olives

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Review: The Catalan Kitchen – Emma Warren

The Catalan Kitchen

The Catalan Kitchen

Emma Warren

Smith Street Books

ISBN: 9781925418842

RRP $ 55

 

Description:

The Catalan Kitchen is a celebration of one hundred authentic and traditional dishes from Spain’s culinary heart.

 

The Catalonia region is situated on the west coast of the Mediterranean and blessed with one of the richest food cultures in Europe. Although Catalonia is still geographically and politically connected to Spain, Catalans consider themselves independent with their own language, history, culture, and cuisine. Its food is considered unique in Spain, and it is home to one of the highest concentrations of Michelin-starred restaurants in the world.

 

Catalan cuisine does not centre around tapas, and although pintxos do feature heavily, they are not the mainstay of the region and most dishes are larger, stand-alone meals. Dishes are heavily influenced by pork and fresh seafood, with a focus on fresh, seasonal produce that varies from recipes as simple as crushed tomatoes smeared on bread to hearty, slow cooked stews. Famous dishes include calcots–large salad onions cooked on a coal barbecue and then dipped into nutty and addictive Romesco sauce, a unique paella made without saffron and the addition of vermicelli noodles, myriad types of Catalan sausage served with white beans, sauces such as aioli and picada, and multiple pastries and desserts including crème Catalan (a version of crème brulee). Beautifully packaged with stunning location and food photography, The Catalan Kitchen is the ultimate cookbook for lovers of Spanish and Mediterranean food.

 

 

My View:

 I live in the Margaret River region, an area that is often described as having a Mediterranean climate and perhaps this is why when I open a cook book that focusses on fresh, local ingredients from a Mediterranean region – such as Catalonia, I embrace the recipes and the ingredients; this book is no exception. Amongst the pages I find recipes for Quince paste with Manchego cheese (both the cheese and a home made paste are a favourite of mine), Pan Fried Goats Cheese Salad (this makes fabulous shared lunch or a spectacular entrée for a gathering if you are seeking to impress), Rabbit in Chocolate (perfect for Easter in our household), Ratatouille, Sautéed Chickpeas and Silver Beet (we have plenty of silver beet growing in  our garden at the moment and we are always looking to find ways to incorporate it in our meals, fresh is best), there is a recipe for serving wild olives – we have 5 olive trees that supply us with glorious fruit each year, the recipe (p.25) for serving wild olives is flavoursome and simple, the trick is warming the ingredients so the flavours infuse (now that is something I would not have thought of).  And that is just a start…

 

The Catalan Kitchen is a great resource for your home kitchen library.

 

 

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Mini Mediterranean Frittatas: Fodmap Friendly – Georgia McDermott

FODMAP Friendly Cover

FODMAP Friendly by Georgia McDermott, Published by Macmillan Australia, RRP $34.99

 

“I have to admit I’ve become a bit complacent about how lucky I am to eat a cooked breakfast every morning, as
one does when they work from home. I don’t have to choose between extra sleep and hot food because my boss
(me) is a bit too laissez faire for early starts. That said, the memory of making smoothies the night before my daily
work commute (I love food, but I love sleep more) is all too vivid, hence these little frittatas. They are as close as
you can get to a full breakfast when you have about five minutes before you need to run out the door.” p. 135

 

Mini Mediterranean frittatas

Mini Mediterranean frittatas

Makes 8 or 9 mini frittatas
6 eggs
125 ml (½ cup) milk of
your choice
50 g parmesan, finely grated
a pinch of dried oregano or ground nutmeg, or both
salt and pepper
85 g (½ cup) Sicilian olives, pitted
½ cup sundried tomatoes, roughly chopped
a handful of basil leaves, finely chopped

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C. Grease 9 holes of an 80 ml
(1/3 cup) capacity 12-hole silicone muffin tray.
2. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, parmesan, herbs, spices and a good pinch of salt and pepper together until
well combined.
3. Add the olives, half of the sundried tomatoes and the basil leaves to the mixture, and stir well.
4. Divide the mixture evenly between 8 or 9 of the mun holes.
Scatter the rest of the sundried tomatoes over the top of the frittatas and gently push them down. Place in the oven and cook for around 15 minutes, or until the frittatas are golden on top and set.
5. Allow to cool completely and then keep in an airtight container in the fridge for about 2–3 days.

 

 

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Lemon Chicken with Golden Onions and Green Olives: The Good Carbs Cook Book -Dr Alan Barclay, Kate McGhie & Philippa Sandall

Good Carbs Cookbook

 

Images and recipes from The Good Carbs Cookbook by Dr. Alan Barclay, Kate McGhie & Philippa Sandall Murdoch Books RRP $$39.99 Photography by Alan Benson

 

Lemon Chicken with Golden Onions and Green Olives

“With a nod to an unctuous Moroccan tagine, the spice mix is mild and the turmeric produces a gorgeous golden colour in the onions when the chicken is cooked. Ground ginger withstands higher cooking temperatures than fresh ginger, without changing its flavour.” p.56

 

Lemon Chicken Cooked In A Spice Paste With-Golden Onions And Green Olives

PREPARATION TIME: 25 minutes | COOKING TIME: 1 hour | SERVES: 6

3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground chilli
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 handful coriander (cilantro) leaves and stems, chopped, plus extra, finely chopped, to garnish
1 handful parsley, chopped
¼ cup (60 ml/2 fl oz) lemon juice
½ cup (125 ml/4 fl oz) olive oil
4 skinless bone-in chicken thighs
4 skinless bone-in chicken drumsticks
5 medium onions, thinly sliced
sea salt flakes
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 lemon, thinly sliced
1 cup (250 ml/9 fl oz) water
1 cup (180 g/6½ oz) pitted green olives

 

Combine the garlic, cumin, chilli, turmeric, pepper, coriander, parsley, lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large bowl. Add the chicken and toss until evenly coated in the spice paste. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and marinate in the refrigerator for 4 hours.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the remaining oil in a large sturdy heatproof pan over medium–high heat. Working in batches, add the chicken pieces and fry for about 10 minutes, turning once until golden brown on both sides. Transfer the chicken to a plate and cover loosely with foil to keep warm.

Put the onions in the pan with the remaining oil and add salt and pepper to taste. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions soften.

Return the chicken to the pan with the ginger, lemon and water. Bring to a lively simmer and then reduce the heat to medium–low and cook, covered, for about 40 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. Test by piercing the meat near the bone with a fine skewer and if the juices run clear, the chicken is cooked.

Remove from the heat and scatter with the olives and extra coriander.

Lovely served with couscous or brown rice.

 

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Sneak Peek: Delicious Every Day – Anna Gare

delicious-every-day

Delicious Every Day

Anna Gare

Murdoch Books

ISBN: 9781742663906

I received this inspiring book in the mail yesterday. The synopsis states :

” Learn to cook delicious food every day with Anna Gare’s delicious new cookbook that is mostly healthy, always tasty.

One of Australia’s most popular television cooks, Anna Gare, knows a thing or two about balancing a busy life with the need to serve up delicious, healthy food for the whole family, every day. In Delicious Every Day, she shares her absolute favourite go-to recipes: food to feed a crowd and to keep you and the rest of the family ticking over. There are solutions to midweek dinner dramas, such as Japanese salmon with miso broccoli and brown rice, one-pot stars such as herby chicken casserole on pearl barley, and ideas for salads and easy sides that are so good they’ll steal the show. Then you decide whether to be naughty or nice when it comes to dessert: Mexican spiced chocolate torte vs banana chia and almond cake with honeyed labne? Including a chapter on full-flavour no-fuss ideas for party food, Delicious Every Day contains the family recipes you’ll come back to again and again.”

I agree- this is a keeper – a book to add to the kitchen library with many recipes that I will use again and again. (And a hint – this is the perfect house warming present for those new to cooking for themselves- the recipes are easy, scrumptious and there are ideas suitable for all occasions – salads to share, breakfasts, onepot meals, party tricks…).

Tonight I made (with the ingredients I had on hand) Chicken Provencale p.124  Seconds were required, it was so good – and the leftovers have already been allocated for husband’s lunch tomorrow !

Chicken Provencale

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Science InThe Kitchen

In previous posts I have reviewed a couple of books on Gut Health- Gut  and Heal You Gut and provided a few Gut Friendly recipes for you to try.  This is what you will find in our kitchen/fridge and pantry these days (might need a bigger or extra fridge soon).  I am loving Kombucha Tea – but must make bigger quantities in future – it a great probiotic drink (recipe can be found in Heal Your Gut by Lee Holmes), my sour dough is well worth the effort of making, the fermented vegetables (husband makes these for us – and currently we are using red and green cabbages from the garden) is great with roasts or sausages, the olives are fermented, the fruit from our trees and taste great and the milk kefir I add to smoothies, husband drinks it by the glassful.

Kombucha Tea

Kombucha Tea – final product – Green tea and  black tea ferments

 

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L-R Fermented veg – green and red cabbage, sour dough starter, olives, milk kefir

 

Sour Dough

Sour Dough

 

Kombucha starter

Kombucha starter

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The Fruits Of Our Labour

Some of you may recall that a few months ago we began the process of pickling/curing our olives. The olives have been sitting in a salt bath (a 10% salt solution) and the brine changed regularly over the past four weeks or so. Today we tasted a few olives from one of the buckets of fruit – the one that held the riper of the olives – and they were amazing – salty (as they should be at this stage) but tasty and no hint of bitter acid. The remaining buckets of fruit will need just a few more days of soaking then they too will be ready to finish processing.

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Once the bitterness has leached away the next step in the process is to rinse off the heavy salt water brine and prepare a new mix of water, salt and vinegar. The rinsed olives are loosely packed in a sterilised jar, the new salt/vinegar brine is poured over to cover the olives and a layer of olive oil seals the mix. The jars are then stored in a cupboard/pantry for about one month. At this point the flavours will have matured and the olives are ready to eat – just rinse off required amount (some say leave olives in plain water in the fridge for 24 hours to leach some of the salt away), then sprinkle with herbs/flavourings of your choice – chilli or red capsicum, garlic or lemon juice and  finish with a dash of olive oil and let marinade in fridge for a few hours before ready to eat. YUM!

 

The jars of olives in the vinegar/salt water brine will keep for about a year in the pantry. Hopefully they will last until next seasons fruit is harvested…but I am not sure about that, they are so delicious.

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Green Is The Colour Of My Garden…

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This weekend we spent preparing olives for pickling; that entailed – picking from the tree, then cutting a cross on the ends (both ends) of the individual olives, then placing them in a brine bath which allows some of the bitter acids in the olive to leach away.  The olives are left for twenty four hours then they are rinsed and then the brine is replaced, this process is repeated for 2-4 weeks depending on the olive, a taste test is required. Then the olives have a final rinse and are placed in jars and filled with picking solution and left for a few months to develop their flavours and then enjoyed 🙂  This year despite the trees taking a heavy loss of fruit to the parrots we had plenty of olives to meet our needs.

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