La Recette du Jour

Taste & Create beckons once more! This time I am paired with Sweatha of TastyCurryLeaf. I hastened directly to her blog hoping to find something I could cook for dinner that evening and was immediately rewarded.

Her blog is very interesting; it’s clear that her background is Indian (so lots of yummy-looking Indian recipes) but she lives in the US so the Indian food is interspersed with an eclectic mix of American, Italian, and other cuisines — she seems very adventurous in her cooking. In addition, although she doesn’t specifically mention it, she’s clearly vegetarian, so that made it attractive too. Even on a quick glance I could see there were plenty of good candidates. But for that evening I kept it simple: roasted red bell pepper soup, using easily available ingredients. I love the flavour of roasted red peppers so it looked worth a try.

I don’t make soup as often as I should, given how good home-made soup is, and this was a reminder of how quickly you can whip up something good. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly; Sweatha says to thicken it with cornstarch, but I felt this was unnecessary and would affect the fresh flavour, so I left it out. I also didn’t use coriander leaves, because a) I don’t like them, they taste of soap to me and b) they are nearly impossible to find here anyway. I used ground coriander seeds instead. For added spice I used my infamous Scotch Bonnet-infused chilli sherry. This lives in the larder, well away from the drinks cabinet and with a large warning notice affixed to it. A teaspoon is enough to add pizazz to anything. And finally I used crème fraîche instead of ordinary cream, because it tastes nice!

This is not the only recipe I’ll try from her blog, since this T&C runs for two months — I might even try some of her simple Indian dishes. I love good Indian food, and when I was a student in London I often cooked Indian meals — it was easy to get the ingredients there, and it lends itself to cheap but excellent vegetarian feasts. Now I never cook it, because I think you need to do it regularly to get it right, and it is more difficult to find the ingredients you need here. So I just have to wait for visits to the UK to pig out in Indian restaurants!
Recipe for Roasted red pepper soup »

I was so surprised by this recipe on Orangette’s blog that I bookmarked it to try when sprouts were in season. Despite its oddness it seems to have found its way round the blogosphere and I discovered several variations. This is my take on it.

It has to be noted that Steve doesn’t like sprouts, unless they are overcooked in the British fashion. So while I liked this dish, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t. In fact I knew just what he would say, and I was not disappointed: “It needs lardons in it!” He was more receptive than I expected, but it’s still fair to say that if you don’t like sprouts you probably won’t like this. If you are a confirmed carnivore, you could add prosciutto or lardons to it, but it’s fine without.

In fact despite the unusual main ingredient it is a fairly classic northern Italian approach to pasta — a very simple, no-fuss sauce that lets the vegetable used shine: think artichokes, courgettes, or asparagus. So even if you don’t like sprouts you may find inspiration here anyway!
Recipe for Pasta with Brussels sprouts »

This is a nice variation on the traditional fish pie with a mashed potato top and cheesy sauce, based on an idea from WorldWide Recipes that includes shrimps and scallops. With all due respect to the Chef, I think putting scallops in a fish pie is a bit of a waste of scallops, so I would always recommend using whatever mixture of not-too-expensive fish you fancy. My absolute favourite version is with real Finnan haddock, but sadly that is completely unobtainable here; the nearest you can get is that ghastly bright yellow stuff that stains everything it touches. On this occasion, we used some fillets of firm white fish and a smallish piece of salmon. Feel free to put shrimps or prawns in too, if you fancy them.
Recipe for Fish pie »

Around here we don’t have to wait till November for our vin nouveau, like those upstarts in Beaujolais; it’s ready by the third week in October. You don’t have to use new wine for this recipe; any dry white wine you fancy will do. Or dry cider, if wine is too expensive! Try to get some good honey though, not the tasteless supermarket sort. I used herb-scented garrigue honey from a nearby village. It’s easy and quick to make, and is a good alternative to our other standby casserole of pork blanquette paprika. Serve it with a potato gratin, or if that’s too much bother, Ebly or pasta.

Pork and prunes are a classic combination, but most recipes use relatively expensive tenderloin, while for this one a cheaper cut such as shoulder is fine. I haven’t included a photo because I just couldn’t make it look attractive! But the sauce is a lovely rich caramel colour, and it’s delicious — I would certainly serve it to guests. This recipe would probably work really well in a slow cooker too.
Recipe for Pork with prunes and vin primeur »

My mother used to cook big Spanish onions stuffed with minced beef and vegetables a lot when we were young; an economical family dish, if not quick to make. Whole onions take ages to cook, but the actual hands-on time isn’t that much.

I haven’t had them for years, and a sudden cold snap after weeks of warm weather made me think of this comfort food. These are nothing like my mother’s, but they are delicious anyway; I just made the recipe up as I went along. If you want something more like hers, replace the stuffing with some home-made ragù bolognese.
Recipe for Stuffed onions »

This recipe inaugurates a new tag of “frugal food”, which seems appropriate in these credit-crunch times. Made mainly of ripe tomatoes and stale bread, it costs almost nothing, and can make a light vegetarian main course along with a green vegetable or salad. Carnivores can have it as a substantial side dish with a roast — less meat needed! And of course I wouldn’t be posting it if it wasn’t delicious. The bottom layer of crumbs soaks up the juices, while the top is brown and crunchy.

I habitually whiz stale ends of bread to crumbs in the blender and then store them in the freezer in ziploc bags, as they are useful for so many things. So I used some of those for this, and the last of the season’s tomatoes. It’s really best made with the ripest, reddest tomatoes you can find. If they’re a bit pale, up the garlic and herbs to compensate.
Recipe for Brown Tom »

This is a quick and simple tart. You can make it with pretty much any soft cheese — we used goat’s cheese, but you could use feta, brousse de brebis, petit suisse, even Philly!
Recipe for Courgette, cheese, and herb tart »

Serendipity rules! I’ve long liked Patricia Scarpin’s Technicolor Kitchen, but an incompatibility with my feed reader meant I didn’t follow it regularly (if a site isn’t in my reader, it doesn’t get read!). Then today I discovered the magic switch to make it work, and her last 25 posts whizzed into view. I spent a happy half hour browsing them while simultaneously wondering what I was going to cook tonight, because it’s the end of the week and I haven’t been shopping.

What luck! I had all the ingredients for this recipe to hand, and it took barely longer to make than the time needed to boil the pasta. It’s very adaptable, and I loved the fresh flavour imparted by the lemon zest and juice. A new default dinner to rival tagliatelle carbonara! Picture taken hastily just before we dived in.

Note:the original recipe is credited to the late Sher, who sadly died unexpectedly a month ago, and whose blog I didn’t know about till today.
Recipe for Pasta with courgettes, lemon, and pine nuts »

From this:

to this:

This bold experiment is the result of a discussion about what to do with left-over dressed salad. Normally it just gets thrown away, but I remembered reading about someone using it to make gazpacho. I though this sounded disgusting. But last night we had 14 people for dinner, and we made a huge fattoush salad: lettuce, onions, yellow pepper, tomatoes, cucumber, and mint, with toasted diced pitta bread thrown in at the last minute.There was so much I didn’t have a bowl big enough, so I made it in my huge stockpot, and although we ate a lot there was a lot left over.

Given that it was in the stockpot, why not try it? So here is … left-over salad soup!

Recipe for Salad soup »

Ratatouille makes it a real pleasure to be vegetarian. Don’t get me wrong; far too often, “ratatouille” is a mushy, tomatoey mess swimming in red, slightly sour juices. Sometimes it even has carrots in it. That is not the dish I’m talking about. The real thing is a lot more work, but well worth the effort –especially as it’s even better when left overnight. It’s equally good hot or at room temperature, as a main course or as an accompaniment to grilled or roast lamb for confirmed carnivores.

I learned to do it decades ago from that holy bible of French cuisine, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Beck, Bertholle, and Child. Even Julia and her friends, who are no strangers to hard work, admit it’s a lot of effort. But my very first attempt at their recipe proved how worthwhile the extra work was and now I never do it any other way. As with moussaka and lasagne, I do generally make more than we intend to eat, and either eat the leftovers the following day, or freeze them.

Recipe for Ratatouille »