Quick dinner of halloumi

As frequently mentioned here, I’m a big fan of halloumi. I can easily devour a whole block single-handedly and in a matter of minutes, and usually straight from the pan.

This time I managed to get it all onto my plate, mainly because I was otherwise occupied, making a dressing for it. A simple but effective plan.

Photos are a bit yellow these days. I'm working on the problem. Stay tuned!

Halloumi with caper and mustard dressing

So, once you’ve found your halloumi (Delhaize’s in Braine l’Alleud and Waterloo as well as some independent corner shops in Brussels stock it), pat it dry and slice into about eight or nine slices. While you’re doing this, heat your frying pan until it’s quite hot (not smoking though). Place your halloumi on it – I find it looses a good bit of water so I leave the first side cooking until the water evaporates and then for one-two minutes. Flip them over and cook for another one or two minutes on the other side, until browned.

While they are cooking, knock up a dressing. I based this on one from Delia Smith with the juice of a lime, some capers, a tablespoon of white wine vinegar, a teaspoon of grainy mustard and some pepper. This dressing was fine, nothing more, I’d eat it but I wouldn’t be running to make it again – maybe it was because I left out the coriander. I prefer my usual way of making halloumi, sprinkling chilli, rosemary, savory (sarriette) and thyme on the upside while the first side is cooking. Yum!

Yotam Ottolenghi’s roast chicken with za’atar, sumac and lemon

Like a lot of people living abroad, I prefer reading and cooking recipes from my mother tongue. An English friend lent me her copy of ‘Yotam Ottolenghi: The Cookbook’ a few weeks ago and I drooled over the recipes. I quickly realised however, that I had never even heard of at least one ingredient in most of them.

Yotam Ottolonghi's roast chicken with za'atar, sumac and lemon

Knowing how difficult it can be to find even simple, everyday (in Ireland and the UK) ingredients in Belgian supermarkets, I wondered if I’d be able to find some of these really exotic ones. So I decided to cook at least one recipe using ‘locally-sourced’ ingredients. I figured this couldn’t be too difficult given Belgium’s multi-ethnic population make-up, all I needed was the time to go hunting and knowing where to look. I ran out of time though as the chicken I’d bought needed to be cooked, and kind of cheated by going to mmmmh on the Chaussée de Charleroi, 92 and found the two ingredients I was missing: za’atar and sumac.

Sumac is a tree/shrub, the fruits of which are ground into a deep-red or purple powder used as a spice in Middle Eastern cuisine to add a lemony taste to salads or meat.

Za’atar is a generic name for a family of related Middle Eastern herbs from the oregano, basil thyme and savory family. It is also (confusingly) a condiment made from the dried herb(s), mixed with sesame seeds, dried sumac, and often salt, as well as other spices (thanks Wikipedia for these definitions). Both types are used throughout the Middle East.  I used the condiment version.

So… to work.

1 chicken of your preference (organic, free-range, none of the above, whatever you like)

2 red onions, thinly sliced (I quartered mine, rebel that I am)

2 garlic cloves, crushed

4 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for drizzling

1½ teaspoons ground allspice (I’d none, so I used smoked paprika which is not a substitute for allspice)

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon sumac

1 lemon, thinly sliced

200 ml chicken stock

1½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons za’atar

I combined all the spices, except the za’atar, in a bowl with the garlic and the olive oil, and rubbed this into the chicken skin. I left this to marinade for a couple of hours.

When you’re ready to cook, heat your oven to 200°C. I filled the bottom of the roasting dish with the 200ml of chicken stock, the quartered onions and put the slices of lemon all over the chicken skin. Sprinkle the za’atar over the lemons and pop the bird into your hot oven for 40 minutes to an hour, until the chicken is colored and cooked through. I had a 2.2kg chicken, and it took about 1 hour 20 minutes to cook.

The chicken was tasty, and smelled really good. It was a nice change from my usual roast chicken (lots of garlic and lemons, with some Vermouth in the roasting tin).  Next time I’d leave the za’atar spice mix off  - there was something about the taste I didn’t like as much as the sumac, which was delicious, and I’ve also used it in couscous. 

Domini Kemp also recreates some of Ottolenghi's recipes, this time from his new book, in todays Irish Times. 

Did you try cooking this chicken or something else from Ottolenghi's recipes, or using sumac or za'atar? Did you like it? What else have you tried using these or other unusual spices in? 

Cold-busting curries

I had a busy week – after a busy few weeks. Between a lot of travel, late nights, early mornings, gallivanting, eating too much, eating too little and general running, I could feel a dose of the sniffles coming on.

My favourite cure for feeling run down, which doubles up as my first-sign-of-a-cold dish, is curry. A good, spicy, hot curry seems to purge the cold virus from your system.

It’s worth making curries from scratch. I find they are more satisfying, more comforting, and as you’re in charge of adding the spice, you can make them as hot or mild as you like.

On my travels, I picked up a copy of Jamie Oliver’s magazine. I’m not really a fan of his, although I cannot fault his simplicity and his drive to make meals healthier. The Sept/Oct 2012 edition is dedicated to curry. Yay!

I made two curries from it, adapting the recipes for two people each (so I’d feed four people). The original recipes are below, with my modifications in brackets. Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients – once you have these in your spice cupboard, you will use them time and again. You can buy some of them in your local large supermarket, but for the rest, head to your local Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi-owned shop where you will get them for half nothing.

Das’s chickpea curry

Olive oil (one tablespoon)

½ a cinnamon stick

3 cardamom pods (½ a teaspoon of ground cardamom)

2 cloves

A pinch of fennel seeds

4 crushed garlic cloves

A thumb sized piece of ginger, grated (½ a thumb)

2 fresh green chillis (one dried red chilli)

3 onions (one onion)

½ teaspoon of ground turmeric

1 headed teaspoon of ground coriander (½ a teaspoon)

1 teaspoon of ground chilli

1 teaspoon of garam masala

1 heaped teaspoon of tomato puree (a good handful of cherry tomatoes)

4 ripe tomatoes (another two good handfuls of cherry tomatoes)

2xtins of chickpeas (one tin)

200ml of coconut milk (I only had coconut cream, so about 80ml)

100g of baby spinach (I was adding spinach to the other curry I made, so I left this out)

Coriander (I’d none)

Heat a pot. Once hot, add the oil, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, fennel seeds, garlic, ginger and the whole chilli. Stir and cook them for a few minutes, then add the chopped onion and cook all of this for about 15-20 minutes over a medium heat. Keep an eye on it as you don’t want it to burn.

Stir in the turmeric, chilli powder, ground coriander and a bit of salt and pepper. Add the tomatoes and about 450ml (200ml) water. Bring all of this to the boil and add the chickpeas and simmer for around 15 minutes.

Reduce the heat and stir in the coconut milk and simmer. If you boil it again at this point, you risk splitting the coconut milk. If you are using spinach, stir this in just before the end of the cooking so that it wilts. Check for seasoning and serve with a bit of fresh coriander sprinkled on top if you have some.

Das's chickpea curry

While I was making this vegetarian curry, I also made a fish curry.

Keralan seafood curry

Again, I’m putting the whole recipe here with my modifications on brackets next to it.

Vegetable oil (a tablespoon of olive oil)

2 teaspoons of mustard seeds (1 teaspoon)

1 teaspoon of fenugreek seeds

I fresh, green chilli (one dried, red chilli)

A handful of fresh or dried curry leaves (a good tablespoonful)

2 thumb sized pieces of ginger, grated (1 thumb sized piece)

3 onions (one onion)

12 large prawns (I had none, so I didn’t use any!)

1 teaspoon of chilli powder

1 teaspoon of turmeric

1 handful of ripe, yellow cherry tomatoes (a good dose of red cherry tomatoes)

400ml light coconut milk (the rest of the 165ml tin of coconut cream from the chickpea curry, above)

400g monkfish fillets (I had 270g ‘cabillaud’ or cod in the freezer, and I wasn’t leaving the house)

1 heaped teaspoon of tamarind paste (I’d none)

75g baby spinach (I only had frozen, so a few blocks of that)

coriander and lime to serve (I'd none)

Fish curry

Heat the oil in a pot and add the mustard seeds until they pop. This will take a few minutes. Once they start popping, add the fenugreek, chilli, curry leaves and ginger. Cook all of this for a few minutes and add the chopped onion.

Cook for about 10 minutes, until the onion is soft. At this stage you should add the prawns if you have them. Add the chilli powder, turmeric and tomatoes, cook for a few minutes and add 200ml (100ml) of water and the coconut milk/cream.  Simmer for a few minutes until it thickens a bit, and add the fish. I added the frozen spinach at this stage but if you’re using fresh, wait for a couple of minutes. Your fish should only take about 5 minutes to cook. Once it is, your curry is done – check for seasoning and add a little salt and pepper if you need it. Serve with coriander and lime wedges.

We ate these two curries with 150g white rice and a few naan breads I took from the freezer. 

A flour by any other number… (Danish pastries)

A couple of weeks ago I saw a recipe for Danish pastries which I thought interesting. The recipe states that you should use 00 flour to make them. I’ve never seen 00 flour here in normal supermarkets (you can check the packet. Sometimes it says the type – I found types 45 and 65, which are your normal flours. More often than not, it doesn’t give the type). So, all in the name of research, I invested in two flours and made two batches of pastries, one using ‘patisserie’ and the other using ‘pain’ (pastry and bread). I had a quick look at the ingredients in the flours. The bread flour contained a mixture of different types of flour, including wheat, bean (? ‘fève’, which is a pulse) and soya, whereas the pastry flour contained only wheat flour.

I made the pastries over a day, starting on Friday evening and finishing on Saturday afternoon. I did the second roll-fold-and-chill on Saturday morning and the third on Saturday lunchtime. There is no kneading involved, so it is less labour intensive than bread (which I also made this weekend). 

Danish pastries

For the starter
1 cube of fresh yeast (the original recipe used dried yeast, but fresh yeast is widely available here, and I find it easier to use)

75ml warm water
50g of your chosen flour

For the dough
75ml cold milk
2 egg yolks
50ml cold cream
25g caster sugar
250g cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-2cm cubes
300g of your chosen flour, plus extra for rolling
1 tsp salt
Beaten egg, to finish

For the starter, in a warm bowl dissolve the yeast in the warm water, beat in the flour until smooth, cover and leave for an hour to bubble. I covered the starter and then the dough with a damp tea towel. This prevents the dough from forming a skin on top.

Make the dough by whisking the milk, egg yolks, cream and sugar into the starter, followed first by the butter cubes and then by the flour and salt. Stir everything together to a rough, lumpy dough, scoop it out on to a floured worktop and roll out to 1cm thick. Fold it in by thirds, roll it out again as before, fold it in by thirds again, then wrap and chill for 30 minutes. Repeat this rolling and chilling sequence twice more, then roll and shape as needed. So, this is after the third rolling. Can you spot the difference?

Danish pastry dough, pastry flour on the left; bread flour on the right

For raisin danish
Roll a piece of dough to 30cm x 15cm x 1cm thick. Brush the surface with water (or spread with a thin layer of custard) and generously dot with plump, dark raisins. Roll tightly up along the length, so you have a short, fat scroll, seal the end with water, then cut into four wheels.

Alternative: roll a piece of marzipan out to about 30x12x1 and place this on top of the dough. Sprinkle with raisins and continue as above. Or sprinkle the dough with chocolate chips.

I made one lot of raisin (pastry flour) and one lot of dried cranberries (using the bread flour).

Raw Danish pastries, with dried cranberries

and filled with raisins

Rising and baking

Line a baking tray with nonstick paper, put the prepared pastries on top, cover loosely with clingfilm, and leave the shaped dough to rise somewhere warm until almost doubled in size. Once risen, brush with beaten egg and bake at 200C for 10 minutes. Lower the heat to 180C and bake for another 15-20 minutes, until crisp.

Cranberry Danishes

Raisin Danishes

Verdict? Well, once you get over the amount of butter in these, they are divine! Buttery, crumbly, flaky, light… OMG. I got about 24 Danishes from the two lots (ie: 12 pastries per lot), and I can’t wait for another excuse to eat another one.

And for the difference between the flours? None really that I can see. Both raised well, they both taste the same (I might have to have another two to check that though), both were easy to use… I have photos, so I’ll get them up asap so that you can decide for yourselves.

Next time, I would use a little less butter – only about 10-20 grams less.


Update: I found this site: http://cooking-ez.com/page.php?id=12 with an explanation about flours. Seems that in French speaking countries, they have their own system for classifying them! Now, at the moment (24.03.12/19.02), I am no closer to uncovering what type 00 is 'in French' but the nice Jean-Hugues of the former site has a list of what French flours can be used to make which goodies. Unfortunately, he doesn't mention which corresponds to the Italian 00. It could be T45, but I'm going to investigate further. Also, to further complicate matters, the flour I used in my baking this weekend doesn't list the type it is!
Someone contacted me to say that you can buy 00 four in the GB at Place Jourdan, but that it is quite expensive.