Bloggers around the World - Greece - Tomato Pancakes / Keftedes and the case of the spookily disappearing feta

This month’s country for ‘Bloggers Around the World’ by Chris over at Cooking Around the World is Greece.  Now this is one of my fave  blog challenges but sadly I have not managed to enter for a few months but, as it was I that suggested Greece, I really really am deffo going to get at least one post in for it.  Kinda feel I should!

That said, as my failure to take part in the other months has been due to time constrictions (either in making the dish or in posting it having made it – now that’s really irritating) I decided to start with a quick snack style option and see if I can get more of a main course in later in the month.  --As I’m now posting this at the very end of the month the obvious answer to that was no.  L  Doh!

Now I had intended to serve these tomato pancakes/fritters/keftedes* with a nice authentic Greek hummus to dip into.  Until that is, I started doing my research and found that hummus isn’t really Greek.  It’s most likely Middle Eastern in origin; although it does seem to be one of those things that’s gets argued about, but the earliest reference found for it is in Egypt (13thC) and the word Hummus is Arabic for Chickpea which seems fairly conclusive to my mind. 

 So - a little crumbled feta and some tasty olives would have to do the trick instead.  Hmm – where did that feta go?  One day it was in the fridge and the next – poof – it had vanished in a puff of (Halloween) magic!  Must have been the really big fridge dwelling mice the Chap tells me we have.  The ones that leave human sized bite marks in blocks of cheddar… !!  I settled for some shavings of goats cheese with the olives instead.

*I came across this recipe first on the BBC Good Food website then found it on the original blog.  [I've asked the blog owner for permission to post the recipe but had no response but the blog has been dormant for the last 3 years so I’m going to post it anyway, especially as she said a Greek lady gave her the recipe in the first place.  Plus I made a couple of small tweaks.  Still with me so far?!]  It’s called tomato pancakes there so I tried to find the translation for ‘pancakes’ into Greek.  Hmm – I don’t read the Greek/Phoenician alphabet though which came up with τηγανίτες or κρέπα, so after a little more pottering on google it seemed that keftedes was a close approximation to fritters/pancakes.  Having seen several very similar recipes to this that termed them fritters instead of pancakes I think it’s ok to adopt this term for them.  [Quite possibly any Greek person reading this is wincing at my torturous mishandling of their fair language though as it really isn't ok to use ‘keftedes’ in this way, if so my apologies to you!]  Also my apologies to anyone who just waded through this paragraph and wondered what the point was.  Believe me – I often wonder the same myself when I've been wittering on at length without appearing to get anywhere!

However; we have got to some beautiful warm islands in the blue blue sea and come upon Greece.  I haven’t yet been lucky enough to visit Greece but it’s on my definitely-want-to list.  I imagine the tomatoes there to be bursting with fresh flavour and that these simple little pancakes are a joy to eat.  Here’s how to make them:

Greek Tomato Pancake / Keftedes

5 Tomatoes

2 Spring Onions

1 Egg

Up to 120g Plain Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1-2 tsp dried oregano or fresh if you have it

1 tsp Sea Salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Olive oil for frying

As some of my toms were on the small size I used 6 for the recipe so needed all the flour.  Add up to 100g first is my advice then add the rest if needed.

Slice toms in half round the ‘waist’ – this makes them easier to grate than slicing them top to bottom I found out after the first attempt!

Grate into a colander over a bowl to catch the juice.  (Use this up in soup etc.)

Finely chop the spring onions and mix into the toms.

Beat the egg and whisk into the mix.

Sift in the flour and beat in bit by bit.  Add the seasonings and beat in well too.  Add enough flour to make a thick batter – preferably sans lumps; unless they're the tomatoes!

Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan and cook in spoonfuls – 3 to 4 at a time depending on the size of your pan.  Cook until golden – they must be cooked through or can be a bit nastily mushy as the tomatoes are naturally full of moisture. 

I tried these on the bloke and he said they were ‘ok’.  Damned by faint praise!  I did tend to agree with him though.  I think the issue is that as aforementioned the toms in Greece are probably rather more flavourful than those here, especially at this time of year.  So – use lovely vine-ripened ones of the best quality would be my advice.  Oh – and don’t skimp on the salt; tomatoes are one of those things that really need it to bring the flavour out.

Eating these with the olives worked really well though so I think they are one of those things that contrast well; provide a good foil for something with a bit more depth of flavour.

So – a tasty relatively quick thing to knock up but make it in the summer when the toms are at their best.  Enjoy.  J

Lemon & Ginger Soba Noodles with Tofu and Salmon Gari and no Matcha ice-cream...yet

This month's country for Bloggers Around the World hosted by Chris at Cooking around the World was here.
Japan.  I love oriental/asian food generally but hadn't cooked anything specifically Japanese before so went on search on t'interwebs for a suitable clutch of recipes.  I had soba noodles in the cupboard to use up as well as tofu so picked this tasty sounding lemon and ginger recipe from Steamy Kitchen.
Incidentally there's a great recipe resource here on the Eat-Japan site that allows you to pick by ingredient type, seasoning, time needed etc.
I wanted to try more than one recipe out and in my travels I came across this baked salmon recipe with gari - the pickled ginger you get with sushi.  I love this stuff so this recipe intrigued me and sounded super simple and quick to make.  Turn oven on - lay salmon in greased dish and scatter gari over the top.  Bake.
I'm not going to put the whole soba noodle recipe here - you need to visit the link to check it out but with lemon, ginger, honey, cayenne, soy, rice vinegar and sesame oil in the dressing plus toasted sesame seeds

you know it's punchy and flavourful.  I halved the amounts of noodles and tofu as the recipe is for 4, although I realised afterward I used the amount of dressing that was for 4 peoples noodles on the halved amount - it was very well flavoured!
The tofu was tasteless - the recipe says to fry until browned - I'm now convinced (having never cooked with tofu before) that this is an unobtainable fallacy as no matter how high I turned my pan and how long

I left the tofu no browning was occurring.  It just started sticking instead.  :-( I think for tofu in future I'll stick to my instinct that says it needs a lot of marinading first to make it taste of anything.
The salmon I liked - but then I love salmon anyway.  I did find it a little on the sweet side but gari can vary in sweetness a lot - a different brand that I have a jar of at work is nothing like as sweet as the one I had here.  I think this dish would be improved vastly by using a less sweet gari but it was interesting to try as a flavour combination.
Lastly - it must be dessert surely?  Well - I had a sachet of Matcha (green tea) powder in the cupboard I've been looking to do something with for a while and after having had Matcha ice-cream once at the local 'Steaks n Sushi' restaurant which I had loved this seemed the obvious answer.  So - I found this very simple sounding recipe at Just One Cookbook - one of many great Japanese food blogs out there.  Then - I ran out of time.
This post should have been up yesterday and although I made the salmon and noodles yesterday I only got to writing it up now so....the ice-cream will have to be a different post.  I shall make it though and let you know how it goes.

Yesterday we had to scarf down the noodles - super yum we decided - then run to catch the rugby bus to see Chiefs beat London Irish 27-6 to get us into the top 6 that would mean we're in the Heineken Cup again next year.  Fingers crossed we can stay there!!

Bloggers around the world - a Mexican feast

This month’s theme for Bloggers Around the World by Chris over at Cooking Around the World was Mexico. Well - other than opening a tin of refried beans (a long time ago) and making (once) guacamole from scratch I've never done any actual Mexican cooking despite being a fan of the country's cuisine so I set out to find some interesting recipes to try.
There's a lot with meat in so I hunted a bit further; I wanted to try and find something that I could enjoy whilst being at the same time authentically Mexican.
I met with some success finding this blog and this site both with recipes on, and the second one introduced me to Esquites, a corn based street food complete with cheese, mayo, lime, chilli and the herb Epazote that I’ve never even heard of let alone can get here!  Nevertheless I decided to give it a bash as I love sweetcorn.  After some more searching for an actual recipe I stumbled on this video from a Mexican restaurant and loosely based my version on that.  This was served with Mexican rice (admittedly from a USA site), refried beans (BBC!) and preceded by a Seabass ceviche from here - I’m sad to say that she isn’t Mexican either!
So – how did it go?
The ceviche was super easy to do and tasty too.  It’s the first time I’ve ever made ceviche or indeed eaten it and I was very much taken with it.  Not sure the coconut came through a lot but then I didn’t see coconut making much of an appearance in any other of the Mexican recipes I looked at so I’m not sure how authentic it’s inclusion is or isn’t.  I had a moment’s worry when I realised I had totally forgotten the tortilla chips to serve it with and that my avocado was still rock hard but I muddled though.    We both found this refreshing, though perhaps more of a summer dish.  Although there’s a lot of lime in it (I used the juice of 2 limes as this was enough to cover the fish) it isn’t too overpowering, just being citrusy and zingy.  I added a minimum of avocado to serve and sadly dumped my plan for guacamole to go with the other dishes as the 2 avocado pears I bought at the weekend had obstinately remained too solid to be used yet, despite putting them in a brown paper bag to hasten the ripening process.
Next to be started was the rice.  Here again I had a minor panic when I came to add the rice to the hot oil as I realised I only had about 1.5 cups of long grain white rice rather than the 2 called for.  I made up the quantity with Arborio rice and the dish seemed none the worse for it.  The Chap hadn’t noticed anyway so it can’t have been too bad.  Again this dish is fairly simple to do and I had great hopes of it but… I found myself a little underwhelmed if I’m honest.  It was nice but it didn’t really ‘sing’ to me.  It needed more heat for sure but I still found the flavours a little lacking and the only thing I changed in the recipe was to use veggie stock instead of chicken which I don’t think would have made that much difference. 
I like the idea of whizzing up your raw onion and tomatoes to make the ‘stock’ for it to be cooked in though and I may borrow this technique for future experimentation.  (Although I did manage to break the only tin opener in the house getting into the tin of tomatoes!!)  If you do check the recipe out however I must state that I most definitely do not advocate discarding any extra you may have like the recipe states!!  Put any left in the fridge for use another day like a good frugal bunny.  Oh and one more thing – this made a lot of rice.
Refried beans.  I must admit to having had a previous fling with refried beans many years ago, back when I was at uni in fact when I used to regularly buy a tin (sorry) and eat them…in something?  In what however I have no recollection.  I have been looking at them again on the shops for a year or 2 now and wondering what exactly it was that I did with them and I’m forced to draw the conclusion that I just ate them as they were.  Which seems to be what a lot of people do; they’re just another element to the meal.  The BBC recipe I used was to actually make them for quesadillas, I just used the start of the recipe that told me how to do the beans.  These were tasty enough although another small problem reared its head here when I ran out of smoked paprika; I think this Mexican meal was starting to be jinxed!  This was after I'd opened the tin of beans by going round the edge individually piercing the lid over and over until all the holes joined up. 
I realised I’ve gone off the texture of these a bit in the last decade  and would enjoy them more in a quesadilla with cheese and toasted tortilla for some contrast but I can see me making these again as a fast easy cheap meal.  Not a lot to report other than that.
Which brings us to the part I was looking forward to trying out most – the esquites!!  Complete with some fresh basil and mint and dried tarragon in an effort to replicate the taste of the missing epazote.  Having scribbled some instructions watching the video I set off.  First problem – I couldn’t get the lid off my jar of small dried chillis that looked the closest equivalent I had to what they fried off first in the film.  No matter how I tried it wasn’t coming off, I was hopping about the kitchen sprinkling the environs with a few choice words but to no avail!  So – some finely minced fresh chilli it was instead.  I fried this off for a few minutes stirring pretty much constantly to ensure they didn’t burn, just fragranced the oil nicely.  Next I added the corn which I judged by eye as enough for the 2 of us.  I now have to own up here to using frozen sweetcorn not the fresh off the cob you should really use, that was my entire forgetful fault though rather than the gremlins that had been dogging me so far!  Fry this until slightly browned – it gives off a lovely popcorny sort of smell.  I must admit to being a little impatient plus aware that this was all taking me absolute acres of time and there was a voracious Chap waiting to be fed so mine weren’t quite browned, but the flavour was getting there.  Add the torn up herbs and keep stirring and frying.  After watching the video I used a sprig of fresh basil and one of fresh mint torn up as that was what the chef described the epazote taste like.  If you read the Wiki article however it claims an aniseedy edge to the taste so I added a couple of decent pinches of dried tarragon too.

Serve in a glass dish (for authenticity you understand, or in a paper cup as you would purchase it off the street) topped with mayo, feta (this being the closest you can get to the queso fresco that should be used), a squeeze of lime juice and a sprinkle of chilli powder.  this was my favourite dish by a mile, it had the most taste and as mentioned before I love sweetcorn so it could only ever be a win for me. 

Served all together the 3 dishes following the ceviche certainly filled us up, I did feel the lack of a contrasting texture though; and of course guacamole would have gone down a treat.
So – some interesting ‘finds’ – ceviche is easy and gooood, rice cooks nicely in whizzed up veg  in a dish in the oven – add more flavour and the missing umami note next time though,  and fried sweetcorn with cheese can only ever be fab.  It’s got cheese in it though hasn’t it…  J  And I need to be a bit more generous with the chilli!

Massively late - it's my Caribbean recipe - Jamaican Veg Soup

The rather fantastic blog Cooking Around The World by Chris has food from every continent on an almost daily basis it seems. Chris writes in an endearingly idiosyncratic style all of his own that I love. To make things even better he has a newish monthly challenge ‘Bloggers around the World’. Each month he picks a different country (or group of, this time round) and one should cook a recipe from that country. This month was the Caribbean. As the title may have hinted I’m somewhat tardy in getting this post up, I should have had it written and published by the 13th! Anyway, having made my recipe I figured I’d share it anyway. Maybe I can sneak it in the comments section of this month’s round up…
I had problems finding a recipe for the Caribbean. The Caribbean covers a lot of countries; mainly islands, all of which have a very different climate to our own and therefore a very different selection of ingredients readily available. Each time I looked for a recipe it seemed it had breadfruit (??), or there would be meat sneaked in. Looking for fish recipes I realised a lot of them used salt fish – not readily available in my corner of the West Country. So – I eventually settled on this veg soup recipe. Ok not as exciting as some of the recipes on this rather good resource site but at least do-able. It said it serves 8. I must say on reading the ingredients list we scoffed at this. However this is how it went – their ingredients in black, my differences in purpley-blue:

Jamaican Veg Soup

3 tbsp olive oil
1 onion chopped – 3 small red onions
2 sticks celery – 3 plus the inner small sticks to use it up
4 cloves garlic – ours were huge so I used 3
2 tbsp root ginger minced – grated mine on the zester
1 tbsp demerara sugar – had none so used 2/3 white and 1/3 dark brown
2 tsp sea salt – 1 tsp only [sea salt is stronger than normal salt]
0.25 tsp ground turmeric}
0.25 tsp ground allspice } I added some later on as you’ll see to make a heaped 0.5 tsp of each in total
0.25 tsp ground nutmeg }
2 potatoes peeled and diced – we only had small ones so I used 4 then added another 2 when I realised I was short on courgette = 6 in total

450g courgette chopped – my courgette was small and was only 220g
1.5 l veg stock
1 pinch cayenne – 2 pinches
30g fresh spinach chopped – I added extra so about 80g in total
½ red pepper minced to garnish

Heat the oil in a large pot and add the onion, celery, garlic ginger and sugar. Fry gently for 5 mins until softened.
Add the salt – having added 1 tsp I decided against the second one as it seemed too much, especially as I was using stock cubes for the veg stock which have salt in already. Add the turmeric, allspice and nutmeg then the spuds and courgette. At this point I added only 0.25 tsp of each spice as per the recipe.
Add the stock and bring to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 mins until the spuds are soft.
Turn off / remove from the heat and stir in the cayenne and spinach – at this point I added the 30g spinach quoted.
Blend. At this point it’s an entertainingly vibrant green colour and tastes of…not anything that zingy to be honest. It was a nice veg soup, but that was it. So…
Having only blended half of the soup I then added the extra spice to the unblended portion still in the pot and brought it back to a boil then simmered for a couple of mins extra to cook off the spices. Turn off the heat then added the extra spinach. Blended that portion then mixed the 2 batches together.

Verdict now – much tastier. Still not sure it’s shouting ‘Jamaican’ at me but then I’ve not exactly had a lot (any?) Jamaican food in my life to compare it to. It was nice and a good thick warmer for the colder weather we’re apparently headed for. I’m not so sure I’d bother again though.
The Chap liked the contrast provided by the minced red pepper, I was less of a fan finding the bits too cold and watery against the thick warm soup.  Oh, and that 'serves 8' thing - well it did make a mahoosive pot full.  :-)
Soooo – that’s my Caribbean recipe. Chris’s next country for us to visit is Mexico – now I just need to find a recipe, cook it and post it all on time….

Let's hear it for Local! Devon Flats.

Devon Flats.  That's what these are.  I have to admit to never having heard of them until this time yesterday when I went in search of a simple and quick biscuit type recipe I could make some halloween biccies for work with.  They're very simple although my recipe differs from a purist one in that it uses double cream rather than the original clotted cream and has the addition of spices.  In these biscuits the cream takes the place of butter / other fat.  Anyway - here you are:
Halloween Devon Flats
8oz SR Flour
0.5tsp allspice / mixed spice
4oz Sugar
0.5tsp salt
1 egg - beaten
3.5 fl oz double cream (100ml if that's an easier measure)
Approx 1tbsp milk - plus extra for brushing
Vanilla sugar - optional

Put oven on to heat - the recipe I based these on said 190 which I reduced to 180 as mine's a fan oven but ended up back putting up to 190.  I think 200 would be better having scoped a few more recipes out now.  Greaseproof paper a couple of trays.  Again diff' recipes said you could grease them - I haven't tried it so can't vouch for any sticking / non-sticking using that method.   They didn't stick to plain greaseproof paper so I'm happy with that.
Sieve flour and spice into a bowl and mix sugar and salt through.
Stir in beaten egg and cream and enough of the tbsp milk to make a stiff dough.  All the recipes I saw said if it's sticky pop it in the fridge to firm up.  If like me you don't have time for this as you decided to do these at 7am before work rather than the night before like a sensible person then you can just add a wee bit more flour instead.
Roll out on a very well floured surface to just under 1cm thick.  Keep re-flouring both surface and rolling pin - these want to stick.
Cut into shapes of your choice, whack on the trays then brush with milk and sprinkle with vanilla sugar if liked.  You only need to leave a little space in between these as they spread but only a very little - they puff up more.  (Described as a cross between a cake and a biscuit.)
Stick 'em in the oven for 5-10 mins until golden-ish - mine looked quite pale but were cooked through.  May have had something to do with the temp' changes.
That's it - very easy and one of those recipes that can take endless variation.  Leave out the spice and use a tbsp of cocoa instead.  Or ground almonds.  Or - most things really.  Enjoy!  Oh - and I guess I shouldn't forget the obligatory WOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOOooooooHHHHH!!

As this is an old local recipe I'm going to enter it into Chris's 'Bloggers around the World - Great Britain' challenge.

A rare bit of Welshness

No - I don't mean an underdone slice of lamb but the cheese / beer / mustard / bread concoction that seems to have passed me by most of my life. Now you'd think a cheese fiend like me would have virtually been brought up on this posh cousin to the humble slice of cheese on toast but no - until a recent visit to a certain HFW's canteen [more of that later] I'd never had it before let alone made it myself.
1st job - find a recipe. Ought to be easy surely, especially with a shelf stuffed with cookery tomes like mine, but was there a rarebit to be seen? Was there buggery. After 20 minutes fruitless searching - including checking the index of "Winning Ways With Cheese" at least 3 times thinking 'if any book will have it surely this one must' I remembered the 'Welsh' part of the name and thereafter things moved rather more swiftly on. ;-)

I adapted the recipe from WWwC - incidentally a fantastic book - so very very of it's time. It's beautifully photographed in 1980's brown and orange and features a somewhat younger and frillier Mary Berry as the judge of what was the tie-in title to a National Cheese Board competition. Brilliant piece of social history! You probably wouldn't make a lot of the recipes though... [Incidentally I remember that Union Jack made of cheese logo with great fondness. Todays British Cheese Board seem to have done away with it. :-( ]

Rarebit - the Welsh one [This makes a fair bit - enough for a whole short baguette sliced in half and another roll.]

1oz butter - softened (zap in the microwave for a few secs)

1tsp wholegrain beer mustard / your favourite

0.5tsp worcestershire sauce

Pinch cayenne

1tbsp beer (actually I must admit to using lager as that's what was about)

1tbsp milk

4oz grated tasty chedder / cheese of your choice

Pepper

Tomato - sliced [optional]

Mix everything bar the tomato together. That's kinda it - other recipes fiddle about with roux and eggs and what have you but this is pretty simple and adaptable I think. I may try it with mushroom ketchup in place of the worcestershire sauce next time.

Anyway - what I did with mine was use it on part baked baguettes; as I baked them off I sliced a large vine tomato, sprinkled the slices with a little salt and pepper and chucked in the oven for 5ish mins. [Watch the salt as mature cheese can be surprisingly salty I find. It helps draw the juices out of the tom though so I think you need a bit.]

Slice baguettes in half, lay tom slices on, cover with cheese mixture and pop under the grill to melt.

Nice, easy, tasty. Not the healthiest snack maybe but I'll leave that up to your own conscience. :-D
As this is Welsh in origin I'm going to submit it to Chris's 'Bloggers Around the World - Great Britain'.