Seaweed Salad

I work near a branch of Wasabi and every time I get a sushi craving and I give in, this is where I go. There is much selection and I am often racked with indecision, mostly because I want it all. It's hard having a bottomless appetite when your wallet isn't accomodating.

I recently tried their seaweed salad and I was instantly addicted. Bundles of sesame flavoured stringy seaweed, slightly crunchy with a subtle nose-tingling heat from wasabi. It's texture is much like that of jellyfish that you get for dim sum. It's not cheap at £1.95 a box, so I set about finding out how to make it myself.

I found this packet in the Chinese supermarket, which seemed promising. No calories too, apparently...! I'm not sure how you'd incorporate it into pasta, as stated on the pack though.

Upon opening it, much of the seaweed inside was the normal wakame. There were also strands of red and clear seaweeds. It wasn't the stringy bundles as I'd hoped, but it made for a delicious vegetable side anyway.

Seaweed Salad

To serve 1

1 tbsp seaweed, soaked in boiling water for 15 minutes

1 tsp rice vinegar

1/2 tsp mirin

1 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp sesame seeds, lightly toasted

A few drops of sesame oil

A little wasabi (to taste)

Mix all of the above and dress the seaweed. Next time I'll add a little finely chopped spring onion. If anyone knows where I can buy seaweed like this, in London, please let me know!

Fishcakes - A Leftover Treat

Mashed potato is one of the greatest comfort foods. I wonder if it stems from childhood, when all food was mashed for easy eating?

Last Sunday saw me laid up on the couch, full of self-loathing and quite hungover. One of these days I'll get bored of feeling rubbish and I'll pack in the booze... Maybe when I'm old. There was only one thing for it - mashed potatoes needed to be made. Of course I over-estimated my appetite and made far too much, but this wasn't a problem. Fishcakes can be a very cheap meal, depending on what fish you want to use. I never bother using fresh fish as I think it's a bit of a waste, but instead I used tinned salmon, tuna or smoked mackerel.

Spicy Fishcakes

Makes 4 large fishcakes

About 300gr mashed potato - this should be quite dry. If you're making this without leftover mash, steam or microwave the potatoes to get the driest mash possible.

1 tin of tuna, drained

2 spring onions, chopped finely

1 big red chilli, chopped finely

1" of ginger, grated

3 tbsp sweetcorn

1 tbsp capers, chopped roughly

A small handful of parsley, chopped finely

1 egg, beaten

Breadcrumbs & flour to coat the cakes

In a big bowl, combine the fish, potatoes, and the rest of the ingredients except the egg, breadcrumbs and flour. Mix thoroughly, and season with salt and pepper. Shape into compact patties. Put the beaten egg on a plate, with the breadcrumbs and the flour on seperate plates. Carefully dip the patties in egg, then flour, then egg, then in breadcrumbs. It's a messy business and you need quite a lot of breadcrumbs; I toasted two slices of stale bread and blended it finely.

Chill for 20 mins and then fry on all sides until browned. Then put the fishcakes in a preheated oven at 170 degrees, and bake for 10 - 15 minutes. Serve with a large wedge of lime (I also like ketchup...) and green beans or salad.

Moro Cooking - Aubergine & Red Pepper Salad

I have a terrible habit of buying cookery books, pouring over them hungrily, and then leaving on the shelf, never to be cooked from. I decided that this should change, so I tackled a recipe from the Moro cookbook.

I've never been to the restaurant, nor have I tried Moorish food but this recipe was very straight-forward. It also used one of my favourite vegetables: the aubergine. Given the current rising food costs and my seemingly-perpetual poorness, I've been shopping at Lewisham market recently. It really is a god-send; I picked up half a kilo of baby plum tomatoes for 58p, 3 aubergines for £1.20 and three peppers for £1. This was almost half the price of nearby Sainsburys.

So anyway, the recipe.

Aubergine & Red Pepper Salad

Serves 4 as a side

3 aubergines
3 red peppers (I used 2 red and one yellow)
1 garlic clove, crushed
A squeeze of lemon
2 tbsp olive oil
200gr low fat yoghurt
Caramelised butter, about 30gr
A few sprigs of fresh coriander
Salt and pepper

Prick the aubergines and peppers and roast in the oven until the aubergines have collapsed. The aubergines take about 45 mins and the peppers about 25 mins, on gas mark 7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Peel the skin from the peppers and the aubergines. Chop the aubergine flesh roughly and spread out on a plate. Add the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper and toss. Deskin the peppers and chop into slices. Drape this over the aubergine. Spoon the yoghurt on one side of the dish.

To make caramelised butter, heat some unsalted butter in a pan. Continue to heat it, swirling it around the pan occasionally, until the sediment in the pan becomes brown, but doesn't burn. Pour this over the dish. Serve with flatbreads.

This was a really delicious introduction to Moorish food. I think that amount of yoghurt was a touch too much, so I might reduce it by half next time. I think a bit of minced lamb with parsley, added to this dish, would make a great meal.

Tofu Tuesday on a Wednesday - Braised Pork & Potato with Red Fermented Beancurd

Ok, so it's Wednesday. I got home late on Tuesday night and started making this, but then got hungry waiting for it to cook I had to scoff some Mi Goreng noodles. Thankfully this is the kind of recipe that benefits from the flavours sitting overnight to amalgamate. I was also able to use my new claypot that I bought for £3. Claypots need to be soaked for 24 hours before their first use, and then whatever you cook needs to be in the oven, gradually building heat otherwise it'll shatter. It was a bit nerve-racking, especially when you're hungry.

I won't lie to you; red fermented tofu bloody stinks. I opened the jar and had a tentative sniff and I almost decided not to go through with this recipe. When frying it, it transformed. It's similar to the kind of stink you get from frying shrimp paste - ultimately you know something delicious will come of it.

This is not my recipe, but that of Sunflower's. I've adapted it to fit in my pot and my belly.

Braised Pork & Potato with Red Fermented Beancurd

Serves 2, or 1 generously

250gr belly pork, in chunks

1 tbsp dark soy sauce

Splash of light soy sauce

Pinch of ground pepper

3 fist-sized potatoes, cut into chunks

60mls vegetable oil

1 Asian shallot, chopped finely

2 cloves of garlic, minced

3 slices of ginger

1 square of red beancurd

1 tsp five spice

Splash of Shaoxing cooking wine

1 tsp sugar

1 stalk of spring onion, chopped (optional)

Mix the belly pork with the soy sauces and pepper. Leave to marinate while you prepare everything else. Heat up the oil in a wok until almost smoking. Carefully add the potatoes and fry until browned on all sides - this will take about 10 minutes. Put the potatoes to one side. Pour off the oil, leaving 1 tbsp left. Fry the garlic, shallot and ginger until fragrant. Open the windows, add the beancurd and mash the cube up. Add the pork, leaving the marinade in the bowl, and fry until browned (once again, this will take about 10 mins). Add the wine, the 5 spice and any excess marinade. Bring to the boil, then place the wok contents in the claypot or any other suitable oven proof pot. Add the potatoes in, and then enough boiling water to cover at least the meat. Put the lid on, and stew for 1.5 hours. Here I put it in a cold oven and turned it on to 170 degrees.

The pork becomes meltingly tender. The potatoes hold their shape due to the initial frying, but they also soak up all the flavours of the stew. They're very strong flavours, and less is more with this dish. I think I might prefer it with white rice rather than potatoes - but then I'd always prefer rice.

Purple Basil

While I was in Cornwall, I picked up a purple basil plant from the Eden Project as a kind of souvenir. I haven't got particularly green fingers and I don't know a lot about plants, so I figured an edible one would be the best. The one I got was from the Ocimum Basilicum family - the type was 'Magic Mountain', apparently one of the best ornamental basils, with tall spikes of blue flowers.

Ornamental or not, it's a really fragrant plant. During the 6 hour drive home, it kept the stench of the cheese we bought at the local farm shop in Padstow at bay (thank god).

I wanted to use the leaves in a simple recipe. I didn't fancy pesto much, so just tossed with pasta seemed like the next best choice. A trip to Lewisham market yielded some British asparagus, my first this year, and some ridiculously cheap baby plum tomatoes. They were very sweet and the basil complemented them perfectly.




Spaghetti with Baby Plum Tomatoes,
Parma Ham & Asparagus

Serves 2

300gr spaghetti
A handful of baby plum tomatoes, sliced in half
1 small bundle of asparagus
1 clove garlic
4 slices of Parma ham
10 purple basil leaves
Extra virgin olive oil
Parmesan (optional)

Set the spaghetti on to cook. Meanwhile, fry the crushed clove of garlic in some oil until fragrant. Add the halved tomatoes and fry very gently. 5 minutes before the pasta is done, add the spears of the asparagus, chopped into bitesized pieces. 3 mins later, add the tips. When cooked, drain and put back into the saucepan. Add the basil leaves, ripped up, with the tomatoes and garlic. Toss with some extra virgin olive oil, and plate up. Rip 2 slices of Parma ham per portion and drape on top. Add grated Parmesan and black pepper, and serve.

Chapatis

I like eating with my hands. There's something a bit primal about it, but I think it also harks back to childhood when you'd shovel food into your mouth in a most ungainly manner.

As much as I love and adore rice, I prefer eating Indian food with chapatis or parathas. The breads seem to work with curries and dhals better and is a good vessel for conveying the sauces. So I set about making chapatis.

Most of the recipes for Indian food I use come from Mamta's Kitchen. It's an excellent resource for all things Indian, as it's a live online cookbook. This was no exception.

Chapati flour is a whole wheat flour made from hard wheat, which is high in protein and is therefore strong and can be rolled out thin. The recipe said to add water to the chapati flour until you get a soft dough. I then kneaded it for about 5 minutes until it was soft and smooth. I left it for 10 minutes, and then seperated the dough out into balls, ready to be rolled out.

The chapatis should be rolled out quite thin, with the centre staying a bit thicker. I didn't quite manage to master this technique. Next, the chapatis go in a dry frying pan on a high heat.

When cooked, you hold the chapati over a naked flame, like in the picture below, so that it puffs up with steam and blisters. This was fairly risky business as I didn't have a pair of tongs and I had to do a lot of tossing of the chapatis - a few steam scalds later, and they were ready to be wrapped in foil to keep warm.


When eaten straight from the flame and still inflated, these chapatis become 'phulkas'. However, as I had 6 more to make I had to settle with chapatis.

I had these chapatis with raita, chickpea curry and courgettes stir-fried with black mustard seeds and garlic. From start to finish, the whole process took an hour and 15 minutes - not long for a meal that I'd consider fairly complicated.

The chickpea curry is a dish I make at least once a fortnight. It's straight-forward to make, but I'd also like to try making some meat curries as I don't think I have as yet. Watch this space...

Chrysanthemum Tea

When I was a child my mum used to brew us various concoctions; some were foul, others just bearable. One brew she made which I actually liked enough to drink happily is chrysanthemum tea. Whenever we ate too many fried foods or we got spots, the chrysanthemum tea would be made. It is regarded as a 'cooling' and detoxification herb, and is recommended for heat-related illnesses such as sore throats and fevers. It's also reported to treat influenza and colds. Now I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but I've been struck down with the common cold...

You can buy dried chrysanthemum flowers from Chinese supermarkets. I added them to boiling water, and then simmered them for 15 minutes. Once strained, I added some rock sugar to taste. Once cooled, it makes for a very refreshing drink.