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Radishes a la Creme

This isn’t cooking in any sense of the word. It’s cutting up some radishes and putting a blob of creme fraiche next on top.

If you don’t have a watermelon radish, or daikon it’s not going to be particularly exciting. That said – if you do it really works !

The combination of the three radishes (salad, daikon and watermelon) offers different textures and crunches.

Dressed with some whipped up Creme Fraiche and salt and pepper – this dish couldn’t be simpler or quicker provided you have a very sharp knife.

You never know what you are going to get when you buy a watermelon radish. Sometimes they are really colourful inside and look amazing. Other times (like this time) they just don’t offer the amazing contrast on the plate.

Red Beet Salad

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We cook with beetroot (red beets) a lot. It’s not unusual for us to have several bunches on the go at once. To think that as a youngster I assumed you only got this out of a jar in vinegar is quite unbelievable.

It’s good to keep track of the times you eat beetroot. It does tend to colour ‘things’ a day later!

More importantly, if you are cooking with fresh beetroot you have to be prepared to get red splatters everywhere and to gradually discolour all your chopping boards! Definitely keep the book you are following well away from them!

We typically roast beetroot in a halogen oven – then peel it and add it to dishes but this dish is with raw beetroot.

If you are as unfortunate as I was – to get the smallest beetroots ever – you’ll find peeling them and julienning them to be very fiddly indeed. Bigger beetroot is better I think – although you can’t predict what will arrive in your online shop.

This dish is essentially beef tartare with the beef substituted for raw beetroot. The dressing has capers, cornichon, parsley, dijon mustard, olive oil and spring onions (scallions). The recipe suggests serving with hard boiled eggs – which is convenient given I had two left over from the Egyptian Bean Salad!

Looks beautiful doesn’t it! Marinate the beetroot in the dressing for a while and it’ll really come together beautifully.

This is a great salad – but it can get messy – so be careful and don’t wear your best T-Shirt!

Egyptian Breakfast Beans

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I was going to hold off making this until the dried peeled fava beans arrived from souschef.co.uk but we happened to have a couple of tins of broad beans in our shop this week. I’m assured that fava beans and broad beans are the same thing but I’m not convinced.

Anyway I made this recipe without the slog of boiling the fava beans for an hour and it came out pretty good. You essentially boil up the beans until they start to fall apart, add garlic and olive oil and cook some more. Serving is simply spooning it in a bowl and garnishing with red onion, ripe tomatoes and hard boiled eggs. The dusting of toasted and ground cumin seeds really finishes the dish off.

I will make this properly when the dried fava beans arrive but the tinned beans variety wasn’t bad at all. Very filling and warming. We really like this kind of warm dish dressed with raw onions and chopped tomatoes. It’s like seasoning it with salt and pepper.

This took less than 30 mins to make but I did cheat with the tinned beans.

Moroccan Carrots

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If you – like me – always end up with a bag of carrots in your fridge then this is what you should make with them.

I love this – and it is so easy.

Boil and simmer some carrots and when they are tender drain them and let them cool right down. Then make the dressing which as just enough ginger and garlic to give you a bit of heat but not too much that it overpowers the carrots.

Mash the carrots a bit (I didn’t as I didn’t have a masher! – I just blitzed them for 5 seconds in a Magimix) and dress the carrots in the dressing and top with mixed olives, feta and coriander (cilantro in the book) and optionally some spring onion (scallions) and preserved lemons.

This really is a keeper – and I can’t imagine not having this every week. There’s loads left over too (there’s only the two of us) so we’ll have the rest for lunch at work.

Hopefully the dressing with infuse even more with the carrots and it’ll be even better!

One Good Dish – David Tanis

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I was drawn to this book by the dish on the cover – Radishes a la Creme.

The books is from the US I think as they refer to Scallions (Spring Onions), Beets (beetroot) and everything is in imperial and cups. Not that this matters at all. Everyone should have cups and imperial measures anyway!

I’ve shortlisted these recipes from the book as ones I’d like to make:

Gorgonzola and Walnut Crostini
Cucumber Spears with Dill
Moroccan Carrots
Radishes a la Creme
Polenta ‘Pizza’ with Crumbled Sage
Red Beet salad
Seaweed Salad with Sesame Dressing
Quick Scallion Kimchee
Save Your Life Garlic Soup
Egyptian Breakfast Beans
South Indian Cabbage with Black Mustard Seeds
Just Wilted Arugula
Steamed Asian Greens
Slow Roasted Tomatoes
Swiss Chard Al Forno
Scorched Sweet Potatoes and Onions
Parsley Salad
Sweet and Salty Nut Brittle

I expect to make at least half of these in the coming weeks. The seaweed salad appealed to me the most but required me to find a specialist ingredient supplier. Try souschef.co.uk for anything you can’t find in your regular online supermarket. I found all sorts on there!

Diana Henry – a Change of Appetite

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Cooking for a week from one book doesn’t necessarily mean the book is any good. On paper this book shouldn’t have been any good because it was given to me as a cast off.

What I tend to do is go from cover to cover and write down everything I think I’d practically like to make in a week.

I only sieved through pages 1 – 180 and picked the following recipes from ‘a Change of Appetite’:

Feta and Orange Salad with Honeyed Almonds
Greek Yoghurt and Apricot Ice Cream
Asparagus Veneto Style
Artichoke and Ricotta Salad with Honeyed Preserved Lemon Dressing
Middle Eastern Leeks with Yoghurt, Dill and Sumac
Spring Barley Couscous with Harissa and Buttermilk Sauce
Shaved Vegetables with Lemon and Olive Oil
Middle Eastern Yoghurt Bread
Grapefruit and Mint Sorbet
Nectarine, Tomato and Basil Salad with Torn Mozzarella
Goats Cheese and Cherry Salad with Almonds and Basil Gremolata
Turkish Spoon Salad with Haydari
Raspberries with Basil and Buttermilk Sherbert
Roast Tomatoes and Lentils with Dukkah Crumbed Eggs
Celeriac, Radicchio, Fennel and Apple Salad with Hazelnuts
Carrot, Cabbage and Apple Salad with Caraway
Roast Pumpkin and Jerusalem Artichokes with Agresto
Cavolo Nero and Bulgar Pilaf with Glazed Figs
Watercress and Carrot Salad
Kisir
Indian Spiced Spinach and Mushrooms with Black Lentils and Paneer
Pliaf of Mixed Grains, Sweet Potato and Fennel with Avocado Cream

I only stopped because there was definitely enough to make in one week. I’ll go through the rest of the book another time.

After shortlisting everything I want to make we then decide what we actually want the following week applying the logic that we need 4 evening dishes and 5 lunchtime dishes and maybe a few extra. We then try and order all the ingredients on Ocado.

There are number of recipes on the list above that I haven’t made yet – but I will.

I’d say this book has a very good selection of recipes for all types of cook – and that most of the recipes are pretty easy to make. You certainly won’t be slaving in the kitchen for hours. Nothing I made in this book took me more than an hour. Half the things I made were just throw it together in a bowl and eat straight away. Perfect for work where you don’t usually have much more than a microwave.

In summary, I’ll be making recipes from this book regularly. It has plenty of no meat, low-carb recipes and most of the ingredients are readily available.