Cooking The World

Winter is coming. I know it’s only May, but it’s getting very cold very quickly. The house in Newcastle is icy because I don’t have a heater for my room, so I’m relying on my culinary adventures to keep me warm. Tagines are fantastic because I don’t have to be in the kitchen while they cook, and a few hours later I can go into the kitchen and my dinner will be ready and the kitchen will be warm as well. Brilliant. 

I made this just for myself, hence the lone cut of lamb in the photos. Usually I write up the recipe for the number of servings I make, but the quantities are small enough for the full recipe without needing to divide them into oblivion, so the one below is for eight.

LAMB TAGINE (SERVES 8)

Active cooking time: 10 minutes

Total cooking time: 3.5 hours

1 tsp ras el hanout

1/2 tsp grated turmeric

salt and pepper

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

1 small shallot, finely minced

2 tbsp olive oil

8 pieces of lamb neck or leg

1 cup tomato puree

water

6 sprigs coriander

1 whole hot pepper of your choice

1 cup parboiled or canned white beans

Add everything except the lamb to the tagine, or pot with lid if you’re not lucky enough to own one of these AMAZING vessels. Mix to form a paste and spread it over the base of the tagine. Lay the lamb on top and pop the tagine on the stove. Turn the heat onto low, and after a couple of minutes raise it to medium-low. 

Add the tomato puree, coriander, jalapeno and enough water to reach about 3/4 up the side of the tagine. Turn heat down to low and simmer for one hour.

Turn the lamb and add the beans. Simmer for one and a half hours.

If there’s no water left, add a little more. Simmer for another hour.

If there’s a lot of water left at the end of the hour (three and a half hours total) remove the lamb and turn the heat up to reduce the sauce to a glaze. My tagine isn’t designed for temperatures hotter than medium (how precise) but yours might be different, so adjust it accordingly. If there’s not much water, it’s ready to serve with some kesra or khobz (types of Algerian bread). I made some khobz - equal parts flour and water, plus a tablespoon of salt and olive oil, kneaded and left to sit for half an hour, and cooked on a smoking hot pan.

Enjoy. I know my usual wit and charm is missing from this post, but I’m watching a particularly depressing episode of ER as I type this and I’m also pretty tired. It’ll be back for the next post. =D

(recipe from www.chefzadi.com)

It’s been a while since I cooked a beef dish. Or has it? I don’t know, but it feels like forever. One of my Psychology classmates suggested I make empanadas for Chile, so I figured there’s no time like the present. I had no idea they’d be so big - I’m glad I halved the recipe.

I made the dough first but it makes more sense to do the filling first, so that’s how I’ve typed it out here.

EMPANADAS - MAKES 6 LARGE

Kitchen time: 1-2 hours

250g minced beef

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp cumin seeds

3 tbsp olive oil

2 medium onions, finely chopped

1 tsp paprika dissolved in 1/4 cup beef stock

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tbsp flour

6 black olives

2 hard-boiled eggs, cut in thirds

Dough:

1/2 cup milk

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

1/2 cup butter

2 1/4 cups flour

Add the ground cumin to the beef. In a non-stick pan, heat the cumin seeds until they pop, or at least sizzle. Add the oil and onions. Saute on a very low heat for 25 minutes, but don’t brown them. If you blend the onions to chop them, they’ll be quite watery, so they won’t brown anyway, so winners all around. Add the meat, paprika/stock mixture, salt and pepper and cook until brown. Stir in the flour, remove from the heat and let cool.

In a small pan, heat the salt and milk until lukewarm. Don’t boil it - if it’s too hot to touch, it’s too hot to use. Remove from the heat once it’s reached lukewarm status, and pop into a bowl. Stir in HALF the egg (save the rest for later) and butter until smooth. Mine never did quite reach the “smooth” stage, but it worked out in the end. Mix in the flour using your hands and roll into a bowl. Split the ball into six.

Preheat your oven to 200C.

Get all your fillings and dough together on the same part of your workbench - trust me, it’ll be easier this way. Roll out one of the six balls to about 3mm thick (maybe a bit more if you want yours thicker/smaller) and pop onto an ungreased baking tray.  Add a sixth of the meat mixture to one half of the dough, and top with a third of one egg and an olive. Fold the other half of the dough over the top, press hard on the edges to make it stick, and tuck the rims straight to make a rectangle. Repeat with the others.

Oh wow, I didn’t realise how crap this photo was until just now. Well, you get the basic idea anyway. Remember how I said to save the other half of the egg for later? Beat it lightly and brush the top of the empanadas with it. Bake in the oven for half an hour or until nicely brown. 

I suppose you could just eat them by themselves, but I served mine with a salad…

Definitely one for the recipe journal.

Two recipes in one night! Shazaam!

To finish off a healthy dinner of fish and vegetables, I knew I needed a healthy dessert. The jam in this recipe is made from fruit. Cottage cheese contains protein and calcium - good for strength. And it wasn’t a huge slice of cake - these little pastries are tiny!

I’m not kidding anyone, am I?

Parené Buchty (Makes 12)

1/2 cup milk

225g flour

1 egg

1 tbsp yeast

1 tbsp sugar

salt

a jar of jam

cottage cheese

Heat the milk to slightly warmer than room temperature. Set half of it aside and mix the yeast into the other half. I’m not going to go on about the yeast and temperature - you should all know it by now. Sift the flour into a bowl and add the egg, sugar, salt and both milks. Beat with an electric mixer and knead by hand until smooth. Cover and leave for 30-40 minutes. During this time you can eat a cookie, clean the kitchen or, if you’re like me, cook dinner for three people and eat it (see the previous entry).

Preheat your oven to about 220C.

Roll the dough to 7mm thick and cut into 12 squares. Add about a teaspoon of jam to half, and half a teaspoon of jam mixed with half a teaspoon of cottage cheese to the others. You can of course just make jam ones, or just cheese, but I’m a true fence-sitter and just couldn’t decide. Seal the buchtas by folding them as envelopes, or pinching the tops.

Proof that I can do stuff.

Pop the pastries in the oven on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake (how many times can I say bake and its derivatives in a sentence?!) until golden brown.

Serve with melted butter, chocolate, or other sauce/dip/dressing according to your taste. I served mine with cream but in hindsight I should have asked Mum or Dad to duck down to the service station and pick up a large block of dark chocolate to melt.

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM

(recipe is an odd hybrid of www.slovak-republic.org and some other website Mum found while I was making these and realised I didn’t have a large enough steamer as required in the first recipe)

When I started typing up this recipe, I realised I’d forgotten what number country I’m up to. First time that’s happened so far - I think it’s a sign I’m definitely getting right into it now!

I cooked this one on Saturday night at my parents’ house. Mum says Dad needs to eat more seafood so it was a perfect excuse to cook a fish dish. Even though Dad’s not a big seafood fan, he said this was fantastic, so I must’ve done alright.

FISH YASSA

Serves: three (measurements can be easily changed for 2 or 4, or even 1!)

3 medium-large firm white fish fillets

3 onions, finely chopped (I’d recommend brown)

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

3 tbsp cooking oil

red chilli powder or cayenne pepper to taste

dash of black pepper

3 flat tbsp tamarind syrup or paste (you can use Soya sauce, but the tamarind is so much nicer)

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 small vegetable stock cubes

1 1/2 cups boiling water

several cups mixed vegetables - I cubed four small new potatoes and added the chopped stalks of a small bunch of bok choy

extra oil, for frying

Get two large pans out - one flat, one deep. Whoa there, adding utensil instructions too. Don’t you just love how organised I’m becoming? Heat the oil in the deep one over a medium heat and fry the onions and garlic in it until golden brown.

Add the chilli, pepper, cinnamon, mustard, tamarind and lemon juice. Stir well; it should look like a paste now. Stir in the stock and vegetables. Let it boil once (this should happen fairly quickly) and simmer until the vegetables are cooked and the sauce thickens. Pop a lid on to speed it up, but uncover the mix towards the end so the water reduces - you don’t want it to be a soup.

Heat a good quantity of oil in the other pan. It must be really hot because otherwise your fish will fall to pieces, and you will have pieces of fish mixed in with your vegetables, and you might not cry, but I will. I DON’T DO PIECES OF FISH IN VEGETABLES. I do whole fish, and that’s it. So once your oil is nice and hot (don’t make me cry now), pop the fish in the pan and cook until golden brown and a little crispy.

The idea with Yassa is that once everything is done, you put the fish inside the sauce, so it kind of absorbs some of the flavours of the vegetables. I can imagine this would work really well with a crispy, golden brown fish, but my pieces of fish just weren’t keen on the whole “let’s turn crispy and golden brown” thing. So instead I served the fish on top of the vegetables and let just one side absorb the saucy flavours.

I cooked dessert on Saturday night as well, so in about fifteen minutes you’re getting another recipe. Get keen!

(recipe from Layla Anwar’s Kitchen)

I wasn’t intending to cook a Greek dish last night. I’d printed a recipe for a Macedonian pie and gathered the ingredients, but botched the dough, so I had to think quickly. This particular recipe for Spanakopita, or spinach and cheese pie, was the only recipe I could find that was country-specific, used a lot of spinach and didn’t  require the making of dough. It got rave reviews from my parents and I, but several of my friends did express a desire to help me cook Greek food, so I’m breaking a few hearts with this post. Sorry peeps… next time, maybe?

SPANAKOPITA - SERVES 4

Preparation: 30 minutes

Cooking: 45 minutes

750g spinach

1 1/2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 onion, finely chopped

5 spring onions, chopped (include some green)

3/4 tbsp chopped dill

100g Greek feta, crumbled

65g cottage cheese

1 1/2 tbsp finely grated kefalotyri or pecorino cheese

large pinch ground nutmeg

2 eggs, lightly beaten

5 sheets filo pastry, cut in half (10 half-sheets)

40g butter, melted, for brushing

Rinse and drain the spinach thoroughly. Discard the stems and shred the leaves. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, add the onion and cook over medium heat until softened. Add the spinach and spring onions, cover and cook for 5 minutes. Uncover, add the dill and cook for 3-4 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.

At its present stage, it resembles every single frittata I’ve ever made. Feeling distinctly uninspired…

Preheat the oven to 180C and lightly grease a 22cm square baking dish (1.25L capacity give or take). Probably should have measured the dish I used before typing this out. Oops. Just make sure your filo sheets will fit. Anyway, pop the cheeses in a bowl and stir in the spinach mixture and nutmeg. Add the eggs, beating well after each one. Season to taste.

Line the baking dish with a sheet of filo pastry and brush with butter. Repeat four times. You should have five sheets brushed with butter now. Congratulations, you now know simple maths. Spoon in the filling and level the surface. Fold the edges over the top - don’t worry if they don’t completely cover the surface. You still have five sheets to use. More simple maths for you!

Thank goodness for the next step. Repeat the filo-butter method with the rest of the sheets on top of the filling, roughly trim the edges and tuck the rest into the dish. Brush the top with butter, score the surface into diamonds and sprinkle a few drops of water on top to stop the pastry curling. Pop in the oven for 45 minutes or until the pastry is puffed and golden.

Pity the water didn’t stop half the top from burning. At least that was the only charred part.

You’re supposed to leave it for 10 minutes at room temperature, but hell, we were hungry. 

I know I usually try and take a self-shot for every recipe to prove I did it, but I made cheesecake earlier and looked a right mess. Trust me, you’re not missing out.

[recipe from Family Circle’s Tastes of the Mediterranean]