How to Make Gravlax & Cured Salmon Galettes

'Tis The Season, and don't we all know it.  The festive season can be a wonderful time of the year - a time to spend time with family and friends, share some celebratory food (and a drink or two), but it can also be a highly stressful time of year.  Many of us take on too much ... trying to keep up with busy jobs, be the perfect hostess, stay on top of children's end of year activities, get the Christmas shopping done without blowing the budget ... the list goes on and on.  Not to mention all the over-indulgence on so many levels.

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs we are all about food and drink for holiday parties and entertaining, and thankfully our current guest chef, Donna Hay, has plenty of great ideas to make entertaining for the festive season a breeze.

These little salmon pastries, adapted from a recipe from the Donna Hay website are perfect for a holiday party.  They are elegant, delectable and ridiculously easy to put together.  The original recipe uses smoked salmon, and that would certainly be delicious, but since gravlax is also incredibly easy to make and a great stand-by ingredient to have on hand at this time of year, I thought I would also share my recipe.

Wishing you all much joy for what remains of the festive season, and a happy and fulfilling year ahead.

Gravlax Recipe

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

45g (1-1/2 oz) sugar

60g (2 oz) brown sugar

60g (2oz) coarse sea salt

6 to 8 juniper berries

ground black pepper

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

2 tablespoons gin, optional

600-700g piece of salmon fillet, skin on, pin bones removed

In a small bowl, mix together the sugar, brown sugar and salt, combining well.

Lay a large sheet of tinfoil (at least twice the length of the piece of salmon) on your kitchen bench, and sprinkle half the sugar/salt mixture over the centre of the foil.  Place the salmon on top of the sugar/salt mixture, and cover the fish completely with the remaining mixture.  Sprinkle juniper berries, ground pepper and fennel seeds over the top, and drizzle over the gin if using.

Note:  You could also at this time top the salmon with any of the following optional ingredients:  a fennel bulb, thinly sliced;  a large bunch of chopped dill;  zest of a lemon or 1/2 of a chopped preserved lemon;  vodka instead of gin - I imagine even tequila would work well.

Wrap the tinfoil closely around the fish and seal all edges well.

Place the package in a dish, just big enough to hold it, and weight it down.  Refrigerate for two to three days, turning it over each day.

Fish will be ready when it feels firm to touch.

Slice thinly and serve with buckwheat blini, bagels, in salads, as an addition to an appetiser platter, or atop these little galettes - even tossed through pasta is great.

Cured Salmon Galettes Recipe

Adapted from recipe by Donna Hay

Makes 8

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

1x sheet ready rolled flaky pastry

1x egg, lightly beaten

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon chopped flat leaf parsley

pinch dried tarragon flakes

1 heaped teaspoon capers

flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

8x slices of gravlax

handful of rocket leaves

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (390 degrees F).

Cut the pastry square into four equal squares, then cut each square in half - you will end up with four rectangles.  Brush the pastry rectangles with the beaten egg, and prick each one in several places with a fork.  Place the prepared pastry on a parchment lined baking sheet, and bake in the preheated oven until puffed and golden - about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together the sour cream, vinegar, parsley, tarragon, capers, salt and pepper.  Taste and adjust any of the flavourings as necessary.

Remove the baked pastry from the oven.   Top each one with a dollop of the sour cream mixture, a slice of salmon and a rocket leaf.

Serve immediately or at room temperature.

This is a great appetiser to serve for any festive occasion, or would also make a delicious, light lunch served with a fresh salad.

If you would like to get to know Donna Hay a little better, and to see all the wonderful festive fare my friends have been cooking up, then do go visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

I'll also be sharing this post this week at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely Michelle at Ms. enPlace, Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth at Beth Fish Reads, and at Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollam.

          

Christmas Round-up

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs is our December Pot Luck week - an opportunity to choose any recipe we like from our current chef (the fabulous Donna Hay), or from any one of previous eight IHCC chefs.

Turns out, time has been a bit precious for me this week, and cooking, photographing and writing about a new dish just didn't happen.  So instead I thought I would share with you a round-up of my favourite dishes from each of our chefs.

My very first post for I Heart Cooking Clubs was just as the group was winding up a six month spell with Nigella Lawson, and I shared these Chocolate Caramel Crispy Cakes ...

Despite the fact that these might seem like "kiddy" food, I can promise you that grown-ups love them too, and to this day this is one of the most viewed posts on the blog.  On a recent trip to San Francisco I made a batch of these for my 4 year old granddaughter - poor wee dot only got one of them, and the adults downed the rest!

This dish of Sauteed Chicken with Green Olives and White Wine from Mark Bittman is probably my "go-to" chicken dish.

I said it back then, and I'll say it again - this is probably the best chicken dish I've ever made.  It has great flavour, colour and texture;  is very easy to put together from ingredients you most likely already have on hand;  requires minimal preparation;  and would be a great dish to feed a crowd.

I loved so many of the dishes I made with Giada de Laurentiis, but these Espresso Caramel Bars were a real favourite.

These were pretty easy for even a reluctant baker to make - crispy, biscuit crumb base;  ooey, gooey, slightly chewy caramel centre;  fudgy, espresso, chocolate topping;  finished with a sprinkling of smoked sea salt ... I defy anyone to stop at just one!

For a variety of reasons, I didn't get to cook along with Jamie Oliver too often ...

... but this warm Salad of Cannelini Beans, Chorizo & Tomatoes is one that I've returned to over and over again.

Of all the chefs we've cooked with at IHCC, one of my absolute favourites (second only to Yotam Ottolenghi) was Tessa Kiros.  I loved so many of Tessa's dishes that picking a favourite was quite a challenge ...

but I think this Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Olives, Lemon & Yoghurt might be it.  This was one of the first recipes I bookmarked when I bought her book Falling Cloudberries, and with its thick, velvety texture, and bold, robust flavour it certainly didn't disappoint.  Lots of opportunity here to change up the toppings on this one too.

I didn't get a chance to cook too many dishes with Rick Bayless, but I know he was a big favourite with many of our other participants.

Choosing a favourite from the dishes I did make was easy ... it was hands down this Nieve de Limon (Lemon-Lime Sorbet).  I couldn't tell you how often I've made this now.  The bright, tangy citrus flavours are a refreshing treat any time of year.

Madhur Jaffrey has long been a favourite chef of mine, and a spell of cooking with her gave me the opportunity to dip into some of those cookbooks which had been gathering dust on the shelf for quite a while.  For many of our participants, exploring Indian food was a totally new experience, and I know that Madhur proved to be very popular with so many in the group.

This dish of Prawns in a Dark Sauce was simple to make, and the flavours rekindled so many childhood memories for me that I've since revisited this dish several times.

Those of you who visit here regularly won't be surprised to learn that my absolute favourite chef was Yotam Ottolenghi - I don't think I've cooked an Ottolenghi dish that I didn't like, and I find his food truly inspirational.  Trying to choose a "favourite" from the Ottolenghi dishes I've made is virtually impossible - I've loved every single one of them ...

... but I figured this Shakshuka should take first place, since it is by far one of the most frequently cooked dishes in my kitchen.

And, lastly, we come to our current chef - Donna Hay.  Our journey with Donna is still young, but this dish of Green Tea Soba Noodles with Soy-Roasted Salmon and Broad Bean & Radish Salad is already a favourite.

Quick, simple, healthy and absolutely delicious - this is definitely going to be a perennial favourite in my house.

If you would like to get to know Donna Hay a little better, and to see all the wonderful Pot Luck dishes my friends have come up with, then do go visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

Lastly, I want to thank each and every one of you for your visits, lovely comments, and most of all your friendship over the year, and I wish you and all your loved ones a very happy Christmas.  xo

Salted Caramel Coconut Macaroons

When my brother and I were kids, a popular summer outing for our family was a day trip to Hamilton for a picnic at the lake.  Although the drive between Auckland and Hamilton these days is pretty much motorway all the way, and probably takes about 45 minutes, back in the day it was mostly a single lane (in each direction) highway and the journey took the best part of an hour and a half.

Now any of you who are parents will know that 90 minutes in a hot car (there was no air-con in cars back then) with a couple of kids in the back (who are either intent on murdering each other before reaching the destination, or driving you insane with the incessant "are we nearly there yet?" whine), is no fun ... no fun at all.

As luck would have it though, round about the half-way point in the journey (that stage where tempers are running so high, I suspect that if my brother and I hadn't killed each other first, one of our parents might have been tempted to finish the job), Shands Bakery would appear on the horizon.  Without hesitation, Dad would swerve off the highway into the bakery car park, whereupon we would all pile out of the car and collect fresh bread for the picnic and a large bag of coconut macaroons.

Now we would never normally be allowed to indulge in such a treat so close to lunchtime, but parents are wise creatures ... those coconut macaroons were so moist and chewy, and so big (each one about the size of a small child's fist) that one of those babies could be guaranteed to keep an annoying child quiet for the remaining 45 minutes of the journey!!  Of course, there were always a couple kept in reserve for the return journey.

In adult years, I often think of those macaroons (not to be confused with macarons) - little mounds of egg white, coconut and sugar, baked until golden on the outside but still moist and chewy on the inside - and thought I'd like to make them.  So when our theme this week at I Heart Cooking Clubs turned out to be "Fill The Tins" (baked treats to fill the tins for the holiday season or to give as gifts), I was reminded of those macaroons and felt sure that Donna Hay would be able to help me out.  In Fast, Fresh, Simple I came across Donna's recipe for Coconut Macroon Ice Cream Sandwiches.  The macaroons sounded like they would fit the bill, but filled with ice cream probably wasn't going to work in the biscuit tin!  That was when I got to thinking that a salted caramel filling would be perfect with the chewy coconut biscuits, and would make a delightfully indulgent treat.

I hope you enjoy these as a treat to spoil yourself with a decent cup of coffee, or as gift to spoil someone else.

Salted Caramel Coconut Macaroons Recipe

Adapted from a recipe by Donna Hay

from Fast, Fresh, Simple

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

For coconut macaroons:

2 egg whites

2 cups dessicated coconut

1/2 cup sugar

For salted caramel filling:

1/2 cup sugar

70g (2-1/2 oz) butter

1/4 cup cream

generous pinch flaky sea salt

Begin by making the macaroons.  Preheat oven to 160 degrees C (320 degrees F).

In a medium sized bowl, very lightly whisk egg whites just until slightly "loosened".  Stir in coconut and sugar, and mix well until everything is thoroughly combined.

Scoop up heaped tablespoons of the mixture, and using your hands press the mixture together into a small disc.  Place on a parchment lined baking sheet, and once all the mixture has been used, place baking sheet in the preheated oven.

Bake until golden, about 10-12 minutes.  Remove from the oven and cool completely on a wire rack before filling.

Now to make the filling.  Place sugar in a medium-sized heavy bottomed saucepan, set over medium heat, and without stirring allow the sugar to dissolve and take on a caramel colour.  Remove from the heat and carefully stir in the cream - it will bubble up vigorously, so be careful.  Return pan to the heat and keep stirring for about a minute, until completely smooth.  Add the butter and salt, turn off heat, and keep stirring for another minute again until completely smooth and butter is fully integrated.  Pour into a small bowl or jug and refrigerate until cold and spreadable.

To assemble, spread a spoonful of caramel on the underside of one macaroon, and press another macaroon on top.

If you would like to get to know Donna Hay a little better, and to see all the wonderful treats my friends have been filling the tins with, then do go visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

I will also be submitting this post to Sweet New Zealand.  Inspired by Alessandra Zecchini, Sweet New Zealand is an event for all Kiwi bloggers (whether living at home or abroad), or all foreign bloggers living in New Zealand, to link up their sweet treats.  This month, Sweet New Zealand is hosted by Alice at Alice in Bakingland.

I'll also be sharing this post this week at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely Michelle at Ms. enPlace, Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth at Beth Fish Reads, at Cook Your Books hosted by Joyce at Kitchen Flavours, and at Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollam.

               

Zucchini, Mint & Haloumi Salad

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs, we're conjuring up Donna Hay dishes which are "Fast & Fabulous" - dishes which can be made in 30 minutes or less.

This dish definitely fits the bill on both fronts. It could not have been faster - about 20 minutes all up, and that included a visit to the garden to pick a lemon, a few nasturtium flowers and a bunch of fresh mint.  I'd like to say I picked the zucchini as well, but although my zucchini plant is flowering and producing they were not quite ready for picking.

It was also definitely fabulous on many levels ... great textural contrast between the crisp zucchini, velvety spinach leaves, and chewy, melted cheese;  wonderful, robust flavours - bright, herby mint, tangy, sour pomegranate molasses, the sharp saltiness of preserved lemon, and a little bit of heat from the chilli;  and, no slouch in the looks department either - this was a very pretty dish and one which would certainly wow your guests despite the miniscule time spent on it.

I made a few minor changes to the original recipe.  I cut back the pomegranate molasses as it is a strong flavour and I felt the quantity specified was a bit much, and added a little bit of olive oil to help distribute the pomegranate molasses through the salad.  I also added a bit of preserved lemon for a little extra zing.  I will certainly be making this salad many times over this summer, and although this would make a great accompaniment to a bigger meal, I was more than happy to make a meal of it on its own.

Zucchini, Mint & Haloumi Salad Recipe

Adapted from recipe by Donna Hay

from Fast, Fresh, Simple

Serves 2 as a light meal or appetiser, or

Serves 1 person as a substantial meal

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

2x small-medium zucchini

large handful of mint leaves, finely shredded

large handful or two of baby spinach leaves

flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

1/4 of a preserved lemon, flesh discarded and skin finely sliced

1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

200g haloumi, thinly sliced

extra virgin olive oil for brushing & drizzling

pinch dried chilli flakes

1x lemon halved

Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat.  Brush haloumi lightly with olive oil on both sides, and sprinkle over dried chilli flakes.  Add haloumi and lemon (cut-side down) to the preheated pan.  Cook the haloumi until golden brown on both sides, by which time the lemon flesh will also be golden and caramelised.

Meanwhile, cut the zucchini into juliennes, and add to a medium sized bowl together with the shredded mint, preserved lemon, pomegranate molasses, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper.  Toss gently until everything is combined.

To serve, arrange salad on plates and top with a few slices of the haloumi.  Drizzle with a little extra olive oil and squeeze over the caramelised lemon.

If you would like to get to know Donna Hay a little better, and to see all the wonderful fast and fabulous dishes my friends have come up with, then do go visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

I'll also be sharing this post this week at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely Michelle at Ms. enPlace, Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth at Beth Fish Reads, Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays hosted by my special friend Deb at Kahakai Kitchen, and at Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollam.

              

Roasted Strawberry Custard Tarts

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs, we continue cooking with the gorgeous Donna Hay, and our theme for the week is Easy Entertaining ... or, put another way, how to entertain effortlessly without finding yourself crying over spilt custard.

Now let me begin by telling you that I actually love to entertain.  The nurturer in me, the one who loves to feed others, enjoys nothing more more than a group of friends or family around my dinner table, and the opportunity to fill them with as much food as I can manage.  There is no amount of effort that seems like too much trouble to me.

Where it all goes off the rails for me is dessert.  No matter how much I love to cook and entertain, I hate making dessert.  There are people I know who see this part of the meal as the opportunity to really shine, to pull out all the stops and go for something truly spectacular ... I'm not one of them.  Dessert terrifies me.  It definitely has to be something which can be made the day before, so that a fall-back position can be found if it all goes wrong.  So dessert at my house will usually be some homemade ice cream or sorbet (one of the few things I'm actually quite good at, thanks to the trusty ice cream machine), maybe a pavlova (yes, on a good day, I can manage to turn out a passable pav, though I've had my failures there too), or a simple fruit platter.  Anything else really ... forget it.  My hands down favourite dessert is a Citron Tart - never made one, as there is way too much that can go wrong with that.  Second favourite dessert is my Dad's steamed pudding - never made that either, since there is the terrifying possibility that it will be either under cooked or over cooked, and worse still might completely fall apart when turned out of the pudding basin.  And that would just be downright embarrassing, especially when you're going for that "Ta Dah" moment.

So, although there were literally dozens of "Easy Entertaining" meal ideas I could have chosen from any one of my Donna Hay books (in fact nearly everything Donna produces fits that criteria perfectly), I thought that I might challenge myself, and Donna, to see if she could come up with an easy entertaining dessert idea that I could manage to put together without it all going horribly wrong.  It had to be suitable for preparing the day ahead;  it had to be easy enough for even a "dessert-dunce" to create;  and it needed to look spectacular, or impressive, or at the very least pretty.  And, I've got to say, between us we very nearly pulled it off ...

Flicking through my copy of Marie Claire Dining by Donna Hay (now published as Donna Hay Entertaining), I came across her recipe for Portugese Custard Tarts.  The recipe sounded achievable (even for me) ... store-bought flaky pastry, so no making pie crust (always a bonus);  the custard filling seemed simple enough;  and I could see that these could be made the day before - in fact you could even make the tarts the day before you want them, and make the custard the day before that if you wanted.  Recipes which can be broken down into several prepare ahead stages are always winners for me.   They sure looked kind of cute ...

... and, in fact, they also tasted pretty good just like this too, but somehow these just seemed like a little treat to enjoy with a cup of coffee, and not quite dessert.  A little something else was needed.  And then I cast my eye over the punnet of fresh strawberries I'd just brought home from the market, and remembered back to the Honey Roasted Strawberry Compote I made a while back to go over French toast.  I also remembered my lovely friend, Beth, at OMG! Yummy recently making some roasted fruit with pomegranate molasses, and thought that swapping out the balsamic vinegar in my compote for some pomegranate molasses, and adding a shot of orange liqueur, would make a wonderful topping for these little tarts and magically transform afternoon tea into dessert.

The only thing that prevented this from being completely effortless was having to clean the oven afterwards ...

... 'Nough said.  I know you won't make the same mistake.

Roasted Strawberry Custard Tarts Recipe

Adapted from a recipe by Donna Hay

from Donna Hay Dining

Makes 8

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

2x sheets ready rolled puff pastry, thawed

for custard filling

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup water

2 cups milk

2 tablespoons cornflour

2 egg yolks

1x vanilla bean

for strawberry topping

1x punnet strawberries

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses

1 tablespoon orange liqueur, such as cointreau (I used "44")

To make the custard filling, put sugar and water into a small saucepan, set over low heat, and stir constantly until the sugar has dissolved.  Increase heat until syrup is boiling, reduce heat and simmer for 1 minute.  Remove from heat.

Place cornflour in a medium sized bowl, and add just enough of the milk to mix the cornflour to a smooth paste.  Once completely dissolved, slowly add the remainder of the milk, whisking constantly.  Whisk in the egg yolks.  Slowly pour in the sugar syrup, again making sure that you whisk constantly to avoid curdling the eggs.

Return everything to the saucepan.  Split the vanilla bean lengthwise, scrape out the seeds, and add both seeds and bean to the saucepan.  Set pan over gentle heat, and stir constantly until the mixture thickens.

Remove from heat and pour into a clean bowl.  Allow to cool slightly, then cover the surface of the custard with a piece of plastic wrap - this will avoid a skin forming on the surface of the custard.  Now leave to cool completely, leaving the vanilla bean in the custard to allow maximum flavour to be infused from the bean.  (You could easily do this a day in advance.)

To make the tarts, preheat the oven to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F), and lightly grease a muffin or patty tin.  Cut pastry into 10cm (4 inch) circles, and use to line the muffin or patty tins.  Remove vanilla bean from custard, and spoon custard into the pastry shells, no more than 2/3 full.  Bake in the preheated oven until the custard is golden and firm - about 20 minutes, depending on the depth of your tins and filling.  Remove from the oven and cool slightly before removing tarts from the tin and leaving on a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the strawberry topping.  Cut strawberries in half (or quarters if they are very large), and place in an ovenproof dish which is only just big enough to fit all the strawberries snugly but in a single layer.  Drizzle over the honey, pomegranate molasses and orange liqueur, and stir gently to combine everything.  Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C (350 degrees F), until the strawberries have softened slightly, but still retaining their shape, and juices have begun to run and become syrupy.  Remove from oven and cool completely.

To complete the tarts, arrange two or three pieces of strawberry in the centre of each tart and drizzle over a little of the strawberry syrup.  Serve immediately.

If you would like to get to know Donna Hay a little better, and to see all the fabulously "easy entertaining" dishes my friends have come up with, then do go visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

I will also be submitting this post to Sweet New Zealand.  Inspired by Alessandra Zecchini, Sweet New Zealand is an event for all Kiwi bloggers (whether living at home or abroad), or all foreign bloggers living in New Zealand, to link up their sweet treats.  This month, Sweet New Zealand is hosted by my very lovely friend Mairi at Toast.

I'll also be sharing this post this week at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely Michelle at Ms. enPlace, Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth at Beth Fish Reads, and at Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollam.

         

Pearl Barley Salad with Pistachios, Fava & Pomegranate

This week is Pot Luck week at I Heart Cooking Clubs.  That means we get to choose and post any dish we like from either our current IHCC chef, the lovely Donna Hay, or any one of our previous eight chefs, which includes my personal favourite, the highly inspirational Yotam Ottolenghi.

Donna, meet Yotam ... Yotam, meet Donna.

I was a bit torn between two different recipes.  In her latest issue spring issue of Donna Hay magazine, Donna has a recipe for a Pearl Barley, Asparagus and Egg Salad.  It's so delicious I've made it a couple of times and wanted to share it with you.  With no "wilty stuff", it's the perfect salad for picnics and barbeques that can be made in advance and won't mind sitting around for a while.  With pistachios being our ingredient of the month at Tasting Jerusalem**, I was also quite keen to try Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe for Saffron Rice with Barberries, Pistachio & Mixed Herbs.

In the end, I took inspiration from both recipes, and came up with a dish which is a happy marriage of both.  I ran with the pearl barley used in Donna's recipe as opposed to the basmati rice in Ottolenghi's recipe - I love the nutty, chewy flavour and texture of the barley and found that it stands up well to plenty of bold flavour additions, like the saffron called for in the Ottolenghi recipe.  We don't have barberries here in New Zealand (leastwise not that I've found anywhere), but with the abundance of pomegranates available at the moment I decided they would make a great substitute.  Donna's recipe called for the inclusion of almonds, but the pistachios included in the Ottolenghi recipe seemed like the obvious choice.  I would have loved to use the mixture of fresh herbs, suggested by Ottolenghi, of dill, chervil and tarragon, but as I couldn't find any of those, I ran with flat leaf parsley.  I omitted the asparagus used in Donna's recipe in favour of fava (broad beans) picked fresh from the garden, and inspired by so many Ottolenghi dishes I've enjoyed, I added a generous slosh of pomegranate molasses to the dressing.  In hindsight, I'm thinking that some finely slice preserved lemon would also make a great addition to this salad.

Now, digressing for a moment, can you guess what this is?

I actually ran this photo a bit over three years ago, and there were numerous guesses for olives and grapes.  In actual fact it's pistachios.  I took this photo while I was holidaying on Paros in the Greek islands, and was fascinated to come across a whole field of pistachio trees.

Back to the recipe.  The final addition is a couple of soft boiled eggs.  I know not everyone likes runny eggs, but to be perfectly honest, if you don't like eggs with ooey, gooey, runny yolks, I would forget about adding them to this dish - I think it's the contrasting texture of the soft eggs with the chewy barley and crunchy nuts and pomegranate, as well as the oozing egg yolk combining with the other dressing ingredients that makes this dish.  I don't think a hard boiled egg would really add anything to the mix.

I hope you give this salad a try.  I found it substantial enough to make a meal of it, but with plenty of robust flavour it would also make a great accompaniment to roasted or barbequed meat dishes.  It also keeps well and leftovers are great for a "take-to-work" lunch the next day.

Pearl Barley Salad with Pistachios,

Favas & Pomegranate Recipe

Inspired by recipes from both

Donna Hay & Yotam Ottolenghi

Makes 2 substantial servings

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

3/4 cup pearl barley

1-1/2 cups vegetable stock

generous pinch saffron threads

flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup shelled pistachios

large handful pomegranate seeds

1 cup fava (broad) beans, blanched and skins removed

generous handful flat leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped

juice of 1x lemon

1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

2x soft boiled eggs

Put barley, saffron threads, stock, salt and pepper into a small saucepan.  Set pan over high heat and bring to the boil.  Reduce heat to very low, cover with a tight-fitting lid and cook for 40 minutes.  Remove from the heat, without removing the lid, and allow to stand for 10 minutes.  Rinse under cold water and drain thoroughly.

Place favas, parsley, barley, most of the pistachios, and most of the pomegranate seeds in a bowl and gently mix together.  Add lemon juice, pomegranate molasses and olive oil to the bowl and toss gently until everything is well combined.  Taste and adjust any of the flavourings and seasonings to suit your personal taste.

To serve, arrange a few peppery salad greens on a platter, and spoon the barley mixture over the top.  Finish by sprinkling over the remaining pistachios and pomegranate seeds, and the halved eggs.

If you would like to get to know Donna Hay or Yotam Ottolenghi a little better, or one of our other IHCC chefs, and to see all the wonderful pot luck dishes my friends have come up with, then do go visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

**Tasting Jerusalem is a virtual cooking community exploring the vibrant flavors and cuisine of the Middle East through the lens of Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Ottolenghi and Tamimi published by Ten Speed Press. You can follow along and cook with us by subscribing to omgyummy.com, following the hashtag #TastingJrslm on Twitter and Instagram, liking our Facebook page or joining our Google+ Community and finally checking out all of our groups’ dishes on Pinterest.

I'll also be sharing this post this week at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely Michelle at Ms. enPlace, Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth at Beth Fish Reads, Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays hosted by my special friend Deb at Kahakai Kitchen, and at Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollam.