Fresh and Wild Cookbook: A Real Food Adventure. Ysanne Spevack

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      Heat a tablespoon of the oil in a large frying pan or wok, over a high heat, then fry the leeks, garlic chives, poppy seeds, herbs and the rapadura, stirring them with a wooden spoon. The mixture should caramelize quickly, but make sure it doesn’t burn. Take the pan off the heat.

      In a big bowl, mix the flour, kuzu and baking powder, then throw in the butter. With your cold fingers, lightly rub the butter into the flour to make crumbs. Strain the goat’s milk into another bowl and set aside. Chop the soaked tomatoes roughly with scissors, then add them to the flour. Now add the leek mixture, olives, carrot and beetroot to the flour as well.

      Break the eggs into the milk, add the yogurt and olive oil, then whisk well. Pour this liquid into the flour bowl little by little, stirring as you do. Slowly combine all the ingredients in this way to form a thick batter. Spoon the mixture into a well-oiled 25cm-round cake tin, preferably with a loose bottom to make it easier to get the cake out. Put the cake tin onto a baking sheet, just in case.

      Bake the cake for about 50 minutes. It’s done when a metal knife, inserted into the middle of the cake, comes out clean – and when your kitchen is full of herby caramelized onion smells. Serve the cake hot, or leave it to cool on a wire rack and serve cold.

ON A ROLL …

      Nori Sushi Wraps

       Sushi are the sandwiches of Japan. It’s the same concept of a starchy grain plus a filling, only instead of bread it’s rice.

      The key to making sushi is to use the best quality and freshest ingredients. After that, it’s all child’s play – so long as you have your trusty sushi mat. These are made from lengths of thinly split bamboo, woven together with string. They don’t cost much and are an essential tool for this easy, tasty dish. The vinegar, mirin, syrup and ume plum seasoning make up the vinegar dressing in this recipe but, if you want, you can use Clearspring’s ready-mixed Sushi Vinegar instead. Personally, I think it’s more fun to make your own, and you can use the individual ingredients in other dishes, from stir-fries to vinaigrettes.

      Nori is a type of seaweed that’s been pressed into flat sheets in exactly the same way as hand-made paper. The seaweed used for nori-making is grown on rope nets that are suspended between long bamboo poles set deep in Japanese bays where the currents are gentle. Very slowly, the nori begins to grow over the winter until it covers the net, ready for harvesting in late January and February. It’s hand-picked from the sea and brought ashore, then washed in fresh water and made into sheets.

      ON A ROLL …

      Nori Sushi Wraps

      MAKES 8 ROLLS:

       250g short grain brown rice

       2 teaspoons brown rice vinegar

       1 teaspoon mirin

       1 teaspoon brown rice malt syrup

       1 teaspoon ume plum seasoning

       4 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

       ½ a cucumber

       1 big carrot, scrubbed

       2 spring onions

       2 sheets nori or 2 sheets pre-toasted sushi nori

       Some takuan/pickled daikon

       Some sushi ginger

       Some sushi garlic

       FOR DIPPING:

       1 teaspoon wasabi powder

       Tamari

       Gomasio

      Boil the rice until cooked, drain it, place it back in the pan and cover to keep it warm. In a cup, mix the vinegar, mirin, malt syrup and ume plum seasoning with a fork. Throw the sesame seeds into the rice pan. Pour a little bit of the vinegar dressing onto the rice, then toss the rice with salad serving spoons. Repeat this process until the rice is well coated and the dressing is all gone. Leave the rice to absorb the vinegar with the lid on.

      Meanwhile, slice the cucumber and carrot into julienne strips. This simply means cutting off the tops and tails, slicing the veg lengthwise, then thinly to make big matchsticks. Remove the roots from the spring onions plus any dodgy ends, then slice in half lengthwise. Slice again finely so you have long shreds or spring onion.

      If you’re using standard non-toasted nori, now is the time to toast it. Do this by simply dangling it about 10cm over the gas flame or electric burner on your hob. It’ll turn golden metallic green (yes, honestly!). You’re now ready to use the sushi mat. Using scissors, cut the nori sheets into four quarters. Cover the top half of the mat with a sheet of nori, then pile on a sixteenth of the rice. Spread it out, leaving 2cm of nori clear of any filling at the bottom edge.

      Arrange the vegetables and Japanese pickles of your choice on top, then cover with another sixteenth of the rice. Moisten the bare piece of nori so that it’ll stick to itself. Carefully roll the mat as tightly as possible around the rice, being careful that you don’t lose the end of the mat under itself. Squeeze the roll so that it sticks to itself, then put it onto a flat plate. Repeat the process until you have used all the nori and filling.

      Serve with a saucer of wasabi powder mixed with water, a dish of tamari and a sprinkling of gomasio for dipping.

HAM GRAM FLAN

       Ready-made pastry falls into a similar category as ready-grated Cheddar cheese or ready-chopped broccoli florets. We can’t quite quantify how such things make our lives better, yet many of us still seem to buy these time-saving, money-spending options.

      Personally, I’d rather save money by avoiding such ‘convenient’ products and instead pay out the extra cash on better ingredients. Spending a few minutes on pastry making, cheese grating and broccoli ‘floret-ing’ makes me feel nice after a long day working. And if you really want to save time, simply make your pastry in a food processor.

      The exception to the convenience rule is puff pastry, which takes forever and generally tastes pretty good out of the freezer – so long as it’s organic. Non-organic puff pastry is full of hydrogenated fats, which are particularly artery clogging and heart-attack-inducing. This stuff is also often added to non-organic biscuits and the like. It looks for all the world like little white plastic ball-bearings, and if you were to hold it in your hand all day, it wouldn’t melt. It’s much too hard for that. Much harder than any fat in nature, in fact, as it’s had an extra hydrogen molecule added precisely to СКАЧАТЬ