Nourish Me

Torshi Left

 
A dim portrait of a share house lurks in the shadowy corners of my twenty-something memories. It was a huge, rambling place, with an evil, Voodoo doll-wielding matriarch at the self-appointed helm. The doll was the real thing, gifted to her by someone who returned, in tact, from Haiti. It was a weird, iron-fisted rule. One evening, while working her night-shift, the three of us hatched our cowardly escape. M would go off on his own, delving further into Marrickville than I’d ever been; S and I found a funny, dog-legged house just around the corner, perfect for the two of us to share. The fall-out wasn’t pretty.

Skinny as a rake, M was politically aligned to the far, far left. He possessed a razor wit, sharpened by growing up on London Council Estates and coming of age in Thatcher’s Britain. I liked him enormously, but was afraid of that deep, dark sense of humour. M smoked beautifully hand-rolled joints. Constantly. He spent an entire weekend patiently sanding and staining a cheap Ikea desk of mine in the back yard so intently, that it and I will never be parted. The friendship grew exponentially when I began cooking for he and S. Impressed, M would pull strangers aside to explain to them that my food was superb. I found the praise embarrassing and thrilling by turns and set about teaching both he and S how to doctor a tin of chickpeas. Something, I think, from Moosewood. I was then, and remain still, very good with a can-opener, a tin of beans and precious little else.

At his funeral I sat desperately wishing I could think of something – anything – other than the gruesome mechanics of his suicide. I wish I’d held on to that glowing praise. I’ve only just remembered it now.

There were moments, thankfully, of levity despite the constant sense of foreboding; people whom I look back on with deep affection. S became a great and trusted friend, one I miss a little in my thirties. I hope he made it safely through his. Then there was J who shopped at the Newtown Co-op and made hilarious (truthful) jokes about her British Royal lineage. She arrived one Saturday afternoon with a huge jar of shocking pink-pickled turnips under her arm, made especially for all of us by her Lebanese mother. I’ve loved them ever since. 

Though J promised to show me how to make them, allegiances were formed and that, well, that was that. Luckily, I have Susan and Claudia Roden to guide me.

Torshi Left
Makes one massive jarful. Roden says ‘The pickle should be eaten within a month to 6 weeks of making. We eat it long before.’ Our family is slightly smaller, so next time, I’ll halve it but the jar itself is a work of art, catching and scattering crimson light across the sill. The beetroot is here for colour alone and the pickle deepens in hue as it matures.

3 medium-large white turnips (about 1 ¼ kilos/2 ½ lb)
2-3 small beetroot
3-6 cloves of garlic
A few celery leaves
6 tablespoons of sea salt
3 cups of boiling water
1 ¼ cups of white wine vinegar

Wash a very, very large jar and its lid in hot soapy water. Rinse. Scald by filling to their rims with boiling water. Rest in the sink for about 1 minute. Set a clean tea towel on the bench, drain, reserving the water (water-wastage breaks my heart) and upturn both jar and lid onto it. Leave to dry completely.

Peel the turnips and cut them into neat, chip-sized batons. Peel the beetroots and slice them similarly, but a fraction thinner. Peel the garlic, leaving each clove whole. Pack into the now dry jar, interleaving turnips pieces with beetroot, garlic and celery leaves.

Dissolve the salt in the boiling water. Mix in the vinegar and carefully pour the solution into the jar, filling to just below the rim – you may need to add more boiling water to fill and, conversely, you may not need quite this much liquid. I deliberately underestimate the quantity in case of either outcome. Lid tightly and place somewhere in the kitchen where you can appreciate that extraordinary, ever-deepening shade of pink. Leave for 10 days at room temperature. They should be used within 5 weeks of the pickling date – label accordingly.

An Honest Kitchen

For a few months now I've been alluding from time to time to a project I've been involved in with Kathryn of Limes and Lycopene.

Well, today, and I can't believe I'm finally saying this, Kathryn and I are proud to introduce you to the first edition of An Honest Kitchen.

For some time now we've been quietly building an e-magazine together - Kathryn's recipes, my photographs - based on simple, seasonal eating and honesty.

As Kathryn explains, An Honest Kitchen is about

'Food that’s balanced and made up of ingredients which improve your health, served in realistic portions. Along the way we’ve tried to simplify, cut back on processes, find ways of making the cooking easier and show the food as it really is. Honest food.'  

But it's more than that. Kathryn's food is exceptionally beautiful.

There's something wintry for everyone here. Sardines with fennel & mint salad; White beans with artichokes & rosemary; Spicy lamb and olive burgers and, my favourite, Fish with walnuts, wrapped in vine leaves. I go to sleep dreaming of those crisped vine leaves...

There are plenty of helpful suggestions along the way from both of us, and, I'm pleased to say, that many of the non-veg recipes are easily (and very successfully) adapted to a vegetarian kitchen. It’s been a dream project to work on with a dream of a writer. We hope you like the final product - we're both enormously proud.

It costs A$19.95, which can be paid via Paypal. Click on the button below, you’ll be sent a link to download, and An Honest Kitchen, she's all yours.      

Worrying trends

Don't wish to alarm you - I am not, by nature, the alarmist-type - but things are not quite right.

I mean, the light early this morning went from subtle to spectacular in moments

and brought with it the warmest, the gentlest, of breezes which was very, very welcome. No one here complainin' 'bout that.

The lavender is thriving

which is all very well and good, but I walked past a tree this afternoon that is beginning to blossom.

I have nettles - a spring herb - going off but this locally (ish) grown find

has me flummoxed.*

Is anyone else a bit weirded out about how short this winter has been?

Any northern hemisphere gardeners noticing significant, worrying climate-related trends?

*(It came from Mildura. I didn't believe the bloke at the market and thus, asked twice. Still not sure, but he was)

Carrot, yoghurt and millet soup

Millet is often regarded with disdain. Unfair perhaps, but alas. Such is life. 

Should a wheat crop fail, millet can be planted in its place, harvested when the wheat, had it not fallen prey to the whims of Mother Nature, would have matured. A friend to the farmer, for one. It tolerates drought, harsh growing conditions, and, best of all, millet - sweet, light and delicate - feeds one third of the world's poorer peoples. A friend to the earth and its inhabitants, then. Africa, Northern Asia and India all have used millet widely in their food, yet it is perceived, even in those places, as the food of the very poor. Rice, a far more labour- and water-intensive crop, is considered King.

Millet deserves at least a moment of your attention.  

To cook millet, consider how you will present your finished dish. At first glance, the tiny grains appear to be a perfect substitute for couscous, but millet isn’t quite that soft, nor that refined. It’s a little rough and ready as you may expect a Poor Man’s food to be but that, you see, is millet’s strength. Millet more often than not will, and should, retain a little of its sweet, nutty crunch. It’s a versatile creature; so versatile in fact that it can, if you add a lot of liquid, set to a creamy, solid mass. By all accounts, that was what the Europeans used as polenta before Columbus went and discovered the Americas.

I’m yet to attempt it, but winter’s far from over. 

 
To cook:  Toast the millet in a dry, heavy-based frying pan. Toss constantly over a fairly high heat until you hear tiny popping, just like popcorn, only quieter. Remove from the heat, rinse in a bowl of cool water, drain well and proceed as follows:  

For dry, light pilaf-style grains: Cook in a ratio of 1 part grain to 2 parts liquid. Bring to the boil, add a little salt, lower the heat to a gentle simmer and clamp the lid on. Cook for 25 minutes, remove from heat and rest, untouched, for a further 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork before serving.

For soft, almost mash-like grains: Cook in a ratio of 1 part grain to 3 parts liquid. Bring to the boil, add a little salt, lower the heat to a gentle simmer and clamp the lid on. Cook for 30 minutes, remove from heat and rest, untouched, for a further 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork before serving.  

The soup below is an amalgamation of a few, mostly Middle Eastern, ideas. Both Claudia Roden and Arto Der Haroutunian make traditional soups of stock, rice and yoghurt bound with egg. You, of course, may prefer to use rice where I've used millet, but the texture and sweetness work very well. In lieu of stock, I roast carrots, onions and bay until sticky, add water, some deep saltiness, then puree. It means you get a soup base with flavour AND texture, without the need for stock. Dried mint is essential. Fresh mint will not replicate its particular, pleasant muskiness and would make it far less Middle Eastern.

Carrot, yoghurt and millet soup – feeds 4-6
Cook the millet as per the dry, light pilaf-style above. Here, you want the grains to retain a little bite in order to hold their own, suspended by the velvet soup. Gently, gently with the yoghurt. At high heats, even with the addition of flour and egg, yoghurt has a tendency to split. Not the end of the world, but it won't look nearly as good as it could.    

½ cup of cooked millet (see above)
4 medium carrots, cut into small chunks
2-3 onions, peeled and cut into chunks
Olive oil
Sea salt and pepper
1-2 tablespoons of tamari or soy sauce
A bay leaf or 2
1 litre (generous quart) of boiling water
Squeeze of lemon
1 ½ cups of thick, plain yoghurt
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons of flour (rice flour works well)
1 tablespoon of dried mint
Extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons of paprika
Chopped parsley, to serve (optional)

Preheat the oven to 220^oC (425^oF). Cook the millet if you have not already done so (see above).

Toss the carrots, onions and bay into a deep baking dish. Pour over a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper and mix, ensuring you coat everything well. Roast in the preheated oven for 1 hour, giving things a lazy turn from time to time. The vegetables should be soft and golden at their edges, catching here and there in the high heat. Remove from the oven, discard the bay and pour over the tamari and boiling water. Scrape at those caught bits – they have too much flavour to ignore – stirring until they dissolve, then puree the mixture in batches. Pour into a wide saucepan, squeeze in a little lemon juice and warm gently over the lowest of heats.

Using a fork, beat the yoghurt with the egg yolks, flour and dried mint. Add a little salt and a lot of pepper and continue beating for at least a couple of minutes. 

Pour the yoghurt into the carrot soup, stirring constantly, keeping the heat very low. Stir until the soup thickens slightly. Divide between bowls, adding a generous spoonful of millet to each. Drizzle over some extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle on a little bright red paprika followed by, if you like, a little parsley. 

This month, Lisa requests soups or salads based on grains for the No Croutons Required challenge she co-hosts with Jacqueline of Tinned Tomatoes.

Preserved lemons

Yet again.

Because they are oh, so, good and I will never - no, not ever - tire of that salty sourness. A jar of limes are next and, because I have bowl of them, blood oranges, too.

Nor, it would seem, will I tire of film.

Three sisters; small plans; soup

Standing - trousers rolled to knees, sandals dangled loosely from fingertips - at water's edge this afternoon, the ever-evolving nature of Things hit me.

An email arrived from a great, witty friend this morning, one written in reply to some earlier excitement over the extension of our lease. In it, a simple gardening idea was shared. Though mid-winter, I've been hopefully plotting out (in my head, at least) small plans for spring and summer plantings. Gardening, edible or otherwise, is, after all, a constant. The Three Sisters are the major crops of the Iroquois - corn, beans and squash - and, when planted with consideration to growing times, support and nourish one another, both physically and chemically. I should think the relationship spiritual as well.

Later, on the beach, the very ingenuity of the idea struck. We ambled home, I with a head full of summer.

Liberated from the still life (Johanna, when he is done, I will most definitely share) that elegantly curved pumpkin, one with considerable, perhaps even thoughtful character, was cleaved in two. One half was peeled and diced and destined for what turned out to be a remarkably under-whelming batch of millet fritters. Rebecca Wood's recipes always have potential, though, and I vow to chip away until they are worthy of sharing. 

Lentil soup with greens

There's a way to go before summer returns. In the meantime, we've been eating soup, soup, soup. I liked this one so much, I cooked it later, with a friend. It's very simple, but then, good soup should be. I can't give it a grand title as it's hardly a 'recipe', so 'Lentil soup with greens' will do. 

Soak 1 cup of whole lentils (red, green, brown, black...) for at least 1 hour. Peel and chop 2 onions. Cook them slowly - for as long as your attention can be held - with the chopped stalks of a large bunch of coriander and fewer stalks of parsley in olive oil. I never measure, but I should think any more than 4 is unnecessary. Crush 4 or more cloves of garlic to a paste with a heaped teaspoon of cumin seeds and some coarse sea salt. Add to the now golden onions. Drain the lentils, add them next then chuck in a couple of bay leaves. Add enough water to cover things well and simmer away, lid partially on, until the lentils are tender.

Next, slice lots of greens (whatever looks good) into ribbons and simmer them in a (very) little water until tender and bright. Add to the lentils only when cooked. Chop the coriander leaves roughly - some of that parsley, too - and stir through right before serving. Give everything a good squeeze of lemon juice, add a dollop of yoghurt if that's your thing, and serve.  

In return, I'm hoping AOF parts with the magical tea she concocted:

Because I can't get it out of my head.