Potatoes Za’tar

 

The people in this house form a very complicated Venn diagram when it comes to food preferences. One will eat fish, but not meat; one will eat chicken, but no other meat or fish bar canned tuna. One will eat potatoes; two scream if anything like a potato appears on the table. Four will eat bread and pasta, but one (me) has discovered that gluten is at the root of all her health problems. And so it goes.

Which is why I am so grateful for small things, like za'tar. It is one of the few foods that every person in the house absolutely loves. Spelled zatar, za'tar, za'atar and goodness knows how many other ways, it can refer to a herb (variously oregano, marjoram, thyme, hyssop or another herb) and also to a spice mix made with one or a combination of those herbs. The spice mix, which is what we love, contains za'tar herbs, toasted sesame seeds and salt; and sometimes also sumac.

 

If you've ever eaten Lebanese pizza crusted with oregano and sesame, that's za'tar. We buy the mix by the scoop out of a bin at the local middle eastern importers. The easiest way to eat it is to dip bread in olive oil, then in the za'tar, rather as one eats dukkah.

It's also a great way to spice up leftover pita. I mix one part zatar with one part olive oil, smear the paste on pita triangles, then pop them in the oven for a few minutes or until the zatar is bubbling. Eaten warm or cold, it makes a great snack for hungry kids. Za'tar is rumoured to be brain food, so bread and za'tar is a good choice for breakfast on a school day, or just before doing homework!

Lately, too, I've been eating za'tar on potatoes. Smearing potatoes with olive oil and za'tar, then baking them, has proved to be very simple and delicious. And if the potatoes are served alongside pita za'tar for the kids then, in an unusual feeling of unity necessary for my sense of family wellbeing, our Venn circles do, in a small way, very slightly overlap.

Potatoes Za'tar - six medium sized potatoes - 2 tbs za'tar - 2 tbs olive oil Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Wash the potatoes and peel if necessary. Halve the potatoes lengthwise, or slice them into inch thick rounds. Place the potatoes into a steamer basket. Steam for seven to eight minutes or until a knife slips in easily. Remove from the heat. Mix the za'tar and olive oil in a small bowl. Place the potatoes on a baking tray, then smear them with the za'tar mix. Pop them in the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the edges of the potatoes are turning golden and the za'tar is well and truly bubbling. (Victoria: potatoes, olive oil. From many miles away but you don't need much: za'tar.)

Braesola, Rocket and Olive Sandwich

 

Once upon a time I worked in the city. I absolutely hated it, so as a consolation prize I bought lunch every day. Usually I had sushi, but other times I ate Mexican wraps, interesting sandwiches, teriyaki chicken skewers, lavish salads, or even that most guilty of pleasures, hot chips.

Then I had babies, and stayed home. When they were little, I found myself preparing and packing away and sweeping up after six eating sessions a day (breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, pre-dinner vegies and dinner); and so I rarely bothered to make lunch particularly interesting. I think of these as the cheese and avocado sandwich years – absolutely delicious, but seven days a week for five or six years was probably about enough.

These days, however, my kids are older and I have more energy for lunch. Some days I eat leftover rice warmed with homemade chicken stock and piled high with fresh coriander; other days, some sort of lentil soup which I have made earlier then frozen in convenient portions; and yet other days, big salads dotted with felafel and drizzled in tahini and lemon. I still enjoy a really good sandwich: a bit of bread slathered in avocado and topped with cold chicken left from a roast; thin toast, salted butter and a sliver of ham; a soft roll filled with chévre and sun dried tomatoes; or even now, my historical favourite, cheese and avocado on rye.

Top of the list, however, is braesola, rocket and olives.

Braesola (aka bresaola) is an Italian meat. More precisely, it is aged air dried beef, very delicately spiced with rosemary and juniper. Braesola is very lean and has a slightly sweet flavour, which is a magnificent foil for metallic salty olives and spicy rocket. So while I feel rather silly posting a sandwich formula – hardly a recipe – this is so easy and delicious that I simply must.

You can buy imported braesola at good delis; however I have also seen an Australian braesola made from kangaroo. If you don't mind eating Skippy, it's not bad at all.

The Best Sandwich in the World (Braesola, Rocket and Olives) - 3 slices of braesola - a ridiculously large handful of rocket (enough to obscure the bread and much of the plate; think of this sandwich as a gussied up green salad barely contained by a bit of carbohydrate) - 4 or 5 kalamata olives, pressed to remove the pit and torn in half - 2 slices of bread, or a crusty roll If you are using a crusty roll, open it up and tear out much of the soft bread inside. Gobble it up. Now, this is not your mother's sandwich of a single flaccid slice of pressed chicken which you found in your lunchbox every day in primary school. Think New York deli sandwiches stacked two inches high with shaved meats and realise that three slices of braesola is a mere taste, just a whiff, of the good stuff. So now layer the braesola three slices thick. Dot it with the olive halves. Load up the sandwich with a silly amount of rocket – don't worry, you're eating this at home and when rocket falls all over your plate you can pick it up and shove it in your mouth – then push down the top. Hold it all together, open the mouth wide wide wider and crunch! (Back garden: rocket. Victoria: bread. Oh the shame: Greek olives, Italian braesola. Is there an Australian producer that makes firm olives???)

Lentil and Leaf Amaranth Soup

 

Once upon a time there was a family with three little girls who spent their days running and jumping and climbing and skipping and swinging and riding and arguing and telling jokes; and so they were always hungry.

Their chickens laid four eggs a day, but it wasn't enough. Their father brought home bread from the market, but still it wasn't enough. Their mother went for long walks and came home with armfuls of greens, but even still it wasn't enough.

So their mother scratched her head and had a think; then she built a garden. She heaped it up with compost and mulched it heavily; and in that garden she planted every leafy green she could think of: rocket and kale, Swiss chard and rainbow chard, lettuces freckled and plain, land cress and watercress, fat hen, leaf amaranth, warrigal greens and lovage. In a sunny patch she planted herbs: parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme; summer savory and winter savory; coriander and chervil and chives; perilla and purslane; basil and borage and salad burnet. And the sun shone down and the rain fell and those leaves grew and grew.

Every evening just before the sun went down, out went the mother with a sharp knife and a basket, and brought in greens for dinner.

 

One afternoon, as she stood at the kitchen sink, the leaf amaranth caught her eye. Green leaves edged in pink, it was a delirious sight. Bright arches of seeds swayed in the gentle breeze, beckoning to her. Ah, thought the mother, it's time.

So she gathered up her knife and basket and out she went. On her way through the garden she pulled up an onion and popped it in her basket. She pulled a couple of carrots and threw them in, too. Finally, she came to the amaranth. She cut the stems and trimmed off the seeds, which she threw to the chooks. She laid the stems gently in her basket, and carried everything inside.

There she warmed the onion in a swirl of olive oil, then added the carrots, some celery, a handful of lentils and stock; and she left it bubbling on the stove. Just before dinner, she threw in the amaranth leaves and let them wilt.

She brought the soup to the table where the three girls were waiting, spoons in hands, hungry eyes burning. The smallest girl ate two bowls full; the middle sized girl ate one bowlful; but the biggest girl ate six bowls full, then asked for some more!

Lentil and Leaf Amaranth Soup - a bunch of leaf amaranth (or spinach or fat hen or turnip tops or silverbeet or rainbow chard or any other tasty edible green), washed and stems removed - 1 onion, chopped small - 2 carrots, chopped small - 2 sticks of celery, chopped small - 2 tbs or so olive oil - 150g brown lentils (I used Spanish brown lentils, grown in the Wimmera.) - 1 litre chicken stock or vegetable stock - a pinch of salt - extra peppery green olive oil, to serve Warm the olive oil in a small soup pot. Add the onions, the carrot and the celery and cook gently until they have softened, ten minutes or so. Add the lentils and stir, then add the stock. Bring to a simmer, and cook for fifteen minutes. Add salt to taste, then cook until the lentils are quite soft. Add the greens, and let wilt. Serve as is, or pulse-chop in the food processor until it is a rough consistency. Serve with a drizzle of peppery extra virgin olive oil and a bit of black pepper. Photograph shows soup with unleavened bread, made with buckwheat and two tablespoons of olive oil. (Victoria: leaf amaranth, carrots, onions, olive oil, lentils. Mixed sources: homemade stock. Mystery location: celery.)

Fat Hen, Indian Style

 

To keep a marriage fresh, I recommend spending a weekend without children every once in a while. We have just had our second such weekend since our oldest daughter was born eight and a half years ago, so clearly I am no great practitioner of what I preach; but a weekend spent eating, drinking and lolling around with one’s husband has done wonders for my attitude to marriage.

I am, however, not just a newly rediscovered sex goddess but also and always a cook and mother of three, and so I couldn’t resist heading out on the Saturday morning to a local organic market. When their parents go away for the weekend, some kids get souvenir t-shirts; ours got goats cheese dusted with ash, raspberry jam, a bag of tiny nectarines, some local bacon, and an enormous bunch of fat hen.

 

Fat hen, which is also known as lamb’s quarters or goosefoot, is a mild and slightly sweet green. The leaves contain vitamin A and C, and have been eaten since prehistoric times. Use the leaves wherever you would spinach, either raw or cooked. Many people also recommend eating the nutritious seeds, which are packed with protein, calcium, potassium and other goodies, but I haven’t tried them, myself.

You often see fat hen growing on wasteland, which tells you it’s a weedy plant. If you grow it in your garden and want to control it, cut off all flowering spikes before they set seed and throw them to the chooks; if you let it set seed, you will have fat hen in your garden forever. Pull up any unwanted descendents and eat them, or give them to your feathered friends.

Weedy it may be, but with a name like fat hen, who could resist? The bush forms a lovely soft grey-green mound which grows to one and a half metres or even taller. It has large arrow shaped leaves, and one or two bushes provide plenty of leaves for humans and poultry alike.

As for fat hen Indian style, it is not, alas, a large chicken in a sari, but leafy greens simply dressed with a few Indian flavourings. This is an easy dish to serve alongside rice, dahl and perhaps some pappadams.

Fat Hen, Indian Style - a bunch of fat hen (or spinach or leaf amaranth or baby passionfruit leaves or turnip tops or any other tasty edible green) - a small onion - ½ tsp turmeric - flavourless vegetable oil (I used non-GMO canola) - ¼ cup flaked or desecrated sorry dessicated coconut (Don't use the standard dusty brand; look for good thick threads.) - the juice of a lemon - a pinch of salt Wash the fat hen well. Warm a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil in a wide frypan with a lid. Add the onions and a good pinch of salt, and fry gently until the onions begin to soften. Add the turmeric and stir for a few seconds; then throw in the fat hen. Squawk! Clap on the lid and leave for three or four minutes or until the fat hen has wilted. Add the coconut and the lemon juice, and toss and stir until the liquid has been absorbed into the coconut. Serve! Adapted from a recipe in Charmaine Solomon’s Vegetarian Food, a slender volume now well and truly out of print. One of these days I plan to check out her acclaimed Complete Vegetarian Cookbook; perhaps the recipe is in there too. (Victoria: fat hen, onion, lemon, salt, and, I hope, the canola oil. From many miles away: turmeric. And also from many miles away, but fair trade and organic: coconut.)

Cereal Topping

 

I love Paul. And not only Paul, but Araucaria, Arachne, Tramp, Chifonie, and all the other great cryptic crossword setters. They regularly outfox me, but that makes me even more ardent in my devotion. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I take the crossword to bed every night and, like a faithful lover, carry it down the hall in the morning to continue my enjoyment over breakfast.

With such a start to the day, I need a little brain food. Having been on a diet largely devoid of gluten, sugar, fruit and dairy for some months now, I am experimenting with quick but sustaining breakfast options. I can find gluten free fruit free, or fruit free sugar free, or gluten free sugar free breakfast cereals – but a tasty cereal free from gluten, sugar or fruit? Well, it seems this combination is yet to come.

So I buy sugar free multi puffs (Australian sourced buckwheat, rice and sorghum) and to this fairly tasteless bowl of air (which, sadly, fails to snap crackle or pop) I add a heaping dessertspoon of my homemade nut and seed mix, drown the lot in rice milk, and hey presto! it suddenly becomes a tasty brekky, with enough protein to last me through the morning.

Good premixed cereal toppings are certainly available commercially. The advantage of making your own is that you can choose which seeds and nuts go into it; you can make your own choices regarding food miles and growing methods; and you can vary the proportions to taste. I have played with chia seeds (which produce a slightly gelatinous blob in the milk, not lovely), LSA (too dusty), various nut combinations and different spices. The recipe below is my favourite combination, heavy on the crunch and very very simple.

And while such breakfast fare may lack the sensuous decadence of a chocolate croissant, it’s certainly enough to solve a few clues of the cryptic crossword.

Cereal Topping - 1 ½ cups almonds - ½ cup brazil nuts - ⅔ cup sunflower seeds - ½ cup sesame seeds - ¼ cup flax seeds (linseeds) Chop the nuts roughly – you want them in chunks not itty bitty pieces. Don’t use a food processor as you’ll end up with meal. Mix the nuts with the other ingredients, and store in an airtight container – that’s it! The topping can be sprinkled over cereals, yogurt or fresh fruit; mixed with oats and turned into crumble; or used in anything else you can think of. (Victoria: almonds. Australia not China: sunflower seeds, flax seeds. Mexico, dammit: sesame seeds. From many miles away but, if we believe the label, canopy grown and hand harvested, thus preserving both the rainforest and a traditional way of life: brazil nuts. Besides, they’re delicious.)

Super Duper Moist Lemon Cake

 

Australia Day, an excellent day for a picnic at a friend's property where we sit and gaze at the rolling hills and listen to the wind. A place where kids run across fields, climb fallen blackwoods, or go wading in the creek. A place where we stop being city dwellers just for a moment, and instead rest on the land which supports us and holds us and whispers secrets beyond hearing. If only we knew how to listen, we might just understand what it has to say.

I have just read Strandloper by Alan Garner, which tells the story of escaped convict, William Buckley. Buckley lived for thirty years with a local indigenous tribe, who recognised in him their deceased elder, Murrungurk. In Garner's version, having been through local initiation rites in England before his deportation, Buckley is initiated into the tribe and discovers deep resonances; the Dreaming is universal. Through the story, Garner suggests that all healthy people are able to embody the sacred in their every action, and recognise the spirituality of the land and their infinite dependence on it; and he suggests that ruptures in the Dreaming caused by the violence of colonialism must be answered by a new Dreaming, yet to unfold. As to how it will, with the loss of the ancestors who teach the art of listening, well, that is a mystery. Perhaps Strandloper is a good place to start.

It's a beautiful, difficult, thought provoking and sad book; I came away with a deep sense of loss both for the indigenous tribes which were ripped apart by colonialism, and for my own lack of a traditional heritage. A sense of connection with the land and knowledge of the rituals associated with it have been lost to so many of us thanks to generations of successive displacement; but loving and paying attention to one particular place over many years must be a beginning point for a new relationship with the land. And for my family, our particular place is our friend's property. 'This,' said my three year old, 'is my favourite super duper place' , and that just about sums it up for me.

 

On Thursday, as I quietly mused about place and belonging, seven of us stood silent in the derelict old shack, peeking through holes in the windows and walls and watching a wedge tailed eagle circle lower and lower as it investigated the remains of a dead wallaby. Finding it rather too far gone, it soared upwards on a thermal and disappeared; and we, praying that the wind would soon change and the wallaby no longer haunt us, unpacked our lunch.

Reflection always makes me hungry; and, like food for reflective thought, food for the block needs to be sturdy, as the only access is up a severely rutted old logging track. Having just scored a big bag of lemons from a neighbour, I brought a heavy lemon cake. It may not be the most ecologically responsible food nor is it particularly connected with the land, but to this European born on the other side of the world from her ancestors, it is gently restorative, nevertheless.

Super Duper Moist Lemon Cake - 200g unsalted butter at room temperature - 200g + 4 tbs granulated coconut palm sugar - 180g ground almonds ½ tsp baking powder - 2 large lemons - 4 eggs Preheat the oven to 160°. Position an oven rack in the centre of the oven. Line a loaf tin with baking paper, or butter it well. Slice one of the lemons crosswise into circles. Place it in a small saucepan with 2 tbs of the sugar and 4 tbs water. Bring it to a gentle simmer, and let it bubble away for 5 to 7 minutes, shaking from time to time, until the liquid has almost disappeared and the lemon becomes sticky. Do not let it burn! Take it off the heat and leave to cool. Whisk together the ground almonds and the baking powder. Place the butter and 200g of the sugar into a mixmaster and beat until they are fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, until all is combined. Zest one of the lemons and chop the zest finely (or use the tiny holes on a grater). Add the zest to the mixture and beat once more. Remove the bowl from the mixer. Gently fold in the ground almonds and baking powder, scraping from the bottom to keep the mixture as light as possible. Place it into the prepared loaf tin. Arrange the lemon slices along the top of the cake, and drizzle any lightly toffee'd liquids over them. Slip into the oven, and bake for 50 minutes or until a knife slips out clean. While the cake is in the oven, place the juice of the zested lemon and the last 2 tbs of sugar into the same saucepan as was used to cook the lemon slices. Warm very slightly, just until the sugar has dissolved. When the cake is done, take it out of the oven and poke it with a toothpick left right and centre. Now spoon the lemon and sugar mixture over the cake, letting each spoonful be absorbed before adding the next one. Leave the cake to cool in its tin. Delicious on its own, or with an artery-blocking splodge of double cream. Adapted from a recipe in The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater. (Local: lemons, eggs. Mysterious provenance: ground almonds. Not so local: baking powder. From Indonesia, but organic, delicious, full of healthy minerals, and far more sustainable than cane sugar: coconut palm sugar.)

Chicken Meatballs with a Spectacular Marjoram Sauce

 

The funniest book I read last year was Lily Brett's You Gotta Have Balls (also published as Uncomfortably Close). Ruth Rothwax longs for a group of supportive women with whom she can meet regularly and talk about empowerment and mutual cooperation. Instead, she gets an ageing father, Edek; his enormously busty Lycra-clad Polish girlfriend, Zofia; and Zofia's weedy hanger-on, Walentyna. Among other skills, Zofia has an incredible knack with balls: meatballs, chicken balls, vegetable balls and, one presumes, Edek's balls.

Like so many good comic novels, You Gotta Have Balls has a serious side. Edek is a Holocaust survivor from Poland, and much of the book is about the ramifications sixty years later. Edek is determined to live exuberantly. For him, each day is a bonus and he is open to all the wonderful possibilities life holds. On the other hand, Ruth, a child of survivors, is earnest and hardworking, stifling her emotions and preferences in overcompensation for all her parents went through. Like the children of so many survivors, good fortune, and life in general, weigh heavily on her; and Brett explores the tensions between the generations gently and well.

However, she really shines in the comic passages. As I read page after page of Edek urging Ruth to try the balls (you gotta have these balls, Ruthie, these balls are unbelievable), I found myself collapsed with laughter at a cafe in Lygon Street, wiping the tears from my eyes and being looked at rather snootily by the unamused patrons at the next table. I can't be entirely sure what annoyed them most: perhaps it was my sitting alone or my grotty clothes? Or could it have been the great snorts of badly suppressed laughter that rudely punctuated their interminable boasting about their holidays?

Whatever it was, it caused a stir and the waitress came over to check that I was okay. She had never, she said, seen anyone laugh at a book like that; but somewhat unbelievably she didn't write down the title. If I saw someone guffawing in a public place over a book, especially someone who wasn't drinking, I would have run over and made sure I had the title down pat.

Maybe laughing aloud at a book is weird and the incurious waitress is more the norm, yet I know which I prefer. Anyway, it can be useful. Years ago, I had to sit in the passports office for several hours. I had with me Neal Stephenson's The Big U, also hilarious, and as I read and laughed and read some more, the section I was sitting in cleared out and I found myself alone in an otherwise crowded waiting room. For that matter, if you ever want a compartment of four seats to yourself on the tram, I can recommend reading a funny book, and laughing – or breastfeeding, of course.

In homage to Edek and Zofia and laughing in public places, here is my recipe for balls. What follows is a very plain chicken meatball; the ball is no more than a vehicle for the scrumptious marjoram sauce, which is not quite salsa verde and not quite salsa agresto but certainly sits in the range of both these lovely sauces. Marjoram is a sweet and delicate herb whose flavour is greatly diminished by cooking. So there is a little marjoram in the balls (think of it as a preliminary whisper), and a great deal of marjoram in the sauce (a fanfare of trumpets and a clashing of cymbals). Put them together, and you have music in your mouth.

The sauce is also good eaten with other meats and felafel; it can even be used as a strong dip. It tastes best the day you make it. The meatballs are enough for two meals for our family, so I make a half quantity of the sauce fresh for each meal. It takes about three minutes, hardly an effort.

Chicken Meatballs with Marjoram Sauce The Balls - 500g chicken mince - 1 large red onion - ⅓ cup marjoram - good pinch of salt - olive oil Chop the onion and marjoram, or pulse chop them in the food processor, until they are very fine. Do not let them go to mush as you want a little texture. Mix them with the mince and a good pinch of salt, using your hands to knead it all through. Form the mixture into small balls, 1½ to 2 tbs of mixture per ball. The balls will, if anything like mine, always resemble 3D trapezoids; clearly, I don't have the knack. You should get 16 to 20, depending on how large you make each one, of course. Place the balls onto a tray, cover with plastic film, and refrigerate until you are ready to cook. To cook the balls, warm the olive oil in a wide skillet over medium heat. When it is reasonably hot, place the balls close together in the pan; they should all fit. Cook without moving them until the bases are golden. Then using a thin egg slide or similar, gently scrape under each ball and turn it onto one side. Continue to cook and turn, cook and turn, for about 15 minutes. When all the sides are golden, cut the largest ball open (like a good tailor, I'm assuming your balls are not identical) and check that it is cooked through. Keep them in a warm oven until you are ready to serve. The Sauce - 10 to 12 sage leaves, preferably from the tips of the plant - 20 stalks flat leaf parsley - two small handfuls of sweet marjoram - 8 walnut halves - 2 fat cloves of garlic - 2 tbs balsamic vinegar - 6 tbs olive oil - a good pinch of sea salt Ensure the herbs are clean and dry. Chop off the bottom half of the parsley stalks and discard. (Keep the top ends of the stalks as these are less fibrous but very tasty; no need to pick all the leaves off.) Peel the garlic. Throw all the ingredients into the small bowl of a food processor (or chop very finely) and whizz. Check for acidity; you may need a little more oil or vinegar. Scrape the sauce into a small bowl. It will be very thick and nubbly. This is enough sauce for all the balls; halve it if you intend to eat only half the balls today. If you are making the balls for a party, form smaller balls and cook for less time; then arrange the balls in a single layer on a platter, and dot each ball with a delicious blob of sauce. The Marjoram Sauce is adapted from a recipe in the intelligent, absorbing and absolutely delicious The Original Mediterranean Cuisine: Medieval Recipes for Today by Barbara Santich, which is, sadly for you, out of print. (Local: onion, marjoram, sage, parsley, walnuts, garlic, olive oil. Mysterious provenance, but free range and chemical free: chicken mince. Not so local: balsamic vinegar, salt.)