vegan – ALMOST ITALIAN

Ottolenghi’s Sweet Potato Chips

This summer I’m working my way through my most recent Ottolenghi cookbooks, Simple and Flavour, and finding quite a few classics to add to my repertoire. These sweet potato chips are a tasty, economical and quick to prepare and make a useful side dish or snack. Sweet potatoes store very well and are often cheaper per kilo than potatoes which is a bonus, especially during those months when only bland, tasteless potatoes are available. Sweet potatoes are not, however, a superfood, unless you need a huge injection of vitamin A. The superfood marketeers put this tuber in that mythical category. They are as healthy or unhealthy as a regular spud, depending on how you cook them. See the infographics pages here for more nutritional info.

Sweet Potato Chips, serves six to eight as a side.

I halved this recipe and still found we had rather too many. If you do cook the full amount, you may need more trays than suggested in this recipe, and two shelves, swapping half way through baking. The potatoes need to be placed in a single layer on the trays. Preheating the oven to 220º C guarantees successful baking in this short time frame. The potatoes can be prepared up to six hours ahead, up to the point of placing them in the oven.

sweet potatoes, 1.2 kg, peeled and sliced into 1½ cm thick chips. (see photos)
1 Tbsp sweet smoked paprika
½ tsp cayenne pepper
3 garlic cloves, crushed
30 g polenta
100 ml olive oil
1 Tbls sumac
flaked sea salt

Preheat the oven to 220ºc, fan on.
Mix the sweet potatoes in a large bowl with the paprika, cayenne, polenta, oil and 1 teaspoon of flaked salt. Once combined, tip the sweet potatoes (and all the oil) on to two large parchment- lined baking trays and roast for 25-30 minutes, stirring gently once or twice, until the potatoes are cooked, crisp and golden brown.
Remove from the oven, sprinkle over the sumac and 1 teaspoon of flaked salt, and serve at once.

Recipe from Simple, Yotam Ottolenghi, 2018

The Greenest Zucchini Soup

This summer soup appears, with variations, each zucchini season. I’m sure everyone has a version. It’s restorative and healthy. The vegetarian version includes cream, the vegan version omits it. You can decorate the top with all sorts of modern crunchy things, building castles from herbs and nuts, but I prefer my cream soups to sing alone, without the clutter of other toppings. Sometimes beauty lies in sheer simplicity. Another recipe to add to my Zucchini Cookbook.

one onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
3 medium Désirée potatoes, peeled, roughly chopped,
6 or more zucchini, depending on size, cut into in chunks (really large overgrown zucchini will produce a rather bland, watery soup: use medium sized fruit, with some blackjack included for colour)
a few handfuls of curly kale leaves
a few handfuls of flat leaf parsley, stalks removed
one vegetable or chicken stock cube
seasoning
a little cream

Put the onion, garlic, potato and water in a large pot. Cover with water and add a little salt. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are nearly soft. Add the zucchini, kale and parsley. Cook a further 5 minutes until the greens are soft. Add a stock cube, dissolve it by stirring, then blend the soup with a stick blender until creamy. Add a little more water if necessary. Season to taste then swirl through some pouring cream just before serving.

In My Kitchen July 2019

My July post will be rather brief and I’ll let the pictures do the talking for a change. Winter has been unusually busy, but some lovely foods have passed through my kitchen on their way to my mouth. I’ve mentioned quite often how much I depend on my orto, my back yard super fresh supermarket of herbs and vegetables. I can’t imagine life without a daily pick. The header photo above captures a radicchio in the frost- this is one vegetable that loves winter.

I’m rather keen on Spanish/Portuguese caldo lately, a soup which uses winter greens along with smoky flavoured vegetables and yellow split peas. I could live on this soup. I’m considering posting the recipe soon as it is so delicious, as well as vegan, and extremely cheap to make. Frugal food is the way to go, and more so when the ingredients arrive plastic and container free. There is an unfortunate trend with the emerging popularity of vegan food- much of it comes wrapped in plastic or other non environmentally friendly containers. This aspect of vegan food really annoys me.

Another of my favourite dishes has always been popular with guests. One of my old dear friends used to hide her empty mussel shells from view in order to eat just a few more. These are Mt Martha mussels stuffed with a mixture of cooked spinach, garlic, parmesan, lemon zest, egg and breadcrumbs, then liberally blessed with EV olive oil.

The pics above were taken before being dressed with dry sourdough bread crumbs and olive oil. It would be impossible to take snaps once they are cooked, as I would miss out on my share. Watch these bite sized morsels disappear.

Another favourite dish, seafood risotto, made with Carnaroli, snapper stock ( frozen from last month’s episode of IMK) a handful of mussels, along with a few small flathead fillets. Splurge!

Thanks once again to Sherry at Sherry’s Pickings for hosting this monthly series. My kitchen posts for August and September will come to you from my kitchen in Bali, as well as a daily post via my instagram account at instagram.com/morgan.francesca. The daily posts will highlight where to eat, Balinese scenes, Hindu ritual, and daily life from the point of view of a semi -expat.

Please also consider following my blog by clicking on the Follow Me button on the side, as I am slowly scaling back my doubling up with Facebook.

Mujaddara. Lentil Alimental

I am often aghast when my mother tells me about her cure for general lethargy. She cooks up a small rump steak, the ‘point’ of the rump, she insists, along with two eggs for breakfast! Part of my awe is her amazing appetite for meat at this early hour of the day. Even when I used to eat meat, now more than 40 years ago, I doubt I could have stomached this meal first thing in the morning. My mother lived through an era without internet ‘authorities’ proselytizing about food, although she is aware of the modern-day TV cranks, those we love or love to loathe, who promote a high protein, no carb diet to the gullible. Mother has always eaten modestly and sensibly, cooking all her meals from scratch until very recently and included a daily quota of vegetables, fruits and carbs in her diet. But she NEVER cooked lentils.

When I’m feeling run down and tired, my body growls for lentils. These humble little pulses cure me instantly, especially when combined with rice or grain. Food associated with poverty to some, or hippy era food to others, lentils come into their own when treated well and cooked in interesting ways. Red and yellow lentils in Indian dhal, or whole black lentils combined with red kidney beans in a soothing Dhal Makhani, red lentils and a scoop of bulgur wheat in Turkish bride soup, brown lentils for burgers, puy lentils in shepherds’ pie, lentil and vegetable soups finished with a dash of lemon juice, lentil and zucchini fritters, Indian Kitchari and the addictive Lebanese dish, Mujaddara, the list goes on and on.

Last week’s version of Mujaddara, with dukkah eggs

In the last two months, I’ve made Mujaddara three times, trying to streamline the method. The SBS version, hosted by Maeve O’Meara, is quite good, the Diane Henry version tends to stick to the pot, whereas the more straight forward version I like comes from Abla Amad of Abla’s Lebanese Restaurant, Carlton, Melbourne. I love the way Mujadarra goes well with easily prepared side dishes: labne, radishes, any pickled vegetable, salads of tomato, cucumber and mint, and perhaps some Lebanese pita bread. Leftover Mujaddara can be combined with grated zucchini and a little binding egg for fritters, or stuffed into silverbeet (chard) leaves for dolmades. Or, simply microwaved for breakfast, and served with a big dollop of yoghurt. My kind of pick me up.

Double pick me up. Lentil and rice, with eggs, and sides.

The following recipe is from Abla’s Lebanese Kitchen. I have slightly modified a couple of small details along the way.

Lentils and Rice ( Mjadra’at addis)

300 grams ( 1 ½ cups) brown lentils, washed and drained. ( I used Australian grown Puy lentils)
1 ½ teaspoons fine sea salt
150 ml EV olive oil
2 large onions, halved and finely sliced
200 g ( 1 cup) long grain rice, washed, soaked then drained

Method

Place the lentils in a saucepan and 750 ml ( 3 cups) of water. Cover and bring to the boil over high heat. Add another 250 ml ( 1 cup) of cold water ( this prevents the lentils from splitting) and boil for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a frying pan over high heat and cook the onion for 7 minutes or until golden brown, stirring often to prevent the onions from going too dark. Set aside one quarter of the onion, and add the remainder, together with its oil, to the brown lentils. Stir in the rice, then add another small cup of water ( about 150ml if using puy lentils) and cook, covered, over low heat for 20-30 minutes, or until all the water has been absorbed and the rice is tender. I recommend using a simmer mat for this final step.

Spoon the mixture into a shallow serving bowl and sprinkle with reserved onion. Add any left over onion cooking oil. Serve with yoghurt, Lebanese salad, and other found fridge meze.

Leftover Mujaddara, grated zucchini fritters on a bed of peperonata

Stuffed silver beet rolls

Baked dolmades

Mujaddara stuffed silver beet rolls

Silverbeet dolmade, stuffed with Mujaddara

What, dear reader, is your favourite ‘pick me up’ food? Can you down a steak for breakfast? Do lentils hold any odd connotations for you?

Falafel and the Living is Easy

Falafel tends to make a more frequent appearance in my kitchen during summer, probably because it pairs so well with most of the summer vegetables in the garden: it can be made well in advance, before the day’s heat sets in. It is also the ultimate budget meal- one packet of split dried fava beans goes a long way. Not chick peas I hear you say? While I’m quite happy with my chick pea/Israeli/Lebanese version of this famous snack, these days I prefer Egyptian falafel, more accurately known as ta’amia.

Dried split fave beans after soaking for 24 hours then draining.

Lunching well for less than one dollar per head is also very appealing. Frugal opulence, thanks to the hours we spend in the orto, tending herbs and vegetables. When it comes to home-made falafel, the most costly ingredient will probably be the deep-frying oil. I usually make a hummus or tahini dressing to pair with them as they do need the wetness of a good sauce or dip. Serve with a salad of shredded Cos lettuce, finely cubed cucumber, spring onions, mint, and salt tossed about with a little oil and lemon juice.

Crunchy falafel made from split fava beans. Buy these beans at a Middle Eastern shop for around $4 a kilo,

This recipe serves 4. Or two with leftovers for later.

250 g dried split fava beans, covered in cold water and soaked overnight or up to 24 hours.
3 garlic cloves, crushed
5 spring onions, finely sliced including all the green section
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp besan flour
1-2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
1-2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
A pinch of cayenne pepper
Salt and black pepper to taste
a small handful of sesame seeds
a tablespoon of water to help in blending, if needed
Oil, for frying (rapeseed, rice bran or sunflower)

Drain the fava beans and wash thoroughly, especially if the soaking water has begun to foam. Add them to a large food processer along with all the other ingredients except the sesame seeds, water and oil. Blend until reasonably smooth. You may need to stop the motor and rearrange the contents as you go. Use the water if you feel the mixture is too dry. Finally add the sesame seeds and pulse through.

Place the mixture in a covered bowl and refrigerate for at least two hours or until ready to deep fry. I often rest the mixture overnight.

Add enough oil to a small wok or pan, enough to at least cover the falafel balls. Test the oil by flicking in a tiny piece of the mixture. If it sizzles, the oil is ready. Scoop out mixture by the tablespoon and shape with your hands into small balls. Add to the pan of hot oil, making sure that you don’t overcrowd the pan. Adjust temperature of oil if too fast or slow. The falafel should cook evenly and not too quickly. Turn to brown on both sides then drain on paper towel.

Makes around 22 falafel. Serve with tahini sauce, or hummus and salads.

The secret is out. The best falafel in Melboure can be found at Very Good Falafel, Sydney road, Brunswick, where the hipster version gives the local A1 Bakery Lebanese snack a run for its money. http://www.shukiandlouisa.com/

Pasta of the Week, Pantacce and Borlotti Beans with Rugola. I Can’t Believe it’s Vegan

Lots of Italian food is vegan by nature and vegan by tradition but you never see it labelled as such. And that, in my opinion, which is neither humble or otherwise, is a good thing. I can’t stand labels. Most of the food you will read about on my blog is vegetarian, but I rarely mention that word in the post. I firmly believe that once we do away with labels- vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, omnivore, ethically farmed (hallelujah) and heaven forbid, Paleo- the culinary world will be a better place. A good recipe tempts the taste buds with the summary of its parts and its visual tease.

I’ve tasted very good vegan food in restaurants without that little colour- coded ‘v‘ in the corner to guide me, many a fine Italian antipasto and primo, as well as lovely traditional Indian, Greek and Middle Eastern dishes. Last Saturday I joined the throngs at the popular A1 bakery in Brunswick and ordered the Ful Mesdames platter. It was comprised of a large bowl of semi mashed warm Ful,( dried fava beans recooked) dressed with a few chick peas, olive oil, parsley and sumac, sitting on a wooden board full of extras, gherkins, pink turnip pickles, warmed middle eastern bread cut into quarters, and a generous side salad of tomatoes, lettuce and onion. It was a surprising bargain for $8, a dish that would generously feed two people. No v word in sight. The stuff that parades as vegan around the cooler traps of Melbourne is either bland or highly processed and appeals to those whose taste buds are still transitioning from childhood to something else. The newly converted may need a label to spur them on. The best vegan food is never described as such. Look at the wonderful Italianesque recipes of Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers of The River Cafe fame, whose simple vegetable based recipes make me drool at the thought, sending me running to the kitchen garden. Again, no v word required. Good food is based on fresh seasonal ingredients, combined with a solid understanding of the role played by complementary herbs and spices, then presented in such a way in such a way to excite the diner.

This week’s Pasta Della Settimana ( pasta of the week) came about thanks to the current seasonal offerings from my garden- abundant rocket, fresh borlotti beans, tomatoes, garlic and chilli. It’s a solid meal for a cooler day. It’s another take on Pasta e Fagioli, that classic Italian dish that has moved up the ranks from Cucina Povera to bourgeois heaven. It can be deveganised by adding some finely grated parmigaino or any other animal based shavings you might fancy.

Today’s pasta of the week calls for Pantacce, a mini bite sized lasagna pasta shape with a diagonal cut and a frilled edge along one side. These shapes are made by Molisana, another brand of pasta I sometimes use. It’s a versatile shape that goes well with most sauces. My garden inspired the rest. In this recipe, the beans are the main star, with a small handful of pasta per person to help unite the dish, providing a farinaceous element for the hungry.

Pasta, borlotti freschi e rugola. Pasta with fresh borlotti beans and rocket.

Ingredients. Once again, this recipe is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Fresh borlotti beans, cooked slowly with a handful of herbs, a pinch or two of salt and a drizzle of oil. If you can’t access fresh borlotti, use dried beans and cook them slowly so they don’t split or go soggy.
Pantacce pasta, a lasagnette shape made by Molisana or any other medium-sized short pasta shape. I have used one large handful per person as I wanted the beans to star.
Some left over home-made tomato sugo, a few tablespoons per person. If you don;t have fresh tomatoes, use a good quality, thick tomato passata, cooked with a little garlic and oil.
finely chopped garlic to taste.
one finely chopped fresh chilli or a pinch or two of dried chilli flakes.
EV olive oil
fresh oregano, finely chopped.
fresh rugola ( rocket) torn.

Method

Boil pasta in abundant salted water until al dente. Keep back some of the cooking water.
Meanwhile, in a wide and deep pan, add some olive oil to the pan and heat it on medium. Add the garlic, chilli, and oregano. Stir about for one minute then add the tomato sugo or passata, a few tablespoons per person. Stir through the beans, season well, then add the cooked pasta. Use a tablespoon or two of the pasta cooking water to loosen the sauce. The dish needs to be well sauced. Bring the dish to high heat, stirring, then add the rocket and move it about until it wilts. Serve hot with a drizzle of good oil.
Pasta e Fagioli, many ways to enliven a traditional dish.

Footnote. Sometimes I mention brand names in my posts. I don’t receive any recompense for this, although if some came my way, I wouldn’t say no. Some Australian readers have been asking about brands of pasta to use and so I have decided to mention a few in these pasta posts. De Cecco is still my favourite.

Art, Florence and Beans

Midst all the opulent and overly ornate works of art from the Baroque period, hangs a modest but well-known painting, Il Mangiafagioli, by Annibale Carracci (1560-1609), depicting a quotidian scene, a peasant sitting down to a simple lunch of bean soup, onions, bread, a vegetable pie and a jug of red wine. The Beaneater is as Florentine as Brunelleschi’s dome, given that the Florentines were often called by the taunt, ‘beaneaters,’ especially in bygone days.

The painting captures that moment when ‘the peasant is just raising a spoonful of beans to his lips, only to stop, surprised, by the intrusion of the viewer’, and in one sense, it is remarkably like a modern photo, a snapshot of a working class scene. At the same time, the table setting could be the work of an early food stylist. In modern times, food stylists bombard our senses and shape our taste from every media quarter. Note the crisp white linen and the well composed meal, the wine on the table and the strategically placed bread. You would expect to see a rustic wooden table in this naturalistic vignette, something that the modern food stylist would prefer too. (Have wooden planks used as food styling props become clichéd yet and why is good linen shunned in the modern world?) This bean eating peasant has a fine knife and glassware, a generous jug of wine and serve of bread. Perhaps he is an upwardly mobile peasant of the 1590s about to become a member of the white meat-eating class, despite the dirt under his nails.

Interestingly, up until modern times, beans were regarded as peasant food,

‘Social codes in Baroque Italy extended as far as to food. According to contemporary thinkers, foodstuffs like beans and onions, which are dark in color and grow low to the ground, were suitable only for similarly lowly consumers, like peasants.¹

If this Beaneater’s repast were placed before me today, I would be overjoyed and would probably pay dearly for it too, as I once did, at the delightful restaurant, Il Pozzo, in Monteriggione, Tuscany, where a bowl of bean filled Ribollita, served with a side of raw onions and good Tuscan bread cost me a large wad of lire. Other than the price, the meal hardly differed from the one depicted in Carracci’s painting of 1590. Things don’t change much over the centuries in Italy, a conservative country, particularly when it comes to food, recipes and styling.

Il Mangiafagioli Australiano senza la torta verde. Poveretto!

This modern-day beaneater, Mr Tranquillo, was bribed with a bottle of Yering Sangiovese 2010, to pose for this ‘painting’. A bowl of bean soup, good bread and a glass of wine is a lunchtime reward for hard work.

How to cook dried white beans and eat well for one dollar.

This recipe will give you enough cooked beans for a very large soup for a crowd or enough to divide and freeze for later soups or dips.

500g dried cannellini beans
2-3 cloves garlic, peeled but whole
4-5 sage leaves, and/or a small branch of rosemary.
60 ml extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra to serve
2 teaspoons or more of salt

Place the beans in a very large bowl with plenty of cold water. Leave to soak for at least 8 hours or overnight.
Drain the beans and place in a heavy-based saucepan or cast iron pot with the garlic, herbs, olive oil and 2.5 litres of water.
Bring to a simmer on the lowest heat setting and cook, covered, very gently until the beans are tender. Do not add salt and do not boil. Salt hardens beans and prevents them from softening and boiling splits the beans.
Remove any scum that rises to the top of the water. When the beans are soft and the cooking water is creamy, add the salt and some freshly ground pepper towards the end of the cooking. Test and adjust seasoning. Depending on the age of the beans, this could take two or more hours with slow cooking.
Use the beans to make a simple cannellini bean soup. Start with a soffritto of finely chopped onion, carrot and celery cooked gently in olive oil, then when softened, add some vegetable stock and cook for 10 minutes. Add the cooked beans and creamy cooking water. Heat for a further 5 minutes, taste and season. Consider pureeing half the mixture with a stick blender and return the puree to the pot. Serve in a deep bowl over grilled slightly stale sourdough bread and drizzle some good oil on top.

¹http://www.artble.com/artists/annibale_carracci/paintings/the_bean_eater

Il mangiafagioli

Il Mangiafagioli Australiano

L’impostore ed ll Mangiafagioli

Winter Tricks In My Kitchen, July 2016

Winter time and the living is – expensive. Electricity prices have increased at nearly four times the rate of inflation over the last 5 years and will probably continue to do so. One solution to the soaring power bills stemming from heating, lighting and the immoderate use of the oven, is to run away to a warmer place, preferably somewhere in Asia, where the living is cheaper and the climate is tropical. Another is to stay cocooned in a doona all day, watching addictive Icelandic Noir drama series that makes the Australian winter look tropical. Then, like many others, you could traipse around a heated shopping centre all day, drinking coffee and playing with your smart phone. Or you could make a conscious effort to adopt some energy saving routines, at least when it comes to routines in the kitchen. This post is a reminder to myself about energy use.

After baking, use the residual heat of the oven to make other basic things for the week.
Boiling water is a huge energy waster. Fill up a Chinese thermos with green tea.
Always cook too many beans. Finding a stash of pre-cooked cannellini and borlotti beans or chick peas in a zip lock bag in the freezer is like finding a golden nugget. Soup making becomes a breeze. Two of my winter favourite bean based soups can be found here and here.
Add barley to root vegetable soups. What is it about Barley Soup that warms us up, both physically and emotionally?
If you have just split open a large pumpkin and are baking chunks for a recipe, double the quantity and store the leftovers in a covered bowl in the fridge. Stuff the pieces, along with fetta and herbs, into filo pastry triangles, add them to a risotto, use them with cooked lentils in a pastie, or toss them through barley to make a winter salad with spinach and nuts. Or head to Ottolenghi land and make this or this.
Filo pastry with baked pumpkin, goat’s fetta, herbs, honey drizzle.
Always double the pizza dough, whatever quantity you decide to make. Most weeks I make a 500g batch of yeasted pizza dough using this recipe. If the hungry hordes don’t visit, I stretch and shape half the risen dough to make one 35 cm pizza, more than enough for two hungry people, then stash the other half in a zip lock bag in the freezer. Then it’s simply a matter of defrosting the dough, bringing it back to room temperature, and shaping it into a slice baking tin, allowing for another short rise, before dimpling the top with oil, salt and herbs or other leftovers.

Left over dough becomes tomorrow’s foccaccia.

Pumpkin, Red Onion and Sage Foccaccia

risen dough, made from 250 gr baker’s white flour
EV olive oil
one red onion finely sliced
1 cup pre- roasted diced pumpkin
sage leaves
coarsely ground sea salt

Preheat oven 200 c FF. Oil a small slab tin ( 26 cm X 17 cm) and stretch the dough to roughly fit. Leave for 30 minutes or more, covered with a tea towel. Push the dough into the corners of the tin and using your fingers, make small indentations in the dough to carry the oil and salt. Brush on a generous amount of olive oil, letting it pool a little in the indentations. Spread on the finely cut onions, then the pumpkin, then some sage leaves, then plenty of coarsely ground salt. Bake for around 15 minutes, check on the colour of top and bottom, and cook a further 5 minutes if needed.

This month, Maureen is taking a break from hosting In My Kitchen, but the series still goes on. Below you can find an informal link up to some other IMK posts for this month:

Celia https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2016/07/01/in-my-kitchen-july-2016/

Amanda http://www.lambsearsandhoney.com/2016/07/in-my-kitchen-july-2016/

Sandra https://pleasepasstherecipe.com/2016/07/01/june-in-my-kitchen/

Fiona http://www.tiffinbitesized.com.au/2016/07/01/in-my-kitchen-july-2016/

Josephine https://napolirestaurantalert.wordpress.com/2016/07/01/in-my-kitchen-july-2016/

Liz http://www.bizzylizzysgoodthings.com/blog

http://www.bitesizedthoughts.com/2016/07/in-my-kitchen-july-2016.html

Debi https://americanfoodieabroad.wordpress.com/

Johanna http://gggiraffe.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/in-my-kitchen-july-2016.html

Shaheen http://allotment2kitchen.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/red-lentil-pasta-and-edible-crystals-in.html

Mae http://maefood.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/things-that-give-me-joy-in-my-kitchen.html

Lisa http://www.withafork.com/2016/07/whats-in-my-kitchen-july-2016.html

Zucchini Bhaji, Gluten-Free Vegan Snacks.

Here they are again, the summer zucchini growing like triffids, their dazzling yellow flowers opening loudly in the sun, enticing insects to enter, then closing snugly with the tramonto or sunset. Their fruitfulness is always a mixed blessing as most zucchini growers will attest : there are always too many for one household. Catching them while they are discreet in size is part of the game- come back from a weekend away and you’re in for a rude surprise. Big ones sap the energy of the plant, reducing flowering and productivity. The larger zucchini are also rather bland in flavour, a case of bigger not being better! Constant harvesting is wise, as it is with all vegetables. Pick often and be rewarded.

Morning bees busy with cross pollination

Many folk have a swag of favourite recipes for dealing with their annual zucchini glut, I am sure. I have at least 20 standby recipes and am always looking for more. Throughout summer, we use zucchini in:

simple soups,
fried and tossed through pasta alla carbonara
grated and incorporated into fritters, patties and bhajis
combined with cheese into old-fashioned baked slices
gutted and refilled with ricotta and baked in the oven
pickled with mustard seed
grilled to lay on a pizza
substituting eggplants in a parmigiana bake
vinegared with balsamic and garlic
sliced vertically into carpaccio salad
fried with their friends the tomatoes to make Provéncal tians and tarts
grated into breads, muffins and cakes

They are summer’s green gifts. When their day is done, sometime down the track in Autumn, we say Addio for another year.

Zucchini Bhaji

These little fried morsels are a cross between an onion bhaji and a vegetable pakhora. They don’t last long, and are often eaten as they exit the wok and don’t make it to the table. This recipe would feed two very greedy people or make snacks for four. It can be doubled for a family- kids love them. Different spices may be used, such as cumin or coriander. The batter needs to be thicker than cream but not too stiff.

two medium zucchini, grated
1 onion, finely sliced
¾ cup besan/chick pea flour
¼ cup rice flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teas salt
½ teas garam masala
½ teas chilli powder
1 garlic clove crushed
½ cup or so water
plain oil (not olive oil) for frying

Grate the zucchini and leave in a colander, covered with a weight, for 1/2 hour or so. Slice the onion.

Make the batter by mixing the dry ingredients with the water. Also let the batter sit for 1/2 an hour or more, un refrigerated so that the batter begins to ferment a little.

Add the vegetables to the batter and mix well. Add oil to a wok and heat until a bread piece sizzles. Deep frying is recommended as the fritters stick to the pan with shallow frying and tend to retain too much oil. If the temperature of your oil is hot, the bhaji should fry quickly. Turn once or twice using tongs, and then draining on paper towels.

Serve with Podina Chutney if you have an abundant mint supply, or a mint laced yoghurt dressing.

This snack is gluten and lactose free and vegan. Many zucchini recipes, quite by chance, are.

Today Was a Good Day

Today was a very good day, but then, every day is special in my favourite Asian city. We’re in Chiang Mai again, and each time I visit, my heart grows fonder. Like an old lover, Chiang Mai unfolds slowly and deserves many visits. It’s no wonder that so many expats call this town home.

First stop, the Writers Club for a wine. — First stop, the Writers Club for a wine or beer, or just because it’s a bit French and it’s always there.

Today we ate at a remarkable Thai vegetarian restaurant, and since we have discovered the word Jeh, along with the little yellow and red flag displaying this symbol, เจ, we then found some more.

View from the writers club, Chiang Mai, a town with hidden sophistication.

Thai Vegetarian and Vegan food is not at all boring and holy. You won’t miss onions, meat or eggs when you taste these treats. Deep fried shitake mushroom sate with peanut sauce, minced tofu larb studded with dried chilli and basil leaf, a refreshing drink of crushed lemongrass on ice, and so much more. I wanted to order everything from the menu at Pun Pun Slow Food Vegetarian Restaurant. Visit and be delighted by this wonderful temple cafe. Cost, around AU$10 for two.

That evening, following a siesta and another temple visit, it was off to Taste From Heaven. Deep-fried mushrooms, coated in a sesame seed batter, made an excellent appetizer to go with a cold beer (Chang, of course). The rain bucketed down outside, and we continued to order. Next a rice noodle dish, a vegetarian version of a Pad See Ew arrived. I love big fresh rice noodles: smoked by the breath of a hot wok, the dish was classic comfort food and went well with the rain. Another dish, a deep-fried tempura morning glory vine, kangkung, with cashew nuts and tofu, was a surprising twist on the meal. All were helped along by a generous portion of red rice. Vegan chocolate brownie? Yes indeed, and a little fork war followed.

My glorious day will be followed by more, I know. But today was the day of the Jeh restaurant discovery. I’m in heaven.

The details:

Pun Pun Restaurant, Wat Suan Dok temple, Suthep Road, Chiang Mai. Or see other locations here. http://punpunthailand.org/restaurant/index.html

Taste from Heaven, Ratmakka Road, Chiang Mai. or see http://taste-from-heaven.com/

For my brother Michael, who loves Chiang Mai too.

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