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.