Delicious April 2013 - Warm Moroccan Carrot Salad

So, I really struggled to find something to make from this issue. There really wasn't anything that jumped out and grabbed me. No, that isn't exactly true, there just wasn't a lot that grabbed me enough to insisted that I make it immediately.

The chocolate & halva tiramisu on the cover looks really good but I don't have anywhere to buy halva. I know that I could probably make it but since I am trying to avoid too much in the way of sweets I decided that it wasn't really worth it. Plus I find it difficult to scale down tiramisu recipes much for some reason. 

I also marked the Fish kofta with eggplant salad as a possibility. It sounded like something different and a bit unusual. The eggplant was roasted and combined with tomato, red onion, herbs, a lemon & olive oil dressing plus pomegranate seeds and pomegranate molasses. I love roasted eggplant. I don't have a gas cook top so cannot blacken the skin over that but I recently purchased a weber bbq so could definitely do it on that and get that smoky flavour to it. The salad has fresh coriander, parsley and mint. If you have been reading for a while you will know how I feel about coriander. I have used small amounts recently and I would probably put a small amount in this and increase the parsley to compensate. Again if you have been reading for a while you will know how I feel about fish too. I am on a bit of a mission to get more into my diet since it is so very good for you. I do like salmon and it is full of the omega 3's that are good for you but it would be nice to increase the repertoire a bit. I will get around to making this but I need to wait for a time when I can get some good fish. 

I really wanted to make Jamie Oliver's Pork Belly Buns however it was part of his "Party Pleasers" feature which meant that the recipe serves 20. That is a massive amount of servings. When you have a recipe like that scaling it back too far just doesn't work. I did think about just halving it and freezing any leftovers for later use but sometimes I have a tendency to forget about leftovers in the freezer until they get to a point of not being edible any more. So unless I have friends over then this recipe will just have to remain unmade. 

I did have a recipe for Jerk Chicken with Red Onion Flatbread marked to make. I did in fact make the jerk chicken but I was too lazy to make the flatbread. The recipe did suggest that if you didn't want to make the flatbread you could just use bought naan but I didn't get to the supermarket to buy that either. The chicken was good, although I did find the actual flavours rather overwhelming. However that could have been my fault since the recipe recommends marinading for 4 hours or overnight and, through circumstances, mine ended up marinading for 2 nights. So I am sure that would have had an effect on the intensity of the flavour. I am sure that if I had cooked it after the first night it wouldn't have been so strong. I had previously made Jamie Oliver's jerk pork belly that I loved and it was nowhere near as strong so perhaps I will give the chicken another try at some stage. 

I ended up making the Warm Moroccan Carrot Salad from Kepos Street Kitchen. I did make a few alterations to the recipe though. The original recipe called for 2 bunches of dutch carrots. I didn't have them. Purchasing at the supermarket is not an option as they are always soft and floppy, clearly beyond their best. I have never found them at our local markets either. I haven't grown any carrots for a while now so perhaps I will get some in the garden this year. So instead I used a couple of regular carrots and added some zucchini as well. I didn't have any fresh green chillis nor did I have any fresh red chillis so I used a bit of chilli paste. I didn't have, and don't really like, goat's cheese so I used feta cheese instead. I really enjoyed this a lot. It was so full of flavour and it went really well with the bbq Moroccan lamb flaps (belly/ribs) that I made that night. Well, I say made but I really should say cooked the pre-rubbed flaps that I got from my local butcher but so much flavour that I will definitely get them again. 

Warm Moroccan Carrot & Zucchini Salad

2 carrots, peeled (if needed) and cut into batons, 

2 zucchini, cut into batons 

olive oil 

1 tsp chilli paste (or to taste) 

2 garlic cloves, crushed

2 tbsp honey (I just poured some in) 

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp sumac (I don't have a very good one at the moment so used more) 

crumbed feta

Blanch carrots and zucchini until just starting to soften. Heat oil in pan and add carrots and zucchini and toss until coated. Add chilli paste and garlic and toss until fragrant. Add honey and cook until starting to caramelise and then season. Cool slightly and serve topped with crumbled feta. 

December 2011 - Couscous salad with Honey & Saffron Dressing

So, I have had a bit of a crazy weekend. Have done a lot of stuff over the past couple of days and now I am really tired. There is still some stuff I want to get done but it is not going to happen this evening. Hopefully I will get it done tomorrow after work. 

I am going to be honest and tell you that I really haven't looked at this issue that closely. I have flicked through it and saw some lovely food. While flicking through I marked two recipes to make. Both were part of a Moroccan menu by David Morgan. 

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a full lamb along with some pork and beef to fill up my freezer and because meat is so much cheaper if you can buy it in bulk. I picked it up last Wednesday and invited by grandparents up for a meal. I decided to do the Moroccan menu for them and it was a big hit. I made the Chermoula Lamb with yoghurt dressing. I made some changes. I marinated it and but used a on the bone roast instead of boned & butterflied. I also slow roasted instead of doing it on the barbecue. I also didn't have any preserved lemon for the yoghurt dressing (at least I couldn't find the jar I am sure that I have)  so I used some fresh lemon zest in it instead. 

To go with it I made the Couscous salad with Honey & Saffron Dressing. This was so good. My grandmother was really impressed with it. I did make some changes. I added in some capsicum when roasting the other vegetables.  I used craisins in place of the sultanas and omitted the green olives. I didn't have enough oranges so I used grapefruit juice in the dressing instead. I will definitely make this one again. 

Couscous salad with honey and saffron dressing

Serves 8 (actually I think it would feed an army...lol) 

1 kg butternut pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and chopped
2 red onions, cut in wedges
1 red capsicum, deseeded and cut into chunks
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups couscous
200 grams of chopped apricots
100 g craisins
1 3/4 to 2 cups vegetable stock, hot
2 oranges, peeled and segmented

For the dressing
100 ml grapefruit juice
1 tbsp honey
a pinch of saffron threads
2 tbsp olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees°C. Mix the pumpkin, onion and capsicum with the olive oil and roast this for 25- 30 minutes or until cooked. Let cool slightly and then peel capsicum and slice into strips.

Combine couscous, apricots, craisins and stock in a bowl and cover with glad wrap or a tight fitting lid until all liquid is absorbed.

Mix the pumpkin and onion with the couscous, apricots, sultanas and orange segments

For the dressing,

Heat the juice, honey and saffron in a small pan until it comes to a boil, then set aside to cool. Whisk in the oil and season to taste. Stir the dressing into the salad and serve.

The photograph here is from the following night when I served some of the left over salad with some lamb cutlets that had be marinated in olive oil and sumac. 

Delicious September 2011 - Moroccan Lamb with Carrot Salad

I can't believe at how quickly this month is passing by. I all of a sudden found myself staring at not having a recipe cooked out of this month's Delicious magazine and I just couldn't let that happen. I kind of lost my cooking mojo lately. I have still been making stuff to eat but certainly nothing worth writing about. In fact not much cooking involved with pre-coated chicken breast schnitzels and frozen veg. I have, of course, had a few exceptions but I just haven't seemed to have gotten around to writing about them yet. I have a bit of catching up to do. 

From this issue I had initially wanted to make Nigella's Chocol-Oat Cookies. Basically a double chocolate oat cookie having both cocoa and chocolate chips. They sounded so good but had already made some other biscuits at the time and didn't really need two different types in the house. 

When menu planning for this week I decided to make two recipes from this issue this weekend. The first was Chicken with Shanghai Noodles from the Global Flavours feature. I had just scanned the recipe looking at what was required for it. Finding that I had almost all the ingredients I decided to make it for dinner on Saturday night. I, however, came down with a cold. Saturday morning I still planned on making it however by the afternoon I was starting to feel pretty awful again and on further reading of the recipe there was a lot more to it than I originally thought. So I have stuck the chicken thigh fillets in the freezer and I hope to make this on Wednesday when I have the day off and hopefully will be better. 

The other recipe on my menu plan from this issue is the one that I ended up making tonight, Valli Little's Moroccan Lamb with Carrot Salad which Valli says is inspired by Joanne Weir. This was very good. Although I did have a couple of issues. The first was the "lamb neck fillets" in the recipe, my very good local butcher didn't know what they were. So on my butcher's suggestion I purchased a 400g lamb leg roast portion. It was very lean and looked like it would be perfect. Second issue was that I couldn't get Dutch carrots, so I just used some regular carrots that I quartered. Finally, there was too much salt in the spice mix. I think reducing it by half would be better. I also reduced the amount of pepper. Oh, and very last, the citrus zest in the oven....200C was way too hot. 

Moroccan Lamb with Carrot Salad 

Ingredients: 

2 tbsp finely grated orange zest 

2 tbsp finely grated lemon zest 

2 tsp cumin seeds 

1/2 tsp chilli flakes 

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 

2 x 400 g lamb leg portions 

1 cup whole-egg mayonnaise (I would use yoghurt next time) 

2 tsp harissa (I used more) 

Carrot Salad 

4 large carrots, quartered

2 tbsp honey (I used Leatherwood) 

100 ml extra virgin olive oil 

2 tbsp redcurrant jelly 

Juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange 

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon 

2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley 

radishes, sliced

sprouts, salad leaves, feta (I used garlic feta), to serve 

Method: 

• Pre-heat oven to 160 C. 
• Bake zest and a tray for 5 - 10 minutes. Watch very carefully as it will burn quickly. 
• Add cumin seeds and bake a further 5 minutes or until zest is crispy. Cool.
• Crush zest, cumin, chilli with 1 tbsp each of salt and black pepper (original recipe was 2 tbsp each). 
• Combine half the spice mix with oil and rub over lamb, cover and chill for 2 -3 hours or overnight. 
• Pre-heat oven to 180 C. 
• Combine carrots, honey and 60 ml oil and roast for 20 minutes or until just soft. 
• Combine jelly and juices in a pan over a medium heat. Reduce by half and then add cinnamon. 
• In a bowl combine parsley, radishes, sprouts, salad leaves, feta and carrots and dress with a small amount of dressing just before serving. 
• Heat an oven-proof fry pan over a high heat. Brown lamb on all sides and them place pan in oven and roast for 15 - 25 minutes (time will depend on how thick your lamb portion is and how well done  you like it). Let rest 10 minutes, covered with foil.
• Combine mayonnaise and harissa and place in a serving bowl. 
• Slice lamb and serve with carrot salad and mayonnaise. 

Moroccan side dishes

When I decided to make Bill Granger's Moroccan Lamb Tagine I decided to go all out and make a bit of a Moroccan feast. I considered making a Jamie Oliver carrot salad which I had made previously however I didn't have everything that I needed for it. So instead I turned to google and came up with two recipes on different blogs. The first was this glorious looking recipe for mezgaldi over at Kayotic Kitchen. It was such a stunning looking dish and you could almost taste how wonderful it would be just looking at Kay's photos. The only change that I made to the recipe was to use red onions. It was so stunningly good that I will be making this side dish again and again with a variety of different meals. It has also convinced me to go looking for more onion side dishes rather than using them as just a seasoning or flavouring. Making them a star really isn't too hard if this recipe is anything to go by. 

The other side dish that I found was a Moroccan cabbage dish. I made a number of changes from the original recipe. I was a bit apprehensive about the orange flower water as part of the dressing but I was very pleased with how good it was. The cinnamon was rather unusual for me too but again it was very good. The pomegranate seeds added a lovely tangy burst while eating. I just loved this however I did use up the last of my orange flower water so I will have to wait until I can get some more before I can make it again. 

Moroccan Cabbage Salad 

Ingredients: 

• 1/4 cabbage, finely sliced 
• 1 carrot, julienned 
• 1 apple, julienned 
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup pomegranate seeds 
• 1 - 2 tbsp sesame seeds 
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp sugar 
• 1 tbsp orange flower water (or to taste, I started off slowly and added more) 

Method: 

• Place cabbage, carrot, apple, pomegranate and sesame seeds in a bowl and toss to combine. 
• Add cinnamon, sugar and orange flower water and mix to combine. 
• Refrigerate until requires but let sit at least 20 minutes for the flavours to develop. 

Moroccan Lamb Tagine

Arrrrgh, I can't sleep tonight. Actually, no let me rephrase that, I was asleep and I can't get back to sleep. Normally, once I am asleep I stay that way until a series of alarms wakes me, the first being an alarm clock, the second my alarm on my mobile phone and the third being my hungry kitty cats. If, for some reason, the first two do not wake me I can be assured that my kitties will, although not always in time for things that I am supposed to be doing. What is waking me at the moment is a rather awful recurring dream about being in a car accident. It has been just awful. I told some friends about it after the second time hoping that would stop it coming again. Perhaps by mentioning it on here it will stop now. 

I made this tagine a couple of weeks ago now. I have to admit I was a tad apprehensive about making it as I haven't been overly fond of the tagines that I have had in the past. This was the first one that I had made though. I will admit that there are some ingredients that I would not normally associate with a Moroccan dish but hey, I enjoyed this so much I am not going to object to them. I did make a couple of my own changes to the recipe. Since lamb shanks became trendy and popular the price of them has sky rocketed. My favourite butcher has them for $3.50 each, and I believe most of the others in town have them for around that price too. With the full recipe using 8 small ones it makes for a very expensive meal. I had 1/2 kilo of diced lamb in the freezer so I decided that I would use that instead of the shanks. The recipe had kaffir lime leaves in it, which I didn't have, so I left them out. It was so very good and the meat was wonderfully tender. I will definitely make this again.

Moroccan Lamb Tagine 

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 500g diced lamb 
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 1 tsp tumeric
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp cardamom pods
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 tbsp grated palm sugar
• 4 teaspoons fish sauce
• 4 large ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 2 cups chicken stock or water
• 2 potatoes, unpeeled and chopped
• 1 sweet potato, unpeeled and chopped

Method: 

• Preheat oven to 160 C. 
• Heat oil in a flame-proof casserole dish (I used my Emile Henry clay pot) over a medium-high heat. Brown lamb in batches, remove and set aside.
• Reduce the heat to medium and add onion and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until onion is translucent. Add garlic and ginger and cook for 1 minute longer, then add chilli powder, turmeric, cumin, cardamom and cinnamon. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add sugar, fish sauce, chopped tomatoes, lime leaves and stock, bring to the boil. Remove from heat.
• Return lamb to the dish and add potatoes and sweet potato. Cover with lid or foil and bake for 1.5 - 2 hours, or until lamb is very tender and potatoes are cooked.
• Serve with couscous, mezgaldi and cabbage salad (recipes to come)