Nourish Me

Peanut sauce

Officially obsessed with Deborah Madison's peanut sauce from her tofu book. This, spooned over slices of pan-fried tofu, is what I will live on should I give up dairy for good. Enough for 6.

Dump 1/2 a cup of peanut butter (the crushed, natural kind) into the bowl of a food processor. Add a clove of garlic, minced to a paste, and 2 tablespoons each of shoyu, grated palm sugar and black vinegar. (Less) brown sugar for palm; balsamic vinegar for black. Puree. Pour 1/2 cup of hot water - slowly - down the feed chute. Chopped chilli when you want heat. Chopped coriander if you've got it.

Though I've not tried to make this by hand, I'm currently reading Edna Lewis, and she makes a strong case for making everything from scratch. So long as you beat everything together well, adding the hot water in a slow, steady stream, I reckon this would work, especially if you whisk frantically at the end.

(Cindy's soy bombs would be unreal dipped in a thinned (more water) version)

Yeasted tart dough

Rocket is going into everything. I smeared a rocket pesto - rocket, shiro miso, Tasmanian walnuts (they are so, so good - get 'em fresh while you still can), oil, lemon at the end - on the base of Thursday night's tart, topped it with caramelised fennel and onions, green olives and finished with slices of hothouse tomato. Gorgeous. Halfway through, I realised I've made some version of the tart at least once a fortnight for the last few years.

This is a silky dough; pliable, agreeable, doable even when you can't think straight. The very opposite, then, of the temperamental shortcrust I've come to know and love. When I want pastry, on those days when I feel like pushing the boat out, taking my time over a beautiful tart, I want it to be short. Really short. A high ratio of cold, unsalted butter to flour, which is why I actually end up make it so rarely. Though clearly not afraid of fat, I feel far better for having introduced this lower-fat dough into the mix.

Thank you, once again, Deborah Madison.

Yeasted tart dough

I make this with half spelt, half wholemeal, feeling my way around how much flour each batch requires. Know that it performs beautifully with white flour alone. If eggs aren't your thing, or you haven't any, replace the egg with an extra tablespoon of oil and up the warm water by 2 tablespoons. Works every time.

2 teaspoons of active dried yeast

1/2 teaspoon of sugar

1/2 cup warm water

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1 egg, beaten

Good pinch of sea salt

1 3/4 cups wholemeal (wholewheat) flour, plus more as required

Whisk the yeast, sugar and warm water together - remember, not too warm or you'll kill the yeast - in a roomy bowl and set aside in a warm place for 10 minutes. Add the oil, the egg and the sea salt next, then sift in the flour. Hold back some of the bran if your flour's heavy on the stuff. Mix with a spoon until you no longer can, then turn out onto a floured bench. Knead for 3-5 minutes. You may need to add more flour as you go - things should be slightly sticky and nicely elastic when prodded.

Lightly oil a bowl - the one you've just used will be fine - pop in your dough and roll it around a little so that it, too, is lightly oiled. Cover with a tea towel and leave to proof for an hour. Sometimes it doubles, sometimes not. It doesn't really matter, truth be told.

Roll out to fit a loose-bottomed tart tin (there will be overhang, so trim and crimp as required) OR, and this is what I do most often, sit the rolled out dough on a pizza stone*, then fill the centre with whatever you like (so long as it's not too liquid) and fold the edges in to make a rustic-looking open galette-thingy.

Bake at 200 C (400 F) for 30-40 minutes.

*Christina asked a very relevant question: Do I heat the pizza stone? Not always, but when I've put it into the pre-heating oven, the base has often been even better (though make sure you watch those hands on the hot stone - ouch). Cooking time will be a fraction less if you do this.

50 Best

Jo, fellow Guardian- AND list-lover, emailed me this morning with a link to The Observer Food Monthly's 50 best cookbooks list. Thank you. I love these sort of things, and the top 10 is, I think, interesting.

Thoughts:

There's very little Elizabeth David on the list, which I find curious given it has such a very british bent to it and only one (really?) Nigel Slater. Kitchen Diaries is, for me, the best food book ever published - beautiful words; beautiful to hold; beautiful, beautiful photographs by Jonathan Lovekin printed on (beautiful) matt paper. Farking gorgeous. Easily my number one. 

Pleased to see Madhur Jaffrey make an appearance. Her Eastern Vegetarian Cooking is one of the most useful books I own. I love the Book of Jewish Food (# 3) by Claudia Roden because she offers an eloquent, sephardic, way into understanding the culture of the blokes around me, and her shakshouka is why I'll be planting lots of peppers and tomatoes in the next garden. 

Deborah Madison's 'Greens' is there, but Local Flavors is, I reckon, better. The Savory Way has my all-time favourite dish of zucchini cooked with cloves, crushed basil leaves and fresh, early-summer organic cream. Simmered with new garlic and super fresh corn. Jesus, it's early summer on a plate, that dish.

Madison is the sexiest seasonal eating gets, especially if you have a garden. Olney, at # 1, means that we are living in an age of vegetable-loving and that's a very good thing in my opinion.

I love peasant food and always have.  

I remember unpacking Fushia Dunlop's Sichuan Cooking in the shop and thinking, this is a keeper. Too much pork for us, but it's still a keeper. Australian David Thompson's book Thai Food came in at # 7 and is, I think, a glaring omission from my own shelf but again, I wonder how useful it is to someone who cooks neither pork or shellfish? David Tanis - a true artist - deserves to be there, but as much for the stunning photographs by Christopher Hirschimer as Tanis' lovely words.

Next on my list? An original (g'ah) 1965 copy of Len Deighton's Action Cook Book is something I want very, very badly now, and that's what a good list offers, you see. My current reading includes Kingsley Amis' Everyday Drinking which I am enjoying immensely. What are you enjoying?

Stinging nettle soup

‘One of the essential beauties of having your own veg patch is that the simple act of growing and eating your own food decorates life in often unexpected ways.’  

Mark Diacono, ‘River Cottage Handbook No.4: Veg Patch’  

A quick, barefoot check around the garden last week found the hedge, up there on the left, coming back to life. A chunk running parallel to the back half of the house burnt last summer, but winter has healed the gap. Broad beans, jam-packed in their tub and recently moved to a shadier, less windy spot, are stunning. They've been my favourite plant to photograph this year. The pear tree, midway down on the right, which doesn’t ever, even when covered with pears, look like it will ever actually bear fruit, is sending out big, juicy blossoms. There are lemons, not many, but they are all excellent. Last year’s pruning was instinctive, but was absolutely the right thing to do. I made Lemon (and Tangelo, as you can see) Delicious Pudding to celebrate. 

 

Deeper into the yard, where the grass is longer, the earth beneath it cool, there is a lot of parsley. Half of which is beginning to go to seed. I made this soup from last year again if anyone’s got a similar problem. It’s still rather good. Tiny curds are forming when you peer into each cauliflower, the leaves of which are gargantuan. Silverbeet Perpetua, a variety of chard I’ve never seen for sale (because it wilts comparatively quickly?) was the most useful winter crop by a mile. Its prolific output was aided by what felt, at least to me, like a substantial dumping of winter rain. A huge bunch looks good set out on the kitchen bench in a jug of water. It makes a good still life.   

For the past three weeks, some impressively-sized nettles I’ve been ‘saving’ have begun snagging me when cutting the rocket they sprung up among. I’d like to pull them out now before they do some serious damage and I stomp them flat. Lots of good ideas, thank you, but the simplest won out in the end. Nettle soup with some of the silverbeet (yay) too. A little bottle of smarty-pants cream needed using, but I suspect that this soup will in fact be even better with a large potato subbed for the small I used and an equivalent quantity of rice milk. A squeeze of lemon juice changes the character, but try it without, first. It had the effect of making us feel, as Madison suggests, ‘...like an animal that had been out grazing in the wild, which is just how a spring tonic should make you feel.’  Too right. 

Stinging Nettle Soup enough for 2 people, over one weekend.

Only worthwhile if the nettles are from your garden. I wouldn’t seek them out specifically. I agree with Jane Grigson in that they are, ‘not as good as spinach’ and will make this again with spinach very happily. I think the butter at the beginning essential, though you may certainly use oil in its place. Based on a recipe in the excellent ‘Local Flavours’ by Deborah Madison. And remember, please, that they really do sting until blanched. Wear something long-sleeved. 

Stinging nettles, a basketful
2 tablespoons of butter
1 onion, chopped
1 small potato, scrubbed and diced
1 large bunch of silverbeet (chard), roughly chopped
Sea salt
½ - ¾ cup of thin cream
1 lemon, cut into quarters (optional)

Pick, wash and plunge your nettles – hands protected – into a saucepan of boiling water for 30 seconds. Drain, discarding any large stems and chop roughly. Warm the butter in a large saucepan. When foaming, sauté the onion and potato until soft and catching a little on the base of the pan. Add the silverbeet, turning with tongs until wilted. Add the drained nettles to the pot, a good pinch of salt and enough boiling water to cover things by about 5 cm (2 in). Bring to the boil, lower the heat and simmer until the potato is cooked through.

Puree, in batches if necessary, and press through a strainer. Return to the heat, add cream to taste and warm through. I like it sipped from a small Japanese bowl that I can cup my cold hands around, but it’s an elegant deep velvet green thing, quite graceful in a way. Try without the lemon first to get a grassy dose of vitamins. Which I mean in a good way. I swear.

Rocket blossoming

I grew a little too much rocket. Obviously.

But as anyone who reads these pages on a regular basis knows, if Deborah Madison says something works, then I very happily follow.

I loved this piece she wrote for Culinate and, thus, have allowed mine to bloom.

For a salad over the coming days. Do you have a favourite edible flower?