Watermelon, fetta and proscuitto salad

I've just returned from a lovely trip to England, land of chavs, squirrels, waistcoats, ale, elderberries, red leicester, a thousand kinds of pie and other gorgeous stodge.

Being whisked straight from 20 odd hours of airplane food to a big family christmas lunch, my stomach's been suffering. So I decided, before my arteries turn into cumberland sausage, I need to get into some light fresh food. Conveniently enough I've landed back in Oz at summer's peak. Mangoes, cherries, plums and watermelons abound.



Watermelon's an excellent restorative - according to wartime stories my granddad once cured himself of typhus by eating nothing else for weeks. It might not fix your particular exotic disease but it'll probably do a bit to sort you out after festive overindulgence.



Ok, so the recipe to follow might seem a little weird, but have no fear, it's not just one of my pot luck bucket concoctions, it comes from the very wise pen of Stephanie Alexander. If there's any woman you'd trust in your kitchen it's her. If she told me to mix beetle skins with custard I'd probably do it and love it (but then again, I'm pretty easily led). Seriously, it's delicious.

Half a watermelon, cut into big cubes
200g soft fetta, cubed (goat, danish, bulgarian, good soft greek)
6 slices proscuitto, cut into broad slices
2 tbsp olives, pulled off the pips (I'd go for green olives or manzanillo in this recipe, kalamata's always good otherwise)
Juice of one lemon
Half an onion, sliced as thinly as you can humanly manage
Half a bunch of mint, de-stalked, chopped if you like
Half a bunch of flat leaf parsley, chopped (optional, it doesn't really need it, I'm just a parsley fiend)
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt, pepper




Get yourself a hefty bowl and add the watermelon, fetta, onion, olives, lemon juice, olive oil, about 1tsp salt and the same of pepper. With clean hands, toss it all lightly so the watermelon doesn't bruise. Taste a bit of melon and add a little more salt if necessary.

Add the mint and proscuitto, mix gently until just combined, then serve and eat immediately. Preferably in a hammock.




http://povalicious.blogspot.com/

Roasted vegie antipasto platter

In the middle of spring, gorgeous fresh vegetables are at their peak. A big platter of roasted vegies with some soft cheese, dips, and a bready accompaniment makes simple but decadent looking meal.

It's especially handy when you're skint but have a big horde of friends coming round to eat and drink you out of house and home and throw up in your garden. Food in bellies increases alcohol tolerance which equals less cleaning for you!

Head into your local food market or greengrocer and buy a handful each of whatever's cheap and tasty looking. Mushrooms, onions, garlic, leeks, zucchinis, eggplant, tomato, capsicum, carrots, fennel, asparagus, corn on the cob, pumpkin, yellow squash are my favourites.



Get about half a kilo of the cheapest fetta your supermarket sells - this is usually danish or bulgarian. Maybe 300g of olives if you're into them. If you've got a heftier budget, artichokes and sundried tomatos are also a mainstay of these kind of platters and way too much hassle to make yourself.

Top this off with a big bag or two of lebanese bread, a pane di casa or a few turkish breads (if they're cheap, forget the $5 rubbish you get in a supermarket). A few bottles of clean-skin wine is a good idea, but otherwise get your mates to byo drinks.

Chop the vegetables into smallish chunks and spread them out across a couple of baking trays. Spacing is important - if they are too bunched up then the vegies steam rather than roasting. Then you drizzle them in olive oil, salt and pepper, rub it in, then roast them in a hot oven (200+ degrees) until delicious.

Some veg cooks faster than others, a very rough guide is:

10 minutes - Small mushrooms, garlic (don't take the skin off until it's roasted), asparagus, leeks
20 minutes - Onion, fennel, sweet potato, carrot, corn
30 minutes - Tomato, capsicum, eggplant, pumpkin, zucchini, squash

Check it all every 10 minutes or so, take out what's ready and lay it out on a big platter. Don't worry about the different cooking times - these things are best cold. Add the cheese and olives and any other antipasto you fancy.



Now we get the bread sorted, depending on what you bought:

Lebanese bread - rub it in a tablespoon of olive oil, and a bit of salt and pepper, bake for about 10 minutes, turning once until stiff and light brown. It will break into delicious scoopable shards.

Turkish bread - slice it into 1cm thick strips, cut them in half, rub them in a little olive oil, salt, pepper then roast them top side up until lightly browned.

Pane di casa - slice it very thinly, rub with oil, salt, pepper on one side then bake, turning once, until light brown and firm.



Then you're ready to go - delicious, simple meal for multitudes. Or just yourself - it's my favourite lazy deluxe dinner for nights in.


http://povalicious.blogspot.com

Turkey and pineapple red curry

Weeks of packing, moving house, unpacking, cleaning, working overtime and otherwise engaging in non-blog pastimes have kept me away from you. But I'm back, with a red curry, broadcast from my new 50s cottage sunroom, looking onto my big leafy backyard. Watch this space, it's due to feature heavily in future episodes.



Thai food delivers maximum flavour at minimum cost - zesty, fresh, intense, with a counter-balanced richness and good range of textures. I am very fond of it to say the least - I love its pants off.

Cooking really good, cheap Thai food is dependent on a few main variables. The first is your provedore - you need a good Thai or Vietnamese grocer nearby (or at a pinch Chinese) Thainatown, aka Campbell St in Haymarket, Sydney is my favourite shopping hub. Pontip at 78a Campbell is the original and the best. You've always got the best fresh seasonal herbs, which don't cost you $2+ a bunch. You can easily walk away with a week's worth of greens for under $10. Not to mention the fruit and vegetables, fresh tamarind and green peppercorns, green paw paw, I could go on forever.

The other thing Thai really hangs on is the quality of your recipes. Because it involves the delicate balance of huge flavour contrasts it is easy to screw up on proportions of ingredients, so it's a bit like baking - best to be precise. My favourites tend to come from Martin Boetz's Longrain cookbook. This one is an exception, largely due to it's simplicity. It sprung out of a good brand of tinned red curry paste I had in the pantry, some cheap turkey chops I came across at Woolies and the memory of a dish I once ate at Spice I Am - my other favourite Thai hub in Surry Hills, Sydney.



400g or so turkey chops (Cheap from Woolworths, otherwise use chicken thigh fillets)
1 large onion, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 bulb fennel or 4 sticks celery, thinly sliced
1 cup green beans, topped and tailed and cut in half
1 bunch coriander, roughly chopped
1 small tin red curry paste
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 cup fresh or 1 drained tin unsweetened chopped pineapple
300mL can coconut cream (Go for Ayam brand, many other brands aren't real coconut cream - but the pulverised coconut that's left over after the cream has been extracted. This is tasteless crap. You'll know it's decent if you open the tin and it sticks to the lid.)
Olive oil, salt, pepper, chilli to taste

Rub turkey chops in 1/2 tsp salt, a few good cracks of pepper and a dribble of olive oil.
Heat a griddle pan, heavy based cast iron saucepan, grill, or whatever approximation of this you have as hot as it will possibly go. Add turkey, cook for about 2-3 minutes on each side until nicely browned but not burnt. Leave on a plate topped with paper towels, covered in alfoil.

Fry onion and garlic in about 2 tbsp olive oil on medium heat for around 2 minutes. Add fennel, stir for another 2 minutes, then add red curry paste. Fry for another 2 minutes or until nicely aromatic, then add coconut cream, beans and fish sauce. Reduce to a simmer, cook for about 10 minutes or until the beans are just soft, but still bright green.



Slice turkey into strips and add to the curry along with the pineapple. Cook on medium heat for another minute. This is where I'd taste it to see if you need more chilli. Adding it earlier on is just asking for trouble with red curry - as the heat develops as it cooks. Add some more fish sauce if it needs it too.

Once it's spicy and salty enough for your liking, serve it on rice, topped with the coriander. Soft steamed brown rice is what I'd go for - the curry's a bit rich, you want something clean tasting. Otherwise, any other kind of steamed rice would be fine.



Serves 4 and freezes well, minus the coriander

You can make great rice in little $10 ceramic rice cookers you can get from Chinatown, or any good chinese grocer. Mine looks like this.



When steaming brown rice, I swear by par-boiling it first. I add 2 cups of rice to my steamer, add 5 cups of water, then boil it for about 5 minutes. Then I drain off the water, add 3 cups of water to my steamer, bring it to the boil, stirring, then simmer it with the lid on until all of the water is absorbed.

If you're steaming white rice, skip the pre-boil stage, wash your rice a few times first to get rid of the extra starch, mix in about 2 tsp olive oil, then add 1 1/2 cups of water for every cup of rice. Bring to the boil, stirring, then leave it alone with the lid on at a simmer, for about 10 minutes or until cooked.


http://povalicious.blogspot.com/

Sausage chicken at Tobino's

Finger-suckingly good Nigella Lawson-inspired food makes up much of my cooking reportoire. My comrade Toby is also a staunch fan. I spent a night last week at his place up in Glebe, hanging out, cooking and engaging in some Nigella worship.



Toby made one of her pov-a-licious one pot wonders - cheap, simple and utterly delicious sausage chicken.

1 kg chicken pieces - drumsticks, wings, marylands, or a whole chicken cut into pieces
500g sausages
1 lemon, cut into wedges
2 onions, cut into wedges
1 tbsp english mustard
1 tbsp dried sage or thyme
1 tbsp olive oil
salt, pepper
1 big zip lock plastic bag (2L volume)

Combine all ingredients in the zip lock bag with 1/2 tsp salt and a good crack of pepper. Seal it up all hermetically-like.





Massage for about a minute or so, noting the pleasant sensation, lack of mess and hassle. It feels like the future. Pop it in the fridge for at least an hour, maybe overnight.

Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees celsius (445 degrees fahrenheit). Spread out in a roasting dish and bake for an hour or so until golden and delicious.





Serves 4, freezes well

Toby whipped up some pumpkin and potato mash, and simmered some shredded lettuce with frozen peas in butter and stock which made for great sides. Any mash or steamed veg would be fine.



Our friend Helen came round, we dug into a great winter feast, care of the old dart and it's saucy foodsmith, and horsed around watching crazy YouTube vids til 2am.



Another major up-side of my stay at Tobes' was the leisurely 20 minute trip into work in the morning - which usually takes me 1 1/2 hours from my south coast home. I love it down here, but I did come away with serious Glebe envy.

Check out Nigella's original recipe at:
http://www.nigella.com/recipes/recipe.asp?article=364

For an excellent YouTube montage of cheesecake pictures, perfect for 2am viewing, see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpoBcRqCuSI


http://povalicious.blogspot.com/

Cumin pepper steak, butter bean, fetta and tomato salad

Cumin, pepper and salt are made to be together*. Add a bit of beef and you've got a delectable foursome. I'm leaving myself open to dodgy food innuendo, but it really is a winning flavour combination.

Steak can be thrifty if you buy in bulk, choose cheaper cuts, freeze what you don't need and add just a little to each meal. Think of it as a flavoursome accompaniment, not the main event. Your digestive tract and wallet will thank you.

This salad relies on fresh, ripe ingredients. Green leaves should be used soon after they are picked and stored in a plastic bag in a crisper if possible. Tomatoes should be deep red, but not soggy. Never store them in a fridge - which causes them to harden and become grainy as the cells produce their own natural anti-freeze. Leave them on a window sill in the sun if you buy them a little pale - this will encourage softening and help the flavour to develop. If they get a over-ripe, cut off any bad bits and they'll be perfect for cooking into pasta sauce.



The combination of meat, fetta, pulses and vegetables in this salad makes for a satisfying, inexpensive meal - and nutritious to boot.

150g cheap steak
(sirloin, rump, round, t-bone or porterhouse - whatever you can get for under $10 a kilo without too much collagen - white, rubbery hard threads through the meat - not to be confused with fat which is fantastic for frying)
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp peppercorns
200g or 1/2 tin butter beans
(the other half will freeze well until you use it)**
100g danish fetta, cut into small cubes
2 ripe tomatoes, cut into even chunks
1 small onion, sliced thinly
100g baby rocket or mixed salad leaves
small handful mint leaves, optional
(only bother if you've got it in your garden)
olive oil, cider vinegar, salt

Coat steak in a liberal amount of salt. Pile it on, rub it in and leave it for an hour or so in the fridge. Meanwhile, toast peppercorns and cumin in a small frypan on medium for a few minutes, or until the cumin starts to pop a bit (but take off heat before it burns). Crush in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder. It doesn't have to be homogenous, cumin is hard to pound completely into dust, this is fine.

Rinse steak with warm water, pat dry with paper towels, and rub in spice mix and 1 tbsp olive oil. Heat a griddle pan (cast iron is best), barbecue grill or your George Foreman special to the highest setting. Fry meat for 1-3 minutes each side, depending on how cooked you like it. Remove and cover with foil.

Mix 1 tbsp olive oil with 2 tsp cider vinegar and meat juices from the griddle pan in a bowl. Add onion, butter beans, fetta, tomatoes, salad greens and mint (if using) and toss to combine. Split between 2 plates.

Slice beef into thick slices, add on top of salad. Voila, done.



Serves 2, best eaten immediately.

*Adding 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 cup almonds or pistachio nuts to spice mix before toasting and grinding gives you dukkah. This is a middle eastern/north african condiment which makes a delicious crust coating for meat and fish and an excellent companion to bread and olive oil as a snack. The addition of a teaspoon each of other spice seeds, like fennel and coriander also works well.

**Tinned beans are cheap and simple additions to a meal. Dried pulses, however, are the ultimate in food economy. Take half a cup of dried butter beans, chickpeas, what have you, soak them overnight, then simmer them for 15 minutes in some stock or water. Drain, mix with a little olive oil, salt, pepper you've paid maybe 30 cents for a filling addition to so many tasty dishes.

http://povalicious.blogspot.com/

Mushroom, bacon and smoked oyster pappardelle

Cheap oyster pasta? Piffle you say? Oysters are actually relative newcomers in the luxury food realm. These filter-feeding creatures were once a food staple for the poor in coastal areas. The Louisiana Creole Po'boy sandwich - lemon-squeezed deep-fried oysters in a buttered french baguette is a great example of this tradition.

They are best eaten raw and soon after harvest - sunk straight down the gullet with a good dribble of oystery juices. Unfortunately, thanks to the gourmet reinvention of this mollusc, strugglers have been priced out of eating fresh oysters on the half shell. Canned, smoked oysters, however, are still cheap and gorgeous. Texturally, they leave a little to be desired when straight out of the can. Rinsed of their tin liquid (which isn't a taste sensation) and blended with some pepper, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic or onion they make an excellent spread on toasted bread. They are also delicious when slowly simmered into sauces, such as the one in this pasta recipe.



500g packet pappardelle
(Aldi has some excellent cheap egg pasta, otherwise any pappardelle or fettucine will do)
2 onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tins smoked oysters, rinsed
2 rashers bacon, cut into strips
300g mushrooms, sliced
1/2 bulb fennel or 4 stalks celery, finely sliced
1/2 cup dry white wine
(I keep a decent cask, like De Bortoli Verdelho in the fridge for these kinds of things. It keeps longer than a bottle and cheap cheap cheap!)
300mL cream
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/4 bunch parsley, chopped
olive oil, pepper

Fry onion and garlic on medium heat in a little olive oil for 5-10 minutes until translucent and golden. Add bacon and fry for another 5 minutes. Add mushrooms, stir for another 5, then the fennel and ditto. Add wine and reduce. Add cream, then oysters and reduce to a simmer for 10 or so minutes. Keep it simmering away while you cook the pasta.



Bring 2 litres of water to a rolling boil, add pappardelle and cook until al dente (soft but slightly firm to the bite). Drain, but don't rinse (the starchy residue on pasta helps the sauce stick tight).
Mix with sauce. Serve with a good crack of pepper and topped with a handful of parsley.

Feeds 6 and freezes well.



Note: If you happen to be handy to an oyster farm, you can often get great deals on fresh oysters, either in the shell or in a jar. Going this route, don't add the oysters to the sauce until about a minute before you finish simmering - they're better under-done.


Sexy oyster image 1 comes from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons from the user Chris 73 and is freely available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Open_Oyster_Lyon_market.JPG under the creative commons cc-by-sa 2.5 license.


http://povalicious.blogspot.com/