Vegetable Spring Rolls

Yeah, I'm writing again. Hello! I won't do my usual long apology/explanation for my absence because it will probably happen again and if I do it every time it will just get boring. This time, however, I must name check Jo, whose great new blog is an inspiration and delight and has encouraged me to get back in the game. The blogging game, that is.

So, a few of my besties and their men came for dinner on Friday, and to start with I made vegetable spring rolls. They are incredibly easy – the only slightly complicated bit is in the folding, which I'm sure most of you would be able to do without any difficulty but I was never good at origami and I couldn't work out how to do them until Vangie, my parents' great cleaner, showed me how, Phillipines-style. She gave me a spring roll masterclass one afternoon, and in exchange I gave her a chocolate cake masterclass – the perfect swap.

These spring rolls are only lightly pan-fried, so are much healthier than those you'd get in a restaurant, and they crisp up beautifully in the oven if you want to fry them in advance. Additionally, you can make up the spring rolls and leave them uncooked in the fridge for a couple of days before you need them, so they are great for parties and big dinners.

Vegetable Spring Rolls

Vegetables of your choice – I think the ones that work best are bean sprouts, carrots (grated or finely sliced), pak choi or Chinese cabbage, onion, and thinly sliced peppers. It's hard to give exact quantities but if you want to cheat with this, I recommend buying those packs of ready-prepared stir-fry vegetables – one 300g pack will make around 8 spring rolls (obviously depending on size)
Fresh ginger, grated
Garlic, crushed
Soy sauce
Vegetable oil
Spring roll wrappers
1 egg white

Add a small amount of oil to a hot frying pan, and add the ginger and garlic. Fry for a minute or two and then add all the vegetables. Stir fry for a few minutes, and add soy sauce. You could, of course, stir fry using any sauce of your choice. The key is to add all the flavour you want at this stage because there is no other opportunity to do so. The other important point is to make sure there is no liquid remaining – either drain the vegetables when cooked, or cook them enough so that all the liquid is absorbed or has evaporated. Soggy vegetables will make soggy spring rolls.

Cool, and spoon a small amount onto each spring roll wrapper (this is one kind of pastry I don't think I'll be making myself!) and roll and fold the pastry to seal. It is hard to explain how – see this link for pictures.

Essentially, angle the square pastry so that one of the points is facing you. Put a dollop of vegetables just above this point, about a quarter of the way up the pastry. Roll upwards from your point to the back, and when you are just over half way, fold the sides in over your roll. Continue rolling until the end, and then, using your fingers, smear some egg white over the last point of pastry remaining and stick it down to the roll to seal it.

When they are all formed, heat a little oil in a frying pan and put the spring rolls in. They cook very quickly, so keep turning them to make sure they don't burn. Crisp up later in a hot oven, or eat straight away.

Blondini cooks for for me

I got out of work early last night (5:30) - it's tragic that this feels like a real treat, but it does - I felt like I had a whole evening stretching ahead of me. Blondini had just got in when I arrived home and I helped him prepare the chicken so that he could make us his amazing chicken stir-fry with shiitake mushrooms and broccoli. It was delicious, although of course he had to use every bowl and plate in the kitchen and there couldn't be any multitasking, no cooking of the chicken while cutting the vegetables, that doesn't work... I'm not complaining though - I love being cooked for!

Here is his recipe, created himself. I think it's great because unlike many stir-fries where you just chuck in all the ingredients and all the flavours merge into one, here you can really taste the vegetables separately from the chicken and noodles:

Stir-fried Chicken with Shiitake Mushrooms, Broccoli, Sesame and Noodles
(serves 2)

1 large or 2 small chicken breasts cut into small pieces
A little plain flour
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
Shiitake mushrooms
Broccoli (I won't eat the big one, only tenderstem or purple sprouting)
Black and white sesame seeds (around 2-3 tablespoons)
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Ginger, grated
Noodles for 2 - we like to use matcha tea noodles, available from Chinese shops, but any noodle you like will do
A little oil for frying

Put the chicken pieces in a bowl and roll in the four. Add around 2 tablespoons of soy sauce to this and mix it in so that each piece of chicken is coated.

Toast the sesame seeds in a dry frying pan for a few minutes, then remove and put aside. At this point I would heat some oil in the pan and fry the chicken, and while this is cooking I would chop the vegetables. Blondini prefers to chop the vegetables and have them ready first - you can obviously do whatever is easier for for. When the chicken is cooked through, remove.

Cook the noodles according to the instructions on the packet. Crush the garlic and grate the ginger into the frying pan, and add the vegetables, together with a few of the sesame seeds. After 3 or 4 minutes, put the chicken back into the pan, stir-fry for another few minutes until the chicken is piping hot again. Add the cooked noodles and continue stir-frying, and add some more soy sauce to the noodles in the pan. Continue stir-frying for a few more minutes, serve onto plates and garnish with the remaining sesame seeds.

The Apprentice Final

Five of my best girls came over last night for the Apprentice final (that's wot i'm talkin' abou') so I made us a quick and delicious dinner: open-roasted sea bass, new potatoes and broccoli. Broccoli is something that I've tried for a long time to like - I've always thought it was vile and have long agreed with that Simpsons bit - Dr Hibbert pulls broccoli from Homer's corpse and says, "another broccoli-related death" and Marge says, "but I thought broccoli was healthy" and Dr Hibbert says, "one of the deadliest plants alive. It tries to warn you with its terrible taste." The Simpsons aside, I know that it is very healthy and also it is Blondini's favourite vegetable so I wanted to make more effort to like it. My mum suggested stir frying it with a tiny bit of olive oil (or olive oil spray), crushed garlic, chili and salt, using tenderstem broccoli (the long thin one, not the nasty one that looks like a revolting tree) and it's actually really good. As in, not just edible, but excellent.

For the seabass, I got the fish guy (he's really not a fishmonger - he just wears the fish hat and stands at the fish counter but he can't distinguish between plaice and salmon) to scale and gut the fish but leave the heads on, and then at home I just rinsed them, slashed their sides with 3 or 4 cuts, laid them out on a tray, stuffed their slashes with fresh rosemary and drizzled olive oil and sprinkled sea salt over them. They roast just like that for about 30 minutes, and meanwhile I had a big tray of baby new potatoes with olive oil, salt and Provencal herbs roasting beautifully in the bottom of the oven.



That was all very nice but since it wasn't really a very cooking-ish night I will also write about the Chocolate Nemesis I made on the weekend, since I am not likely to make it again for another year. It's delicious, but.. well, when you see the ingredients you'll see why. Quickly googling this recipe has revealed that this is apparently notoriously difficult to make. I have always had success with the following recipe - the original but with my own hints and tips! I think in this recipe more than any other you really need to follow all the instructions to the letter.


Chocolate Nemesis (from the River Cafe Cookbook - I have halved the recipe because I cannot think of any occasion when you would need the big one - it is so rich that you would only eat a tiny slice anyway. This halved version would probably serve about 20 people)

12oz dark chocolate (I used Lindt 70% - I recommend using the best chocolate you can find because that is what you taste)
5 eggs
1/2 lb unsalted butter
9 oz caster sugar (this is the one area of the recipe where I think you can deviate - I think this is too much sugar and I use less)
8fl oz water

Start by heating the water with 2/3 of the sugar in a saucepan, and simmer until it dissolves into a syrup (I recommend using a sugar thermometer to make sure you have this right - on a sugar thermometer the temperature needs to get to, I think, 110° C or 230° F.) When it reaches this point, take it off the heat and add the chocolate and butter cut up into small bits. Stir to melt and leave it to cool - it will be a thick glossy chocolatey sauce.

Then put all the eggs, not separated, into a bowl with 1/3 (or less) of the sugar and now you need to use electric beaters (the best would be if it was in a KitchenAid or Kenwood mixer) for 10 minutes. The eggs need to quadruple in volume - this will happen before 10 minutes are up but beat for precisely 10 minutes. Then pour the chocolate into the egg mix, scrape all the sides down with a spatula, and mix for 10 seconds. I expect this will not be quite enough, so mix for another 10 seconds, but really try not to mix any more than that. Use a round tin - mine is an ancient loose-bottomed tin, around 8 inches diameter - grease it, and if it is a loose-bottomed one like mine, wrap the bottom of it in foil, covering most of the outside of the tin. Pour the mixture into the tin, and then place the tin into a deep tray (like a roasting tin). Pour boiling water into this tin and put the whole thing into the oven, cooking for about 30 mins on whatever your normal baking temperature is (mine in my electric fan oven is 160°)

Take it out the oven and out of the bain marie, and leave to cool and set in the tin, and then refrigerate. Remove from the tin when you are ready to serve - I like to dust it with icing sugar.

Starting out as a food blogger...

I'm starting my life as a foodie blogger with tales of my weekend's cooking. We had people for lunch so I decided to make a selection of Indian vegetarian dishes - saag dal (lentils with spinach), chole masala (chickpea curry), and baingan bartha (an aubergine curry), with rice and chapatis. All were yummy (except that I burned the dal on reheating it and it took on a slightly bizarre, smoky flavour. People didn't seem to notice though - or perhaps they thought that was how it was meant to taste). Most of my Indian recipes are currently coming from the "Delia" of India (according to my Indian friend) - Tarla Dalal. I bought one of her many books, apparently one of her earliest, simplest ones, called Desi Khana (Indian Food), and this also gave me 30 days free access to the recipes on the website so I've been a downloading and printing machine.
The chole recipe, though, is from the Times, by Sybil Kapoor.

Spinach Dal
Cooking Time : 25 minutes.
Preparation Time : 10 minutes.
Serves 8 (if eaten with other things - on it's own I don't think this is enough for 8 people)

6 cloves garlic
3 green chillies
25 mm. piece ginger
3/4 teacup uncooked moong dal or masoor dal (I used red lentils - masoor dal)
1 chopped onion
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teacup chopped spinach (I can't really work out how much "I teacup" of chopped spinach is, so I just use a whole bag of spinach)
2 teaspoons amchur powder (the first time I made this I didn't have any amchur (dried unripe mango) powder so I added a couple of teaspoons of tamarind paste which was also nice)
1 large chopped tomato
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
4 teaspoons oil
salt to taste

Put the dal in a saucepan with 3 teacups of water and bring to the boil - watch it carefully as it tends to boil over and create a mess that's hard to clean. It's ready when the dal has become yellow and fluffy and most of the water has gone.

While it cooks, blend the garlic, chillies and ginger into a paste. Chop the onion finely and fry with the cumin seeds in either a bigger saucepan or a deep frying pan (eventually the dal and all the ingredients will go in here so it needs to be big). When the onions are translucent, add the garlic/chilli/ginger paste and continue to fry for a few minutes. Add the turmeric, amchur and spinach (chop but don't worry about getting it too finely chopped as it obviously shrinks a lot), then chop the tomato and add it. Cook for a while, and then when the dal is ready add it (together with whatever water is left in the dal saucepan) to the mix. Simmer and add salt to taste.


Baingan Bartha
Cooking Time : 30 mins.
Preparation Time : 5 mins.
Serves 4.

750g of aubergine (this usually seems to be about 3)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 onion
1 1/2 teaspoons ginger, grated
1 teaspoon garlic, grated
1 teaspoon green chillies, finely chopped
1 or 2 tomatoes, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 tablespoon coriander-cumin seed powder
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1 tablespoon ghee (I never use ghee and always fry in vegetable oil but this is a personal preference)
salt to taste

Cut the green tops off the aubergines and prick all over with a fork. Put them in the oven (on a tray to minimise oven mess) on a high heat - they will need around half an hour until they become wrinkly and quite soft. When they are done, leave to cool until you can handle them and peel the skins off. Mash the pulp (I tried this with a potato masher and it was extremely labour intensive and didn't work very well - now I just shove it in the food processor. If you don't have one you could probably use a blender too).

Fry the onions together with the cumin seeds and when translucent add the garlic, ginger and chillies. As I was making this at the same time as the spinach dal, I made more of the garlic/chilli/ginger paste and added that and I would do that again as it is much quicker. Add the chopped tomatoes and the other spices, and cook until the oil separates from the vegetables. Add the mashed aubergines, cook for a few minutes and add salt to taste.


Chole
Serves 4

250g dried chickpeas (or you can use 1 can)
2 tsp ginger, finely chopped/grated
¾ tsp turmeric
½ tsp cayenne pepper
3 tbsp sunflower oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
1 fat clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 fresh chilli, split at the tip
2 cloves (optional - I usually leave these out)
½ tsp garam masala
6 or 7 fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped
Some tomato puree if you want
Salt
Handful of fresh coriander (optional, for garnish)

If you're using dried chickpeas, you need to soak them overnight, and then cook either in a pressure cooker or a saucepan until tender (around 2.5 hours in a saucepan or 45 minutes in a pressure cooker). I almost always make this with tinned chickpeas because it takes too long and too much forward planning to use dried chickpeas. With tinned chickpeas, wash them and bring them to the boil and then simmer while making the sauce. Add to the saucepan of chickpeas (whichever method is used) the grated ginger, cayenne pepper and turmeric.

Make the sauce by finely chopping the onion and garlic (or blending it into a paste, which is my preferred method). Fry this with the whole chilli, split at the tip. Put the tomatoes into a bowl and cover with boiling water. Take out after one minute and slip the skins off. Finely chop the tomatoes (or food process them) and add them to the onion/garlic mix. Fry for a few minutes and then add the spices and salt as needed, and the tomato puree if used (I find that it sometimes helps to add a stronger tomato flavour, particularly as fresh tomatoes are often quite tasteless). Pour most of the water out of the chickpea saucepan and add the chickpeas and some of the water to the masala. If you add too much water, don't worry as you can just keep cooking the chole with uncovered to reduce. I think it's better to have too much water than too little as you can always reduce and the longer it cooks the better it will taste. Keep tasting and add more cayenne pepper if it's not spicy enough for you.


Chapatis

No recipe here - I just add equal parts white and wholewheat flour, add about a teaspoon of oil, salt and some spices (i usually go for ground cumin and/or coriander) and enough water to make a dough. Roll out into thin circles. Heat a frying pan with no oil until very hot and throw the flat circle of dough onto it. It should puff up in places. After a couple of minutes, flip it over and cook for another minute on the other side. To keep them warm and stop them from going hard while you are making the rest, put them in teacloth and store them wrapped in a warm oven.