Nourish Me

garlic scape pesto

This recipe comes with a warning; one not given by its sensible and restrained author (Deborah Madison, of course) but by me, a woman who learned the hard(ish) way that garlic scapes possess, eaten greedily, certain dream-invading hallucinogenic qualities. Being a greedy sort, I loved its mild green-and-garlic flavour, found myself dolloping tablespooons into things - the whole point of a classic pesto genovese, in my opinion, is practically drowning food in pools of garlicky, oily basil - but much of that night I was held vividly and disturbingly in a state of being neither asleep nor awake. I had visions, people. It was Not Good. Small spoonfuls will protect you and yours from the same fate.  

Scapes are the flower head that hardneck garlic varieties thrust skyward in spring (see above), gracefully arcing into a swans neck around about now, seasonally speaking. (We are a few weeks behind Melbourne.) Discard the flower bit and you're left with a smooth pale green stalk. That's what we're looking for. 

This comes from Deborah Madison's Vegetable Literacy, a staggering book that keeps on giving with every, single opening. Into a food proccessor goes 1 cup of prepped, sliced scapes and 1/4 cup of walnuts. Whizz together briefly to get the ball rolling, then pour in 1/2 cup of olive oil and some salt and pepper and blend into a paste that's not too smooth. Scrape into a bowl and add either white (shiro) miso OR grated parmesan/pecorino to taste, mashing with a fork as you go. Should keep for a week or so in the fridge. Dole out in small, almost homeopathic doses, and enjoy its beautiful spring garlic flavours wisely.   

 

   

kale, porcini and rosemary pesto

So. I have a bit of a thing for Deborah Madison. She cooks the kind of food I want to eat, the kind of food that would make Michael Pollan's heart sing the sweetest tune imaginable. A prolific writer, her books have become subtly simpler over the years and Vegetable Literacy, her latest, is, I reckon, the best yet.  

I'm in the middle of writing something for The Guardian about simple dressings, things you can make ahead of time when you have a moment or two, that can turn plain things into much worthier meals. Toying with the idea of sharing Madison's kale pesto (below), the decision to share it here, instead, is one I feel far more comfortable with. Puts to good use just a fraction of the kale I planted in the flower garden, and it's something I've made often this winter. Took a tonne of photos, too.

Grab yourself some kale, enough to fill a litre (quart) measuring jug once trimmed and stemmed. 

Then you get about this many porcini (you know it means little pig, right?) 'shrooms,    

and gather your other ingredients (4 thick slices of onion, a couple of cloves of garlic and 2 teaspoons-worth of chopped rosemary) while the kettle boils. Pour a little boiling water over the porcini while you heat some oil in a frying pan and cook onions, garlic and rosemary until they are soft.    

Add the washed-but-not-dried kale, the porcini plus their soaking liquor and a little bit of salt to the pan. The kale needs to be tender, so turn it over in the pan with tongs from time to time and let it wilt. About 6 minutes should be right. 

You want to retain the bright green of the kale, as you should with most greenery.

Cool slightly, then whizz in a processor until (nearly, in my case) smooth, adding additional oil as required to make it do so. Great stirred through minestrone, eaten with a spoon from the jar, spread on toast, tossed through white beans, melted into hot polenta...

 

 

It's felt a bit quiet around here of late. There's been big changes going on deep within me, beyond the busy-ness and faster-than-light forgetfulness of the internet. The web has the kind of pace that, once you step off, makes dropping back into it difficult. I'm not entirely sure I want to keep up.  Not sure I even know how to anymore.

Feels as though there are more important things to attend to, and, for the most part, attend to them I have. 

I've gone back to work, to bookselling. For years I resisted because I viewed it as a kind of failure. In fact, I felt sure it was absolutely the wrong move when everything was so pointedly heading Onward and Upward. I was actually afraid - genuinely fearful - of going back to work because I thought it would mean that that work was the work that defined me, as it had for years before, but the truth is working without the safety net of a regular income is very hard, much more fear-inducing than I'd ever let on. There are also days, I'm not at all embarassed to say, when the only decent out loud conversation I've had is with the cat.

Which is not to say that puss doesn't have anything decent to contribute, but it was obviously Time. Being surrounded with books and talk about them all day, once or twice a week, makes my heart swell in a way that I can't quite put into words. The upshot is that I can make art and earn a wage. Who'd've thought? Thus far, I'm loving it - no responsibility, just good, old-fashioned bookselling. It suits me well.    

Then there was the horror of a summer we had which got me thinking about the garden, about what it's best for us to grow and when, and I think I've come up with a solid plan. Our dry, endless summer will be all about the no-fuss things that grow best without much attention (tomatoes, especially) and the cooler months, when there is rainfall up on the ranges, will be the real working months for us. I planted out some garlic this weekend, chicories and mustards, pak choy, that sort of thing. Much more doable, with the potential for an actual break when the holidays arrive.  

But for all my claims of not wanting to talk food much anymore, it's almost unavoidable. I'm seeing it in a new way. With a great deal of help from Lesh I've made significant changes to my diet and lifestyle, and slowly I'm losing some of that weight that accumulated while I sat down to write about food. Lesh is great, guys - she's done so much for me that, like returning to books, I can't quite put it into words. Lesh got me back into the kitchen, but in a significantly different way: I prep and plan meals now to free up my brain to think about other things.

I feel like a dunce saying it, but not cooking on the hop every night? Good god, it's completely life-changing.    

Cooking lots of things on one morning a week in preparation is revelatory, and I've a hunch that Deborah Madison's anise beets might just be the most brilliant addition to my cooking in years. You peel a few big beetroots, dice them up into 1cm chunks, toss them in oil and roast them until they are cooked and as golden as something so startlingly red can get. You then crush a clove of garlic with scrunchy salt, peppercorns and a good teaspoon of fennel seeds and pound to a paste. Pour in sherry vinegar and olive oil in a ratio of 1:1 and toss through the hot beetroot. Into the fridge it goes so you can dip into it for salads and breakfasts and who knows what else during the week. You should know that it's particularly nice with cooked quinoa, some chickpeas, chopped roasted almonds and some slices of fresh fennel.  

Anyway, that's me. You? 

 

 

 

chard, ginger, rice

There's a recipe in Deborah Madison's "Local Flavors" that I've made countless times, a quick(ish) pan of sturdy greens braised with a tiny amount of rice, a reversal of culinary roles that fits my style of eating perfectly. One for the gardener, it conveniently takes care of a glut of chard and has the added bonus of making one feel vital, healthwise. Win-win, I'd say. What you want here is a LOT of greens. One huge bunch will just feed two of you, depending on how hungry you are I suppose, but as they are the point of the thing, go nuts and use loads. Other greens - shredded kale in particular - are also lovely done this way, though they will need a longer braising time. Madison adds cumin and paprika, but I like things a little gentler in spring.

This is one of my very favourite things to eat. Comforting, fragrant and able to made on autopilot. Jo asked for the recipe recently, and this is, slightly doctored to include the ginger I left out in the email, what I sent her. 

chard (silverbeet) braised with ginger and rice

feeds 2, and keeps well in the fridge overnight

Fry an onion and 1 heaped tablespoon of chopped ginger in a wide pan that has a lid (2 tablespoons of olive oil should be enough). Tear the leaves from the stalks of a bunch of silverbeet (or coloured chard) then chop the stalks and add them to the onions. You want things soft, but not browned. Some garlic halfway through is good, though not essential, and, if you have it, a bunch of coriander that you have chopped up, stalks and all. Fry for a few minutes more and slice the leaves of the silverbeet while you are waiting. Add a heaped tablespoon of rice (or millet or quinoa if you are a hardcore grain freak like moi), and stir well. Chuck in the leaves, then add a big splash of water, some salt, some pepper. Bring to a boil, turn to low and whack the lid on tight. Leave to cook for 25 minutes or so, stirring from time to time. Add a splash more water if you feel the pan is a bit dry, but it's amazing how much in the way of juice silverbeet leaves exude, and they will make the rice taste green and good.

When the rice is cooked, lid off, break in some eggs, lid back on 'til they is cooked to yer liking. Noice.

 

 

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?