A Summer of Salads – February

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Liz

I’m feeling very proud of my lettuces at the moment.  Late last month I planted out my lettuce seedlings into the bed that the potatoes had been in.

The above picture shows the plants on the 31st January. This next shot shows them on 17th of February.

Despite daily harvests they have pretty much tripled in size in 3 weeks.  It would appear that lettuces love being grown in a mix of pea straw and  well rotted manure.  I am picking leaves off them daily but aside from the occasional slightly lopsided one you can’t really tell as they are growing so well.

I potted up the next batch of seedlings last Sunday, as a couple of the current lot are showing signs of bolting, – hardly surprising given it is February (today’s temp 37 C).  I plan to sow more seed next week, so I am feeling very much of top of the salad leaves situation.

As its summer I also have large amounts of aromatic herbs in the garden.  Vietnamese mint, Thai Basil, Common Mint and Perilla and it is these that I combined with some salad leaves to produce a lovely warm calamari salad.

Before I tell you the recipe though I just wanted to clarify something that has troubled me in the past and that is the difference between squid and calamari.  According to my fishmonger; calamari is a type of squid which is particulary prized by Australian’s of Italian background hence the  use of the Italian name.  The calamari variety has the sweetest flesh and is generally thinner than varieties known simply as ‘squid’.  It is also a good $18kg more expensive than ‘squid’, at my fishmonger.  Whether this is justified in a dish like this one I will leave up to the reader but personally I used squid in my dish and it tasted good!  Incidently the difference between Arrowhead squid and just ‘squid’ is the method of catching.  Arrowhead squid is line caught whilst ‘squid’ is caught as a byproduct of fishing (for fish) with nets.  Arrowhead is generally more expensive than ‘squid’ but cheaper than calamari.  Isn’t it amazing how much you can learn by asking a fishmonger a simple question?

This recipe, for which you can use any squid variety, is based on one in Teague Ezard (a fabulous Melbourne based chef)’s book, Ezard.  Whilst this recipe may appear long the end result is fabulous and worth the effort.  It also doesn’t take nearly as long as the ingredients list suggests it might.

When buying the squid the frozen tubes you can buy are fine for this dish and will save you the hassle of cleaning the squid yourself.  Unfortunately my fishmonger doesn’t sell them (how often is it that you actively want frozen seafood over fresh?  And yet here it is useful…) so I buy the fresh stuff and then have to clean it.  Not my most favourite job in the world…..

Spicy Calamari Salad

  • 2 large squid, cleaned and sliced into thin (about 2mm across) strips
  • 1 tbspn rice flour
  • Sunflower oil (or similar) for deep frying

For the seasoning:                                      

  • 1 tbspn rock salt (or salt flakes)
  • 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
  • 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
  • 1/2 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
  • 1/2 tsp 5 spice powder

For the salad:

  • 200g of mixed leaves.  I used Vietnamese Mint, Mint, Thai Basil, Coriander, Perilla, Sorrel and a few different varieties of lettuce.
  • 1 cucumber.
  • 1 tbspn lime juice
  • 1 tbspn lemon juice
  • 1 tbspn palm sugar (or soft brown sugar if you can’t get palm sugar)
  • 1 tbspn extra virgin olive oil

For the garnish:

  •  2 cloves garlic – thinly sliced
  • a 2cm cube of ginger – thinly sliced
  • 1 red chilli – thinly sliced

First make the seasoning.  In a coffee or spice grinder grind together the ingredients for the seasoning.  Set aside.  You will having seasoning left over for next time you make the dish.

To make the salad: pick the herb leaves from their stems, rip the lettuce, perilla and sorrel leaves into pieces.  Slice the cucumber.  Although I didn’t use it this time you could also add onion to the salad.  To make the dressing mix together the juices, sugar and olive oil.  Set aside.

Heat oil for deep frying.  Fry the garnish slices in the hot oil until they just start to colour.  Remove, drain on kitchen paper and set aside.

Put the rice flour on a plate, making sure the squid is fairly dry roll the squid in the rice flour until it is coated.  Fry the rice flour coated squid in the hot oil until it starts to brown, this should only take a minute or two.  Drain on kitchen paper.  Sprinkle with some seasoning.  Check seasoning level and adjust if neccessary.

To assemble the salad, place a handful of salad including the cucumber on each plate.  Place squid on top.  Add garnish then pour some dressing over the whole thing.  Serve immediately.

I’m sharing this post as part of Salad Days, for more head over to VegPlotting.

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Passionfruit & Meringues – A tale of 2 desserts

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Liz

If you read my Harvest Monday posts you will know the I have something of a glut of passionfruit at the moment.  Acutally that’s exagerating a bit but I do have a good 20 fruits sitting waiting to be eaten and tonight we made a small dent in the supply.  We ate them in two ways, both with meringues.  Actually that’s not quite true, my daughter had the Eton Mess version whilst I had an individual pavlova.  My son and partner both had chocolate cake left over from his birthday yesterday but that is their loss…..  Anyway to get back to passionfruit and meringue…

Australia has a habit of claiming things; Russell Crowe, Crowded House even Phar Lap was born in New Zealand.  But the really big question is: Did we invent Pavlova?  Or did we knick that from the Kiwis as well?

Created in the 1920s to honour the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova the dessert was created during either her Australian or New Zealand tours.  But which one?  Well actually I don’t really care, beyond a slight need for historical accuracy, because even if we didn’t invent the dish Australia has certainly made it her own.  In some respects I will be quite pleased if its turns out the dish isn’t actually ours because then I will feel less of a need to reproduce it accurately.  And I don’t reproduce it accurately.  I make it without cornflour in the meringue, yes I know, shock, horror!  Am I really making pavlova at all?  I suspect the CWA (Country Women’s Association) would say you no.  But it is what I’ve always called it, and indeed what my mother called it before me and we surely we both can’t be wrong.

Call it what you will: pavlova, meringue with cream and fruit, a reconstructed Eton Mess or even unAustralian, this is the recipe I use.

To make Meringue:

  • 2 egg whites
  • 120g castor sugar
  • 1 drop vanilla extract

Beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.  Add the vanilla extract.  Beat again.  Then gradually (and I do mean gradually) add the castor sugar whilst constantly beating.  Continue beating until the mixture once again forms stiff peaks.

Spoon mixture onto baking paper on baking trays.  For crunchy meringues this will make about 18 smallish meringues (about a dessertspoon of mixture for each one).  For individual pavlovas spoon into nest shapes, you should get about 6 nests from this mixture.

How you cook the mixture will depend on what you want to do with the finished product.  If you want hard crunchy meringues – to make an Eton Mess (I will give a recipe for an Australianised passionfruit version later in the post) then cook the meringues at 150 for 45 minutes leaving the meringues to cool in the oven.  If you want to make a chewy pavlova type meringue then cook for 40 mins at 140 and leave to cool in the oven but with the door open.  Meringues are notoriously temperamental and you may have to make a few batches to get a feel for the exact temperature and time to get each texture in your oven.  Don’t let their temperamental nature put you off though, as they will still be delicious even if the texture isn’t quite what you were aiming for.

Individual Pavlovas

Allow your meringue nests to cool.

  • 300ml thickened cream
  • 2 tblspns icing sugar
  • A dash of cointreau (optional)
  • 3 passionfruit – flesh scraped from skin.

Whip the cream with the icing sugar and the cointreau if using.  Place the whipped cream into the meringue nest.  Top with passionfruit pulp.  Serve.

Australian Mess

Now I have made this name up but I have to admit quite liking it.  This could also be called deconstructed pavlova, but I have seen too many deconstructed desserts lately so I refuse to jump onto that particular bandwagon.

This dessert is essentially an Eton Mess with passionfruit replacing the strawberries and greek yoghurt replacing the cream.  Feel free to mix and match if you wish and of course to add alcohol if you so desire.

To make 4 messes (ironically my 2 year old boy doesn’t like these – the dessert I mean, mess is clearly his favourite thing in the world ever…):

  • 12 small meringues
  • 1 cup raspberries
  • pulp from 4 passionfruit
  • 1 cup greek yoghurt
  • 1 – 2 tblspns icing sugar (depending on taste, I use about 1.5)
  • 1 drop vanilla extract

Mix together the greek yoghurt, icing sugar & vanilla.

Using 4 glasses; crumble a meringue into each glass, add some raspberries, a bit of passionfruit and a large spoon of yoghurt then continue adding layers of meringue, fruit and yoghurt until you run out or the glass is full.  Eat.

To see what other people are cooking this week head on over to the Gardener of Eden for Thursday’s Kitchen Cupboard.

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Top 5 – Fruits to make jam with

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Liz

When I was growing up my mum was a bit stingy with the sweet snacks.  We rarely had chocolate (or indeed any other) biscuits in the house.  Any yoghurt that she bought was eaten that day.  Lollies were things you got in bags at the end of parties.  And as for cakes she didn’t normally make them.   What we did always have was jam, lovely pots of jam which we spread all over buttered bread when we got home from school.  This appreciation for jam has carried on into adulthood and these are the jams I appreciate most.

Plums – I have written this first, not necessarily because its my favourite although it is pretty close, but because I made some last week.

As anyone with a plum tree will know – they can be very productive trees and once you’ve eaten your full and stewed some there are always a great many left over to make jam with.  Plum Jam with brandy makes for a lovely adult vice.  Plum Jam (without the brandy) is  my daughters jam of choice for spreading on pancakes.

Apricot – This is the jam I most associate with my mum.  Every year she buys a case of apricots and makes jam.  She makes her jam fairly runny so it tastes fresh and bursting with fruit.   Apricots are low in pectin (the stuff that makes jam set) so can be quite difficult to make jam with them successfully.  Personally I always seem to fail when making Apricot Jam, either it is just too runny and is, in essence, a sauce, or I cook it way too long and the sugar turns to toffee giving it a slightly unpleasant bitter aftertaste.  Fortunately mum can usually be prevailed upon for a few jars.

Berries – Yes I know its a cop out lumping them all together but I really couldn’t separate the berries.  Who can choose between gorgeous blackberry, sublime raspberry and every kids favourite – the oh so sweet strawberry?  As kids we went out blackberry picking each year at one of the many bushes that line the roads of rural Australia.  Now though I don’t know how people make blackberry jam – there are less of these bushes and picking from the road reserve can be ill advised as the plants are often sprayed with weed killer as they are a huge nuisance despite their delicious berries.  But raspberries and strawberries are easy to find, and the best, and most fun, place to find them (if you can’t grow them yourself) is at a pick your own berry place.  2 year olds do need close supervision in such places in my experience……

Blackcurrants – I normally make  jelly rather than jam with blackcurrants.  In Australia the distinction is that a jam is basically the whole fruit stewed down with sugar and then bottled.  A jelly has the pulp strained out so it sets as a: (hopefully) perfectly smooth clear jelly, coloured and flavoured by the fruit but not given texture by it.  Blackcurrants make lovely jelly, a more adult flavour than some of the others as they don’t have the natural sweetness of say a strawberry or apricot but delicious nonetheless.

Chilli – And finally, what Top 5 could be complete without a mention of chillies?  In all seriousness though I love chilli jam.  I love the sticky South East Asian ones that Garden Glut has been making, filled with ginger, garlic and palm sugar.  But I also really enjoy a chilli jelly which I make by adding chillies to a simple apple jelly recipe.  The result is a clear, slightly red, chilli flavoured jelly that is absolutely fabulous with biscuits and cheese.  Yum, Yum, Yum!

So what fabulous fruits have I overlooked?  There are so many lovely jams, and that’s without even considering marmalades.  I reckon I could come up with five fruits just for marmalade but for the record my favourite is cumquat.

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Monday Harvest – 20th Feb 2012

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Liz

Another week of summer harvest, but still no eggplant – there are fruit on the bushes but none is quite ready for picking yet – perhaps next week.  What I have been picking is tomatoes:

 

For all my angst about my tomato plants I forget that I am picking enough for all our salad and slicing needs as well as enough for the kids to eat a punnet a day of cherry tomatoes.

If the tomatoes are producing just enough then the chillies are producing more than enough.  I have a big bag full in the fridge that I plan to preserve this week.

The chard is producing really well.  We had spanakopita again this week, we also ate some with a roast chicken.  The beans went with the roast chicken as well.  We also had beans cooked my favourite way – with butter, garlic, black pepper and tomatoes – that was eaten with some sausages and a lovely potato salad.

The cucumber harvest continues unabated.  I picked about 10 this week and made another batch of bread and butter cucumbers.  I have about 10 jars put away now so I’m feeling very pleased with myself.

The capsicums pictured above might be the last for a while.  These came from the overwintered plants but there are no mature fruit on them anymore – they are setting a new batch though.  This years plants have set a few fruit but they are still a fair way off ripening.

I am still picking vast quantities of salad leaves.  I have a salad most days. Today lunch was a nicoise salad with some of the above tomatoes and beans, some shallots and potatoes from earlier harvests and the leaves and radish below.

But I have saved the best til last.  This week has seen a lot more passionfruit – 15 to be exact.  For anyone who is unfamiliar with them, passionfruit grow on a climbing vine and have a sweet, slightly acidic taste.  In Australia they are probably most famously used as a topping for pavlova – but more of that later in the week if I have time to make it.  They are pictured below, whole as well as cut so that you can see the edible bit inside.

The yummy bit is the pulp surrounding the seeds (although the seeds are generally eaten with the pulp).  The outer skin is inedible.  This is what these looked like a moment after the first shot was taken.

For harvests from all over the world get yourself over to Daphne’s Dandelions – delicious reading.

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Growing Tomatoes – Part 4 – Tomato Envy

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Liz

I ripped out 3 of my tomato plants earlier in the week.  The Broad Ripple Currant, the Sweet F1 Hybrid and the Baby Red Pear  were all looking pretty much dead, so all came out and I can give that part of the bed a rest before I plant garlic.  Of these 3 the only one I would bother growing again is the Broad Ripple Currant, the other 2 weren’t prolific enough or interesting enough to justify a repeat performance.  The Broad Ripple Currant had the distinction of being my first tomato this year and supplied a reasonable amount of fruit before giving in to our variable weather and my erratic watering.  The other thing the variety has going for it is the kids loved it.

For anyone unfamiliar with these varieties all are small tomatoes:  Broad Ripple Currant is a tall growing yellow currant sized tomato. Sweet F1 Hybrid is a relatively short (mine grew to about 1 metre) bushy plant with red currant sized fruit and Baby Red Pear is a very tall growing plant with a cherry sized, pear shaped tomato.

In a different climate Baby Red Pear may be worth growing as the fruit were nice but it really didn’t like the heat at all, most of the foliage died on our first day above 38 (100F) degrees.

The other thing to note is that my garden never gets full sun and it may be that these varieties would perform better in full sun, or indeed in a slightly cooler climate.  For instance Purple Russian is certainly performing better for my father than for me.

Both came from the same packet of seed and both looked like good seedlings when they were planted.  The pathetic looking one (unfortunately mine) gets  about 5 hours sun a day.  The thick luxuriant one (my fathers) gets full sun and a cooler climate (they are about 4 degrees cooler, on average, than Melbourne).  I think my fathers probably also gets more food – I do need to add more organic matter to my beds but they are not so depleted that it would make this much difference.  His are also mulched a lot more thickly than mine.  It would be interesting if anyone knows which of these variables is most likely to impact on the plants performance.  I started writing this thinking it was the sun but the more I think about it the more I think it might be the mulch protecting the root system.  I have since upped the levels of mulch on my other plants and the blackbirds have helpfully moved it away from the tomato plants and spread it all over my lawn, grrrrrr….

Not all my tomato plants look quite as pathetic as the Purple Russian.

Of my other tomatoes the one that is currently looking the healthiest is the Black Cherry which is one of the youngest plants and also co-incidently (?) is the one which I used the tomato rings on.   I have been really happy using them I have to say, but more on that and the veggie cage which I am finally using in a post to come.  The plant has a few dying leaves but is both happily growing and setting fruit which is all one can ask for really.

I gave all of my remaining tomato plants a prune, feed with fish emulsion and a water earlier in the week –  hopefully that will prolong the crop well into Autumn.  The Rouge de Marmande is already rewarding me with new shoots.

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