Maya's Favourite- Potato Salad

 Maya is our dear Czech/Vietnamese friend who we serendipitously met when we walked to Bell Rock on Labour day this year. In spending time with this delightful young woman I learnt that her favourite celebration food is potato salad. When we talked about how they make potato salad at "home" we were amazed at how most of the ingredients were just the same as we might include here.

When Maya came to stay a few weeks ago I made this potato salad for us to share together. And it's true, it made it feel like Christmas.

My recipe is really just a list of ingredients, but you can easily add or leave out anything that takes your fancy. 

The first step is choosing good potatoes- not a variety that says great for mashing for instance- a white waxy kind is best. Peeled is fairly important. Potato salad has a strange texture if you leave the skins on. Even chopping is also useful so that the pieces cook uniformly. Just cover with water in a pot and bring to the boil then simmer until just tender. Strain and leave in the pot with the lid off to cool.

When the potatoes are warm sprinkle over some sea salt & ground black pepper.

Then 1/3 cup of honey mustard vinaigrette. adding the seasonings and dressing while the potatoes are still warm helps the flavours to soak in to the potatoes best.

I then added:

Lightly cooked asparagus pieces, finely sliced red pepper, lots of fresh herbs finely snipped up with scissors- lemon thyme, parsley, mint, coriander, onion weed are all good options depending on your own preference and what's in the garden or the fridge.

Spring onions are an important flavour here, or wild onion weed- so add a few of them finely chopped up.

1/2 a dozen boiled eggs, shelled and chopped.

Some diced ham or cook some bacon if you like.

A couple of tbsps of capers is great and several diced gherkins or other pickles. I like to add 3 or 4 Pepperdews- sweet/sour wee peppers in a jar from the supermarket.

You could also add olives, panfried courgettes or artichoke hearts- I buy those in large jars from Bin Inn.

The balance of flavours is in all the various components.  

Gently mix everything together with your hands or a large spoon making sure not to mush the

potatoes too much.

Last thing is the creamy dressing which could be your favourite mayonnaise or this yogurty one that works well too:

A good creamy Greek yoghurt is great. We like the Cyclops brand.

So perhaps put 1 1/2 cups of yoghurt in to a small bowl

Add: sea salt, ground black pepper,

1 dsp wholegrain mustard, 1 dsp runny honey, some chilli of some sort if you like.

Add the juice of half a lemon and 1 tbsp of olive oil.

Stir and taste and adjust the flavours until you're happy with it and that's it. Keeps well in the fridge.

Let me know if I've left anything out.

Have fun making up your own potato salad as you go along.

Catherine X

Wild Rice, Quinoa and Cherry Salad

When we were planning what we would take down to Wai Ora at the beginning of of December for our wedding anniversary, I got it in my head that a wild rice & cherry salad might be good. I couldn't find a recipe, so I made one up. Not hard when it's a salad.

I cooked equal quantities of wild rice and three coloured quinoa (or just white or red or brown).

Or just use rice if you prefer.

Make sure the rice is well cooked- this lot was just a tad under down.

I stoned cherries and halved them

Added dried cranberries, pomegranate seeds, chopped pistachio nuts, chopped onion weed bulbs or spring onions. I also added a good amount of finely chopped mint, parsley and coriander.

Salt and ground black pepper.

The nuts could also be pinenuts, walnuts or hazelnuts.

The dressing makes all the difference:

4 tbsps olive oil

2 tbsp tamarind puree- either ready made or soak the caked tamarind version in water to soften, then push through a sieve.

2 tbsp maple syrup

2 tbsp lime juice

2 cloves of garlic or onion weed bulbs crushed

1/2 tsp fennel seeds lightly toasted & crushed- mortar & pestle or a spice grinder.

A pinch of chilli flakes

The salad went nicely with salmon that we cooked with a pomegranate molasses glaze on the little barbecue. 

Variation

Here we are at the beginning of February and some of the cherries from this season have hung on in the fridge. So I cooked some little Beluga lentils until tender and added them to the wild rice instead of quinoa. 

The other additions are: red shiso, variegated apple mint, wee unsprayed begonia flowers, nasturtium leaves, purple kumara and a dressing made with slow baked Black Doris plums, honey, yoghurt, salt & pepper, 1/2 tsp Garam marsala, olive oil & thick natural yoghurt.

Slow baking fruit is amazing! It concentrates the flavours and makes the fruit even more delicious and digestible. A sprinkling of good sugar and in to the oven at 150C for 1/2 an hour. 

Katie X

Sushi Salad

 It's kind of weird that there are still food ideas out there that we've never heard of or imagined before. Down the road at the Colab Cafe they've been making sushi salad. What a brilliant idea! We love sushi but sometimes it's very ricey. So we've been experimenting with the flavours and textures in salad form- and have found it to be a brilliantly useful food. The basic salad lasts really well in the fridge and is very portable.

I'm not very good with plain white rice and since we always have a choice- last night I cooked a mix of red rice, brown basmati and wild rice. I like to put the rice in a pot during the day, pour water of it to a round 5 cms over the rice and let sit until later when I add a tsp of sea salt and simmer with the lid on for around 40 minutes and until the water is has been absorbed. 

Cool. Add ground black pepper.

So what else do you want to add to your sushi salad?

What do you have on hand and what do you love the most in sushi?

I've recently learnt that the light Asian pickle thing makes all the difference to raw veges so while the rice is cooling cut up a couple of carrots in to match sticks, peppers too if you like and then heat a 1/4 of cider vinegar to boiling point, add 1 tsp of salt and of sugar and pour over the cut up veges in a bowl. Give them a good toss together.  

Carrot sticks, any colour of capsicum, courgettes, cucumber, asparagus, snow peas and edamame are all great. The courgettes, asparagus and snow peas I slice finely and cook briefly before blanching. Drain well. Other things that work well are Yomogi- Japanese mugwort, mint, rocket, cress, coriander, nasturtium leaves and flowers. 

Then we added home made preserved ginger. It's so easy- learn how to make it just here.

And then a dressing: 

1/3 c of apple cider vinegar (or white rice wine vinegar if you prefer) add a dsp of honey or sugar and a little sea salt, lastly a dsp of soy sauce. Shake or mix together and pour over the salad. Mix it altogether- I use my hands.

That's the salad part. Next add things like nori cut in strips or pickled seaweed like Neptune's Necklace. Avocado makes a nice contrast to the other textures and flavours. We bought a small pierce of lovely salmon and cut it finely to make sashimi (remove any bones as you go) sprinkle with sea salt. Toasted sesame seeds white or black are a lovely too. The rest- make up as you go along. Wasabi if you like it.

So delicious and very satisfying.

Katie X

Best Chickpea Salad Ever

I came across this salad recipe in a Cuisine magazine & just loved the sound & look of it so I thought I'd better have a go- thank goodness I did! It's absolutely delicious.

I'm telling it my version, however.

2 cans chickpeas- drained.

The liquid can be used for making a great mayonnaise if you feel so inclined.

Put the chickpeas in to a frypan with a little olive oil & sprinkle with sumac & sea salt & cook on a medium heat until they are starting to colour & taste delicious.

Transfer the chickpeas in to a bowl to cool & then add

Finely chopped coriander, to your taste- loads or a little.

1/2 c coconut chips lightly toasted (in the same pan)

1/2 cup broken or chopped cashews lightly toasted.

Then, either some chopped spring onion, or finely chopped red onion.

You can pour a little rice vinegar over the onion while you're preparing everything else to help soften the raw onion thing- tip off the vinegar again.

6 or so Medjool (type)dates- de-stoned & chopped. 

Dressing

4 tbsps olive oil

2 tbsp tamarind puree- either ready made or soak the caked tamarind version in water to soften, then push through a sieve.

2tbsp maple syrup

2 tbsp lime juice

2 cloves of garlic or onion weed bulbs crushed

1/2 tsp fennel seeds lightly toasted & crushed- mortar & pestle or a spice grinder.

A pinch of chilli flakes

Shake altogether in a jar & pour over the salad mixture.

We sprinkled the salad with fresh flax seeds. New year is just the right time to collect them.

 The dark sausagey pods are best.

Here's the original salad that included crushed poppadoms.

 It was the most delicious dinner we've had in ages!

No substitutes on this one- lime juice & maple syrup are essential to the flavours. 

As is toasting the fennel seeds & then crushing them.

You can find the Kawakawa salad recipe just here.

And the Aquafaba mayonnaise just here.

Well, you will find those recipes soon when I've written them up.

Katie X

Earth gems: a magnificent winter vegetable

I just love my new find of the winter: "earth gems" 
also known as ulluco.

They come from South America & are said to be one 
of the lost foods of the Incas.

They are so tasty & refreshingly colourful arriving 
just in time to revitalize the winter menu.

The "Halfords" of Feilding grow them here in New zealand &
I have been buying them through the season from 
Bellatino's out in Havelock North. 

They are very easy to prepare as they are prewashed 

& there is no peeling required.

Just gently boil for around 10 mins until tender.

Some colourful vegetables lose their lovely hues when
 cooked but the earth gem seems to do pretty well ...

..the colours running right through the tuber.

Here they are served with a little butter, good salt & lots of ground

black pepper. With the texture of a waxy new potato & the flavour

 a little, of beetroot & perhaps yam. They make a tidy, colourful 

& splendid addition to a winter meal. 

The thing is that they are a winter vege so in dreaming up what to

do with them I had to consider what might go with them best &

be seasonal too. There are already plenty of roasting vegetables 

so they would probably be lost on that count.

My first mix included deep red & orange kumara

with a sprinkling of violets

   with the addition of really good olive oil

(Village Press..at the Farmer's market

($60 for 4 litres)
or fabulous Grove avocado oil,

lemon juice, flat leaf parsley, salt,

 ground black pepper

& tomatoes. There are some very 

tasty vine NZ grown vine tomatoes 

available at the moment.

No not seasonal I know but hey!

My favourite way to use them at the moment:

 cooked earth gems..cold & cut in half

firm vine ripened tomatoes cubed

chopped coriander

a preserved lemon finally sliced

a slosh of great olive or avocado oil

good salt, freshly ground black pepper 

& a squeeze of lemon juice...divine!!

this salad is just as good the next day too!

avocado also works well with them as do prawns
or shrimp & the sango sprouts that I get at 
Countdown are sooo fabulous & very handy along 
with the best salad macro/micro mix from Clyde Potter 
at Epicurean Supplies..so tasty & very innovative.

Around Christmas time I still had some earth gems tucked in the back fridge, just staring to sprout, but most were still fine to use. Soon, I planted the rest of the now happily sprouting tubers

 in to a large pot with plenty of compost.
It wasn't long before they looked like this:

I have since discovered that the leaves are edible too..just use & cook like spinach.

I have continued picking the leaves all through the summer. Haven't had any problem with bugs either.

A nutritious, versatile & easily grown vegetable that has excellent keeping qualities, both the tubers & the leaves.

I'll update further soon & tell you what I ended up with in my pot when the leaves die down. 

Catherine x

Warm Lentil & Roast Pumpkin Salad

This is a delicious warm salad sort of dish for autumn/winter. 

It can be easily adapted to serve just the two of you 

(alright 3 nights in a row on your own but it keeps well)

or great for a whole crowd.

It is a meal on it's own or lovely with crusty bread, leafy salads
or lamb etc with lots of yummy homemade chutneys.

Just make up the quantities to suit yourself as you go along.

What you will need:

Black French Puy lentils..brown are fine too if
that's all you can find.

Good pumpkin & a nice feta cheese.
This one came from Hohepa

Wild rice..not always easy to track down so grab it any time that you see it.

This lot came from New World & tastes fine but is a funny
gray colour when cooked. I went to take a picture of the
cooked rice but it looked rather ugly so I skipped it!

My preferred wild rice is black in colour & although quite

expensive you don't need a great deal of it. Even 1/2 c is fine.

Lots of red onions. I used small ones cut in to 1/8ths.

Now peel & prepare the pumpkin. 

I prefer supermarket squash as in the photo.

It has annoyingly nobbly skin but is always such a
lovely flavour & colour.

Roast the cubes of pumpkin in olive oil.

I have been using stock too just lately & it gives a
moist tasty result without the extra fat/oils.

Roast the chopped onions & some peppers..so many
glorious colours right through til the middle of winter.

While the pumpkin, onions & peppers are roasting

(another lovely addition at this time of the year is fennel)

cook the rice & lentils in separate pots.

The lentils need to be rinsed, covered with a 

couple of centimetres of water & simmered for
around 20 to 25 mins until tender. Drain any excess water.

The rice likewise.

Now combine all the ingredients into a nice bowl including
the packet of crumbled feta & dress with a mixture
of good olive oil, lemon juice, good salt, ground black pepper,

honey, some zested root ginger if you like & any other 

chopped herbs such as flat leafed parsley or coriander .

Other things to add are capers & good black olives.

Here we are..not the most inspiring version but at least you get the idea.

David's 21st birthday edition..yum!

Much Love Katie x

Tabbouleh

This is such a brilliantly useful salad. Easy to make, really economical, keeps well,

fabulous for entertaining & universally loved.

Bulghur wheat is the one to use for this recipe. It is the wholegrain wheat crushed, parboiled, dried (often in the sun..well in Lebanon they probably do) & easy to use.

It comes in various sizes which makes for variation.

a cup & a 1/2 made this much

pour 3cups of boiling water over the wheat & leave to stand for 1/2 an hour
covered with gladwrap (yip that's it!)  chop the herbs in the meantime

Finely chop lots of fresh herbs including mint or apple mint, Italian or curly leafed parsley, coriander, basil, spring onions or chives

chervil (or whatever you have.. really doesn't matter), a whole red pepper & a jalapeno chilli

add good salt, freshly ground black pepper, juice of & zest..if you like.. of a lemon & 3 tbsps of good olive oil,

actually my capsicum could have been cut a bit finer but hey

Traditionally there is a lot more "green" in Tabbouleh but that's entirely up to you.

This salad keeps really well like this for days & is fabulous for picnics, shift work

& taking to a barbecue.

You can now add finely chopped tomatoes..coloured cherry & low acid tomatoes

are great..not so juicy, cucumber or firm avocado if you like.

Once you've added these things best to eat that day.

Olives are great too if you love them. Chopped capers also add a bit of zing.

Quinoa is a really interesting alternative for this salad.

Quinoa (keen wah) comes in 3 different colours, cooks in about the same time as rice

& contains almost complete protein. It has a nutty flavour.