Lime garlic chicken - after Abla

Over the recent Queen's Birthday weekend several of us journeyed from Melbourne to Canberra to stay with Margaret and Tony and to celebrate Pat Miller's 60th birthday. You can see some of my photos here. You may notice in the dinner photos that there was a lot of food. Margaret had cooked up a storm before we came and, though I had come up the night before the others with a view to helping with the cooking, there wasn't much to do!

The major themes (apart from the requisite pavlova) were Greek and Lebanese and the recipe sources were Abla Amad's the Lebanese Kitchen (now sadly out of print) and a book on Greek cooking by Andy Harris. As I had given both of these books to Margie I was pleased to see them so well used and literally stained. I always think this a sign of a well-loved cookbook!



The good thing about such a feast where we are sharing lots of dishes is that it reminds one of old favourites. One of those that I hadn't eaten for a while was Abla's chicken wings in garlic. Needless to say, once I got back to Melbourne and my kitchen and my copy of Abla's recipe book, I cooked up a variant.

As I had a whole lot of limes I substituted that for the lemon juice, I used little chicken drummettes instead of wings and I just used already prepared and purchased minced garlic from a jar. So the principle and the cooking methodology was Abla's but practically no ingredient remained the same! Well, that's how I like to cook: getting ideas from different sources and seeing what's at the shops.

Ingredients

12 chicken drummettes
1 teaspoon coarse salt
Juice of 6 limes
1.5 tablespoons minced garlic (purchased prepared)

Mode

Preheat the oven to 220c
Place the chicken pieces in a single layer in a baking dish
Sprinkle salt over
Roast for approximately 30 minutes until browned
Meanwhile squeeze limes and add minced garlic to resulting juice
Remove chicken from oven and pour over garlic and lime mixture
Stir through
Cook for another 20 minutes


These chicken pieces melt in your mouth. I served them with a simple rocket, pear and parmesan salad which we had also had at a Canberra meal over the break. I was flattered at the reception this simple main course had when I was told I was serving restaurant quality food! Well, it was: Abla's!

A few days later I tried another variant. I had some chicken breasts that I had intended grilling souvlaki style but as I still had limes that were also needing to be used, I chopped up the chicken breasts and cooked them using the same method above. They ended up being a little dry and probably didn't need the whole first 30 minutes of cooking; probably 20 would have done. But nonetheless they were delicious in salad for lunch and I'll be making them again too. Thanks, Abla, for being such an inspiration.

Ceylon Curry Pasties

Having a few days off work before and after Easter means that I have time to do a few things during the week - such as cooking and blogging about it. I have been very slack in this department recently. So what took my fancy on this cold, autumn day in Melbourne? I decided to revisit the idea of cooking pasties. I had last done this just after Christmas to cope with Christmas leftovers.



Today I wanted something warm as I stubbornly refused to turn the heating on during the day. I used a mixture of vegetables which I had on hand as well as ready made short pastry from the freezer. My friend Graham makes his own Ceylon curry powder (ingredients are secret) so I used some of that to add flavour. This made a quick, hot, tasty meal in about an hour.



Ingredients

Potatoes
Brussel sprouts
Broccoli
Red pepper
Short crust pastry
Graham's Ceylon curry powder
1 egg


Mode

Preheat oven to 220 c
Take pastry from freezer and leave to thaw for 15 minutes
Chop vegetables and place in steamer with Ceylon curry powder to taste
When vegetables are tender and pastry thawed, roll out puff pastry to desired thickness and using dinner plate or smaller plate if desired cut circles for pasties
Beat egg
Spoon vegetables onto pastry circle, making sure not to overfill
Brush edges of pastry with beaten egg
Bring the edges together and pinch to form pastry
Brush with beaten egg
Repeat to make as many pasties as desired
Bake in 220 c oven until golden (20-25 minutes)

Salmon & ricotta patties

Today was the hottest day in Melbourne's history. I think weather started being recorded in about 1855. The temperature rose to 46.4 celsius: that is 115.52 fahrenheit. We sweltered and there are fires throughout the state. Xena and Hecuba felt the heat though not as badly as they did during the last heatwave when we had 40+ temperatures for days.

In the midst of a lot of serious monitoring of fires and people at risk of evacuation, we had a lot of flippant comments on Twitter (and Facebook) about magnums, peppermint or otherwise. Then @shewgirl stopped me in my tracks by asking when I was going to blog! Good point. I wasn't going to blog about peppermint magnums but I did have a blog post waiting to write. So Tania, thanks for the wakeup call! This is for you! You may even be interested to know that during the week I had a couple of chicken schnitzels influenced by you. I bet you don't normally eat them with plum sauce though ;.)) Delicious!

Over Christmas one of the jobs I did was a major clearout of the pantry. This was needed but I also wanted to make space to store my new food-processor and my vacuum cleaner in the pantry. Well, I succeeded in all that. I also found various items that I needed to eat. Amongst the booty was a stock of canned pink salmon. Nom, nom! But what should I do with it? I had a couple of salads and then I remembered that once upon a time I used to make salmon patties. I remembered that I used ricotta in them, and think I probably also had grated carrot, grated zucchini and potato though the recipe varied according to what was in stock at the time. However, this time I decided on a much simpler recipe focusing on salmon, ricotta and the piece de resistance, dill! The mixture can be used to make patties or smaller balls which can be used for nibbles.




Ingredients

375 gr low fat ricotta
420 gr canned pink salmon
Cup dill
2 eggs
2 cloves of garlic
Breadcrumbs, dry
Olive oil


Mode

Drain salmon and ricotta
Roughly chop dill
Place salmon, ricotta and dill in bowl
Add one egg
Crush garlic cloves and add to mix
Mix thoroughly and form into patties (or small balls if desired for nibbles)
Beat remaining egg and put in a dish
Put breadcrumbs on a plate
Crumb the patties (or balls) in the egg and breadcrumbs
Let these rest in a cool place for a couple of hours
Heat some olive oil in a pan
Cook the patties until browned on the outside and cooked inside, turning regularly
Serve patties hot or cold with a salad or vegetables for a main meal
If making salmon balls, serve as nibbles with drinks.

Plums and Australia Day weekend

I came home on the Friday night before the long weekend with about 10 kilos of blood plums that a colleague had harvested off her tree. This year the harvest seemed particularly good because of the vigilance of her cat who warded off marauding birds by choosing the plum tree as a favourite place to rest. So I'll be interested to see how many more kilos of plums make their way to work this weekend. Thanks Aileen and Doyle!



But, don't misinterprete what I am saying! I wasn't a reluctant receiver of these plums: I had been waiting for them to ripen and seeking updates on their status regularly. Last year at the about the same time I took home a batch and experimented with making a batch of Maggie Beer's plum sauce. I blogged about it here later in the year when I was eating some of it and it was a great favorite with a number of friends. So I was keen to repeat the exercise. I only cooked about three kilos and made one batch last year. This year the kitchen became quite a production line as I washed plums, chopped onions, belted ginger, dashed out to buy extra sugar and vinegar, simmered it all, strained and bottled it. Finally I could stand back with relief and admire my 14 bottles of plum sauce - the product of six kilos of the plums.





I won't repeat the recipe and the method here as I basically used Maggie Beer's recipe. However, I varied it a bit and also varied the ingredients between the two batches. I used red wine vinegar in one batch according to Maggie's recipe, but in the other I used apple cider vinegar as I had a lot of it on hand. I will be interested to see the difference in taste. I was also rather loose in sticking to the recipe in terms of the onion, ginger, peppercorns and cayenne. But then I always am. I also added the strainings (ginger, plum stones, peppercorns etc) from the first batch to the cooking of the second, in addition to all the other ingredients. The strainings are also nice to keep and add to various other dishes, I found last time.



And the rest of this batch of plums? Well, I decided I would stew them. I washed them and cut off various weathered bits, then I simmered them with about a cup of apple and peach juice and half a cup of currants. That will keep me in breakfast fruit for a while.

Now to clean down all the surfaces in the kitchen which seem spattered with plum! I have had a lovely long weekend immersed in plum cooking with the Australian Open tennis playing along in the background and providing a very Melbourne January sound that brings back decades of memories.

Christmas pasties

Inevitably Christmas Day ends and there is food over! We divide the spoils and head home with ham, turkey, chicken, spanakopitta, roast vegetables, pudding, pavlova, berries - and vow that next year we will not bring so much. Well, of course, that remains to be seen. And let's face it, we always say it.

As usual I was responsible for the vegetables and did a tray of delicious vegetables roasted with garlic and rosemary. But people also said they wanted carrots and peas cooked on the stove top. So I did a big pot of those too, thinking that the vegetarians at least would eat them up. The vegetarians didn't seem too keen and like everyone else piled their plates with roast vegetables. One of them even said later she didn't like peas and carrots. Humph. Next year they are not being cooked despite what anyone requests.

Meanwhile, I went home with a big pot of peas and carrots. What could I do with these? Well, initially I stuck them in the freezer and during the week, in response to a moan about them, my friend Sue said the magic word: PASTIES. Now I hadn't made pasties for decades, but it seemed a great idea particularly once I saw a recipe in Stephanie for pasties made with ham, mustard and leeks. So I decided that I would make Christmas pasties with ham, mustard, peas and carrots!



Ingredients

1.5 cups chicken stock
2 potatoes
1 parsnip
2 cups cooked peas and baby carrots
1 egg
Ham cut from ham on bone
Dijon mustard
Puff pastry

Mode

Preheat oven to 220 c
Heat stock in pan
Peel and dice potatoes and parsnip and add to stock
Add cooked peas and carrots
Simmer until vegetables are tender
Roll out puff pastry to desired thickness and using dinner plate or smaller plate if desired cut circles for pasties
Beat egg
Place ham at bottom and add dollop of Dijon mustard (or other mustard of choice)
Spoon on vegetables, making sure not to overfill
Brush edges of pastry with beaten egg
Bring the edges together and pinch to form pastry
Brush with beaten egg
Repeat to make as many pasties as desired
Bake in 220 c oven until golden



Enjoy! Be careful not to overfill or the pasties will open up while cooking like mine did. They still tasted delicious but the look left something to be desired. And the rest of the vegetables? Well, given the unseasonal wintery weather, they became part of a vegetable soup. Of that, maybe more anon.

Preserved Lemons

I love preserved lemons and always have some on the go, usually from Maggie Beer but also from resourceful friends. But I had never actually preserved any myself. Cleaning out the pantry was the trigger for this burst of activity, as was having a few days at home. I found two jars of coarse kitchen salt at the back of the pantry: I had bought it when I was into making my own olives. So what could I do with it? A friend said she wished she had known about my stock before she had to buy some to make preserved lemons! Now was the time to preserve lemons, especially as I was doing a census of my empty jars.

I read recipes in Stephanie's bible and also had a look at Claudia Roden. And let's face it did a bit of a Google too. Some recipes require storing for at least a month, while other recipes suggest tips for practically instant gratification such as freezing the lemons or cooking them in advance. A special touch Greg Malouf gives is to add honey: I knew this because I have bought his ready made. After all this, I decided to do the non-instant variety, to marinate them (as it were) overnight, to add cloves, cinnamon stick, bay leaves, coriander seeds, and then to mix some honey with the final lot of lemon juice a la Malouf. We'll see how they turn out in a month or so.



Ingredients

7 large, thick-skinned lemons
1 cup coarse kitchen salt
3 dry bay leaves
cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
coriander seeds
1 dessertspoon honey

Mode

Scrub and quarter the lemons and place in a large stainless steel bowl
Pour in salt and mix well
Cover and leave for 24 hours
Break up bay leaves and cinnamon sticks and put cloves and coriander seeds at hand
Pulpate lemons in salt to release as much juice at possible
Pack lemon quarters into jars with rind facing the edge, pressing down hard to release juice
Insert pieces of bay leaf and cinnamon stick and cloves and coriander on different layers as packing
Heat dessertspoon with hot water and spoon honey into remaining lemon and salt mix
Place the bowl briefly on fire and stir until honey is melted
Spoon the salty mixture into the jars, pressing down firmly to ensure that liquid penetrates and covers all the fruit
Wipe jars and cap tightly
Store for at least a month in cool spot.

Then enjoy either as a condiment with fish or cold meats, or for cooking. These should last for years without refrigeration, says Stephanie!

Christmas tortilla

This afternoon was Christmas with family and friends in Edinburgh Gardens. Despite a week of wet, solid rain (which we love to have in a drought), today was a beautiful day. And didn't everyone make the most of it in Edinburgh Gardens? There were weddings and so many groups of people coming and going all day: eating, drinking, children and dogs playing, talking, reading the paper. There were so many groups: we were all part of a community, and yet all private and separate. How lucky am I to have this as my local park!

At this event we always take food. I had been asked to bring spanakopitta, but didn't fancy running down the street with a baking tray of hot spanakopitta in the full knowledge that by the time everyone came it would be cold. So I went back to an old stand-by, Spanish omelette or tortilla, and decided to give it a Christmas edge by adding some red and green pepper to the vegetables. Classic Spanish omelette is just eggs and potato, so the peppers added a Christmas touch.




Ingredients

4 large potatoes
3 cloves garlic
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
8 eggs
Olive oil

Mode

Heat enough oil in pan to coat potatoes
Peel and slice thinly the potatoes
Place in pan and toss to cover with oil
Cover pan and cook for about 10 minutes turning every now and again
Crush garlic and add
Seed and slice peppers and add to potatoes
Mix to coat with oil and cook for another few minutes
Meanwhile, quickly beat the eggs in a large bowl
When vegetables are soft, strain and add to eggs
Mix vegetables and eggs
Clean pan and add and heat more oil
When a haze shows on the oil, pour in egg and vegetable mixture
Cook until sides and bottom cooked, shaking regularly to stop sticking
Take pan from fire and cover with a plate
Quickly turn over the plate and pan and leaving the torilla on the plate
Add more oil to pan and heat
When a haze shows, slide the tortilla from the plate into the pan
Cook for a few minutes, shaking regularly
Take pan from the fire and cover with plate
Turn the plate and pan over allowing the tortilla to rest on plate
Serve hot or cold as tapas or main course with salad