Walnut Pesto

This is a quick-fix cold pesto that works very well with almost any kind of pasta. If the ingredients are at hand it can easily be made in the time it takes to get the pasta al dente.

It has a very strong nutty flavour. If too dry, add a bit of pasta water before serving.

 

 

What you need

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 – 5 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 200 g walnuts, soaked in boiling water for 5 – 10 minutes, then drained
• 100 g pecorino romano, grated (not in the picture), parmesan if you don’t like sheep’s cheese
• 50 – 100 ml olive oil
• 100 ml fresh cream or double cream (if watching the pounds, single cream may do…)
• salt and pepper to season
• optionally: some finely pounded chilli pepper to taste

What you do

• Grind the nuts and mix with the pecorino.
• Blend with the liquid ingredients and, if necessary, some pasta water, to the desired consistency.
• Mix with ready pasta and serve with more grated pecorino or parmesan.

Orange-Chocolate Birthday Cake

It was my Dad’s 87^th birthday last month. My Mum used to make a cake a lot like this one, which is never dry because it is made without actual flour, for my sister’s or my birthday when we were small. So it’s a kind of double family celebration. What gave me the idea to include orange peel was a block of dark chocolate with orange I came across when looking through the cupboards.

 

 

What you need

• 3-4 eggs separated
• 80-100 g sugar
• 125 g ground almonds
• 4-5 petit-beurre biscuits, pounded (or similar biscuits)
• 100 g dark chocolate with orange
• 70 g butter
• 50 g orange peel or coarse cut bitter orange marmalade
• 50 ml Kirsch, Cognac or Grand-marnier (not in the picture)

What you do

1. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar for about 10 minutes until they are pale yellow.
2. Mix in the ground almonds.
3. Melt the chocolate and the butter and add the orange peel.
4. Stir in the brandy (if the chocolate goes lumpy then, add a tablespoon of iced water)
5. Gently mix the chocolate into the egg yolk and almonds.
6. Stir in the pounded petit-beurres / biscuits.
   
7. Whisk the egg whites until they are fluffy and keep their shape when you mould them into peaks.
8. With a spatula fold the beaten egg whites little by into chocolate egg almond mix. The mixture should be quite light and fluffy, similar to beaten eggs in texture.
9. Immediately pour into a well-greased cake tin and put in the oven preheated to 200°
10. Bake for about 50 minutes, checking after 40 minutes: a toothpick should be dry when it comes out of the cake. If it looks as if it is getting too dark on the top, cover with a sheet of silver foil.

 
 

Remark

This cake is best made the day before you need it because it becomes moister if left standing covered up.

My Dad often prefers smaller portions these days. The ingredients make a relatively small cake ideal for a small party. For more eaters simply double the amounts.

Parsnip-Madeira Ravioli with Beetroot Sauce

Although the temperatures at the moment look more like spring than winter, fresh veggies are still mainly of the root kind. We had some rare visitors the other day so I did do a little more in the kitchen; in other words this recipe requires a bit of extra work, mainly because of the homemade ravioli, but it does combine a variety of complementary tastes. It represents a meal in itself, but can be accompanied by a root vegetable bake (see below “remarks”).

What you need

• 2 shallots, chopped
• 3-4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 300 ml fresh cream (or 200 ml and 100 ml crème fraiche)
• veggie broth
• sunflower or rapeseed oil for frying
• 2 medium parsnips cubed (the smaller, the quicker)
• ca 2 dl madeira
• berbere (Ethiopian spice mix)
• 1 medium beetroot cubed (the smaller, the quicker)
• 1 dl dry white wine
• ca 500 g fresh pasta dough (see below)

What you do

In two sauteuses (high walled frying pan) basically do the same for each of the root vegetables:

1. Heat the oil and sweat the shallot and garlic mix without letting it brown.
2. Add the cubed vegetables and sauté to bring out their flavour
3. Season the parsnips with berbere, the beetroot with cumin, stirring while this goes on to enhance the flavour of the spices.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Deglaze both sauteuses, the parsnips with madeira, the beetroot with the white wine.
5. Top up with veggie broth to make sure the vegetables don’t burn but they must also not “swim” in liquid.
6. Add the cream to the parsnips (you can do the same with the beetroot, but it makes more sense to wait with this until just before serving; see below).
7. When they are soft, purée both and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook the parsnip mix a little longer to thicken if it is too liquid (it should be formable with a spoon).
8. Leave the parsnip mix to cool.
   
   
9. Roll out the dough for the ravioli and cut into shapes (I use a rather large mezzalune – halfmoon – shapes, which saves a lot of messing about).
10. Fill the ravioli making sure the outside is well flowered to prevent sticking and the inside is moist to ensure that the dough sticks together where it needs to.
11. Heat up the beetroot mix, add the cream (to contrast the sweetness of the ravioli you may want to use crème fraiche) and season to taste.
12. Before serving, bring salted water to the boil and lower the ravioli in gently in small amounts to prevent sticking. After roughly two to three minutes lift them out and serve them on a warm plate with the beetroot sauce.

Fresh pasta dough

It is of course possible to buy pasta dough. If you make it yourself, a good rule of thumb is 3 eggs, 300 g flour, 3 pinches of salt and optionally 1 tablespoon of olive oil to keep the dough supple, kneaded until it forms a smooth, quite dry (add more flour if needs be) solid ball.  

If you are not in a hurry, leave it to sit for at least 30 minutes under a damp cloth to give the flour time to react with the moisture of the eggs.

To roll out a special gadget for pasta helps, but a rolling pin works very well too. Thin is good for flavour but potentially tears more easily while the ravioli are being handled.

Remarks

Caroline made a root vegetable bake to go with this, consisting of finely sliced sweet potatoes, yellow beetroot and all kinds of carrots mixed with leek, done in an oven dish with a bit of white wine and veggie broth at a relatively low temperature (150° for about 50 minutes).

Although a fair amount of work, the dish can be prepared in advance: the ravioli can be done in a couple of minutes in boiling salt water just before serving, raw ravioli are very easily frozen and will then need a little more time in the boiling water but finishing them à la minute is equally easy. The beetroot sauce could be completed with cream and a bit of seasoning if needed while the ravioli are being done.

Bedouin Bean Stew: Gallayat Fooel

This entry is rather untypical as at the present time (February) the tomatoes that make this dish so tasty are simply not to be got. But last week Caroline and I spent three days walking in the Jordanian desert of Wadi Rum with a Bedouin guide Ra’ed and two of his camels. Ra’ed was not only unbelievably knowledgeable about camels (his family breed them and in his camp we saw a two-week old calf and three pregnant camels about to give birth), but he is also a very dab hand at whipping up a simple and simply delicious meal over an open fire. This traditional Bedouin and unusually vegetarian dish is what we did together on the second day of our trek.

 

 

What you need

(apart from the stunning scenery)

• 1 medium sized onion roughly chopped
• 2 very ripe tomatoes, cubed
• 400 g fava beans in their cooking liquid (Ra’ed used a tin), lightly mashed
• salt (you can use other seasoning too, that's just what we had.)
• optionally: garlic (which we did not have), herbs and chillies

Variation: use three three tomatoes and no beans (what we had the first day)

What you do

1. Allow the onions to sautée but not to take colour.
2. When they are glassy, add the tomatoes and stir. Allow to simmer until the mixture looks like jam, slightly thickened.
3. Add the fava beans, which should be slightly mashed (tastes much better than it looks!)
4. Season to taste.
5. Eat with pita bread that has been warmed and slightly browned over the hot coals.

With it you drink sweet, hot Bedouin tea (Put water and sugar in a pot, sit it in the glowing embers; when the water boils add the tea leaves.)

Tastes wonderful with hummus and any of the tasty Middle Eastern dishes and dips like baba ganoush, moutabel, muhammara, fathoush, etc.