Moroccan minted roast vegetables

 

I'm just going to put it out there, I'm not above putting ketchup on roast potatoes. WHAT? THAT'S BLASPHEMY, THAT'S....THAT'S - that's fucking delicious is what it is. Ketchup is the sugary, vinegary, condiment of the gods, and I'm standing by this one because I've had a love affair with Heinz ketchup since childhood. I sometimes imagine good old Mr. Heinz as a dapper, 3-piece suit wearing gentleman with a curly moustache & tobacco pipe. 

I gingerly knock twice at the Victorian bureau's enormous oak doors then proceed to enter, After a heavy push, the sweet concoction of tobacco smoke, Earl Grey tea & crabtree & evelyn aftershave permeate the air. A myriad of coloured light spills through stained glass windows on either side of the cavernous bureau, silk shutters, taxidermy animals & curiousity cabinets decorate a frieze around the room. At the far end, a wirey old gent springs forth from his desk & twists his moustache ends.

"DYLAN!"

"PAPPY HEINZ!"

With broad steps he swiftly strides across the room to meet me, almost losing his footing on a couple of white tiger cubs vigorously pawing each other on the office floor. Unperturbed, he meets me with a hug so forceful it leaves me breathless.

"Dylan my boy, such a pleasure to see you! How about we get out of this factory for the day, take our velocipedes to the lake & have a picnic? What do you say to that?!"

And so goes my heartfelt & vaguely homo-erotic image of Mr. Heinz, who for all I know could have been a misanthropic, slave-driving Nazi pedophile. Ah well, c'est la vie.

Now, I realise that slathering roast vegetables in ketchup is not socially acceptable, but this is why people need to be daring with: 

A. Their choice of vegetables to roast. 
B. The inclusion of herbs & spices. 
C. Sauces or dips made to accompany them. 

If I hadn't been subjected to so many roast dinners that just seasoned their potatoes with regular salt, pepper & animal fats, I would never have any reason to abusively unleash thick lashings of Mr Heinz at all. *Groaaaan*. 


Now for the first time in a while I'm giving you a recipe for something I made, because I stole it straight from 101 cookbooks ;) I used sweet potato for this, which is probably a bit dominant to get the best of the seasoning (delicious nonetheless). The real surprise was the cauliflower. I'm not a big fan of cauliflower, I used to like it as a kid because mum would refer to it as "ghost-tree", but now that I'm too old to be calling it a ghost tree, it's a bit bland to me, however it's an excellent carrier of flavours & comes out of the oven very juicy & full. The radishes are also delicious softened up & full of juice too.

Ingredients

You can use different vegetables depending on what's available, pumpkin or other winter squash, or straight potatoes. If cauliflower & radishes aren't available, use green beans and broccoli, asparagus and artichokes.

1 lb / 16 oz / 450 g mix of potatoes, cauliflower, and a few radishes

• 2 1/2 teaspoons dried mint
• 1 teaspoon red chile pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
• 2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• a squeeze of fresh lemon juice
• toppings: fresh mint, toasted sesame and/or pumpkin seeds, plain yogurt (seasoned with a bit of salt)

Preheat your oven to 425F / 220C. Wash and dry the vegetables, then cut the potatoes and cauliflower into 1/4-inch thick slices/pieces. Trim and quarter the radishes, setting aside the green radish tops.

Place the dried mint, chile pepper flakes, cumin seeds, and salt in a mortar and pestle and pound a bit, long enough to somewhat break up the cumin seeds. Add the ground cumin, cinnamon, and ground ginger. After that, add the olive oil and stir until combined.

Place the potatoes, cauliflower, and radishes in a plastic bag. Pour the spiced olive oil over the vegetables and toss gently but thoroughly - sqeeze it around until everything is equally coated. Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes or until everything is cooked through.

Remove from the oven and serve on a platter topped with the freshly diced mint, a squeeze of lemon and any/all of the other toppings. A thick unsweetened salted yogurt really works nicely here.

Serves 4.

Prep time: 5 min - Cook time: 15 min

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Ottolenghi Soba Noodle Mango & Aubergine Salad & Lao Larb encounters

The problem with going on benders with your friends, is that you always talk a load of shit, and make huge promises of how you're going to do all of this awesome stuff together; like "Let's go on a 3 month road trip around Eastern Europe where we only take €30, and have to rely on our raw survival skills & irrepressible charm to get by. We can hitch cargo trains from town to town, swim naked in the lakes, hunt bears, fashion couture from their pelts & become mountain children who live in log cabins", or even "When this crazy bender is over, let's cook dinner with each after only 2 hours sleep" (equally unrealistic). The nice thing was that this week, after postponing a day for recovery, we managed to come together to make really delicious dinner that we promised on one of those nights of excess. Oh rapture!


The initial proposition was that we were going to do some American style BBQ pork ribs, but this plan fell apart, like so much tender meat, when we weren't able to find a decent or affordable butcher. Berlin has quite a few Turkish butchers, but since pork is like Muslim Kryptonite, it wasn't such an easy find. Roll on plan B. 


Finbar called me up and said since it was so stinking hot outside, he was thinking of making a Lao dish - chicken larb. This was my introduction to Lao cuisine, & larb is one of their most common dishes. It's a salad, that's usually mince-meat based and mixed together with fresh herbs & raw vegetables, citric juices, chilli & a side of sticky rice. The result is a mouthwateringly salty, sour, spicy but fresh combination. People from Laos are commonly referred to as the "children of sticky rice" and their food is eaten without cutlery,  most dishes are made fit to bundle together by hand. 


I bought along a Soba noodle mango salad that was originally put together by Yottam Ottolenghi, but I borrowed a modified version by 101 cookbooks, and then further mutated it myself. It contains raw mango, coriander, basil, boiled soba noodles, fried tofu, fried aubergine, fresh basil & coriander, & a dressing made from brown rice vinegar, brown sugar, garlic, chilli, ginger, lime, peanut oil & sesame seeds. It was the perfect counterpart for larb, not worlds apart in flavours or ingredients, but sweeter & fruitier than the saltier meatier dish. We left out the sticky rice & just ate the larb wrapped in full iceberg lettuce leaves, as the mango salad already had noodles for the carb factor.

It was a perfect end to a scorching hot Berlin day, eating in the abandoned lot by the Spree with Simon, Finbar, Justine & Lisa.

And Finbar made a dog-friend!

Or a dog-foe...?

Mango Soba Noodle Salad Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup / 120 ml brown rice vinegar
• scant 1/3 cup / 1.5 oz / 40 g fine-grain natural cane sugar or brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes or 1/2 fresh red chile, minced
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil (I substituted this for peanut butter oil & added a few teaspoons of sesame seeds)
• grated zest and juice of one lime
• 1/3 cup / 80 ml sunflower oil or olive oil
• 1 medium eggplant/aubergine 3/4 lb / 12 oz, cut into 1/2-inch / 1cm chunks
• 8 ounces / 225g dried soba noodles
• 1 large ripe mango, cut into small chunks
• 8 ounces grilled or pan-fried tofu (I cut it into really tiny cubes & cook it till it's almost chewy for a complementary texture in the salad)
• 1/2 medium red onion, very thinly sliced
• a handful of basil leaves, slivered
• a handful of fresh cilantro / coriander, chopped

Directions: (Stolen from 101 Cookbooks)

While you are prepping the rest of the ingredients bring a large pot of water to a boil.
In the meantime, make the dressing by combining the vinegar, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for up to 1 minute, or until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and add the garlic, red pepper flakes or chile, and sesame oil.
Allow to cool, then add the lime zest and juice.


Heat the sunflower oil in a large skillet and shallow fry the eggplant/aubergine in three batches, until deeply golden. Transfer to a large plate lined with paper towels and sprinkle with a generous pinch of salt.


Cook the soba noodles in a large pot of boiling salted water, per package instructions, or until just tender. Drain and rinse under cold running water. Shake off as much of the excess water as possible, then leave to dry in the colander or on a tea towel. If you're not using the noodles soon, toss with a tiny splash of olive oil to prevent the noodles from sticking to each other.


In a large mixing bowl toss the noodles the dressing, mango, tofu, eggplant, onions, and most of the herbs. You can now set this aside for an hour or two before serving topped with the remaining herbs.


Serves 4-6.

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Alles Gute zum Geburtstag! Happy Birthday Gemma!

For the most part, getting old sucks. Sure, we pretend that we are all getting wiser with age, and that with maturity comes fulfilment and clarity; but the reality is that there's a generation of younger, more technically abled & mercilessly intelligent children, nipping at our heels, ready to pounce & replace us as pack leaders the very second we show any sign of weakness. The weight of our fate at the hands of these usurpers is a terrible burden on the conscience; for this very reason we will do anything to forget our age when it's birthday time, the most common being getting drunk and burying our heads in food. On Wednesday night we did exactly that for Gemma's birthday, and it's a lucky thing all of her friends are brilliant in the kitchen, because it made for one hell of a potluck dinner (It was less of a "pot-luck", and more of a "pot-everything-is-gonna-be-fucking-awesome").

Everything was vegetarian, so naturally a panoply of salads were on offer; including a Mediterranean alphabet pasta salad with sundried tomato, olive, basil & feta. A beetroot, apple, tomato & spinach salad, & a lentil, cherry tomato, red onion, feta, cumin, lemon & coriander salad which I bought along.

Everything was of really high standard, but even so there were a couple of stand out dishes, including a sweet/savoury crumble (I'm not even sure what to call it), with an almost butter-biscuit like crust, caramelised red onion base & cherry tomatoes. Kind of like flammekueche I suppose. DAMN, it was good. The dish that bought be back three times was Ruben's chick-pea stew. I didn't catch the recipe, but I know it had a tomato base, and it was cooked for several hours until two whole aubergines disintegrated into the broth. The end result was a rich, thick, peppery melt in your mouth stew. I am going to chase the recipe for this and post it in the comments when I have it.


If our future lives as humble slaves to indigo-children is a grim prospect, then at least we can all live in moderate ease that we have approximately another decade of these birthday feasts before they take over.

Feta, Lentil & Coriander Salad

Ingredients:

• 200g feta cheese, cut into chunks
  
• 250g green or black lentils (or puy lentils)
  
• 200g cherry tomatoes, halved
  
• 1 red onion, halved and sliced
  
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
  
• 1 lemon, juiced
  
• 1 large handful of coriander leaves

Method:

• Simmer the lentils for 20 minutes until tender.
  
• Drain and dress with 3 tbsp olive oil, the lemon juice and garlic while still warm.
  
• Cool to room temperature then pile into a large serving dish and stir through the rest of the ingredients.

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You say Aubergine, I say Übergine.

Starting this blog is a like buying a dog, maybe it's not at all like buying a dog, but my point is that it's a responsibility that requires constant attention and nurturing; see, it is EXACTLY like a dog. This new task has encouraged me to keep on top of finding new recipes and also more occasions to actually get in the kitchen, which was one my goals in embarking into the blogosphere. I'm one of those people who despite being very capable, I need a purpose to apply my skills to, otherwise I just rest on my laurels and do sweet F-all. Other valid similarities between blog and dog are that this blog also gives strangers more reason to strike up conversation with me, which is precisely what I found when I arrived with these bread-less aubergine bruschetta at my friends Roya & Nabil's party last night. Suddenly I was not just an awesome dude, I was the awesome dude with the dog aubergine snackies (some other guy at the party was already doing the dog thing, he wasn't actually that popular either). People were super appreciative to have some home made food to snack on, and it was an easy road into conversation from there.

So anyway, these tasty little morsels are super simple to make; just grill slices of eggplant in your oven (oil them first), until they start to brown and are soft-to-the-stab, then put a mixture of finely chopped vegetables, fresh herbs & cheese on top. I chose to use heirloom tomatoes, which actually taste fucking bland, and are overpriced, but have amazing colour, which counts for a lot and to be honest, there is enough flavour going on in the other ingredients anyway. This is exactly what went into my mix:

• 50gms of crumbled ricotta
• 1/2 cup of finely diced red onion
• 4 heirloom tomatoes & a few red cherry toms, deseeded & finely chopped
• 4 tblsp of diced mint leaves
• 2 tblsp of olive oil (I used a basil infused oil)
vHalf a handful of green olives
• Cracked pepper & salt to taste

The only real mistake I made was putting too much oil on the aubergine which sucked it up like a sponge & then released it with a lot of moisture after it was cooked. Needless to say, that even these tasty little snacks did nothing to curb the excessive quantity of whisky consumed that night. Though my memory of the night is shady, apparently the beast was unleashed, and it was armed to the teeth with face paint. Pin It

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Alma "Zukini" fritters with garlic yogurt sauce

It's appropriate that this first post shares the namesake of my fellow blogger/partner in crime Alma Haser, who in future will be doing the lion's share of photography for Lensefare (her being a photographer as well as an excellent hand in the kitchen helps beyond measure), so apologies for the terrible photo quality on this first post. 


So as I was saying, Alma shares the name of this first recipe, they aren't technically Alma fritters, but zucchini fritters, which evidently is Alma's middle name. The name's origin has a curious story, which harks back to a time when her mother Fiona was "expecting" out of wedlock, and couldn't find a suitable way to break the news to her extremely sweet, but devoutly Catholic mother in law. Being the liberal, hippy artists that they were, Fiona & her partner Frieder staged a play for friends and family with a comical storyline that clearly pointed to the fact she was pregnant (probably the most unconventional method of informing the parents you've been knocked up, but sure). In the mad rush to secure costumes and props for the play, the most critical prop was still missing...A BABY! At the last minute, an overgrown zucchini marrow become the substitute for a baby, and thus, both parents agreed that Zucchini was to be the name of their first born child! Fortunately for Alma, Zucchini got vetoed as her first name, but instead became her middle name; spelled "Zukini" as German law requires that any given name reflects the child's sex, Die Zucchini ist VERBOTEN!! However, changing the spelling is technically inventing a new word, so there's the loophole (up yours Standesamt!).
This dish was super easy to make (borrowed from Smitten Kitchen), and made a welcome addition to the fully beer stocked fridge at my friend's BBQ on Saturday.

Ingredients:
1 pound (about 2 medium) zucchini
1 teaspoon coarse or Kosher salt, plus extra to taste
2 scallions, split lengthwise and sliced thin
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Olive or another oil of your choice, for frying


To serve (optional)
1 cup sour cream or plain, full-fat yogurt
1 to 2 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon lemon zest
Pinches of salt
1 small minced or crushed clove of garlic

Preheat the oven to 200.

Trim ends off zucchini and grate them either on the large holes of a box grater or, if you have one, using the shredding blade of a food processor. The latter is my favorite as I’m convinced it creates the coarsest and most rope-like strands.

In a large bowl, toss zucchini with 1 teaspoon coarse salt and set aside for 10 minutes. Wring out the zucchini in one of the following ways: pressing it against the holes of a colander with a wooden spoon to extract the water, squeezing out small handfuls at a time, or wrapping it up in a clean dishtowel or piece of cheese cloth and wringing away.

Return deflated mass of zucchini shreds to bowl. Taste and if you think it could benefit from more salt (most rinses down the drain), add a little bit more; we found 1/4 teaspoon more just right. Stir in scallions, egg and some freshly ground black pepper. In a tiny dish, stir together flour and baking powder, then stir the mixture into the zucchini batter.

In a large heavy skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Drop small bunches of the zucchini mixture onto the skillet only a few at a time so they don’t become crowded and lightly nudge them flatter with the back of your spatula. Cook the fritters over moderately high heat until the edges underneath are golden, about 3 to 4 minutes. If you find this happening too quickly, reduce the heat to medium. Flip the fritters and fry them on the other side until browned underneath again, about 2 to 3 minutes more.

Drain briefly on paper towels then transfer to baking sheet and then into the warm oven until needed. Repeat process, keeping the pan well-oiled, with remaining batter. Give the fritters have at least 10 minutes in the oven to finish setting and getting extra crisp.

For the topping, if using, stir together the sour cream, lemon juice, zest, salt and garlic and adjust the flavors to your taste. Dollop on each fritter before serving. These fritters are also delicious with a poached or fried egg on top.

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