Parsley

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That's the key word right now when I go trawling through recipe books, and that's how we ended up with the not-really-that-appetising-sounding "chunks of beef with parsley crust", from a north african cookbook I hadn't tried before. But it said parsley, and we have a garden bursting at the seams with it. Including in the asparagus bed, and that all needs to be cleared out. We've obviously done loads of tabbouli, and recently also a parsley crust for a pork roast, but we've barely made a dent in the abundance.

Anyway, in this dish cubes of beef and soaked chick peas are cooked in water, cinnamon, spring onion and seasonings. Once cooked, you take the chunks of meat out, dust them in flour, and put them in an egg, parsley, cinnamon, salt, and pepper batter. Then fry that quickly in oil and pour the sauce over and serve. With that was a cauliflower, tomato and some rice rice dish that has the interesting addition of both corinder and ground caraway seed, as well as some bite with harissa. All served with cous cous and salad (greens from the garden, obviously including parsley).

It tasted authentic, and made for an interesting meal, if not a sensational one. Just good enough to t ry something else from this recipe book.

pot-roasted chicken

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Sounds too prosaic, but that's often the way with recipes from Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking book. They come from some other, simpler time. It's the reason I love this book: the old-fashioned simplicity of it, the way the recipes seem to bring the best out of good basic ingredients. My only disappointment with this dish was that I didn't quite get her results, and I really can't imagine how it would be possible. Though it did taste great.

I started with a good organic chicken, and stuffed it with a mix of home-ground breadcrumbs (from good soudough), parsley, chopped and pitted black olives, garlic, half an onion, white pepper, nutmeg, eggs. The chicken cooks on its side (swapping sides a couple of times during the cooking). David talks about being careful when turning it so you don't break the skin and how you end up with a crisp brown skin. Well, that didn't happen, and I doubt it's possible. Most of the skin on the legs did tear away, and the breast was pale, not brown and crisp. On the other hand it was tender and delicious, and the stuffing tasted great.

At the end, while the chicken was "resting', we took some par-boiled whole small potatoes and cooked them for a few minutes in the mix of oil and chicken juices in the pot, long enough for the potatoes to brown and finish cooking. Delicious!

From Chookhouse to pot

It was time for the old laying hens to go!! So early in the morning we did the deed. Our original chopping block and fallen apart so T had to make a dash down to the local park where an old ironbark had been felled after a storm and the blocks of wood had been left lying about. We spent a hour plucking and cleaning the two birds, separating the gizzards, livers and excess fat from the carcasses. The next day it was into the pot with lots of water, carrots, onions, celery, herbs and black pepper. A good stock requires lots of simmering especially tough old birds like these, so it cooked most of the day and reduced down to about eight litres of very dark rich stock. The stock was then strained, left overnight to settle out the residue and cool the fat on top making it easier to skim off. Now it is all in containers in the freezer ready for use. The gizzards, livers etc. all went into a Spanish chicken stew and the very happy dog had a feast on the leftover chicken meat from the stock. Free range chooks like these make the BEST tasting stock, it has a rich chicken flavour so much better than the insipid commercial chook.

Divine middle eastern fish

I'm a great fan of Greg Malouf's cookbooks, and I think 'Moorish' by Greg and Lucy Malouf is one of my favorites. Easy to follow and generally simple dishes which always turn out well and are truly delicious. This one from Moorish was a big hit. Blue Eye fish steaks coated in a chilli, lime zest, roasted crushed fennel seeds and sumac spice mix and pan fried. The accompanying salad was thinly sliced bulb fennel and purple onion with a dressing of lime juice, dried mint and olive oil and some fetta cheese crumbled over just before serving. Looked good, tasted great was really simple and quick to prepare. The recipe book actually calls for salmon medallions but I am not a real fan of salmon cooked that way and the blue eye worked just as well.

The very eggy dinner

This meal was inspired by a reference to a food critic's list of favorite meals. No recipe to follow just a description. Basically it was a soft poached egg on a bed of Risoni pasta with a egg and lemon sauce/soup spooned over it and crumbs of fried chicken on top. It was easy to make although a little fiddly with all parts needing to be prepared separately then quickly assembled at the end. Very tasty, but I made large servings and we were all a bit 'egged out' by the end of the meal.

An average Sunday

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Spent a pile at the wine shop for everyday quaffing red and white to build up the stocks again, made a Turkish-style lamb and freekah soup that was excellent (preparing for lunches in the week ahead), and made an Italian lamb stew that was only ok. And managed to create enough dishes to make anyone think I'd been feeding a whole army barracks.

The stew went with mash and gently cooked red and yellow peppers, and required a whole bottle of red for marinating the lamb backstraps overnight and then cooking. Lots of unexpected fussing about, straining this and sweating that, which usually just ends up making me irritable. The much reduced gravy (from that bottle of red and lamb stock I made yesterday, reduced in the cooking process to about 1/5 of the original volume) was delicious. Probably still not cooked down enough, but it was getting late since I hadn't factored in quite enough time for all the reducing that had to happen. And in the end the meat was only OK. Perhaps this is worth trying again, with some better red next time, and perhaps I'd cook the meat a bit longer.

Dessert was very sweet (and funny): Dr Who's christmas special with Kylie (well, it's not long after the winter solstice here, so it almost makes sense).

Dry masala fish (sookhi macchi)

{c} That sounds so prosaic, so dull, when this was a truly delicious dish. It was a large snapper coated in a spicy yoghurt paste and then left to marinate in it for a short while, then grilled, then baked briefly. The paste has yoghurt, lemon juice, cayenne, ginger, garlic, and a garam masala made of cloves, cinnamon, cardamon seeds, cumin, peppercorns and nutmeg. The taste was divine, and the fish was soft and beautifully flavoured. Thanks Ms Jaffrey (again!) The ecstatic dog got the fish head and is now sleeping the sleep of the totally replete. As we all will be soon.


The other part of the culinary entertainment tonight was testing a new basmati rice (Oh, such exciting lives we lead). An Indian store nearby has an astonishing selection of basmati rices from India and Pakistan, and we decided we were going to sample a selection, see what the variation is in texture and taste. We started with the India Gate brand, which which the sweet lad in the shop assured us was the very best (also the dearest - surprise!). No matter either way, since we plan to try a whole range eventually. This rice is very long and thin, well separated when cooked. It's clearly better than the commonly available brands we've been buying.