Green Mango Salad with Crispy Shallots

I am fortunate enough that I live within walking distance of a Thai grocers, and am able to buy ingredients that I couldn't get in the average supermarket.
From my last trip, I came back with a green mango. If you haven't tried them before, they are pretty sour but still have a distinctive mango flavour- I really like them in refreshing salads like these.

Green apples like Granny Smiths are often suggested as a substitute for green mango. Although the salad wouldn't be the same, I still think it would be an enjoyable dish. In addition, although the Thai (holy) basil is nice, I wouldn't let the lack of it stop you making it- just bump up the quantities of the other herbs.

We had this as a side dish to some very sticky and rich Vietnamese Caramel Pork- it was nice to have something so refreshing alongside. I think this salad would also be wonderful as a main, with some cooked and cooled glass noodles and prawns added.

Salad Ingredients
1 green mango, peeled and finely sliced
1/2 a cucumber, made into ribbons with a vegetable peeler, or finely sliced
1 red pepper, finely sliced
1 small-medium carrot, cut into matchsticks
Small bunch of spring onions, finely chopped
small bunch each of: mint, coriander and thai basil, leaves finely chopped

Dressing Ingredients
3 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp lime juice
sugar or honey, to taste-start with 1 tsp
red chilli, finely chopped, to tast

Crispy Shallot Garnish
about 6 shallots- peeled and finely sliced
oil for deep frying

I suggest starting with the shallots- heat the oil in a small saucepan, about 2cm deep. Add the shallots, and cook until they are a dark golden brown and crisp. They will need stirring, as the shallot slices on the edges of the pan tend to brown quicker. Remove from the oil (I find a tea strainer works very well) and put on some kitchen roll to remove the excess oil.
In a large bowl, mix together the salad ingredients. Mix the dressing ingredients together, and combine with the salad.
Turn the salad out onto a large plate, and top with the crispy shallots.

A collection of Elderflower Drinks II

I had another flush of seasonal food excitability about a month ago, and went out to pick a lot of elderflowers. I came back with maybe 100 heads of elderflowers, plus a whole lot of bugs. Two years ago, I made elderflower cordial from this recipe- it was really good, so I made some more- I think I had just over two litres of cordial, which I mostly mix with gin, fizzy water and lemons for a very refreshing drink. I am considering trying to turn some of it into sorbet too.

As well as the cordial, I made three alcoholic drinks:

Gooseberry and elderflower vodka- a few elderflower heads, a punnet of gooseberries, and about 8 tablepoons of sugar, and topped up with vodka. I made this last year, and it was really successful, so I felt it was worth repeating. I am going to leave this to steep for a tear again.

Elderflower liqueur- from the Wild Cocktails book- This had 20 heads of elderflowers, some sugar and vodka. You then cut up two lemons, and use it to help keep the elderflower heads under the vodka. This was left to infuse for a month. The elderflower flavour of this is incredibly intense. I have tried it out in the book’s suggested recipe of an ‘Elder sour’, but found it a bit too sour- I think it needs a touch of sugar syrup so it tastes more balanced- at least for my tastes.

Cherry, elderflower and honey gin- A more improvised recipe- I had used up all my sugar making the cordial, but had some orange blossom honey- I am hopeful the honey flavour will come through too. I crushed the cherries (about a punnet, but left the stones in, as they add to the flavour. Like, the gooseberry vodka, I just added a few heads of elderflowers. This was just topped up with gin, and I will try it over the next few months until I get a strong enough flavour.

Pineapple and Coconut Cake

In my last blog post for pineapple curd, I mentioned using it as a filling for a coconut cake- here is the result:

Taste-wise, it was lovely- obviously I am not doing anything new with the pineapple-coconut flavour combination, but it came off well as a cake. For the cake itself, I used a Nigella recipe for a coconut cake. The original recipe uses a coconut buttercream as the filling, and I just switched it with some of my pineapple curd. I haven't tried the original, so I can't compare, but I did like my version's contrast of sweet coconut with tangy pineapple. I was a little apprehensive about part of the recipe- you soak the desiccated coconut in 150ml water, and then put all of it into the cake batter- I wasn't sure if adding so much water would make the cake heavy. But in reality, it came out as a very light sponge. I kept the topping the same- just an icing made with Malibu- but I sprinkled on the zest of a lime, which was my own touch, and one I would keep for this recipe.


Cake
25g unsalted butter, softened
225g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 eggs
200g self-raising flour
25g cornflour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
50g desiccated coconut, soaked in 150ml boiling water

Filling
About 6 tbsp pineapple curd (see recipe)

Topping
2-4 tablespoons Malibu
125g instant royal icing


Preheat the oven to  180C / 160C fan, and line two 20cm sandwich tins. At this point, I boiled the kettle and soaked the dessicated cocount- you need to give it time to cool before adding it later. Cream the butter until pale and fluffy, and cream in the sugar. Beat in the vanilla extract. Mix in one egg, along with a tablespoon of self raising flour. Repeat with the 3 other eggs (again, with a spoonful of flour with each one). Sift in the remaining flour with the cornflour and baking powder, and fold in. Finally, fold in the coconut and water. Divide between the tins and bake for about 20 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Let them cool for about 5 minutes, then gently remove them from the tins, and let them cool completely on a wire rack.

Place one n the cakes on a plate, and spread over the curd. Put the over cake on top. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl, and mix in the Malibu. Spoon and smooth over the top of the cake. Enjoy!

Pineapple Curd

A friend made some very delicious lemon curd the other day, and it got me thinking about the different kinds of fruit that could be used to make curd. I have explored this a bit in my blog previously, with spiced damson curd and Seville orange curd. April isn’t the most inspiring time of year for seasonal fruit, so it’s a good time to turn to tropical flavours- i.e. something that won’t be grown in the UK anyway. And it’ll get you in a summery mood.  I decided to experiment with pineapple- it had a good amount of acidity that I hoped would work well in a curd. I hadn’t heard of a pineapple curd before, but a quick Google showed that other people have made it with success. Some recipes suggested using fresh pressed pineapple, and others just used pineapple juice- I compromised by using the freshest pineapple juice I could buy.

My recipe started off using an adaptation of this Nigel Slater lemon curd recipe, using pineapple juice instead of lemon, plus the juice of half a lemon, and omitting the lemon zest. While I was cooking it, I found it too sweet, and ended up adding an extra lemon and half worth of juice. Because of the additional juice, I quickly added an additional egg yolk. Despite these last minute changes, it came out as a curd should. I was really pleased with the result- it’s a tangy, fresh tasting curd with a good pineapple flavour. As well as on toast, I have plans to use it as a filling in a coconut cake, and to top some meringues with some cream and possibly some passion fruit pulp. 

125ml fresh pineapple juice

Juice of 2 lemons

200g sugar
100g butter, cut into cubes
3 eggs and 1 egg yolk

In a heatproof bowl, mix the juices, sugar and butter, and sit over a pan of lightly simmering water. Give it a stir to help melt the butter and dissolve the sugar. While this is happening beat together the eggs and yolks. Once the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved, whisk in the beaten egg mix. Keep whisking for about 10 minutes, until the curd mixture has thickened, and feels heavy on the whisk.

Pour into clean jam jars- this made about two medium sized jars for me.

Kao Phat Prik

I am slowly transporting all my cookery books from my parents' house to my flat- despite the lack of space for more books, I look forward to the day when the entirety of my collection is no longer based in London. I've just become reacquainted with Charmaine Solomon's Complete Asian Cookbook. I recently discovered this book was first published nearly 40 years ago- amazingly,it hasn't become at all dated.
I sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed by all the recipe books I have, and all the recipes I want to cook- and the lack of time to do it in. Recently, a dear friend and I came to the realisation that 3 meals a day doesn't feel enough to try everything. I'm trying to focus on a few recipes books, and really get into them, rather than feeling swamped by a huge collection of books. I've decided to start with The Complete Asian Cookbook- it's certainly got enough recipes to keep me going for a while.
I picked quite a simple starting point, with Kao Phat Prik, or chilli fried rice. I happened to have both leftover cooked rice, and some red curry paste in the fridge already, so I was partway there, ingredients-wise. I had made this red curry paste, but you could use any, homemade or bought.

Charmaine Solomon suggests garnishing with chilli flowers- I confess I left this part out, and just used the coriander leaves.

Ingredients
4 cups cold, cooked rice
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 red chilli, sliced
I green chilli, sliced
1 tablespoons red curry paste (I upped this a little)
1 pork chop, finely diced or minced
500 g  peeled and deveined raw prawns, roughly chopped if large,
2 eggs, beaten and seasoned,
salt and pepper
3 tablespoon fish sauce
1 bunch chopped spring onions
handful chopped coriander leaves

Method

 Heat the oil in a wok and fry the onion and red chilli until softened. Add the curry paste, and cook until the oil begins to separate.  Add the pork and stir-fry until cooked. Add the prawns to the pan. Once these are cooked through, add the rice, and stir so it is coated with the curry paste and the pork and prawns are well combined. Push the rice to the edge of the wok, leaving a space in the centre, and pour in the beaten eggs.. Stir until they start to set. Mix with the rice and toss over high heat until the eggs are cooked. Sprinkle with fish sauce, and stir in the spring onions.  Take off the heat and stir in the coriander leaves.

Fish Fragrant Aubergine

This recipe has reignited my love of aubergines- I often eat them and find them very unappealing, with a strange woolly texture and tough skin. In this recipe, they are fried in lots of oil, and get a soft/silky texture. I also chose to remove peel them, so avoiding the possibility of difficult to eat skin, although this wasn’t specified in the original recipe.

Perhaps confusingly, ‘fish fragrant’ does not mean the recipe contains any fish- it just refers to a style of cooking involving ginger, garlic, spring onions, soy, and chilli bean paste. The result is quite hot, and very satisfying- very good if you have a cold too. You can cook other ingredients in a similar style, but my favourite is definitely this aubergine and pork mince combination. I’d like to cook prawns with these flavourings, although I am not sure how authentic cooking seafood or fish in this manner is.  

If you are hesitant about cooking with aubergines, I would recommend this- this recipe has jumped into my top ten dishes.

You might have to go to a Chinese supermarket for the chilli bean paste, and almost definitely for the Chinkiang black vinegar. I think it is worth it though, especially for the chilli bean paste, which is fast becoming one of my favourite store cupboard ingredients, for stir fries, stews, or anything I feel needs a kick.

 

The recipe I used can be found here- another recipe from Sunflower Food Galore. I chose to deep fry the aubergine, and also to peel it. I also made 1 1/2 times as much, for 4 as a main dish with rice- there was enough, but not enough for seconds- I think I would probably double the recipe next time for the same amount of people.

Jerk Gammon Hock and Jerk Ribs

I am lucky to live near a fantastic butcher, Aubrey Allen. The meat is fantastic, and they have possibly the most helpful staff I have ever encountered. I went in the other day for nothing in particular, and came out with a large gammon hock for less than £2. I didn't have any recipe in mind, but came across this jerk gammon hock recipe by Jamie Oliver. I was in the mood for something a bit more fiery than just cooking the hock in cider with root vegetables, which would have been my default cooking method for a gammon hock. It's been a while since I have cooked anything by Jamie Oliver, even though I have always enjoyed his recipes.

I had to change the a little- the recipe specified 4 500g ham hocks. Mine was certainly more than 500g, probably almost double that. I made all the marinade, but had about half of it left over. I also cooked it at a lower temperature, but for about the same time- it came out very tender on the inside, and a little blackened on the outside.

I didn't eat it right away, I let it cool and then shredded it up, coating it in a little clementine juice and olive oil, as per the recipe's instructions. The next day, I fried the ham in a hot frying pan, with a little extra olive oil and a squeeze more juice added at the end of cooking. It turns it sticky and slightly crispy- delicious. To eat alongside, I made some coconut rice, with spring onions and lots of freshly chopped coriander stirred in at the end.

I had half of the marinade left, so I used it on some pork ribs, from the aforementioned Aubrey Allen. They weren't like baby back ribs, which is what I was expecting, but far thicker, more like a slab of pork belly:

I cooked them for about an hour at 170 degrees Celsius, and then turned the heat up to 220 and cooked for a further 15 minutes to crisp up the fat.