April 2008
This
Month:
Recipe of the Month - Prawn Sandwiches with
Avocado & Wasabi Mayo
Cooking Classes - Spring Classes
Eating Etc - Tapas & Meze
Spice of the Month - Cardamom
Welcome to the April newsletter, which comes to you
from sunny Sydney. I've spent the last month
eating the last of the summer fruit, avocados,
masses of seafood, and sampling wonderful new cafes
and restaurants. The food scene here is as
impressive as always with it's wide range of ethnic
restaurants alongside cutting edge modern Australian
cuisine. Something distinctly Australian to me is a
prawn sandwich and I have fond memories of sitting
on the beach shelling prawns, putting them between
sliced white bread with a dousing of lemon juice and
being in heaven. Try this twist on prawn sandwiches
on a sunny weekend afternoon. You can buy
ready cooked prawns if you like, but make sure
they're not pre-frozen.
Recipe: Prawn Sandwiches with Avocado &
Wasabi Mayo
1kg green king prawns (caught as locally as
possible)
1 fresh loaf organic white bread, sliced 1cm thick
2 lemons
salt & pepper
avocado & wasabi mayo:
1 ripe avocado, mashed
200ml homemade or good quality store-bought whole
egg mayonnaise
1 tsp wasabi paste (or to taste)
Bring a large pan of water to the boil and cook
prawns for 5 minutes, or until they turn from
green/blue to pink. Drain and shell, then
rinse in cold water with a couple of slices of
lemon. Mix mayo ingredients and
season to taste. Generously spread mayo on
bread, top with prawns, a good squeeze of lemon and
some salt and pepper. Makes 6-8 sandwiches.
Cooking Classes
There are just three lecture classes left on the
Spring calendar, so be sure to book early.
Speedy Suppers - back due to popular demand, the
speedy suppers class will give you quick, healthy
and delicious recipes for mid-week meals
Spring Entertaining - Make the most of wonderful
spring produce with some stylish and impressive
dishes to share with friends
Intro to Asian - Cooking those favourite dishes
you have when you go out is easier than you think. I
have chosen a variety of recipes from different
parts of Asia to give you a good introduction to the
different areas and flavours.
And remember, if you are interested in private
tuition, I can tailor classes specifically for you
to cover any area of skill or cuisine you want to
concentrate on.
Have a look at the
essentials classes I offer – you can choose one
or more to create your own program.
Eating Etc: Tapas & Meze
Communal sharing of small plates of food has been a
popular way to eat for thousands of years.
Spain, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia
(to name a few) all eat a great majority of their
food in this way. Small, tasty dishes full of
vegetables, meat, spices and grains, with no end to
the variety of preparation and cooking. From a
bowl of olives or nuts to lovingly prepared
slow-cooked meat to fill a pastry, there is
something for everyone.
I've noticed an increase in new tapas restaurants in
the UK and Australia, with restaurants such as
Brindisa and Fino in London and Bodega in Sydney
taking an exciting modern approach to tapas, with
exceptional ingredients and flavours leading the
way.
Eating tapas and meze is a wonderful way to share
food with family and friends and so many of the
dishes can be made ahead of time which makes
entertaining easy. It's also great if you want
to share the work and give people something to bring
along for your feast.
Making your own flatbread is easy and
delicious, and is best made to serve.
Otherwise, you can brush some bought flatbread with
olive oil and sprinkle with fennel seeds and cook
for 10 minutes in a hot oven.
Recipe: Fennel Seed Flatbread
and Artichoke Dip
Flatbread:
300g organic strong white bread flour
1 teaspoon whole fennel seeds
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon dried yeast, dissolved in 1 tablespoon
warm water
¾ teaspoon runny honey
225-250ml milk (room temp)
a little olive oil
egg or milk, to glaze
For bread, mix flour, fennel seeds and salt in a
large bowl.
Add the dissolved yeast and honey.
Pour in the milk a little at a time until a
ball forms – you might need more flour or milk to
get it right.
Turn out and knead for 5 minutes until
elastic and smooth.
Set aside and rest on a floured surface for 1
hour or until doubled in size. Preheat oven to
230C.
Divide dough into four and roll out with a rolling
pin on floured surface.
Place on an oiled baking tray and pinch the
top for decoration.
Brush with glaze and bake for 15-20 minutes
until risen slightly, golden and hollow sounding
when tapped.
Artichoke Dip:
1 400g tin artichokes
2 egg tomatoes, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
¾ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp ground chilli
juice of 1 lemon
olive oil
paprika oil, to serve (optional)
Roughly chop the artichokes and put into a large
frying pan with all other ingredients. Stir over
low-med heat for 10 minutes until all ingredients
have softened. Blitz to make a puree, adding more
olive oil if necessary for consistency and season to
taste. Serve with a drizzle of paprika oil if
desired and warm, fresh flatbread.
Serves 4.
Spice of the Month: Cardamom
Cooking with cardamom is an everyday pleasure many
of us take for granted.
The warm, camphorous and refreshing taste
complements many foods without being overpowering.
Native to the south of India where it has
earned the name ‘Queen of Spices’, cardamom grows
from a ginger-like rhizome and after flowering,
produces pea-green pods containing three segments of
seeds.
The pods are picked just before maturity and dried
to a moisture content of below 12%, which creates a
pale green papery husk with dark, oily and pungent
seeds inside.
In cooking, there are many uses for the whole
cardamom pod, the seeds, and the ground seeds.
As well as being indispensable in Indian
curries, rice dishes and desserts, cardamom
is a Scandinavian favourite after Vikings returned
from the
Far East
with it in the first century AD.
In
Sweden
and
Finland,
cardamom is widely used in pastries, cakes and
biscuits, while Norwegians add it to ground meat and
whole fish.
In the
Middle East,
cardamom is paired with coffee, and a pod is often
inserted into the spout of a coffee pot to give
flavour when pouring.
Cardamom is also an important ingredient in
the African spice blend, berbere, and in Moroccan
tagines.
Try adding a little to your favourite recipe and you
can’t go wrong! Some cooking suggestions for
cardamom:
- add ground cardamom to carrot cake
-
make a sugar syrup using cardamom seeds and pour
over mango & banana
- add pistachio and ground cardamom to a vanilla
cupcake
- steam a fillet of white fish in banana leaf with a
few whole bruised cardamom
pods and slices of orange
- add whole bruised cardamom pods to couscous along
with ras el hanout spice
blend
Have a wonderful April, and don't hesitate to
get in touch
if you have any queries, questions or comments.
Don't forget to look up my
recipe page if you need some inspiration for
what to cook tonight.
Happy Cooking!
Kate
www.lovetocook.co.uk
kate@lovetocook.co.uk
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