Peri Peri Prawns

In case you hadn't noticed (I'm sure you did), this little blog of mine has been sadly neglected over the last few months.  I could give you a dozen or more excuses for that - all of them valid, but all of them equally boring to anybody else but me.  So I'm going to dispense with the lame excuses, and cut straight to the chase - the blog is back, and I'm kicking things off this week with some fiery prawns ... just the thing to wake up the taste buds and a dormant blog.

I'm cooking along with my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs this week, where we are revisiting a cooking club favourite chef - Tessa Kiros.  I absolutely loved the time we spent cooking with Tessa a couple of years ago, and her book Falling Cloudberries became (hands down) the most used cookbook in my collection.

I had bookmarked Tessa's recipe for Prawns with Lemon, Peri Peri, Garlic & Feta ages ago, and a hot summer evening last night seemed like the perfect occasion to try it.  I made very little changes to the recipe, other than to adjust quantities (since I had no need to feed six people), substituted chilli flakes for peri peri seasoning which I didn't have, and I baked the dish in the oven instead of on the stovetop.

This dish was incredibly simple to prepare, absolutely bursting with the kind of flavours that I love, and served alongside a simple Greek salad, instantly transported me back to the Greek island holidays I've enjoyed so much in the past - if you want to travel without the hassle of packing a suitcase or renewing your passport, this is the dish that will take you there.

Peri Peri Prawns Recipe
Serves 2
Adapted from recipe by Tessa Kiros
from Falling Cloudberries
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

400g raw prawns
1-2 tablespoons butter
4x large cloves garlic, finely chopped
large handful flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
very generous pinch of chilli flakes
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
1x lemon, finely grated zest & juice
150g feta cheese, crumbled

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (390 degrees F).

Choose an ovenproof baking dish that will be just large enough to hold all the prawns in three layers.

In a small bowl mix together the finely chopped garlic and parsley, chilli flakes, lemon zest, and a generous seasoning of flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Dot some of the butter liberally around the base of the baking dish and cover with a layer of prawns. Sprinkle over a third of the garlic mixture, and dot generously with more butter.  Cover with another layer of prawns, sprinkle over half of the remaining garlic mixture, and once again dot with more butter.  Finish with the final layer of prawns, sprinkle over the remaining garlic mixture, and dot with some more butter.

Cover dish and place into the preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven, drizzle over the lemon juice, and crumble the feta over the top.  Baste with some of the buttery prawn juices which by now will have settled in the bottom of the dish.  Return to the oven and bake for a further 10 minutes (or longer as necessary), until the prawns are cooked through and the feta is just starting to melt and turn golden.

Remove from the oven and serve immediately, with a simple salad and some crusty bread to mop up the juices.

If you would like to get to know Tessa a little better, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and see what they've all cooked up ...

... or check out Falling Cloudberries and many of Tessa's other great titles available from Amazon or Fishpond NZ.

         

Prawn, Leek & Lemon Risotto

I've been remiss with my blogging over the last few months - definitely not posting as regularly as I would like to, and it's been ages since I've posted anything over at I Heart Cooking Clubs.  I miss my friends and, since it's pot luck week this week, I thought I'd join in with a quick and easy Donna Hay dish that's become a bit of a favourite of mine.

Now let me preface this by saying that I've always been very firmly been of the view that a baked risotto will never be as good as a traditionally prepared version, a view that appeared to be supported by others I know who have given it a try.  I was pretty sure that as long as my backside pointed to the ground (as they say), I was never going to venture into baked risotto territory.

Well, one should never say "never".  I'd had Donna's recipe for this Prawn, Leek and Lemon Risotto bookmarked in my copy of "Fast, Fresh, Simple" for ages because I think this is such a winning flavour combination.  Donna's version is however a baked one, and I was pretty sure that I would just take those ingredients and use them in my usual stirred method for making risotto.

A couple of weeks ago though, I was really hankering for some risotto on a cold and miserable winter week night, but I had other things I needed to be doing and just didn't have the time to spare standing over a pot for 20 to 30 minutes.  So, I took a deep breath, threw caution to the wind, and made my first baked risotto.  I fully expected that without all that constant stirring my risotto wouldn't have the creaminess I was used to from my usual version, but I was surprised to find it was plenty creamy - I think a good knob of butter up front, and another one to finish with, probably helped with that, and I have the feeling that using my enamelled cast iron casserole dish also helped.

So final verdict - no deficit on the "creaminess" front, and the resulting risotto was just about as good as a stirred version.   In my mind, however, a large part of the joy of risotto comes from the sheer pleasure of standing and stirring that pot for up to half an hour - it's a great exercise in presence and mindfulness, and that matters to me a great deal, and I have the belief that it is this which translates into superior flavour rather than just the physical alchemy of stirring those starchy grains of rice around for 20 minutes.  So, yes, I think a stirred risotto will always be superior - you will taste the love that's been stirred into it in every mouthful - but for a quick mid-week fix when you have other things to get done this is a great alternative, and I loved it so much that I've made it several times since.  I hope you'll give it a try.

Prawn, Leek & Lemon Risotto Recipe
Adapted slightly from recipe by Donna Hay
from Fast, Fresh, Simple
Serves 2
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

1 tablespoon olive oil
couple of generous knobs of butter
1/2 a leek thinly sliced
2x cloves garlic, crushed
1x lemon, zest and juice
1 cup arborio rice
2-1/2 cups vegetable stock
200g raw prawns, peeled and cleaned
large handful of flat leaf parsley leaves, roughly chopped
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F).

Put olive oil and one generous knob of butter in an ovenproof dish, which has a tight fitting lid.  Set dish over medium heat, and once the butter has melted add the leek, garlic and lemon zest to the pan.  Cook for several minutes until the leek has softened, but not browned.  Add the rice to the pan and stir constantly for a couple of minutes until all the rice is completely coated with the oil and the grains look slightly translucent around the edges.  Add half the lemon juice to the pan, and stir constantly until all the liquid has been absorbed.  Now add all the stock to the pan, remove from the heat and cover tightly.

Place pan in the preheated oven and cook for 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven, and set the pan over medium heat again.  If all the liquid has already been absorbed, add a ladleful of hot water to the pan along with the prawns.  Stir constantly until the prawns are cooked through - about 4 or 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat, stir in the other generous knob of butter, the remaining lemon juice, parsley, salt and pepper.  Cover and allow to stand for five minutes for all the flavours to infuse, and then serve immediately.

If you would like to get to know Donna Hay a little better, and to see all the wonderful fast and fabulous dishes my friends have come up with, then do go visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

Because it's been a while since I've visited some of my other friends, I'll also be sharing this post this week at Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth at Beth Fish Reads, and at Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollam.

    

Garlic, Lemon Prawns

If you're one of my regular visitors, you'll have noticed that I haven't posted anything for a while.  Some of you have even emailed me to check up on me, and I appreciate your thoughts and concern more than you can ever know.

I'm not going to go into details here, this is not the place, but the reality is life has been pretty challenging for me lately, leaving me completely disinterested in food.  I've scarcely been bothered to eat it, let alone cook it or write blog posts about it.  But life goes on;  there are plenty of people who are faced with very much worse;  and the clouds are beginning to part sufficiently for me to get back into the kitchen today.

And I have the lovely Nicole at I Am a Honey Bee to thank for getting me back to the stove top.  It's Secret Recipe Club (**) time, and Nicole's blog was my assignment for the month.  Nicole lives in the Bay State with her husband, Price, and beyond gorgeous 16 month old daughter, Autumn.  She works in architecture, and like me she enjoys cooking, design and loves all things Greek.

*  So what's this Secret Recipe Club you may ask?  The club has over a hundred members, divided into four groups, and each month one member is assigned (in secret) to another member from their group.  That person then selects a recipe (or more) to make, photograph, and prepare a blog post - all in secret.  Then everyone in the group posts their recipe on the same day, and of course the secret is then out.  It's a always a thrill to find out who has posted something from your own blog, and to meet and discover some new blogs.   If you are a food blogger and interested in joining the Secret Recipe Club, be sure to check out the Join SRC page.

So several weeks of secretly browsing through Nicole's blog, has been enough to tantalise my jaded taste buds.  Dishes like 40 Cloves of Garlic Chicken, Scallop Salad, and VegetarianWontons with Spicy Soy Dipping Sauce all piqued my appetite and have been bookmarked for a later date.  But it was Nicole's delicious Garlic Lemon Shrimp that eventually lured me back into the kitchen.

This dish is incredibly quick and easy to put together (which is just perfect for me right now), and I took Nicole's advice of serving it with some crusty bread, though you could just as easily as she suggests serve it over some rice or pasta.  To keep things healthy I had a simple green salad on the side.  Other than adjusting quantities, as I was only cooking for one, I followed Nicole's recipe fairly closely - adding lemon zest and parsley being the only other changes I made.

Garlic, Lemon Prawns Recipe
Adapted from recipe from I Am a Honey Bee
Serves one as a main meal
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

200g (7 oz) prawns or shrimps, shelled & deveined
3x cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon white wine
generous pinch of red pepper flakes
zest and juice of 1x lemon
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
1/2 lemon cut into wedges
generous handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 220 degrees C (450 degrees F).

Place prawns into a bowl.  Add the crushed garlic, butter, olive oil, wine, red pepper flakes, and lemon juice.  Add half the lemon zest, and set the remaining zest aside to use later.  Season generously with sea salt and black pepper, and mix everything together well.

Line a shallow baking dish with foil (makes the washing up easy later on), and spread the prawn mixture in the baking dish in a single layer.  Nestle lemon wedges in amongst the prawns, and place dish in the preheated oven.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the prawns have turned pink and cooked through.

If serving with crusty bread, place bread in the oven 5 minutes before the prawns finish to heat through.

Remove from the oven and use the foil to carefully transfer the prawns and all the lemony, garlicky juices to a serving dish.

Mix the reserved lemon zest with the chopped parsley and sprinkle over the top of the prawns and serve immediately.  Use crusty bread to mop up all those heavenly juices.

I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I did, and visit the links below to check out all the other great dishes my Secret Recipe Club friends made.

An InLinkz Link-up

Burmese Chilli Prawns with Hot & Sour Asian Slaw - Salad Days # 8

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs we're exploring the theme "East Meets West", choosing Diana Henry fusion dishes with a global influence.

Living here in New Zealand, I'm no stranger to fusion food - I'm sure the same can be said for most of my "neighbours" on the Pacific Rim.  It has always fascinated me, in just about any country, the influence that its immigrants has on the local food culture.  When I was growing up, Chicken Chop Suey at the local Chinese restaurant was about as exotic as it got.  In the last 20 years, however, increasing numbers of Asian immigrants has had a huge influence on the New Zealand culinary landscape.  Previously unheard of ingredients are now readily available;  Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Malaysian, Burmese, Bangladeshi, and Indonesian restaurants abound;  and even the pantries of this nation's most unadventurous cooks would boast a bottle of soy sauce at the very least.

Looking through Diana Henry'd book A Change of Appetite, I thought her Burmese Chilli Fish with Hot & Sour Salad was the perfect dish to fit the brief.  The hot and sour salad, which is essentially an Asian take on a classic cole slaw seemed like the epitome of fusion food to me.  I made quite a few changes to the recipe ... For a start I replaced the fish with prawns, and tweaked the curry paste a little.  And I rang a few changes to the salad as well - adding in some red cabbage along with the white, and adding carrot, green papaya, cherry tomatoes, mint and peanuts to the slaw, and as I did with the curry paste I tweaked the dressing a bit.

This dish definitely had the wow factor - an absolute explosion of flavours and textures, and just enough heat to leave my lips tingling at the end of it ... in a good way.  If you like Asian flavours, I urge you to give this a try the next time you have cole slaw on your mind.

Burmese Chilli Prawns with Hot & Sour Asian Slaw Recipe
Inspired by recipe from Diana Henry
from A Change of Appetite
Serves 2 as a substantial meal

For the Burmese Chilli Prawns:
300g raw prawns, shells removed and deveined
1x clove garlic, roughly chopped
generous pinch of salt
piece of fresh ginger about the size of your thumb, grated
1/2 red chilli, roughly chopped (deseed if you like less heat)
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon lime juice

For the Hot & Sour Asian Slaw:
1x cup finely shredded white cabbage
1x cup finely shredded red cabbage (plus extra leaves for serving)
1x carrot finely shredded (a julienne peeler is ideal)
1x cup finely shredded green papaya
2x radishes, thinly sliced (a mandoline works perfectly if you have one)
12x cherry tomatoes, halved (use different colours if you can)
generous handful of mint leaves, roughly chopped
large handful of roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
1/2 red chilli, roughly chopped (deseed if you like less heat)

For the dressing:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon lime juice

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Place garlic, salt, ginger, chilli, turmeric, olive oil, sesame oil and lime juice in a mortar and pestle, and grind to a paste.  Add paste to the prawns, and toss until all the prawns are well coated in the paste.  Put prawns in a single layer in an ovenproof dish, and bake in the preheated oven until cooked through - depending on the size of your prawns this will take between 5 and 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the dressing ingredients in a small jar and shake vigorously until well combined.  Taste and then adjust to your liking - you want a good balance of sweet-sour-salty, so play around with the ingredients until you get the flavour just right.

Place all the slaw ingredients in a large bowl, drizzle liberally with the dressing, and toss gently until everything is well combined.

Serve immediately piled into red cabbage leaves, and arrange prawns on the side.

If you would like to get to know Diana Henry a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links (who knows, you might even want to join the journey and cook along with us) ...

... or check out A Change of Appetite and Diana's many other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.

I'm also sharing this at Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays, hosted by my very lovely friend Deb at Kahakai Kitchen, and at Weekend Cooking, hosted by the lovely Beth at Beth Fish Reads.

This is salad number 8 in my Salad Days, 28 days of salad project.   What's that you ask?  Well,  I've said it here a dozen times or more ... I love salads.  A big bowl, substantial salad is hands down my favourite meal any time of the year.  Such is my love of salad, that I'm challenging myself to come up with a different salad every day for the month of February - that's 28 days of salads - and I plan to share as many of them as I can with you.  I'll also be doing some flashbacks to some of my favourite salads I've shared in the past.

What's more, I'm giving you the opportunity to share some of your favourite salads with me too.  Have a favourite salad you'd like to share?  Simply link up your salad recipe using the linky tool at the bottom of this post.  The linky will be open all month, and you can join in any day or every day, and link as many recipes as you like.  Feel free to grab the Salad Days badge from the sidebar to include in your post if you'd like to.  There's really no rules around linking up, other than please, use your manners and link your post back to this one.  Linking old posts is fine too, just please edit them to include the back link.  Thanks for sharing your favourite salad with us.

Salad of Seafood with Tomatoes & Roasted Lemons - Salad Days # 7

Yesterday was my birthday, and of course a birthday calls for celebration food.  Staying with my salad theme this month, I had been thinking along the lines of perhaps a duck and crispy noodle salad.  But then, my lovely friend Martine, who knows me so well, gave me a couple of crayfish tails.  If you're a seafood lover, you will know that few birthday gifts can rate as highly as crayfish tails!

I already had some scallops on hand and some prawns, so there was no doubt there was a substantial seafood salad in the making.

The crayfish and prawns were lightly poached until just cooked through - take care not to overcook them - and the scallops sauteed in a little olive oil.

Further inspiration came from this recipe from my food hero, Yotam Ottolenghi.  I just couldn't go past those roasted lemons.  One or two lemons (depending on how many people you are serving) are sliced wafer thin and blanched in boiling water for a couple of minutes.  After draining the lemons, toss them gently with a little olive oil, generous sprinkling of flaky sea salt, drizzle of honey, and a generous handful of fresh oregano leaves, finely chopped.  Spread the lemons in a single layer on a lined baking tray, and roast in an oven preheated to 160 degrees C (325 degrees F) until starting to char.

Remove lemons from the oven and toss with chopped tomatoes (use as much variety of colours and sizes as you can) and avocado.  Drizzle over a little extra virgin olive oil, some roughly chopped flat leaf parsley, and a generous sprinkling of sumac.  Toss gently to combine everything.

Add seafood to the bowl, and once again toss gently to mix everything together.  Arrange on a serving platter and serve immediately.

I finished everything off with a drizzle of this Preserved Lemon Dressing.

The creamy avocados, tangy bite of the tomatoes, and caramelised lemons, along with the citrus tang of the sumac and the preserved lemon dressing compliment the sweet, delicate seafood beautifully without overpowering it.  This was definitely a dish fit for a special occasion - thanks, Martine xo

This is salad number 7 in my Salad Days, 28 days of salad project.   What's that you ask?  Well,  I've said it here a dozen times or more ... I love salads.  A big bowl, substantial salad is hands down my favourite meal any time of the year.  Such is my love of salad, that I'm challenging myself to come up with a different salad every day for the month of February - that's 28 days of salads - and I plan to share as many of them as I can with you.  I'll also be doing some flashbacks to some of my favourite salads I've shared in the past.

What's more, I'm giving you the opportunity to share some of your favourite salads with me too.  Have a favourite salad you'd like to share?  Simply link up your salad recipe using the linky tool at the bottom of this post.  The linky will be open all month, and you can join in any day or every day, and link as many recipes as you like.  Feel free to grab the Salad Days badge from the sidebar to include in your post if you'd like to.  There's really no rules around linking up, other than please, use your manners and link your post back to this one.  Linking old posts is fine too, just please edit them to include the back link.  Thanks for sharing your favourite salad with us.

Paprika Roasted Prawns with Tomato Nectarine Salad - Salad Days # 2

This is one of my favourite summer salads - it's fresh and vibrant, and has great texture.  There have been numerous versions around of the nectarine and tomato salad - with good reason.  They are surprisingly good together - the sweet, juicy nectarines are a perfect foil to the more acid-sweetness of the tomatoes.  It makes a great side salad to just about anything, but I like to amp things up a bit by adding some peppery salad leaves and some paprika roasted prawns to make a complete meal.

Now before I share the recipe, I want to talk a bit more about salads in general.  I've said it here a dozen times or more ... I love salads.  A big bowl, substantial salad is hands down my favourite meal any time of the year.  Such is my love of salad, that I'm challenging myself to come up with a different salad every day for the month of February - that's 28 days of salads - and I plan to share as many of them as I can with you.  I'll also be doing some flashbacks to some of my favourite salads I've shared in the past.

What's more, I'm giving you the opportunity to share some of your favourite salads with me too.  Have a favourite salad you'd like to share?  Simply link up your salad recipe using the linky tool at the bottom of this post.  The linky will be open all month, and you can join in any day or every day, and link as many recipes as you like.  Feel free to grab the Salad Days badge from the sidebar to include in your post if you'd like to.  There's really no rules around linking up, other than please, use your manners and link your post back to this one.  Linking old posts is fine too, just please edit them to include the back link.

I always find that thinking about salads sparks the most creativity in me around food, and I thought I would share with you some of my suggestions for creating a great salad of your own.

Salads are not just summer fare.  I like a salad which is substantial enough to constitute a meal in its own right, and this can be surprisingly easy to achieve in winter when all sorts of root vegetables are in season.  So what are my salad rules?

Firstly, a good salad should ideally, in my opinion, contain some form of protein.  This could come in the form of:

• Cheese - grilled haloumi, feta, blue cheese, brie, soft goats-milk cheeses, bocconcini or mozzarella are all great in salads
• Poultry - try chicken, duck or quail
• Fish and seafood - salmon, smoked white fish, prawns, lobster, crab, squid, mussels are all wonderful additions to any salad
• Meat - personally I don't use much meat in my salads other than perhaps some chorizo sausage or some crispy prosciutto or pancetta, but you could certainly experiment with the inclusion of some rare lamb or beef
• Nuts and seeds - I like cashews, pecans, walnuts, pine nuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios, peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds
• Pulses & legumes - try chickpeas, lentils, cannellini beans, lima beans, borlotti beans
• And yes, if you must, tofu - I have to say it definitely wouldn't find its way into any salad of mine, but it would certainly be a good inclusion for those whose gastronomic ethos doesn't extend to the consumption of various other forms of protein and, apparently, some people even like it.

Secondly, I like a grain of some sort - noodles, pasta, rice, quinoa, couscous, croutons are a few suggestions. It is useful to know, if your diet doesn't include any animal products, that pulses combined with grains form a complete protein.

Thirdly, a great meal in a salad should have great texture and colour - consider the inclusion of some fruit (fresh or dried) and fresh herbs (mint, coriander, flat-leaf parsley, basil, tarragon are all wonderful in salads).

And lastly, your salad should have a great dressing which pulls the whole meal together - it's the dressing which really balances out all the ingredients you have chosen for your salad and creates beautiful layers of flavour.

Above all, don't be afraid to experiment and come up with your own wonderful creations. Like all experimenting in the kitchen, not everything will be a success, but along the way you will learn a great deal about flavours and textures that work well together, and you will without doubt get many pleasant surprises.

Paprika Roasted Prawns with Tomato Nectarine Salad Recipe
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

No need to follow quantities too literally here - use your instincts, and this can easily be multiplied to feed any number of people

For each person allow:
100g-150g (3-1/2 to 5 oz) raw prawns
1x large, ripe nectarine, stone removed and cut into wedges
6-8 cherry tomatoes, halved, use a variety of colours if you can get them
large handful of peppery salad leaves such as rocket and mizuna
handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

To flavour the prawns:
1-2 teaspoons smoky paprika (depending on your tastes)
1-2 tablespoons olive oil (or more, depending on the quantity of prawns you are cooking)
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Dressing (this will probably make enough for two generous servings):
1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon maple syrup
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Meanwhile make the dressing - place all the ingredients in a small jar, cover, and shake until everything is well combined.  Taste and adjust seasonings to your liking.  Set aside.

In a small bowl mix together the paprika, olive oil, flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Toss the prawns in the bowl until they are all well coated, then place prawns in a single layer in an ovenproof dish.  Place dish in the oven and roast until the prawns are just cooked through.  This will only take about 5 minutes so keep an eye on them.

Place the nectarines, cherry tomatoes, and half the parsley in a bowl, pour over half of the dressing, and toss to combine everything well.  Leave to stand while the prawns are cooking to allow the juices from the nectarines and cherry tomatoes to "meld" with the dressing.

Arrange salad greens on a serving platter, and nestle the nectarines and tomatoes (with their dressing) in amongst the leaves.  Arrange the cooked prawns over the top, drizzle with the remaining dressing, and finish with a sprinkling of the remaining parsley.

Serve immediately.

What's your favourite salad?  I'd love you to tell me about ... better yet, why not share it.

Pink Grapefruit, Prawn & Toasted Coconut Salad

I've spent a lot of my time over the last few weeks decluttering.  Like a woman possessed, I have bit by bit gone through every room and cupboard in the house, having a major clean-out of all that stuff I've been hanging onto "just in case" it's ever needed one day.

I have spoken to my yoga students often about staying in the present, living in the moment, and yet despite that I have managed to surround myself with a whole lot of stuff because of some attachment to a time long past, or possible need in some uncertain future.  It's ridiculous, it doesn't amount to staying present, and it's all been suffocating me.

I have to say I'm surprised how long it's taken to work my way through the house, and I'm not finished yet (there's still the bathroom and kitchen cupboards) to go, but I guess I'm not going to deal with 40 years of accumulated clap-trap in five minutes.  Now don't get me wrong, it's not like I would have made an ideal candidate for "World's Greatest Hoarders", but there was a lot of stuff.

There's no doubt this is an incredibly freeing process - it's given me a real sense of lightening the load, and allowing space for change.

So what does all of this have to do with this dish?  Well, part of my decluttering process has extended to trying to give the freezer a bit of a clean-out, wherein I found a bag of prawns that needed to be used up.  Since we have another Mystery Box Challenge this week at I Heart Cooking Clubs, which requires us to make a dish from anyone of our IHCC chefs using at least three of these ingredients: potatoes, buttermilk, flour, paprika, onion, leafy greens, lemon, honey, prawns, and feta - it seemed like the ideal time to use those prawns.

I'd had Diana Henry's recipe in A Change of Appetite for A Warm Salad of Pink Grapefruit, Prawns, and Toasted Coconut bookmarked for quite a while, and since with a little adaptation the recipe enabled me to use prawns, leafy greens and honey, this looked like the perfect dish to meet the mystery box challenge.

I made only very minimal changes to the recipe, briefly oven-roasting the prawns instead of pan frying them, since I always look for any opportunity I can to avoid standing over a frying pan, and for a bit of extra kick I added some red pepper flakes to the prawns while the roasted.  I also replaced sugar in the dressing with honey, and replaced groundnut oil with a combination of olive oil and sesame oil.

This made a wonderful light meal, absolutely bursting with flavour and interesting texture - soft, velvety leaves provide a cooling background to spicy prawns and the citrusy, sweet-tart burst of the grapefruit, accompanied by the crunch of the coconut, peanuts and sesame seeds.  This is definitely a dish I can see myself repeating often over the remainder of summer - I can even see it inspiring a few variations.

Pink Grapefruit, Prawn & Toasted Coconut Salad Recipe
Adapted (barely) from recipe by Diana Henry
from A Change of Appetite
Serves 2 as a light meal

for the dressing:
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil

for the salad:
2x pink grapefruit
1 cup shaved coconut from a fresh coconut
1 tablespoon olive oil
350g (12 oz) fresh prawns, shelled & deveined
red pepper flakes
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
leafy salad greens
bunch of fresh mint leaves
1x red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
large handful roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
sesame seeds

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (360 degrees F).

Begin by making the dressing.  Place all the ingredients in a small jug, whisk to combine, and set aside.

Prepare the grapefruit - remove the peel and all the white pith from the grapefruit, then, working over a bowl, remove the segments by running a sharp knife between the membrane and the flesh on each side of the segment to release the segment.  Discard the membrane, set the flesh aside.

Using a hammer or the back of a heavy knife, break the coconut shell open and prise out the flesh.  Using a vegetable peeler, shave the coconut into thin slices.  Dry fry the shaved coconut in a pan over medium heat until golden.  This happens quickly, so don't leave the kitchen.

In a bowl toss together the prawns, olive oil, generous pinch of red pepper flakes, flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Spread prawns in a single layer in an ovenproof dish and roast in the preheated oven until cooked through - this only takes a few minutes.

Remove from the oven and immediately toss with the grapefruit segments, red chilli and half the dressing.

Arrange salad greens and mint on serving plates, and arrange prawns and grapefruit amongst the salad leaves.  Scatter toasted coconut, peanuts, and sesame seeds over the top, and drizzle with the remaining dressing.

Serve immediately.

If you would like to get to know Diana Henry a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links (who knows, you might even want to join the journey and cook along with us) ...

... or check out A Change of Appetite and Diana's many other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.

Farewell Nigel, and a Round-up of My Favourites

If you've been following here for a while then you will most likely know that I am a regular participant and co-host at I Heart Cooking Clubs, where each six months our members elect a new chef with whom we will spend the ensuing six months cooking according to a variety of weekly themes.  You will also know that for the last six months we have been cooking with British cook, Nigel Slater, and this week is time to say our goodbyes.

This is always a bittersweet moment - a little hint of sadness as one journey comes to an end, tinged with the excitement and anticipation of welcoming in a new chef.  You'll find out more about that next week, but for now I wanted to share with you a round-up of my favourite Nigel Slater dishes of the last six months.

Warm Lentil, Leek & Lemon Salad with Prawns & Roasted Tomatoes

This dish was actually inspired by Nigel's "Lentil soup, with lemon, pancetta and mint".  It turned out to be one of those dishes which, in its entirety, was so much greater than the sum of its parts, and was not just every bit as good as I expected it to be, but in actual fact exceeded all my expectations.

Roasted Potato Salad with Black Olive & Roasted Garlic Gremolata

This was a dish which not only drew inspiration from Nigel, but also from my friend Toby at Plate Fodder.  Potatoes are par-boiled, then smashed and oven roasted with rosemary and garlic.  That in itself is a pretty good thing, but then the crispy roasted potatoes are drizzled straight from the oven with a mustardy vinaigrette, and then topped with a gremolata of black olives, rosemary, garlic and lemon zest.  A taste sensation, and the perfect accompaniment to the Sunday night roast chook.

Curried Carrot, Lentil & Roasted Tomato Soup

In many ways carrots are one of my least favourite vegetables, so I'd always been a bit dubious about carrot soup.  This stunning soup, loaded with red lentils, spicy curry powder, fragrant coconut milk and slow roasted tomatoes helped me overcome all my carrot soup fears!

Pumpkin, Date & Chocolate Scones

I turned Nigel's slightly savoury warm pumpkin scones into an ever so slightly sweeter treat with the addition of dates, date syrup and chocolate - just perfect for a leisurely Sunday brunch, or to accompany an afternoon cuppa.

Roasted Pumpkin Laksa

This laksa is perfect for a cold winter evening.  The sweet, soft, nutty pumpkin, silky rice noodles, crispy bok choy and bean sprouts, all bathed in a gorgeously fragrant, coconut-rich broth, makes for a symphony of flavours and textures.

Gnocchi with Chorizo, Gorgonzola & Spinach

This is the ultimate one-pan wonder.  A dish for those occasions when only a big helping of carbs, smothered in cream and cheese, and topped off with a bit of fried sausage, will satisfy, and just enough spinach to assuage the guilt - slightly!

Pumpkin Pangrattato with Merguez Sausage & Black Olives

This was easily my favourite Nigel Slater dish, and in fact one of my favourite dishes I've ever posted.  Chunks of steamed butternut pumpkin, spicy nuggets of merguez sausage, and black olives, are baked under a topping of cheesy, garlicky breadcrumbs.  Seriously, if you only ever try one dish from my blog, this would be a good place to start.

With that, it's time to say "Cheerio" to Nigel, and don't forget to come back next week to see who we'll be welcoming as our next IHCC chef.

If you would like to get to know Nigel Slater a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links ...

... or check out Tender, Vol. 1 and Nigel's many other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.

Warm Lentil, Leek & Lemon Salad with Prawns & Roasted Tomatoes

One of the things I love about cooking is the creative process, finding inspiration in unexpected ways.

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs, we're cooking with Nigel Slater, making dishes with lentils, legumes and pulses.  In Nigel's book Tender Vol. I, I came across his recipe for "Lentil soup with lemon, pancetta and mint".  Nigel describes it as being ... "One of those soups that doubles as a main course, earthy, filling and beefy.  The soup relies on the onion to add depth and body."

Sounded good enough, but enjoying warmer spring days and evenings now I was in the mood for something a little fresher than a hearty, wintery soup.  Which got me to thinking that I could put a lot of those same ingredients together in an entirely different way - some lightly sauteed leeks instead of onions, lentils, spinach and lemons - surely these same ingredients could make an interesting salad.  Replacing the pancetta in the soup with some lemony prawns would turn this salad into a substantial meal, and the rich fruitiness of some quick pan roasted tomatoes were the perfect foil to the earthy lentils and sweet prawns.

This turned out to be one of those dishes which, in its entirety, was so much greater than the sum of its parts, and was not just every bit as good as I expected it to be, but in actual fact exceeded all my expectations.  Thanks for the inspiration, Nigel.

Warm Lentil, Leek & Lemon Salad with Prawns & Roasted Tomatoes Recipe
Serves 2 as a main meal
Download the free recipe card here

2x lemons
extra virgin olive oil
1x cup Puy lentils
1x small leek, halved lengthwise & thinly sliced
red wine vinegar
flaky sea salt & freshly ground pepper
large handful flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
2x generous handfuls of baby spinach leaves
200g prawns, peeled & deveined
12x cherry tomatoes

Using a peeler, remove a couple of strips of peel from one of the lemons, taking care to avoid any of the white pith.  Place in a small bowl, and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.  Set aside to infuse.  Grate the remaining zest from the same lemon and set aside, then juice the lemon and reserve.

Remove the peel and all the pith from the second lemon.  Place a sieve over a small bowl.  Hold the peeled lemon over the bowl and, using a sharp knife, cut down between the membrane and fruit on each side of the segment to separate it from the membrane.  Let the fruit segments fall into the sieve.  Squeeze the membrane over the bowl, extracting as much juice from it as you can.  Set aside.

Place lentils in a medium sized saucepan, cover with cold water.  Bring to the boil and cook until tender, but not mushy - about 15 minutes.  Remove from heat, drain well, and place lentils in a medium sized bowl.  Immediately add a generous splash of red wine vinegar, and a couple of good glugs of olive oil.  Season generously with flaky sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

Heat a splash of olive oil in a small saute pan set over medium heat.  Add the thinly slice leeks to the pan, and sprinkle with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the leeks have softened, but not browned.  Add lemon juice to the pan and stir until juice is reduced and slightly syrupy.  Remove from heat and add to the bowl of lentils, along with the lemon segments and any of their reserved juice, and flat leaf parsley.  Mix well to combine all the ingredients and set aside for all the flavours to develop.

Set a small saute pan over medium-high heat.  Add a dash of olive oil and the cherry tomatoes to the hot pan.  As soon as they sizzle and the skins start to split, add a splash or two of red wine vinegar, along with generous seasoning of flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Toss around in the pan for a moment or two, until the pan juices are syrupy.  Remove from heat and set aside.  Wipe out the pan.

Remove lemon peels from the olive oil that has been infusing, and put the lemon oil into the same pan.  Set over medium heat, and once warm, add the prawns to the pan.  Season generously, and saute until cooked through - 2 to 3 minutes on each side, depending on size.  Remove from heat, add to the lentils, and toss gently.

To serve, arrange baby spinach leaves over a serving platter.  Spoon lentil salad over the top, and finish with the roasted cherry tomatoes.

If you would like to get to know Nigel Slater a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links ...

I'll also be sharing this post this week at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the delightful Michelle at Ms. enPlace, at Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads, and at Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollum.

         

Prawn & Chilli Pot-Sticker Dumplings

I may have mentioned here before that, in my real life … that is the one that pays the bills and keeps a roof over my head, I work in a kitchenware shop.  This can be dangerous territory for the avid cook, surrounded on a daily basis by beautiful crockery, cutlery, glassware, pots and pans, and a gadget for just about any purpose you might care to mention - many of them useful, others … well, maybe not so much.  To be perfectly honest (and in saying this I mean no disrespect to my employer whatsoever), I don't personally see the point of accumulating an egg slicer, a strawberry slicer, a mushroom slicer and a banana slicer, when one good chef's knife will do the job of all four gadgets and a whole lot more besides.  But there are people out there who clearly have bigger drawers and deeper pockets than I do, as these are all popular products, and who am I to knock it?!

You can imagine that, working in this environment, it would be easy to be splashing out on a whole lot of unnecessary gadgets, and who amongst can say (no matter how discerning) that we don't have at least one such item gathering dust in the deepest recess of a kitchen drawer.  So generally my rule of thumb for purchasing a new gadget is that its primary function has to be something that I would use a lot, or that it should be capable of performing a variety of tasks.

One gadget that I've had my eye on, since it came into stock a month or so ago, is this Chef'n Pocket Maker.  This little gadget is used for making little pies, empanadas, gyozas, etc, and the minute I saw this my mind was abuzz with possible fillings and uses.  As luck would have it, I got to trial one yesterday, and I'm so in love with this product I can't wait to get back to work tomorrow to buy one.  Yes, really, and no one has paid me to tell you this!!

The Chef'n Pocket Maker is available in New Zealand from Stevens Homewares stores nationwide, elsewhere from Amazon.  Want to see it in action?  Check out this video.

Aside from the little pot-sticker dumplings I'm sharing with you today, you could also use this gadget for these Fig & Blue Cheese Wontons, these Spicy Vegetable Samosas, individual versions of this Greek Spinach & Feta Pie or this Broccoli, Leek & Blue Cheese Pie, even a variation on these Lemon & Goat Cheese Ravioli.

As luck would have it our theme this week at I Heart Cooking Clubs is tarts and pies, and I have liberally interpreted this to include anything enclosed in some kind of pastry.  Leafing through my collection of Donna Hay books, there was all manner of delicious tarts and pies to tantalise the tastebuds, but it was the Prawn & Chilli Pot-Sticker Dumplings from marie claire dining (which I believe has now been republished as Donna Hay Entertaining) that really took my fancy, as well as providing the perfect opportunity for test driving this great little "gizmo".

I made only a couple of small changes to the recipe, really just adjusting a few quantities to suit what I had on hand and my tastes, and also leaving out shallots as I didn't feel they were necessary and really there is more than enough flavour comes through from the coriander and chilli jam.  I think the addition of shallot would completely kill the delicate flavour of the prawns.  Speaking of the chilli jam, I used my own homemade chilli jam which you can find here, but I have also used this chilli paste in soy oil before which is readily available in most Asian shops and which I think would work well.

These dumplings were incredibly delicious, and although we ate them as a meal accompanied by an Asian-style slaw, they would also be great to serve as an appetiser or party-pass-around, or even to take for a picnic.  Served with a dish of chilli jam, your favourite Asian-style dipping sauce, or even sweet chilli sauce, these make a truly delightful snack or light meal.

Prawn & Chilli Pot-Sticker Dumplings Recipe

Adapted slightly from recipe by Donna Hay

from marie claire dining

Note:  using the pocket maker this quantity of filling made 30 dumplings, but if you were making them by hand I imagine you would probably get a few less

300g (10-1/2 oz) raw prawn meat

1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

small bunch coriander, leaves & stems, roughly chopped

1 tablespoon chilli jam

2 tablespoons cooking sake

1 tablespoon soy sauce

30 wonton wrappers

1 tablespoon cornflour *

2 tablespoons water *

* Note:  the cornflour and water are not necessary to seal the dumplings

if you are using the pocket maker

1 tablespoon oil

1 cup vegetable stock

Place prawn meat, ginger, coriander, chilli jam, sake and soy sauce in the bowl of a food processor, and pulse a few times until everything is coarsely chopped.  Take care not to overdo it - you don't want to end up with fish paste - your filling should still have a little bit of texture to it.

If making dumplings by hand, place a small spoonful of filling on each wonton wrapper.  Mix the cornflour and water together to make a paste, and brush paste around the edges of the wrapper.  Fold the wrapper in half, and then pleat the edges into form a fan shape, pinching the edges firmly to seal in the filling.

If using the pocket maker, proceed according to the following illustrations:  Place wonton wrapper on the pocket maker and press down gently in the centre to create the pocket for the filling;  place a scant teaspoon of filling in the cavity, taking care not to overfill;  bring the sides of the pocket maker together to enclose the filling, squeeze firmly, and peel off the excess dough;  open the pocket maker and remove the filled dumpling.

Set aside until you have filled all the wrappers.  (If desired, you could actually freeze completed dumplings at this stage)

Set a large frypan over high heat, and add oil to the pan.  Once oil is hot, add the dumplings to the pan, in a single layer, and cook until the bases are golden brown.  Carefully pour the stock into the pan and cover.  Steam the dumplings in the stock until the dough is tender and cooked through - about 5 minutes.  Remove lid from the pan and continue to cook for a couple more moments until all the stock has evaporated.  Remove from the pan and serve immediately.

If you would like to get to know Donna Hay a little better, and to see all the scrumptious pies and tarts and pies my friends have cooked up, then visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

I'll also be sharing this post this week at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely Michelle at Ms. enPlace, Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth at Beth Fish Reads, at Cook Your Books hosted by the lovely Joyce at Kitchen Flavours, and at Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollam.