Category: accompaniment

Smashed Roast potatoes with Greek Flavours

Made these smashed roast potatoes to go with a Greek Beef Stifado(stew) last night. The resulting lemony, garlicky, crispy potatoes were delicious and be great as an accompaniment any time. Thought I’d share for your enjoyment.

Prep time: 5 minutes Cooking time: 35 minutes or so
Ingredients:
8-10 baby potatoes
5 cloves of garlic
Juice of 1/2 lemon
4 tablespoons olive oil
4-5 cups Water for boiling potatoes
Salt

Method:

1. Bring water to a boil with 1 teaspoon of salt in a large pot, ensuring enough water to comfortably cover potatoes. Add potatoes and garlic cloves.

2. Heat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

3. When potatoes are tender and starting to split, drain and allow to “dry out” for 5 minutes or so

4. Seperate garlic cloves from potatoes and place in a mortar and pestle. Mash garlic cloves then add lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon of ground black pepper, and olive oil. Mix well together until a creamy vinaigrette is formed.

5. Cut or smash potatoes in dish and sprinkle vinaigrette over the potatoes. (You can sprinkle with some thyme at this point too if you like.) Gently mix to coat potatoes in garlic, lemon oil.

6. Roast potatoes until outside and edges crisp up and brown. Turn heat up to 250 degrees to finish if needed to get a really crispy outer.

7. Enjoy!

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Sugar plum and chilli sauce with Indian flavours

Thanks to @bellyrumbles for your Easy Chilli Plum Sauce Recipe – goo.gl/G2qhsv which I used over the weekend with some adaptions to create a delicious sugar plum chilli sauce. Now I have a heap of it to enjoy in coming weeks!

My version follows…

Prep time: 10 minutes Cooking time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1kg of sugar plums chopped with seeds kept for mixture

150 g caster sugar

100g brown sugar

500ml white wine vinegar

10-12 small red chillies

1/2 finger size piece of ginger cut into pieces

10 g salt

2 star anise

I tablespoon coriander seeds

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Handful of fresh curry leaves (2 large sprigs with leaves removed from stems)

Method:

Chop sugar plums into pieces keeping the bits with the stone.

Put rest of ingredients in large heavy based non-stick pot and slowly bring to a simmer.

simmer for 45-50 minutes until fruit has gone past pulpy to form a sauce

Allow to cool for 10 minutes or so

Strain in portions through a fine sieve to seperate sauce from seeds, leaves and spices, pushing sauces and juices through with the back of a wooden spoon.

Pour into sterilised glass container and allow to cool thoroughly before fitting with airtight lid

Will last in fridge for 4-6 weeks but will be eaten before then!!

Shanthini4 Comments

Night Rooster Cocktails rule the roost!

Stopped by Night Rooster by Locavore in Ubud for spectacular and very creative cocktails featuring a mixture of top shelf and homemade liquors. The delicious concoctions showcase unique Indonesian/Balinese spices and display a level of innovation in cocktail recipes that I have not come across before.

Adrian had the Ashes cocktail which is almost a live performance rather than just a drink. My Née-Groni was very nice too, not involving any fire, but made with Tanqueray gin and a homemade vermouth.

If you are lucky enough to get a seat on the balcony, you can sip your drinks with a bird eye view of Jalan Dewisita. Night Rooster is upstairs from Golden Monkey on the corner of Jalan Gootama and Jalan Dewisita.

Great looking bar and small dishes menu as well but we didn’t try on this occasion as we were on our way to dinner. Great value for money at IR130,000 (AU$13) each!

Definitely a must visit bar on your next trip to Ubud!

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Orange and date salad with pistachio yoghurt and mint

Inspired by an Australian Gourmet Traveller magazine recipe, I decided this salad would be a great accompaniment to the Christmas Roast Turkey with my traditional Christmas Turkey Stuffing.

I didn’t have any muslin cloth so I used a new piece of Chux superwipes (!!) with the holes in it to “hang” the yoghurt.

For extra Christmassy flavour I added a few cloves to the syrup mixture and then freshened up the salad by adding fresh mint leaves. It was delicious and simple despite requiring a bit of prep the night before.

Prep time: 8 hours/overnight

Ingredients:

240g Greek-style yoghurt

50g brown sugar

Piece of muslin or new piece of Chux superwipe cloth

1 cup caster sugar

1.5 cups water

1 cinnamon quill

3 cloves

2 pieces each lemon and orange peel, removed with a peeler

1 tsp rosewater

2 oranges, thinly sliced

4 dates, pitted and sliced into strips

1/2 cup pistachio kernels

Handful of fresh mint leaves

Method:

1. Line a small sieve with muslin or Chux superwipe and place over a deep bowl.

2. Layer a quarter of the the yoghurt alternating with a quarter of the brown sugar in the cloth, repeating until all he yoghurt and brown sugar is used up.

3. Tie the cloth tightly with string or an elastic band, and place yoghurt mixture in fridge for at least 8 hours. The liquid will come out of the yoghurt and collect in the bowl below.

4. Place cinammon quill, cloves, orange and lemon peel, sugar and water in a pot, bring to the boil stirring until sugar dissolves then simmer for 10 minutes until a syrup forms, be careful not to caramelise.

5. Allow syrup to cool slightly then add rosewater and mix through, then let syrup cool completely.

6. Carefully slice peel of oranges and pith off, then slice oranges thinly.

7. Deseed the dates and slice into slithers.

8. Place oranges in a single layer in a flat dish, then sprinkle with the dates and pour over syrup and place in fridge for at least 8 hours or overnight.

9. Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees. Peel pistachios and roast in oven for 5 minutes or until just turning brown, be careful not to burn.

10. Keep some pistachios aside whole to sprinkle over the salad for added texture. Cool pistachios completely then crush in a mortar and pestle or grind roughly in a spice/coffee grinder. You want a slightly rough mixture not a fine powder.

11. Take yoghurt from fridge and roll into small balls, then roll in pistachio mixture. The yoghurt will have lost a lot of moisture and be of a soft cheese consistency which makes this easy to do.

12. Place oranges and dates on a serving platter, discarding the syrup. Scatter with pistachio yoghurt balls, sprinkle over whole pistachios and a handful of torn mint leaves.

Shanthini3 Comments

Dates to die for: Bateel Dubai

My friend Norma took me to the Bateel date shops in Dubai Mall yesterday. Tasted the caramelised macadamia and candied orange peel filled dates and they are so delicious! Couldn’t resist buying a box for future consumption. Wondering if we can get these in Australia?

IMG_0077

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Roast fennel, broccoli and tomato salad with rocket

Roasted, caramelised fennel has to be one of the yummiest salad ingredients. For this salad I roasted the fennel and cherry tomatoes, adding the broccoli toward the end so it was just tender and tossed with fresh rocket leaves. Delicious with Butterflied Prawns with garlic and chilli 

Prep time: 5 minutes Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 medium size fennel bulb
10 cherry tomatoes sliced in half
1 head of broccoli
2 cups fresh rocket leaves
olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
salt and black  pepper

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celcius
2. Cut off top of fennel bulb and slice into half, then into thirds
3. Halve the cherry tomatoes or leave whole if they are really small
4. Remove hard stalk of broccoli and cut into florets
5. Place fennel in roasting pan lined with baking paper
6. Smear fennel with some olive oil and place in oven for 10 minutes
7. Add cherry tomatoes cut side up and drizzle some olive oil over them.
8. Sprinkle salt over fennel and cherry tomatoes.
9. Return pan to oven for another ten minutes
10. Add broccoli to pan and roast until just tender. By this stage the fennel and tomatoes should be tender, well roasted with signs of caramelisation, leave for few more minutes if you need to.
11. Place baby rocket in salad bowl.
12. Put roasted vegetables with roasting juices and oil over rocket, squeeze over lemon juice, add salt and ground black pepper to taste and toss gently.

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