18 posts tagged “nuts”

Waitrose do little red cherry peppers stuffed with a sardine mush as part of the Delicatezze range, and they're gorgeous but very expensive. So when I saw packs of baby orange bell peppers in LIDL the other day, I took them home and did things.

• 6 baby bell peppers
• 2 tins sardines (boneless, skinless, in oil)
• Big handful organic stoned dates
• Balsamic glaze (the vinegar reduced until it's a thick syrup)
• Lemon juice
• Teaspoon chopped roast garlic
  
• Pine nuts

Steam the peppers whole for 20 minutes (which made them very soft, a shorter time would have worked). Cool.

Pour off some of the oil from the sardines, not too much because you need the moistness. Mash the sardines. Process the dates with the garlic, some balsamic and lemon until it's a thick slurry. Mix into the sardines, add the pine nuts and set aside to mature for a couple of hours.

Cut the stem ends off the peppers, clean inside if necessary, and stuff with the sardine mixture.

There was enough filling to do at least another 6 peppers, it was great as a spread on bread and just wet enough to be a dip for tortilla chips.

Next time: could do with a bit of salt. Additions could include chopped herbs, anchovies for the salt, shredded lemon peel. We ate them straight away, you could put them in a shallow bowl and dress with an oil and lemon dressing and leave for a bit. Room temperature is probably better than fridge cold. Raisins would do instead of dates, and might be a bit sweeter - they are what is in the Waitrose ones.

EDITED: whoops, forgot the garlic.

In a Sainsbury's magazine from October 1997, nicked from a Portuguese cookbook. Gluten-free, but loaded with sugar.

• 12 oz mashed sweet potato (3 - 4 potatoes should do it), cooled
• 3 oz good quality candied fruit or peel, chopped as finely as possible
• 2 large eggs
• 12 oz caster sugar
• 1 oz unsalted butter, softened
• 5 oz ground almonds
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

To coat:

• A large egg white, lightly beaten
  
• Caster sugar

Beat the eggs, sugar and butter well for 2-3 minutes. Put in a large, heavy saucepan with the almonds, fruit, lemon juice and potato. Beat thoroughy and then heat, gently, gently, stirring constantly so it doesn't catch, for about 10 minutes or until it feels like fairly stiff dry mash. Spread out onto a floured board (rice flour if you want to stay gf) and leave to cool.

Heat the oven to Gas Mark 5, grease 2 baking trays.

Take walnut sized lumps and make into little cakes about 2" in diameter. Place on the greased trays brush with beaten egg white and sprinkle with caster sugar. Bake for about 20 minutes until lightly golden and cool before eating.

Definitely sweeties more than cakes.

I made this on the fly for dinner the other night, and didn't write it down at the time, but it went something like this:

• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 thumb-size piece of ginger, finely chopped
• 1 finely chopped onion
• Butter and oil, or ghee
• 4 small boneless chicken breasts, cut into small pieces
• 2 handfuls raw shelled pistachios
• 1 handful vanilla-soaked dried apricots (or organic apricots and a teaspoon of vanilla extract, or half a bean)
• 2 tablespoons ground cardamom
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tbsp ground coriander
• 1 small tin coconut milk
• Chicken stock
• Small tub creme fraiche
• Ground almonds
• 2 hard bananas
• More butter
• A tub of dry crispy fried onions

In a big heavy pan, melt the garlic, ginger and onion in the fat, slowly. Soften but not colour. Add the chicken, nuts, apricots, and spices. Stew gently and stir until the chicken is coated in the spices and cooked on the outside. Add the coconut milk and enough chicken stock to cover. Cover and simmer gently for up to a couple of hours, if you can, but at least half an hour. Take the lid off and mash the apricots into the sauce. Simmer again for at least another half an hour, longer if possible. Top up with water if necessary. When you're getting close to serving time, add the creme fraiche and stir in. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of ground almonds on the top and stir in well. This will thicken the sauce, let the first lot swell and do its work before adding more if you want thicker sauce. Watch it as the thicker it gets, the quicker it's likely to catch and scorch. While that's happening, chop the bananas into chunks and fry quickly in butter until golden.

Serve the chicken with the bananas on top, a sprinkling of fried onions, and some plain rice or naan bread to soak up the sauce. We had it with lamb stewed for hours in a low oven with tomatoes and hotter spices, and an aubergine and red pepper madras.

If you can't find the onions in your regular ethnic stores, try the IKEA food shop, or make your own by finely shredding shallots, frying in light hot oil until crisp, and draining well. Dry on paper towels. Or don't bother - a bit of crunch adds a nice texture but it isn't necessary.

Following the M&S couscous salad the other week, I decided to make something similar for a party tomorrow. I got down a big mixing bowl, and:

Filled it about a third full with dry couscous and added a little salt and enough boiling water to cover it plus about half an inch, and left it for 5 minutes.

Got out the food processor and roughly chopped:

• a large red onion
• a seedless clementine
• half a packet of frozen raw cranberries
• a handful of organic dried apricots

When the couscous had absorbed all the water, I fluffed it up and added the veggie mix, along with a drained tin of chickpeas. I would have put in two tins if I'd had them, it would have improved the texture.

Then I put the processor back together again (unrinsed) and blended:

• a huge bunch of fresh coriander, stalks and all
• orange juice (about a mugful)
• lemon juice (about a half a cup)
• 2 teaspoons rose water
• enough olive oil to make it look like a salad dressing
• lots of spices, biggest amount first - mixed spice, cinnamon, paprika, ginger, oregano, thyme, cardamom, nutmeg
• three heaped teaspoons chopped garlic from the jar

until the coriander was quite finely chopped, then I poured it over the couscous.

Before I mixed it in I also added:

• a handful of very good dried sweetened cranberries, that were almost like glace cherries
• a mugful of raisins
• a mugful of flaked almonds
• half a mug of dried barberries
• half a mug of dried pomegranate seeds
• half a mug of raw pumpkin seeds

I stirred it all well, and topped it up by sprinkling some of the still hot water over it - when the dressing starts to get absorbed it will dry out. It felt like making a really good Christmas pudding.

Tomorrow I will taste it again, and see if it needs more salt, I don't use a lot of salt automatically anymore and tend not to add enough. Also for sweetness - it's going to be one of those things that initially tastes very sharp but has a lot of lasting sweetness in it, so the first taste might need mellowing and the longer tones sharpening - honey and onion will do that nicely. And for heat - it will need just a little kick and some more paprika or even cayenne might be in order.

Building on the Wasabi Cashew recipe we've tried before, I've gone with a Christmas version.

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg white
• 3 teaspoons Speculaas spice (Dutch Christmas mixed spice)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• and mixed nuts, pecans, walnut pieces, and cashews - about 400 grams

Coated, baked at Gas Mark 6 for 7 minutes, turn, and 8 more minutes. Smells gorgeous. Increased the sugar from the original, less salt.

Winter spiced nuts from M&S (crispy sugar roast nuts, pecans, cashews. macadamias etc., with a heavy dose of cinnamon)

Turkish Delight type sweets from the Eleyen supermarket on London Road

Waitrose Richly Fruited Christmas Pudding

M&S  Connoiseur mincepies, especially heated at Gas Mark 4 for 10 minutes

Garden of England Timperley Rhubarb Chutney with Ginger

An old idea, and I've usually followed the Glynn Christian version for a whole salmon. But there were only three of us, so I changed it a bit. Well, quite a lot, actually.

Start with 5 - 6 indiividual fillet boneless portions of salmon, skin off, and lay on a foil-covered baking tray, that's been drizzled with a little olive oil. Heat the oven to Gas Mark 5, and the grill to high.

Take:

• 3 knobs of stem ginger in syrup
• 2 tbsps the ginger syrup
• 2 tbsps lemon juice
• half a lemon, peel shredded
• 50 gms shelled pistachios
• 1 onion that's been baked slowly for a long time
• ground cinnamon, allspice, paprika, salt, pepper, and garlic puree

Whizz in a processor the first three ingredients, to a rough mix. Tip out and mix with the peel, grind the pistachios coarsely and add. Whizz the onion to a coarse paste (this happens really fast, watch it), and stir in with the spices, tasting as you go. You want sharp, sweet, slightly hot. It will be v. wet. Add salt-and-sugar-free muesli, sprinkling on a bit at a time until it feels like porridge and looks like it will hold together well. If you're using a muesli base, you probably need some raisins or sultanas.

Spread the topping on the fillets to make a crust. Cook 10 -12 mins in the oven, then under the grill to crisp the topping and make it nice and brown. This took 5 - 7 minutes. We had a mix of thick but narrow pieces, and wide flat ones. The thick ones had less topping per portion, but the salmon was done about right. The wide ones were surplus to requirements, and are in the fridge.

Served with plain boiled rice and some fresh green beans stir-fried in a garlic and chicken stock sauce, with toasted flaked almonds.

Didn't really need a sauce as the topping was so moist inside, but maybe a wetter vegetable dish to go with it? or a more pilau style of rice.

From the ASDA freebie Christmas magazine, December 2006. Says 66 cals per biscuit, this amount makes 44 biscuits, should cost 6p each.

• 225 gms plain flour
• 0.25 tsp cayenne pepper
• 0.25 tsp dry mustard powder
• 125 gms butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
• 50 gms stilton, crumbled
• 75 gms mature cheddar, grated
• 75 gms pecans (or 44 whole or pieces of broken nuts)
• 2 medium eggs, lightly beaten - ed: - separately, you need them at different stages
• coarse salt

1. Preheat oven to Gas Mark 4. Line 2 baking trays with paper.
2. Sift flour, cayenne and mustard together.
3. Add butter and rub in until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add cheeses, and 1 egg. Mix until it forms a dough. Knead lightly. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes.
4. Roll out between 2 sheets of clingfilm to a thickness of 5 mm. Cut into rounds. Put on baking trays.
5. Brush with egg and put a pecan on each. Sprinkle with the coarse salt. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool on a wire tray.

What a pants recipe. It probably works, but they could have told you to keep the eggs separate, if I see "2 medium eggs, lightly beaten", I beat together 2 eggs. Idiots. And I'm thinking that rolling out a cheese dough between 2 sheets of clingfilm, as thin as 5 mm, would not be as straightforward as they make it sound. It tells you 44 biscuits @ 5 mm thick, but not how big the rounds should be. They'd have to be pretty small to get 44 on to 2 baking trays, but then, do they tell you what size baking trays? No. If you're supposed to put a whole pecan on each of 44 biscuits, I think you might need more than 75 gms.