All recipes copyright Anna Vaught.
Here'a a little salad we eat frequently. Just right for the weather we're having -- and I'll suggest a few variations.
A delicious chick pea salad. And a kidney bean salad. Both very simple.
The only time I use tinned beans is for a kidney bean salad or if I am making falafel or another kind of little fritter. I think the texture of chick peas is ruined by canning and that'll show if you're going to put them in a salad. So this is what I do.
Take a bag of chick peas and soak them for six to eight hours, then bring to the boil, turn the heat down and simmer until they are tender but not soft. Drain them and, if you don't have time to let them cool, rinse them under the cold tap and drain very well. Make a dressing of extra virgin oil, Maldon sea salt, grindings of black pepper and the juice of a lemon. Keep tasting to see if it needs anything else in your view. Now add a teaspoon of ground red chillis, two of ground cumin, whisk these in to the dressing and pour over the salad. Mix it well, which in my case would be with the hands. I would usually add a good handful of chopped chives or three or four chopped spring onions, too. If you wanted to, at this time you could add some finely chopped mint and, perhaps leaving out the cumin, a good handful of finely chopped lemon balm leaves or the same (or maybe both: test your palate!) or marjoram. These are the herbs I have growing abundantly in my garden and which are very easy to grow. To this salad, I would add nothing else because it's simple and beautiful as it is. Sometimes, later in the summer, I will use (minus the cumin and chilli) both the flowers and leaves of the nasturtiums in the garden: they are peppery and delicious. And they look beautiful. One year, I even pickled the seed heads in white wine vinegar and used them a replacement for capers. Oh -- or how about lots of finely chopped wild garlic, the leaves and flowers? Food for free and you've still just got time to go and gather it if you're in Blighty.
The kidney bean salad.
If you want to cook the beans from scratch, don't forget to soak them well and that, with kidney beans, you MUST give them a good ten minute boiling to destroy the toxin levels therein. Today, I'm using two cans. Ideally, the no added salt or sugar jobbies, but I've had quite good results with 'value' brands. Recession and all, you could, depending on the supermarket, get two cans for 22p all in. Or less. Just rinse them really well.
Into a big bowl they go. Make a dressing to taste with sunflower oil, lemon juice (or perhaps white wine vinegar) sea salt and freshly-ground pepper. There are a myriad variations of what I might put, but I do think that simplest is best and I am also not keen on multi-coloured salads (although strangely, I do like to add edible flowers). So, how about a medium onion, sliced into the thinnest rings you can imagine. Leave this to steep, with the beans, in the dressing and it will not be too pungent. I think that a big handful of little black olives, some drained and slightly de-salted capers and about half a block of feta cheese (crumbled) are nice additions. If you are using any of these, you probably won't want to add salt in the dressing.
You could put both these salads out with another simple green salad and perhaps a cold roast chicken with some decent bread -- and feed a lot of people. Or just choose one salad and make it dinner for two. We ate the chick pea salad with a big piece of brie and a few chunks of cucumber.
A note on dressing. How many times is your salad either swimming in it or undressed if you go to a restaurant? These big bean salads can take a bit of steeping more, but for anything with leaves or soft vegetables, dress at the last minute and do it so that the salad is glossy and coated but not drenched.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Saturday, 30 May 2009
A fantastic chicken sandwich
All recipes copyright Anna Vaught.
Oh -- it's the first day, so have an extra recipe. This is for an early tea on a summer's day -- with a bit of background 'chicken' information! So you're down with my frugality!
A fantastic chicken sandwich.
You take a large white roll or, perhaps, a cheese bread or the kind of bread roll my (American)_ husband calls a kaiser: one encrusted with caramelised onions. Then, you spread it pretty generously with butter or, if you must, some marg. Add lots of soft lettuce -- the old fashioned kind. If you are growing lettuce, you could use some early leaves. I also added some handfuls of mint (remove the stalks) and some chives that I had coming up. Also, some little dandelion leaves from the garden (really, you need to blanch these under a pot, but if you pick them when they're really tiny...). Little sorrel leaves would also be good. Sorrel is hard to buy but easy to grow: it looks like spinach but has a sharp lemon tang.
If you made this sandwich later in summer, you could add some sweet local toms. I used some vine tomatoes that were big and squashy and not those woolly things (but imported --I'm not perfect). Right, shred some chicken with your hands (oh go on), add the tomatoes and then the chicken and sprinkle the lot with crystals of Maldon sea salt and add some grindings of pepper. Close up the sandwich and squish -- a little. It's just best in a soft roll.
It seemed, shall we say, cosy, to have this with a big mug of tea. Yorkshire being the brew of choice.
Now, that CHICKEN. I had roasted it, a large free ranger, last night, when it made meals for two adults and two children. There's still some more meat on there, so the rest -- brown and white-- will be going into a curry with little brown chick peas (gughni) tomorrow. Then I'll make stock and be glad I did. To make the stock, I'll just cover the carcass with water, add a small handful of black pepppercorns and a couple of bay leaves. But experiment. Though not too much. Freeze it afterwards?
Oh -- it's the first day, so have an extra recipe. This is for an early tea on a summer's day -- with a bit of background 'chicken' information! So you're down with my frugality!
A fantastic chicken sandwich.
You take a large white roll or, perhaps, a cheese bread or the kind of bread roll my (American)_ husband calls a kaiser: one encrusted with caramelised onions. Then, you spread it pretty generously with butter or, if you must, some marg. Add lots of soft lettuce -- the old fashioned kind. If you are growing lettuce, you could use some early leaves. I also added some handfuls of mint (remove the stalks) and some chives that I had coming up. Also, some little dandelion leaves from the garden (really, you need to blanch these under a pot, but if you pick them when they're really tiny...). Little sorrel leaves would also be good. Sorrel is hard to buy but easy to grow: it looks like spinach but has a sharp lemon tang.
If you made this sandwich later in summer, you could add some sweet local toms. I used some vine tomatoes that were big and squashy and not those woolly things (but imported --I'm not perfect). Right, shred some chicken with your hands (oh go on), add the tomatoes and then the chicken and sprinkle the lot with crystals of Maldon sea salt and add some grindings of pepper. Close up the sandwich and squish -- a little. It's just best in a soft roll.
It seemed, shall we say, cosy, to have this with a big mug of tea. Yorkshire being the brew of choice.
Now, that CHICKEN. I had roasted it, a large free ranger, last night, when it made meals for two adults and two children. There's still some more meat on there, so the rest -- brown and white-- will be going into a curry with little brown chick peas (gughni) tomorrow. Then I'll make stock and be glad I did. To make the stock, I'll just cover the carcass with water, add a small handful of black pepppercorns and a couple of bay leaves. But experiment. Though not too much. Freeze it afterwards?
Welcome to the blog
All recipes copyright Anna Vaught. All recipes serve 4-6, unless otherwise specified.
This is all about food. Things for you to eat every day. I mean, what I am actually cooking that day as I, err, cook all the time. Come on in. Here is the gate to my house.
I've been keeping recipes and scribbling down notes about food since late childhood. I have my mother's recipes, articles she saved and the odd jotting from my grandmother. I was lucky enough to be brought up on outstanding food. I had an imaginative and yet frugal cook for a mum, I learned to cook very young --essential training because, with said mother often poorly, I needed to be pretty handy in the kitchen. And the garden: big and wild and full of vegetables, herbs and old, gnarled fruit trees. Sounds idyllic. Sadness there, too: I expect that all sorts of emotions will weave their way through what I will write here. Food's simple enough: we eat to live, but the emotions it provokes are powerful indeed. But hey: I'm practical, so on with the recipe of the day.
What to do with leftover potato? Make a simple potato curry.
Today, we have leftover boiled potato from last night (ooh: now I remember stuffing my face with hula hoops when I came in late after seeing Doctor Ralph Stanley and his crew perform exemplary bluegrass at the Music festival here: all hail to the king. All the g&ts explain the hula hoop frenzy: classy). The potatoes are in large chunks. There's about a soup bowl of them. In a frying pan, put a little film of oil, and then gently fry one chopped medium onion. Gently, so it softens and smells sweet. Now add one teaspoon of turmeric and a dessertspoon each of ground cumin and ground coriander. Cook very gently with the onion and do not let this burn. You could add dried red chilli to taste, or perhaps have cooked a couple of cloves of chopped garlic (throw out your garlic presses: knives are what you want for garlic) in there with the onion. Right: when the spices smell toasty, you add the potato and stir it all around. It might need a little water, but this is supposed to be a dry dish. Salt and pepper to taste. If you can lay your hands on green mango powder (amchoor) or pomegranate powder (anardhana), then add a teaspooon or two of one of them just before you serve. They would add aromatic sourness -- which I happen to love.
This is great served with fried or poached eggs. Serve them on top. And, although I'm doing this potato thing for a lunch for me and the husband (the children are eating Lidl fishcakes!), I have been known to make this for breakfast and to take it back to bed with me. Alone.
This is all about food. Things for you to eat every day. I mean, what I am actually cooking that day as I, err, cook all the time. Come on in. Here is the gate to my house.
I've been keeping recipes and scribbling down notes about food since late childhood. I have my mother's recipes, articles she saved and the odd jotting from my grandmother. I was lucky enough to be brought up on outstanding food. I had an imaginative and yet frugal cook for a mum, I learned to cook very young --essential training because, with said mother often poorly, I needed to be pretty handy in the kitchen. And the garden: big and wild and full of vegetables, herbs and old, gnarled fruit trees. Sounds idyllic. Sadness there, too: I expect that all sorts of emotions will weave their way through what I will write here. Food's simple enough: we eat to live, but the emotions it provokes are powerful indeed. But hey: I'm practical, so on with the recipe of the day.
What to do with leftover potato? Make a simple potato curry.
Today, we have leftover boiled potato from last night (ooh: now I remember stuffing my face with hula hoops when I came in late after seeing Doctor Ralph Stanley and his crew perform exemplary bluegrass at the Music festival here: all hail to the king. All the g&ts explain the hula hoop frenzy: classy). The potatoes are in large chunks. There's about a soup bowl of them. In a frying pan, put a little film of oil, and then gently fry one chopped medium onion. Gently, so it softens and smells sweet. Now add one teaspoon of turmeric and a dessertspoon each of ground cumin and ground coriander. Cook very gently with the onion and do not let this burn. You could add dried red chilli to taste, or perhaps have cooked a couple of cloves of chopped garlic (throw out your garlic presses: knives are what you want for garlic) in there with the onion. Right: when the spices smell toasty, you add the potato and stir it all around. It might need a little water, but this is supposed to be a dry dish. Salt and pepper to taste. If you can lay your hands on green mango powder (amchoor) or pomegranate powder (anardhana), then add a teaspooon or two of one of them just before you serve. They would add aromatic sourness -- which I happen to love.
This is great served with fried or poached eggs. Serve them on top. And, although I'm doing this potato thing for a lunch for me and the husband (the children are eating Lidl fishcakes!), I have been known to make this for breakfast and to take it back to bed with me. Alone.
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