Wild mushroom and lettuce 'risotto'

Chicken of the woods (above) has a tendency to be a little dry, especially when it has been sitting in the fridge for a week like the stuff I needed to use up last night. I also had some maitake that had dried out a bit. I'd been wanting to try some form of chicken of the woods risotto as I thought it might be a good way of counteracting the dryness. Both mushrooms have a substantial enough texture (and taste) to hold up to cooking in liquid without losing their shape or going slimy. The problem with real risotto is that it is not good as leftovers (unless it becomes arancini), so I decided to make a kind of pseudo risotto with a different kind of rice. Lettuce also needed eating. I enjoy cooked lettuce and thought its sweetness would go well with the earthy mushrooms and rice.

2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
~1/2 cup chopped chicken of the woods
~1/2 cup chopped maitake
1 cup rice mix (brown rice, black barley, daikon seeds - TJs)
2 cups hot veg stock
2 tbsp barley+chickpea aged miso
3/4 cup frozen sweetcorn
1 small lettuce, chopped
2-3 tbsp chopped parsley
soy sauce
salt+pepper
toasted sunflower seeds

Heat the oil in a medium, lidded saucepan. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or so til starting to soften. Add the chicken of the woods and maitake and cook for a few more minutes, cover and cook some more until lightly browned. If it started to dry out add a little of the stock. Add the rice mix and stir until the brown rice looks transparent. Add the stock, cover and cook for ~20 min, until all the liquid is absorbed. Add the miso halfway through and mix it through the liquid. Finally, add in the lettuce, parsley and sweetcorn and mix until the lettuce is wilted. Taste for seasoning and add black pepper and salt (and/or soy sauce) if needed. Sprinkle with toasted sunflower seeds to serve.


This is good. I like it.

Mushroom barley 'risotto'

I had been trying to solve a problem with risotto: you really need white wine to make it good, but if we opened a bottle of white wine for risotto the other 90% of the bottle will go wrong before we'd ever get around to drinking/using it.  I did some research, and decided the answer might be to use white vermouth instead: you can put the lid back on and keep it in the cupboard til next time.  We bought it at the same time as creme de cassis (for cake) and a bottle of single malt (for Burns Supper) - what a weird combination.

Last night S and I had quite a lengthy discussion about what to do for dinner, and in the end I made a mushroom risotto with barley instead of risotto rice.  Mushrooms and barley are one of those combinations that is just meant to be, in my book

1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
~ 8 mushrooms, cleaned and sliced (use a mixture of different kinds of fresh and dried mushrooms if you have them)
1/2 tbsp thyme leaves
~1 cup pearl barley
1 tsp soy sauce (optional)
3 tbsp white vermouth
~3 cups vegetable stock
2 tbsp parsley, chopped
salt+pepper

toasted sunflower seeds, to serve

Heat oil in a medium saucepan, add the onion and garlic, cover and sweat for 5-10 minutes, until the onions are softened.  Add the mushrooms and thyme and cook for a bit longer, uncovered, until the mushrooms are browned, then add the soy sauce.  Add the pearl barley and stir and mix for a few minutes to coat.  Add the vermouth and cook until it is mostly evaporated.  Next add the stock a bit at a time, stirring and waiting for it to bubble off while you cook.  As you get close to using it all up taste the barley grains for texture - they are good with a little bite left.  Use a little more or less stock until the texture is good.  The cooking process takes about half an hour.  Finally, add the parsley and season to taste.  Serve with toasted sunflower seeds on top, if you want.


This was pretty successful.  The vermouth worked very well as a wine substitute.  The process took about an hour from beginning to end: more than I was thinking when I was just thinking of the barley cooking time.  May consider soaking the barley in stock while doing the first steps to speed it up, but I think the flavour might not be as good.  Happy to have the fresh thyme and parsley too, they really made it good.

Burns Supper: Scotch Broth, Bannock, Vegetarian Haggis, Clapshot

veggie haggis, all tied up and ready to cook

No one seemed to know who Burns was, and January is always a good time for random events to distract you from the dark days, so I decided it could be funny to host a Burns Supper. Obviously I am not authentic: I grew up in East Lothian but my parents are English and I never picked up an accent.

Oh, and the small matter of vegetarianism - I have never tasted real haggis. But still, I thought it might be funny.


Scotch Broth

I made this once before when S brought home Scotch Broth mix from Lidl, then decided he didn't like it very much...  Thought it was worth another try.  I adapted this recipe.

250g/8oz carrots, peeled, diced
250g/8oz turnips, diced (couldn't find turnips, used parsnips instead)
2 onions, peeled, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 leek, white part only, sliced
75-125g/3-4oz pearl barley
125g/4oz dried peas, soaked in water for 4-5 hours, drained (used yellow split peas instead, poured boiling water over and left for about 2 hours)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2.3litres/4 pints veg stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat all of the ingredients in a large saucepan until boiling.  Reduce the heat and simmer gently for 2-3 hours, until the peas and pearl barley are soft (nearer 2 is better I think).  Season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Serve with pieces of bannock.


Bannock

Was daydreaming about days spent on Orkney, and how much I like bere bannocks.  No chance of finding beremeal, but I did have pearl barley...  I liked this authentically Orcadian-sounding recipe.

8 oz pearl barley, ground into meal with my spice grinder
8 oz plain flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
water (about 100ml), to make a soft dough

Mix the flours, salt and baking powder in a bowl.  Working quickly, add the water and mix to make a soft dough.  Divide into two, and roll out (use a rolling pin) into a circle about 1/2 inch thick.

Heat a girdle or heavy frying pan over a medium-high heat.  Put one round onto it.  Cook about 5 min on one side, then turn over and cook about 5 min on the other side.  Allow to cool a bit, then cut up, before eating.


Vegetarian (/vegan) haggis

I wanted to make a haggis-shaped haggis - felt like the ceremony of having a big fat thingy to cut open was a big part of it.  Wasn't sure what could be used as casing instead of a sheep's stomach, then stumbled upon this recipe and I had an answer: yuba (beancurd sheet).  I found some frozen in Super 88.  I mainly referred to that recipe and to this one from the Guardian, adapting it a little to my own thoughts on how a veg haggis should taste.

1 1/2 tbsp fake butter
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 cup chopped mushrooms
good pinch cayenne pepper
~1/2 tsp ground allspice
~1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
3 carrots, peeled and grated
3/4 cup red lentils
~500 ml veg stock
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp chopped rosemary leaves
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tbsp chopped sage leaves
1 1/2 cups cooked red kidney beans, mushed up with a fork 
1 cup pinhead oatmeal or steelcut oats (I hoped the latter would be the same as the former, they weren't, but they were what I had so I used them anyway and it was fine)
salt+pepper
optional splash of whisky

2 large circular sheets of yuba (beancurd sheet)
kitchen string

Heat the oil and butter in a large, lidded saucepan.  Add the onions and garlic and sweat, covered, until soft.  Add the mushrooms and cook until browned and wet.  Add the spices and cook for a few more minutes.  Add the carrot, lentils, vinegar, soy sauce and stock (enough stock to just cover the other stuff).  Simmer until the lentils are cooked (about 15 min).  Add the mashed kidney beans, oatmeal, rosemary, thyme and half the parsley.  Cook until the oatmeal has softened and puffed up, and most of the liquid has been absorbed (about 15-20 min).  Add the chopped sage and the rest of the parsley  (and whisky if using) just before the end.  Taste to check seasoning - add salt and pepper, and more vinegar or soy sauce if it needs it.

Allow the mixture to cool completely, then divide in two and shape the mixture (which should be thick and malleable) into haggis shapes.  Open out one sheet of yuba on a board, then place one of the blobs of haggis mixture in the middle.  Roll it up into a sausage shape, then twist around the ends (in the style of a boiled sweet wrapper), and secure with string.  Trim the ends to give a neater, more haggis like appearance (see picture).  Repeat with the other yuba sheet and the other half of the haggis mixture.

Lightly oil the inside of a lidded baking dish.  Heat the oven to 350F.  Put the haggises inside the baking dish, put the lid on, and put them in the oven for about 30 min (really just to heat through).

Serve piping hot, with ceremonial address to the haggis, and clapshot.


Clapshot

5 large tatties (potatoes), peeled
equivalent volume of neeps (= turnip in Scotland, swede in England, rutabaga in America), peeled and chopped into large chunks (couldn't find turnip so used butternut squash instead)
salt+pepper
nutmeg
fake butter
fake milk
1 1/2 spring onions, finely chopped (or chives, if you have)

Put the potatoes in a pan of salted water and bring to the boil.  Boil until they are easily pierced with a fork (~20 min).  Do the same with the turnip / squash - I did them in a separate pan as I suspected the cooking times were different, with practice could do them together.  When done, put in the same pan and mash, adding butter, milk, salt, pepper and nutmeg to give the desired consistency and taste.  Finally, add the spring onions, and reheat gently.


Everything was eaten!  So I guess it must have tasted OK (I think it did: I was especially pleased with the haggis - it looked the part and was tasty).  I hope there was enough food...  I was thinking of making ginger shortbread too, but S decided to make deep-fried Mars bars (Milky Ways in American), so I thought that would be enough.  He also deep fried kit kats, snickers and, towards the end of the night, shortbread and bannock, on the balcony using our Belgian friend Ward's deep fat fryer (originally bought for making perfect Belgian fries - you can't buy them anywhere here, W says, and it's a precise process involving frying at two different temperatures consecutively).  And we had plenty of whisky, including a nice bottle of single malt that H+O brought.  Perhaps new food experiences, for a cross section of the great people we've met over these last few years: Hannah, Orion, Angela, Brian, Alvin, Carly, Jason, Anna, Remy, Nick, Nate, Meghan, Greg.  Now I can feel myself start to think about pancake day...

Mixed grains, cooked together

 A lady comes and sits in the canteen at work about once a month, with little pots of samples of (usually) salads, and recipes to go with them - I think to encourage healthy eating.  Of all the things she has brought, a 'multi-grain pilaf' has been my favourite so far, and I've tweaked around with it at home - it's a good, warm, wintry, texturally interesting pot of food, and the key is the sequential addition of different grains.

1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 cups water
2 cups veg stock
1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup pearl barley
1/2 cup brown rice mix (or just brown rice)
1/4 cup bulghur wheat
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley OR 1 tsp dried thyme and 1 tsp dried basil
olive oil
salt+pepper

Heat 2 tsp oil in a large saucepan.  Add the sunflower seeds and a good pinch of salt and cook until the seeds are golden.  Transfer seeds to a small bowl.

Heat another 2 tsp oil in the pan.  Add the onion and fry until softened (~4 min).  Add the water, stock, soy, balsamic, barley and rice (and dried herbs if using).  Bring to the boil, cover and simmer ~35 min.

Add bulghur, cover and simmer for 10-30 more min until the grains are all cooked and the liquid gone.

Remove from the heat, add sunflower seeds, salt and pepper, and parsley if using.


I like the mixture in this, and it's alright cold the next day too, unlike risotto.

Barley, green stuff and marinated tofu

I was looking for things to do with the za'atar I bought at the Armenian store - found this:


ottolenghi pearl barley tabbouleh @ Guardian

Serves four.
40g pearl barley
100g feta (substituted firm tofu, well drained)
1½ tbsp olive oil
1 tsp za'atar
½ tsp coriander seeds, lightly toasted and crushed
¼ tsp ground cumin
80g parsley, leaves and stems (may have been a bit short, was still fine)
4 spring onions (about 40g in total), finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed (just used one - am nervous of too much raw garlic)
40g cashew nuts, lightly toasted and crushed roughly
1 green pepper, deseeded and cut into 1cm dice (used a poblano - no spice to it anyway)
½ tsp ground allspice
2 tbsp lemon juice
60ml olive oil
Salt and black pepper

Put the pearl barley in a small saucepan, cover with water and boil for 30-35 minutes, until tender but still with a bite. Drain into a fine sieve, shake to remove all the water and transfer to a large bowl.
Break the feta/tofu into rough pieces about 2cm in size, and mix in a small bowl with the olive oil, za'atar, coriander seeds and cumin. Gently mix together and leave to marinate while you prepare the rest of the salad.
Chop the parsley finely and place in a bowl with the spring onion, garlic, cashew nuts, green pepper, allspice, lemon juice, olive oil and cooked pearl barley. Mix well together and season to taste.
To serve, divide the salad between four plates and top with the marinated feta/tofu.

It was good - liked the green tastes and spices.  The marinade worked well on the tofu - texturally different than feta would have been but still good I think.  I like za'atar.

Mushroom, tomato and lentil barley 'risotto'

Inspired by a grey and rainy day, general wintry malaise, and Nigel Slater's adventures with alternative grains, this is my kind of comfort food - a quick(ish) Monday evening dinner.

1 cup pearl barley
1/2 cup green lentils
olive oil
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3/4 tsp cumin seed
3/4 tsp mustard seed
1/2 tsp chili flakes
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
~10 mixed mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp tomato puree
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp plain flour
2 cups vegetable stock
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp soy sauce

toasted sunflower seeds and chopped parsley to garnish

Put 1 cup barley and 2 cups water and a little salt in a small saucepan and boil for 15 min, adding the lentils after 5 min.  Drain when ready (should be about half cooked), leaving a little of the cooking water in the pan with them, and leave in pan with lid on til needed.

Heat olive oil in a saute pan and then add the onion,cumin seed, mustard seed and chili flakes.  Fry for about 10 min til slightly browned.  Add chopped garlic and fry another 2 min.  Add the mushrooms and tomato and fry for about 5 min.  Addthe tomato puree and stir / cook 2 min.  Add the flour and stir in.  Add the stock, soy sauce, vinegar, thyme, lentils and pearl barley, taste and season with salt and pepper and more chili flakes if wanted and simmer covered for about 15 min / until the liquid has pretty much all been absorbed.  Serve as a risotto, with toasted sunflower seeds and chopped fresh parsley scattered on top / on the side to taste.

Turned out really tasty.  Very open to variations / using stuff up too - different grain, different pulse, different vegetables added...