Tag Archives: herbs

Green September Alchemy

more coming, but recipes & links from today below:

 

GREEN IS GOOD – by Miss September

The month of green and what better recipe to have is Salsa Verde.  Add lemons as much as possible to reduce those gluts.

Indulge in blood oranges they are so good.

Salsa Verde means in Italian “green sauce”. Drizzle it over meat, fish or just a platter of seasonal vegetables it is great. It also has flexibility in the ingredients so you can use up left overs in the fridge to create it.

Basically the best combination is parsley, mint and basil but I often add fennel leaves and spinach and celery. If you have some anchovies in the fridge add a few of these. You can add as much garlic as you like but be careful to balance this so you can taste the freshness of your herbs and their own distinct flavor.

 

Recipes Alison Drover , Fork in the Field

 

SALSA VERDE

 

• 2 shallots, finely diced and soaked in a tablespoon of red wine vinegar for 30 minutes

• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped

• 1 tbsp small capers

• 1 tbsp lemon juice

• 1 cup finely chopped fresh parsley

• 1/3 cup chopped chives

• 1/3 cup mint leaves

• extra virgin olive oil

• 1 lemon zested.

 

Put all green items in the blender add lemon juice and olive oil and blend together. If you sauce is a little thick add a few tables spoons of warm water and test as you go. A salsa verde should be smooth and tangy but not too much garlic.

 

KALE & BANANA SMOOTHIE

 

Serves 2

• 2 cups milk

• 6 kale leaves, removed from the center stalk

• 2 frozen bananas or whatever you have available

• 2 tablespoons honey

• Cinnamon

• 1 tablespoon tahini or peanut butter if you have this left over

• parsley – about 3 tablespoons

 

Add kale and milk to the blender, and blend until there are no large bits of kale. Add banana and honey, and all other ingredients blend until smooth.

 

PRIMAVERA SALAD WITH SALSA VERDE

 

• 4 blood oranges – cut of the top and bottom take off the peel by slicing from the top down and going around the orange so that you keep the round shape but remove the white pith. Cut the orange across ways so you have even slices

• 10 kiplfler potatoes – cooked so they can be leftovers from a meal

• Bunch of rocket

• Fennel bulb washed and then remove the green stalk and fronds and slice finely so they are like shavings

• 1 lemon zested finely over the salad

• 1 /2 cup pecans or macadamias

Additions: add other green that you may have left over or growing watercress, radicchio

Take a large platter slice potatoes across ways but randomly so you have different textures in the salad. Add your greens ie rocket, top with fennel and the zest lemon over the salad. Arrange your slices of orange over the salad.

Scatter pecans or your choice of nuts over the salad.

Drizzle salad with salsa verde or serve on the side

 

ASPARAGUS WITH CODDLED EGGS

If asparagus is not ready wait for this one until late September

Tip – excuse the pun have everything ready as to go as fresh is best

 

2 pots of boiling water one for eggs and one for asparagus. The eggs form the basis of your warm dressing so you need to be organized.

 

• 60ml vinegar –

• 8 large organic or free range eggs

• 80ml extra virgin olive oil – local is best

• 16 pieces of asparagus

• salt pepper

• lemon thyme

 

Pop eggs into the water for 4 minutes only. You want the eggs to be runny inside but white on the outside. Take a clean tea towel and scoop out the content of the egg into a bowl. This is going to be your dressing. Add the anchovy dressing and then drizzle in the oil and salt and pepper.

Cook your asparagus in the boiling water for about 5 minutes and then check it. It should be firm but not crunchy otherwise too acidic.

Remove asparagus from the water and place in bowl otherwise they keep on cooking in the hot water.

Take asparagus arrange on a platter drizzle with your egg dressing and then grate your lemon zest over it.

Yum!

 

BELLY BULLETIN

The month of October will be filled with a mass of food events all over NSW, part of the Crave food festival. Many are in Sydney, but quite a few will be held in regional NSW. Go to www.cravesydney.com for full details but here are a few that caught my eyes.

October 14; 5.30-9am – Breakfast on Bondi beach as the sun comes up with thousands of other toast lovers. The music is free – A dawn welcome followed by a full orchestra and soprano Lorina Gore – principal artist for Opera Australia. BYO breakfast, pre-purchase or buy it from surf-side food stalls.

Locally, Byron at Byron chef Gavin Hughes is leading free tours of the Byron Farmers Market. Learn how to select and cook your produce. Since arriving in Byron in 2003 Gavin has been a passionate advocate for the region’s produce and its creators. The tour meeting point is at the Northern entrance to the market, closest to the Police station at 8am. No bookings required. Every Thursday in October, 8 to 9 am.

Sample – A Taste Of Northern NSW  – Local growers, producers and chefs from the whole region will gather at the Bangalow showground for 12 hours of local flavours. There will be tasting plates from more than 30 restaurants, more than 100 local exhibitors, live music, celebrity cooking demonstrations and more – Saturday October 6; 8am-8pm

If you haven’t had enough of tasty food writers at the Byron Writers Festival & belly lately, check out Food & Words, a one day food writers’ festival at  The Mint, Macquarie Street, Sydney October 13, 10am-4.30pm

Advertised as ‘the crema of the Australian food writing community getting together for a lively day of discussion and debate on all things to do with food and words (and quality writing, domesticity, sustainability, history, cooking and more).’  Half of the writers seem to be from this area, and the festival is put together by writer, journalist, & member of the extreme cheesemakers’ club Barbara Sweeney, so it should be good.

The program includes :

Charlotte Wood on oysters,

Belinda Jeffery on the zen of baking,

Gay Bilson on the question of How Much Food Does a Man Need?

Mungo MacCallum on how, where and why to picnic

Chef Alex Herbert and Publisher Catherine Milne on what goes into creating a cookbook ;

Librarian Simon Cootes on quirky cooking and food ephemera from State Library of NSW.

Dee Nolan on food on the road, Laila Ellmoos on fruit and nut stalls

Ewan McEoin on big ideas/small producers

For lunch, you have the choice of bringing your own picnic or ordering a packed picnic ($40) when you purchase your ticket. Full day ticket $155 (includes morning/afternoon tea)

 

If you have been disappointed at the recent local elections, maybe you need to learn from Barack Obama & just seduce the voters with your home brewed beer. More than 12,000 people signed a petition asking for the White House’s special brew on the “We the People” page of the White House web site, which is dedicated to grassroots petitions. Mr Obama has been taking the beer with him on the campaign trail. According to ABC online, people will vote for the person they would most like to have a beer with. Or maybe that’s just journalists.  The beer is made with honey “tapped from the first ever bee-hive” in the White House garden.  Go to the  the White House blog for the complete recipes & brewing video .

Have you ever eaten pigeon? Young ones turn up as ‘squab’ on restaurant menus.  They have been part of the diet in Southern Europe & North Africa for many centuries.  Disappearing now as a food, possibly because of health concerns, or just squeamishness.   A provincial official in Argentina has been suspended over his proposal to feed children pigeon meat to counteract a surge in the bird population.Oscar De Allende, an official at the local environment ministry responsible for wildlife, was suspended over his “controversial statements on pigeon consumption,” Cordoba governor Jose Manuel de la Sota said in a statement. Earlier this week Mr De Allende proposed that Paicor, a government program for distributing food and clothing to poor students, serve pigeon meat at public schools. “We estimate we have 600 million (pigeons) in Cordoba,” Mr De Allende told a local radio station. “Let’s consider that pigeons are an abundant resource, not a pest.  The woodpigeon “columba palumbus’ is the largest & best to eat according to the Oxford Companion to Food.  A bit fatter than the regular pigeons.

 

 

 

 

on air 17.1.11 : kids in the belly kitchen

Total takeover of belly today by the juniors : Audrey (6), Luca (9), Zoe (10), Abbie (11) and Jordan (12).  All fabulous cooks, with talented mothers and teachers Adele Wessell from Southern Cross University and Melanie Le Sueur from Bangalow Public School.  Eight of us in the not so very huge bayfm studio!

They were all involved one way or another with the TV program Junior Masterchef last year.

Audrey and Luca ready for the great pasta challenge

ADELE WESSELL is a lecturer at Southern Cross University in Lismore.  She teaches history but is also a food scholar, and the mother of Audrey and Luca.  She helped organise some fellow food scholars under the loose umbrella of the Masterchef TV program at the national conference of the Australasian cultural Studies Association, held in Byron Bay last December.

Adele presented a paper on the children’s version of Masterchef, which aired last year for the first time and was very successful with both kids and adults.  One of the reasons she did a study on it was to allow her to spend more time with Audrey and Luca, who love to get into the kitchen.  Out of the 5 kids in the studio, Luca is the only one who admitted he’d like a career in food, maybe with his own cafe.  He is handy with a kitchen blowtorch (essential for creme brulee these days), and also loves making potato gratin.  Audrey at 6 years old has her own knife and loves to “plate up”, and according to Adele will even eat more veg if she gets to arrange them.  Plating up, both the expression and the activity, is definitely a new favourite of Australian kids.

We touched on a few of the issues that Adele identified in her study:

* anxieties over exposing the kids to competition (which our little sample said they enjoy).
* anxieties over healthy food and obesity, which were not a focus of the adult program but were often brought up as essential in teaching kids to cook.  The adult programme was simply focused on the sheer pleasure of cooking.
* current entertainment trends focused on activities that may have been regarded as work, and the way this brings young people back into  domestic activities, allowing play and necessary household work to happen at the same time, and family members to spend time together.
* judging from ingredient sales, people were actually learning and doing the recipes on the show (although I suspect there are a lot of jars and bottles languishing in pantries as a result of MC).
* the cooking was sometimes seen as to complex, and the series cookbook contained much simpler recipes
* although the adult cooking competitors cried ALL THE TIME, the kids were supposed to be not just talented cooks from the start, but willing to take criticism and not prone to tears

Then it was time for a quick musical chairs moment, and Jordan, Abbie and Zoe,  3 of the 12 local kids  invited to a masterclass on Junior MC, and their teacher MELANIE LE SUEUR, shared their experiences.
Bangalow Public School was invited to participate because of the years of cooking and veggie patch programs that the school has put on.  Belly regular Leah Roland, who runs the Bangalow Cooking School, and Michael Malloy, who runs everything else in Byron Bay and Bangalow, have put endless volunteer hours into Kids in the Kitchen and other programs.  Many of the students now regularly cook for their families and friends.
Melanie is the mother of 2 kids at the school, has taught there for 5 years, and helped co-ordinate cooking classes at the school last year.  She went to Sydney with the kids for the shooting and witnessed all the drama.  The show producers actually tried to change the format and cancel the trip after they had all bought tickets, but Leah managed to convince them that they really didn’t want 12 very disappointed kids on their doorstep.  I think a group of diminutive picketers, beating whisks against bowls, shouting : ” Whaddowewant?  To learn to cook!  Whendowewannt? Now!” would have been fun on the news though.
Jordan can cook lots of tricky dishes but is a fan of the granita ice dessert, you will find a whole post on granita on the belly site, because the bellysisters agree it is a wonderful thing.  Abbie loved the Clafoutis that they made,and the school now has its own version (below).  Zoe learned to peel and beautifully dice tomatoes on MC, but seems more excited about having  played football (soccer) with George, one of the presenters.  And everyone agrees the time one of the kids forgot about her lapel mike, and whispered “You can see George’s bum crack” was a highlight.

The episode took 9 hours of shooting, with breaks mandatory to rest and feed the kids every 30 minutes.  They had fun, and learned a lot, although both Adele and Melanie regret that no washing up is shown or taught on the show.  That’s the price a lot of parents with young cooks pay – a LOT of washing up!

Thank you to Melanie and Bangalow Public School for sharing the recipes below.
If your school or group is doing something interesting with junior cooks, the bellysisters would love you to come on the show, or we may be able to come to you, or record something for us to play.
Thank you to Audrey, Zoe, Abbie, Luca and Jordan, who shared their stories and were such media pros in the bayfm studio.

Sister T (feeling much better about the Australian baby boom now)

PEACH OR NECTARINE CLAFOUTIS

You can use any many different types of fruit, depends on the season.
Peach nectarines, plums, rasperries, blueberries, boysenberries and cherries all work well!
Clafoutis all year round.

INGREDIENTS
600gm of fruit
If using peaches and nectarines cut into wedges
A little butter for greasing the baking dish
For the batter
250 gm Self Raising flour
250 gm of sugar
500ml milk
6 eggs

UTENSILS
2 large ceramic baking trays or quiche flan, whisk, spatula, mixing bowl,

METHOD

Turn oven onto 180degrees Celsius.
If using peaches and nectarines destine and cut into thin wedges. If the fruit is a little hard you might like to poach them in water and sugar beforehand.
Grease your baking tray.
Mix the batter to a thick consistency with a whisk.
Arrange fruit in the baking tray and pour batter on top.
Bake in oven for 30- 40minutes until brown on top
Serve with ice-cream or yummy lemon myrtle yoghurt (lemon myrtle is a lemon scented eucalyptus native to the North coast of NSW)

To make lemon Myrtle yoghurt :

 Mix together 500g yoghurt, 1tsp ground lemon myrtle and add honey to taste.

FRUIT GALETTE

Ingredients
4 sheets Puff pastry
1kg fruit such as peaches, nectarines, pears or apples.
½ – ¾  soft cup brown sugar
Cinnamon (optional)
50ml milk and 1 egg (mix to make an egg wash)

UTENSILS
Flat baking tray, knife, chopping board, baking paper, bowls pastry brush.

METHOD
Check oven is on 180 degrees Celsius
De-stone peaches (or de-core apples pears etc) Thinly slice your fruit place in bowl and mix with sugar and cinnamon.
Cut puff pastry into long rectangles about 5-7 cm wide brush with milk and egg wash
Place fruit in a fan layered way  on top of pastry.
Bake in a preheated oven for 25-35 minutes until pastry has puffed up and is browned

SALSA VERDE


INGREDIENTS
2 cups herbs – basil, parsley, mint or coriander or a combinations
4 garlic cloves
½ cup capers
100-150mls olive oil
20mls red wine vinegar
6 anchovies fillets and 1 gherkin (optional)

UTENSILS
Salad bowl, blender/food processor, Mortar and pestle or garlic crusher, spatula

METHOD
Pick leaves off herbs and place into food processor.
Add chopped garlic and gherkins, anchovies and capers and vinegar.
Lightly blend until chopped coarsely then drizzle in olive oil until you reach a chunky paste like consistency.
Place in a bowl and drizzle oil on top or cover with cling film to stop from browning.
Use on your favourite pasta or grilled vegetable meat or fish.

The whole episode with the Bangalow students is available online, and is well worth watching.

And these are a couple of articles about the school

http://www.masterchef.com.au/9654.htm

http://travel.ninemsn.com.au/holidaytype/kidsfamily/8169203/cooking-classes-for-mini-master-chefs

http://www.heartbeat.net.au/?p=131_bangalow_masterchef

Adele Wessell has a number of articles on food online, do a search or just have a look here

MUSIC

Beady Belle – Goldilocks, from ‘Ladies in Nu-Jazz’

Dropwise Dubs, Yes Please, from Bass Bucket

Herbie Hancock, Watermelon Man instrumental, from ‘Watermelon man the ultimate Hancock!’

TM Juke – Playground Games, from Nu jazz anthology

Stacey Kent and Jan Lundgren trio, Street of Dreams, from Nu Jazz anthology

Oka, Pandanus, from LMR 4ZZZ, The Dreaming 2010

belly 12 July 2010 – tender herbs and starfruit

This was Sister Tess’s first show after a trip to the North and South extremities of Europe, Finland (where they have porridge for lunch) and Sicily (where they have icecream in a bun for breakfast).  More about those two fascinating places soon.  During this show Sisters T and B talked about the wonderful carambola or starfruit, a delicious and beautiful golden fruit that grows well in our area.  And sister T played an interview recorded at the Byron Bay Herb Nursery with Debbie Shortis, the fabulous belly herbologist.  Deb talked about ways to use herbs in mixes. The traditional bouquet garni , woody herbs like thyme, sage, rosemary, bay, tied together so they can be easily removed at the end of cooking.  Herbes fines, or tender herbs like chervil, tarragon, parsley, fennel tops, dill, that are great chopped together and added at the very end of cooking to zest up winter dishes : soups, mashes, casseroles.  And her own invention, an Asian bouquet garni to tie together,add to curries and remove, choosing from kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, galangal, cinnamon, ginger, curry leaf, coriander root or horseradish root.

These are a couple of recipes that get Deb’s fresh and herbal seal of approval.  The crepe is inspired by one on “The Cook and the Chef” ABC TV show.

HERB CREPE
Serves 4
(To go in any soup)
2 tablespoons flour
2 eggs
3-4 tablespoons milk
Salt and pepper
‘fines herbes’- 1 tablespoon each of parsley, tarragon, chives, chervil and dill frond,
all chopped very finely.
Put flour in a bowl, stir in the eggs and then gradually beat in the milk to make a thin batter. Season, add herbs and let rest for 30 mins. This crepe is about the herbs more than it is about the crepe. The batter is just a boat to carry the herbs upon the soup.
Heat a heavy pan and brush lightly with both a little oil and butter. Add crepe mix and swirl around the pan to form a thin crepe. Cook on very low heat without adding much colour, flip and set aside. Roll the crepe and cut into thin strips.
Place a few strands of crepe ribbon in the bottom of each serving bowl before adding the soup of your choice.

CARROT AND CHERVIL SOUP
50gms butter
275grams chopped carrots
50gms plain flour
1ltre chicken stock
½ cup of chopped chervil
Salt and pepper
Melt butter in saucepan and gently sauté the carrots for 5 mins. Stir in the flour, then stock and seasoning. Bring soup to the boil, cover and simmer gently for 30mins. Allow to cool slightly then purée the soup in a blender. Return to pan add the chervil and gently bring back to the boil. Serve hot or chilled with a swirl of cream or yogurt and a chervil garnish.
(recipe from “ The Complete Book of Herbs” by Lesley Bremness 1990)

For lots more recipes and herb information, go to the Byron Bay Herb Nursery site
www.byronherbs.com.au

FROM THE BELLY LAB : MUSSELS WITH TENDER HERBS by sister T

I made this the night before the interview, inspired by Deb’s enthusiasm for mixing up lots of fresh green things.  I just went around the garden and picked lots of whatever was looking good, parsley and chervil and chives, a little nasturtium and a few mustard leaves.  There was at least a loosely packed cup of chopped greens. I opened the mussels in a big pot with chopped garlic, butter and a glass of wine (one for the pot, one for the cook), and just tossed the herbs in at the end.  Much nicer than plain old parsley moules marinieres.

starfruit photo by Pratheep P S, www.pratheep.com

STAR FRUIT OR CARAMBOLA

The star fruit  has been grown in parts of Asia for hundreds of years— it may have originated in Sri Lanka and Indonesian Moluccas.
They are best consumed when ripe, when they are yellow with a light shade of green. It will also have brown ridges at the five edges and feel firm. An overripe fruit will be yellow with brown spots (so the sources say – we still like them that ripe, obviously minus the brown bits).

The fruit is entirely edible, including the slightly waxy skin. It is sweet yet tart, a complex tropical flavour, and extremely juicy.

Carambola is rich in antioxidants and vitamin C , you may need to be careful of overconsumption if you have liver problems possibly cos of their oxalic acid content.

– To grow : tropical, sub tropical small tree, full sun,water, good drainage, fertilise 3 x year, can propagate by air layering – wrap soil around a branch and wait for roots.  If you grow them from seed they may bear sour fruit.

– To prepare : wash, remove ends and ridges and seeds

– To cook :
fruit salads – the main way you will see starfruit, but there is so much more you can do!  In China and India unripe fruit is used cooked as a veg.
Spicy thai salads (even  rosepetal with chicken and prawn http://thaifood.about.com/od/thaisnacks/r/rosepetalsalad.htm) they introduce a  sweet/sour element.
Juices, drink decoration, cake topping eg pavlova, upside down cake, muffins – substitute in pineapple recipes, the star slices hold their shape if you are a bit gentle.
Salsas with eg cucumber, mint, chilli to put on fish or chicken
Raita – the yogurt side dish, serve with curry, instead of cucumber raita
Pickle whole