Curly carrot salad

It’s amazing how a small thing like using curly carrot can make a very simple dish more exciting. We used a Veggie Twister to create the curly carrots – and trust me it’s effortless.

2 carrots
extra virgin olive oil
1/2 lemon, juiced
parsley, finely chopped

1. Peel the carrot and then cut into three sections to fit into a Veggie Twister, and create spirals. Alternatively you can use a grater.
2. Make a dressing by mixing together the olive oil and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper and parsley.
3. Pour the dressing over the carrots and toss everything together.

Serves 4.

Yellow pawpaw salad

A light whisked dressing of lime and olive oil is tossed into pawpaw and carrots, and garnished with coriander and almonds. Pawpaw is great for digestion.

Sometimes I’ll add half a sliced avocado to the salad. You may like to add some fresh red chilies and fresh chopped basil to add more of a Thai flavour to this salad.

Salad

1/2 yellow pawpaw, chopped
1 carrot, grated

Dressing

1/2 lime, juiced
1 Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil

Garnish

a couple of sprigs of coriander
1/3 cup of chopped almonds

1. Add the prepared pawpaw and carrot to a serving bowl.
2. Mix together the lime and olive oil to make the dressing.
3. Gently stir the dressing through your salad. Set aside and leave to marinate for 15 to 30 minutes.
4. When you are ready to serve the dish, top with the coriander and almonds.

Serves 2.

Carrot, orange and currant salad

Inspired by Mark Jensen’s Carrot, orange and blackcurrant salad in The Urban Cook. I’ve adapted his recipe and left out the red chilli and sherry vinegar, which he added although saying it was not in the traditional middle eastern version. I’ve also reduced the ingredients to serve one person. Mark recommends having the dish in Autumn when both oranges and carrots are in their peak.

1 Tbsp dried currants or raisins
1 orange
1 carrot, peeled and grated
1 Tbsp olive oil
several fresh mint leaves, chopped

1. Soak the dried currants or raisins in water to make them easier to digest.
2. Cut the top and bottom off the orange, and then cut off the rest of the skin to ensure all of the white pith has been removed. Cut the orange into segments. Add any juice and the segments to serving bowl.
3. Peel and grate the carrot and add to the bowl, along with the mint, drained currants and olive oil.
4. Mix all the ingredients to together and season with salt and pepper.

Serves 1.

100 recipes: Salade Nicoise

Best recipe
Salade Niçoise – Damien Pignolet

About

French: salade Nicoise

Salade Nicoise is from the city of Nice, on the south east coast of France in Provence. It is best eaten in spring and summer.

There is a huge debate about what is ingredients are in an authentic salade nicoise. Lettuce is usually left out. Escoffier leaves out hard-boiled egg to his version. Some chefs encourage the use of fresh tuna. While others say the recipe is made for canned tuna in olive oil.

Variations

• Classic salad Nicoise – Nigel Slater
• Niçoise sandwiches with potato, anchovy and caperberry salad – Andy Harris
• Salade Lyonnaise – Emma Knowles
• Salad Nicoise – Gordon Ramsay
• Tuna Niçoise tartine – Thomas Keller

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

100 recipes: Risotto

Best recipe
Basic risotto – Antonino Carluccio

About

Italian: Risotto alla Milanese

Risotto is a soft and creamy rice dish, with versions from Milan and Venice. It is eaten as a first course in Italy. The rice used is able to absorb liquid, while not becoming mushy.

The best risotto recipe nominated by Rose Gray is by Marcella Hazan for risotto with globe artichokes and appears in her Marcella’s Kitchen cookbook, as featured in The Observer’s Top 50 favourite recipes . Giorgo Locatelli’s white truffle risotto as served at Locanda Locatelli also features in The Observer’s Top 50 favourite recipes.

There are three types of rice used for risotto:

• arborio – large grain and can be boiled
• carnaroli – easy to cook grain that keeps it shape and texture. from Verona. good for seafood.
• vialone nano – large rounded grain – gives an extra creamy, smooth risotto due to the high levels of starch. Good for strong flavours.

Elizabeth David writes “…there is a split-second in the cooking of the rice – just as for scrambled eggs – when the consistency is exactly right. It is neither too liquid nor too compact. It is light, every grain is separate although bound together in a homogeneous whole by the starch which has amalgamated with the cooking liquid.”

There are three traditional styles for cooking risotto: wet, baked and fried.

1. A wet risotto is cooked on the stove top with the stock added gradually.
2. A baked risotto is cooked on the stove top in stock and finished off in the oven. It is a timbale or pilaf which is cut and served in slices.
3. A fried risotto is cooked in the oven like a pilaf until light and fluffy and then fried.

Risotto alla Milanese  should be made with real saffron and real stock. It is a traditional partner to osso bucco.

Elizabeth David advises to never “cook a risotto for a dinner party which had to be managed single-handed, because it is a bad dish to keep waiting.”

I’ve only ever had risotto once at a restaurant and I was so disappointed that it was undercooked that I’ve never attempted to order it again. Risotto is about the only thing that I can claim to still cook better than my husband!

• How to cook perfect risotto – Michelle Southan
• How to make the perfect risotto – Felicity Cloake

Multimedia

• Mushroom risotto video – Gabriel Gaté
• Risotto video – BBC Good Food
• Risotto three ways video – Peter Evans

Variations

• Mushroom risotto (Risotto con Porcini) – Antonio Carluccio
• Oven-baked risotto – BBC Good Food
• Pumpkin risotto – Stephanie Alexander
• Risotto of spring vegetables – Gordon Ramsay
• Risotto with green peas – Elizabeth David
• Saffron risotto with sausage (Risotto alla Milanese con Luganega) – Antonio Carluccio

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

100 recipes: Ratatouille

Best recipe
Remy’s ratatouille – Thomas Keller

About

Ratatouille is a mixed vegetable stew from Provence, France. It’s is best in summer when the ingredients are in season.

Thomas Keller’s recipe for ratatouille is used by the lead character Remy in the movie of the same name.

You can cook all the vegetables together or separately. It keeps well for about two days.

Multimedia

• The perfect ratatouille video – Matthew Evans
  

Variations

• Baked ratatouille with snags – Jill Dupleix
• Gratin of summer vegetables in mint pesto – Anne Willan
• Ratatouille - Gabriel Gate
• Ratatouille with cheddar dumplings – Fiona Smith

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

100 recipes: Potatoes

Best recipe
Gratin dauphinoise – Stephanie Alexander

About

Gratin dauphinoise comes from the Dauphine province in France. I prefer a variation where stock is substituted for the creamy sauce.

The best potato recipe nominated by Andrew Turner is by Joël Robuchon for mashed potato, as featured in The Observer’s Top 50 favourite recipes. Jill Dupleix also recommends Joël Robuchon’s recipe for potato puree, the ultimate mash.

There are three main French potato recipes: Boulangere potatoes , gratin dauphinois and pommes anna (potato cake)

Multimedia

• Paris mash – Guillaume Brahimi

Variations

• Crash-hot potatoes – Jill Dupleix
• Hasselback potatoes – Jane and Jeremy Strode
• Individual pommes anna – Sarah Hobbs
• Perfect roast potatoes with rosemary – Steve Manfredi
• Potatoes Boulangeres with rosemary – Delia Smith

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

100 recipes: Polenta

Best recipe
Polenta – Antonio Carluccio

About

Italian: polenta

Polenta is the name of the dish and the ingredient itself. It was traditionally cooked over an open fire in a cast-iron pot and would take an hour to prepare. It is true peasant food, but is starting to become trendy.

These days there are different varieties and you can buy polenta pre-made or as a quick-cooking version. White polenta from white corn is also available.

For a simple dinner, top your polenta with a fried egg and grated Parmesan cheese.

• How to make soft creamy polenta – Good Taste

Variations

• How to make polenta squares – Michelle Southan
• Polenta fritto – Guy Grossi
• Polenta pie – Elizabeth David
• Polenta, sausage and olive fingers – Jill Dupleix
• Soft polenta with sauteed mushrooms – Maggie Beer

About | 100 Recipes | Outtakes

Coriander pesto

This coriander pesto is used for the removal of heavy metals, such as aluminum, lead and mercury. Have two teaspoons per day for three to four weeks for chelation, making sure to also drink two litres of water and have lots of fibre to allow the metals to be flushed out.

1/3 cup Brazil nuts
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1/3 cup pumpkin seeds
2 cups fresh coriander
4 cloves of garlic
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 tbsps lemon juice
1/2 tsp celtic sea salt

1. Soaks the nuts and seeds in water overnight to improve digestion.
2. Process the coriander and olive oil in a food processor.
3. Add nuts, seeds, garlic, salt and lemon juice.
4. Mix until the mixture is finely blended into a paste.
5. Store in a glass jar in the refrigerator.

Market salsa

The markets were quiet today – just how I like them. I was able to pay straight away (without queuing) and no bumping into dogs, prams and market trolleys. The ingredients for this salad are made from purchases from the same stall where the owners play music to their vegetables. I’m hoping this salsa makes me sing all afternoon.

1 cucumber, small
handful of tomatoes
3 capsicums, one of each colour
lime, juiced
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
several leaves of fresh basil
a few strands of chives

1. Peel the skin off the cucumber and dice. Dice the tomatoes and capsicum (red, orange and yellow). Add them to a serving bowl.
2. Add the lime juice and extra virgin olive oil with the chopped herbs as a dressing. Mix together and serve.

Serves 2.