Category: Side

Smashed Broad Bean Spread

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 4 snacking adults

This is a great spread. Use low fat feta and it’s plenty healthy too.

Subtle, mediterranean flavour – a dark horse amongst other more popular spreads if presented as part of a share plate.

Peeling broad beans is a little bit of a pain though just get on with it; the end result is more than worth it, served with toasted pita or other crackers.

Yumo.

Ingredients

200gm frozen broad beans
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
100 gm feta, crumbled
1 Tbsp mint leaves, finely chopped
1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
Salt and pepper

Method

  1. Boil the beans for 2 minutes and then drain, refresh in cold water, and peel off the outer skins.
  2. Combine the beans, garlic and olive oil, smash to a rough puree, and then stir through the remaining ingredients.

Champ

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Serves: 4 – 6 as a side to a stew

Champ is as good as it is unknown in Australia; Ireland’s take on mash potatoes.

You can happily substitute spring onions for red onions or (French) shallots as I often do.

Or become a real champ warrior by adding bacon and ham.

Ingredients

100gm spring onions, sliced thinly
150ml milk
100gm butter
1kg potatoes
Salt and pepper

Method

  1. Make your mash potatoes as you normally would; plenty of butter and seasoning. If you have a ricer, use that you get perfectly smooth mash, if not, buy one.
  2. Stir through the spring onions.
  3. Try not to keep sampling to check the seasoning for the 20 minutes that your braise is finishing off!

The Best Green Salad with White Wine Dressing

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 4 – 6

Doesn’t any lunch – pasta, BBQ, seafood – just say its Saturday when there is a big green salad on the table?! It says pour a glass of wine, grab a piece of bread and relax.

This is my go-to green salad. It is a Valli Little recipe and you can of course adjust the dressing with say Dijon mustard or maybe some diced shallots.

Ingredients

1 small frisee lettuce (curly endive)
2 baby cos lettuce
2 cups wild rocket leaves
1 handful chervil sprigs (Harris Farm your best bet)
2 handfuls of baby green beans, blanched for 1 – 2 minutes in boiling water
Bunch of chives
1/3 c white wine
¼ c lemon juice
1 tsp honey
¾ c extra virgin olive oil

Method

  1. Remove the outer leaves from the frisee and cos. Wash the inner leaves with the rocket and dry in a salad spinner or with paper towel.
  2. Pick the chervil leaves and place in a serving bowl with the lettuce and the beans. Hold the chives over the bowl and using kitchen scissors, finely snip half the chives into the bowl.
  3. In a separate bowl, whisk the wine, lemon juice and honey and season with salt and pepper. Slowly whisk in the oil until you have an emulsified dressing. Toss the salad and dressing together, then garnish with the remaining (long) chives and serve.

Bobby Flay’s Grilled Eggplant Dip

.Reading time 4 minutes.
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Handsome and a good cook. Both things I aspire to!

Serves: 8 as part of a share platter

Bobby Flay isn’t a household name in Australia though the reverse is true in America where he is a superstar of cooking.

I first heard about him on Iron Chef America and despite his good looks and cool swagger, this is not a man you want to challenge in the kitchen. From memory, he never lost a challenge.

Anyway, this is his eggplant dip and whilst there is a little effort to it, it has a subtle, sophisticated and really fine flavour to it. I grilled some Turkish bread brushed will olive oil and served that with the dip and that Oliver had five in quick succession tells you volumes.

Impress your mates and serve this up fresh next time they’re around. Better still if you have good looks and cool swagger.

P.S. I didn’t oil the vegetables to cut down on calories and I saw no downside. Except less calories! Oh, and really do try to serve this fresh or if refrigerated, allow time to come back to room temperature and give a good stir to combine.

Ingredients

1 red pepper (capsicum)
¼ c canola oil
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1 large or 2 medium eggplant, ends trimmed and sliced lengthwise, 2cm thick
2 cloves garlic
¼ c tahini
¼ c Greek (fat-free) yoghurt
¼ c extra virgin olive oil
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp chopped, fresh oregano
1 tsp hot smoked paprika
¼ c chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Pita breads or Turkish breads, brushed with olive oil, heated on the grill to serve

Method

  1. Heat a grill to medium. Brush the red pepper with some of the canola oil and season with salt and pepper. Brush the eggplant slices on both sides with more of the canola oil and season with salt and pepper.
  2. Grill the eggplant until charred on the first side; around 3 minutes. Turn and continue grilling until tender; around 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer to a chopping board.
  3. Grill the red pepper, turning occasionally until charred all over and tender; around 15 minutes. Transfer to a bowl, cover tightly with cling wrap and let steam while you make the eggplant puree.
  4. Smash the garlic cloves, sprinkle them with salt and mash and smear them to a paste using the side of a knife.
  5. Remove the skin from the eggplant and transfer the flesh to a food processor. Add garlic paste, tahini, yoghurt, 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and the lemon zest, oregano and smoked paprika. Process until smooth and thick. Add salt to taste and transfer to a serving bowl and let sit for at least 15 minutes to allow the flavours to meld.
  6. Peel, seed and dice the red pepper.
  7. Drizzle the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil over the dip (I gave this a miss), top with the diced peppers and chopped parsley and serve with the warm pita, lavash or grilled Turkish bread.

Oliver’s Guacamole

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: Oliver

In a cooking blog that is meant to discover and inspire, it might seem a little odd to put up a guacamole recipe. According to Google, there are 2.380 million of the recipes out there and so it is safe to say that we don’t need another.

Except that it wasn’t until recently when I had a fresh guacamole and then made my own batch at home that  I remembered just how awesome guacamole is. It is so spirited and exciting and fresh. And so healthy that the top result about guacamole in Google describes it as almost ‘superfood’.

I’ll run with that!

Also, this blog being for my boys so that they have a bunch of tested recipes to cook for their friends and family, Oliver (8), the eldest who is really picky and plain about food, demolished this guacamole. By itself, he would never touch avocado, red onion or coriander… or any of the ingredients.

He would just eat the corn chips and be done with it.

But he will eat this guacamole by the bucket and that is a great way to get great foods into him.

It is also why it’s called Oliver’s Guacamole.

Enjoy it like he does and go all in with the flavour!

Ingredients

Avocados
Red onion, minced
Garlic, mashed with salt
Lime Juice
Cumin
Tomatoes, seeded and finely diced
Salt
Coriander leaves
Plain corn chips

Method

  1. Mash the avocados roughly with the lime juice.
  2. Mix through the remaining ingredients except the coriander and correct the seasoning.
  3. Garnish with the coriander.

Giada De Laurentiis’ White Bean Dip

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 4 – 8 snacking guests

Another fantastic recipe from Giada De Laurentiis; I recently wrote up her Linguini with Green Beans, Ricotta and Lemon and this dip gets the same superlatives I used for her pasta recipe:

    • Great
    • Unassuming
    • Simplicity
    • Clean
    • Healthy
    • Tasty

I’m really into dips at the moment and I did this one up on the week alongside a few others. It will easily last the week it will take to dip away at it and it is just so fresh to be able to have a few mouthfuls of dip anytime you get hungry.

As long as you’re not telling yourself that you are hungry all the time because then dip could become a problem!

Ingredients

4 pita breads, split horizontally and cut into 8 wedges
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Dried oregano
1 tin cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
¼ c parsley leaves
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 200 C.
  2. Process the beans, parsley, garlic, and lemon juice with salt and pepper until coarsely chopped, and then gradually mix in 1/3 cup olive oil until creamy.
  3. Brush the pita bread wedges with some olive oil, and then sprinkle with oregano and salt and pepper.
  4. Bake until crisp and golden.
  5. Serve the bean dip with the pita wedges.

Cucumber and Feta Dip

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 8 snacking guests

There is something special about arriving at someone’s house and being presented with a few homemade dips. It says something nice about your host and it tells you how they feel about you.

I’ve been making my own skinny hommus of late, though I really should get into the habit of making more and more dips; a few dips on hand and a box of chopped carrot sticks in the fridge would be all I needed to bridge the lunch to dinner gap and it would be far more interesting than a boiled egg or an apple!

This wonderful dip is courtesy of my mother. I made it over the weekend with low-fat feta and geez it’s good with brown rice crackers and a glass of wine before dinner.

Get on it! Make your guests feel special!

Ingredients

2 large Lebanese cucumbers, peeled, deseeded and finely diced
Salt and pepper
225gm feta, crumbled
1/8 + cup olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp water
1 small red onion, finely diced
1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
2 tbsp finely chopped mint

  1. Place the diced cucumber in a colander, sprinkle with salt, allow to drain for 30 + minutes, and then rinse and pat dry.
  2. Mash together the feta, olive oil, lemon juice, water and some pepper, and then mix in the cucumber, onion and herbs.

Eggplant Chips

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 4 – 8 snacking guests

The most important thing about this rather simple dish is not that it is low in carbs, nor that the chips taste great.

No, the most important thing is that you get the eggplant slices as dry as you can.

Because as we know, good chips are dry chips. If need be, bake a little longer than instructed to get them golden.

And enjoy!

Ingredients

6 baby eggplants
2 tbsp sea salt
Oliver oil cooking spray
1 c no-fat Greek-style yoghurt
1 small Lebanese cucumber, finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, crushed
½ tsp finely grated lemon rind
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh dill
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Method

  1. After washing the eggplants, slice the eggplants into thinish discs.
  2. Place the eggplant discs on a tray and sprinkle with sea salt. Set aside for 30 minutes to remove excess moisture.
  3. Heat the oven to 180c and line a baking tray with baking paper.
  4. Pat the eggplant slices with paper towel to remove any excess moisture and salt. Place the eggplant discs on the baking tray, spray both sides of the eggplant discs with the oil and bake for 15 minutes or until golden and crisp.
  5. Meanwhile, combine the yoghurt, cucumber, garlic, lemon rind and dill in a bowl to make the tzazziki dip.
  6. Season and drizzle with a little olive oil if you wish.

Neil Perry’s Pan-fried Polenta

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves 4

If you cook this and serve it with a roast or a braise, it will replace mash as your go-to side. Hands down, money on it.

It is a Neil Perry dish (tick) and it continues (as far as I know) to be served in Qantas First and Business Class (tick). It can be prepared beforehand (tick) and people’s eyes light up when they taste it (tick).

It’s creamy, it tastes great, it sops up all the juices on the plate and it can be reheated the next day.

Tick tick tick.

None of us cook enough polenta. This dish will resolve that for you.

Ingredients

2/3 cup (100g) polenta
1 1/2 cups (375ml) milk
1 cup (250ml) chicken stock
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup (50g) finely grated Parmesan
50g unsalted butter, chopped well
Freshly ground pepper
Extra virgin oil

Method

  1. Lightly grease a rectangular baking tin (or small baking dish as I did). Line the tin with baking paper.
  2. Bring the milk, stock and sea salt to scalding point (just below boiling point) in a large saucepan.
  3. Gradually shower the polenta into the milk mixture, stirring continuously with a whisk.
  4. Simmer, still stirring for about 40 minutes, or until the polenta is very thick and pulls cleanly away from the side of the pan.
  5. Remove from the heat, stir in the parmesean, butter, salt and pepper to taste.
  6. Spread the polenta immediately into the tin and allow to cool slightly. Cover and refrigerate for about 3 hours, or until firm.
  7. Run a sharp knife around the edges of the tin and gently turn out the polenta. Cut into eight slices thick.
  8. Quickly pan-fry the polenta slices in a little olive oil on both sides until lightly browned.

Pommes Dauphinoise (French Potatoes with Nutmeg and Gruyere)

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves 6 – 8

There are hundreds of interpretations of this dish.

This one is a Orlando Murrin recipe from Delicious magazine. Dauphinoise translates to a “style of cooking” and doesn’t necessarily reflect any one ingredient.

I love cooking rich, baked French potatoes – stock, onions, butter, cream, milk and cheese – and serving them with roasts and casseroles, and this recipe is certainly one of my favourites.

Life is short, eat potatoes.

Ingredients

1 large garlic clove
500ml milk (or half milk, half cream)
Good pinch of ground nutmeg
Pinch of cayenne
900g potatoes, sliced as thinly as possible (I used my brand new mandolin)
175g grated Cantal, Comte (Gruyere) or cheddar

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180c.
  2. Cut the garlic in half and in a baking dish (2Lt approx), rub the exposed garlic all over. After a few minutes, butter the dish well.
  3. Crush the garlic and add all the ingredients (except the cheese) to a saucepan and bring to the boil. Stir continuously to prevent potatoes sticking, simmer for a minute or two until the liquid thickens perceptibly, and then remove from the heat.
  4. Stir in the cheese, reserving a handful.
  5. Pile into the baking dish pushing the potatoes into the liquid so that they do not stick out. Sprinkle with the rest of the cheese.
  6. Bake for 45 – 60 minutes until the top is dark and golden and the potatoes tender.