Taramasalata

I was amazed in my journeys through ImCooked and TasteSpotting not to hit any recipes for taramasalata - and yes, I did try a range of variant titles. I was thinking that I needed to get out all my Greek cookbooks and post a recipe or even do some cooking and work out my own favoured variant. I confess that it is a very long time since I cooked any Greek dips as so many wonderful ready-made examples are available in Melbourne off the shelf. Given Melbourne's reputation as being the third largest Greek city in the world, this is not surprising ;>).

So before I got to the recipe books, I hit Google and found an Australian recipe there on Taste.com.au - the photo is from there. Gourmet traveller also had one and Delia online did too. Mietta's recipes did too, though I thought the addition of cream a bit over the top. And they are just a couple that I picked out! Fortunately making taramasalata is alive and well on Google! How relieved am I! Particularly as it means that I won't have to do major research into the variants and possibilities of tarama just yet.

Lahanodolmades from Closet Cooking

How amazingly bizarre! I went out and had dinner at a Hungarian place in Glenhuntly Road and the minute I saw cabbage rolls on the menu that was what I had to have. I came home and checked Bloglines only to discover that Kevin at Closet Cooking had featured lahanodolmades, the Greek version of cabbage rolls with avgolemono sauce. Yum! Here's the photo of Kevin's cabbage rolls and his recipe:

Ingredients:
1 cabbage (cored)
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 onion (chopped)
4 cloves garlic (chopped)
1 pound lean ground beef (or lamb)
1/2 cup Arborio rice
1/4 cup tomato puree
1/2 cup feta (crumbled)
1 lemon (zest)
1 bunch of green onions (sliced)
1/4 cup dill (chopped)
1/4 cup mint (chopped)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
* chicken stock
2 eggs

1 lemon (juice)

Directions:
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil with some salt.
2. Carefully place the head of cabbage into the water and boil for 10-15 minutes. The leaves should be a little see through and they should come off easily without ripping.
3. Drain the water and carefully peel the leaves off one by one removing the thick part of the rib of each leaf.
4. Heat the oil in a pan.
5. Add the onion and saute until tender, about 5-7 minutes.
6. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant, about 1 minute and remove from heat.
7. Mix the onions, garlic, ground beef, rice, tomato puree, feta, lemon zest, green onions, dill, mint salt and pepper in a large bowl.
8. Place a cabbage leaf on a flat surface with the vein side up.
9. Place a tablespoon of filling in the middle of the leaf and fold the sides over the filling and roll the leaf up. Repeat until all of the filling is used up.
10. Place stuffed leaves into a baking dish in layers and just cover with chicken stock.
11. Bake in a 375F oven for about 1 hour.
12. Whisk the eggs in bowl over a small pan of simmering water until frothy, about 3 minutes.
13. Slowly pour in the lemon juice while whisking.
14. Add some of the liquid from the baking dish and continue whisking until it thickens.
15. Mix most of the avgolemono sauce into the dish with the wraps reserving some for garnish.

16. Serve garnished with the reserved avgolemono sauce and some chopped dill and or mint.

The Librarian and the Kitchen

No, this isn't a blog about Stephanie Alexander, though no doubt she or her bible will feature here in days to come! When I was doing #57 in Learning 2.1 I came across a fabulously yummy website, TasteSpotting which linked me to a myriad of blogs about food.

One of my many foibles is to gather recipes on bits of paper cut from newspapers or magazines or scribbled on the back of envelopes. How great it would be to sort them out and gather them in one place along with clips of online recipes or food articles.

A wiki was something I thought about, but the blog is sortable and a bit more free-form. Hence, the Librarian and the Kitchen which has many layers of meaning. The next step will be to sort and declutter!