Overcast Light

26/09 OVERCAST LIGHT

Food for thought? Food for fuel? Food for fun. Because to be honest, when the going gets tough, the tough get seriously hungry. This is always the case when it comes to uprooting your life, and this meal is an all in one pre- and post-adventure comfort. It really is just a way to plate up nearly all my favourite ingredients at once (as is the case here, often ready in the fridge).

This particular one holds particularly fond memory in my mind. The blissful last week in Australia, where everything was perfect because it was coming to an end (for now). There was one day where I should have been preparing, but instead shared this and a bottle of grigio in the overcast warmth - my kind of heaven. This is always going to be a plate of overcast happiness.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1 Salmon Fillet
3 Eggs
100ml Milk
1 Broccoli
1 Avocado
200g String Beans
70g Goats cheese
Lemon
Salt + Pepper


What I did - 

Really not a stressful cook, just one to do when you have some time at home to juggle the different ingredients. Start by throwing the salmon fillet under a hot grill for about 15 minutes with some lemon, salt and pepper. It doesn't need to cook through, just catch enough to colour on one side.

Whisk the eggs together until pale, add the milk and a chunk of the goats cheese and beat again. In a small baking dish, flake the salmon in the bottom. Pour over the eggs, sprinkle with salt and pepper again and throw into the oven for about 20 minutes at 200degrees. The heat needs to be high so that the eggs inflate around the fish.

While the bake is on, steam the broccoli and beans, or blanche them for 5 minutes. Really don't cook these through, keep them crunchy and hot. Drain/take them off the heat and add to a large salad bowl. Crumble the remaining goats cheese over, gouge out the avocado and squeeze the life out of the lemon. Quickly tumble through the bowl, the heat from the vegetables will melt the cheese with the soft avocado and lemon. It should end up a white-flecked bowl of sharp greenness.

Once the eggs have inflated appropriately, like a blimp, take the dish out of the oven. Serve direct from the dish at the table. Have your guest deal with the wine. Immediate perfection.

JG

Over or Under

06/09 OVER or UNDER

There is a strange moment before any journey where you need to stop and meditate on all the turns and paths ahead of you. The road isn't always going to be straightforward, or smooth - you face the decision to go over the mountain or under it. If the mountain defeats you, where then will you go? The rugged peats of these profiterole mountains are an untameable beauty, yet inside these small pastry mountains is a creamy heaven waiting to be found.

Together they collide in spectacular form, the clashing textures are unified with nutty cocoa creaminess - eloquent I know. They appear to involve much more work than there actually is - the most annoying part will be washing up just because you end up with a stack of used bowls. They are calming to make, and provide quick reassurance that even the most daunting adventure is always full of surprises. 

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

150g Plain Flour
50g Butter
3/4 Cup Water
1/2 Tsp salt
3 eggs
100ml Cream
50g Dark Chocolate
1tbls Nutella
Handful of chopped almonds


What I did - 

Don't panic! This isn't a recipe of pain, it is a thing of great beauty. Simply because it involves little to no skill and creates delicacies of awe.

Start by melting the butter into the water with the salt. Once dissolved add the flour and return to the heat for a brief moment while you mix it into a single paste - the water will evaporate and it will become a dough almost instantly. Transfer to a food processor (or a bowl and a strong, fast arm) and one by one add the eggs. The end result will be a sticky paste - less of a dough than before. Dollop tablespoon amounts onto a lined baking tray and bake for 40 minutes at 180 degrees. Easy.

Turnt he oven off and let them cool completely into puffed pastry shells. Whip the cream with the nutella until firm, then using a piping bag poke a hole in each pastry and  squeeze until they are fattened with the nutty cream.

Put in the fridge while the chocolate is attended to. Melt until black and glistening. Then bathe the top of each profiterole in the molten chocolate. Sit them upright on a tray and scatter the almonds on the top.

Leave in the fridge for half an hour before eating so that all the different components come to an agreeable temperature and the chocolate is wonderfully matted. Fiddly fun, and you've now got cream on your face.

JG

Magic Carpet-bowl

31/08 MAGIC CARPET-BOWL

Every turn's a surprise. A new horizon to soar, tumble, freewheel. Don't you dare close your eyes - cause you never know if you're going to miss something or crash and burn. This recipe is an adventure into the unknown and the exotic. It both works and doesn't work. It works in the sense that all the flavours match in and exotic quasi-middle eastern muddle - would transcend if pears were in season.

It also doesn't work because it can't be eaten on its own. The flavours overwhelm and need taming. Cream or yoghurt provide the right amount of cloudy lift to turn this into magic carpet - not one in need of a good steam clean. It can't show you the world, but it can open your eyes. Take you wonder by wonder. Over, sideways and under ;) 

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

2 Red Apples/Pears
75g Goats Cheese
1/2cup Almonds
1cup Dates
25ml Balsamic Vinegar
50ml Honey


What I did - 

Half apples/pears, remove the seeded core and cut into wafer thin slices - so thin that they flop disappointingly. Douse in the honey and vinegar and let steep for ten minutes.

Smash the almonds into a slivered mess. Cut (and pip) the dates. Crumble the chalky goats cheese. Combine with the apples and fold through the sticky mess. It will take a while to turn completely, when ready everything will be slicked with a honey enamel.

Transfer to an exotic bowl and serve with a small amount of yoghurt - with the vinegar it cuts through the incredible sweetness.

JG

Scatterbrained Tuna

18/08 SCATTERBRAINED TUNA

P.S. It's my birthday... 

Too much! At the moment there is too much of everything. Too much to handle. Too much to deal with. Too much left in the fridge. The only thing to do is make the most of the situation. In the case of my life, and indeed everyones life, you can't complain about what you don't have if you don't try to get it. Contrariwise you can't use what you don't have. So con fuddle your brain with a massive bowl of jumble.

This jumble was once a tuna salad which got lost, went in two directions at once and ended up somewhere between bonkers and delicious. There is a lot of ingredients I know, what was available in the kitchen - but divide them into their families and they can all be substituted. The crunch family, the soft family and the sloppy family (the dressing). My intuitive sense of the human creature tells me that we are all scatterbrained, so try this and see if anything makes sense - our at least it will all make no sense together.

Ingredients (all approximate) - Feeds ALOT or lasts for days*

1/2 Iceberg Lettuce
1/4 Red Cabbage
1 Onion
3 Tomato
3 Carrots
1/2 Celery
1 Avocado
6 Mushrooms
1 Tin Tuna (185g)
1 Tin mixed beans
Hummus
Apricot Chutney
Olive Oil
Vinegar
Salt + Pepper

*so I hope you like it


What I did - 

There is nothing more stressful then a complicated salad. So this tries to be the opposite. Despite the large variety of ingredients, there are three main factors - the crunchy, the soft and the dressing.

The crunchy ingredients up for the chop are lettuce, cabbage, onion, carrots, celery. The carrots are best shredded on a large gauge grater. The onion, cabbage and lettuce sliced into thin spindly strands. The celery diced into thin moon-shapes. The main thing is to make each ingredient thinner and easier to fork. Tumble into a large mixing bowl.

The soft ingredients are mushrooms, avocado, tomato, tuna and beans. Open and drain the tuna and beans, then turn into the bowl of crunch. Gouge out the pale green avocado with a spoon until all that remains is satisfying spoon scrape on the husk. Tear up the mushrooms and add to the top of the heaving mixing bowl.

The dressing is the easiest part, and most satisfying. In a glass jar add the hummus, chutney, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Shake violently until all the ingredients succumb to a emulsified thickness. Empty over the top of the mixing bowl.

With a grain of patience use two large serving spoons to mix the bowl together. The former pile up of ingredients will slowly come together. Once mixed let it sit for half an hour, allowing all the ingredients to soften slightly and become the one deliciously scatterbrained salad.

JG

Pressed for Time

05/08 PRESSED FOR TIME

Time goes by so slowly for those who wait. Those who run have all the fun - apparently. This also means that there is no time to slowly lounge around the kitchen so when the going gets tough you gotta get going. Nothing more instant than a grilled cheese sandwich and nothing more satisfying either. 

However I've always had a couple of niggles, namely the stodgy feel if there isn't anything to counter the oozy cheesy breadiness. Also they need a boost to make them the instant recharge you need. Problem solved! Instead of loading the sandwich up with tomato and other things, which end up getting weighed down in cheese an egg cracked into the middle cooks gloriously. A tomato on the side tricks your brain into health mode... sort of. Either way its delicious and immediate, when all hung up this is what to do.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1 Egg
2 Slices ANY bread
50g(ish) cheese
Mustard
Butter
Tomato
Salt + Pepper


What I did - 

So long as you have a scalding iron grill there is no way to mess this recipe up. Separate the two pieces of bread and butter the top of the top slice. Add a thin smear of mustard to the bottom layer. Lay the cheese evenly over the yellow spread. Make sure the grill is ready to go the put the cheese base on.

With the Heat filtering through crack the egg carefully in the middle, salt & pepper it. If it tries to escape just hold it in place until you can squash the top of the sandwich on. The yolk should crack with the pressure of the grill lid applied - yellow goo will sizzle from the crusts. As this cooks the cheese and egg will amalgamate and become one oozing hot mess.

Can't really over cook this so keep it spluttering in the grip until it looks enticingly burnished. Serve with a tomato diced on the side, sprinkled with salt and pepper. (you can cook it together but it makes the sandwich soggy and tomato scalding and watery).

JG

The Leftovers

23/07 THE LEFTOVERS

When there is nothing in the fridge, and all you have are half leftovers from dinner the night before there is only one solution. The master plan which only involves one ingredient to make it the leftovers work for you. An egg. You can tie any old scraps together to make something deliberate and delicious with just one egg. 

There is no wrong way to do this, or indeed a right way. This is just the a result of the leftover greens I had, and a need for something fried and molten. The salad was a mix of greens with a lemon/oil dressing, clinging to the last of its life with its sharp tang. To add more sharpness some balsamic was splattered on the egg, which oozed with the yolk and became an instant hot dressing. Dive headfirst into the fridge, leftovers are life. 

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1 Egg

1/2 Fennel
300g Brussel Sprouts
200g Broccolini
2 Baby Cos Lettuce
1 Avocado
50g Parmesan
1 Lemon


What I did - 

No point going into great detail about the salad, because it can be substituted with any salad left wilting in the fridge - or indeed some cold roast vegetables. This salad was a big green slap in the face. Steamed broccoli and sprouts added hot to a bowl of chopped lettuce, fennel and silky avocado. The dressing was grated parmesan, lemon juice and olive oil emulsified together by the heat from the steamed offerings.

The next day it was still crisp - fennel is a hardy vegetable - and only had softened the rest slightly. I wouldn't go after a two day old version, a haggard bowl is never appealing. Now for the saucy bit. The egg was cracked into a frypan with a small slug of oil, fried to perfection (about a minute and a half), then slid off the pan onto the greens.

Dusted with salt + pepper and polka dotted with balsamic vinegar. Hard to resist plunging a knife deep into the yolk - so don't. Sacrifice the egg for survival.

JG

Sesauliflower!

13/07 SESAULIFLOWER

When a craze takes hold is it hard to shake - at the moment a craving for sesame oil and hunting Pokemon. With the world suddenly obsessed with Japanese pop culture - at a level not seen since the millennium - this hybrid evolved. This is all the power up you will need to go out into the night for hours on end to hunt down creatures all over the city.

Not hard to make, this only need a couple of ingredients - vegetable drawer leftovers. The cauliflower has been transformed by the extreme heat of the iron griddle. A most underrated kitchen weapon. The sesame seeds and oil boost the flavour to its maximum. You only need to add chilli and salt to taste then get out there, gotta catch 'em all.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1/2 Cauliflower
1 Cos Lettuce (smallish)
2 tbls Sesame Oil
2 tsp Sesame Seeds
1 tsp Chilli Powder (or to taste)
Salt

*I made this again for 2, doubled the recipe and added an any-way-you-like-egg on top


What I did - Oven preheated to 200degrees

The only rule of the griddle is you never oil the griddle. Slice the Cauliflower into 1cm(ish) slices, the smaller pieces will crumble off but no matter. Lie them flat on the top of the iron ridges. Liberally snow large flakes of salt over, followed by 1 teaspoon of sesame seeds then the red heat of the chilli powder. Finally lubricate lightly with 1 tablespoon of Sesame oil, just to force the heat through the white tufts. Blast in a 200 degree oven for about an hour until the white vegetable has transitioned through a warm ivory to a pale gold.

Cut the lettuce into slices and break the green leaves apart into a welcoming bowl. Place the delicate burnished cauliflower across the top. Make sure to scrape the burnt, salty shards and seeds from the iron griddle - cooks treat. Add the remaining sesame seeds and oil to the top with a final sprinkle of salt.

Let it sit for a couple of minutes to let the oil filter down each leaf to the depths of the bowl. Grab a fork. Recharge. Gotta catch 'em all.

JG