Rosemary Garlic Sautéed Potatoes – pretty close to perfect

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As an Irishwoman, I am genetically predisposed to adore potatoes. Mashed... baked... fried... chipped... roast... steamed... you name it, I’m there, knife and fork - or just plain fingers - at the ready.

It is very hard to pick a favourite. A strong contender - and a simple classic dish that I’ve rustled up since childhood - is sautéed potatoes. Excellent with roast or grilled meats, with a delicious golden crust, and laced with garlic and rosemary, I think this version is pretty close to perfect (and if onions make you cry, read the simple tips at the end of the recipe).

As a side for 2 greedy people, or 3 – 4 more restrained appetites you will need:

500g floury potatoes such as Rooster, peeled and cut into bite-sized cubes (of about 1.5cm)

25g butter
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, halved from top to bottom, then sliced thinly into half moons
1 teaspoon of very finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 clove of garlic, very finely chopped

50g butter
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt (I prefer Maldon for this dish)

 

 

1.                 Place the potatoes in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil then simmer gently for 10 minutes. Carefully drain off the water and set the potatoes aside for a couple of minutes to allow the steam to evaporate. You want the potatoes to be as dry as possible. They will still be a little firm but that’s perfect. You don’t want them to break up when you start to fry them.

2.                 While you are waiting for the potatoes to cook, place 25g of butter together with 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. When the butter has melted, add the sliced onion. Lower the heat and cook gently until the onion starts to turn golden (about 7 minutes). Add the rosemary and garlic and cook for a further minute. Remove from the heat and transfer to a bowl.

3.                 Wipe out the frying pan with kitchen paper before adding the remaining butter and olive oil. Place over a medium-high heat and when the butter has melted and stopped sizzling, add the potatoes cubes. Cook for about 5 minutes or until the sides of the cubes touching the pan have started to turn golden. Gently turn the potato cubes and continue cooking until gloriously golden all over.

4.                 Scatter the cooked onion mixture over the potatoes, sprinkle with a little sea salt and continue cooking for a minute or two to heat through. Serve as soon as you possibly can, although this dish will relax happily in a warm oven for 20 minutes if necessary.

Note: If preparing onions makes you cry, read on for some simple tips to avoid weeping into your sautéed potatoes...

When you cut into an onion, it releases a volatile compound that irritates nose and eyes. Use a sharp knife to avoid excessively crushing the onion cells, releasing less of the compound in the first place. Breathe through your mouth to avoid the onion vapours going up your nose and lean slightly away from the onion so that the vapours don’t rise into your eyes.

Or wear some stylish goggles like my lovely assistant, Naomi...

(Photo by Veronica Casey)

 

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Hummus – and the search for the holy grail...

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Over the years, I’ve been a bit of a culinary Indiana Jones in my pursuit of the holy grail of hummus. With experimentation, I’ve discovered that the earth won’t stop rotating on its axis if you don’t add tahini; that cumin (my most hated spice) if toasted and added in small amounts, adds a deep subtle earthiness that I can’t live without in this dip/mezze; that adding a little lemon zest lifts it out of the ordinary; and that dried chickpeas yield better results than tinned. The only downside to using dried chickpeas is that you have to plan a little ahead – no spontaneous hummus fests I'm afraid. However, you can speed up the cooking process with a pressure cooker.

In some countries parsley is served on the side. I’ve gone ahead and put some into the recipe.

Is this the the best hummus ever? Who knows! For me, it's the best yet ... but I’m not going to stop experimenting. If I come up with a version that tickles my taste buds even more, I’ll let you know.

For approximately 500g of earthy, lemony hummus you will need...

200g dried chickpeas (soaked overnight in a large bowl of cold water)

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

½ teaspoon grated lemon zest

½ teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted in a dry frying pan and ground to a powder

½ teaspoon sea salt

10g fresh flat-leafed parsley, finely chopped
a little warm water from the kettle (up to 6 tablespoons) 

a little extra good olive oil for drizzling over the finished dish

Transform the humble chickpea into food of the gods with a few simple ingredients 

 

1.      Place the soaked chickpeas in the pressure cooker and cover with about 2cm cold water. (Don’t add salt as this effects the texture.) Bring to pressure and cook for 14 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to depressurise naturally. Once the pot has depressurised, drain the chickpeas and leave to cool. (If you don’t have a pressure cooker, cover the chickpeas with about 4cm water, bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for an hour or so, or until soft enough to squash easily between your fingers).

2.      Place the cooked and cooled chickpeas in a food processer, along with the olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, lemon zest, ground cumin, and salt. Process until you have a fairly smooth mixture. Add the chopped parsley and process once more until the parsley has been dispersed throughout the mixture.

3.      At this stage the mixture will be quite stiff. Add a little warm water from the kettle – a tablespoon at a time – pulsing the mixture between additions – until you achieve a looser texture that still holds its shape. You don’t want it to be runny.

4.      Taste and add more salt if required. This is ready to eat now, but the flavours deepen and meld if covered and left to develop for a few hours. Alchemy at work!

Drizzle with olive oil and serve with this easy homemade pita bread or sticks of crunchy fresh vegetables.

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Pan Am Oli - A Toast to Bread!

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Have you met my personal rain cloud? It follows me wherever I go, waiting to spill buckets of rain on me when least convenient. It is so reliable, I could hire myself out as a rain maker.



Meet my personal rain cloud...

I was in Florida about 8 years ago. There had been drought for about 3 months. Not a single drop of rain had fallen. My beloved and I took a canoe out on what had been a lake but which had shrunk to an alligator-infested puddle due to the lack of water. When we got to the middle of this admittedly large puddle, a tempest blew up out of nowhere. The wind threatened to capsize the little boat. For a few nerve-wracking moments, I thought we were going to become a quick and tasty lunchtime snack for hungry reptiles. Rain fell from a miniscule cloud high in the sky, hitting the water like pennies, and soaking us to the skin.

“Fall in, honey?” I was asked when we returned the canoe, looking like a drowned rats. Huh!

My personal rain cloud struck again when we visited Majorca. Himself and myself dined in a sweet little local restaurant right on the harbour, starting with Pan Am Oli and moving on to one of their incredible stews. We had planned to return for another excellent meal. Meantime, the island was struck by one of the worst storms they’d had in years and nearly half the boats in the harbour were wrenched loose from their moorings and destroyed. Huge waves flooded our chosen restaurant. Grrrr. Naughty rain cloud!

My Pan Am Oli kit... ready, steady, go!

Whereas Jamie Oliver takes 30 minutes to make a meal, Majorca can feed four people in 3 minutes. Pan Am Oli or bread with (tomatoes and) olive oil is one of those ‘simple ingredients, magical food’ snacks that I absolutely love, as much for its speed of preparation as for its textures and tastes.

For 4 people you will need…
4 slices artisan country bread
1 clove garlic, peeled
2 tomatoes, halved, seeds removed
3 tablespoons (approximately) really good olive oil
Salt and black pepper to taste 


Toast the bread on both sides. For each slice of toast, rub one side with garlic, using the surface of the toast almost like a grater. Rub the same side of the bread with the cut side of a tomato half, squeezing out the pulp and juice. Drizzle with good olive oil and sprinkle with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper.

One slice is never enough.

Be prepared to make seconds ... 

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Allendale Courgette and Cheese Soup – a game of Farmers’ Market Roulette

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Some years ago, while hiking in Snowdonia in Wales, I shared a hostel kitchen with three girl guides as they prepared lunch for their troop. 

I speak Geordie... This is A bool a kyle ... apparently

The first girl guide slathered margarine on the bread...

the second girl guide filled the sandwiches with square ham and plastic cheese...

the third girl guide painstakingly nibbled away any filling that peeped over the edge of the crust, before wrapping the completed sandwiches... Bleaugh!

That memory popped into my head because my beloved was recently reunited with his scout troop - the 4th Ilford - after more years than they care to remember.  These former boy scouts assured me that their food prep was much more conscientious.

Our visit to Allendale, near Newcastle in Northumberland, coincided with the Allen Mill Farmers’ Market, run by our delightful hosts, Anne and Chris Bacon at Allen Mill.


Farmers' Market Roulette - some of the contributors

There, David Harris (aka The Cookery Coach and self-confessed “Diet Satan”) was conducting a demonstration of “Farmers’ Market Roulette”.  Farmers’ Market Roulette is when David arrives more or less empty-handed and charms the stall holders into swapping some of their produce for publicity. He then conjures a dish from the ingredients collected.

On the menu was a courgette soup with a mellow cheddar-style cheese from Birdoswald Organic Cheese. Birdoswald cheese has quite a pedigree - the recipe originally coming from Ireland in 1688.  



David Harris converting local produce into a feast!



The courgettes were grown by Bluebell Organics, who produce organic vegetables, fruit juices and chutneys.

David served the soup with a hunk of Sunday Bread from Allendale Bakery and Cafe. 

Also featuring in David’s food roulette were pork escallopes from Hallsford Farm – a rare-breeds farm producing Llanwenog Lamb (and Mutton in season), Shorthorn Beef and Saddleback Pig. The sauce for the pork contained mustard from Marilyn Avens and Geoff Cole at Cumberland Honey Mustard. I tasted the Seville – tangy with a hint of orange - and the wonderfully nutty Original Honey Mustard. Marilyn and Geoff also produce a range of relishes, vinegars and vinaigrettes, pickled fruits, and jams.

Cumberland Honey Mustard - it's hot stuff!

This is the soup David made from his Farmers’ Market bounty. (I've reduced the quantities to suit a family-sized pot)

For 3 - 4 servings you will need...

2 shallots (or 1 onion) roughly chopped

1 fat clove garlic, roughly chopped

50g streaky bacon, cut into small pieces (a kitchen scissors is great for this job)

500g courgettes, cut into large cubes

1 litre good chicken (or vegetable stock)

100g Birdoswald Organic Cheese (or any good cheddar-style cheese)

Salt and pepper to taste

1          Heat a tablespoon of oil (light olive oil or sunflower etc) in a large saucepan over a medium heat and add the shallots, garlic and bacon. Fry gently for about 2 minutes until the bacon is cooked, then add the courgettes. Cook for a further 5 minutes or so, giving the courgettes time to absorb the flavours from the other ingredients.

2          Add the stock to the saucepan. When it has come to the boil, lower the heat and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the grated cheese. Blend to a smooth liquid – a stick blender is the perfect tool for this. Taste and add salt and pepper only if necessary.

A landscape made famous by Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Take a Farmers' Market picnic to this famous spot on nearby Hadrian's Wall

Allen Mill Farmers’ Market and Car Boot Sale runs on the 3^rd Sunday of the Month, July – December, 10.30am to 3pm. Aside from the market, Allen Mill is open all week and offers a range of local North Pennines crafts and produce, micro brewery, art centre and printmaking studio with antique presses. The mill is in an area of outstanding natural beauty and archaeological importance. It is within striking distance of Hadrian’s Wall, and the medieval market town of Hexham.

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Yaki Gyoza – exceptionally good for the human soul

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From the first moment I tasted Yaki Gyoza, I was addicted. The pan-fried crust of the dumpling wrapper... the succulent filling... the simple dipping sauce, it was love at first bite.

Yaki Gyoza - Japanese for Utterly Delicious

While Gyoza is the Japanese name, these little dumplings are thought to have originated in China more than a thousand years ago, with the first mention in literature describing them as “being exceptionally good for the human soul”.

Living in the depths of beautiful County Wicklow presents a major hindrance to my Gyoza addiction – I live in the-middle-of-nowhere. Well, in the-middle-of-nowhere-near-an-Asian-restaurant-that-serves-these-divine-morsels.

To avoid complete withdrawal, I’ve created a gyoza package – wrappers, filling, sauce – from scratch. I’ve chosen a pork filling. You could use any meat or fish, create a vegetarian version, or even fill them with fresh fruit and deep-fry them for a dessert version.

A haiku: Yaki Gyoza / Also known as potstickers /Always delicious

For approximately 30 dumplings you will need...

Gyoza Wrappers
200g plain flour
75g corn flour
½ teaspoon salt
165 mls boiling water (approximately)

1                 Place the plain flour, corn flour and salt in a stand mixer, with a dough hook*. Slowly add the boiling water, mixing all the time. Keep adding the water and mixing until there is no dry mixture left and the ingredients come together in a soft smooth ball. You may not need all the water, or you may need a little more – it depends on the weather and on the flour you are using. Continue mixing for a further 5 minutes. (*You can mix this with chopsticks, then knead by hand for 5 minutes once the mixture forms a ball but it is pretty labour-intensive).

2                    Cover the dough and place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to cool and rest.

3                    What follows is my non-traditional way of making the wrappers, but hey, it works! On a work surface liberally dusted with flour, roll the rested dough out to a thickness of about 3mm (about the thickness of a €1/£1 coin.

4                    Using a 7cm (3”) cookie cutter, stamp out rounds of the dough, then roll these rounds out to approximately 10cm (3 ¾”)  in diameter, making the edges slightly thinner than the centre. This helps keep the dumpling from splitting during cooking. Stack the prepared gyoza wrappers, dusting with flour between layers to prevent them sticking, and wrap in clingfilm. Chill until ready to use.

Gyoza Filling (Pork)

80g cabbage, shredded, finely chopped and sprinkled with ½ teaspoon fine table salt
400g minced pork (ground pork)
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
3 fat cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon mirin or sake
¾ teaspoon fine table salt
a pinch of caster sugar
80g spring onions (scallions), finely chopped
5 dehydrated Chinese mushrooms, soaked in boiling water until soft, then drained and finely chopped
 

On the way to becoming exceptionally good for the soul

1                    First, prepare the cabbage: once you have sprinkled the cabbage with a ½ teaspoon of salt, set aside for about 30 minutes. Then, wrap in a clean tea-towel or cheesecloth and wring the moisture out.

2                    Place the pork in a mixing bowl and add the ginger, and garlic. Mix well – hands are best (if you are squeamish about this task, use food-grade gloves or mix in a stand mixer). Add the soy sauce, sesame oil, mirin/sake, salt and sugar, mixing well between additions. The meat should be a sticky paste.

3                    Add the prepared cabbage, spring onions and mushrooms and mix well. To test the mixture for seasoning, fry a small piece until cooked through, taste and adjust as necessary. Chill the raw mixture until ready to use.

Soy far, soy good

To assemble the gyoza (right-handed instructions - swap obviously if you favour the left)

1                    Sprinkle a tray with flour and fill a small bowl with cold water.

2                    Place a wrapper in your  left hand, so that the edge touches the tips of your fingers. With your right hand, place approximately a teaspoonful of the mixture in the centre of the wrapper. Don’t over-fill or the dumplings will be difficult to seal and will burst during cooking – less is more! Leave a margin of about 1.5cm (½”) around the edge of the wrapper. Moisten the edge with a finger dipped in cold water.

3                    With your right hand, fold the gyoza into a crescent, wedging it open at the top with your index finger. You are now going to pleat one side of the crescent: with your free hand, pinch the left side together. With your right index finger, make a small pleat and with your left thumb and index finger, pinch the pleat, gluing it to the opposite side of the crescent. Continue making small pleats along the edge, pinching them closed until the crescent is completely sealed. The theory is that the pleats allow the filling to expand, making the dumplings less likely to split when cooking. It is probably a good idea to have the kitchen to yourself as you will probably swear profusely during the first few gyoza, but by the 3^rd or 4^th dumpling you will be getting the hang of it. Well done you!

4                    Place the finished gyoza on the floured tray, with the pleats at the top. Cover the tray of finished gyoza and place in the freezer so that the dough has a chance to firm up before cooking – 30 minutes will be sufficient. You could of course transfer the firmed gyoza in a freezer bag and freeze until needed.

We ain't the prettiest gyoza ever, but we're pretty tasty!

Note: If you are utterly confused at this stage, watch this guy. It is easier to do than to explain.

To cook the gyoza: 

1                    My preferred way is to rub the surface of a lidded frying pan with some kitchen paper dipped in a little cooking oil. Pre-heat over a medium heat.

2                    Place the gyoza in the pre-heated frying pan, making sure they don’t touch. Add enough boiling water to the pan to come to a depth of about 3mm. Place the lid on the frying pan and let them cook in the steam for about 5 minutes.

3                    Remove the lid and allow any remaining water to bubble off. Add about 2 tablespoons sesame oil to the pan, lifting each gyoza so that the oil can seep underneath. Let the gyoza sizzle for about 3 minutes or until the base is golden brown. They are ready to eat right now, however I prefer to fry each side for a further minute so that they too are crisp and golden.

Serve immediately with this simple dipping sauce:

Time for a quick dip!

Dipping Sauce (per person)

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

1 tablespoon brown rice vinegar (or wine vinegar)

a pinch of chilli flakes (optional)

 

Mix – it really couldn’t be simpler.

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