grilled chook and scapes

Today for dinner, I deboned a whole, free-range chook and marinated it with smoked paprika, dried greek oregano (from last year) and orange juice. I tied it up and then grilled it with a bunch of garlic scapes (the flowering stems) over embers on my fire drum. It was sooo good! The orange juice added some acidity and a bit of sweetness. The scapes tasted like a cross between roasted garlic and asparagus. A simple green salad (oak lettuce, mizuna, cucumbers, red tuscan onions) that Briony picked and made was a good accompaniment

malfatti

Malfatti, meaning badly made, are Italian ricotta dumplings. They are really easy to make. Steam a whole lot of spinach (500g to 1kg) and then squeeze ALL the water out. Chop it up finely with a small bunch of fresh basil then mix it into 2 and a 1/2 cups of ricotta. Not the creamy pureed stuff but the real Italian stuff that still has some texture. Mix in 3 eggs, salt, pepper and 1/2 a cup of grated parmesan or pecorino cheese and a cup of homemade breadcrumbs. Form the paste into quenelles with 2 dessertspoons and then roll them in some flour. Shake off the excess and drop them gently into a very large pot of salted boiling water. As soon as they have risen to the surface, scoop them out and serve them them with a really nice tomato sauce that has some basil in it. I used some of our bottled sauce from last summer. These malfatti are really, really delicious and better than any kind of meatball. You can serve them over pasta as you would a meatball sauce. We simply ate them with a green salad.

fresh faba falafels

We are having a glut of broad beans and I wondered if I would be able to use them to make falafels. You can make them with rehydrated dried beans so fresh ones should work. I ground up broad beans with garlic, coriander/cilantro, mint, cumin, chile a bit of flour and salt and pepper. Quenelle shapes were then fried in hot olive oil and served with yoghurt, garlic and tahini sauce and a salad made of cooked pearl barley with red onions, more coriander, mint, olive oil, lemon juice and

food getting greener

It's really nice to eat more green things. We did eat kale and cabbages over winter, but spring greenery tastes better or just different. This is a dish of salt and pepper deep fried flounder, topped with cilantro and green chiles (from the freezer) and served with kai lan (chinese broccoli) and oyster sauce.


The other green thing that we really love and truly signifies the start of the summer is pesto. Pesto has become so boring and bastardised that it's often ignored. If you make it with just picked basil (leaves only and completely dry of surface water), excellent garlic, extra-virgin tasmanian olive oil and really good cheese (we use a Romano), it is just divine.
By weight, use one third each of basil, pine nuts and cheese. Grind the leaves, nuts and garlic, then add oil till it's a bit looser than it should be. Then add the grated cheese. Adjust the texture with oil and add salt to taste.

tacos!

Tacos in Australia means those crispy taco shells from the supermarket filled with all sorts of horrible things. We really love real tacos in the USA from taco trucks and little taquerias. So, we have to make our own. Starting with masa harina (corn meal - not polenta) mixed with lard and water to make a soft dough. Balls of this are squashed into 4 inch circles and cooked on a steel plate. The filling can be pretty much any meat. Here, I've used free range ground pork cooked with garlic, onion, cumin, and corn (frozen from last summer).
Salsa verde is made by boiling tomatillos (also frozen from last summer) then blending them with salt, green chiles and coriander leaves. Chopped onion is then mixed through. Take a bite then take a bite of radish. These ones are called D'Avignon - not very mexican but they taste the same.

farfalle with rapa

Last night we made fresh farfalle (bow ties) with durum semolina and water. After rolling the dough in the pasta machine, Briony cut it into rectangles then pinched the centres to form the bows


Meanwhile, I fried a couple of salted anchovies, and a heap of sliced onions in olive oil. I threw in some chopped garlic and the very last of our semi-dried cherry tomatoes from last year.

Once a big pot of water was boiling and salted, the greens, known as rapa, cime di rapa, rapini or turnip greens (which they aren't, actually)


were chopped very coarsely and thrown in the water till just wilted then scooped out and put aside. The pasta was cooked in the same water, drained and then tossed with everything else, including a handful of chopped flatleaf parsley and some more olive oil. We grated some romano cheese on top, added a bit of chopped chili (from the freezer from last summer) and it was delicious.

late spring update

The weather finally decided to become spring-like and it looks like all of the rain is now over. The warm weather, plus time, has meant that the hungry patch is over and now there suddenly seems to be lots to eat in the garden again

Here's a bit of a list:

rocket, bok choy, rapa, mizuna, spinach, leeks, radishes and a couple of tantalising strawberries.

The warm weather encouraged us to plant out heat-loving plants like our tomatoes

with which we are trying a slightly modified trellising system this year. Last year we used strings up to a horizontal wire. The strings cut into the thickening stems and may have caused some problems - not sure. This time we're using thin and cheap 6ft bamboo poles inserted into the ground and tied off to the horizontal wire. We have planted all our old favourites (from saved seed) - stupice, costoluto, mamma mia, black krim (a superior version of black russian) a few cherry varieties and a new one we're trying this year called speckled banana.

Our broad (fava) beans will be ready soon and so will the garlic. I think the garlic will be early compared to last year.