitres is there in a glug of oil? Nevertheless, the only thing I can offer by way of excuse is that I have never measured this out because I always vary the amount of brussels sprouts depending on the number of people. I believe I think that 8 brussels sprouts per person is normal, based on the photo at the top, but then again, I do really love brussels sprouts.

Ingredients for roasted brussels sprouts

  • Brussels sprouts (however many that you’d like)
  • Olive oil (enough to coat the brussels sprouts)
  • Salt (to season)
  • Pepper (to season)
  • Chilli flakes (optional)
  • Juice of a lemon (optional)

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.
  2. Slice the bottoms off and halve them.
  3. Place cut side down on a baking dish.
  4. Sprinkle with olive oil and season with salt, pepper and if you want, chilli flakes.
  5. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Check halfway and shake them around a bit. If you forget this bit, don’t worry, there will be a bit of charring on some, but that tastes alright too.
  6. For a tangy finish, squeeze a bit of lemon juice over them at the end.

One of my friends recommended adding a drizzle of honey with chilli on them before baking them for additional flavour. That is a new twist that I’ll try this season.

Incidentally, I have also discovered whilst writing up this post that I’ve been spelling brussels sprouts incorrectly all my life, as brussel sprouts. Well, now I know.

What is your favourite way of cooking and eating brussels sprouts?

(not really) Pumpkin risotto

IMG_8837

I have a confession to make.

When I first arrived, I couldn’t afford to buy arborio rice here.  So, in that first year, I didn’t make any risotto, one of my customary meals back in the UK.  Thereafter I got so desperate for the comfort of cooking and eating risotto, I managed to convince myself that it didn’t matter if I used jasmine or ginger flower rice (a Cambodian medium grain rice) instead of arborio, carnaroli or any different type of risotto rice.  I’ve merrily been making and feeding this pumpkin ‘risotto’ to many of my friends, using whatever rice I had at hand.  Believe me, there were no complaints.  Spicy, and gloriously ochre with the sweetness of fresh coriander.  Who would turn down this dish?IMG_8847

However, a few months ago it all changed.  My friend Robert gave me some of his delicious bacon, mushroom and spinach risotto (which I need to try cooking myself!) made with arborio rice.   And the realisation of the error of my ways overwhelmed me.  It just ain’t a risotto without risotto rice! How had I duped myself into thinking that this chewier, creamier textured rice could be replaceable?

IMG_8519

So, yes.  You can make this not-really-risotto, pumpkin risotto (what am I supposed to call it now?) with any grain of rice that you have.  But don’t call it risotto.

It’s really simple to make.  I make it a lot as pumpkins are pretty much available all year round in Cambodia, but not always strictly as a risotto.  I really appreciate the fact that here you can buy however much of the pumpkin that you’re planning on cooking with: you just ask the market seller to cut off however much you need.  In contrast, I don’t think that I would have made this in the UK because I didn’t really buy pumpkins.  I didn’t really know what to do with a whole big pumpkin and I didn’t shop in those places that sold different varieties of smaller ones.

I adapted the original recipe to add in a bit more spice, with extra cumin, chilli and coriander.  Lastly, there’s the grown-up version with the added white wine.

IMG_8733

Recipe for Pumpkin Risotto, adapted from BBC Good Food

Ingredients

  • 400g pumpkin, seedless and peeled
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 5 garlic cloves (but garlic isn’t as strong here, so perhaps 2 if your garlic is strong)
  • 1 onion
  • 200g risotto rice
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 litre of hot vegetable/chicken stock
  • 125-250ml (or more) dry white wine
  • 25g cold butter
  • 50g parmesan cheese, grated (for vegetarians, choose an alternative or omit altogether)
  • generous bunch of coriander, roughly chopped up
  • spring onion, chopped up (optional)
  • 2 red chilli peppers
  • salt and pepper
  • optional lime wedges to serve

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4/Cut the pumpkin into fairly even 1inch/2.5cm cubes.  As you can see from the photo, I don’t worry too much about being precise.  Coat it with 1tbsp of vegetable oil and season with salt and pepper.  Bake in the oven for about 30 mins.
  2. Meanwhile get started on the risotto.  Crush the garlic and chop up the onion.   If using spring onions, then finely chop up the whites of the spring onions, reserving the green part as a garnish for later.
  3. Heat the rest of the oil on a gentle heat in a medium sized pan and fry the onions, garlic and spring onion until the onions are soft.
  4. Now add the cumin and rice, being careful not to let it catch on the bottom of the pan.  Stir so that every grain of rice is coated in the spice.
  5. Add the wine and let it deglaze the pan, by stirring it around the bottom of the pan.
  6. Next, adding the stock about a ladleful at a time is the accepted wisdom but I’m pretty imprecise about this.  I think that add however much you need so that it just covers the rice and the rice won’t burn at the bottom of the pan.  Stir and stir until the stock has disappeared this helps release the starch from the rice).  Then add in a bit more stock.   *As you’re doing this, multi-task with step 7.*  Continue until the rice is cooked but still has a wee bit of bite – this is al dente.  Add another generous ladleful of stock, this helps to create a sauce,  and the butter.   Cover with the lid to help the butter melt.
  7. Check on the pumpkin and remove from the oven once they’ve been baked.  Grate the cheese, roughly chop up the coriander, finely slice the chilli peppers and the greens of the spring onions (if using).
  8. Once the rice has been cooked, add the pumpkin, cheese, coriander, spring onions and the chilli peppers. And stir through to mix well.  If you’d like a bit of zest, sprinkle some lime juice on top.  Et voila – enjoy.

The verdict?  A satisfying meat-free meal, which my friends, khmer and western, enjoy eating.  I especially like this paired with kimchi.

IMG_7555

Oh so yummy, festive, orange, cranberry and chocolate bread

oh so yummy, festive orange, cranberry and chocolate bread

Merry (belated) Christmas everyone!

It’s funny the foods that you crave.  I keep surprising myself with what my tastebuds hanker after.  My latest three cravings are mature cheddar cheese and milk chocolate digestives.  Those two cravings kicked in a year after I moved and as I didn’t buy or eat a lot of cheese in the UK, can you see why I surprised myself?!

My friend Hannah came to spend Christmas in Cambodia this year.  I asked whether she’d like to bring out a selection of cheeses out with her so that we could have a cheese and wine evening.  And she did!  She had an unexpected 24 hour delay in Doha, and amazingly the cheese survived!  I don’t think that I’ve ever relished the flavours of each of those cheeses, as much as I did that evening!  Thank you, Hannah.

A selection of beautiful english cheeses, trying to disguise themselves as pac men. Thank you Hannah!
A selection of beautiful english cheeses, trying to disguise themselves as pac men.  The camembert is baking in the oven. Thank you Hannah!

Hannah and Esther waiting patiently for me to take this photo and finding it very funny!
Hannah and Esther waiting patiently for me to take this photo and finding it very funny!

I said three, right.  Well, there’s this bread…

I’m pretty sure that Sainsburys does an AMAZING chocolate, cranberry and orange bread at Christmas time.  I’ve eaten it pretty much every year since discovering it.  Except last year.  Last year, was my first Christmas in Cambodia and I couldn’t find any cranberries, frozen, fresh or dried in the whole of Phnom Penh.  Not that I could search very far and wide because of my poorly left knee.

orange, cranberry, chocolate bread

I’ve been thinking about this eating this bread for a couple of months now.  So in November, I bought a bag of dried cranberries whilst I was in Australia to bake it as my festive loaf.

dark chocolate chunks dried cranberries

I couldn’t find a recipe for this bread online.  So, I modified Richard Bertinet’s cranberry and pecan bread recipe from Dough to recreate one of Sainsbury’s festive bread creations.  I loved it.  Hannah loved it.  (She’d never heard of or eaten it before – WHAT?!?!? and she lives in the UK!)  It smells intoxicating and the flavours balance and complement each other perfectly.  We were happy to eat it, just as it was.  No spread, it doesn’t need one.  If you want to, you could try eating it with cheese, like we did.   Surprisingly it works.

Three things:

  1. Make sure that you use chocolate chunks and not chocolate chips.  Chocolate chunks are bigger and taste more satisfying than chocolate chips.
  2. Make it a white loaf.  It’s meant to be a festive treat.  Don’t spoil it by adding more fiber to it.
  3. The chocolate makes it a messy bread to cut and eat.   That could be because it’s just a wee bit warmer in Cambodia than the UK at this time of year… But I dare you to resist eating it when it’s fresh out of the oven!

Finally, finally (and this isn’t late!).  Hope that you have a wonderful New Year’s Day celebration and wishing you all the best for 2015.

orange zest

orange, cranberry and chocolate dough

Ingredients for my oh so yummy, festive Orange, Cranberry and Chocolate Bread.

  • 500g strong white flour
  • 7g fast action yeast
  • 10g salt
  • 350g water – you can do 350ml but weighing it is always more accurate I think.
  • zest of 1 orange
  • 100g dark chocolate cut roughly into chunks
  • 100g dried cranberries

Method

1. Put the dark chocolate, cranberries and orange zest in a small bowl and give it a good mix.  I discovered that the orange zest actually starts plumping up the cranberries while you’re making the dough – cool!

2. In another medium sized bowl, weigh out the flour, add in the yeast and give it a quick stir to mix it into the flour.  By mixing the yeast with flour first, I don’t worry about the salt touching the yeast and thus deactivating the yeast.

3. Now add in the salt, give it a stir.  Then add in the water.   Use a dough scraper, or your hands to combine the water and flour together as much as possible before turning the mixture out onto your work surface.  It is quite a wet dough to begin with, so don’t worry.

4.  Knead until the dough is springy and smooth.  This probably takes about 10 minutes but it depends on what method you use and how wet the dough was to begin with.  I use Richard Bertinet’s slap and fold method.

5.  Now transfer the orange zest, cranberries and chocolate into the medium sized bowl you used for the dough mixture.  Then, lay the dough on top and spread it out so that it envelops the entire surface.  What you’re going to attempt to do next is wrap the dough around the chocolate and the cranberries and mix it so that you can combine them with the dough.  Doing it this way in the bowl makes it a much neater, efficient process, than if you were to do it on a work surface.

6. Once the chocolate and cranberries are combined with the dough, turn it out from the bowl briefly.  Add a little bit (about a tablespoon) of vegetable oil to the bowl to prevent the dough from stick to it as the dough rises.  Cover with cling film or a wet tea towel and leave it rise.  I leave mine to rise in the fridge for a couple of hours so that the flavours have longer to mature.  You could leave it at this stage, in the fridge, for a couple of hours to 2 days.

7.  Prepare a baking tray by lining it with baking paper, or covering it with a layer of semolina so that it doesn’t stick to the tray.  Once the dough has doubled in size, turn it out onto your work surface.  Push your fingers firmly into the dough to leave dents.  This is a much gentler way of knocking the air out.  While you’re doing that try to shape it roughly into a rectangle.

8. Next, strengthen the dough.  Mentally divide the dough into three sections.  Take a third of the dough to the centre and push it down firmly in the middle with the heel of your hand.  Then take the other third of the dough to the centre and push it down firmly with the heel of your hand.  Finally fold the mixture in half and again push it down firmly with the heel of your hand.

9.  This next bit is up to you.  I cut my dough into two halves and shaped one into a circle and the other into a square-ish loaf.  You can shape it into one or as many loaves as you wish.    Cover with damp tea towel or oiled cling film.  Let them rest until they have doubled in size again.  In the meantime, preheat the oven to 250°C/480°F/Gas Mark 9.

10.  When the dough is ready, cut deep, clean incisions in it to help create shape and release gas.  I made a hash (#) sign on one loaf and cut three slices on the other.  I then sprayed the tops of them with water to create a bit of steam as they bake.  (My new electric oven doesn’t like it when you spray the inside of the oven with water.)

11. Whack them in the oven.  After 10 minutes turn the oven down to 220°C/425°F/Gas Mark 7 and bake for 40-50 minutes.  Check that the bread is ready – it should sound hollow when you tap it’s bottom.  If not, set the timer for another 5 minutes and check again.  Let them rest for at least 5 minutes before you enjoy and devour it.

orange, cranberry, chocolate bread

 

Linda Bareham’s Portuguese Pork and a new abode!

Linda Bareham's Portuguese Pork

First of all, sorry that I haven’t posted in a long time.  Three very important things have happened.

  1. I moved into my very own apartment for the first time since moving to Cambodia.
  2. After my holiday in the UK, I’ve been injected with a new dose of enthusiasm to embrace life in Cambodia with all it’s ingredients and flavours.
  3. I started a new job.  I’m now an English Language Teacher at a Language School in Phnom Penh.

The third point is very important.  It goes a long way in explaining why I haven’t posted anything on the blog in recent months.  I’m really enjoying the work but adjusting to a new job is taking up a lot of my energy.  Even more so, as I’m teaching every evening during the week.

Portuguese pork ingredients

But, excitingly it’s the first and second points that motivated me to make more use of local ingredients and cook this dish.  Finally having my very own space for the first time in 10 months was so exciting.  I even baked Orange and Cardamon shortbread to herald in this new space that I could call home (which I’ll post once I’ve perfected the recipe).  Admittedly, I probably should have been putting my energy into packing boxes when I made them.

IMG_5352

what actually happens in my kitchen

My new kitchen comes equipped with a two burner gas cooker, typical of many Phnom Penh kitchens.  So, recently, I’ve delved back into Linda Bareham’s One Pot cook book and discovered recipes that I can make easily here.  I realise that I’ve written about the adjustment to sourcing various ingredients for baking or learning various processes because I can’t find the ingredients in the form that I want.  Well, it’s been a similar thing for cooking with local ingredients here, or perhaps it’s been an even greater learning curve.  I like cooking with local, seasonal produce.  Back in the UK, I would quite often ask market stall holders how I could with new ingredients.  But, to do that in a foreign language with unfamiliar ingredients is quite a challenge.  It took me 6 months to brave buying fresh meat from the market.  That may sound silly to you.  However, imagine a market place, where there are various meat stalls.  Some have live chickens, plucked chickens or various slabs of pork meat, hanging from meat hooks.   Then, add the smell because, of course, it’s all unrefridgerated and unpackaged.  Now, can you picture the flies lazily circling round before resting on one piece of meat and then moving onto another.  I’m just not used to it, coming from the UK.

Spinach wrapped in a banana leaf

So, I asked a lot of questions to khmers and seasoned expats before plucking up the courage to venture out on my first solo meat shopping trip.  Here, the recommended wisdom is to go fairly early in the day, before 10.30-11am.  Prod and smell the meat to know whether the meat is fresh or a day old.  I’m still learning how you do that without insulting the seller.  But then, there’s the added complication of language.  How an earth do I say chicken breast in khmer?  How do you ask for it without the bone?  How do I make sure that I don’t get ripped off by a market seller out to make a lucrative deal from an unsuspecting foreigner.  That first time when I bought fresh chicken breasts from the market, I spent an hour deboning the chicken breasts, when I got home.  That didn’t stop me from celebrating it as a major achievement.

chop pork into 1inch chunks

In fact, the first time I made this dish was the first time I’d ever bought pork from the market.  I couldn’t tell you what cut of pork I ended up bringing home, but I think that it was pork fillet.  I made it for my Simon and Becci when they had just moved house.  We all declared the dish a success.  Then I made it again with the addition of spinach because I was craving more greens in my diet.  This time, I served it to some of my khmer friends and they liked it too.  Hurrah!

pork in a cumin and lime bath

I adapted the recipe slightly.  I substituted limes for lemons and added a wee bit more heat by adding in more chilies.  I try not to cook with MSG and the khmer ‘knorr’ chicken stock powder is full of it.  So, I substituted sea salt for chicken stock, or make your own stock, if you want.  Linda specifies red onions, but I can only buy shallots here.  I’ve used shallots and white onions, depending on what I had in the fridge.  I’ve specified how much garlic to use, if it’s a normal-strong garlic bulb.  I find that the local khmer garlic is a much milder variety, so I’ve also taken to doubling the quantities of garlic specified in recipes.  And apparently it helps to ward off the mosquitoes.

IMG_5746

Linda Bareham’s Portuguese Pork to serve 4 people, as adapted by me.

Ingredients

  • 400g pork fillet
  • 1tsp ground cumin
  • Juice of 3 limes
  • 3 small red chilli peppers
  • 2 onions
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 6 cloves of garlic
  • 500ml boiling water with 1tsp sea salt or 500ml chicken stock
  • 2x 400g tin of chickpeas, drained
  • 150g fresh coriander
  • 300g spinach, washed
  • salt and pepper to season

Method

1.  Chop the pork into 1 inch chunks and place them in a bowl.   Add the cumin and the lime juice.  Mix thoroughly.  The lime juice will help soften the meat.  Set aside in the fridge while you prepare the other ingredients.

2. Finely chop the onions.  Add the oil and a wee bit of salt to a medium sized pot.  Gently fry the onions for 10 minutes so that they’re softened with a little colour.

3.  Meanwhile, finely chop the garlic.  Slice the chillies fairly small chunks.  I didn’t bother deseeding them because I wanted to add a bit of heat to the dish.  Add them to the onions and cook for 4-5 minutes.  Stirring occasionally and watching that they don’t burn. Add a bit more oil if needed.

4.  Take the pork out of it’s lime bath and add it to the pot.  Don’t throw away the lime/cumin juice!  You’ll use it again in 5 minutes.  Stir the pork so that it colours evenly.

5.  Add the boiling water (or stock if you’re using), lime/cumin juice and chickpeas to the pot.  Turn up the heat and bring it to a boil.  Then turn down the heat and let it simmer.

6.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Linda assures you that there’s a lot of seasoning required.  In the end, I found it easier to crush and finely chop some whole black peppercorns and add them in, rather than grind, twist, shake with a pepper mill.  I agree with Linda.   You’ll need a lot of pepper.

7.  As I can’t buy a bag of spinach leaves easily, I chopped and discarded the bottom bit off my spinach stalks, gave them a thorough wash and added the spinach leaves and stalks to the pot.  Finally, add roughly chopped coriander leaves and stalks.  Et, voila.  Serve with a wholesome crusty loaf or baguette.

Portuguese Pork with spinach

A pre-intermediate lesson on Panzanella

Panzanella 1

The English language and lesson plans.

I think that those are the best two phrases which sum up my life at present.

During this month of July, I’m training to be an English Language teacher, so that I can take this new skill and (hopefully) qualification with me to Cambodia.  I’m doing the intensive 4-week CELTA course and we’ve just passed the halfway mark.  In our most recent tutorials, my teaching practice group had been encouraged to try out materials in the classroom, outside of our coursebooks.  On Monday we had a lesson on using ‘authentic’ texts.  Texts, which are not created for the sole purpose of teaching.  I felt inspired to try it out in my next lesson… which just happened to be the next day.

Step 1: tear up the bread

Me, being me, wanted to try using a recipe as authentic text.  We teach in pairs.  Each person has 45 mins to do half of the lesson.  On Tuesday, I was teaching with Rachel.  We divvied out the skills and the language.  I had listening and vocabulary, Rachel had writing and grammar.

H (imagine it with lots of enthusiasm): “I was thinking that we could do food as a topic and use a recipe to teach it.”

R: Ooh.  Yes.  There’s lots of imperatives and vocabulary that we could be teaching.  I could get them to write a recipe to follow on.

Tomatoes and Panzanella bread

And as I had the enviable task of teaching the skill of listening, I thought that a short video from someone like Nigella would be good as they’re easily accessible on the BBC Good Food or youtube.

Half an hour into drafting out the two parts of our lesson, our teacher tells us that recipes are notoriously tricky to teach because the extensive vocabulary, and more importantly, she reminds us that it is Ramadan and half of the group are muslims.  Perhaps we are being a bit culturally insensitive to teach on the topic of food?  “But,” she tells us, “it’s too late to change the topic of the lesson.”  So, Rachel and I continue with our plans, with a tinge of apprehension.  Enlightened, I wondered aloud, whether Nigella was really the best fit for our group of learners.  “I wonder whether she’s too flirtatious on screen?”  Rachel points out, “the ingredients in her recipes aren’t always normal ones either.”

And this is how I came to be teaching 14 students, a recipe on how to make a Tuscan Bread Salad called Panzanella – i mean, it’s not even an English dish!  However, importantly for our group of pre-intermerdiate learners, the ingredients are few and commonly available and the method is simple.

I had never heard of Panzanella until I watched Simon Hopkinson’s, A Good Cook, a few years back.  I’ve raved about him before to you, haven’t I.  I love his recipes and they have been really doable to recreate.  Panzanella has become my favourite taste the summer salad: the one that I make when I want to taste a bit of sunshine, regardless of the weather outside.  The difference in flavour imparted by sun-ripened tomatoes and good extra virgin olive oil sets it apart.  It’s also simple to make, healthy, easily adaptable to other ingredients and filling because of the bread.  Have I sold it to you yet?  I’ll continue.  How about, it’s a great way to use up any stale bread and it uses ingredients that you’re likely to have knocking around in your fridge and cupboards?

onions, tomatoes, bread, panzanella

Simon Hopkinson’s Panzanella recipe, as I presented it to the class. (The italicised parts are what I’ve edited in since, for your benefit.)

Ingredients (serves 4)

  • 5 handfuls of sourdough bread (think of a slice of thick bread as being a handful)
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 7 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 1 cucumber
  • 1 red onion
  • 6 vine tomatoes – you want about 200-250g.  Try substituting cherry tomatoes (see step 5)
  • 3 garlic cloves
  • handful of basil leaves

Cucumber, tomatoes, onions, bread, panzanella

Method

  1. Tear the bread into small pieces and put it into a bowl.  The best bread to use is sourdough bread, but you can use any stale bread.
  2. Season with salt and pepper.  You can always add more seasoning later on.
  3. Add the olive oil and red wine to the bowl.  You don’t have to add in all the olive oil, if you want to be a bit healthier.
  4. Put the tomatoes into another bowl and pour boiling water over them.  This helps the skin to come off.
  5. Remove the tomatoes from the water.  Peel off the tomato skins and cut the tomatoes before adding it to the bread.  If you want to be simplify this step, then you can get away with not removing the tomato skins or use the equivalent weight in cherry tomatoes.  I like removing the tomato skins, not just for the therapeutic value but also, because it softens the feel of it in your mouth when you eat it.
  6. Peel a cucumber and cut it into small pieces.  Add it to the bread and tomatoes.
  7. Cut the onion into thin slices and add it to the bread. Try using red onions or shallots because they are milder in flavour.
  8. Finely cut or crush the garlic cloves before you add them to the salad.  You could reduce the number of garlic cloves if you don’t want such a strong flavour.
  9. Tear up the basil leaves.  This is essential and you must not miss them out!
  10. Finally, mix up the ingredients.  I’d suggest mixing them up with your hands because it always tastes better when you do.
  11. You could serve this on a hot summer’s day for lunch with friends, or on any day that you want a taste of summer.
  12. Don’t forget to pair it with a fruity red wine.

And how was the lesson? (I don’t normally ask that at the end of a blog post on food!  Told you my life is about the English Language and lessons plans at the moment.)  The panzanella video with Simon Hopkinson went down really well with the learners, they learned some new words but then I got unexpectedly bogged down for 5 minutes trying to explain basil to the group.  I learned that asking, “What is basil?” is relating noise to notion (there’s some TEFL jargon for you!), and that is not the way to do teach new vocabulary!  I ran out of time to do all the planned activities because of my basil moment, so I wasn’t too sure how it had gone when I finished my part.  The group did appear to be enjoying the subject matter, even with it being Ramadan.  Then in Rachel’s part of the lesson, I was delighted when the learners reproduced the vocabulary in the recipes and produced some really detailed, high quality writing in their recipes.  In fact, our observer really praised Rachel and me on our learners’ outputs.

Well done, pre-intermediate class in room 118!

This weekend I have an assignment to write and a lesson to plans, so I’d better get back to it.  I leave you with this one question – how would you describe/define basil to english as a foreign language learners?

Panzanella

Learning to make Ouzi with Ola and her mum

ouziouzi parcels
I aim to post a blog entry once a month. You wouldn’t think that it would be a difficult task. However, this is the month of September and I feel like I’m running as hard as I can on an upward inclining treadmill, which is about to spit me off because of the amount of work and time required to prepare for the start of an academic year at university, both at work and in the residential life team. I guess, the feeling is intensified this September because I had to move into a new flat, learning the ropes of a new role and area with my promotion to the role of deputy warden, meeting a new team of tutors, looming work deadlines… I’m going to stop trying to explain now because it’s beginning to sound like I’m whinging.

Besides, amidst all the change and chaos, I decided to take a two weeks holiday to Jordan. A luxury, I admit, in September.

So, as the rain beats down against the window of my new study/dressing room, I’m thinking, ‘was it really only a fortnight ago, that I was eating breakfast on a balcony in 30°c, listening to the tannoy of the scrap metal truck making it’s way around the neighbourhood, looking forward to my first arabic cookery lesson?’ I want to go back to that morning, when I made my way to the apartment, drinking in the sun and lingering slowly past the jasmine flowers that seem to overhang the walls on every street corner, so that I could inhale their fragrance one extra breath.

I guess the best thing to do in my case then, is to make some Ouzi.

On holiday, I learned that Jordanian women love FOOD. I had tremendous fun interacting with them whilst eating together, sharing cakes, talking flavours and recipes, helping with cooking. Maybe this is the same for all Arab cultures? I hesitate to generalise. One really interesting cultural food fact that I learned is, that the smaller you dice the tomatoes and cucumber that go into your salad, demonstrates how much you care for your guests. More effort goes into cutting up your salad veg finely, you see. I’d never thought of it in that way before!

The opportunity to cook together with Ola came out of a conversation Ola and I were having about okra! I smile as I remember this because I was telling her that I really don’t like the slimeyness of cooked okra, which prompted her to share a recipe with me. I still remember the arabic for okra (bamieh). Oh my random memory! When Ola mentioned how nice it would be to cook together, I seized on the opportunity – yes please! I’m only here for a fortnight, but I love learning new dishes! My British friends, also asked whether they could join in too. We’d agreed to keep okra for another event and settled on making Ouzi, which is a traditional Jordanian rice dish, that can be served as a rice dish or rice stuffed filo parcels. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing that every Jordanian mother has their own family recipe for Ouzi, like the Brits do with roast dinners?

jordanian oven
 

An arabic oven
We met at Ola’s mum’s house. What a privilege and because we were there, I experienced baking with an arabic oven! What did I learn?

  1. Arabic mixed spice is entirely different from UK mixed spice. More savoury rather than sweet. Shall I post a recipe for one later?
  2. An arabic oven automatically has a grill function, by design.
  3. Arabic curry powder is different from UK curry powder, but I don’t know how, so I’m going to use the british stuff for the timebeing.

I’m going to write this recipe a bit differently. It’s in 3 distinct bits and I thought about writing the ingredients list for each separately. I’ve seen a number of recipes laid out like that. However, I think that in this case, it would be annoying NOT to have the whole list of ingredients at the beginning because there are so many spices that go into each stage.

 

ouzi spices

 

Please don’t let the long list of ingredients put you off making this delicious dish. I’ve written down the recipe as Ola’s mum taught me; would it help you to imagine that most Jordanian women would add their own variation of spices to this?

To give you an idea of the flexibility of flavouring in Ouzi, I’ll let Ola interject: “you can add more spices other than cinnamon to the meat (first step) if you like. but even if you don’t it won’t matter because all the flavours will blend at the end, so every spice will add to the flavour regardless of the step at which you add it.”

So, what ingredientsdoes one need to make Ouzi for about 8-10 people?

  • 454g/1lb ground beef or finely diced steak
  • ground cinnamon
  • curry powder
  • chicken or vegetable stock
  • ground green cardamon
  • ground cumin
  • arabic mixed spice or bokharat
  • ground black pepper
  • salt
  • 400g frozen peas
  • 600g or 4 cups of dry basmati rice
  • raw, blanched almond slices/halves
  • 16 sheets of filo pastry
  • ghee or melted butter
  • sunflower or vegetable oil
  • water
  • 1tbsp of freshly chopped parsley

You’ll also need:

  • 2 large baking tins, preferably roasting tins.
  • A soup bowl or ramekin, which you will use to help you shape and stuff your filo pastry sheets with rice.

I think that once you have everything out and ready, then it’s pretty easy to cook and assemble. So, let’s begin.

Cooking the meat

Ingredientsfor the meat part:

  • 454g or 1lb of beef mince, or finely diced beef steak
  • ½tsp cinnamon
  • 1tsp salt

Method:

1. Brown the beef in a frying pan or the stock pan that you’re planning on using for the rice. As the meat is browning, add the cinnamon and the salt. Once the meat is browned, empty it onto a dish.

cooking ouzi meatadding spices to peascooking ouzi rice

Cooking the rice and vegetables

Ingredients for the rice:

  • 2 tbsp sunflower oil
  • 400g frozen peas, defrosted in cold water and drained.
  • 600g or 4 cups of basmati rice, rinsed and soaking in cold water
  • 1tsp ground cardamon
  • 1tsp cumin
  • 2tsp arabic mixed spice
  • 1tsp curry powder
  • pinch of cinnamon
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • 3 stock cubes
  • boiling water
  • 3 handfuls of raw, blanched almond slices

Method:

1. Put the sunflower oil in the stock pan and add the peas and 1tbsp of salt. Do this on a medium-high heat. Cover the pan to allow the peas to steam for about 5 minutes.

2. Now, comes the fun part of adding all the spices to the peas. Give it a good stir. Break up the stock cubes and add them to the peas as well. You can add a cup of water at this stage, if you think that the peas are starting to burn a bit.

3. Boil the water. Meanwhile, drain the rice and add it to the stock pan. Cover the rice with enough boiling water so that it the rice will steam cook at the end. I’m not very good at measuring out water for this, but I believe it’s something like 1 cup of rice:1¼ cups of water?

4. Bring the water to boil, then cover the rice and peas in the pan with a lid and leave it for 10-15 minutes on a very low heat, until the rice is cooked. Test it – it should be light and fluffy. No al dente nonsense.

5. Heat 1tbsp of sunflower oil in a frying pan and on a medium heat, fry 3 handfuls of the almonds until they brown. Leave to one side until the rice is ready.

frying almondsfrying almonds2mixing rice and meat
6. On a big serving dish, put out half of the rice, then half of the meat. Mix it up. Then repeat until you have used up as much rice and meat as you’d like. Ola’s mum said to us that we can put the rice and meat together in whatever proportion we like, according to taste. Now at this stage, you can add the almonds and eat it just like this. That’s what I did when I made ouzi by myself after my cooking lesson. See below. If you tilt your head, there’s thank you (shukran) written with almonds in arabic.

shukran ouzi
 

serving up ouzi
Or…. you can also wrap up the rice in filo pastry, which is what Ola and her mum taught us to do.

Assembling the filo parcels

Ingredients:

  • The fried almonds
  • The ouzi rice, cooled.
  • 16 sheets of filo pastry
  • ghee or melted butter
  • sunflower oil
  • 1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

You’ll also need the baking trays/roasting tins and ramekin/soup bowl at this point

Method:

1. So, you need to leave the rice to cool completely now before adding it to the filo pastry. Otherwise, Ola’s mum shared that from her experience, the filo pastry will break when you come to wrap up the rice with them. She advised preparing the rice part in the morning when making Ouzi for dinner, in order to give the rice sufficient time to cool down. However, if you have left it too late or are impatient, you can speed up the cooling process by laying the rice out as a thin layer on a BIG serving dish so that the rice is exposed to as much cold air as possible. If you want to use warm rice, then on your heads, be it!

bowl to shape ouzi parcelslaying in the filo pastry
2. While you’re waiting for the rice, preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4 you could fry the almonds and prepare the baking trays by generously greasing them with oil. When the rice is ready, get your ramekin or soup bowl out, the almonds and the filo pastry sheets. (For the sake of ease, from this point forward, let’s call the ramekin or soup bowl, a bowl.) Cut the sheet so that it’s 2½-3 times the size of the dish that you’re using. It’s possible to cut away extra pastry, so err on the larger size when you first begin.

3. It’s assembly time 🙂 Flour the bowl if you want to doubly make sure that the pastry won’t stick to the sides. Gently place one sheet of filo pastry on top of the bowl, so that the centre of the pastry sheet is in the bowl and the sides of the filo sheet are comfortably overhanging over the edges of the bowl. When we assembled them, Ola used 2 sheets because the pastry broke when we only used one. It’s worth experimenting to find out what will work, but don’t use anymore than 2 filo sheets per parcel. Press the pastry to the sides of the bowl.

layering the ouzi parcelfolded ouzi parcel
4. Add a tablespoon of almonds and then use a large spoon to add the rice until it reaches the top of the dish. Fold the layers of the filo pastry over the top, so that it begins to look like a parcel. You want to have enough pastry on the top so that when you invert the bowl, there will be enough there to form a firm base. Tear away any spare pastry from the top and store it, just in case you need to patch anything up!

5. With one hand on top of the folded sheets, carefully invert the dish and hopefully you’ll get the satisfaction of seeing an unbroken filo parcel appear. Lay the parcel, folded sheets down, carefully on the greased baking tray and move onto the next one. If you find that the filo sheet has torn, gently take it apart and use an additional filo sheet to assemble your parcel again. When lots of them appear on a baking tray, I think that they look like perfect white pillows.

2 ouzi parcels on the golots of perfect parcels of ouzichecking ouzi for baking
6. When they are all assembled, brush them with ghee or melted butter, and cook them in the oven for 3-5 mins, until the parcel bottoms are browned. Check by lifting them up with a spatula. Then take it out and put them under the grill for an additional 2 minutes to brown the tops of the pastry. Essentially, we’re making sure that the pastry is cooked.

baked ouzi parcelsserving up ouzi
7. When the tops are brown, take them out the oven and sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley. Et, voila – your ouzi parcels are ready to be served. Ola’s mum served them with laban, which is thick natural yoghurt which as slightly soured, and baked chicken.

Do you know what makes this really more-ish? The almonds. The nuts add texture, taste and totally complete the dish. When I made ouzi the next day for 13 friends, I made a slight variation of the recipe and missed out the wrapping in parcels bit, in the interests of time. Also, I burnt the almonds and I could have added a bit more salt. Even then, the resounding verdict from the lunch guests was ‘Zaki’ (Tasty). In conclusion, this seems to be a pretty fail-safe recipe.

Thank you Ola and Ola’s mum.

me assembling ouzialison assembling ouzi
 

 

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