Year Of The Cock Salad

I can’t be doing with punctuation. I have never really understood it and don’t think I ever will. God invented English Teachers and Sub Editors for the purpose of correcting dodgy punctuation -so I will allow them to get on with it, without popping my hand up and quoting bits of that book with a panda on the front.

Commas and semi-colons are a mystery to me. Hyphens – well really. I think they are entirely ridiculous. I yearn for mediaeval times, when no one cared about spelling or punctuation, instead allowing their creativity to change the look of words and phrases within a sentence and throughout a piece of writing. These days people make judgements about creative spelling and punctuation. “It’s all about communication” they say. “It is how you come across to the world. Bad spelling and punctuation undermine that”. And then, they trot out a line from the book with the panda on the front.

This Saturday will mark the beginning of my favourite  Chinese year -“The Year of the Cock”. Prissy types often prefer to call it “The Year of the Rooster”, but I think “Rooster” is an Americanism. I may not care about spelling or punctuation, but I do have a firm grasp of the Queen’s English. I also have the greatest respect for the traditions and rituals associated with Chinese New Year, the most important of which, is dining with family. With that in mind, I decided to create a delicious, Chinese New Year inspired, vegan buffet dish, perfect for a family get together with dairy and meat avoiders – a spicy ‘vegan chicken’ salad.

I made this salad recently for a pot luck supper and it was met with great delight by vegans, vegetarians and indeed Number One Son, the committed carnivore. Made from dried tofu sticks and laced with vicious Sichuan seasonings, the flavours are intense, rich and mouth numbing, while the texture is satisfyingly chewy. Making this recipe will require a trip to the Chinese supermarket to buy tofu sticks and a jar of crispy chilli in oil, but it is so easy to make and such a delicious dish, I am sure these ingredients won’t hang around in your cupboard for long.

 

Year Of The Cock Salad

100g (half a pack) of dried tofu sticks

1 tbsp. sesame seeds

3 spring onions, green and white bits, finely chopped

1 handful unsalted peanuts

1 tbsp. finely chopped coriander (leave out, if you hate the stuff)

Dressing ingredients

2 tsp. sesame oil

1 teaspoon sesame paste (tahini is fine, but the Chinese supermarket will also sell sesame paste)

2 tbsp. light soy sauce

1 heaped tbsp. crispy chilli in oil (see photograph below). You want the solid crispy pieces AND the wonderful bright red oil

1 tsp. Sichuan peppercorns, ground up in a pestle and mortar (most supermarkets will stock these in the spice aisle)

Place the tofu sticks in a large bowl, breaking them into smaller pieces to ensure they fit. Cover with boiling water and leave to soak for about an hour. The sticks should swell up and start to look like flabby rolls of human skin.

Meanwhile, combine the dressing ingredients in a large serving bowl. Mix them well, as the sesame paste will be stubborn and remain in a clump if you are not fierce with it. The resulting dressing should be a wonderful blood red colour, freckled with ground Sichuan peppercorns. Taste it, and if you like, add a pinch of caster sugar and a little salt. Naughty, but does make it even more delicious!

Toast the sesame seeds in a dry frying pan until golden, then set aside. Toast the unsalted peanuts until they are very faintly tanned.

Remove the sticks from the water and cut them into pieces about an inch thick. There will be hard areas on the sticks -cut around these and discard. I don’t really know why they never soak the whole way through (I have left them soaking for hours) but there will be a bit of waste, unfortunately.

Add the chopped, soaked tofu sticks to the dressing and stir well. Sprinkle over the sesame seeds and peanuts and stir until evenly distributed. Finally garnish with the spring onions and coriander (if using). Gong xi fa cai!

The brand of these beancurd sticks is perfect for this dish

 

 

 

 

 

Measures of Imperfection

I recently started to watch ‘Better Call Saul,’ a beautifully written and filmed spin-off from the Breaking Bad series. Listening to the audio on headphones, I found myself distracted by the sharp quality of the soundtrack. Behind the dialogue and chat of the characters, I could hear background office phone conversations clearly, perfectly-enunciated chit chat from passers-by on the street, and the fierce breath of the Albuquerque winds. I felt like a medium trying to pick out messages from a horde of the departed, all hissing instructions at once, and  found myself a little vulnerable and lost amongst the finely-tuned discord. This may well be deliberate, a way of forging a true empathy between viewer and protagonist, to help the viewer experience everything the main character does, to feel his very confusion and to provide a real sense of presence. Perhaps, just as the colourist’s pen often makes film more vibrant and beautiful than nature, so does the sound technician hone every creak, chirp, or rumble of a motor to a pure and perfect clarity, in order to sharpen the viewer’s senses and immerse them in the show. But for me, it’s just too much.

I like a little discord, the cast of a shadow, some blurriness and dissembling. I suppose that is a long-winded way of saying ‘just leave a bit of mystery, please, in your art.’ I think we all like to use our imaginations a little and not be overwhelmed by perfection.  I apply this rule to potato salads in particular.

As the weather improves and the chill gales of winter slow and turn to warm, pollen-laden breezes, my hands reach for potatoes. Actually my hands reach for potatoes fairly often, but at this time of year I crave a satistfying, but fresh potato salad; waxy cubes of potato in a sharpish dressing, with plenty of crunch, crisp and squeak in the texture. Potato salads, like television programmes, are tempting to overcomplicate. The bland flavour and plain texture of the potato does invite a little excitement; but too many cooks become overambitious when faced with the potato’s blank canvas, and throw pretty much every ingredient in the cupboard at them. Dill, tarragon, mustard, horseradish, chilli, smoked paprika, citrus, mint –you name it, people will add it to mayonnaise and pour it liberally over the potatoes’ tender little forms. My grandmother used to make potato salad by bathing warm potatoes in Heinz Salad Cream (be rude about it at your peril, I love the stuff) and then snipping some chives over the top. It was delicious and simple–the perfect acidity of the salad cream, that slight mustardy tang and the soothing presence of an oily sauce to distribute the clear alium flavour of the chives neatly across the freshly cooked potato. I loved it.

However–my spring salad craving does reach beyond the potato, to involve other spring produce: peppery radishes, sweet and earthy beetroot and some delicious and strong spring onions. Toasted seeds and nuts combine with salad dressing to give a nice nubbly coating to the potato pieces, the tarragon makes a pleasant change from mint and dill and together with the cider vinegar helps to bring a freshness to the dish. A little horseradish brightens the dressing and is supported by a milder pepperiness provided by some radish slivers, which also deliver a pleasing crispiness. And the beetroot bleeds into the mayonnaise to make it a pretty blossom-pink. It sounds elegant, but as you can see from my reassuringly consistent bad photography, this dish is not a distinct palette of colour. The flavours, however, merge into one another to make an easy-to-understand yet mildly interesting mouthful.

You can use any old potatoes for this (I have actually used slightly overcooked ones before, as the dressing is sturdy and the other ingredients crunchy enough to cover for any potato slackness). But the finer the quality of the potatoes, the better the salad. Play around with extra vegetables if you like; bell peppers, peas, green beans, grated carrot –all those things could work too.

Perfectly Imperfect Potato Salad

6-8 medium sized potatoes peeled, boiled and cut into 1 inch cubes

½ cucumber chopped

3 spring onions, green and white chopped

2 cooked beetroots, peeled and cubed

6 radishes cut into fine slices

1 tablespoon chopped and toasted hazelnuts

1 tbsp each of sunflower and sesame seeds

2 tbsps mayonnaise

1 heaped teaspoon horseradish

2 tbsps cider vinegar

1 tsp dried tarragon

Salt and pepper

In a large bowl combine mayonnaise, vinegar, horseradish and tarragon. Mix well, taste and season.   Put a frying pan on the stove over a low heat and then gently heat the seeds until they begin to pop (be careful as they can burn very quickly).

Add the vegetables to the dressing, stirring well, then finish with the nuts and seeds. Stir the salad carefully until all the ingredients are nicely mixed. This salad can be made in advance, but be sure to remove it from the fridge and hour or so before serving, so the flavours can come out of hibernation. Season carefully with salt and pepper

This salad can be made into a main dish by adding some sliced hard boiled eggs, some toasted cashews and a little grated carrot. It is a fairly flexible recipe which really can incorporate any good vegetables which you have to hand. As a side dish, it makes a great accompaniment to a barbecue and a reliable buffet staple.

Nigvziani badrijani – or aubergines even my sister will eat

Aubergines here are wonderful. Long, skinny and purple. Not for us the bloated, black-as-your-hat European ones, Asian aubergines are milder in flavour, less bitter and better suited to Eastern dishes. Like their fat, Mediterranean cousins, Asian aubergines benefit from being degorged (sliced, sprinkled with salt and left to drain) and when placed in hot oil, will drink it, like a stag party in Prague drinks lager, but their texture is firm and they tend not to disintegrate during cooking.

Most cuisines can find something exciting to do with the aubergine. You can bake it and squish it up into a dip. You can chop it into hunks and stew it with other nightshade vegetables. You can slice it and griddle it and eat it lukewarm. It needs garlic, likes sesame, is acquainted with lemon and pomegranate and can get on fine with coriander and ginger.

As I have been thinking about Georgian food recently, I am going to give you a Georgian recipe for aubergines stuffed with a garlicky, walnut paste. I have adapted it slighty and used a bunch of fresh coriander and flat leafed parsley, which improves the colour from a cement-like grey, to a fresh, bright green. It also obviates the dilemma one always faces when stuffing things; the problem of more stuffing, than stuffee. No matter what I cook, how obediently I follow the quantities in a recipe, it always happens that I am left with a bowlful of stuffing. It’s not the end of the world, leftovers are marvellous and can often be the springboard to another delicious meal. Any excess walnut paste from this recipe can be converted into a rather delightful pesto, which you can simply spoon through warm pasta, or spread on a fish steak to make a fresh and beautiful crust, or slather onto slices of baguette to make bright green, fragrant crostini.

I have eaten badrijani in Georgian restaurants all over the world, and I was served something similar in an Azerbaijani place – but with a slight twist – they provided a harissa-like dip to spice it up. I am totally behind that, especially if you like things a little on the hot side. The aubergines themselves are nicely seasoned, but they don’t have a lot of heat. So – if you have some harissa, or even some of that incredibly fiery, Jamaican hot pepper sauce, I would give it a try. It cuts through the richness very well.

I used lime juice to lift the darkness of the walnuts. I love the combination of coriander and lime and feel it works well here. If you don’t like the thought of that, then replace with lemon – or if you are feeling very daring, a little dash of pomegranate  juice.

They make a perfect starter, are ideal for a mezze style buffet, or to accompany barbecued lamb. Allow three to four per person – they are pretty filling.

Nigvziani Badrijani

Four long, skinny, purple aubergines. Mediterranean ones are fine too but you’ll just need two of them

100g walnuts

 1/2 onion very finely chopped

4 peeled cloves garlic

1 small bunch coriander

1 small bunch parsley (flat leafed is best)

juice of 1 lime

1 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon curry powder

sea salt

Cut the stalks off the aubergines and slice them lengthways. Make them about half a centimetre in thickness.  If you are using mediterranean aubergines, you will need to cut the slices in half lengthways as well, so they are about 5 cm in width. Leave the skins on. Sprinkle with salt and leave to drain for 20 minutes. Rinse off the salt and pat dry.

Put a little olive oil in a frying pan and fry the onion, curry powder and paprika gently until fragrant. Place in a mixing bowl.

Put the walnuts into a food processor and blitz to a coarse powder. Remove and set to one side.

Put the garlic, coriander and parsley into the food processor with about two tablespoons water. Blitz until a fine paste. Return the walnuts to the processor, along with the onion mix and blend until all ingredients are an even, smooth pesto-like texture. Add the lime juice and season to taste.

Cover the bottom of a frying pan with a mixture of sunflower and olive oil. Shallow fry the slices of aubergine on each side until a glamorous golden colour. Drain on kitchen paper. You will need to replenish the oil, as they do tend to suck it up as they cook.

Take the strips of aubergine and spread them with a thin layer of the walnut paste. Roll them up and pierce them with a cocktail stick. Decorate with pomegranate seeds and serve with a spicy pepper dipping sauce.