Lazy Summer Salad

It seems we haven’t had much of a summer in Australia this season but in the north coast of NSW today is a typical hot summers day.  A walk and swim on the beach gave me a craving for a summery salad.  It is all about fresh ingredients and not a lot of time spent in the kitchen.Enjoy!

Lazy Summer Salad

serves 4

Cook, peel and slice 500gms chat (baby) potatoes. While they are still warm, combine with 1 trimmed thinly sliced fennel, ½ a sliced red onion and a good handful of rocket or baby spinach leaves, a tablespoon of rinsed capers and 200gms smoked salmon or smoked trout and drizzle with balsamic vinegar and season to taste.

Check out the video of Phil and I presenting garden2kitchen at the Buderim Ginger Festival…we served up chargrilled stone fruits witha coconut ginger sauce and the szechwan eggplant recipe from Jan/Feb issue of  ABC Organic Gardener magazine, here are the recipes…Enjoy!

Szechwan eggplant

Serves 4 as entrée 6 as a side dish

Vegetable oil for deep-frying

6 Lebanese eggplants, trimmed and cut into 6-7cm lengths

Salt and Pepper mix

1 tablespoon Szechwan pepper

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1 tablespoon rock salt

1/4 teaspoon sesame oil

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon grated ginger

1 long red chilli, sliced

4 green onions

1/3 cup chicken stock

1 tablespoon hoisin sauce

2 teaspoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon limejuice

½ cup unsalted cashews, toasted

1/4 cup coriander leaves, roughly copped

2 green onions, extra for garnish

1 bunch pak choy or Asian green of your choice

Heat Szechwan, black peppercorns and salt in a dry frying pan over a moderate heat until salt is slightly browned, stirring constantly to stop the spices from burning. Remove from the heat and pound to a fine powder in a mortar and pestle. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 months.

Pour enough oil into a wok or deep saucepan to come to a depth of 10 centimetres. Heat over medium-high heat to 180C. Deep-fry the eggplant in two batches until tender, 2-3 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon; drain well on paper towels. Remove the wok from the heat and carefully remove the oil and reserve.

Heat a wok over high heat until hot. Add 1 tablespoon of the reserved oil with the sesame oil. Add the garlic, ginger, chilli, green onions and 1 tablespoon of prickly ash, stir fry until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Add the stock, sauces and limejuice and reduce the heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes until sauce thickens slightly. Stir through the cashews and pour the sauce into a serving bowl. Reheat the wok to a high heat and add the Pak Choy, stir frying until wilted.

Place the Pak Choy onto a platter and top with the eggplants. Garnish with coriander leaves, extra green onions, an extra sprinkle of salt and pepper mix and pour the sauce over the eggplants and serve with steamed rice.

Char-grilled Stonefruit with Coconut Ginger Sauce

1 ripe peach, cut in half and stone removed

1ripe nectarine, cut in half and stone removed

2 ripe apricots, cut in half and stone removed

2 ripe mangoes

2 tablespoons Thai palm sugar, shaved

Coconut Ginger Sauce

1 cup coconut cream

2 tablespoons Buderim Ginger mild crystallised ginger, finely chopped

2 tablespoons Thai palm sugar, shaved

1 lime, zest and juice

2 tablespoons water

Cut cheeks from mangoes. Discard stones. Cut 3 vertical lines and 3 horizontal lines in each mango cheek, without cutting all the way through.

Heat a char-grill on a medium heat. Sprinkle the palm sugar over the flesh of each fruit. Place the fruit, flesh side down on grill and cook on both sides for 3 minutes or until golden.

To make the sauce, place all the ingredients into a small saucepan and cook over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved, stirring constantly.

Place the grilled fruit onto a large serving plate and drizzle over the coconut ginger sauce.

Juls & Dom having a blast at the Buderim Ginger Festival

What a great time garden2kitchen had presenting at the Buderim Ginger Festival on the weekend. I not only had fun hanging out with my garden guru buddy, Phil Dudman but Dominique Rizzo (one of the chefs from the TV show Ready, Steady, Cook) and we got to do 2 shows together using of course ginger and Buderim Ginger products, a lot of fun. Don’t worry Phil I still like going on tour with you, but girls rule!!!

The audience were a cheeky, fun crowd, we hope they will have us back next year.

Here is one of my recipes I presented with Dominique, the theme was picnic. Enjoy!

Lamb & Quinoa Herb Salad with Carrot Hommus

By Julie Ray

Serves 4

8 French-trimmed lamb cutlets

2 garlic cloves, crushed

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon sumac, plus extra to dust

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Quinoa Salad

1 cup quinoa (see tip)

100gms feta cheese, chopped

2 green onions (shallots), finely sliced

1 small red onion, thinly sliced

10 cherry tomatoes, quartered

1/4 cup mint leaves, finely chopped

1/4 cup flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

1/4 cup basil leaves, torn

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon caster sugar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 garlic clove, crushed

salt and pepper

Carrot & Ginger Hommus

1 teaspoon ground cumin

3 carrots, peeled, cut into 2cm pieces

2 tablespoons olive oil

400g can chickpeas, drained, rinsed

1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and grated

1 tablespoon tahini

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 220C. To make the hommus, place cumin, carrot and half the oil in a bowl. Toss to combine. Transfer to prepared tray. Bake for 25 minutes or until carrot is golden and tender. Remove from oven. Set aside to cool.

Place carrot, chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice and remaining oil in a food processor. Process until smooth (see note). Season with salt and pepper, set aside.

Place the quinoa and 600ml water in a small saucepan over medium heat, then bring to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes or until tender. Drain well and leave to cool.

Make a marinade by mixing together garlic, oil, sumac and lemon juice in a small dish. Brush over cutlets and set aside.

Heat a chargrill over high heat, add the lamb cutlets and cook, in batches if necessary, for 2 minutes on each side, until browned but still pink in the middle. Set aside.

In a large bowl combine quinoa, feta, onions, tomatoes and herbs. Whisk the vinegar, oil, sugar and mustard and toss through the salad.

Serve lamb with salad and carrot, ginger hommus.

Note: Add a little water to mixture until desired consistency is reached, if needed. Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Quinoa is available from the health food sections in supermarkets or health food stores. It comes in a variety of colours, black, red, white or orange. It is a pseudocereal or grain and is closely related to beets and spinach. It’s great for gluten intolerant diets, excellent substitute for couscous or burghul.

Beachwood cafe

Two hours south of Byron Bay you will find a coastal village with one of Australia’s top ten surf breaks and one of the best brekkies around at Beachwood Cafe. It is owned by Sevtap Yuce who is passsionate about her Turkish heitage which comes through in her food.

The blackboard menu displays the choices for breakfast and lunch, I was told by regulars that you cannot go past the scrambled eggs with feta and they were right on the money, the eggs were direct from a local farm, in fact her menu is determined by local seasonal produce.

Scrambled eggs with feta

The tiny cafes kitchen churns out freshly made cakes, homemade jams and olive oil and trays of baklavas along with great coffee and fresh juices. If you fall in love with Sevtaps Mediterranean flavours you can take home her jams and olive oil and as from February you can buy her book full of her modern Turkish recipes.

Take home a part of Beachwood Cafe

Vine-ripened cherry tomatoes

Christmas is upon us…where did the year go? I will be cooking for Phil and Graeme on ABC North Coast Good Gardening this Saturday and since it is silly season I have come up with party bites for Christmas, fresh from the garden.

Here is one of those recipes, Stuffed Vine-Ripened Cherry Tomato Bites, I will also make Radish topped with Rare Roast beef and Ginger Mango Chutney and a Cucumber with Herb Pesto, Prawn Bite, stay tuned for the recipes. Enjoy.

Stuffed Vine-Ripened Cherry Tomato Bites

20 cherry tomatoes

1/2 cup cooked brown rice

2 tablespoons craisins, chopped

2 tablespoons pecans, toasted and chopped

3 green onions, finely sliced

50gms Greek feta, finely diced

1 tablespoon flat leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped

1 tablespoon basil leaves, finely chopped

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper

Cut the top from each tomato. Reserve the tops. Remove the flesh from the tomatoes. Reserve the flesh. Place the tomatoes, cut-side down, on a plate lined with paper towel. Strain the reserved flesh through a fine sieve into a bowl.

Combine the rice, craisins, pecans, green onions, feta, parsley, basil, cumin, vinegar and reserved tomato juice in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper.

Divide the rice mixture among the tomato shells and serve.

Nb. You can fill the tomato shells with cream cheese mixed with basil or boccocini (baby mozarella) with basil and sprinkled with a squeeze of lemon juice.

Organic Gardener Essential Guide to Herbs & Spices

If you love to grow or want to grow herbs then do yourselves a favour and grab the latest mag/book from ABC Organic Gardener. I am a tad biased as I have written a couple of articles on cooking with herbs and spices plus there is my Lemon, ginger four-herb salad with lemongrass chicken satay skewers recipe, great for summer barbies.

Phil & Juls on tour

If you are in the far north coast of NSW tune in to ABC North Coast this Saturday morning between 8.30 – 9.30am. I will cook up the herb recipe in the studio and Phil will chat to Penny Woodward, herb expert and contributor to this mag/book. Enjoy!

Local fisherman John Jarvis supervising the cooking of his catch

This was my fourth visit to the Eden Whale Festival. I was there with the Sydney Fish Market  to Get Fresh with Fish with the local community. We cooked with under utilised seafood, seafood that is aplenty in our ocean and low in price.

Having a Whale of a time at this years Eden Whale Festival

I not only cooked recipes from Sydney Fish Market Fishline (which is a free advisory service that has recipes galore to access) I was priviliged to chat to local fisherman John Jarvis who has been on the high seas for a number of years and now has his own vessel, The Imlay. His wife runs the best fish & chip shop in Eden and I think their secret is fresh seafood that John brings in.

Mirror Dory with Piquillo Mayo

This is the one of the dishes we cooked up Mirror Dory ‘Fingers’ with Piquillo Mayo
click on the recipe title to grab the recipe. Enjoy.

Eden Whale Festival parade

The Eden Whale Festival parade is great to watch with a fantastic float manned by a crew of nuns, Eden Primary School were dressed in Killer Whale black & white colours and of course the line of vintage cars and trucks. Looking forward to 2012 Whale festival.

Pickled beetroot

I harvested beetroot last week from my garden and it was so satisfying pickling, making relish and cooking up beetroot chips…yum

Beetroot harvest

As Phil and I wrote in the harvest section of the latest ABC Organic Gardener mag beetroots are so easy to grow and cook. Once you have eaten fresh beetroot you won’t go back to canned beetroot. Pickling is easy all you need to do is slice cooked and peeled 4 medium sized beetroots into rounds and place into a sterilised jar.

Boil up 150mls of vinegar of your choice with 4 tablespoons brown sugar add some whole spices and stir until sugar dissolves. Pour the hot brew over the sliced beetroot and seal with a lid.

I also made beetroot chips. peel and finely slice a beetroot. Heat up vegetable oil in a saucepan to 180C. Add the beetroot in batches and cook for 2-3 minutes. Sprinkle with salt. Enjoy.

For more recipes and tips on growing and harvesting with beetroot buy the Nov/Dec ABC Organic mag.

Somer Sivrioglu from Efendy

I went to Turkey with my taste buds on Monday night at the Sydney Seafood School. Somer Sivrioglu head chef/owner of Effendy Restaurant in Balmain, Sydney presented Turkish meze dishes.

Kadayifli Karides with Muhammara

Somer made Kadayif-wrapped Prawns with Walnut Capsicum Dip which was easy to reproduce when it came to our turn to cook. I will be making this for Christmas. The prawns are wrapped in kataifi pastry and baked and served on top of a walnut capsicum dip which originated from Syria.

Asmada Sardalya

We also had Sardines Wrapped in Vine Leaves, delicious and easy. The butterflied sardines are stuffed with parsley, mint, pine nuts and currants and then wrapped in vine leaves and char-grilled.

Midye Tava with Tarator

Beer-battered Mussels with Walnut Sauce was a real hit with our group.  Mussels are an underutilized seafood and not expensive, once you get the hang of shelling the mussel meat it is a quick dish to prepare.

All the dishes we made and happily ate are served at Effendy. If you haven’t been to this Modern Turkish restaurant do your best to get there and if you want to learn how to do some Turkish Meze Somer will be back at the Seafood School in January 2012.

I would love to go back to Turkey. I toured there in my backpacking days and found the Turks to be the friendliest people, especially if you were an Aussie. I especially loved hanging out in the rug shops drinking mint tea….let’s go to Turkey!