Category: aubergine

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aubergine coconut courgettes creme fraiche cumin food lime rice tomato video

roasted vegetable chilli with parmesan wedges

roasted vegetable chilli

Those lovely people at Vouchercodes.co.uk asked me to come up with a family-friendly money-saving recipe.  Just for them I made roasted vegetable chilli with parmesan wedges. They filmed it to boot. Watch the whole recipe below on YouTube:

Fun fact: I wasn’t going to make wedges, it was supposed to be polenta fingers. Unfortunately the wrong ingredients were delivered! Disaster. A quick rummage around the store cupboard and I settled on (what else) potatoes instead.

Make sure you pop along to see others in the series, such as Meemalee’s Burmese Chicken Noodles and Helen’s Blue Cheese and Fig Gnocchi.

My full recipe is below:

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roasted vegetable chilli with parmesan wedges

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 3 courgettes
  • 1 teaspoon fennel seeds heaped
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds heaped
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 red onion
  • 1 tin tomatoes
  • 2 red peppers
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika rounded
  • 1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
  • 1 tin kidney beans
  • 300 g long-grain rice
  • 1 tin coconut milk
  • 4 baking potatoes
  • 2 tablespoons grated parmesan
  • 1 lime
  • 300 ml creme fraiche

Instructions

  • First the veg prep: peel and quarter the onion, thickly slice the courgette, half the peppers and deseed, and quarter the lime. Cut the potatoes into wedges.
  • Get a large casserole dish over a low heat, the oven on to 180C, and a saucepan over a medium heat.
  • Lay the wedges in a single layer on a baking tray. Scatter over half the parmesan with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Roast for 40 minutes, turning occasionally.
  • Put the fennel seeds, cumin seeds, garlic and onion into the food processor with a pinch of salt and whizz to a paste, then add the tomatoes to blitz further. Add to the large casserole pan. Add the paprika and chilli powder.
  • Add the courgettes and peppers to the baking tray, season with salt, pepper and oil and put in the oven for 20 minutes until softened.
  • In the saucepan, dry fry the cumin seeds for a minute to get nice and aromatic, then add the kidney beans and their juices. Allow this to simmer away. After 5 minutes add it to the tomato pan.
  • Wipe out the kidney bean pan and add the rice and coconut milk. Simmer until the rice is tender, then leave covered until needed.
  • 5 minutes before they're done, scatter the remaining parmesan over the potatoes and allow to crisp.
  • Roughly chop the griddled veg and also add to the tomato pan.
  • Check the chilli for seasoning and then serve with rice, potatoes, lime wedges and a blob of creme fraiche.

Video

Categories
aubergine food lamb pine nuts

aubergines stuffed with lamb and pine nuts

I make no attempt to hide my love of Ottolenghi’s cooking. Since Plenty swept on to my bookshelf in 2010, his recipes and techniques have informed the way I cook on a weekly basis. It’s the tastes and combinations alien to my palette that interest, as his heritage brings with it exotic and fun flavours.

In his latest book, Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (Ebury Press, £27), he and long-time partner Sami retrace their shared childhood growing up in Jerusalem. A town that is politically complicated, cross-pollinated with religion and pilgrims from all over the world cannot help but produce a diverse and fascinating culinary history. Sami and Yotam grew up either side of the city and had simultaneously very different and very similar upbringings.

The book is at once a cookbook, cultural snapshot and history of this unique city. The personal affection for their childhood haunts radiate from every page, and this love transfers to the food. Pistachios, pomegranate molasses and parsley abound, with spices and herbs packed into every dish.

Aubergines feature prominently, as in this recipe with lamb and pine nuts. It’s spicy, sweet and sour and very meaty. I made a slight adjustment to the original, making more of the sweet-sour tomato sauce that accompanies it. There was also call for tamarind paste but I know I’ll use it once then it will rot away in my cupboard, so I used a little brown sauce instead, which is essentially tamarind processed just enough to make palatable to the English. It’s just the thing for Autumnal nights, and makes great leftovers the next day too.

Aubergines stuffed with lamb and pine nuts (serves 2 with plenty left):

2 aubergines halved lengthways

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 onion, finely chopped

300g lamb mince

30g pine nuts

Parsley, chopped

1 squirt tomato puree

1 tablespoon caster sugar

1 tablespoon brown sauce

2 cinnamon sticks

500g passata

  1. Preheat the oven to 220°C. Brush the aubergines with oil, salt and pepper and put skin side down in a roasting tray. Roast for 20 mins and put to one side.
  2. While the aubergines roast fry the onion in a little oil. Add half the cumin, paprika and cinnamon. After the onion softens add the lamb, pine nuts, tomato puree, sugar and season. Cook for a further 10 minutes.
  3. Turn the oven down to 180°C. Spoon the lamb mix on top of the aubergines, and then in the frying pan add the passata, brown sauce and remaining spices. Bring to a simmer and pour around the aubergines. Cover with foil and bake for a further 1 hour 30 minutes until the aubergine are completely soft. Serve with creme fraiche and rice.


Gary Fennon

Categories
aubergine balsamic vinegar courgettes halloumi

halloumi, courgette and aubergine with tomato vinaigrette

I was recently sent some recipes by Ocado written by Sophie Michell. Apparently they’re under the banner of “Tweet Yourself Thin”. I’m not entirely sure I got the concept of being tweeted recipes every day but I had halloumi, courgette and aubergine to use up so it hit me at the right time. And it’s refreshing, zingy and tasty. It’s intended to be a lunch dish but I added a wedge of baked polenta to pad it out a bit.

Halloumi, courgette and aubergine with tomato vinaigrette (serves 2):

250g halloumi

2 courgettes

2 medium aubergines

For the dressing:

2 ripe plum tomatoes, peeled

2 cloves garlic, minced

75ml extra virgin olive oil

25ml balsamic vinegar

1 pinch of caster sugar

1 tsbp of chopped fresh basil

  1. Slice the halloumi, aubergine and courgette into even slices. Heat a large griddle pan and griddle the veg on both sides until nicely charred.
  2. Blitz the dressing ingredients together and season to taste.
  3. When the veg is done, add the halloumi for 30 secs each side until slightly charred and warm. Serve immediately dressed with the vinaigrette and a splash more balsamic.
Categories
aubergine chorizo food mozzarella pasta peppers

chorizo pasta bake

I was passing through Waitrose in need of a lemon Fanta after a great nine holes, when one of their recipe cards caught my eye. And this is me having a bash. There’s lots of disparate parts here. but I’m a sucker for a pasta bake, and one of my favourite meats chorizo has a look in too.

The results were nice, but could’ve been a lot better. The elements were tugging at each other, rather than coming together harmoniously. If I did it again, I’d get the chorizo sweating early in with the tomato sauce, to get a more developed flavour out of it. I’d also be adding a little stock to thin the sauce out, encouraging everything to blend and get a bit more moisture to the whole dish. Finally I’d be slicing the aubergine and pepper before griddling, getting more smoky flavours throughout. Can’t really see what good the basil leaves are doing that early on either. A good first draft though, see you next time. Below is the method on this effort.

Chorizo pasta bake:

1 aubergine, halved

1 red pepper, halved

200g rigatoni

1 tin tomatoes

Handful of basil leaves, torn

1 ball mozzarella, torn

200g chorizo, diced

  1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
  2. Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.
  3. Griddle the aubergine and pepper until charred on both sides.
  4. Meanwhile, heat the tomatoes and add the basil leaves.
  5. Dice the veg and pour the tomatoes, pasta, chorizo and veg into a baking dish.
  6. Tear over the mozzarella and bake for 15 mins.
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