Pan Fried Salmon and a Syrian Potato Salad
So, apparently, Spring is here! Here in Scotland it still feels like winter with rain, wind and even some flurries of snow further north. We did have a few days of more spring -like weather and I wanted to make something fresh and light.
The salmon fillets were simply seasoned with salt and freshly ground pepper and pan fried skin side down first until the salmon goes opaque about 2/3 of the way up the side of the fish. Then turn over and cook for a couple of minutes on the other side.
Syria is not a country I know much about and I wasn't aware that it also had its own cuisine. The book, Almond Bar, is named for the restaurant in Sydney, started by Sharon Salloum and her sister, Carol, to bring to life their mother's love of food. Sharon feared she might not be able to emulate the passion her mother puts into food but, after much blood, sweat and tears, she likes to believe that she has done her parents and family proud.
Almond Bar starts with a look into The Syrian Pantry, some ingredients are familiar, like chickpeas, Bulgar wheat and Haloumi. Others such as Baladieh, a semi-soft cheese, Freekeh, a green dried wheat grain and grey courgettes. There are also a couple of pages of Middle Eastern Food Suppliers to ensure you can make the recipes in the book.
Spice Blends are crucial to capturing Middle Eastern flavours and there are the instructions for four different blends. We then move on to a chapter of Sauces and Dips, I liked the Smoked Aubergine Dip, Mint and Walnut Sauce, a vibrant Beetroot Dip and the classic Labne, a dried yoghurt dip.
Finger food is a speciality of The Almond Bar and this chapter if full of tempting bites from Za'atar Pizzas to Scallops and Basturma Drizzled with Pomegranate Butter.
Learn how to make Arish Cheese and Shanklish in a step by step guide.
I think the Sharing Platters look amazing and are one of my favourite ways of eating. There were some delicious recipes like Lemony Lentil Soup, Crushed Chickpeas with Yoghurt Almonds and Pine nuts, Za'atar Prawns with Pumpkin Mash and a step by step photo guide to making Falafel.
On to Salads and Sides including one of my favourite salads, Fatoush or Toasted Bread Salad, Tabouli, Haloumi, Lentil and Watercress Salad and Salatet batata- a Syrian Potato Salad which Sharon's mother's recipe, a light fresh, well balanced salad.
Salatet batata (Potato Salad) serves 4
4 main crop or Russet Potatoes, peeled and cut into 1.5cm cubes
2 tomatoes, roughly chopped
1/2 brown onion, thinly sliced
Large handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
Small handful of mint, roughly chopped
Dressing
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp salt flakes
1 tsp sweet paprika
60ml (1/4 cup) extra virgin olive oil
60ml (1/4 cup) lemon juice
Rinse the potato cubes to remove any excess start, then place in a medium saucepan and cover with enough cold water to come 2cm (3/4in) above the level of the potato. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10-15 min until tender but not soft enough to fall apart. Drain and leave to cool to room temperature.
To make the dressing, place all the ingredients in a small bowl and mix together well.
Combine the potato, tomato, onion, parsley and mint in a bowl, pour over the dressing and gently toss to coat. This salad is best served while the potato is still lukewarm bu it can be made ahead of time, refrigerated and served cold as well.
We are not finished with Almond Bar by any means, it's time for the 'Mains'. There are some really luscious dishes such as Middle Eastern Lamb Dumplings, Stuffed Small Aubergines, Minced Lamb, Parsley and Onion Skewers, Chilli Fish, Spaghetti Cooked in Milk and Cannellini Bean, Tomato and Beef Stew to name just a few.
Syrian Desserts bring a delicious Middle Eastern twist to the usual favourites, I was taken with Rosewater Ice-cream, Fig Sorbet, Sweet Semolina and Coconut Slice, Turkish Delight with Pistachio and a number of recipes using 'Middle Eastern Clotted Cream'.
Who is it for?
This is a book for the adventurous cook, someone who likes big flavours and likes to create food for sharing.
Pros
This is a beautiful book, the photographs, the styling and the graphics are stunning. There are over 100 classic and contemporary recipes with many suitable for vegetarians and plenty for meat eaters too. I loved the huge variety of small dishes in the sauces and dips section, finger food, shared plates, salads and sides. These reflect the Middle Eastern way of eating, the importance of celebrating food and sharing.
Cons
Some of the ingredients could be a little difficult to source, most of the suppliers are in London and the South East although there are some online suppliers.
The Verdict
This is an excellent book to add to your collection, even if you already own some books of Middle Eastern cookery. I will definitely be returning to make more of the recipes.
Book: Almond Bar
Author: Sharon Salloum
ISBN: 978-1-909342-57-6
Published by Jacqui Small Publishing
Cover: Hardback
RRP: £25.99
Many thanks to Jacqui Small Publishing for providing me with a copy of Almond Bar, I was not paid for this review and all opinions are my own.
Labels: Almond Bar, Family Foodies, Four Seasons Food, mint, No Croutons Required, onion, parsley, potoato salad, salmon, Syria, tomatoes
Foragers Fancy - A Gin Cocktail
Gin was probably my first 'grown up' drink, it seemed very sophisticated to ask for a gin and tonic rather than the Cinzano and lemonade that started my foray into alcoholic drinks. Good grief, that dates me squarely in the 1970s! However time moves on and I was seduced away from drinking spirits by the increasing quality, and reducing price, of wine. However, recently in an attempt to drink less (lets face it, once the bottle is open....) we have turned our attention back to the hard stuff.
It started with the bottle of vodka which had been given to my husband as a gift, but vodka has never been my spirit of choice, so when
Martin Miller's offered me a bottle of their
Arctic Quality Gin I was more than pleased to accept.
The bottle is really very beautiful and shows the UK and Iceland, as the gin is distilled in England and blended with Icelandic water. I also received a glossy 'coffee table' book with more information than you could possibly want to know about Martin Miller's Gin and a cocktail recipe book. In the book there are some nice little quotes from Martin Miller e.g
" I want my gin to have the scent of Oriental flowers at dusk and to have the fragrance of orange groves on a warm night in Seville" probably my favourite chapter is the one called 'Gin, Janes and Jazz' which tells you about the birth of the 'Cocktail Hour' which replaced afternoon tea in the Grand American Hotels at the start of the twentieth century, shortly followed by prohibition in the 1920s which gave gin attitude!
The flavour of the gin is very clean. It doesn't have the harsh 'scented' quality that some other brands seem to have. It felt as if you could taste each of the individual botanicals that go to make up the flavourings for this gin:
Juniper, Coriander, Angelica, Lime Peel, Liquorice Root, Cassia Bark and Florentine Iris and it was very smooth, no harsh spirity kick probably down to the way it is distilled with only the 'heart' of the spirit being kept. Or maybe it has something to do with the pollution free Icelandic water. All I can say is that it is a very good gin indeed!
Having tried the Martin Miller's Gin with tonic, I thought I would make a cocktail. But rather than use one of the recipes provided by
Martin Miller's I decided to create my own cocktail:
Forager's Fancy
Per glass
35ml Martin Miller's Gin
25ml Bramble Cordial
8 mint leaves
crushed ice
soda water
1 sprig of mint to garnish
1. Bruise the mint leaves in a mortar and pestle or with the end of a rolling pin to release the oils.
2. Place the crushed mint and crushed ice in the glass.
3. Add the Martin Miller's Gin and the Bramble Cordial in the glass and stir to mix. Top up with soda water.
4. Garnish with the sprig of mint.
For the Bramble Cordial
1 cup fresh or frozen blackberries (brambles)
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 cups water
1. Place the ingredients in a saucepan and gently heat until the sugar has dissolved, simmer for about 10-15 minutes until the berries are soft and the liquid has reduced by about half.
2. Strain through a sieve and leave to cool.
3. Keep in a sterilised bottle or jar in the fridge until needed.
Chin Chin!
Labels: blackberries, Bramble Cordial, Brambles, cocktails, Gin, ice, Martin Miller's Gin, mint
Lamb Pot Roast and Peach, Bramble and Almond Crumble - Dish of the Month September
In the Kitchen Diaries II, Nigel Slater tells us "
I am not a chef and never have been. I am a home cook who writes about food." He goes on to say "
I'm neither slapdash or particularly pedantic in the kitchen (I haven't much time for uptight foodies; they seem to have so little fun). Neither am I someone who tries to dictate how something should be done and I am never happier than when a reader simply uses my recipe as an inspiration for their own."
If you have taken part in
'Dish of the Month' or even read through one of the round ups, you will realise that most of the participants use the recipes as an inspiration. I am trying to cook the Kitchen Diaries month by month, finding at least one recipe from the appropriate month to share in this blog challenge and I have found that the inspiration route certainly works for me. Some of this may be because the seasons in Scotland are slightly out of kilter with the more southern parts of the UK, for example Elderberries feature in the August chapter and at the end of August they are still green here. Or it may be that I am more of an ingredient led cook e.g. what is in the fridge/freezer/cupboard/garden
No matter, I've never failed to be inspired by Nigel's recipes and ideas, even if, sometimes, I veer so far off recipe for them to become unrecognisable!
And so to this month's offering which is
Lamb 'osso buco' with parsley papardelle. Guess what? I didn't have lamb steaks on the bone, I had a nice piece of Herdwick rolled shoulder, so I made this into more of a pot roast, oh and no Marsala either, so I used a tablespoon of Brandy and some lamb stock. And, because I haven't been feeling too well recently and couldn't face making roasties, I just threw the potatoes in to cook with it. So no need for pappardelle, although I may make that to eat with the left over lamb. I also made some fresh mint sauce which added to the deliciousness.
Dessert could have been
Pear and Chocolate Oat Crumble from KDII, but I didn't have any pears, so I concocted a
Peach, Bramble and Almond Crumble instead. As this is my recipe rather than Nigel's, I have included it for you below:.
Peach Bramble and Almond Crumble
Serves 4-6
2 peaches
about a cup of blackberries (brambles) - or a couple of handfuls -
sorry this is crumble not science!
1 tbsp caster sugar
100g plain flour
45g ground almonds
75g butter
50g demerara sugar
25g flaked almonds
1. Skin the peaches, by putting them in a bowl, pouring over boiling water and leaving for a couple of minutes, then removing and the skin should come off easily.
2. Slice the peaches and place in an ovenproof dish. Add the brambles, and the sugar.
3. Put the flour, ground almonds and butter, cut into cubes, into a bowl. Rub the butter through the flour and almond mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs.
4. Add the demerara sugar and spoon over the fruit in the ovenproof dish.
5. Sprinkle the flaked almonds over the crumble mixture.
6. Bake at 160C for about 40 minutes until the fruit is bubbling and the crumble has turned golden brown.
7. Serve with cream, ice cream, yogurt or custard.
If you would like to take part in Dish of the Month, then please:
- Make a Dish of the Month from ANY recipe by Nigel Slater
- Link to Farmersgirl Kitchen or A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate
- Use the Dish of the Month logo in your post
- If you use twitter, tweet your post with @serialcrafter or
@Heavenona_plate and #DishoftheMonth and we will re-tweet it to our
followers.
Rules:
- If you own The kitchen diaries II please do not publish the recipes on your blog without permission, they are copyright.
- If you are using recipes from the BBC Food website, please link to the recipe on BBC Food rather than publishing the recipe. Likewise recipes on the Guardian Lifestyle website.
- One entry per blog.
- Recipes must be added to the linky by the 28th of each month.
Labels: Almond, Bramble, crumble, Dish of the Month, lamb, mint, Nigel Slater, one pot, Peach, pot roast
Raw Rhubarb and Rosemary Tabbouleh for the Aero Perfect Pairing Challenge
The good people at Aero HQ set out a challenge to create some wacky and wonderful flavour pairings to celebrate the two-toned bubblicious makeover of Aero with it's delicious flavour combinations of orange or mint with bubbly milk chocolate.
To help me with the challenge I was sent a box full of cooking equipment, a flavour thesaurus and some bubbly Aero chocolate to help inspire me! In fact, I found my inspiration in the Flavour Thesaurus where I spied an amazing combination of
raw rhubarb and rosemary marinated in honey, I thought this would work well in a Tabbouleh providing the acidic element to a classic salad.
Raw Rhubarb and Rosemary Tabbouleh (Serves 4)
2 sticks young rhubarb, very finely sliced
2 tbsp runny honey
2 sprigs of rosemary, bruised
250g bulgar wheat
4 spring onions, finely chopped
2 tbsp chopped mint
2 sticks of celery, finely chopped
2 tbsp celery leaves roughly chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
juice of half a lemon
1. Finely slice the rhubarb, preferably on a mandoline using the finest setting. I used the OXO Good Grips Mandoline for this.
2. Place in a non metallic bowl and add the honey and rosemary, leave to marinate for several hours or preferably overnight.
3. Place the bulgar wheat in a bowl and cover with boiling water.
4. When the wheat has swollen and absorbed all the water, add the rest of the ingredients and mix through.
5. Finally add the rhubarb and marinade, cover the bowl and leave to sit for at least an hour for the flavours to mingle, season to taste. You may wish to add a little more finely chopped rosemary if you would like a stronger rosemary taste.
If you didn't know it was rhubarb, you would be hard pushed to recognise it, the honey has softened the sharpness to a pleasant bite and a subtle flavour of rosemary permeates the Tabbouleh.
Many thanks to Sophie for the Perfect Pairing Aero Cookery Kit.Labels: Aero Perfect Pairing Challenge, celery, chocolate, mint, rhubarb, Rosemary, salad, Tabbouleh
Beetroot with Chorizo, Feta and Mint
This recipe has been inspired by a recipe from BBC Good Food July 2012. However, I made some changes in the method to suit my own purposes!
Beetroot with chorizo, feta and
mint (serves 2)
1 pack cooked beetroot
½ regular cooking chorizo, cubed
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
100g feta, crumbled
Handful of mint, roughly chopped
Drizzle olive oil
Salad leaves
1.
Lay the salad leaves on the place
2. Slice the beetroot and lay out on the leaves
3. Add
the chorizo to a hot frying pan, be careful it doesn’t burn
4. When
cooked add the balsamic vinegar and cook for 1 minute
5. Tip
the chorizo and vinegar onto the beetroot
6. Crumble
the feta over the salad and sprinkle with chopped mint
7.
Drizzle a little olive oil over the salad and serve
immediately
I enjoyed this salad, with it's combination of sweet, sour, salty, earthy flavours and even more because we managed to eat it outside! Back to rain and wind today, but for one brief day, we had a little bit of summer.
Labels: balsamic vinegar, beetroot, chorizo, feta cheese, Herbs on Saturday, mint, salad
Rhubarb and Ginger Zinger!
Urvashi Roe, The Botanical Baker, set a challenge for us foodie bloggers to come up with a
Summer Cocktail. I was inspired in my cocktail making by two particular blogs: Chocolate Log Blog where Choclette made a
Rhubararella with homemade rhubarb shnapps and The Paupered Chef's
Homemade Rhubarb Syrup and 'Rhubarb Daisy'
I thought about making the schnapps, but somehow it was the Homemade Rhubarb Syrup that appealed to me. The recipe is just sooooo easy: two cups sugar, two cups water, 6 or 7 stalks of rhubarb, washed trimmed and finely sliced. Check out the method, also extremely easy, at
The Paupered Chef. I sterilised a jar and have been storing the glorious pink stuff in the fridge waiting for the weekend to come around again.
Rhubarb and Ginger Zinger
250ml Rhubarb Syrup
1 small orange
bottle of Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger Beer or a bottle of non-alcoholic ginger beer
1 slim stick of rhubarb
1 strawberry
some mint
cocktail stick or skewer
1. Cut the orange in half, squeeze one half and put the juice in the bottom of a tall glass. Cut a slice from the other half of the orange and make a cut into it so it will sit on the glass.
2. Take the stalk of rhubarb, split the top downwards with a knife several times until it starts to splay out, put it cut side down into a glass of iced water (this will help it to bend)
3. Pour 250ml Rhubarb Syrup into the glass
4. Top up with Crabbies AGB or, for a non-alcoholic cocktail, ordinary ginger beer.
5. Remove the rhubarb stick from the water, dry with kitchen paper and place with the 'flower' upwards into the glass.
6.Thread the strawberry and mint onto the cocktail stick or skewer (I used a bbq skewer and cut it to size) and lay across the top of the glass
7. Add the slice of orange and enjoy.
The rhubarb can be used to mix the ingredients before drinking, but it's fun to leave the layers of different ingredients showing when you serve.
Cocktails always make me think of the 1920s, so I thought I would share this photo I found when I was visiting my mum recently. I would be about 19 and was part of a 'float' for the local festival parade. My mother was always roping me into these things and the costume was really fun to wear.
CHEERS!Labels: cocktails, Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger Beer, Ginger Beer, mint, orange juice, rhubarb, strawberry
Peppered Lamb with Apple & Mint Glaze
This is a bit of a variation on a recipe from the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book. The original recipe the lamb cutlets are grilled or griddled, however I had lamb steaks so decided to cook them a bit longer.
I rubbed the lamb with olive oil and then pressed the crushed peppercorns onto them.
Then I prepared some potatoes, slicing them thinly and layering them into a casserole dish with seasoning in between.
The lamb was browned and sealed in a frying pan, then half jar of apple and mint jelly added along with about 1/4 pint of chicken stock. My SIL had made the jelly last year, but if you can't get apple & mint, then mint jelly would do just as well.
Then I baked it in the oven for about 40 minutes at 170C.
It was very good, the potatoes picked up all the lovely lamb juices along with the fiery pepper and the sweet minty jelly. Labels: lamb, mint, potatoes
Summer Eating
Lunch today was Salad Nicoise, with new potatoes, french beans, tomatoes and tuna on a bed of lettuce.
Supper was
Minty Lamb Kebabs with pitta bread, tabbouleh and salad. The tabbouleh is a recipe by Rose Elliot in The New Vegetarian Cookbook, not so new now as it was published in 1986! I've included the recipe below.
Coconut Orange Jelly with strawberries and mango. This was a little experiment, I had half a can of coconut milk left after making a Thai prawn curry last night, so decided to make a 'milk' jelly. Very simple, melt the jelly as per packet instructions add the coconut milk and enough cold water to make up to 1 pint (or as the instructions on the packet) pour into a dish and put in the fridge to set. You do have to go and give it a bit of a mix after about 10 minutes or it will separate but I only had to do it once. It was really delicious with the fruit.
Cracked Wheat Salad (Tabbouleh)
100g/4oz bulgur wheat
300ml/1 1/2 pint boiling water
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp chopped parsley
4 tbsp chopped spring onion
2 tbsp chopped mint
2 tomatoes, skinned and finely chopped
salt & freshly ground pepper
4 lettuce leaves
To garnish
lemon slices
tomato slices
Put the wheat into a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave for 10 -15 minutes, until the wheat has absorbed all the water and puffed up. Add the lemon juice, oil, chopped parsley, spring onion, mint and tomato. Mix well and season to taste. Put two lettuce leaves on two serving plates or in one large blowl, then spoon the salad mixture into the lettuce leaves. Garnish with the lemon and tomato slices.
Labels: lamb kebabs, mint, Rose Elliot, salad, vegetarian
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