Puff pastry tarts (parsley and tomato / red onion and goats cheese)

I got into making tarts using bought puff pastry sheets. I've never tried making my own puff pastry, I probably never will. But those rolls of pastry in the fridge can be quite useful. I've tried following the package instructions, but find I like the results best when I just roll out the pastry, dump stuff on top, and bake. Which is lucky, since it makes it so very easy. I often seem to end up with allium-based toppings. 

(1)

Lots of red onions, sliced and cooked until soft with some balsamic vinegar and thyme leaves. Let cool, then spread over the unrolled pastry. Sprinkle with lumps of goat's cheese (the soft kind that comes in a roll) and walnuts. Bake at 200C for about 20 min, until it looks golden and done.

(2)

I thought this recipe might be a more fancy way to eat some of our garden tomatoes from the summer. Fresh tomatoes and herbs - should be perfect. It was good but not awesome.

3 large very ripe tomatoes (about 1.5 lb), sliced 1/4-inch thick

sea salt 

1 small garlic clove, peeled

1 cup (15 g) basil leaves, loosely packed

2 cups (25 g) parsley leaves, loosely packed

2 tbsp (30 ml) olive oil, plus more for brushing

2 oz (55 g) hard cheese, thinly sliced or coarsely grated (e.g. cheddar)

pepper 

Place tomato slices on a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt. Put garlic, parsley, basil, 1/2 tsp salt in a blender and pulse until finely chopped, mix in olive oil to make a paste. Blot tomatoes with kitchen roll to remove excess liquid. Spread pesto over the tart base, sprinkle with cheese, then cover with overlapping scales of tomatoes. Brush tomatoes with olive oil and sprinkle with ground black pepper. Bake 190C for c. 40 min (check after 30) - until tomatoes are well roasted.

Onion marmalade

We had part of a bottle of red wine left after a visitor left (our last visitor from the UK before lockdown!). Clearly we weren’t going to drink it, we never do, but we also had quite a lot of onions so I decided it should become onion marmalade. I am pretty sure I have made this onion marmalade before, many moons ago. It’s easy and tasty, goes great with cheese, and keeps for a while in the fridge. I think this is the recipe I used before - and it was also the one I used this time.

2 kg red onions or regular onions 

4 garlic cloves 

140 g butter 

4 tbsp olive oil 

140 g golden caster sugar 

1 tbsp fresh thyme leaf 

pinch of chilli flakes (did not use) 

75 cl bottle red wine 

350 ml sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar 

200 ml port (used extra wine / wine vinegar instead)

Halve and thinly slice the onions, then thinly slice the garlic. Melt the butter with the oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan over a high heat. Tip in the onions and garlic and give them a good stir so they are glossed with butter. Sprinkle over the sugar, thyme leaves, chilli flakes if using and some salt and pepper. Give everything another really good stir and reduce the heat slightly. Cook uncovered for 40-50 min, stirring occasionally. The onions are ready when all their juices have evaporated, they’re really soft and sticky and smell of sugar caramelising. They should be so soft that they break when pressed against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon. Slow cooking is the secret of really soft and sticky onions, so don't rush this part. 

Pour in the wine, vinegar and port and simmer everything, still uncovered, over a high heat for 25-30 min, stirring every so often until the onions are a deep mahogany colour and the liquid has reduced by about two-thirds. It’s done when drawing a spoon across the bottom of the pan clears a path that fills rapidly with syrupy juice. Leave the onions to cool in the pan, then scoop into sterilised jars and seal. Can be eaten straight away, but keeps in the fridge for up to 3 months.

Aubergine, mango and soba noodle salad

A belated post from early Summer...

We went for dumplings on blågardsplads the other day - at a place we discovered either before or after a hospital appointment (silver linings). A place (think it’s called gao) that I love - they have two different kinds of vegetarian dumplings (mushroom pan fried and spinach steamed), both equally delicious; plus a long list of veggie sides that are all simple but perfect... sage loved them too. Anyway, while there remembered about the great fruit and veg shops also on blågards, checked them out too, and discovered a box of Pakistani mangoes! The delicate south Asian mangoes are way superior to the thick-skinned African ones you usually find in supermarkets - the one thing that could convince me to go to India in monsoon season... I had just been thinking maybe it was the season, but couldn’t think where was the right shop to find them...

I made this salad first about this time last year, when sage was tiny. I remember feeling proud i’d managed to cook something proper, especially because it was from a cookbook Seb gave me for my birthday (ie a few days after sage was born). Aside from eating them straight up, this seemed like a suitably special way to use some of our fine box of mangoes. This time, sage ate it too (and liked it! Although think he preferred the vegan sausages we ate with it (didn’t have any tofu)).

120 ml rice vinegar  (or apple cider vinegar)
40 g sugar
½ tsp salt
2 garlic cloves, crushed
½ red chilli, finely chopped
1 tsp sesame oil
1 lime, grated zest and juice
300 ml sunflower oil
2 aubergines, cut into 2 cm dice
300g soba noodles
½ red onion, thinly sliced
1 large mango, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
40g basil, chopped
40g coriander, chopped

In a saucepan, gently heat the vinegar, sugar and salt, just until the sugar dissolves, for up to a minute. Remove from the heat and add the garlic, chilli and sesame oil. Set aside to cool, then add the lime zest and juice.

Heat the sunflower oil in a large pan and shallow-fry the aubergine in three or four batches. Once golden-brown, transfer to a colander, sprinkle liberally with salt and leave to drain.

Cook the noodles in plenty of boiling, salted water, stirring occasionally, for five to eight minutes - the noodles should retain a bite - then drain and rinse under cold water. Shake off the excess water and place on kitchen towel to dry.

In a mixing bowl, toss the noodles with the dressing, aubergine, onion, mango and half the herbs. You can leave it aside for an hour or two. When ready to serve, add the rest of the herbs, mix and pile on a plate or in a bowl.

Butternut squash and chickpea salad with tahini sauce

Having accumulated 4 squashes (3 butternut and 1 acorn) I guess I was kind of on the lookout for new things to do with squash. I stumbled across this recipe, and it seemed to be combining a bunch of things I like / I know go well with squash, so I thought I'd give it a shot. As I assembled the ingredients and started to make it, I realised it is actually quite familiar - it's similar to the roasted squash and chickpeas I've made and liked before, with a tahini sauce that is another variation on a favourite quick sauce. Still, it's a new construction and with those credentials I'm bound to like it...

For salad:
1 medium butternut squash (about 2 to 2 ½ lb), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1 ½-inch pieces
1 medium garlic clove, finely chopped
½ tsp ground allspice (or sumac)
2 tbsp olive oil
salt
equivalent of 1 tin cooked, defrosted chickpeas
¼ of a medium red onion, finely chopped
¼ cup coarsely chopped fresh coriander

For sauce:
1 medium garlic clove, finely minced with a pinch of salt
3 ½ tbsp lemon juice (approx. juice of 1 lemon)
3 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp olive oil

Heat the oven to 425F. In a large bowl, combine the butternut squash, garlic, allspice, olive oil, and a good pinch or two of salt. Toss until the squash pieces are evenly coated. Turn them out onto a baking sheet, and bake for 25 to 45 minutes, or until soft. Remove from the oven and cool.

Meanwhile, make the tahini sauce. In a small bowl, mix together the garlic and lemon juice. Add the tahini, and mix to blend. Add the water and olive oil, mix well, and taste for seasoning.

To assemble the salad, combine the squash, chickpeas, onion, and coriander in a mixing bowl. Either toss with tahini sauce, or serve with tahini sauce on the side.


Perhaps a little more onion than I would have liked, but pretty colours and tasty.  Nothing very new but nonetheless nice, autumn-turning-colder comfort food.

Salad: kale, chickpeas, onion, sumac

Still largely apathetic about cooking much, due to the heat and also an abundance of tasty fresh veg that needs nothing more than a wash and a chop to make it good (Alvin is bringing me excess from his CSA every week and won't take no for an answer!).  I did manage to switch on the oven for a few minutes on Friday night to make some muffins to take to M's for brunch on Saturday, but that's been about it.

While I was in the kitchen that night I also made this kale salad: I'd been thinking about making something different with kale - I always end up either making kale chips, sauteeing it with garlic, or just adding it to stew or curry.  I remembered a tasty kale salad I tried from the Boston Veg Food Fest last year, and with the aforementioned heat-induced apathy the idea of not cooking the kale at all seemed good.  A quick Google immediately threw out a recipe that seemed to be exactly what I wanted: kale with sumac (one of my current favourite spices) and chickpeas (my alltime favourite bean), plus a few other things that sounded like a great combination.

1 bunch (about 1 lb) kale, tough inner stems discarded, leaves roughly torn
2 tbsp olive oil
salt
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp dried ground sumac
1 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
1 tbsp lemon juice (or cider vinegar)
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
equivalent of 1 tin of cooked chickpeas or white beans, defrosted
pepper

Put prepped kale leaves in a large bowl. Add olive oil and salt and rub and toss with your hands until all the kale is coated. Rest at room temperature until kale is lightly wilted, about 1 hour (or overnight in the fridge).

Meanwhile, put the prepared onions in a medium bowl and cover with cold water.   Rest for 15 minutes. Rinse in several changes of water then pat dry. Sprinkle with sumac and sesame seeds, and salt if desired.

Mix lemon juice or vinegar, garlic and mustard in a small bowl.  When the kale is ready, put everything together in a large bowl, toss and season.


In all, this was a great experiment.  The kale was super tasty and green, and went well with the onions.  The kale was just softened enough to be good - I wondered if I might have added a little more oil to make it a little easier to bite.  And the soaking of the onions in water seemed to negate their pungency - I was initially wondering if the raw onions and garlic might generate the old everything-tasting-of-allium-for-a-day-after-eating problem, but actually it was totally fine.

Another good point about this salad is that it really does keep overnight / for days, in fact I thought it was better the next day as the kale had softened a little more.  Which was especially lucky in this instance, as S was going to make pretzels to take to R's party but discovered at the crucial moment that he had no sodium hydroxide at home - this salad, which I had made the night before and discovered there was rather a lot of - stepped in and saved the day (ie we took it to the party instead, and S stopped into work on the way home from the party and then finished off the pretzels the next day - very good they were too - leaving them shaped overnight caused no problems).