Avacado Dressing

I can’t remember where I found this recipe. I think it is based on Green Goddess dressing, but without the anchovies which the boy and I can’t stand.

1 large ripe avocado

2tsp lemon juice

½ cup Greek yoghurt

1tsp hot sauce

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic

¾  tsp salt

The boy is hungry after cricket practice, so he’s getting more than just a salad. We’re having cold meats and salamis as well, with some nice crusty bread.

It’s a robust dressing so the salad needs to stand up to it – we’re having green beans, tenderstem broccoli, baby sweetcorn and chantenay carrots, all lightly blanched (one minute maximum)  and then cooled.

The avocado needs to be ripe and soft, and the oil and salt should be good. We like Tabasco, Cholula or Crystal for the hot sauce.

The recipe is just one word – blend! (Add more oil or yoghurt if it looks to thick. A quick taste will tell you which)

Sweet & Sour Sauerkraut Salad

The boy likes this as it is quite sweet. It is packed full of vitamin C so it will ward off colds and the unlikely chance of scurvy. It’s a German recipe

1 large jar/can of Sauerkraut (about 900g)

1 large carrot

1 red pepper

½ an onion

2 stalks celery

½ tsp caraway seeds

½ cup sugar

¼ cup olive oil

First empty the sauerkraut into a sieve over a bowl. You need to save about half a cup of the brine. Press it down to get all the excess out. Lightly bash the caraway seeds with a pestle and mortar and sprinkle them over.

Put it in a bowl and mix in the sugar. Give it about 20 minutes to rest, so the sugar completely dissolves. Just turn it from time to time.

Coarsely grate the carrot and dice the celery and red pepper. We are actually using roasted red pepper from a jar, Turn it over so you get a good mix.

Make a dressing from the half cup or reserved brine and the oil, and season well. It does need a few hours for the flavours to combine and mellow.

The boy is persuading me to let him have hot dogs with this. Only if he buys and cooks them.

Chinese Chicken & Sweetcorn Soup

This is the boy’s favourite Chinese soup (mine is Wonton soup). It is really easy to make – the only hard part is sourcing the creamed sweetcorn. It almost certainly has to come from a Chinese grocer. Regular frozen or canned sweetcorn just don’t do it. This is perfect for finishing off the remains of a roast chicken.

800ml chicken stock

1 400g can creamed sweetcorn

1 free range egg

75g cooked chicken meat, shredded

1/2  tsp white pepper

Salt to taste

1 spring onion finely chopped to garnish

A few drops sesame oil

Warm up the stock. Ours is shop bought. Add the salt and pepper and drop in the chicken. Shredding it is the boy’s job so he is the one who has greasy hands. Pour in the creamed sweetcorn and give it a good stir.

Bring it to the boil. Meanwhile beat an egg. You’re only using one so let it be a good one. Give the soup a vigorous stir so you get a whirlpool effect and tip the egg in. Keep stirring. You will end up with tiny threads of cooked egg through the soup. It’s ready as the chicken is already cooked.

If it isn’t thick enough, add some thickening granules or some cornflour slaked in water. I love the word slaked.

Snip the spring onions – scissors is quickest. Pour into bowls, garnish with the spring onions and add a few drops of sesame oil. It took us 10 minutes.

Lunu Miris Sambal

I quite like a recipe that is so simple, it’s barely a recipe. We got some pot sticker dim sum dumplings and I came across a version of this recipe a while ago in The Guardian and wanted to try it out. It’s good. The boy likes it too but only dips the tiniest corner in. It is hot!

1 red onion

2tbsp dried chili flakes

2 fresh red chillies

2tbsp lime juice

½ tsp salt

The onion and fresh chilli need to be finely chopped. I’m using the food processor for this as it can get it much finer than I can. I’m putting the chilli flakes in at this point too. We’re listening to a Brazilian Lounge CD which is entirely inappropriate.

Scoop it out into a bowl. Rub a lime over the worktop with the palm of your hand, quite hard, so it will release more juice. Squeeze the juice in to the onion and chilli and add the salt. See if it needs more lime juice.

Let it sit for 20 minutes and give it a stir. Happy dipping! The boy adds that this would be brilliant with grilled chicken wings.

American Bread & Butter Pickles

The boy and I have been pickling this year’s shallots so they will be ready in time for Christmas. He keeps telling me not to cry as we will grow more next year. Har Har!

We had some spiced vinegar left over and rather than chuck it away we made bread and butter pickles with regular onions and cucumber. The boy will polish these off with corned beef sandwiches in no time.

4 cups thinly sliced small cucumbers

2 cups sliced onions

¼ cup flaky salt

A handful of ice cubes

2 cups white vinegar

1 ½ cups sugar

2tsp celery seeds

2tsp mustard seeds

1 ½ tsp turmeric

Mix the cucumber, onion and salt in a bowl. This does two things – it draws out the water and means that the mix will just suck in the vinegar. Cover with ice. I have no idea what this brings to the party but I have looked up three recipes for this and they all use it.

After 4-8 hours, drain and rinse in a colander.

Combine the vinegar, sugar, celery seeds, mustard seeds and turmeric in a pan and get it to the boil.

Sterilise the jars and pack the onion and cucumber in. Pour the hot vinegar over to cover. The turmeric makes it go a very special golden colour.

Leave it for at least two weeks for the pickling gods to do their magic.

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By the way our pickled shallots were even easier. Once peeled, we salted them overnight. Then boiled up malt vinegar with dried chillies and bay leaves – roughly 3 chillies and 2 bay leaves per jar (our bay tree died so the boy pinched them from the potted ones outside our local pub). Packed the shallots into the jar, burned our fingers fishing out the bay leaves and chillies and stuffed them in. Poured over the vinegar and sealed. They need 6 weeks, so just in time for Christmas. No matter how many times we wash our hands they still smell of shallots and the kitchen smells of boiling vinegar. It will be worth it when the Christmas cheese board comes out.

Spiced Pumpkin Soup

I haven’t posted in a while, My Bad, as young people say. It’s cold and wet outside and supermarkets are rolling with cheap pumpkins, getting ready for Halloween. So – pumpkin soup. It’s the boy’s favourite.

900g pumpkin (doesn’t have to be exact)

Knob of butter

1 large red onion

500 ml vegetable or chicken stock

1cm ginger root

1 stem of lemongrass

1tsp sugar

Half tsp dried chilli flakes

Salt & pepper

Pumpkin is a nightmare to peel so quarter it and roast it first. (Remove the seeds and stringy bits) That way you can just scoop out the soft flesh.

Soften the onion in the butter. Grate the ginger and finely slice the lemongrass and sauté it altogether. The boy is not a chilli fan so I add it at this stage so it has a chance to mellow a little.

Add the stock and pumpkin. It doesn’t need long as the pumpkin is already cooked. Maybe 20 minutes. Season and add the sugar. I’m using demerara but I’m letting the boy adjust the salt, pepper & sugar. He is heavy on the pepper. I approve.

Blend with a stick blender. Blend it well as lemongrass and ginger are very fibrous.

Pumpkin soup is often so thick that it can be a pumpkin puree. It’s not the way we like it so thin it down with more stock until it has the consistency you like. 

The boy likes a swirl of sour cream swirled through his (or creme fraiche if he's feeling posh). His suggestions as accompaniments – cheese on toast using baguette slices – a plain pizza cut into circles with a cookie cutter – garlic bread. We went with the cheese on toast. 

Bangladeshi Karela (Bitter Gourd)

The boy has wanted to try Karela (Bitter Gourd/Bitter Melon) for ages. I think it I the knobbly skin that appeals to him. It’s an acquired taste but I love it. This is a Bangladeshi recipe.

4 bitter gourds

4 tbsp salt

3 dried red chillies

3 fresh green chillies

50g onion, chopped

½ tsp panch poran

2 garlic cloves finely chopped

4tbsp oil

1tsp turmeric

Salt to taste

Panch poran is a mix of five spices – in this case it is even amounts of cumin, fennel, fenugreek, mustard seed and nigella seed.  It has a slightly aniseed tone.

Chop the dried chilli and slice the green chilli into fine rings.

Trim the ends of the karela. Halve them lengthways and remove the seeds with a teaspoon. Chop it lengthways into little half-moons. Sprinkle with salt and then just cover with water, to create a brine. This will get some of the bitterness out. The boy approves. Why, I don’t know, since he has never tasted them. Leave for an hour and listen to some Haydn string quartets.

Drain the karela. Add the chillies, onion, garlic, panch poran and mix well.

Heat the oil in large pan. Add the turmeric and when it is warmed through; add the karela mix and more salt.

Stir fry for about 4 minutes on a fairly high heat.

We are having this with rice and an onion and tomato salad with plenty of coriander.

The boy is not 100% sure about karela. He doesn’t dislike it though and that has to be counted as a success.

Tomato & Coriander Salad with Soy

I love coriander. The biggest pot outside my kitchen door is devoted to growing as much of it as I can. It’s way too early for any this year, but I’m blessed with local shops that offer huge bunches for about half the price supermarkets offer. I’m making the boy a sandwich lunch and he’s having this on the side. It’s a Bill Grainger recipe.

1tbsp light soy sauce

1tbsp Chinese black vinegar

2tsp light flavoured oil

1tsp caster sugar

6 ripe tomatoes, chopped

2 small crook cucumbers chopped

1 small red onion sliced into fine rings

A handful of fresh coriander leaves

These days it’s hard to know which tomatoes to get as supermarkets seem to offer so many with enticing names. It is hard though to find ripe ones so the trick is to look in the reduced section as these will almost certainly fit the bill and be cheaper. Win-win.

Mix the soy (I like Pearl River Bridge brand, which comes in satisfyingly large bottles), vinegar (BG says Balsamic will do), the oil and sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

Chop up the veg. If the tomatoes are ripe, you will get a good deal of juice. Add this to the dressing.

Toss the veg and add the dressing and the coriander. I have roughly chopped the coriander.

The boy announces he’s hungry so he is getting some salted kettle chips with the sandwiches (one roast beef and horse radish with watercress and one double Gloucester cheese and tomato). The salad is the star though.

BG does a tomato salad with green chilli which I would like but the boy will not. Essentially sliced tomatoes, a deseeded, finely chopped green chilli with vinaigrette and salt & pepper. I’m not even telling the boy about it.

New Year's Borscht

In our house, new year would not be new year without soup. It brings us luck.  We are going away tomorrow so have decided to bring our good luck a day early. This is a New York recipe so the measures are American. I haven’t translated them as I think you can be fairly flexible with soup.

2lb beef shin, on the bone

6 cups water

1 onion, peeled and halved

2 carrots

3 beetroots

6tbsp tomato puree

4 garlic cloves, crushed

½ lb red cabbage, shredded

2 medium tomatoes, roughly cut up

1 bay leaf

2tbsp red wine vinegar

3tbsp sugar

1lb waxy potatoes

2tsp flaky salt

1/3 cup chopped dill

Freshly ground black pepper

Garnish

Sour Cream – at least a tablespoon each

Chopped dill

This takes all afternoon but it’s worth it.

Put the potatoes on to boil. When just cooked, but still firm, set them aside. The boy can dice them when they are cool.

Cut one carrot into quarters and get the boy to grate the other one. Put Mozart’s Prague Symphonies on the CD player. Put the quartered carrot, the halved onion and the beef in a large pot. The beef can go in whole. Bring to the boil and skim off all the fat or scum that comes to the surface. Lower the heat to a bare simmer and give it 1 and a half hours. You will run out of Mozart. The boy has chosen to move on to what might or might not be The Killers.

Strain it through a sieve and when it’s cool enough, fish out the beef (still whole). Put the stock back in the pan, with the saved beef and the beetroot. The boy has scrubbed off all the dirt first. Bring it back up to the boil and simmer for another 30 minutes.

There is a lot of stop start with this recipe. Luckily The Killers CD has finished. Bach’s Art of Fugue now.

Once it is cool rub the beetroot skin off with your fingers and grate it coarsely. Put the grated beetroot back in the soup.

Dissolve the tomato paste in ½  a cup of water – this is pretty much a tube full so use the best brand you can find – I prefer Cirio. Stir this in. Add the grated carrot, garlic, bay leaf and cabbage. I’m giving the cabbage an extra chop as the boy has done it very coarsely. Add the tomatoes, sugar and vinegar and simmer for another hour and a half. I appreciate this is almost 4 hours plus all the chopping time, but it will be worth it.

Remove the beef and strip the meat from the bones. Slice or shred it – it will be so soft it will be a combination of both. The boy’s little black cat is asking prettily so he gets a scrap or two.

Add the cooked potato and beef back to the soup, along with the dill and salt & pepper and warm it through. At least 3 minutes as this is a lot of dill. Get the boy to check the seasoning. It’s winter so he wants more of both.

Ladle into bowls and serve with a big spoonful of sour cream and chopped dill.

I would serve with a light salad but the boy points out that it has enough veg in it already.

Harissa & Preserved Lemon Butter

I’m a big believer that a steak is improved with the addition of a thick disc of flavoured butter, after serving. This one makes up in advance. Surprisingly the boy likes it – I guess a steak is robust enough to stand up to it.

A third of a pack of salted butter - about 8 tbsp

1 tbsp harissa

1 preserved lemon

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 tbsp flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

There are recipes for harissa and preserved lemons on this blog. I have preserved lemons in the cupboard from the summer and as this only uses a little harissa, I’m using shop bought. As always I favour the Phare Du Cape Bon brand.

Cut the flesh away from the preserved lemon and discard it. Finely chop the skin.

Put the butter in a food processor to break it up a bit and add the lemon peel, harissa, garlic and parsley. Whizz it until it is basically all butter again.

Spoon it out onto a piece of greaseproof paper and roll it up into a sausage, twisting the ends. Chill in the fridge until you are ready for it.

When it goes on the steak, I like to sprinkle on just a few caraway seeds to accent the harissa - and besides, it looks pretty. 

The boy thinks this would be great over barbecued chicken. I can see he is looking wistfully at the frost covered garden – I fear it is many months before he will get to try it.