pass it on

Food waste is a crime and I am guilty as charged m’lud.

While lamenting my cooking mojo, contents of my fridge lie in risk of rotting. With a busy week ahead, featuring too many late nights’s home from work, I excavated the nether regions of my pantry to unearth some dried beans. While I was there I threw out the sad culprits who’d more than hit their use by date. In my defence the offending items were ones that I’d inherited when the Significant Eater first moved in many years ago.

Cooking beans is easy. Soak overnight. Drain, rinse and boil the next morning. It seemed to have upset people when I wrote previously that I could cook up a batch of beans before going to work. I do like a leisurely start to the day and am happy to sacrifice sleep for the pleasure of sipping a hot beverage while reading the digital news, wrangling the cat and organising my day.

It’s a Virgo thing.

The aforementioned planning involved making a batch of chilli beans – take a big dollop of homemade harissa, onion and assorted end of the week vegetables (pumpkin, parsnip and a lanky carrot, finely grated), simmer with tomato paste and vegetable stock. Throw on the heat diffuser mat and ignore for an hour or two.

But there was a problem. I’m home alone at the moment and not fond of leftovers. In fact I’ll do anything to avoid eating the same food two nights in a row (with the exception of the gingery tomato-y tofu dish, I think the sugary content makes it highly addictive). So night one was augmented with not-feta and night two, a handful of marinated olives.

There was no way there’d be a night three. A man-size serve remained. But throwing it out seemed criminal. In desperation, I texted my neighbour. Her adult son became vegan this year and lives a few blocks away, was he coming to dinner tonight? It turned out he wasn’t but her husband loves hot food (she doesn’t) and would be very happy for a chilli hit.

Problem solved.

One of the unexpected pleasures of passing it on is the boomerang effect. On my doorstep this morning was the plastic container with a note of thanks scribbled on some butchers paper, inside was nestled four of the cutest eggs.

Perhaps my cooking mojo just needs a little bit of neighbourhood recycling to kick it back to life?

Frittata anyone?

Starring

Summer Beans
Chilli Beans – soaked plus a twist of smoky paprika
Chili Beans – the breakfast leftover version

Co-starring
Tofu and
Eggplant in a Gingery Tomato Sauce

Crew – the Mighty Fridge Fixings

Stripped Back Harissa Paste
Marinated Olives

from the garden: a simple chickpea and silverbeet curry recipe

Home late, craving good honest vegetables. I’d had the foresight to soak some chickpeas overnight and cook them before leaving for work. Why does such a simple act make me feel disproportionately virtuous? Really it’s no effort at all and the legumes cooked in 40 minutes, easy.

This easy combo hit the spot, with a nice rounded, spiciness thanks to the homegrown chilli.

Simple chickpea and silverbeet curry recipe

(quantities are flexible, just make sure there is enough liquid)
Vegetable oil
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 fresh green chilli, finely sliced
a small knob fresh ginger, finely chopped
2 tsp cumin seeds, roasted and ground
2 tsp coriander seeds, roasted and ground
2 cups cooked chickpeas
a big bunch of silverbeet (aka Swiss chard), washed, spines removed and roughly chopped
4 big tomatoes, chopped (or 1 can crushed tomatoes)*
1 cup vegetable stock
salt, to taste

Sauté onion in ample vegetable oil (I used coconut) over low heat til translucent. Add the spices and stir for a couple of minutes. Toss in the chickpeas. Add silverbeet a handful at a time til wilted. Throw in the tomatoes and stock. Bring to a simmer, stirring every now and then. Cook for about 30 minutes.

Serve with your favourite rice.


* I've made a similar version substituting tomatoes with tamarind water.

south of the border

A package arrived for the SE. “Do not crush” the oversized envelope implored.

Inside was this.



One perfect habanero chilli, home grown by a friend of his in Sydney.

We were told to save the seeds to grow our own little golden bundle of heat and so we have.

It was almost too pretty to eat. What to do with it? In the end, to best appreciate the flavour rather than just the temperature I decided to put it in a salsa. Without the seeds, half a habanero in a sauce for two was enough to enjoy the well-rounded, slightly citrusy tones of the pepper, without being blown away. A whole habanero would have been far more interesting though!

A meal fit for a pepper
(Quantities are for 2 and are just a suggestion)

I based this meal around the salsa. Originally it was to be fish tacos but pure laziness stopped me from diverting from my journey, to buy some shells.

Mexican rice of sorts
vegetable oil
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 cup long grain rice
1 carrot, grated
1 cup vegetable stock, hot
2 tablespoons tomato paste

Heat the oil in the pan, sauté the onion then add the garlic and cook for another minute or two. Toss in the rice and give it a good swirl around til it is well coated with oil. Add the carrot. Lastly add the hot stock with the tomato paste stirred through it. Stir one more time, then place a lid on the pan and sit it on a heat diffuser mat to cook slowly for 25 minutes. Stand for a further 10 minutes with the heat off and lid on.

Salsa
1/2 habanero chilli, deseeded, very finely chopped
4 medium tomatoes, skins removed, finely chopped
small handful, coriander leaves and stalks, chopped
squeeze lime juice
pinch sea alt

Combine in a bowl.

Guacamole
1 large avocado, mashed
juice of 1/2-1 lime
1 clove garlic, crushed
generous dash, Tabasco sauce
pinch of sea salt

Combine the ingredients, adding the lime juice on the avocado immediately so it doesn’t oxidise and loose it’s vibrant colour.

Pan fried fish
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2-1 cup cornflour
1 tsp smoky paprika
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 fillets, fish
vegetable oil


Toast the cumin and coriander in a pan for a couple of minutes, shaking frequently, then pound using a mortar and pestle. Combine the spices, flour and salt on a plate, then dredge your fish. Remember to shake off any excess flour. I used gurnard, a delightful, underrated fish in this country but a favourite in New Zealand (and at just over $3 a fillet turned out to be good value). It holds together well in the pan and has a slightly sweet flavour. (As an aside, A. A. Gill once described gurnard as ”the Amy Winehouse of battered fish").

Back to the kitchen. The rice has finished cooking and is doing its ten minutes of rest with the lid on. The salsa and guacamole are made and the table is laid. All you need to do now is fry the fish. This is one time a shallow fry is called for, heat your oil to a decent temperature making sure the fish will sizzle when you put it in the pan. About three minutes a side will do it depending on the thickness of the fish. The average fry pan will cook two decent fillets at a time, don’t be tempted to cram it with more. If cooking for more than two people do it in batches and keep warm in the oven, otherwise your fish will stew rather than fry as the temperature drops in the pan.

Cook, drain on paper towels. Pile rice on the plate; artfully arrange your fried fish on top. Top with salsa and guacamole to taste.


I make no claims of authenticity with these recipes. The rice, I read a few recipes then promptly forgot them. The idea was to add a few vegetables and a little flavour, as a background rather than to compete with the other tastes on the plate. I think most Mexican rice’s are more tomatoey than this but I wanted to showcase the salsa, not the rice. It was a perfect balance.

The coating from the fish was purely from imagination. The paprika gave a barely detectable smoky back note; the spices were subtle but complemented the flavour of the gurnard. I always use cornflour, I like the feeling of its silkiness and when fried is a bit crispier than wheat flour. As a bonus it is gluten-free.

This was a fun meal to make. Despite the four separate components it can be put together in the time it takes to cook the rice. While getting vegetables into people in this house is never an issue, it would be perfect for those who need a little sneaky action to get their “5 a day”.

And the taste? Perfect!