Tag Archives: quick

Spicy Eggplant and Tomato Soup

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This soup is quick, easy and satisfying. I invented it one day when I had a friend coming for lunch and one lonely eggplant sitting in the fridge. I just stuck it in the oven and let it cook while I did something else. The final mixing and reheating takes less than 10 minutes.

While the subtle flavour of the eggplant is somewhat overpowered by the tomato, it does provide a nice texture. And the peanut butter, garlic and chilli add an Asian touch to the flavour combination.  I’ve made the recipe with both crunchy and smooth peanut butter and while they’re both nice I prefer the creamier result you get with the smooth variety. But If you’ve only got crunchy I wouldn’t go out and buy a jar specially.

Spicy Eggplant and Tomato Soup1 large eggplant
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 500g jar tomato sauce for pasta (see note)
1 jar of water (and maybe a bit more)
1 tsp sugar
1 chicken or vegetable stock cube
3 Tbs peanut butter
1 small red chilli, seeded and chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
To serve:
sour cream or thick Greek yoghurt
fresh coriander
fresh bread or toast

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Pierce eggplant a couple of times with a knife, so it doesn’t explode in the oven. Place in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until it feels soft when you squeeze it. Halve eggplant and scrape out the flesh into a food processor, discarding skin.

Add remaining ingredients and process until smooth. Tip into a saucepan and heat to boiling point. Check seasoning and add a bit more water if necessary to make desired consistency. This will depend on how big your eggplant was.

Ladle into soup bowls and top each serving with a dollop of sour cream or yoghurt and chopped coriander. Serve with fresh Turkish or sourdough bread or toast.

Serves 4

Note: Most pasta sauces weigh about 500g. I used about two thirds of a 700g jar of Woolworths Home Brand Chunky Pasta Sauce.

Beetroot and Fennel Salad

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Raw vegetables are full of nutrients and very good for you. But unadorned they look and taste a bit like rabbit food. It’s the dressing that makes all the difference.

I’ve always been a big fan of beetroot. I grew up in the UK where supermarkets and green grocers sold beetroot cooked and ready to use. My mother used to slice it and dress it with dark malt vinegar, a dash of water and a teaspoon of sugar. This was standard fare in England when I was growing up. My Dad loved it but my mother and I preferred to rescue a few slices before she added the vinegar.

When an exchange student came over from France she didn’t realise that the beetroot was not intended to be polished off in one sitting. It was an accompaniment, like a pickle or chutney, which made an appearance several times a week until it was all gone. Martine looked around the table and said “This salad is delicious. If nobody else wants any more I will finish it.” And with that she tipped the remaining half kilo or so onto her plate. I will never forget the look on my Dad’s face.

I no longer make Mum’s beetroot and vinegar mix and I’ve never liked tinned beetroot. Roasting is a better way to bring out the distinct earthy flavour which is the main appeal for me. I often mix beetroot cubes, which have been roasted in olive oil, with rocket, goat’s cheese or feta, some toasted walnuts and a dash of salad dressing to moisten.

This salad uses raw beetroot and fennel and is very moreish. Using the large 5mm grating disc on my Magimix for the beetroot and the thin slicing blade for the fennel and onion, the veggies are ready in no time.

This salad dressing is my standard, basic, everyday dressing. It’s the one I make up in a one litre jar (with 3 times the recipe) and always have in the fridge. I don’t use it for everything, but it’s great to have on hand when you’re in a hurry and certainly much nicer than anything you can buy. If preferred, leave out the honey or use just a tiny amount or a teaspoon of sugar. Don’t crush the garlic because it will soon overpower the dressing – just leave the cloves whole or sliced in two.

Beetroot and Fennel Salad3-4 beetroot, peeled and coarsely grated
2 fennel heads, trimmed and very thinly sliced
½ to 1 red onion, very thinly sliced
Basic Salad Dressing – see below
1 cup frozen peas (optional)

Mix beetroot, fennel and onion with enough dressing to moisten. Taste to see if it needs a dash more salt. Place peas in a sieve and run under the hot tap to thaw, then sprinkle over the salad. The peas are optional but add a nice colour contrast. Once mixed through, the beetroot with turn them red.

Serves 4-6

Basic Salad Dressing: in an empty screw top jar place 1 cup of vegetable oil (I use Canola), ¼ cup cider vinegar, 1 Tbs Dijon mustard, 1 Tbs honey (or to taste), ½ tsp salt, freshly ground black pepper and 1-2 cloves garlic, peeled and halved. Shake well. Keeps in the fridge for at least a month.

Pom’s Crunchy Biscuits

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My Thai friend Pom makes these delicious crunchy biscuits. She gave me some as a gift recently, but they were so good I ate them all as I was driving home, so Matthew didn’t get any. I asked her for the recipe and decided to double the quantities because I knew that 16 biscuits wouldn’t last long.

They’re like muesli in a biscuit – healthy, satisfying, good for lunch boxes or to go with a cuppa. An Australian cup measure is 250ml or a quarter of a litre.

Pom's Crunch Biscuits4 cups cornflakes
2/3 cup sugar or honey
250g butter at room temp
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup sultanas
2 cups SR flour
½ cup sesame seeds (white or black or a mixture)
½ cup shredded or dessicated coconut
½ cup sunflower or pumpkin kernels
1 cup chocolate chips or chopped chocolate

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Place cornflakes in food processor and process briefly to break them up a bit, but not much. If you need to chop the chocolate do it now and add it to the cornflakes. Place sugar or honey and butter in food processor and mix until smooth and creamy. Add eggs and mix well, then flour and vanilla. When smooth, scrape into the bowl with the cornflakes, add remaining ingredients and mix well. Line two or three baking trays with baking paper. Form mixture into 3cm balls and arrange on trays with spaces in between. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden – don’t overcook or they will be dry. Cool then store in a tin with a lid.

Makes about 32

Note: the recipe is easy to halve and you can vary the ingredients to suit you taste. Add more coconut and less sultanas, use chopped nuts instead of the kernels, or leave out the chocolate and substitute something else

How to Cook Flank Steak

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I recently attended the Fine Food Fair at the Sydney Convention Centre. As I was wandering round I saw a cooking demonstration about to start, grabbed a chair and sat down. The subject of the demo was how to cook cheap cuts of meat quickly, rather than by one of the slow methods we usually use with less tender cuts.

The chef was a Pom like me, so he called the cut of beef he was using skirt. Here in Australia it’s known as flank. He said there were five rules for the successful quick-cooking of flank steak:

  • use a piece of lean flank steak about 2.5cm thick
  • marinate for about 30 minutes in a mixture which includes lemon or lime juice
  • cook over high heat for 3-4 minutes each side, turning once, to achieve medium-rare
  • rest meat loosely-covered for the same amount of time as you cooked it
  • slice thinly downwards, across the grain

Samples were passed around and the results were impressive. The meat was tasty and surprisingly tender so I decided try it at home. At the demo they served it in bread rolls which they called Vietnamese Steak Sandwiches. We had ours on top of the salad.

You can use any combination of crunchy vegetables for the salad. I used one carrot instead of two and added one coarsely grated raw beetroot and some finely shredded red cabbage.

The marinade can also be varied with any herbs, spices or sauces that take your fancy.

1 piece of flank steak weighing 600-750g and about 2.5cm thick
Marinade:
Juice of ½ lemon or 1 lime
2 Tbs soy sauce or Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tbs fresh grated ginger or 2 cloves garlic, crushed, or bothphoto
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Salad:
2 spring onions, finely sliced on the diagonal
½ cup fresh coriander leaves
1 cucumber, thinly sliced
2 carrots, coarsely grated
Salad Dressing:
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp sugar
Pinch chilli powder (optional)
1 Tbs rice wine vinegar
1 Tbs water
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine marinade ingredients except salt and pepper, add meat, turn to cover and leave for 30 minutes, turning occasionally. At the demo they marinated it in a sealed plastic bag, but I just used a dish. Mix salad ingredients in a bowl and dressing ingredients in a jar with a lid and shake.

Preheat BBQ or griddle to very hot. Drain steak and pat dry with paper towels. Season with salt and pepper on both sides. Cook steak for 3-4 minutes each side, turning once, until medium-rare. Remove from  heat, cover loosely with a piece of foil or a saucepan lid and leave to rest for 6-8 minutes. Slice thinly downwards, across the grain. If serving in rolls, split and lightly toast them. Mix salad with dressing.

Serve beef and salad in rolls or arrange on individual plates.

Serves 4

Note: if preferred just use your regular salad dressing instead.

Quick Fish Soup

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This delicious, creamy Mediterranean-style soup can be on the table in less than 15 minutes. With crusty bread it’s a meal in itself.  You want the fish to stay in chunks and not disintegrate, so be careful not to over-cook it.

Quick Fish Soup

25g butter
1 leek, finely sliced or 1 lg onion, chopped
1 cup white wine
About 12 mussels, fresh or frozen, in shell, scrubbed
3 cups boiling water
1 vegetable stock cube
1/3 cup cream or sour cream
350-400g fish (I like half white fish and half salmon)
200g raw peeled prawns
pinch saffron or turmeric
1 tsp sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Tabasco sauce (optional)
2 Tbs finely chopped fresh parsley

In a large heavy-based saucepan, melt butter and cook leek or onion gently for 5 minutes until soft but not brown. Add wine, water, stock cube and mussels and bring to the boil, then turn down to simmer. As soon as mussels have opened remove them from the pan and when cool enough to handle open and discard the empty shells. Meanwhile cut fish into large chunks and add to the pan with the prawns, cream and saffron or turmeric. As soon as fish is tender – just a few minutes – return mussels to pan, add sugar and season to taste. Ladle into soup bowls and serve with a drizzle of Tabasco, chopped parsley and crusty bread to mop up the juices.

Serves 4

Note: I bought a kilo of frozen New Zealand mussels from the supermarket which was enough to make this soup twice.

Pear & Avocado Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing & Caramelised Walnuts

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A perfectly ripe pear and an avocado sitting next to each other in the fruit bowl provided the inspiration for this healthy week-end lunch. I’ve always liked the sweetness fresh fruit adds to an otherwise savoury salad. You can use any type of blue cheese and pecans instead of walnuts.

Two Pear Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing & Caramelised Walnuts2 baby cos lettuce hearts
1 large ripe pear
1 ripe avocado
2 tsp oil
About 20 walnut halves
2 tsp honey
Dressing:
½ cup vegetable oil of your choice
Juice of ½ lemon or lime
¼ cup cream or sour cream
2-3 Tbs blue cheese
Freshly ground black pepper
To serve:
Finely chopped parsley or chervil

Arrange lettuce on two plates. Peel and halve pear and remove core with a melon baller, arrange on plate. Peel avocado, remove stone, cut each half into slices but not quite to the narrow end, then fan out on the plate. Heat oil and cook walnuts for a minute or two, stirring. Add honey and continue to cook and stir until sticky and glazed then turn off the heat – be careful, they burn easily. Place all ingredients for dressing in food processor and process until smooth. Start with 2 Tbs cheese, then taste and see if it needs more. Drizzle some of the dressing over the salads, sprinkle with walnut halves and herbs.

Serves 2

Salmon in Pastry with Currants and Ginger

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Once it’s been passed on a few times, the origins of a recipe are often lost. I haven’t made this recipe for quite some time, but I remember it was given to me by my dear friend Maggie about 15 years ago. We started primary school together, so we go back a long way!

My friend Karen recently gave me two cook books by British cook book writer and critic Simon Hopkinson, called Roast Chicken and Other Stories and Second Helpings of Roast Chicken. As I was reading the first volume, voilà, there was Maggie’s salmon. Hopkinson says it’s his version of “a most famous creation by George Perry-Smith, one of the great pioneers who changed the eating habits of an apathetic British public.” Perry-Smith was greatly influenced by Elizabeth David and made his name at The Hole in the Wall in Bath, which opened in the late 1950s.

You can either make this in individual parcels or one large one and cut it into slices, which is what I decided to do this time. Hopkinson likes to serve it with a hollandaise sauce, lightened with whipped cream, but concedes that the dish is very rich and just as nice served with a wedge of lemon. The combination of crisp pastry, salmon, ginger and currants is unusual, but delicious. A simple watercress salad and some buttered new potatoes are all that you need to complete the meal. The potatoes took longer to cook than I thought they would, which meant that the salmon got a bit over-cooked as you can see in the photo. Next time I will put the potatoes on earlier!

I served the reheated leftovers with my Cucumber Salad which went extremely well.

Salmon in Pastry with Currants and Ginger2 Tbs currants
2 Tbs stem ginger in syrup, drained, or glace ginger
110g butter, at room temperature
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
A pinch of ground mace or nutmeg
375g puff pastry, bought or home-made
8-900g salmon fillet, skinned and boned
1 egg yolk, beaten

Pour boiling water over the currants and leave to swell for 5-10 minutes, then drain and pat dry on paper towels. Mix currants and finely chopped ginger into butter, then add mace or nutmeg and season to taste. Roll out pastry to a size which is slightly longer and wider than the salmon fillet. Lay the pastry on a lightly oiled baking tray. Spread the butter over the salmon fillet, then fold it over on itself lengthwise. Place on pastry, to one side. Fold over the pastry and seal all the way around. Press with the tines of a fork then trim off any excess to give a neat edge. Salmon can be prepared ahead to this stage and kept, loosely covered, in the fridge for up to several hours.

Pre-heat oven to 200°C. Brush salmon with egg yolk then bake for 20-30 minutes or until golden brown – you don’t want to overcook the salmon. Slice and serve with a wedge of lemon, lightly dressed watercress salad and boiled new potatoes, dressed with a knob of butter and some finely chopped parsley.

Serves 6

Velouté of Jerusalem Artichokes with Mussels

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Jerusalem artichokes are fondly known in our house as Fartichokes, for reasons that will be obvious. Once you have them growing in your garden, as we do, you have them forever. They are very hard to eradicate.

When the French explorer Samuel de Champlain discovered this vegetable in South America he sent samples back to France, saying that the flavour reminded him of globe artichokes. The Jerusalem part of the name is a corruption of the Spanish word girasol which means sunflower.

Jerusalem artichokes grow to a height of about two metres and produce a large yellow sunflower. In winter, after they’ve died down, you dig up the tubers which have formed under the plants, like potatoes. They look like very knobbly ginger which makes them a pain to peel, so we don’t bother. Just trim and scrub with a nail brush or similar. Matthew has some Darwinian theory that if he saves and replants only the more uniform tubers, then next year’s crop will be less knobbly. This theory has yet to be proven, but he’s working on it.

This recipe is loosely-based on one by Gordon Ramsey.

Velouté of Jerusalem Artichokes with MusselsSoup:
25g butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 kg Jerusalem artichokes, trimmed and scrubbed
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock, preferably home-made
1 cup cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Mussels:
1 kg mussels in shell, scrubbed and beards removed
25g butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 cup white wine
1 sprig fresh thyme
To serve:
Extra cream
2 Tbs finely chopped parsley

Soup: melt butter in a large heavy-based pan and cook the onion, gently, until soft and translucent. Add artichokes and stock and simmer for 20-30 minutes, or until tender. Cool a bit then blend in a blender with the cream, until smooth. Put back into a clean saucepan. Can be prepared ahead to this stage.

Mussels: heat butter in a large heavy-based pan and cook onion, gently, until soft and translucent. Add mussels, wine and thyme, cover and cook for 5-10 minutes until mussels have opened and are cooked. Tip into a colander and reserve the liquid. When cool enough to handle, remove mussels from shells.

To serve, add the reserved liquid from the mussels to the soup and check for seasoning. Reheat and ladle into soup bowls. Arrange mussels on top (reheat 30 secs in microwave if they have got cold) and garnish with extra cream, chopped parsley and coarsely ground black pepper.

Serves 4-6

Roast Chicken with Spaetzle & Burnt Sage Butter

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Made from flour and eggs and cooked in boiling water, spaetzle is the German equivalent of pasta. A bit like gnocchi without the mashed potato. If you like making spaetzle it’s worth investing in a spaetzle-making gizmo. They’re not expensive – I bought mine for about $20 including postage from Fishpond.

I first ate spaetzle in Austria as a delicious dessert called Apfel Spaetzle. The little morsels of cooked dough had been stir fried in butter with sliced apples and spices, then doused with icing sugar. It might even have been stuck under a griller as there were some crispy crunchy bits.

It’s looking a bit wilted and sad, but my sage bush seems to be surviving the winter frosts. Although the recipe says burnt butter, it should actually be nut brown rather than burnt.

Roast Chicken with Spaetzle & Burnt Sage Butter1 whole chicken
25-30g butter
2 Tbs chopped fresh sage
Spaetzle:
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1 tsp salt
3-4 Tbs milk

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Roast the chicken for an hour to an hour and a half, depending on size, seasoned with salt and pepper and a knob of butter.

Meanwhile, make the spaetzle. Mix eggs with flour, salt and enough milk to make a sticky mixture. Half fill a large pan with water and some salt and bring to the boil. Push the mixture through an oiled spaetzle maker into the water in batches. Alternatively you can drop small pieces of dough, about half a teaspoon at a time, into the water or push the dough through the holes of a metal collander. When the little dough balls rise to the top they are done. Remove with a slotted spoon to a collander.

When chicken is almost ready, heat butter in a frying pan. Allow it to brown, but be careful it doesn’t burn. Add the sage and cook for a minute or so, then add the spaetzle and cook for another minute, stirring, until they have absorbed the butter.

Divide spaetzle between 4 plates. Carve chicken and arrange on top of each serving. If liked drizzle some of the chicken pan juices over the top. Serve with a steamed green vegetable such as broccoli.

Serves 4

Deconstructed Ice Cream Sundae with Popcorn & Salted Caramel Sauce

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The idea for serving an ice cream sundae with a crunchy cone stuck on top, like a hat, came from the fairly new and very popular Canberra bistro called Eightysix. The idea for making a 2 litre container of bought vanilla ice cream more exciting, by adding halva and other ingredients came from Maggie Beer. I put these two ideas together for a quick and delicious dessert. Matthew said he wasn’t very hungry and would “share” mine. But after a few mouthfuls I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave half, so I told him to get his own.

If you can’t find halva – a Middle Eastern sweet made from nuts and sugar which tastes a bit like nougat – you could chop up a couple of Crunchie bars. The fresh mint really makes a difference, helping to cut through all that sweetness. If preferred you can leave the salt out of the caramel sauce. For an even quicker version of this dessert, just use plain vanilla ice cream.

Deconstructed Ice Cream Sundae with Popcorn & Salted Caramel Sauce

Ice Cream:
2 litres bought vanilla ice cream
125g halva, chopped
2-3 Tbs finely chopped fresh mint
½ cup lightly toasted nuts (pistachios, slivered almonds or pecans)
Salted Caramel Sauce:
½ cup sugar
½ cup cream
60g butter
½ tsp salt
To serve:
1 pkt waffle ice cream cones
1 pkt caramel popcorn

Remove ice cream from the freezer and after 15 minutes scrape it into a large bowl. Add remaining ingredients and mix through. The ice cream needs to thaw just enough to allow you to mix them in but don’t let it soften too much. Put back into container and into the freezer. For the sauce, melt the sugar in a small heavy-based pan until melted and dark caramel colour. Add cream and butter and mix until smooth. Put aside and warm slightly to serve.

To serve, fill ice cream cones generously with ice cream then place upside down in serving dishes. Sprinkle a few popcorn around and drizzle with the warm caramel sauce.

Serves 6 or more