Bok choy inspo

 I find it hard to get sick of Bok Choy. Probably my favourite cooking method is to sautee washed leaves in a dry pan on high heat. The aim is to wilt them, dry them out a bit and impart a few brown patches. Do this in small batches so they don't stew.

Remove them all, then in the same pan (care for the dish washer!) add some oil/fat until smoking add sliced garlic, stir briefly, then add the Choy back. Mix and season with whatever you like. Salt or fish sauce or soy for the salty, a touch of vinegar if you like and maybe a little sesame oil. 

With rice, a fried egg and a little chilli, it's delicious poverty food.

Radish salad 🫜

 

Here's a chopped radish and hakurei salad we had recently with some braised pork hock. 

I made a dressing with Dijon mustard, white pepper, grated ginger, cider vinegar and sesame oil. Whisk it all together and season to taste with salt. Then toss with the vegetables and some toasted sesame seeds. 

Garlic chives as a vegetable 👌

 

At a restaurant in Canberra, Flavours of Jiangnan, we tried a dish where garlic chives were the vegetable. It was delicious! I didn't ask for a recipe but all that needs to be done is sautee them in a medium-hot pan with a little oil, then add a little stock and salt or soy sauce. They don't need much cooking and are great served with rice and something else (salt and pepper fried fish pictured here)

Sesame broad bean tips

 As we head into the hungry gap, broad beans tips keep us going. We've been enjoying them raw as a salad with rice wine steamed turkey breast and turkey fat rice. 

For the salad, lightly toast a couple of tablespoons of sesame seeds in a dry pan on a low heat. Allow to cool. 

In your serving bowl mix sesame oil, a little neutral oil, salt, white pepper and a little cider vinegar. Toss chopped or picked broad bean leaf through. Leave to sit for 5-10 minutes then fold through the sesame seeds

Caldo verde

If you were having trouble finding this recipe that we suggested it might have been because we hadn’t posted it. This is one of our go to recipes for using couve so we just assumed we'd already put it up. 

We think 4 slices of chorizo seems a bit lean……and a bit of onion doesn’t go astray either.

Carrot pilaf

Are you carroted out? 

Here's something to do that is only worth doing with tasty, decent sized carrots. I make it to serve with middle-eastern meals. It goes really well with spicy braised lamb or beans or grilled things.

Turkistan pilavi  (adapted from Tess Mallos "The Complete Middle East Cookbook")

2 cups long grain rice (I use Basmati)
1/4 cup butter
2 cups of grated carrot
1/2 tsp whole black pepper corns
3 cups of water or light stock of your preference ( I use water so I can taste the carrots more)

Wash rice until water runs clear then drain well.

Heat butter in a heavy pan, add grated carrot and peppercorns and fry over medium heat for 3 minutes, stirring often.

Add rice and fry for further 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Pour in stock and add salt to taste. Stir until boiling then reduce heat to low. Cover with lid and cook over low heat for 25-30 minutes. Remove from the heat and place a cloth under the lid and leave for 10 minutes before serving.

Photo from the (30 year old) cook book. 

Check out the serving style!

Creamy basil dressing

Here's a dressing I make sometimes that is based on an old Moosewood restaurant recipe that, I suspect, was based on Portuguese milk mayonnaise. I think that the recipe might not be quite right though as occasionally it fails. So, I have had a look at some of the milk mayo recipes made some modifications. You can adapt it however you like - leave out the cheese, use different herbs or no herbs. The result, when it works, is thick enough to use as a dip. If it fails, it still makes a great salad dressing! (Maybe add a bit more acid tho?)

Creamy garlic, pecorino and basil dressing (based on Moosewood and David Leite's recipe)

85mL cold milk (full fat - the fat is required to make the emulsion)

5mL lemon juice or vinegar

3 cloves garlic

1 tbsp grated pecorino (or other hard cheese)

1 tsp salt

180mL neutral oil or a blend with olive oil

1 tbsp basil, finely chopped

Place the milk, acid, garlic, cheese and salt into a glass jug or a blender jar (not food processor). Using a stick blender on max speed (or the blender), whiz until the garlic is pureed and the mixture is frothy. Slowly, drip-by-drip, add the oil while whizzing. You can increase the speed of pour after a while but it should still be a very thin stream - always whizzing! For ages it will look like a creamy white sauce and you'll be worried that it's not working. Only near the end will it go thick and you'll be relieved! Once finished streaming and whizzing, quickly add and whiz through the basil.

If you only have a food processor, give it a try but, in my experience, it might not get as thick.

Use as a dressing or a dip for fresh raw vegetables.

Let me know what you think.