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.

          

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.

         

Roasted Pepper & Baked Egg Galette aka Simply Sensational Lunch for One

The beginning of September is just days away now, and in my part of the world that means the start of spring (yay! happy dance).  I always feel so much better about life in general once we cross that threshold from winter into spring ... days get longer and warmer, and all my favourite leafy greens and vegetables (asparagus and broad beans) are on the horizon.

It's a great time of year to recharge one's batteries.  It's a time when I find some renewed vigor for my yoga practice, and don't mind dragging myself out of bed at 5.30am to do a practice before heading off to work.  It's also a great time for a bit of an internal spring clean too - reboot the digestive system, liver function, etc, which can all get a bit sluggish after all the comfort eating of winter.

So, starting next week, I'm going to do a bit of a cleanse/detox for the next month.  For the first week, at least, that's going to mean no coffee, no alchohol, no meat, no shellfish, no wheat, no dairy (with the exception of natural yoghurt), no sugar, no salt, no soy (except for miso).  On the plus side, it's also going to mean loads of fresh fruit and vegetables, legumes, nuts, oily fish, juices and salads.  After the first week, I'll be slowly reintroducing small quantities of unrefined sweeteners (such as honey), seasonings and soy products, shellfish and eggs, but I'm planning to stay completely caffeine, alchohol, meat, wheat and dairy free for the whole month - you have no idea what a challenge that is going to be for me!!

Until then, I'm spending the next few days making the most of what will shortly become forbidden foods, and using up a few ingredients that might be too tempting to have hanging around.  Pies and Tarts (our theme this week at I Heart Cooking Clubs) will definitely be on the forbidden list, but until then this Roasted Pepper and Baked Egg Galette seemed like a good way to use up the last sheet of ready-rolled puff pastry kicking about in the freezer, along with some sour cream which might prove to be too much of a temptation for me next week.

I adapted this recipe from one by Yotam Ottolenghi from his stunning book "Jerusalem: A Cookbook", adjusting quantities to make a stunning (but incredibly simple) lunch for one, and to suit ingredients I had on hand.

The original recipe called for roasting fresh red peppers, together with onions and herbs, for the topping for the tarts.  This of course adds considerable time and effort to the final dish (not ideal for a quick lunchtime fix).  Couple this with the fact that fresh peppers are out of season and astronomically expensive in the southern hemisphere right now, and the whole freshly roasted pepper thing was just not going to fly.  As luck would have it though, back when they were in season, I had roasted several batches of red peppers and preserved them in olive oil with garlic and bay leaves.  These then made the perfect, fuss-free topping for my galette.

I don't know about you, but lunch is frequently a meal that I consume on my own, and I sometimes feel a bit stuck for interesting lunch ideas.  Sure, soup or cheese on toast, or even a simple salad are great fall-backs, but sometimes I want something a little more interesting.  This galette was the perfect answer, and very simple to make.  It was utterly delicious, and the combination of flaky pastry, sour cream, garlic infused peppers and creamy egg actually tasted and felt quite decadent.  It definitely tasted like something that had required a whole heap of effort, not just the five minutes it took to put together.  It was wonderful on its own, but you could certainly make a more substantial meal out of this by adding a salad on the side.  This would be great for a picnic too if you feel moved to take lunch outdoors, and of course you could easily make this for a crowd just by multiplying the ingredients to suit.  I'm certainly making this again - I hope you'll give it a try too.

I've kept things pretty loose in this recipe - use your discretion.  For example, how many roasted peppers you use will depend, firstly on their size to begin with, and also whether you are roasting them fresh or using bottled ones.  You could also swap out the dried oregano for some other herb that takes your fancy - maybe some fresh thyme or flat-leaf parsley.  You could use creme fraiche or even ricotta instead of the sour cream or mascarpone.  You could add some toasted nuts for a little extra texture if you felt like it.  Really this recipe is just a suggestion - interpret it anyway you like.

Roasted Pepper & Baked Egg Galette

Adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi

from Jerusalem: A Cookbook

Makes one sensational serving

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

1x sheet of ready-rolled puff pastry

1x free-range egg, lightly beaten

sour cream or mascarpone

roasted red peppers

1x free-range egg, whole

flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

dried oregano

Preheat oven to 220 degrees C (425 degrees F).

Trim pastry to a 15cm x 15cm (6" x 6") square.

Set pastry square on a parchment lined baking sheet, and prick all over with a fork.  Brush pastry square all over with the lightly beaten egg.

Spread sour cream or mascarpone over the pastry, leaving a 1cm (1/2") border free around the edges.  Arrange roasted peppers over the sour cream (pile on as many as you like), leaving a shallow well in the centre for the egg to be added later.

Put pastry into the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes, until the pastry is puffed and golden.  Remove from oven, and break the whole egg into the well in the middle of the peppers.  Sprinkle over sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and a sprinkling of oregano.

Return to the oven for approximately 5 to 8 minutes, until the egg is set to your liking - set white with runny yolk is ideal.

Remove from the oven and devour immediately, relishing every solitary moment - do not share!!

If you would like to get to know Yotam Ottolenghi a little better, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and see what they've all cooked up ...

... or check out Jerusalem and Ottolenghi's other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK or Fishpond NZ.

           

I'll also be sharing this post at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely, and very amusing, Michelle at Ms. enPlace, at Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads, at Foodie Friday hosted by Designs by Gollam, and at My Meatless Mondays hosted by Chaya at My Sweet and Savory.

              

The Best & Worst of the Internet and Gorgeously Green with Ottolenghi

As the title of this post suggests, this week I've experienced the very best and worst of what the internet has to offer.  I've been the victim of some unwanted and rather "creepy" attention - a sad reminder that not everyone out there uses the internet with the same decency and respect that you or I might.  However, I'm not going to dwell on that.  At the same time, I've been reminded just how much the internet in general, and the food blogging community in particular, can enrich our lives.

When I first started my blog, a little over four years ago, it was really to find an outlet for expressing my food and travel experiences, and a place to record the food that I love to share with family and friends, so that others may be able to share it too.  It never for one moment occurred to me that this would become an avenue for meeting some truly wonderful people and developing great friendships.

The very first time I arranged a meeting with a fellow blogger, it seemed a little strange.  The lovely Sasa and I had been visiting each other's blogs for a little while, and exchanged a few tweets.  When we both happened to be visiting family in Auckland at the same time we decided to meet for a coffee.  I have to say, I hadn't gone out to meet a complete stranger since the last time I'd gone on a blind date (most unsuccessfully I might add), almost 30 years earlier.  So I was nervous.  What would she be like?  Would we find plenty to talk about?  You know ... the usual stuff.  I needn't have worried.  From the instant we met there was never an awkward moment.  And what do two food bloggers meeting for the first time talk about?  Well, you might reasonably expect that it would be about food, right?  But no.  We talked about relationships, both past and present;  our families, and our relationships with them;  travel;  yoga;  studying and making a new start;  old jobs and old habits;  hopes for the future;  and so on.  In short, all the things that a couple of friends who'd known each other for years might talk about.

And so it has been with every food blogger that I have gone on to meet since.  I know now, without a shadow of a doubt, that a passion for food and generosity of spirit go hand in hand.  I know now that the common denominator in this food blogging community is not just the obvious love of good food - it's warmth, passion, kindness, compassion, generosity, a zest for life, humour, creativity, and so much more.

Through my love of all things Ottolenghi, which you're all by now very well aware of, I came across Beth Corman Lee's blog OMG! Yummy and, through her blog, discovered the wonderful Tasting Jerusalem community, hosted by Beth and her long-time friend Sarene Wallace.  From the outset, I was impressed not just with Beth's lovely food, but also her warmth and enthusiasm, her genuine excitement at discovering and experimenting with new ingredients as we cook together, and her very obvious hunger (pardon the tragic food pun) to learn more.

So, once I planned this trip to the Bay Area of San Francisco, and discovered that Beth lived nearby, I knew that I wanted to meet her.  And, despite her busy family life, and my fairly busy holiday schedule, we managed to connect this week and arrange to meet for lunch in Mountain View (the small city in Silicone Valley where I am staying).

The main street of Mountain View is a lovely tree-lined boulevard, with probably half a mile of side by side cafes (both sides of the street), covering just about every type of cuisine you can imagine.  I can tell you that the smells wafting up the street, come midday, are absolutely amazing.  So as you might expect, we agreed to meet outside a cafe, and then we strolled, eyeing up the many choices on offer.  It didn't take us long to discover a Mediterranean cafe called Ephesus, with predominantly Greek and Turkish influences, that looked promising.  When the menu revealed to us a number of dishes that, through our shared love of Ottolenghi's food, we had either tried or have on the "must try" list, we knew this was the place for us.

Of course, starting our meal with the hummus was a no-brainer, and discussion of its merits by comparison to those of Ottolenghi's naturally ensued.  On the recommendation of our waiter, Beth opted for The Alexander - a veritable mountain of shaved lamb and beef in a rich tomato sauce, served over chunks of bread, with a cooling pool of yoghurt on the side.  As soon as I noticed Maqluba on the menu, I couldn't not have it.  Maqluba is a layered savoury "cake" of tomatoes, aubergine, chicken, cauliflower, rice and spices, and I've had this one marked to try in my Jerusalem book since the day I bought it.  I loved the way at Ephesus they had made the dish in individual moulds, and now I can't wait to get home and try making this dish.

So, food aside, just as in the case of every other food blogger I've ever met, my conversation with Beth revolved around family, children, growing up, our travels - places we've been and places we hope to go, work history, our hopes for the future, and our time together ran out long before we ran out of things to talk about.  It was such a joy to meet Beth and lovely to make a new friend.

Speaking of Ottolenghi, at I Heart Cooking Clubs this week our theme is Gorgeously Green.  Now I've been cooking like a mad thing this week - lasagne, shepherds pie, fish and caper kebabs, Jamie Oliver's fantastic fish pie, a batch of Nigella's flourless chocolate brownies, a batch of chocolate caramel crispy cakes, a batch of these divine raw lemon & coconut truffles, and numerous big batches of roasted tomato pasta sauce - all to stock up the freezer for my daughter before I head back home to New Zealand.  But in terms of coming up with something gorgeously green to share with you this week, well I'm afraid I just dropped the ball and somehow it didn't happen.  To compensate, however, I thought I'd give you a little bit of a round-up of a few gorgeously green Ottolenghi dishes I've made and shared in the past.  Hope you find something you enjoy.

Baked Artichokes & Broad Beans:  This was one of the first Ottolenghi dishes I ever made, and still one of my favourites.  The use of artichokes and broad beans makes this a quintessentially spring dish, but with both vegetables being readily available jarred and frozen this is a great dish to bring a little bit of the lightness of spring to the table any time of the year.  Leftovers I found kept well for a couple of days.

Broccoli, Leek & Blue Cheese Pie:  This pie got rave revues in my house when I first made it - so much so that I was called upon to make it twice in one week.  It is both easy and economical to make, tastes great both hot and cold, and reheats well should you be lucky enough to have leftovers.  In actual fact the leek filling tastes so good that half of it usually doesn't even make it into the pie, and I imagine it could be used as a great accompaniment to some grilled or roasted chicken.

Fried Zucchini, Pea & Quinoa Salad:  This is one of those great recipes that you can play around with to suit what you have on hand.  Apart from the fried zucchini, which is really the hero of the dish, anything else goes.  In this instance I used peas instead of edamame, quinoa instead of pasta, and feta instead of buffalo mozzarella.  Get the picture?! 

If you would like to get to know Yotam Ottolenghi a little better, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and see what they've all cooked up ...

... or check out Jerusalem and Ottolenghi's other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK or Fishpond NZ.

           

Sweet Potato Galettes

This has been a week of surprises.

First of all I discovered how incredibly easy it is to make your own sour cream.  Simply add the juice of one lemon to one cup of cream.  Stir and you will feel it begin to thicken slightly almost immediately.  Leave out on your kitchen bench for three or four hours, giving it a bit of a stir from time to time.  It will become noticeably thicker during that time.  Now line a sieve with a clean piece of muslin.  Pour the cream into the cloth-lined sieve and set over a small bowl.  Put into the fridge overnight.  The next morning you will be rewarded with beautiful thick, tangy sour cream.

Speaking of rewards, my second surprise this week came in the form of a rolling pin.  Ever since losing my rolling pin in the Christchurch earthquake, I've been making doing with a wine bottle.  Now a wine bottle does a passable job, but it does have its limitations.  For example, you can't use a wine bottle as a substitute meat tenderiser to bash the bejeezus out of a chicken breast, or to smash up a bag of cookies for a cheesecake base.  I am a huge fan of Joseph Joseph kitchen gadgets - I love the range of gorgeously stylish products, that work every bit as well as they look.  I'm so enamoured of the "form meets functionality" of their products, that I have several items in my kitchen cupboards, and have for ages been coveting the adjustable rolling pin.  So it was a wonderful surprise when I was gifted this rolling pin as a reward for my efforts at work.  (For the record, although we sell these products in my workplace, no-one is paying me to tell you this - I'm sharing this with you solely because I absolutely love these products).  Oh, and by the way, for the benefit of my New Zealand readers, you can buy Joseph Joseph products at Stevens Homewares.

You'd think that two surprises in one week would be enough.  But no, surprise number three came in the form of these Sweet Potato Galettes from, you guessed it Yotam Ottolenghi.  Of course I should not have been surprised - I know well enough by now, and you will too if you've been visiting here for a while, that Ottolenghi is capable of taking a few seemingly unsurprising ingredients and turning them into a flavour and texture explosion which is so much greater than you might expect.

At I Heart Cooking Clubs this week we're sharing A Little Bit of Sunshine with Ottolenghi dishes in sunny hues of orange and yellow.  These gorgeous galettes seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

As usual, I've added a little bit of a personal twist to the recipe.  Flaky puff pastry is smeared with sour cream, which was homemade.  Also, remembering how well the hit of lime worked with sweet potatoes in this recipe, I couldn't resist adding some freshly grated lime zest.  I also subbed in some blue cheese instead of goat's cheese, and replaced pumpkin seeds with walnuts.

The end result is a sensation - full-on flavour, and fantastic contrasting textures.  Crisp, flaky, buttery pastry, smothered in tangy sour cream, given a bit of extra zip with a hit of lime;  softness and sweetness of the potatoes meets creamy, salty blue cheese, and crunchy walnuts;  all topped off with a bit of heat from chilli and garlic and a touch of freshness in the parsley.  Now, who wouldn't find that surprising?

Sweet Potato Galettes Recipe

Adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi

from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook

Makes 4

Vegetarian

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

2x medium sweet potatoes

250g puff pastry (I used store bought)

1x free-range egg, lightly beaten

sour cream

grated zest of 1x lime

blue cheese, crumbled

walnuts, coarsely chopped

1x red chilli, finely chopped (remove seeds if desired)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1x clove garlic, finely chopped

handful freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley

flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F).

Bake potatoes in their jackets until they soften, but are still firm in the centre - about 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, roll pastry out on a lightly floured surface to about 2mm (1/16 inch) thick.  Cut into four rectangles, approximately 7cm x 14 cm (3 in x 6 in), and prick them all over with a fork.  Place the pastry rectangles on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and rest in the fridge for about half an hour.

Once sweet potatoes are cool enough to handle, remove skins and cut into 3mm (1/8 in) thick slices.

Remove pastry from the fridge, and brush lightly with the beaten egg.  Place a spoonful of sour cream on each piece of pastry, and spread leaving a small border on all edges.  Sprinkle a little grated lime zest over each one.  Arrange sweet potato slices over the top, keeping the border clear.  Season with flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Sprinkle a little blue cheese, walnuts and chilli over the top of each one.

Bake in the oven until the pastry is golden and cooked through - about 20 to 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix together olive oil, parsley and garlic, and brush pastries with the mixture as soon as they come out of the oven.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Two of these per person, accompanied by a simple salad, make a delicious light meal, or serve one per person as an appetiser.  And if you're lucky enough to be enjoying some real sunshine and summer weather where you live, these would make sensational picnic food.

If you would like to get to know Yotam Ottolenghi a little better, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and see what they've all cooked up ...

... or check out Ottolenghi: The Cookbook and Ottolenghi's other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK or Fishpond NZ.

         

I will also be sharing this post at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the delightful Michelle at Ms. enPlace.

Tomato Basil Jam & Tomato, Feta & Basil Tarts

The wet and blustery, autumnal start to the day this morning notwithstanding, we are still blessed with glorious, sunny weather and tomato season continues unabated.  Sure, the great tomato harvest of 2013 in my own garden has now finished, other than now gathering the mass of green tomatoes which I know are not going to ripen - more of this amazing Green Tomato Cake coming up this weekend I think, and probably some pickled green tomatoes, which I will no doubt share with you.  In the meantime, I wanted to share with you this Tomato Basil Jam I made a few weeks ago using my own tomatoes, but tomatoes are still plentiful and cheap at the farmers market for those of you who want to try this before the season finishes.

This is another recipe I adapted from the book A Passion for Preserves by Frederica Langeland, which I told you about a couple of weeks ago.

Tomato Basil Jam

Adapted from recipe by Frederica Langeland from

A Passion for Preserves

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

 

3 kilos (6 pounds) tomatoes

3x lemons

2x generous handfuls of basil leaves

3 cups sugar

Remove skins from the tomatoes - cut a small cross in the base of each tomato, put into a large bowl and cover with boiling water for 30-60 seconds.  Remove and plunge into cold water.  The skins will slip off easily.

Cut the tomatoes into quarters.  Set a strainer over a bowl and then, working over the strainer, scoop the seeds and juice out of the tomatoes into the strainer.  Put the tomato flesh directly into a large pot or preserving pan.  Using a wooden spoon press any of the pulp through the strainer, extracting as much juice and pulp as you can.  Discard the seeds that are left behind in the strainer, and add the extracted juice and pulp to the tomatoes in the pan.

Slowly bring the contents of the pan to the boil.  Then reduce the heat and simmer for about 45 minutes or until the volume has been reduced to about half.

Add the sugar to the pan, stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved, then increase heat and boil fairly rapidly for about 10 minutes, until thick and "jam like".

Meanwhile, cut the lemons into quarters and flick out any pips.  Put the lemon quarters into a food processor, skins and all, along with the basil leaves, and blitz to a puree.

Now add half of the lemon-basil puree to the pan, stir to combine well, and then taste.  Then add more of the remaining lemon-basil puree, a little at a time, according to your own taste.

Spoon the hot jam into sterilised jars, until filled to about 3mm (1/8 in) from the top.  Seal with a sterilised screw lid.  Once opened, store in the fridge.

This makes a delicious accompaniment to an antipasto platter, to cold or grilled meats, slathered in a sandwich, wrap or burger, or anywhere that you might otherwise use something like chilli jam or sweet chilli sauce.  You could also use this on a pizza as an alternative to a traditional tomato sauce.

I love it on these simple tomato tarts.  Now, much as I love to make things from scratch, I did not make my own pastry and, in the immortal words of Jamie Oliver, I can think of no circumstance in which I would make my own flaky pastry.  That said, if you feel up to the challenge - then knock yourself out.  You can find a great recipe for making flaky pastry on this post from the lovely Alli at Pease Pudding, which post incidentally inspired these tarts.

Tomato, Feta & Basil Tart

Vegetarian

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

Quantities are not critical here - this is really more of a method than a precise recipe

For each person, you will need:

1x square ready-made flaky pastry

generous dollop or two of Tomato Basil Jam (recipe above)

or substitute with a tomato pasta sauce or similar

fresh tomatoes, thickly sliced

feta cheese, approx 75g (2-3 oz)

fresh basil leaves, roughly torn

olive oil

flaky sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Use a bowl or plate to cut a circle from the square of flaky pastry.  Place pastry circle on a sheet of non-stick baking paper, and set on a baking sheet.  Without cutting all the way through, lightly score a second circle in the pastry, approximately 1cm (1/2 inch) in from the edge.  Using a fork prick the inner circle of the pastry all over.

Smear a generous dollop or two of the tomato basil jam all over the inner circle of pastry.  Now arrange tomato slices decoratively on top of the jam.  Crumble the feta and sprinkle over the top, and strew with torn up basil leaves.  Drizzle with olive oil and season with flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for approximately 20 minutes, until the pastry is golden and puffed up around the edges.

Of course this is delicious straight out of the oven, but personally I like it served at room temperature.  If not serving immediately, slide the pastry off the baking paper and cool on a wire rack.

I'm also sharing this post at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely Michelle at Ms. enPlace.

Spicy Vegetable "Samosas"

Our theme at I Heart Cooking Clubs this week, where we are cooking with the fabulous Madhur Jaffrey for the next six months, is "Spice Bazaar".  So many herbs and spices conjure up such wonderful memories for me.  I told you last week about my grandmother's spice cupboard - in a time when you typically would not have found much other than a bit of ground cinnamon and ground ginger in the cupboards of your typical Kiwi housewife, this was a pretty unique feature.  How I used to love the aromas of cumin, cardamom, turmeric and garam masala, smells which still transport me back to my childhood, though as a kid I never for a moment realised that wasn't the norm.  Not content with just her packets of ground spices, my grandmother also kept a small kitchen garden at the back door.  This wee garden always boasted several chilli plants, the ubiquitous clumps of parsley & mint, and lots of coriander plants.  Of course she would use this fresh, but she would also deliberately allow some of the plants to go to seed so that she would have a constant supply of coriander seeds.  Whilst such things might be common in many New Zealand gardens today, that was certainly not the case back then.

The other day I needed a bit of portable food to take to work for my dinner break.  With a bit of filo pastry in the fridge that needed to be used up, I thought some Spicy Vegetable Samosas would fit the bill perfectly.  Now do note that I am taking a bit of creative license here with the term samosa.  A true samosa normally uses quite a unique pastry which, after filling and folding, is then deep fried.  I'm still determined to give that a try, but on this occasion the filo was to hand, which made for a great substitute as well as saving on a bit of time.

The filling was delicious and "homely", and although I don't recall my grandmother ever making samosas, some similar kind of "savoury" - a flaky puff pastry case with a filling such as this - would have been far more likely to grace a plate for a gathering than the typical sausage roll.  Personally, I found these to be only very mildly spiced on the heat scale.  That said, the other mouth I feed declared them to be way too hot, so depending on your tastes you may want to cut back a bit on either the chilli or the cayenne pepper.

Spicy Vegetable Samosas Recipe

Adapted from a recipe by Madhur Jaffrey from

Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery

Makes 12

Vegetarian

12 sheets filo pastry

sunflower oil

4x medium sized potatoes (about 800g - 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 lb)

4 tablespoons sunflower oil

1/2 medium sized leek, thinly sliced

175g (6 oz) frozen peas, thawed

5cm (2 inch) piece fresh ginger, grated

1 small green chilli, deseeded & finely chopped

3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh coriander

3 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

juice of 1x lemon

Cut potatoes in half and boil in their skins until fork tender.  Drain and set aside to cool completely.  Once potatoes have cooled completely, remove skins and cut into small dice.  You want the cubes of potato to be roughly the size of the peas.

Heat the 4 tablespoons of oil in a large pan over medium heat.  Add the leeks and fry until softened, and just barely beginning to turn golden.  Add  peas, ginger, chilli, fresh coriander and water.  Stir for a few minutes until everything is well combined and peas are warm and tender.

Add potatoes, salt, ground coriander, garam masala, cumin, cayenne and lemon juice to the pan.  Stir to combine, and cook over gentle heat for a few minutes, stirring from time to time.  Taste and add a little more salt or lemon juice if necessary.

Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Lay sheets of filo pastry out on a clean tea towel on your kitchen bench.  You will be working with one sheet at a time and, as sheets can dry out and become brittle very quickly, you should keep the remaining sheets of filo covered with a damp tea towel while you work.

Place a single filo sheet on another clean tea towel in front of you, and begin to fill and fold your pastries, following the directions in the following photos:

Lay sheet of filo on tea towel with long edge towards you and brush lightly with with oil

Fold in one third from one of the short ends, and then brush the folded-in section with a little more oil

Fold in the remaining third and again brush with a little oil

Place filling in a roughly "triangular" shape on the bottom left corner of the filo

Fold the bottom right corner of the filo over the filling

Now keep folding, end over end, until you get to the top.

Then fold the end over and brush with a little more oil to seal.

Once all the pastries have been folded, place them on a baking sheet, seam side down, brushing the top lightly with a little more oil.  Put into a warm oven, preheated to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F), and bake until golden brown and crispy - about 35 minutes.

Remove from oven.  Can be served hot straight from the oven, or these are just as good warm or at room temperature.

If you would like to get to know Madhur a little better, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and see what they've all cooked up ...

... or check out Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking and many of Madhur's other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK or Fishpond NZ.

         

I am sharing this post this week with my friends Michelle at Ms. enPlace hosting See Ya In the Gumbo, and with April at The 21st Century Housewife hosting Gallery of Favourites.