Archive for April, 2007I rarely enter food blogging events because I run out of time to source special ingredients or make recipes to a theme. However, there is one event, Weekend Herb Blogging started by Kalyn at Kalyn’s Kitchen, which I’ve always admired because it celebrates vegetables, herbs and plants. That makes my life easy because I can blog about the food I cook naturally. This week’s event is hosted by Haalo at the great Melbourne food blog Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once, so remember to check her site for the full round-up. For my inaugural entry I’m writing about one of my favourite vegetables, the eggplant or aubergine, and a simple, classic dish that showcases it to perfection: baba ghanoush.
I started with this recipe at About Kosher foods then tweaked it: Ingredients 1 large eggplant Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Prick the eggplants skin with a fork, then bake in the oven for 50 minutes. The skin will shrivel. Remove it from the oven and place it in a bowl of cold water. When the skin has cooled (won’t take long), remove it from the bowl and peel the skin.
Place the eggplant flesh in a food processor or blender. Add the garlic and olive oil. Mincing the garlic is important, otherwise you can end up with chunks in your dip. Add half the lemon juice and tahini. Blend the ingredients until the consistency is smooth. Taste the dip, and add the remaining lemon and tahini to taste. Blend, then add the cumin and salt and pepper to taste. Serve fresh with hot bread, or fresh vegetable sticks.
Some comments on this recipe
The eggplant The eggplant is native to India where it’s known as brinjal. It’s a credit to the taste and flexibility of the eggplant that it has since spread throughout the world, and has become an essential ingredient in national dishes as far afield as Greece, the Middle East, Indonesia and China. One reason for its success is that the eggplant’s flesh is adept at soaking in flavours and oils. This makes it an excellent ingredient in vegetarian cooking, where it serves a similar purpose to meat in stews, stir-frys and casseroles. The trick is that the eggplant must be properly cooked - raw, the flesh is bitter, tougher to bite, and unpleasant to eat. One common technique is to degorge the eggplant (cutting it open, sprinkling the flesh with salt, then letting it stand for 15 - 20 minutes to remove the moisture). I used to degorge eggplants as a matter of course because I was frightened that if I didn’t they wouldn’t cook properly. However, I now realise that it depends on the recipe. As a rule of thumb, if I’m cooking the eggplant in a liquid (i.e. soup or stew) I never degorge, and otherwise I do it only if called for in the recipe. It is not necessary when you bake the eggplant for baba ghanoush. The eggplant is related to the tomato and potato (although these originated from South America). In Western countries the most common types of eggplant are the large, ovoid and the longer, slim varieties, however in India and Southern Asia there are many more variants that range from white, green and purple in colour. It’s Australian, US and Canadian name is thanks to the smaller, white varieties, which look egg-like. Further resources Wikipedia - Eggplant and Baba Ghanoush Over the last year I’ve come to realise that despite being an amateur in the kitchen, I don’t make “simple”, cornerstone dishes like sauces, stock, chutneys, dips, but do make more difficult meals. This is crazy. Normally, when you’re learning to do something you start at the beginning, but for some reason I’ve skipped the basics and gone straight to cuisine. My epiphany began last year when I took a Thai cooking class and made sweet chili sauce. I don’t really like sweet chili sauce so wasn’t too excited about learning how to make it. But when I tasted the final product I was shocked to realise that what I don’t like is store bought, mass-bottled sweet chili sauce, which has nothing on the flavoursome, and less astringent home-made variety. I was also surprised to see that it was quick and simple to make. Later, I decided to enter a Paper Chef event and make a chutney. I also don’t really like chutneys, but it was the best thing I could come up with to use the feature ingredients that were part of the Paper Chef challenge. Once again, I was shocked to realise that what I don’t like is store-bought mass-produced chutneys, not the home-made versions and that like the sweet chili sauce, making chutney was easy. These experiences brought home to me that being a good cook is not about trying difficult and exotic recipes - it’s making all parts of a meal to a high standard, using fresh ingredients and getting the simple things right. So, I’ve set myself a challenge to go back to basics and try making my own soups, stocks, sauces and dips - the kind of dishes I’d normally buy from a supermarket to use as part of a more complicated meal. I have a feeling that if I can learn to make the simple things well, my overall cooking will improve. I’m also discovering that a lot of the joy of cooking comes from making food from scratch - I feel like I’m continuining a long tradition of cooking and that I could be in a kitchen anywhere in time when I’m making a classic vegetable stock (except when I glance over at the microwave or food processor - thank you progress). Anyway, this post is a precursor to my entry in Weekend Herb Blogging, which is baba ghanoush. I normally feel embarrassed about entering simple dishes into food events because I feel like it reflects poorly on me a as a cook (accurately you understand, but also poorly), but with the cover of my new simple pleasures philosophy I’m glad to have an opportunity to try a simple, traditional eggplant dish.
V Rating: Super V Still Thoughts is tucked away in a hutong down a hutong but is well worth the search. Run by Buddhists this restaurant serves excellent dishes with no meat, onion and garlic. A range of faux-meat dishes are on offer, and it is an excellent way for vegetarians to get a taste of traditional Chinese dishes without actually eating the meat versions. Our favourite dishes include entree serves of “pork” sausages (complete with fake fatty bits), which were described by my carnivorous dining partner as the meatiest non meat food he had ever eaten, and muslim style lamb shashliks deep fried and covered in cumin. For the mains we had a wonderful eggplant dish served on a sizzling plate stuffed with “mince meat” and “pork” bits and a dish of “beef” coated in cumin and sesame seeds deep fried and served on a cow shaped hot plate with fresh coriander. Still Thoughts is a newcomer to the Beijing Buddhist vegetarian scene and rated as one of my favourites. The staff were very helpful and the menu had both photos and english descriptions. A range of herbal teas are available very cheaply at 8 yuan a teapot. - Anth from Temporary Dwellings.
V Rating: Super V We only just found Baihe Vegetarian Restaurant. Like many good Beijing restaurants it is hidden down a hutong (alleyway). After our search on bicycles through the busy streets we were happily met by an oasis of calm, soothing background music and Buddhist literature. We walked through a sunny courtyard and dining room before settling in a comfortable corner in a room at the back of the restaurant. We perused the menu to find a range of beautifully presented Chinese dishes with faux-meat substitutes. The menu is all in mandarin but photos are provided. We weren’t always exactly sure what we were ordering but it was unfailingly tasty each time!
On our first trip to this restaurant we had a light lunch of fresh salad with cucumber, capsicum and mint with a sesame oil dressing and tasty smoked firm tofu served with a chilli and sesame sauce and brown rice noodles with a chilli oil dressing. The tofu dish was a little oily, but still a refreshing change from the usual heavy, oil ladened chinese food I had eaten so far. On subsequent visits we had more substantial meals with dishes such as faux-deep fried pork ribs (complete with pretend bone made of some soy product!) with a mushroom and pineapple sweet and sour sauce and stir fried pork sausage with fresh beans. One clear stand-out dish was the somewhat mysterious, but utterly delicious, dish of mushroom chunks with a sweet apple and chilli sauce presented on a hot plate with roasted peanuts, dried chillis and spicy peppercorns. The flavours were strong and contrasted excellently with the burnt taste of the chilli, the sweet sauce and the peppercorns. I am not sure what type of mushroom was used as our mandarin phrasebook stopped short at simply “mushroom”. However, it was a firm textured mushroom that gave the dish a real meaty feel. Baihe restaurant also serves freshly ground coffee and a large range of organic teas however these are relatively expensive from 20 yuan a cup. - Anth of Temporary Dwellings A great vegetarian friend of mine has just started out on an epic journey that will take her and her partner from Beijing to Quito, Ecuador (the long way round). They’ll be blogging about their adventures at Temporary Dwellings, but in an added bonus for Veggie Friendly readers, Anth has kindly offered to send reviews of places of note for vegetarians. She’s a determined vegetarian, and intrepid traveller, so I’m sure that the reviews will be a great resource for anyone planning their own trip. I’ll do my best to link the reviews to the Google Map. Let the eating begin! A Melbourne reader has contacted me to ask why there are no reviews of the Vegie Bar . A vegan since birth, she swears it’s a great vegetarian restaurant and has never served her a bad meal. I’m a bit geographically challenged when it comes to Melbourne places, but would love to hear what locals think of it. It’s on Brunswick St. in Fitzroy. Around this time of year the temperature in Canberra starts to drop with the onset of Autumn. It’s around this time that I start thinking about winter “comfort food” recipes. So, here is a recipe for one of my favourite, simple, tasty winter soups. I can’t remember where I got this from. I also don’t know that there is really anything particularly “Middle Eastern” about it, but that’s just what I’ve always called it. Ingredients 1 cauliflower, cut into chunks Method There’s no real secret to this: it’s “soup making 101″. Just fry the onion in the oil until its browned, add the cauliflower and potato and allow to sweat (covered) for a few minutes, before adding enough stock to cover the vegetables. Then add generous amounts of the herbs, season with the salt and pepper and bring to the boil. Allow to boil for 20 minutes or so - til the potato is cooked, however long that takes. Then liquidise it in a blender or food processor. Serve with a dash of cream or sour cream, and some crusty bread. Yum! Variation You can substitute broccoli for the cauliflower, which is equally nice. But I’d recommend not using a mix of broccoli and cauliflower. I’ve tried that once, and it really doesn’t work. - AC |
Bad Behavior has blocked 1357 access attempts in the last 7 days.