Today I'm offering up some healthier options after yesterday's over-the-top Nigella chocolate concoction. My apologies about that. I need to try new things here at Struan Farm, but that was a bit too intense.
So let's change tack. I subscribe to Wairere Nursery's monthly newsletter, which has information on plants and gardening throughout the seasons. Occasionally they have a recipe, and this month raved about Ripe's "Raw Broccoli, Cranberry & Pinenut Salad." I was keen to try this, since I love the broccoli salad that Red Kitchen in nearby Te Awamutu serves. I've inquired about the recipe but have been unsuccessful in my efforts to get the specifics to date. I must not be a good enough customer, perhaps they can smell The Fat Pigeon's coffee on my breath! It could be closer to this one, since it has cheese (not cheddar, most likely parmesan) and bacon, but also currants. I suspect they've tweaked what looks to be Ripe's basic recipe with mayo, vinegar and broccoli, and I'll probably get to that myself now that I've found these similar recipes.
Mayonnaise (I use low fat) is whisked with apple cider vinegar in a large bowl, into which the remaining ingredients are tossed (small broccoli florets, toasted pinenuts and pumpkins seeds, lemon zest, dried cranberries, finely sliced red onion). The recipe calls for a whole red onion, but that looked a bit much, and I pulled about half of it out. This is then put in the fridge overnight or for several hours at least. I made it in the morning to serve that evening. Season to taste before serving if needed. This is a delicious salad, and keeps well into the next day.
My next experiment this week involved (what else but) tomatoes. Nigel Slater's "baked tomatoes with chillies and coconut." Couldn't find this recipe online to share with you, but it's in his amazing cookbook, "Tender, Volume 1." The ingredients include garlic, chile, ginger, ground and fresh coriander, turmeric, cumin seeds, cardamom pods, creamed coconut and tomatoes. What's not to like in this spicy mix, soothed by coconut? (Note: the recipe calls for "creamed coconut," which I didn't have and had never heard of. I used coconut cream instead, cutting the amount of water called for given that coconut cream is a liquid rather than solid. While my improvisation worked, I now want to try the recipe as written with creamed coconut. Off I go to find it, most likely at Vetro Taranaki or Bin Inn Waitara.)
Slater's cookbooks are a joy to read if you haven't discovered him and them as yet. He tells us that this dish is "heady and aromatic," "brings us to the table and opens up a host of pleasures." Also instructs us that one should cook the tomatoes until they "are tender to the point of collapse..." My only quibble with him is that the tomatoes are called "baked" but are cooked on the stovetop. I kept re-reading the recipe to determine at which point I was meant to pop everything into the oven, but that doesn't happen. I then looked up the definition of "baked," thinking perhaps I was wrong in my thinking. I'm not. The definition of baking is "cooked by dry heat in an oven."
Be that as it may, these tomatoes are wonderful. They are soupy, so best served with crusty bread to soak up the liquid. They would also be good with pasta, rice or even couscous, which is what I'm doing with the leftovers. I might even toss in a few prawns.
Trust this gets us past Nigella and back onto firmer ground!
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