warm tortellini salad

November 9, 2013July 29, 2014 | kahmen

Don’t laugh, but there are tortellini on my salad.

Sometimes I suspect the best food combinations have less to do with a considered stroke of genius and more to do with indecision, greed or laziness. Breakfast or lunch? Brunch sounds great! Meat or bread first, or keep playing cards? Hello, sandwich! Croissant, or donut? Behold the cronut! (tastier but much less amusing than its croissant/flapjack hybrid cousin, the crapjack.)

All of this is justification for what I’m sure you’re going to love, even if it does sound a little strange at first: a warm tortellini salad.

I’ve recently come back from Australia and moved into a new flat, which means that the cupboards are crazily, disconcertingly bare. The local Sainsburys is being far less cooperative than my old Tesco (why are the washing gloves not next to the washing up liquid? Why are dried pulses not in the vegetable or rice sections? For the love of God, are there any insoles left in London?), but I will prevail in time, and my cupboards will go back to looking like I’m preparing to sit out a small nuclear disaster.

In the meantime, though, supper is the quickest-of-quick meals: pasta and sauce.

There’s really nothing like coming home in the freezing sleet and gale force winds and diving into a pile of warm, comforting pasta. I suspect that my brief and unsuccessful stint at proper low-carbing had more than a little to do with my ongoing love affair with spaghetti. Pasta is a hug on a plate.

The thing is, pasta doesn’t have the healthiest reputation, and the vitamin content of a jar of sauce is not spectacular. But salads are just so cold and uninspiring at this time of year. What’s a girl to do?

The warm tortellini salad is the best of both worlds: a moderated helping of pasta and all the nutritional goodness of a salad. If you time it right, the pasta will still be warm and the salad crisp, and you’ll feel virtuous and beloved all at the same time.

Warm tortellini salad
150g tortellini
Salad of choice – I use baby spinach, plum tomatoes, capsicum and chestnut mushrooms
Good balsamic vinegar

Boil a pot of water whilst you prepare the salad vegetables.

Salt the boiling water and cook the tortellini as directed on the pack. While you’re waiting, place the salad on a plate.

Drain the tortellini and add to the salad. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar.

It’s almost embarrassing to call this a recipe, but there you have it. I will say that tortellini is very easily overcooked (even when the directions say 3 minutes) and I really dislike soggy pasta, so I tend to knock a minute or so off the cooking time. Enjoy!

beef and red wine stew

August 20, 2013July 29, 2014 | kahmen

When the air is crisp and the days are short and cool, there’s nothing quite like a beef and red wine stew.

You’d be forgiven for having a sneaking suspicion that it’s a great excuse to snaffle myself a nice glass of red with dinner, but really, it’s so much more than that. I don’t eat a lot of beef, but when I do there’s a certain weightiness to it that’s perfect for a cold winter’s night.

There’s something very comforting about the tried-and-tested combination of beef, carrots and herbs, muddled together in synergistic harmony. Then there’s also the ritual of mushing an already-soft stew with a fork so that it falls into a tender heap atop a bed of mashed potatoes, staining their creamy perfection with little rivulets of rich gravy.

The first taste is like a big, warm hug. If you’re under the weather, out of sorts or nursing a broken heart, this is the stew you want to cook.

Beef and red wine stew
750g chuck steak, cubed
4 tbsp plain flour
2 onions
5 carrots
2 sticks of celery
2 tomatoes
3 cloves garlic
1 sprig of rosemary
1 small handful of parsley
500ml beef stock
250ml red wine
Salt and pepper

They're different colours, but only because that's what was in the cupboard. — They’re different colours, but only because that’s what was in the cupboard.

Start by quartering the onions and placing them, with a little oil, in a large pot over a low heat.

While it’s warming up, chop the celery and 1 carrot into very small pieces. Add these to the pot and cook over a low heat.

Season the flour with salt and pepper and toss the cubes of steak in the flour, coating them with a fine dusting. Add the steak to the pot and fry until browned.

Add the other carrots, stock, red wine, rosemary and tomatoes. Cover and simmer for 2 hours or until the beef falls apart. Remove the tomato skins and rosemary before adding the parsley at the very last minute.

Garnish with a little extra chopped parsley and serve with greens and potatoes.

Let’s talk about wine: the general consensus amongst the cooking community is that it’s not a huge issue what kind of wine you use, but it must be good enough to drink on its own. If you go buying crappy wine that you wouldn’t serve, the flavours are intensified when you cook it, giving you a horribly bitter stew with a cheap aftertaste that’ll remind you of every Friday night of your 20s. Just say no.

haloumi omelette

June 11, 2013July 29, 2014 | kahmen

Let’s face it: everything in my fridge has seen better days.

How could I have let it come to this? Well, there’s a good reason for the very-unlike-me paucity of food in the tiny kitchen; I’m moving next week and I’m struggling to clear my cupboards to make things as simple as possible. That means the half-bags of pasta, cup of lentils, highly ambitious biryani mix, on-special kilo of chickpeas – it all has to go. I’ve been doing all sorts of odd culinary contortions (chicken bourgignon, anyone?) in an effort to use everything up.

So at the end of a determined month-long embargo on buying goods, my fridge is in a pretty sad state. What a creative and nutritional challenge!

Haloumi omelette
100g haloumi
Half a pointed pepper
3 eggs (2 yolks, 3 egg whites), lightly beaten

Chop the haloumi into small chunks (rather than the slices used in a haloumi salad). Place in a non-stick frypan over medium-high heat. If your pan is properly non-stick, you won’t need oil.

Fry the haloumi until it begins to brown. This should take around 5 minutes. Make sure you flip the pieces so both sides get browned.

Meanwhile, slice the pointed pepper into slivers. Add them to the pan once the cheese is browned, then cover with the eggs.

I am not a great omelette-maker. That perfect omelette shape eludes me, especially since I don’t have a grill to finish the top. But I make up for this by not caring in the slightest what shape my omelette turns out to be. I wait until the edges of the omelette turn pale, meaning it’s safe to flip, then I flip it with two spatulas onto its other side and give it thirty seconds. Then I slide it onto the plate, attempting to fold it in half as I go.

The haloumi is really salty, so no seasoning is required. Serve with a drizzle of balsamic if you like, and a pile of pickled baby beetroot if it’s there just waiting to be used.

frijoles negros

April 4, 2013July 29, 2014 | kahmen

If you’re ever in Sydney’s inner west, swing by a restaurant known as Baja Cantina in Glebe and you’ll understand why the top end of my food-rating spectrum is food for which you would consider moving countries.

Is that a little extreme? You might think so if you had never eaten the nachos at Baja Cantina. The first time I tried them, my little head exploded with the colours, tastes and textures of a country I had never seen; the salty crunch of thick, hand-cooked corn chips, creamy, gently spiced beans, fire-laced salsa and jalapenos and zesty guacamole married in perfect harmony by smatterings of mature cheese and a dollop of sour cream.

I’m getting a little emotional just thinking of it.

My bestie and I have been to Baja Cantina hundreds of times, the colourful walls bearing silent witness to our laughter, tears, venting sessions, tantrums, dramas and soul-searching conversations that can only occur over a plate of Sydney’s finest nachos.

They're not exactly photogenic now. But you'll understand when you taste them. — They’re not exactly photogenic now. But you’ll understand when you taste them.

It was Stephy who introduced me to black beans, and I’ve never looked back. Black turtle beans have a dense texture, unlike the starchy flouriness of pinto beans, and stand up to flavours well. They require lengthy cooking, but are very low-maintenance and the end result is a delicious, inky, creamy and deeply flavoursome dish.

Frijoles negros
250g dried black beans
1 onion, cut into eighths
5 cloves garlic, peeled
Six large sprigs of thyme
Five bay leaves
Two slices of bacon
oil
salt

Bay leaves and thyme are essential to this dish.

Normally, you would begin a bean-based recipe by soaking the beans to reduce your risk of being poisoned by the toxin phytohaemagglutinin. With this particular recipe there’s no risk of that since you cook them for ages anyway, but you can soak them for a few hours to reduce cooking time. If you don’t have time for that, it doesn’t matter – you might just have to keep them on the stove for a bit longer.

Place the onion, garlic into a pot with a splash of oil and cook gently for a few minutes.

Add the black beans, thyme and bay leaves and cover with water. Bring to a boil and simmer for one hour. Skim off any scum that appears on top and make sure they’re not boiling dry, adding water if necessary.

After an hour, add the bacon and a pinch of salt and return to a simmer for another hour. You can leave the bacon out if you’re vegetarian, but I find it provides a good weighty saltiness to the beans.

Beans reach a stage where the skin begins to lift off if you blow on them. You actually want to take these beans beyond that stage, to the point that they provide no resistance when you want to mash them.

After the beans are cooked, you’ve got a few options. The Mexican culinary goddess Thomasina Miers, of Wahaca fame, takes the cooked beans and fries them with a large amount of lard or butter plus additional onion and garlic, then processes them until smooth. She serves them with sour cream and a crumbled mature cheese.

I absolutely love Wahaca’s frijoles and they have never failed to transport me to the heights of culinary bliss, but at home in the tiny kitchen I find the second stage too fiddly and guilt-inducing. Instead, I take a fork to the cooked beans and mash until creamy. Don’t drain the cooking liquid, as you’ll need it to store the beans and to mash any leftovers the following day. Before reheating in a microwave, cover the beans with a little water to prevent them from drying out.

I like to serve frijoles negros on a pile of fresh, crunchy salad topped with pickled jalapenos and guacamole. A handful of corn chips rounds everything off nicely.

turkey meatballs

March 17, 2013July 29, 2014 | kahmen

I feel a bit ridiculous saying this when the memory of the chocolate hazelnut crepe I had for dessert last night is still fresh, but I’d like to be healthy. Wouldn’t we all?

Each day, we start out with the best of intentions and promise ourselves we’ll be good – and then, when confronted with the burger and fries we’ve wanted since time immemorial, our resistance crumbles like a honeycomb chocolate bar. Then the guilt sets in and the whole cycle begins again; the self-recrimination, the promise, the virtue of self-denial and sacrifice, and the inevitable ‘giving in’, generally a rather spectacular fall from grace involving a family-sized pizza and Sherlock DVDs.

Phew. How exhausting. I personally know of no quicker path to the ‘sharing’ bag of M&Ms.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if eating wasn’t a constant exercise in the ability to say no? Wouldn’t it fantastic if we weren’t continuously enslaved by the thought of indulgence, held captive by the mere scent of a splurge, paralysed by the fear of one food group or another? (Carbs. Hang on, fat. No, calories. Wait, sugar. Here, munch this piece of cardboard while I think about it.)

I think that like most things in life, eating well is about balance; generally making the right choices about what you eat, but also treating yourself occasionally and sensibly, without any of the insanity that goes along with being given rare and temporary freedom from the shackles of self-denial.

But thankfully, it isn’t all about salads versus burgers (or crepes, if you like). A lot of the time, you can make everyday meals healthier by having a look at what goes into them. Once you understand the ingredients, you can start tweaking recipes here and there to make them better for you.

With all that in mind, I’m having a look at turkey mince this week. It depends on the cuts used to make the mince and the fat content, but in general, pound for pound, turkey mince is lower in fat, calories and cholesterol than beef, pork, lamb and chicken. You can find turkey breast mince which is even leaner and is perfectly fine to use for this particular dish.

Because of its low fat content, turkey mince can tend towards being dry and tasteless, so it does take a little more love to get it to taste good. This recipe’s not for the weekday; leave it til the weekend when you’ve got the time to spend on cooking!

A healthy and satisfying pot of heart-friendly love.

Turkey meatballs (makes 42)
For the meatballs
500g turkey breast mince
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tbsp tomato sauce
5 tsp dried mixed herbs
1 tbsp mild chilli powder
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 chicken stock cube
1 egg
1 carrot, grated

For the sauce
1 red onion, finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 x 400g cans peeled plum tomatoes
2 bay leaves
50g red lentils

Start by caramelising both onions. Basically, that means you put them into a non-stick saucepan over medium-high heat and stir occasionally as they go through the process from raw to soft to sticky, which should take around 30 minutes. You don’t want to fuss over them too much, and after about 10 minutes you can add a small splash of balsamic vinegar or sugar to help them along.

Once they’re caramelised, remove half and place into a large pot.

Back to the saucepan. Crumble in the stock cube with a little water, and add the garlic. Cook for a further 2 minutes and then remove from heat, allowing to cool completely.

Place the cool sticky onion mixture in a large bowl with the turkey mince, egg, spices, grated carrot and tomato sauce. Season with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.

Shape the meatballs with your hands. My mix made exactly 42 small meatballs, which I think are nicer than the big ones, but cook as you like.

While you’re getting ready to brown the turkey meatballs, get the sauce started. The large pot with the remaining caramelised onions can go back on the stove with the rest of the ingredients for the sauce. Cover and bring to a boil, adding a little water if the lentils soak up too much liquid.

Brown the turkey meatballs in batches and add to the pot. Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Serve with wholemeal pasta, brown rice or greens.

spanish stew

February 19, 2013July 29, 2014 | kahmen

It's almost time to say goodbye to winter food for another year. Not that that really works in London. — It’s almost time to say goodbye to winter food for another year. Not that that really applies in London.

The other day we noticed that it was still light outside at 3pm. For the first time in months, it seems, you can go outside without gloves and a hat and not think you’re going to die of frostbite. That means the delights of Spring are just around the corner – and I know it seems like an impossibility right now, but in a few short weeks we’ll also be leaving the comforting realms of warm winter food behind.

Chorizo has become a regular feature on the menu of late. Are calorie-counters aghast? They needn’t be. This heavily spiced sausage is so strongly flavoured that you only ever need to use a small amount, and the smokiness will permeate the rest of the dish. Moreover, if you fry it slowly, the fat runs out and you can drain it away before plopping the toothsome morsels into a separate pan.

It also doesn’t hurt that chorizo has a good long fridge life, so you can keep some on hand for emergency stew action on those long, cold winter nights.

Spanish Stew
200g cooking chorizo (about 4 small links)
2 x 400g cans plum tomatoes
1 x 400g cans butter beans
1 yellow capsicum, sliced
1 red onion, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon smoked paprika

Skin the chorizo and pull into pieces. You can cut it, but I like the ragged edges of pulled chorizo.

Place the chorizo into a non-stick frypan over a medium heat. When it starts to sizzle, add the onion and garlic.

While that’s cooking away, pour the tomatoes into a saucepan and bring to the boil. When the chorizo is done, drain it and transfer the mixture to the saucepan, adding the rest of the ingredients.

Simmer for twenty minutes and serve with crusty bread – or for a healthier option, go with piles of vegetables like mushrooms, broccoli and kale.

Serves four, 275kcal per serve.

Serve with vegetables or fresh crusty bread, — Serve with vegetables or fresh crusty bread.

almond flour pancakes

January 27, 2013July 29, 2014 | kahmen

What is a Sunday without pancakes? Just another day of the week that ends in ‘y’, obviously.

When I was growing up, there was always a flurry of excitement when pikelets entered the house. Pikelets are really pancakes, but Down Under pancakes are the size of a small dinner plate, whereas pikelets are a neat, manageable handful. Each member of my family pretty much eats them the same way; slathered in peanut butter, or toasted and slathered in peanut butter.

It wasn’t until much later in life that I learned the ‘proper’ way of eating them in Australia is with golden syrup, and by then it was too late – the lifelong habit of eating savoury goods with these little gems had stuck. Eventually I happened upon the Canadian way of eating them with bacon and maple syrup, and it became a close second to the peanut butter breakfast rally.

Pancakes should be light, fluffy and served with something equally delicious.

Of course, making pancakes is pretty simple, but the primary ingredient is flour. Not only do I rarely keep flour in the house (there’s a bad weevil experience behind that), but one of my good friends has recently been diagnosed with both IBS and coeliac disease, and it has been my mission over the past few weeks to look at things she can eat, which is trickier than you might expect.

Coeliac disease is at least consistent, although painful: no gluten, which means no wheat, barley, rye, spelt, flour derived from any of those, nothing that has come into contact with gluten products. Restrictive, but straightforward. Lots of things are marked gluten-free and the label will generally tell you if gluten is present in the product.

IBS is a whole different beast. Following the FODMAP diet seems to help her, but it’s difficult to remember what to avoid. It’s also supremely tough to eat out when you have to avoid onion and garlic and that’s present in almost everything in a commercial kitchen.

I wanted to try out a recipe that would help my buddy put the spark back into her Sunday breakfast. So here it is: taken from about.com, these almond flour pancakes are gluten-free, IBS-friendly, low-carb, easy and very filling.

I probably did not need to eat all four pancakes, but hey, it’s a Sunday.

Almond flour pancakes (makes 4)
Half a cup of almond flour
1 egg
10 drops of liquid stevia (you can substitute with liquid sucralose or just use half a tablespoon of sugar)
1/8 cup of water
1 tablespoon oil
small sprinkle of salt

Warm your non-stick frying pan over medium heat whilst you mix all ingredients together.

Place two tablespoons of mixture into the pan. The good thing about this is that it doesn’t spread far, so if your pan is big enough you can do two at a time.

The pancake needs about 2-3 minutes on the first side before you flip it. They don’t really bubble the same way a pancake does, but you’ll know when it’s ready to turn because the edges will become lighter as they cook – once the pancake has a white ring all the way around, it’s ok to flip. It will need about a minute on the other side.

Serve with bacon, peanut butter or if you must, drizzled with golden syrup, and relish the Sunday-morning feeling.

A note about cooking for coeliacs: this is probably an obvious point but if you’re cooking for a coeliac, make sure the pan, all your utensils and crockery are ultra-squeaky-clean. The slightest bit of gluten can make them seriously ill.

spicy chorizo and curly kale

January 23, 2013July 29, 2014 | kahmen

I hadn’t heard of Nigel Slater before I landed in this fine country, but I’ve really taken to him. There’s something charming and earnest in his boyishly enthusiastic manner that inspires a certain recklessness in the kitchen – and I think we could all do with some of that now and again. ‘Use every last bit,’ he commands from the screen, turning pumpkin skin into crisps and dangerously ripe cherries into a tart. Don’t be afraid to experiment, just trust the flavours, be inventive and it will all work out.

A worthy mantra, especially if you’re living on a budget and your palate has progressed beyond the student days of burgers and pasta.

As soon as I saw curly kale, I knew I wanted to try it. It’s a hardy winter vegetable, a type of cabbage, rich in vitamins and minerals and perfect for the cold weather because you can cook it. No longer need your long, crisp nights be accompanied by an equally chilly salad.

The fantastic thing about curly kale is that when cooked, it takes on a substantial weightiness that can hold its own against meat, whilst also keeping its light, springy form. Like most greens, it doesn’t taste like much – all the better to flavour it with.

I confess I tweaked Nigel’s original recipe a little – I felt it needed just a little more to take on the complexity my stomach associates with a full meal. This is a perfect winter dinner; filling, nutritious and ready to eat in about fifteen minutes.

Spicy chorizo and curly kale
100g cooking chorizo (about 2 links)
100g curly kale, sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
Half a cup of edamame beans, cooked
Quarter of a cup of peas, frozen
Small handful of almonds (optional)

Remove the chorizo from its skin and pull the links into small pieces. You can chop them, of course, but I rather like the way pulling forms them into ragged sausage balls which then go on to have gloriously browned peaks.

Place the chorizo over medium heat and cook through – it should only take about 3 minutes if your pieces are small. Remove and set on kitchen paper.

Drain the fat and discard, but don’t wipe down the pan – the oil will help you to fry everything else and imbue it with the wonderful flavours of the chorizo. Turn the heat down to medium and add the garlic slices, followed by the peas and kale.

Fry until the kale starts turning a dark, shiny green, then add the cooked edamame beans and the chorizo back to the pan. Keep over a medium heat until the tough stalks of the kale are cooked through, then season to taste and serve on a large plate with a scattering of almonds.

Cooking with kale. Isn't it good to branch out a little! — Cooking with kale. Isn’t it good to branch out a little!

salmon fishcakes

January 22, 2013July 29, 2014 | kahmen

When was the last time you made fishcakes?

As it nears the end of January, the health kick you started at the beginning of the year starts to lose its sheen and you begin to wonder if you can actually go to jail for clobbering that pizza-munching individual over the head with a cucumber and nicking off with a slice of Meatlovers.

If I was on the jury, I just might acquit you.

Not many people have a vast repertoire of healthy meals they routinely prepare, but I don’t think that’s because we don’t know how to make them. I think it’s just because we often forget how many things we can cook. Sometimes all it takes is seeing someone else making a dish to make us remember that we already know how to make it, that we too can reach the heights of healthy culinary brilliance.

So here’s a little reminder from the tiny kitchen that fishcakes are easy, light, delicious and nutritious. I’ve made these without potato because this month I’m trying to go easy on the carbs, but the cauliflower mash I made last night has substituted nicely. They are a little difficult to flip in the pan because of it, but they taste absolutely scrummy.

Low-carb salmon fishcakes – makes 12
Half an onion, very finely chopped
415g salmon
1 egg
1 cup cauliflower mash
Handful grated cheddar
Salt and pepper

Incredibly, the majority of the work is done as soon as you’ve prepped the ingredients. Simply combine everything in a large bowl and work through to form a sticky, lumpy paste. If it’s too dry, add some milk or another egg. If it’s a little too wet, it should dry out a bit when you place it in the fridge.

Fishcake mixture. — Refrigerate the mixture to help it set.

You’ll need to refrigerate for at least half an hour, then take it out and form into patties. Fry in a little oil for about five minutes on the first side, and flip very carefully – they’ll be difficult to flip, but you can do it with two spatulas.

The smell of these frying is incredible. — These are a one-turn job. Make sure you don’t try to flip them too early!

Serve with lemon, a dab of mayonnaise and a large salad.

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