Salt and pepper tofu

OK. So this is an awful picture. But it’s a glorious dish. And it’s an awful picture because we don’t want to keep one bazillion recipes unpublished for never bothering to photograph our food anymore.  So, sorry. But not sorry. You know?

Anyway, about 80% of the reason Woman will ever desire to go to a Vietnamese or Chinese restaurant is the possibility of therein consuming salt and pepper tofu. We used to love salt and pepper squid – particularly at Isarn in Islington – but since going veggie again we’ve found the veggie version better, with significantly reduced risk of stringy or chewy-ness.

So deal with the picture, and make the food.  If you take a better picture, send it to  us. Or maybe we should upgrade our camera phone.

Salt and pepper tofu

• 400g tofu
• 1 C cornflour
• 3tsp sea salt
• 1.5 tsp cracked black pepper
• 1 spring onion
• 1 finely chopped Thai red chili (or a teaspoon of crushed chili flakes – preferably in oil)
• 1/2 lemon
• Oil for frying.

Cut tofu into cubes and press (we have it on a couple of paper towels, then weighted down with plates).

Mix the sea salt and pepper together.

Coat the tofu in cornflour, let sit for a minute or so, and shallow fry – will need a couple of minutes on either side.  We don’t have a deep fryer and fried these babies in about 1cm of oil. Wait for it to get a little colour but  not too brown. You may need to do this in batches. Set aside cooked tofu.

In a new pan (or having removed the majority of the oil),  cook down the whites of the spring onion. When soft add the chili and squeeze of lemon. You might want to grate in some lemon zest. When onions are soft, throw in the pre-fried tofu, sprinkling the salt and pepper mix over it all. Toss through, over medium heat, until tofu is warmed. Throw in the sliced green bits of the spring onion.

You could use lemongrass instead of lemon and that would be fine, but we often find we just don’t go through lemongrass and so using lemon juice ends up far more economical. And ManWoman is nothing if not economical.

Estimated cost: £1.60

Musical accompaniment: Paul Kelly – the entire back catalogue

Baked stuffed zucchini flowers with fresh cheese & pistachio

And we’re back. It’s been a long time, blog. A lot of recipes as yet unpublished. Anyway.

The sight of zucchini flowers is a little bit exciting. I mean, we know you can’t buy these at your local supermarket. Fair enough. We’d pined after zucchini flowers for long enough to know that this is not widely available. Since we abandoned this blog, we have moved sarf of the Thames to deepest darkest SE14. No more of the organic baby shops, boutiques and gastropubs of Crouch End. Nah, bruv. We’re in Telegraph Hill now. As such, we have ready access to fabulous Brockley Market on a Saturday morning (and Maltby Street – another story), which does a good trade in seasonal and local produce. Among them, famed zucchini flowers (these are four for £2.50)

So when you do manage to get your hands on zucchini flowers, it seems a bit of a sacrilege (although quite delicious) to dunk the sinewy petals into a batter and dump them in the fiery furnaces of a hissing saucepan of  boiling oil . Baking is much more genteel, innit? The result clearly isn’t crispy (there remains bite in the stem and texture in the crushed pistachios), but is so fresh and summery I would say, should fried zucchini flowers meet baked zucchini flowers in a dark alley, and if the two had a grievance with one another, then my money is on baked zucchini flowers. There. I said it.

And it’s quite versatile – the key is a light, fresh cheese as the bulk paired with a sharper cheese. Baking on the tomatoes makes the tomatoes nice and sweet, and turns it into an entire dish (a light supper or starter), as well as preventing the flowers from sticking to the pan. 

Baked stuffed zucchini flowers

• 4 large zucchini flowers
• 100g mild, soft white cheese (we’ve used both a very, very fresh goats cheese and a salted ricotta)
• 50g strong sharp cheese (with the fresh goats cheese we paired this with a hard, strong goats; with ricotta it was paired with parmesan)
• 2 TBSP pistachios, roughly chopped
• 1 TBSP thyme leaves (dry – or 1.5TBSP fresh)
• Pinch of lemon zest (optional)
• 1 large garlic clove
• 4 ripe tomatoes

Pre-heat oven to 200C.

Crumble and grate the cheeses into a bowl. Add in the chopped pistachios, minced garlic clove, thyme and lemon zest. This should now be delicious – if not, adjust accordingly.

In stuffing the zucchini flowers you require a delicate hand, but the petals are more robust than you might imagine. With a teaspoon, scoop out the stamen (which conveniently also evicts any bugs convening in the flower). Each flower should be able to hold a good few teaspoons of mixture – larger ones will fit perhaps five or six teaspoons. In these pictures here we had some absolutely tiny flowers, and they still had some space. To close the flowers, hold the tips of all petals together and firmly but gently twist. This should remain closed.

Cut the tomatoes about 5mm thick, and lay out on greased baking tray. Arrange the stuffed zucchini flowers on the tomatoes.

Cover the flowers with foil and bake for about 15 minutes. Check, and if nearly done remove foil and bake – uncovered – for a further 5 minutes.

Serve flowers with the tomatoes on which they lay.

Musical accompaniment: The Mynabirds

Estimated cost: £6.50

Fake baked beans

It’s not that often – or cool – that people portending to keep food blogs describe the attempt to recreate the flavours of a canned product a lofty goal. But, if this blog is anything, it is not ‘often’.

So it is that this recipe is an endeavour to recreate the amazingly delicious Turkish/Cypriot giant beans you get in cans. While it does take a few more hours than it would to tug at the ring pull and deposit the gloopy blob of beans from a can into a saucepan, it’s infinitely more rewarding (if you’re the kind of person who finds work a reward). Also, it does happily lack the excess salt, oil and probably E numbers lurking in the packaged versions.

Also, we may not always live in such close proximity to Cypriot grocers, so we need to start developing self sufficiency. These giant beans are such a great, heart warming breakfast dish – all pillowy and comforting in their fillingness.Not sure if our liberal use of smoked paprika stops this from being Cypriot, but it tastes pretty fab.

(I swear we do cook things other than breakfast, it’s just that the light is so much nicer in the daytime.)

Giant Turkish/Greek beans (serves 4 – 6)

• 1 C butter beans (or 2 tins of pre-cooked)
• 6 C water
• 2 tins of tomatoes
• 3 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 red onion, finely chopped
• 1 TBSP lemon juice
• 3 – 4 TBSP chopped dill

You can’t really make this on the morning of your breakfast, unless you use canned beans. If you do, use two cans to make this recipe. If you do, skip the next sentence.

Soak beans in water overnight, then boil in water for about an hour. It’s not a glamorous task, but occasionally skimming the scummy froth (mmm!) off the top of the water will ensure the beans are ‘better for your tummy’.

When beans are nearly cooked (basically edible), drain and return to the pot with chopped tomato, paprika and onion. cook for a further 20 minutes on low heat. Add dill, cook for another two minutes, then remove from heat and add lemon as well as seasoning.

This is perfectly good to have on it’s own with some nice crusty bread, but we quite enjoy it with a side of grilled haloumi (don’t know what happened to this one) and a poached egg. Ripe avocado and rocket would also do very well.

Estimated cost (without egg and haloumi):  £1.50

Musical accompaniment: NPR ‘All Songs Considered’ stream

Mediterranean baked breakfast eggs

This is a breakfast for when you really want breakfast. For when you really need a big old feed in the morning and may or may not intend to eat anything else for the rest of the day. I mean for when you wake up pained and startled by your own hunger, wondering whether perhaps somewhere in the depths of sleep, some strange person has entered your house wielding a contraption of their own invention, the sole purpose of which is to suck out the entire contents of your stomach and use the half-digested contents as some sort of magical fuel source.

It’s also the breakfast Man Woman has after Woman has had the fortitude to wake up on a Saturday morning and do a double class at the gym, and Man has exhibited a similar level of strength in remaining in bed while one’s partner is kitting up for (and boasting about) some serious cardio-vascular exercise.

Baked eggs for brekkie is a great idea. Often the Frenchie version involves double cream and a bain marie, but this is far easier and pretty much contains your daily recommended intake of veg in one hit.

Adjust the spices for your own taste, but the below mix is a pretty darn good one.

Mediterranean baked breakfast eggs

• 1/2 red onion, sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• 1 C spinach, chopped (about 1/3 bunch)
• 1 tin tomatoes (chopped or whole)
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp hot paprika
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 4 eggs
• Parsley
• Feta (optional)
• Bread (optional)

In a fry pan, heat some oil. Then add onions and garlic, sautee until softened. Add spices, spinach and tomatoes and cook until the mix has stopped being watery, but the spinach is reduced down (probably about 5-10 minutes).

Either divide the mix into a couple of heat-proof dishes, or just leave as is. Crack two eggs into each heat-proof dish (or four into the fry pan). The eggs should cover most of the mix.

Put the pans/dishes under the grill for a few minutes until eggs are cooked to your liking. Throw a couple of pieces of pita bread under the grill too while you’re at it.

Top with crumbled feta and chopped parsley.

(I realise that by grilling this, it’s not technically ‘baked eggs’, but really it’s so satisfying that semantics lose their power)

Estimated cost: £4 (if you go for cheese and bread)

Musical accompaniment: Peaches

Karjalanpiirakka – Finnish rye pastries with swiss chard rice filling

Continuing on this Nordic theme for no apparent reason whatsoever, here we  present to you karjalanpiirakka. Or Karelian pies, if you don’t speak Finnish. I don’t profess to speak Finnish, but I have accrued a somewhat surprisingly large Finnish vocabulary in foodstuffs.

These little pastries are often part of a picnic spread or table of breads and snacks. We’re not going to lie here. It’s heavy on the old carbohydrates. But it still isn’t too stodgy – unless you want to follow the traditional recipe which uses a lot more butter in the pastry, in the rice and then dips the whole buggers in butter-water then tops it with a mixture of munavoi – which is a mixture of equal parts egg and butter. Butter.

We served this as a starter with beetroot carpaccio, and it’s likely that we’ll make a bunch for Christmas, chucking a few in the freezer to pull out for when guests come around and we’re too bloated from the previous day’s excess to actually cook anything else.

This rye pastry, though, is quite versatile. We’ve used it as a base for pies, it has a really lovely flavour and texture when rolled out very thin. We used it in a broccoli, cheddar and dill pie which worked really rather brilliantly.

Thin rye pastry (makes enough for about 14 pastries and a small pie)

• 50g white flour
• 200g rye flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 50g butter chopped
• 125g fromage frais
• 85ml water (add more accordingly)

Mix all dry ingredients together, then add the butter, fromage frais and water. Knead, leaving some chunks of butter in the dough, wrap with cling film and  let rest in the fridge for a little while (this can be left for up to 2 nights in the fridge and still be good, according to our experience).

Remove from fridge and roll out. There will be butter pieces still in this, but laminate the dough – so continuously fold over, then roll out, fold over and roll out until the flattened pastry is even in consistency.

Roll to about 2mm thickness, or as thin as you can get it.

Filling (enough to fill about 14 pastries – or half the above pastry mix as above)

• 1C pudding rice
• 1C milk
• 1C water
• 2 TBSP butter
• 4 leaves (not ends of stalks) Swiss chard
• salt to taste

Cook as though making rice pudding. Once the rice is soft and the liquid as been absorbed, add the chopped Swiss chard and stir through.

Dill yoghurt

• 60ml yoghurt
• 1 TBSP chopped dill
• 2 tsp chopped chives
• salt to taste

Just mix. That’s it.

Assembly

Use a small saucer or cup (ours was about 8cm in diameter) to cut circles of pastry. In the centre of each circle dob about 2.5 TBSP of rice mix.

To fold the sides in, start at the edge of the circle furthest from you. Using both hands pinch the pastry around the rice mix, fitting tightly.

Cook in the oven at 200C for about 15 minutes, it should be obvious when it’s cooked.

Serve as a snack, as a starter with beetroot carpaccio or salad (one pie per person suffices in our experience) or – if you want to go really Nordic – some munavoi.

Estimated cost:

Musical accompaniment: Spiritualized, Songs from A&E

Beetroot carpaccio

So vegetarian Christmas, eh? Little bit lame, little bit not-so-special, little bit ‘where’s the nut roast’? No, say we. No. Man Woman refuses to eat nut roast, we will not partake in tofurky and we will not be scaling down to pasta.

The ceremony of making ham over hours and stuffing turkeys, actually I’m quite jealous of all that. So this year, our first Christmas staying put in the U of K, we’ve decided to go all out, and go traditional. But not traditional at all, you know. Still, however, in the tradition of tradition in a way. Point is, there is some traditional ingredients and concepts, but an absence of animal parts and their sad vegetarian imitations.

We decided to test the limits of this concept at a recent dinner party (I say dinner ‘party’ but our tiny flat allows us to squeeze just two other people in). At an earlier ‘party’ we’d drunkenly vowed to prepare our guests a Nordic/Finnish feast. There being about 14 actual vegetarian recipes (which are not baked goods) in the now fashionable Finnish repetoire, we realised it’d have to be Finnish in spirit, if not quite yet in reality.

So, thought we, let’s break this down to its elements. Finns like beetroot. Finns like dill. Finns like preserving things in salt.  Beetroot and dill carpaccio was the only logical evolution of these three facts.

This dish, which was served as a part of a starter (recipe soon to follow), would be great as part of a Christmas feast or as a side to creamy or heavy dishes as it’s nice and sharp. Northern European ‘tapas’ anyone? While this time of year up in this hemisphere can mean loads of heavy foods and root vegetables with which Man Woman are still largely unfamiliar with and unsympathetic to, this is a nice way to introduce some seasonal rooty freshness. But also, for our friends back in summertime, this totally works for hot weather too. You can tell it’s Christmas ’cause everybody wins.

So this carpaccio was kinda in homage to the Nordic habit of gravalax and also looked a whole lot like smoked reindeer meat while being notably less gamey. Bonus!

Beetroot carpaccio with horseradish and dill (serves 4 as side)

• 1/2 large beetroot
• 60ml lemon juice
• 2-3 tsp good quality extra virgin olive oil
• 2 TBSP grated horseradish (we used one from a jar – use less if using fresh horseradish)
• 4 tsp chopped dill
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar

Slice the beetroot as finely as possible. If you can manage to get a full cross-section, congrats, you’ve been keeping your knives well and you deserve a gold star. Otherwise, shavings (think ham!) are fine too.

Mix all other ingredients in a bowl and adjust to taste. It should be very acidic.

Lay the beetroot in a shallow dish and cover with the lemon mix. It may be almost like a paste, but so long as you smear and toss it through all the beetroot it’ll be fine.

Chill in the fridge for at least ten minutes.

Estimated cost: £1.20

Musical accompaniment: She and Him, Christmas Album

Cheat’s amazing breakfast (shhh! It’s toast)

This is less a recipe than a ‘serving suggestion’, in all earnestness. Man Woman feels guilty about posting it here because it is so simple. It is, actually, toast. Which is why we’ve had to call it ‘cheat’s amazing breakfast’, because it is pretty amazingly good, and yet it’s stupidly easy to the point of being obvious. But again, in the face of English brunch establishments collective aversion to moving beyond fry-ups and eggs Benedict (which have their place and can be done well and so on and so forth), this almost feels necessary. It’s a straight up copy of a great, fall-back breakfast Woman used to devour at Cafe Sofia in Erskineville, around the corner from Erko Villa, aka her old share house.  It seems a very Sydney breakfast: healthy, easy, care-free and just a little bit pretentious.

Cheat’s breakfast: Mushrooms, tomato and avocado on toast

• Sourdough
• 6 mushrooms per person
• 1 TBSP soy per serve
• 2 cloves garlic (crushed) per serve
• 1 tomato
• 1 avocado

Slice mushrooms thinly and throw into small pan with heated olive oil, crushed garlic and a dash of soy sauce. Cook for about 5 minutes, until the mushrooms are soft and glossy.

Now this is embarassing. Cut tomato. Spread avocado on sourdough (or whatever bread you like, in all honesty), top with mushrooms then that tomato. Crack pepper, drizzle lemon and olive oil if you feel so inspired.

Estimated cost (per person): £2.10

Musical accompaniment: Dark, Dark, Dark

Eggplant cutlets, beans & spinach with a red wine roux

Man has often rued his lack of roux-making (ho! ho!). This should set the record straight. It should also address that other record, of French insistence on every meal having meat in it. Man Woman get stuck on a cheese and bread diet whenever we visit Paris. We suggest they consider something along these lines.

While there may appear to be 1,001 ingredients in the below dish, you probably do have most of it in the house and can chop and change a bit (this is our vesion of a roux recipe which called for herbs we do not possess – ie. marjoram, and we actually used spinach stalks instead of celery). Also all the other elements can be made while the sauce is being stirred. This’ll suit a dinner party as the elements can be made ahead of time, but it’s quick enough for a mid-week meal too – no more than 45 minutes from start to plate.

Red wine roux

• 1.25C boiling water
• 2 tsp vegetable boulion (or stock)
• 25g butter (or vegan magarine)
• 3-4 TBSP flour
• 1 white onion, minced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/4C finely chopped celery or spinach stalks
• 3/4C red wine
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp dried rosemary – or 1tsp fresh leaves, crushed

Eggplant cutlets

• 1 small eggplant
• 1 egg
• 1C (or so) bread crumbs (Panko best)

Beans and greens

• 1 tin (or cup) buttery beans – such as flagolet, canneli, butter beans, etc
• 1.5C chopped fresh spinach
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• Ground black pepper

Making the sauce

In a saucepan on medium heat mix boiling water and boullion (or stock) until dissolved.

In a small frypan melt the butter and stir in the flour, stirring for five minutes over a low heat until it starts to smell toasty. Add the onions and garlic to the butter-flour mix (I think there is a proper word for this) and continue stirring for three minutes.

Put the celery/spinach stalks in and stir for another couple of minutes. The add the boiling water mix to the fry pan and whisk until it creates a smooth even mixture. Add a bayleaf and other herbs and bring to the boil.

After a few minutes, slowly add the wine and continue to stir bringing to biul again. Then lower to a simmer for 5 – 10 minutes. Adjust herbs, garlic and maybe a dash of red wine vinegar to taste. If it’s become too gravy-like, just add a bit more water.

Other elements: Eggplant cutlets

While the sauce is being brought to the boil, etcetera. Cut a small eggplant into 4-5 thick slices – about 1.5cm thick heat. Sprinkle with salt and chuck into a hot oven, about 15 minutes, until cooked through.

Create a crumbing station: one plate of mixed egg, one plate of bread crumbs. Dip each cooked eggplant slice into the egg, then into the crumbs and set aside. Do this twice for each slice.

To cook, pour a little vegetable oil into a fry pan. We used only a little – it was less than 1cm deep. Fry eggplant for about 2-3 minutes each side, then set aside on paper towels to drain.

Other elements: Spinach and beans

Simply chuck a can of beans into a saucepan and warm over low heat. Just as the sauce and eggplant is about ready, throw in the chopped spinach, drizzle over lemon juice and sprinkle in black pepper.

This isn’t as hard as this long list suggests!

Estimated cost: £4.50

Musical accompaniment: Robert Stillman, Machine Song

Portuguese tomato-chili rice with almond asparagus

Man just asked Woman, by rights and passport a Portuguese national, what makes this rice Portuguese.

“My dad makes it,” said she (I).

While much of what my Portuguese dad makes is not Portuguese, I am quite confident this is a recurring dish in Portuguese cuisine. Portuguese cuisine, I  must emphasise. You might be tempted to say, ‘oh, like paella’. Portuguese people rightly say no. This is not like paella at all. And while in technique this dish bears some resemblance to risotto, shut up. It’s not risotto either. (I refer you to the campaign)

Woman’s dad often served this with pork, or probably if he remained on the old continent, bacalao (salted cod) or similar.

Portuguese rice

• 1/2 C arborio (or just bloody pudding, that’s what the peasants do and who’s to argue?) rice
• 1 1/2 C water
• 1/2 vegetable stock cube
• 1 can whole peeled or diced tomatoes
• 1 ripe, medium-sized tomato, diced
• 1/2 good-sized Spanish  (ummm… Iberian) onion cut into chunks
• 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• Half a capsicum (optional)
• dash of dry white wine
• 1 – 2 TBSP lemon juice
• 8 – 10 sprigs of parsley, chopped up
• 1 TBSP piri-piri sauce (optional)
• salt and pepper to taste

Almond asparagus

• 4  asparagus
• 2 TBSP sliced almonds
• a very non-stingy amount of salt

Heat olive oil in a pan, adding onion then garlic. Before either soften, add rice and swirl around in pan to ensure it’s entirely coated with oil. Throw in a splash of dry white wine.

Add 1 C of the water, with stock (you could dilute it before, but we couldn’t be bothered on a cold Friday night) and allow to absorb over medium heat for about 5 – 10 minutes. Add can of tomatoes and chopped fresh tomato. Add extra 1/2 C water.

Cook for another while. I don’t know how long it was, to be frank, more than 10 minutes. I was busy taking down washing and filling hot water bottles. Essentially you want to rice to be soft, there to be no excess liquid, but the rice to have an al dente bite. Just before serving, add lemon juice, piri-piri sauce (if so desired) and stir through chopped parsley.

This would work fantastically with prawns or other firm white seafood. Other white land-dwelling meat should work fine, but ManWoman doesn’t know why it’s encouraging you to eat meat, when the asparagus was so fantastic.

So, asparagus.

While heating up or finishing off the Portuguese rice, heat more olive oil in yet another (that would be the second) pan. Chuck your asparagus in there, go on. Salt generously and then throw in the sliced almonds. Toss these around for a while, if some almonds go black, don’t fret. It won’t do much damage really, they end up being quite edible.

Before asparagus get anywhere near soggy – it is our belief that they can probably be eaten raw-er than their greener counterparts – serve atop a few scoops of the Portuguese rice.

You may – obviously, us not being the boss of you  or anything like that – grate some parmesan or hard white goats’ cheese atop this delight, but I dare say you won’t need to. It’s pretty freakin’ good.

Estimated cost: £3

Musical accompaniment: CocoRosie

Tomato and red onion tarte tatin

I promise we have made this prettier than these pictures, but I’ve not uploaded the pics to the computer and it’s been ages since posting, so just look at the above pictures, imagine a 30-40 per cent visual improvement and you’re there.

French cuisine is really not often very amenable to the absence of meat, over-fed livers and the like, but we’re determined to defy French conservatism. Like vegetarian Jacobins or something equally historically significant.

As you’ll see from the pictures, we’ve made this both with shallots and red onions. It really, really doesn’t matter. Roma/plum tomatoes, normal vine tomatoes – whatever. Choose what looks best in the fresh veg aisle.

Pastry

• 60g white flour
• 30g mature cheddar cheese or parmesan
• 30g butter
• 2 TBSP water
• 15g self-raising flour

Filling

• 1 TBSP butter
• 1/2 -1 TBSP sugar
• 5 shallots or 2 red onions, sliced into thick rings
• 2 sliced garlic cloves
• 5 or so tomatoes halved (whatever fills your pan)
• 1 – 2 tomatoes cut into thick slices (to sit on top of other fillings)

If you’re good you can make the pastry while the filing is cooking, but you will need some pretty impressive powers of multi-tasking to do so very effectively.

So, melt butter and sugar in a pan of around 20cm diameter. Then add balsamic vinegar, garlic and place the cut tomatoes and onions/shallots face down. Squeeze in as many as possible and keep the plate on low heat. Maybe even chuck a few extra wedges in here and there. Throw another tablespoon of balsamic (or more) over the stuff and sprinkle with salt.

While this is going, mix together pastry ingredients. Then wrap in plastic and keep in the fridge for about an hour. (You could do this before the cooking, actually)

Move the pan into an oven in low heat. I like to cover the tomato/onion mix with a lid or foil because it’s really best not to let it dry out. Cook for about 20mins – half an hour.

When the onions are softened and tomatoes cooked through and similarly soft, you can take the pan out of the oven and hopefully by this time the pastry has rested in the fridge.

Carefully place the pastry over the tomato mix, checking first that it’s still quite liquidy. It should be a sticky kind of liquid – not as thick as honey, but on its way. Try to tuck the pastry into the pan, but it might just end up ‘rustic’.

Put back in the oven at around 180C for about 20 minutes. Take out when pastry is hard.

Let cool for a couple of mintues then tip over, placing a plate inside or over the pan and quickly flipping.

Best served with a green or rocket salad.

Estimated cost: £6

Musical accompaniment: Anna Calvi