I love aubergines (aka eggplants)! They are one of my favourite vegetables if not my favourite vegetable (although they are technically a fruit, but let’s not quibble over that just now). I even have a Pinterest board dedicated to them! They are crazy versatile, as evidenced by the myriad ways to have them, and I don’t think I’ve come across an aubergine dish yet that I didn’t like. My mum is totally to blame for my aubergine fondness, she makes this mean Chinese chilli aubergine that when I was a kid I used to pick at the leftovers, stone cold straight out of the fridge, and then tried (and failed!) to cover up the holes I’d left…
Aubergines are in season still so this is a great recipe for a quick and satisfying Meatless Monday supper, or an any night supper. The dish is full of that unmistakeable smoky aubergine flavour, perfectly complimented by the spicy tomato sauce. And cooking the aubergines in the oven avoids all that oil soaking up that they love which, whilst it does make them much tastier, isn’t brilliant for the old waistline. The fresh basil bridges late Summer and early Autumn, and makes a lovely difference so while you can substitute it for dried basil I would recommend trying not to.
Spicy Aubergine & Tomato Pasta
2014-09-16 07:48:48
Serves 2
Smoky roasted aubergines in a simple spicy tomato sauce over linguine makes for a perfect Meatless Monday, or any day, supper.
1 tsp crushed chilli flakes, plus extra for finishing
1/4 cup fresh, chopped basil, plus extra for finishing
1/2 tsp sugar
Balsamic vinegar
1/2 packet linguine
Parmesan
Cook!
Preheat the oven to 220° C/425° F.
Slice the eggplants into 1-inch thick slices, then cut again until you have large cube-ish pieces. Spread out on a baking sheet or roasting tray. Salt well and season with black pepper before drizzling over with 2 tbsp of olive oil. Toss the aubergine cubes until they are well coated .
Pop the aubergine cubes in the oven and roast until they're tender and browning, which should take about 20 minutes.
While the aubergine is roasting, heat 3 tbsp olive oil on low heat in a large saucepan. Add the onions and sautée for 6-8 minutes, until the onions are soft.
While the onions are sautéeing, put a large saucepan of water on to boil for your pasta.
Add the garlic and sautée for another minute before adding the tomatoes, oregano, chilli flakes, sugar and basil. Add a couple of good slugs of balsamic and then turn the heat up until the sauce is simmering.
At this point, give the aubergine a good shake to toss everything around again and then pop back in the oven.
Give the sauce another 10-12 minutes, until it has thickened up.
When the eggplant is ready, remove it from the oven and add it to the sauce. Continue to simmer gently on very low heat.
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Salt well before popping the linguine in. Cook per the packet instructions, until al dente.
When the pasta is ready, drain and drop into the sauce. Gently fold in the sauce until the pasta is well coated. Dish up and top with chopped basil and chilli flakes to taste. Serve with grated parmesan.
Summer feels like it’s on the way out already – boo hiss – but I’m not quite ready to break out the winter warmers yet so here’s a dish from Hubby that’s perfect for inbetween the seasons and, in a very rare departure for me, carb-less. Left to my own devices I’d happily stockpile rice or pasta for every dinner, but this dish does that magical thing of making the missing carbs unmissed! It is, quite honestly, the only meal with no carbs that I actually look forward to as opposed to the usual pouting.
So what’s to love about it? The saltiness of the Teriyaki is perfectly tempered by cool crisp lettuce, with additional crunch and texture brought to you by water chestnuts and toasted cashews. It also reminds me a little (a lot!) of something we used to order at a Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong (that was confusingly!) called the American Restaurant. Then again, as its the American in our house who cooks all the Asian food and not the half Chinese, maybe it wasn’t such a daft name after all…
We like to use turkey mince for this (thigh or breast are both good), it’s super lean and lets us feel smug for one meal for eating well, but it works just as well with pork or beef mince 🙂
Start by preheating the oven to 200C and roasting the cashew nuts - spread the nuts out on a baking tray and pop in the oven for about 8 minutes.
While the nuts are roasting, rinse the spring onions before topping and tailing, and then chop (or snip with scissors) all the way down, separating green parts to one side and white parts to another
Tip the mince into a medium sized mixing bowl, or any bowl of an equivalent size that will give you enough room to mix everything up. Toss in a handful of the white bits of spring onion, add the minced garlic, 2 tbsp Terriyaki sauce, sprinkle over 1 tsp sugar and then 1 tsp corn starch. Season with white pepper before mixing thoroughly. Leave to marinade for about 20 minutes
While the mince is marinading, drain and rinse the water chestnuts. Roughly chop and then stir into marinading meat mixture.
Also while the mince is marinading, take the roasted cashew nuts and crush roughly. Hubby likes to pop them in a freezer bag before taking a rolling pin to them - it's mess-less and very theraputic apparently!
Place a wok over a medium flame and add 2 tsp vegetable oil. When the oil is heated add the marinaded meat and give it a good toss around the wok before leaving it to cook through - this should take a couple of minutes.
Add the crushed cashew nuts to the wok and tossing everything around again before turning the heat up to high.
Add the shaoxing/sherry and ketjup manis/soy and cook for about five minutes, or until the meat is browned through.
While the meat is finishing cooking, separate the lettuce leaves and then wash and drain them - or give them a good shake - and then pile them up on a plate.
When the meat is browned and looks ready, add another 100ml (1/3rd cup) terriyaki and then taste and season or add more sugar if required. Cook for a further five minutes, until most of the cooking liquid has absorbed.
If you still need to thicken the sauce then add 1 tsp corn starch to 3 tsp water and mix into a paste before adding to the meat and stirring through. Keep it on a high heat for about a minute to thicken.
Plate up the mince and scatter the green bits of spring onion over it just before serving with the lettuce leaves.
Notes
That rarest of things, a carb-less dish that I actually look forward to!
So… I took a bit of a sabbatical from the blog apparently… Wasn’t intentional, I just got a bit distracted by life there, and in a good way. In the meantime, lovely Hubby gave the blog a wee bit of a design refresh which I am seriously loving! Doesn’t it look all grown-up and shiny 🙂 Refreshed from sabbatical + shiny blog + Autumn on the way = time to get stuck back in! And I thought I’d start with a new favourite 🙂
While we’re still clinging on to Summer, here’s a recipe that we seem to have been indulging in quite a bit. The dish is light, the pasta dressed rather than swimming in a heavy sauce, and its really quick to rustle up which is perfect for when the weather is stupidly hot and you don’t want to be stuck in the kitchen for any longer than you have to be.
I think I’ve probably mentioned this before but I’m a wee bit fussy when it comes to seafood… It’s mostly a trust thing, i.e. I don’t trust it not to be hiding tiny bones or bits of shell in a random mouthful. But I’ve been making my peace with it, fish by fish, and have finally gotten round to the joy that is white crab meat – all tasty and sweet and not at all ‘fishy’, unlike brown crab meat.
I’ve been finding excuses all summer to rustle up a bowl of this with deliberate forays down the fish aisle seeming to end more often than not in “Oh look! Crab meat! Shame to let it waste away on the shelf there…” much to Hubby’s amusement.
There are a lot of recipes out there for this, believe me, I tried most of them! My version is a bit of a mash up of the ones I tried, dialling up this and dialling down that until it hit just the right spot for me.
In keeping with my preferrence for cooking short cuts (understatement of the year!) you can get some fantastic ready cooked white crab meat from the supermarket (M&S is good but Watirose stocks our favourite from Seafood & Eat It). Be prepared to go higher end for it – without naming names, we bought some white crab meat from a reputable supermarket only for it to be not very ‘white’ at all…
With the crab meat taken care of, aka ready cooked, the rest of the recipe is barely any work at all which is what makes it perfect for a midweek summer supper. Not to mention that it is fair bursting with lovely flavours!
Spaghetti works just fine but I think it’s best really with linguine, the crab meat just seems to cling better to a flatter noodle. The capers are entirely optional, but they do add another layer of flavour not to mention texture. And finally, parmesan at your peril. There’s that whole food crime thing that Italians have about putting cheese on seafood and having tried this with and without a sprinkling of parmesan it’s safe to say that the Italians are definitely on to something…
Chilli, Lemony, Garlicky Crab Linguine
2014-08-17 15:29:50
Serves 2
A light and zingy pasta dish with a wee kick, too delicious for how easy it is to rustle up.
2 lemons, juice and zest 1, cut 1 into wedges for serving
Half pack of Linguine
Salt and pepper
Prep…
Start by bringing a large saucepan of water to the boil. While you’re waiting, mince your garlic and finely chop your red chilli, seeds and all for a wee bit of a kick (or de-seed before chopping if you'd prefer this kick free).
Cook!
When the water is boiling, salt well and then pop in your linguine and cook per the packet instructions.
While the linguine is cooking, heat the oil and butter in a deep frying pan (a wok is perfect for this) before adding the garlic and chilli. Fry gently for one minute without letting it brown before adding the crabmeat and stirring everything through for another minute.
Add the wine and turn up the heat until you've brought it to a boil. Season and then reduce the heat a little so that it's still bubbling away quite happily - you want to reduce this right down and cook all the alcohol off in the time it takes the linguine to finish cooking.
When the linguine is ready, scoop out about 1/2 a cup of the cooking liquid before draining. Add the linquine to the crab mixture together with the parsley, capers, lemon juice, lemon zest and a splash of the linquine cooking water. Give everything a good toss together before dishing up with lemon wedges on the side.
I have a serious weakness for foodie mags, a seriousweakness. I’ll read them first, usually curled up on the sofa with a nice cup of tea, and hold up every other page to Hubby making “oooh!” noises (bless him for humouring me every time!). If there’s anything that grabs my attention right away I’ll tear it straight out and try it sooner rather than later. Then I’ll leave the magazine lying around for a couple of months before going through it again and tearing out every recipe I like. It’s one of the reasons Hubby actually got me to start this blog, to do something with all those torn out recipes that were piling up around us. 🙂
This recipe is adapted from one of those ones that I tore out straight away, from a recent-ish issue of Waitrose’s magazine. It was the picture that grabbed my attention first, all those plump pink prawns, and then the fact that it was a curry to boot. I’ve only ever really cooked prawns a few times, for spaghetti dishes, which always felt quite a summery supper to have. That and Hubby is originally from a landlocked state so was a wee bit wary of seafood, but he seems to have finally come around to it (and how!) so didn’t take much persuading to be fed this, especially when there was curry involved…
The original recipe uses canned tomatoes but we found that substituting V8 juice instead added a whole other layer of spice and flavour, which is then tempered beautifully by the coconut milk. The curry’s heat is down to how strong your red chilli is so if you want to err on the side of caution then de-seed it before chopping and you can always add a wee bit of chilli powder while the tomato juice is simmering if you think it needs it – I’ve read that you can cut the tip off a red chilli and place it against your tongue to check its heat but I’ve never been brave enough!
This is a deliciously light and fresh curry which feels perfect for early Spring, comfort food without being heavy. The mustard and cumin seeds add a lovely fragrant note that is a perfect compliment to the fresh coriander. Don’t skimp on the seeds, they really do make that much of a difference. And if this becomes a bit of a regular dish on your dinner roster (like it has on ours already) then you’ll be getting through those wee bottles in next to no time. 🙂
Light & Spicy Prawn Curry
2014-08-14 21:56:40
Serves 2
A light, fresh and fragrant curry that's perfect for the warm months!
small bunch of coriander (28g bag), stalks and leaves separated
1/2 red chilli, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
15g fresh ginger, grated
300ml V8 juice (or canned chopped tomatoes)
1/2 tbsp garam masala
300ml coconut milk
235g raw king prawns, deveined
Prep
The trick to this dish for me is doing all the chopping/crushing/grating/de-veining work before you start cooking. Sorting the prawns takes a bit of time but nobody wants to eat the ‘poop chute’ (sorry!).
The tip of a paring knife works a charm, but I find that a toothpick is even easier to tease out that nasty dark thread. Pop the de-veined prawns into a bowl of ice cold water and then into the fridge until you’re ready to use them.
Then finely chop the coriander stalks, dice the onion, mince the garlic, finely chop the red chilli and grate the ginger (if you freeze your ginger beforehand it makes grating it much easier).
Cook!
Heat the oil in a large wok or saute pan over a medium-high heat before adding the mustard and cumin seeds. Cook until they start to pop.
Add the onions to the popping seeds and turn the heat down to medium before cooking for a further 3-5 minutes, or until the onions are golden.
Add the finely chopped coriander stalks to the pan with the chilli, garlic and ginger, and cook for another 7 minutes.
Tip in the V8 juice (or canned tomatoes) and season before cooking for 5 minutes, by which time the sauce should have reduced and be a bit paste-like (you should start to see the oil separate). Then stir in the garam masala and the coconut milk, and taste for seasoning.
Pat the prawns dry with kitchen paper and add them to the sauce. Cook for about 3-4 minutes, until the prawns turn pink.
When I was given a jar of Mackays Orange, Lemon and Ginger marmalade and a blank slate to cook whatever I liked with it for #mackaysmarmalademarch my mind went as blank as the aforementioned slate! Being a devoted fan of the orange stuff, I’d already blogged all of my favourite things to do with it so coming up with something new was seriously challenging. Looking back through my old recipes for inspiration I found one involving marmalade that was a particular favourite – sticky marmaladey cocktail sausages – and wondered how I could improve upon those little beauties…
The thing is, sweet marmalade and savoury sausage is a properly delicious combination, the more so when the marmalade has reduced while cooking into a lovely sticky glaze that you can lick off your fingers. So I knew I wanted to stay with some finger-foodie, which led me eventually to these.
Sausage rolls are so easy to make that it really is a sin not to. The secret is good quality sausages and ready rolled puff pastry. Beyond that, anything goes, and half the fun is experimenting with different flavour combinations, like Thai red curry paste, or marmalade! What I love is that the marmalade adds a lovely but subtle sweet note without overwhelming the sausage roll (another reason to get good quality sausages). The black onion seeds add another savoury note as well a bit of texture, but you could use poppy seeds or sesame seeds if you have some of those handy.
The first batch of these taught me 1) not to get carried away with the amount of marmalade you use because it will get too watery and you’ll end up with the dread soggy bottoms, 2) not to glaze until you’re into the last 10 minutes of cooking time because a marmalade caramelises really really quickly, and 3) the combination worked just as well as I hoped it would.
2 tablespoons marmalade (I used Mackays Orange, Lemon and Ginger)
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp milk
Butter or oil for greasing, or waxy baking parchment paper
Black onion seeds (also called Nigella seeds)
Bake!
Start by preheating the oven to 200C. While it’s heating up, prepare the baking sheet by greasing it or lining it with parchment paper.
Lay the pastry out flat on a lightly floured surface, or more waxy baking parchment, and cut horizontally right down the middle so that you have two long strips. Mix together the egg yolk and milk to make an egg wash, then brush the far border of each strip of pastry with a little of the egg wash.
If using sausages, cut a slit up the length of the sausage skin with scissors or a sharp knife and poke all the sausagemeat out into a mixing bowl. Add one tablespoon of marmalade and then snap on a pair of CSI vinyl gloves and get your hands stuck in, mixing it all up until the marmalade is combined well with the sausagemeat.
Divide the sausage meat mixture in half and shape each piece into a long, thin sausage, along the length of the pastry towards the edge nearest you. Then roll the pastry away from you and up and over to seal in the sausage meat. Roll the whole thing over so the sealed edge is underneath.
(If you’re making these ahead of time they can now be kept in the fridge for 24 hours, lightly covered with cling film, or they can even be frozen for up to 3 months - if cooking from frozen just add another 10 minutes to the cooking time).
Use a sharp knife to cut into thumb-length sausage rolls, discarding the pastry ends. Score a couple of slits in the top of each one before lifting them carefully onto the greased/lined baking sheet. Pop in the oven, middle shelf, and bake for 25 minutes.
Warm up the other tablespoon of marmalade in a small saucepan until it gets a little runny. After the sausage rolls have been in the oven for 25 minutes, remove from the oven and brush them with the runny marmalade before sprinkling all over with black onion seeds. Pop back into the oven for 5-10 minutes, until they are cooked through and golden.
Notes
Freeze the sausage rolls individually on the pastry parchment, once they're frozen you can then pop them into a bag and they won't stick together!
