Seaweed and watermelon salad + crusted tofu with wakame and lime

Seaweed and watermelon salad

This one came with a really good dressing and the watermelon was a good complement to the seaweed – slightly dulling its brackish nature. It was an interesting combination, the base notes in the tahini (part of the dressing) seemed to level everything out and bring it together. Not sure if it’s one to repeat, but an interesting experiment.

Sea spaghetti from Whole Foods, watermelon from Waitrose, everything else from Japan Centre.

Crusted tofu with wakame and lime

Not sure if we did something wrong here, but the wakame took on the nature of a magic porridge pot, rapidly expanding in volume and filling an enormous pan. I think this sudden increase in size meant that the dressing wasn’t really enough to cut through a rather slimy pile of seaweed. With a bit more lime and sriracha it became palatable, but the texture was still a bit challenging. Crusted tofu was as crusted tofu is; interesting on the outside, tofu on the inside.

Sriracha from Whole Foods, tofu and seaweed from Japan Centre.

Recipes here.

Apricot, walnut and lavender cake

“Such a shame it went green, it was YUMMY.”

Having claimed in an earlier post not to be bakers, this might be the recipe to convert us.

Apricots really do taste rubbish unless they’re cooked, and when set inside a loose wobbling mass of sweet almond and walnut cake with a sort of flowery note, the results really seem worth scrabbling around the park for ‘fresh’ lavender for. Delicious icing (not shown).

Everything from Waitrose (the organic apricots were tastier looking than the conventional), other than the lavender which we found in a park.

If you’re planning to keep this cake for a couple of days in a heatwave, experience suggests it ought to go in the fridge.

Recipe here.

Ricotta and oregano meatballs

Tasted “like somebody’s Italian mum had made them”. Lighter than a normal beefy meatball, thanks ricotta, with a good consistency. Cheese taste evident.

If we were to make this again, would probably whizz the sauce. Carrot lumps always off-putting.

In summary, great balls, okay sauce. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be a photograph of the finished thing.

Meat from Mackanna. Everything else from Waitrose.

Recipe here.

Seared girolles with black glutinous rice

Hmm. Not entirely convinced. Lemony mushrooms a bit weird, glutinous black rice not remarkable taste-wise and texturally a bit strange. Goat’s curd a happy discovery.

Girolles from the mushroom man (sorry!) at Borough, supplemented with oyster mushrooms and a lonely king oyster from Turnips, also at Borough. Goat’s Curd from Neal’s Yard Dairy. Rice from Loon Fung.

Recipe here.

Buttermilk and bay leaf tart

Our first Ottolenghi pudding and we’re not bakers. Quite good tart, quenelle needs work.

Who knew what bay leaves tasted like when they’re the main event? A tasty spiciness and eggy/custardy filling slightly reminiscent of pastel de nata.

Everything from Waitrose.

Recipe here.

Aubergine kadaifi nests with red pepper salsa

Really great salsa which suggests multiple future applications. Pastry from the end of the earth making a really nice change from filo. Great filling.

This was a good excuse to finally visit Persepolis in Peckham – a lovely shop which didn’t disappoint.

Recipe here.

 

Lamb stuffed aubergine with date syrup and tomato

Fairly close in many ways to vine leaf and lamb pie, an earlier win. A recipe which makes the usually unpalatable bulgar delicious. Overall, very successful with only minimal faff. Familiar earthy spicing very much in evidence and plenty of sauce.

Date syrup from Honey & Co.

Recipe here. You might notice we squeamishly dodged the liver stuffed vine leaves.

Creamy potato and tuna salad

A delicious riff on a deconstructed Niçoise with the addition of almost chips in a tasty salty mayonnaise.

Caper win for a perfect spring supper.

Special delicious (wholesomely sourced) tuna from Ortiz via Whole Foods.

Recipe here.

Not quite a hiatus

We’ve been much better at keeping up with the project than we have with the blog. Four weeks of updates to follow shortly.

Cuttlefish stew

This turned out very well. Excellent cuttlefish, fresh from Cornwall, thanks to Jonathan Norris (fishmonger to Cher, when she’s in town, apparently). Minimum faff for delicious, soft, melty cuttlefish. Yum.

Apologies for the terrible photo which doesn’t do this justice again. Green salad out of shot.

On the cuttlefish adventure, we also discovered Bottle Apostle and a rather tasty Austrian Pink, a Zweigelt I think. A happy preprandial. 

Recipe here (caution: gross pun).

Rhubarb, celery and sorrel salad and crisp prawns with celeriac and coriander remoulade

This salad split a crowd. Some of us found it delicious; a wholesome hit of tart sharpness and crisp acid against the bland, slightly bitter, quinoa balanced with the salty creaminess of parmesan. Others could only muster up a “health food shop rabbit fodder” slur. 

The prawns, being good quality prawns wrapped in bread and deep-fried, were a more certain winner and we even found a celeriac convert through the remoulade. An extra blob of sweet chilli on the side might have disguised the subtlety of the dish but it all went down rather well in the end. 

Sorrel from Tayshaw, Druid Street (highly recommended and very good value), quinoa from Alara (snooty health food in Bloomsbury, only good in a red quinoa emergency), Thai sweet chilli sauce from (perhaps incongruously) Green Valley.  

Recipes here.

Asparagus and chive bread pudding and grilled asparagus with avocado and horseradish

Normally we find asparagus so delicious, that we would serve it in the simplest way possible, either with a good hollandaise or just olive oil but these recipes looked so delicious, we tried them both.

Asparagus and chive bread pudding

We served this with a chicken as recommended, but it would have been delicious on its own. A bit like a fancy quiche, lots going on but not so much to overpower the delicate asparagus which still came through very strongly.

Asparagus from Wheeler’s (the most honest Borough Market trader), bread from St. John, everything else from Waitrose.

Grilled asparagus with avocado and horseradish

Really tasty, delicious egg providing a good creaminess and mouthfeel to the dressing, strong flavours and well balanced.

Horseradish from Whole Foods.

Recipe here.

Braised lamb with maftoul and chickpeas

Well, that was delicious.

This is the sort of food I hoped this experiment would introduce us to. Really delicious lamb, good earthy spicing and a previously unknown new grain.

Excellent all round, fairly easy to put together, maftoul from Green Valley.

Recipe here.

Romaine, pineapple and gorgonzola salad

With a name like romaine, pineapple and gorgonzola salad we thought this might be slightly controversial, or at least, interesting. In the end, it was just a bit blah.

The blue cheese felt lost in a bland and creamy dressing. Luckily a bit of interest was provided by the pineapple zing.

Recipe here.

Vegetarian mezze

This involved fried cauliflower with pine nuts, capers and chilli, honey roasted carrots with tahini yoghurt and aubergine and parsley pesto which, remarkably, and with the aid of multiple kitchen timers were all ready at roughly the same time and on time for the first sunny day in ages.

The cauliflower was a surprise hit with delicious charred (overdone?) chillies.

Recipe here.

Miso vegetables and rice with black sesame dressing

An exciting, if predictably straightforward, adventure to Japan Centre for many of the ingredients. The dressing seems like it could have multiple future applications. 

Recipe here. 

Crisp couscous and saffron cakes

Meh. Quite a faff for something quite ordinary. Fortunately well-timed to coincide with a delivery of interesting leaves from Growing Communities.

Recipe here.

Jerk-spiced chicken with fresh coconut salsa

Caused mild asphyxiation issues during the grilling, remedied by keeping low to the ground for ten minutes until the fog cleared, otherwise delicious. Worst photo yet. Not my hands.

Recipe here.

Grilled pollock with cavolo nero and buckwheat polenta

A bit weird. This might have been our fault with a possibly bad kasha choice. Hastily thrown on the plate after a late start and seemingly hours of stirring. 

Kasha from Wawelski (along with a fine range of other tasty things including homemade sausages and delicious Gołąbki). 

 

Recipe here.

Pilav

Yummy, but next time we’ll try it with lamb. Our friend from Kashakstan said it didn’t taste like плов as she knew it, but that it was very tasty anyway.

Recipe here.

Braised fennel with capers and olives

Verjuice from Akdeniz.

Recipe here. 

Sausage rolls

Completely brilliant.

Recipe here.

Saffron and chilli lamb skewers

This turned out very well, felt like refined restaurant food and deserves a far better photograph.

Some of the ingredients were a bit tricky. We found dried Iranian lime at Green Valley and frozen lime leaves at New Loon Moon. Urfa chilli couldn’t arrive in time and so were substituted for ‘chilli flakes’ from the cupboard.

Recipe here.

Confit trout salad with golden beetroot and ricotta

A kind sounding man from Fine Food Specialist said he could have some golden beetroot with us by Monday but I impatiently made this delicious thing with the ordinary purple sort.

Still to master the art of putting things on a plate daintily and taking a decent photograph.

 

Recipe here.

Creamy chicken with apples, pears and root vegetables

After the last experiment with chicken and apples, we decided to give this week’s recipe a miss, which is maybe a bit disappointing given the column starts “there’s nothing like travel to broaden the mind”.

Recipe here.

Curry roasted root vegetables with lime, plus vine leaf and lamb pie

Recipe win. Photography fail.

The lamb and vine leaf pie (while probably not a pie) was incredibly delicious and balanced. Plus, turning it out found like a non-creepy magic trick.

Curry roasted root vegetables were excellent.

‘Tricky’ ingredients were easily found at New Loon Moon and Green Valley.

Recipe here.

Cauliflower, grape and cheddar salad, plus buckwheat and chicken pot with apple and thyme

This week, we wondered if Ottolenghi might have gone a bit wrong but made both recipes anyway.

The salad was (charitably) unusual yet palatable.

For the chicken pot, Waitrose didn’t have any buckwheat so brown rice stood in. The stew was bizarrely sweet and felt like a waste of ingredients.

Recipe here.

Kafteji

This involved standing in front of a fairly large pan of boiling oil for quite a long time. The results were worth it, but sadly there isn’t a picture.

The leftover oil had a tasty sort of smell and might have been good for a salad dressing but we threw it away.

Here is some harissa in a bowl waiting to receive fried vegetables.

Recipe here.

Warm roast chicken and bread salad

We replaced the bread with potatoes. It went quite well. Sherry vinegar is a happy discovery.

 

Recipe here.

Blogolenghi

This year, we have decided to make one recipe a week from Yotam Ottolenghi’s column published in the Guardian Weekend Magazine.

This blog is about how we get on.