Category Archives: spinach

Spinach and Olive Soccattata

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Soccattata is a termed coined by vegan blogger Erin Wyso. The recipe below is from her blog and it’s delightful. The word is a combination of the words socca, an unleavened, savory pancake made of chickpea flour, and ttata, from frittata, the Italian dish much like an omelette or quiche.  This meal turned out to be a huge hit.  Veghead and Spinneychick loved it, as did the larger loinfruit, LeStrange.  The smaller loinfruit, KarateKid, said that he wouldn’t run a mile for it, but that he would tolerate it on rare occasions, perhaps once yearly.  Oh well. He’ll just have to have something else when the rest of us are eating such a delicacy.  I bet he’d ask for something like baked beans.  Such heresy.  How anyone could pass up a meal that has spinach, sliced chiffonade, is beyond me.  I have taken a shine to that word and I feel that I may have to use it far more often.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup chickpea flour
1 1/2 cups water
1 tspn salt
2 tabs olive oil
1/2 red onion, cut into thin half-moon slices
1 tab oil cured olives, depitted and roughly chopped
2 tabs sundried tomatoes, roughly chopped
2/3 cup spinach, cut chiffonade (a posh word for sliced very thinly) (you can also use Warrigal greens if you like – we did)
olive oil for frying

METHOD
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, water, salt and oil. Cover and let it sit for a few hours or overnight. There’s no need to refrigerate it.

In a small 9-inch cast iron pan, heat a few tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add in the sliced onions and sauté for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting and let the onions caramelize for about 30 minutes (don’t stir the onions as they caramelize). Fifteen minutes into your caramelizing time, preheat your oven to 205°C.

After the onions are caramelized and your oven is preheated, increase the heat under your cast iron pan to high. Add in the olives, tomatoes and spinach to the pan with a couple tablespoons of oil. Sauté until the spinach is reduced a bit, then add about two cups of the chickpea/water mixture to the pan. It should sizzle immediately. Place the entire cast iron pan into the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, or until it slightly browns around the edges.

Delish!

 

Golden cauliflower in a glorious sea green bed of ginger spinach

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Your powers of multitasking will be required to create this dish of two stir fries. The cauliflower takes a little longer to cook, as the spinach is just being wilted, so start that cooking first. The golden colour comes from a mixture of powdered turmeric, as well as some grated fresh turmeric root.

In the golden cauliflower…

  • half a red onion – roughly chopped
  • 1 cup of cooked chickpeas
  • 1 1/2 cups of cauliflower florets
  • 3 cm length of turmeric root – grated using a ginger root grater
  • 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
  • 1 teaspoon of paprika
  • 1 teaspoon of cumin powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon of spanish smoked paprika
  • olive oil for frying
  • Saute all ingredients together in a heavy based pan – should take between 5 and 10 minutes

In the glorious sea green spinach…

  • a generous colander full of washed and well drained spinach leaves
  • a generous handful of green beans – topped and tailed and halved
  • a cup of chopped shiitake mushrooms
  • 2 cloves of garlic – chopped
  • 4cm length of ginger root – grated
  • 1 teaspoon of cumin powder
  • a splash of tamari
  • olive oil for frying
  • In a large wok, saute everything. Start with the garlic, cumin, mushrooms, and beans, cooking these on their own for about 1 minute. Add everything else and toss to ensure even mixing

Serve, with the spinach arranged in a ring around the plate, and the golden cauliflower in the centre. Squeeze half a lime lightly over the meals before serving.

What to do with a cup of left over Thai Fried Rice

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When The VegHead was a teenager he spent many an afternoon getting up to mischief with a friend who for the purposes of this blog we’ll call “770”. Living still with our parents, it was to their fridges that we turned when the fires of teenage hunger called for a shovel load of fuel, before we rushed out to do something constructive like change a differential.

770’s mum (bless her, lovely woman and still alive and kicking to this day) was…how shall we say this in a manner that accurately captures the respect and affection The VegHead has for this woman….well…..shall we say dotty sometimes. Delving into her fridge was an exercise in exploring the wild and wacky world of the leftovers that inhabited it.

770’s mum was never a fan of Tupperware either (and who could blame her), preferring instead to use old Flora Margarine containers. Finding the actual real tub of margarine generally involved finding three or four scientific experiments first; clicking off the lid from a container only to discover exactly what does grow on the half a dozen egg yolks separated off two weeks earlier when they weren’t need in that pavlova recipe. Indeed, opening the fridge in the first place generally gave access to a heady mixture of smells, reminiscent of the rich humus to be found on the floor of a rain forest. Vaguely comforting, and yet vaguely suggestive of extensive mould growth.

It must also be said that this theme has not been entirely escaped in later life. SheWhoMustBeFed’s mother is rather fond of refridgerated biological experimentation. In her case however she tends to brew up a storm in jars and proper Tupperware containers, which at least has the redeeming feature of keeping the scent of decay more firmly sealed within.

Left overs however are generally a good thing. They allow for good quick meals when you don’t have time to make something from scratch. Left overs are also a sign that you cooked enough to serve everyone generously, but that everyone has the sense to eat only sufficiently and not gluttonously. Just remember to eat the leftovers before they plan a revolution.

Here’s what to do with a cup of leftover Thai Fried Rice. It’ll take less time than it’s taken you to read this post so far.

You will need:

  • One cup of fried rice (obviously)
  • A really big handful of spinach leaves
  • Dark sesame oil
  • Crushed macadamia nuts or cashews

To make:

  • Reheat the rice in a covered saucepan, adding a smidgeon of water if you need
  • Lightly saute the spinach in the sesame oil
  • Serve the rice over the bed of spinach, sprinkling with the nuts

A very nice and quick lunch.

Satay Thai Beancurd Wraps

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I have NO idea what best to call this dish. I must have been inspired by the making of a cannelloni dish recently. Instead of lasagna sheets you’ll need beancurd skins, and instead of being genealogically Italian this is somehow a relative of Thai cooking.

For those not familiar with “beancurd skins” – these are available from any Chinese, Thai or similarly Asian grocery. As the name suggests, they are made from beancurd (a.k.a tofu) and are basically large, thin sheets of the stuff. The consistency is tougher than might be imagined – much sterner stuff than your wobbly block of soft tofu. They are sold dried, as are lasagne sheets, and must be preboiled or soaked in boiling water in order to soften them. In the absence of beancurd skins, I guess you could substitute the rice sheets that are used to make spring rolls.

In this dish the beancurd rolls are filled with a spicy mix, while the sauce that it bakes in is flavoursome, but not spicy.

Ingredients:

  • beancurd skins
  • 1 cup of cooked haricot beans
  • 1 cup of blanched spinach, chopped
  • big handful of fresh coriander, chopped
  • Thai red curry paste (The VegHead makes his own so it isassured to be free from shrimp paste – I haven’t made any for a while so the recipe for the paste isn’t posted yet, I predict it will February before doing so)
  • 1 cup of button mushrooms, chopped
  • 1 cup of zuchinni, chopped
  • 1 cup of brocolli florets
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
  • 4 – 6 kaffir lime leaves, finely chopped
  • fresh lemongrass, finely chopped
  • peanut sate sauce
  • coconut cream
  • tamari
  • handful of crushed, roasted peanuts
  • half a lime

Making…

  • The best way to evenly mix the thai curry paste with the haricot beans is to saute them together in a small saucepan, with some peanut oil. Once done, mix the spinach and coriander through.
  • Lay out a beancurd sheet on the work area. The sheets I used where all about 25cms by 35cms, and I generally used two or three layers make it strong enough. Once rolled up with the filling inside each roll was a fat sausage shape about 15 cms long.
  • Figure out how many rolls you want to end up with, and divide the bean/spinach mix accordingly i.e. I ended up with 3 rolls, so I rolled a third of the mixture into each roll.
  • Place the mix in an even sausage shape, parallel to the short edge of the beancurd sheet and inset a little from one of those ends. Do I need to describe this? Look – you’re basically going to slop down a bit of bean/spinach mix and roll it up, tucking it all in so that you end up with as neat a package as possible. How hard can this be? Get in there and get your hands dirty!
  • Place the rolls in a deep baking dish, lined up like sardines in a can. Cover with the vegetables as per the picture. Note that it is important to have the half drunk glass of Chardonnay next to it or yours won’t be at all authentic:
  • Over this splash some tamari, and then pour the sate sauce and coconut cream (logic dictates you will have mixed those before hand)
  • You can see from this that there needs to be a good covering of the sate sauce. Sprinkle generously with the crushed peanuts. Bake covered on a high heat for 45 minutes (preheated oven). Adjust cooking time as per your expert opinion.
  • Before serving, dash with the juice of half a fresh lime.
  • Voila:

Spinach Cannelloni with Adzuki bean sauce

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Waitrose supermarket regularly slips marketing food porn into your shopping bag if you’re not watching carefully. Unpacking the fruit and veg later from the floorful of cotton and linen shopping bags you unexpectedly stumble upon this slim volume getting down and dirty with the spuds, or slicing it up with a loaf of bread.

“Follow this recipe and you’ll be popular and beautiful like the laughing people in the photos! Oh, and don’t forget to buy all the ingredients from Waitrose.”

I would have been more popular for instance if I had cooked the recipe for Cannelloni which steamed invitingly off the page. In front of a log fire which was in the background of the shot if I recall providing that additional look of heartiness and warmth to the shot. I’m not entirely sure that detail is correct though, as I binned the magazine to the recycling after a quick flick through it.

It did inspire me to have a go at making a cannelloni dish though…

Tahini isn’t an obvious choice I’ll admit for an Italian dish, however this was really good I have to say.

Was in the larder…

  • lasagne sheets
  • spinach
  • light tahini
  • basil pesto
  • half an onion, chopped
  • clove of garlic, chopped
  • fresh rosemary, sage and thyme
  • course crushed black pepper to taste
  • a “tray from the farm shop” worth of cherry tomatoes
  • six smallish mushrooms, chopped
  • 1 cup of blended, presteamed spinach
  • 1 cup of cooked adzuki beans
  • tomato paste
  • miso paste
  • red wine and water
  • olive oil

A frenzy of activity…

Here goes; a lot of this happened in parallel so it didn’t take too long I suppose to put it together, but it was certainly a frantic 30 minutes or so before it went in the oven and the bench was wiped down. On the other hand, don’t assume that everything happened in a linear fashion in the order that it is listed here.

1. Have this ready first though… Blend together the spinach, and a very generous pouring of the tahini, and a few generous spoonfuls of pesto.
2. The lasagne sheets. For a meal for two, I used five sheets (dry size each approx. 15cms x 15cms) – I seem to have some sort of tribal memory that you should pre-cook as many sheets as you actually really need, plus one spare, as they ALWAYS stick together in the pot. Boil at least 5 cms deep of water in a pan that is easily large enough for the lasagne sheets to cook in horizontally. If I was cooking any pasta, I’d normally pour a little olive oil into the empty pan before filling it with water as it helps to stop the pasta sticking together. I’d done that before on the odd occasion I’d precooked lasagne but the leetle sheets still always stuck together. This time however inspiration struck and instead once I’d got the water on to boil I poured about 1/2 teaspoon of oil onto one side of each sheet and then “painted” it with the basting brush. I can report here that rhe sheets did NOT stuck to each other! Further testing will elevate this to being a new item of Kitchen Lore but in the meantime it has a gold rating as a Kitchen Theory trick. While the sheets are cooking to just pre-al dente fill the (clean) kitchen sink with some cold water, and also fill a tray with cold water. Remove the paste sheets carefully from the hot water one by one which your favourite implement and drop them into the sink of water. Rinse thoroughly, then transfer to the tray for carrying back to your work surface.
3. Smear each sheet with a thick, even layer of the tahini and spinach. Roll and place lined up in a very large baking dish. The rolls will get significantly longer as the pasta continues to cook in the oven, so remember to cater for that in selecting the tray.
4. Meanwhile….de-skin all the cherry tomatoes using boiling then cold water baths. Keep the tomatoes aside. Compost all the skins.
5. Lightly cook all the other ingredients except the herbs to create a fairly saucy tomato flavoured italian mushroom and beany sauce thing. You need enough of this to be able to evenly cover the cannelloni rolls so adjust if necessary with another mushroom and some more wine etc. Once cooked sufficiently, then turn off and add the cherry tomatoes and the fresh herbs. The goal here is to not have the tomatoes get all mushed up. Presentation iz everything darlink! The herbs are added only now so their flavour released during the baking stage, rather than boiling off during this preparatory stage.
6. Pour the sauce over the cannelloni, taking care to make sure that all pasta has some sauce on it.
7. Bake covered for about 30 minutes.

Served with a large bowl of mixed olives and some fresh baked wholeflour bread.

I have to add that this was very good. Though I am of the opinion that I wouldn’t make this regularly as it is a lot of additional work for what is basically a variation on lasagne.