Salade Composée

Salade Composée is just a posh way of saying a big salad, nicely presented.
This splendid affair shows just what you can do with leftovers, and yet create a restaurant-worthy main course salad.

I love these sort of 'clean up the fridge' meals (or in Dutch: opruimkast maaltijden) where you use all sorts of leftovers that are hanging around in the fridge.

This is what we had ready to be used from the meals and leftovers from the last couple of days:

• salad leaves
• old bread
• half an aubergine
• cooked green beans
• sugar snaps
• fried mushrooms
• cold beetroot risotto
• pea purée
• sun-dried tomatoes
• black olives
• endive leaves
• cheese

We have been growing rucola over the last month and so a handful of this went in as well

All you need to do is to arrange it in a pile on a plate.
I filled leaves of endive with the beetroot risotto and pea purée and arranged those round the outside.

Then it is just a question of putting some dressing over it or a dollop of mayonnaise....and eating it up with relish.
I would have happily paid €15 for this in a restaurant :=)

Cordon Bleu Courgette Bread

Simple pleasures and simple recipes.
This one will cost you very little time or effort, and you will be rewarded with a sweetish bread that you can eat at breakfast (toasted to accompany fruit and yogurt), at lunch (spread with a variety of delicious edibles), or for dinner (with salads or topped with pate etc as a nibble with drinks). I think the next time I shall make it with less sugar because I do not have such a sweet tooth; but you decide for yourself.

Simple pleasures, simple recipe, no further explanation needed, so time to get on with it!

Cordon Bleu Courgette Bread
Makes 2 1lb loaves

375 g courgettes, grated (not necessary to peel first)
3 eggs, beaten
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
125 ml vegetable oil
375 g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
100 g sugar
75 g pine nuts

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C

2. Combine the courgettes, eggs, lemon zest, lemon juice and oil in a large bowl.

3. Into another bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in the sugar.

4. Make a well in the centre of the flour and add the courgette mixture, then the nuts.

5. Mix everything together until well mixed.

6. Spoon into 2 x 1 lb greased and floured loaf tins.

7. Bake for 60-65 minutes until a knife inserted into the loaf comes out clean.

8. Cool for 5 minutes in the tins before turning out and allowing to cool as long as possible before you can resist the temptation to slice and try......For me it wasn't that long.....

Roasted Pumpkin with Blue Cheese, Walnuts & Honey

Thank you Carol (my friend from of the 'childbirth was like shelling peas' fame in the last blog) for this delicious idea! It apparently originates from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, whose cookbooks I do not own (at the moment).

The original recipe used a butternut squash, but all I had to hand was a two week old round, orange pumpkin....If you use a bigger pumpkin then you will need to scale this up accordingly.

This is a delectable mixture of soft roasted pumpkin mixed in with crunchy walnut pieces, melting blue cheese, and drizzled with honey. Yummy. And then some.

Roasted Pumpkin with Blue Cheese, Walnuts & Honey
Serves 1-2

1 small pumpkin
25g walnuts, shelled
30g blue cheese, chopped into small chunks
2 sprigs thyme, leaves stripped
Honey, to taste
Salt & pepper

1. Pre-heat to 200 deg C

2. Cut pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds. Place a knob of butter in the hollow of each half, along with a small clove of garlic, salt & pepper. Drizzle with olive oil, and place in the oven for 20-30 minutes until the pumpkin flesh is tender.

3. While the pumpkin is getting a roasting, put the walnuts in the oven along with it. But do keep an eye on them. After about 7 minutes they will start to turn from golden brown to cremated. It is a fine line between good and disastrous ;=) When toasted, allow them to cool, then chop roughly.

4. When tender, scoop the pumpkin flesh out into a bowl, making sure that you leave a thick enough lining so that the pumpkin is sturdy enough to support the coming filling. Depending on how much flesh there is you may have enough to fill both halves; if not (as in my case) just use one half.

5. Mash the flesh up with the cloves of garlic and thyme. Add most of the walnuts and most of the blue cheese chunks. Keep a few over to sprinkle over in a few moment's time. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then pile this mixture into the pumpkin shell.

6. Sprinkle over the reserved walnuts and blue cheese. Drizzle with honey and place back in the oven for 10-15 minutes until everything is warmed through and temptingly melting.

7. Then all you need to do is to serve and eat.....not that difficult....but remember that you don't have to eat the skin as well!

Jayne Jubb's Portabello Mushrooms Stuffed with Kapucijner Puree

I've discovered that here in The Netherlands we have a vegetable that is rarely found fresh anywhere else.

The 'kapucijner'.

The English translation is marrowfat peas. Doesn't sound very appetising, does it? This is a pity because these peas are such gorgeous looking vegetables with a deep reddish purple pod. There must be some outstanding recipe worthy of these little beauties..... but a quick search of the internet wasn't really of much help in providing any inspirational recipes. So I decided to go it alone.

Being a Northern Lass, I was brought up with mushy peas. From a tin, or the chip shop. But the puree in this recipe is far from the processed mushy peas of my youth. And with this blog post today, I have given myself the credit in the title for this surprising and tasty mealtime morsel.

In these days of fast living, there is something quite therapeutic about sitting in the garden early in the evening to liberate the peas from their pods. I felt somehow connected to generations of mothers and grandmothers sitting knitting by open fires and on winter evenings shelling peas. I was also contemplating what my friend, Carol, who had just been to visit for a few days had told me that giving birth to her 4 kids was like shelling peas. But all this aside, there is something rather satisfying about ending up with a pan full of round, green peas and a pile of purple-skinned pods.


Jayne Jubb's Portabello Mushrooms Stuffed with Kapucijner Puree
Serves 2-4

4 medium Portabello mushrooms
500-750g kapucijners (marrowfat peas): gives 300-400g shelled peas
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 spring onion
15g Parmesan, finely grated
1 tsp truffle oil (or olive oil would also be fine)
1 tbspn chopped mint
Salt & pepper, to taste

To serve:
Finely grated Parmesan
Finely grated lemon zest
Whole mint leaves

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 deg C.

2. Place the shelled kapucijners in a pan of salted boiling water with the garlic and spring onion. Cook for 15 minutes until the peas are tender.

3. Place the Portabello mushrooms on a baking tray. Season with salt, pepper, drizzle with olive oil, and place a knob of butter in each mushroom. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, until the mushrooms are cooked.

4. With a slotted spoon, fish out all the cooked peas, garlic and the spring onion and transfer to a food processor. Puree to a very coarse mixture, before adding the grated Parmesan, truffle oil, chopped mint. Then process again until you have a knobbly puree. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

5. Once the mushrooms are cooked, divide the kapucijner puree over the mushrooms, and place back in the oven for 5 minutes to warm through.

6. Serve with finely grated Parmesan and lemon zest sprinkled over, and a couple of mint leaves to make it look pretty.

Thomasina Mier's Roast Aubergine with Feta & Mint

This is truly delicious.

Imagine: smooth velvety aubergine with a light undertone of cumin, topped with tangy feta cheese with an interlude of fresh mint.

The last little while I seem to be going back to my vegetarian roots. I've just not being fancying fish, which I have grown to love over the last 4 years. As a result, I've been exploring old veggie cookbooks that I haven't looked in for ages (hence, Nadine Abensur will be making a few guest appearances, as she already did in the Dafina recipe a few days ago). This aubergine recipe does not come from that category but who cares - it's delicious. This comes from the stable of Thomasina Myers, BBC Masterchef winner from 2005, who has a talent for combining flavours that you would not normally think could - or would - go together.

Thomasina Mier's Roast Aubergine with Feta & Mint
Serves 4-6

1 garlic clove
Juice 1/2 lemon
Extra virgin olive oil
250 g feta cheese, cubed
Large handful fresh mint, chopped
1 large fresh red chilli, deeseeded and finely copped (I didn't use this)
4 aubergines, halved lengthwways
2 tsp cumin seed, warmed and crushed (or 1 tsp ground cumin)
Sea salt & black pepper

1. To make the marinated feta: Use a mortar & pestle to crush the garlic to a paste with a good few pinches of sea salt. Add the lemon juice and a good glug of olive oil (1-2 tblspn). Toss the feta lightly in the dressing together with the mint and chilli (if using). Season with black pepper and cover with more olive oil. Leave to marinate in the 'fridge for at least a few hours, but it can also be overnight.

2. To prepare the aubergine: pre-heat oven to 200 deg C. Make diagonal crisscross slashes on the cut side of the aubergines and season with salt and pepper.

3. Heat 2 tblspn olive oil in a frying pan and fry the aubergine in batches that fit the pan, cut-side down, for 5-10 minutes until beautifully golden.
It may be necessary to add more olive oil.


4. Place the aubergine, cut-side up, on a shallow baking tray and sprinkle with the cumin. Place in the oven for 25 minutes until the flesh is soft.

5. When you are ready to eat, arrange the aubergine on a large serving plate or platter. Sprinkle the marinated feta over the still warm aubergine and serve. Thomasina also suggests adding pomegranate seeds or sunblush tomatoes for an extra blast of colour.

Nadine Abensur's Dafina

What's a dafina I hear you asking?
It is a pot full of tradition containing three courses in one pan.

Rarely have I read a recipe that got me so intrigued that I wanted to make it just to feel like I was taking part in tradition. It so grabbed me by the male vegetables (if I had them!) that I could not wait to try it out.

A dafina is a Moroccan stew-like dish cooked by Jewish people in anticipation of the Sabbath. It used to be cooked overnight in huge, walk-in communal ovens. The doors were sealed when everyone who had booked his or her place had delivered a pot and tipped handsomely to guarantee the best and hottest spot for their own dish in the oven. Each family's pot was marked appropriately so that there could be no confusion when collecting it on the way back from the Synagogue. Nowadays we can imitate this by cooking the whole 'stew' at a lowish heat in an oven for anything from 8-18 hours (overnight thus, and then some more).

What really fascinated me in this recipe was the fact that there are three courses in one pan. What are those foil objects? They are hiding and protecting the most delicious stuffing and rice, which are cooked along with the rest of the ingredients - how quirky and ingenious can something get? There's even an egg in its shell that has been boiled in there too. The dafina would not win any beauty competitions for being the prettiest dish to look at (see photo), but my word, the experience more than compensates.

HOW TO EAT DAFINA
First the potatoes and the peeled eggs are served with a little of the broth.
I must be honest here and say that I didn't like the egg- it reminded me of something mummified that may have been found alongside King Tut.
Second, you eat the rice and the stuffing

Lastly, the chickpeas in plenty of the soupy broth are devoured.

The recipe below is Nadine's original recipe for 4 people and you'll need a 3 litre casserole dish to cook it in (that is large). I scaled it down for just one person (me!) and used a 1.25 litre Le Creuset pan. I assembled mine (it takes about 20 minutes) in the morning and let it fester in the oven all day until 8pm that evening. Plese don't be put off by the long list of ingredients - they are lots of 'bits' which make it sound longer than it actually is.

Nadine Abensur's Dafina
Serves 4

1 cup dried chickpeas
1 good-sized onion
5 tbsp olive oil
2 carrots, peeled
1 leek, trimmed
5-6 plump garlic cloves
1.5-2 litres water
4 large eggs
8 potatoes, each about the size of a small child's fist
1 vegetable stock cube
1.5 tsp Marmite (yes, honestly - it gives a salty, tangy depth)
1 pinch saffron, plus 1 extra pinch for the rice and 1 generous pinch for the stock
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp bouillon powder
Couple dashes Tabasco
2 bay leaves
Few dried porcini mushrooms
1 small date or dried prune
1 cup pudding rice or risotto rice
Salt & pepper

Dafina Stuffing
1 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove
3 tbspn matzo meal or breadcrumbs
3 tbspn ground almonds
Few strands saffron
Pinch nutmeg
1 small carrot, grated
Few raisins
1 tbspn parsely, finely chopped
1 egg, beaten
Salt & pepper

1. Begin the day before you want to cook this by soaking the chickpeas in plenty of water overnight.

2. The next day, pre-heat the oven to 200 deg C and roughly chop the onion and fry until brown in just 1.5 tblspns oil, placed in your casserole dish.

3. Add the carrots, cut into long quarters as well as the leek, cut into 3 stumpier pieces. They should begin to brown a little before you add the garlic and (drained) chickpeas, covered with at least 1.5 litres water. Remove the casserole dish from the heat while you continue to assemble.

4. Next add the eggs, rinsed under cold water and dried carefully. Then add the potatoes followed by the rest of the seasonings - the vegetable stock cube, Marmite, stirred in, saffron, nutmeg, bouillon and Tabasco. The dish is not meant to be spicy, so go easy on the Tabasco, since it is only used to round off the taste. Finally, add the bay leaves, dried porcini, date or prune and you will see how the natural sugars seep into the broth and add to its deep intensity.

5. Place the rice in a bowl and moisten it with 1 tbspn oil. Stir in 1 tbspn boiling water, into which you have crumbled a pinch of bouillon, a pinch of saffron strands, sea salt and a dash of Tabasco.

6. Tear off a generous piece of foil, about 20 x 25cm, and place the rice in the middle. Traditionally, this would have been muslin, though foil works well despite its apparently inpenetrability.

7. Roll the foil around the rice tightly folding the edges together over and over, so that the rice has room to swell as it cooks.

8. For the dafina stuffing, fry the chopped onion until very soft and brown. Then add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Oil a large piece of foil, add the stuffing to the middle of it and fold it up tightly - just like above for the rice.

9. Put the foil packages of rice and stuffing in the casserole dish on top of the chickpeas, topping up with water so that it is immersed. Add the remaining oil. Cover with a heavy lid and place in the oven for 2 hours at 200 deg C.

10. After 2 hours, turn the heat right down to 100 deg C and leave for anything from 8-18 hours. Check it occasionally to make sure that it isn't drying out too much, and if it seems to be getting a little dry, then add some boiling water.

11. All that remains to be done now is to eat it...and enjoy the tradition, mystique and uniqueness ;=)

Marvellous Meringues

These meringues are so gay that you would not be surprised to read that they went down a treat with a group of gay male friends a few weeks ago. I was invited to dinner ('please bring dessert'), and of the nine of us present I was the only genuine XX there. The others were all female 'wannabees' :=) The photo here on the right is obviously not of my friends (it's from 2007 Gay Pride) because I wanted to protect their internet innocence, I mean, privacy. They may be crazy but they are not so crazy that they'd walk around Amsterdam, half-naked like this. in winter/spring...well...

These meringues are a scaled down version of Nigella Lawson 's Wedding Meringues. It is just a simple meringue recipe which could have come from Delia Smith or Mrs. Beeton, but Nigella always brings to mind something so much more sinful & sexy. I scaled it down from 12 egg whites to a mere 4, and it made 12 whoppers.

People are always so impressed with meringues, as though they are something hallowed in culinary dexterity. But they are not difficult to make by any stretch of the imagination and use just 2 ingredients. However if people want to gaze at my meringues in silent awe then that's fine with me :=)

The great thing about meringues is that you can freeze them and then whip them out for quick desserts. You can drizzle chocolate over them, dollop on cream or thick Greek yogurt, add jam, fruit, berries. I even have got quite 'retro' and sprinkled over crumbled Aero bars and Cadbury's Flake. The possibilities are large - from chic to crass - a flexibility to be appreciated and exploited!

Marvellous Meringues
Makes 10-12

4 egg whites
175 g sugar

1. Pre-heat the oven to 140 deg C

2. Whisk the egg whites with an electric mixer/beater until firm and beginning to hold their peaks. Then gradually whisk in the sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, patiently whipping until you have a stiff shiny meringue.

3. Line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper (or those silicon re-useable sheets I'm so fond of). Spoon dollops of the meringue mixture - about 2 dessertspoonfuls per meringue - onto the sheets and spread out to make 8-10cm diameter blobs. Make sure you leave some space between the meringues because they will puff up as they cook.

4. Rough up the top of the meringues using a spoon to make rough peaks so that become textured and frilly.

5. Cook for 45-60 minutes. When ready they should be dry on the outside and still feel a little marshmallowy on the inside. Once out of the oven, let them become completely cold before you try to move them because they are fragile and may shatter.

6. Decorate and serve with whatever you fancy. Here in the picture I used some defrosted frozen berries and a little double cream poured over.