The Elegant Sufficiency

Tentative Steps Back Into the Kitchen

Tentative steps back into this space and into the kitchen, although, yes I confess, tonight, dinner is the only pasta I could find in the cupboard — fusilli — and bottled pesto sauce. (You would wrongly attribute the dearth of pasta in my pantry to sloppy shopping or mediocre eating habits; the truth is that if I buy it, I eat it, and that is to be avoided — seconds? I go for thirds! You would accurately attribute the bottled pesto — and the fusilli/pesto combination — to laziness and exhaustion.)
Nevertheless, after so many months largely eating for fuel, and steering clear of turning on a stovefor much more than to boil a kettle, I am thinking that there might be a time soon when I feel enthusiastic about cooking again.
In a Korean grocer in Chinatown yesterday I started to twitch, just a bit, over a luxuriant pile of shiso leaves, and bought them. $1.50's worth now waiting in the fridge for inspiration to strike. (In a confessional mood, as I am, I'll confess too that I thought I was buying betel leaves and dragged David Thompson's books out to study miang recipes. Is there a Korean/Japanese food scholar out there who could tell me if there are miang-style Korean or Japanese dishes?)
And I've been twitching a bit too over recipes I'm seeing online. So much so that I'm ready to reprise Elegant Sufficiency's long-forgotten Recipe Scout. So here's a selection of what I've found lately. I'm thinking I might make some nut butter this weekend. Tentatively.

1. Dahi Aloo Curry to celebrate Holi on America's National Public Radio site.
2. To satisfy my frequent cravings for Korean food, David Lebovitz's Korean Scallion Pancake.
3. Cream of cauliflower soup from the elegant Table & Spoon’s Ann and Meg.
4. A fabulous pasta dish from the beautiful Syrie at Taste Buddies — Sicilian Anchovy Pasta with Toasted Breadcrumbs.
5. From Heidi, at 101 Cookbooks, Seeded Flatbread.
6. How to make Nut Butter, from A Life (Time) of Cooking — for cashews, walnuts, peanuts, macadamias, pinenuts, pistachios, brazil nuts, hazelnuts, pecans, almonds.
7. From Denise Santoro Lincoln on Bay Area Bites — Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes.
8. A simple Tahini Sauce with fresh herbs for steamed vegetables from Clothilde at Chocolate & Zucchini.
9. From Gourmet Traveller — an adaptation of Simon Hopkinson’s Chicken Kiev recipe, from his book The Prawn Cocktail Years.
10. A fine Fig Tart from Chez Pim.

Recipe Scout 15

The number of recipe links I've accumulated in a folder on my desktop these weeks/months of barely-there-posting... a ridiculous number ... my hard drive's about to expire. Meantime, Heidi at 101 Cookbooks has gone live with her very smart Super Natural Recipe Search — "a custom search engine that will help you find recipes made primarily from minimally processed, natural, sustainable, whole foods. I cherry-picked the recipes by hand ..."
I too cherry-pick the recipes I include in this — my very irregular "Recipe Scout" — but the technology is a little less sophisticated than Heidi's. If you want to look at the recipes I've highlighted over the past year or so, take your cursor down the left-hand column here and, under "Categories", settle it on "Recipe Scout". There you'll find a bunch of recipes I've found in the ridiculous number of hours I've spent online in the past couple of years. Promise you, there are some great ones there, and here are some more:

1. Walnut Bread on Tiny Banquet Committee.
2. Gourmet Traveller's Watermelon Slushie with Mint and Ginger Syrup
3. Jacques Pepin's Greek Hand Pies with Greens, Dill, Mint and Feta on Food & Wine.
4. Bourbon Peach Hand Pies on Smitten Kitchen.
5. Chicken in a Pot from Walter Wells (aka husband of Patricia Wells) on Dorie Greenspan.
6. Taste Buddies' Thai Fried Rice with Crab (Kao Pat Boo).
7. Carrot, Pumpkin, Almond Tea Cakes with Quince on Cook and Eat.
8. The Japanese Food Report's Steamed Sea Bass, Japanese Style.
9. Pumpkin gnocchi on Delicious Days.
10. Chocolate & Zucchini's Orange and Rosemary Pork Tenderloin.

Recipe Scout 14

Of osso buco, Elizabeth David comments: “… I have seen it asserted that ossi buchi means drunken bones. It doesn’t. It means bones with holes, or hollow bones.” Marcella Hazan, who confirms the origins of the dish’s name and adds that it is Milanese dialect, is more specific than the often-vague David, delivering clear instructions about the beast that those bones must come from. No old bones here … young ones only, she says, and “insist that the shank come from the hind leg only.”
Of osso bucco, I have this to say: starting to cook it at 6pm on a Sunday night for a solo meal is foolishness, because, of course, it will still be cooking at 8.30pm, even 9, you will not have started to prepare the gremolata or stir a risotto Milanese, you will be empyting your third glass of wine, Doctor Who will have finished, your mind will have moved past dinner, you will have burnt your fingers extracting the marrow bones from the steaming Le Creuset and sucked inelegantly on them, and cheese on toast will be your fate for Sunday night dinner, leftover osso bucco minus marrow Monday night’s meal.
Tuesday morning and I’m pondering how little I’ve been cooking, and how, when I do, the results disappoint and frustrate. The osso buco was indifferent. No lure in those remaining leftovers. All a result of distraction, impatience, busyness — also evident in my blogging ennui. There have been longer hours at work (a new project there that I’m editing — more on that to come), after hours spent attempting to (how ridiculous!) hem screenprinted teatowels (and what a long smudged, wonky road I have stumbled on with that pursuit … first-edition, prototype teatowels need a good home), and time spent attempting to sort out my parents’ muddled affairs (Dad doing OK, just).
I will return, but for now, as I race out the door to a photo shoot at Vaucluse house to meet a hand model, stylist, photographer and art director (via a Chippendale fruit and vegetable wholesaler to pick up a box of spring vegetables and all the while looking with great alarm at the leaden skies), perhaps you’d like to muse over this collection of recipes I rather fancy cooking well, when my mind is on the job. And do let me know if you’d like a wonky teatowel.

1. Lemon cakes with basil lemon syrup on Gourmet.
2. Antony Worrall Thompson's Creamy Broad Beans on BBC Food.
3. Saveur's Treviso and Gorgonzola Tart.
4. Orangette's Classic Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting.
5. Dal Makhani, Oberoi Style, on A Life (Time) of Cooking.
6. Blueberry Peach Fruit Salad with Thyme on Simply Recipes.
7. Cooking for Engineers Barbecue Pork Ribs.
8. Butter Chicken on Taste Buddies.
9. David Thompson's Deep-Fried Silken Tofu with Fresh Crab, Coriander and Minced Pork Stuffing on Chubby Hubby.
10. Fig and Anise Cake on Kuidaore.

Recipe Scout 13

Some great recipes to keep you busy while my head goes crazy with too many ideas and not enough time to put even one of them into action. Can someone tell me how to find some focus (and clear a sinus infection)?

1. A pumpkin and chickpea salad on Mostly Eating.
2. Chez Pim's cold sesame noodles.
3. Polenta and mushrooms — and a love story on Tea & Cookies.
4. Jane and Jeremy Strode's Broccoli, Anchovy and Chilli Linguini on Cuisine.com.
5. Super-Moist Apple Cake on the lyrical FoodChair.
6. Mark Bittman's "Fancy Egg Salad That a Mother Would Love" on Bitten.
7. The luscious FXCuisine's "Asparagus Like Green Peas".
8. Carrot Cake from the Silver Palate Cookbook on Leite's Culinaria.
9. Saveur's Salmon with Spring Vegetables (those shivering in the southern hemisphere can hope Spring is just around the corner)
10. Gingersnaps from Chez Panisse on David Lebovitz.

A New Week + Recipe Scout 12

A ghastly week behind me; a new (brighter...) one ahead in which my father’s health improves (please…) and his doctor considers releasing him from hospital, and in which I write a rather fine, rather clever 2500-word profile on the rather appealing, rather clever Sydney actor-writer Brendan Cowell, get to the gym and take a healthy packed lunch to work every day, let nothing pass my lips stronger than a Single Origin Roasters skim latte, and count the varieties of food I’m eating.
Have followed with interest Limes & Lycopene blogger Kathryn Elliott’s charting of the varieties of food she eats. “If you try to eat a greater variety of foods, you will be healthier for it,” writes Kathryn, who tallies between 30 and 35 different foods a day in her own diet. (And, I warn you, no cheating by counting the Brie de Meaux and the Parmigiano-Reggiano as two foods! That’s one and it’s called dairy!)
But Kathryn, I have questions:

• If I have miso soup at work — made from a packet mix but one without MSG — can I count the spring onions and wakame and tofu that rehydrate with the addition of boiling water as three varieties of food? And what about the miso sauce that they provide for you to mix in?
• And do pizza toppings count? And, if they do, is there a statute of limitations on how many days old the pizza can be before those toppings have lost their food value?
• Do freshly ground black pepper and Murray River salt flakes have any credentials here?
• What about a clove of garlic crushed in a lazy pasta dish and the chopped parsley from my sad balcony herb pot that I might consider using too? And hey, how about the olive oil?
• If I have muesli, do I count everything I put in it, even if I might only end up having an eighth of a teaspoon or less of the ingredient?
• What about raspberry jam, eaten with a croissant on a Sunday morning?
• And how about the store-bought spinach dip I’m hoeing into right now (and the pinenuts it claims to have)? Is that two ingredients, three if you count the rice crackers?

In the meantime, while I anxiously wait for answers, here are the latest recipes I’m adding to my Recipe Scout Index:

1. Salmon Rillettes on the David Lebovitz blog.
2. Rick Stein’s Fillet of Turbot with Clams and Chardonnay on BBC Food.
3. Chickpea, Almond and Sesame Spread on A Life (Time) of Cooking.
4. Gourmet Traveller's fine-looking Lasagne. 
5. "Salmon Noodle Soup for What Ails You" on Cook & Eat.
6. Algarve Buzz's Portuguese Codfish Cakes (Pasteis de Bacalhau).
7. Indian Squid Curry on Rasa Malaysia.
8. Bake until Bubbly Macaroni Cheese on Bay Area Bites.
9. Saveur's Spinach with Pinenuts and Raisins.
10. Strawberry Panzanella on 101 Cookbooks.

Recipe Scout 11

10 reasons to stay close to the kitchen this weekend:

1. Muhamarra (Turkish Walnut Garlic Dip) on Food Chair by Callipygia.
2. Swedish Fish Soup on Morsels & Musings.
3. Chocolate and Zucchini’s Grated Carrots and Beets.
4. Chickpea Hot Pot on 101 Cookbooks.
5. Claudia Roden’s Couscous with Spring Vegetables on BBC Food.
6. Neil Perry's Korean-Style Tuna Tartare on Gourmet Traveller.
7. The Shanghainese classic Dongpo-rou Pork on Bay Area Bites.
8. Stone Soup’s Classic Chocolate Cake.
9. Lemon Meringue Pie on Saveur.
10. Cook and Eat’s Mixed Berry Muffins.

Recipe Scout 10

Finds from my recent surfing, from orange-imbued French toast to a roasted shoulder of lamb.

1. Warm Butternut and Chickpea Salad with Tahini Sauce on Orangette.
2. Delia Smith’s Red Onion Tarte Tatin on BBC food.
3. Chicken and Ginger Dim Sims (Australian style) on George Biron’s Sunnybrae Restaurant and Cooking School blog.
4. Nourish Me’s Silken Tofu and Green Beans in a Lemongrass Broth.
5. Pierre Schaedelin’s Cream of Celeriac Soup with Arugula Flan on the Martha Blog.
6. Orange French Toast on Cream Puffs in Venice
7. Narasimhan's Sweet Potato, Eggplant and Spinach Madras Curry on A Life (Time) of Cooking.
8. Chocolate and Zucchini’s Slow Roasted Shoulder of Lamb Rubbed with Rosemary, Anchovy and Lemon Zest.
9. Callipygia’s Surprise Morning Glory Muffins on FoodChair.
10. Vietnamese Lemongrass Chicken on Rasa Malaysia.

Recipe Scout 9

Been a while, but I'm back with 10 more cool recipes from my blog prowling. Note Japanese influence. Japan holiday on my mind.

1. Brown Fried Rice on A Mad Tea Party.
2. Nourish Me's Leek and Tomato Crumble.
3. Yeast-raised Cornbread on 101 Cookbooks.
4. Rasa Malaysia's Asari Miso Soup (Miso Soup with Clams).
5. Sailors Bacalhau Gratin on Algarve Buzz.
6. Barbara's Moroccan-inspired Muffins on Winos and Foodies.
7. Negative-Calorie Chocolate Cake on Steamy Kitchen (now how are you going to resist that?)
8. Baking and Books' Pistachio Cake with Chilled Rose Syrup.
9. Tea's Zara Soba (cold soba noodles) on Tea and Cookies.
10. Elizabeth Andoh's Cold Noodle Salad with Ponzu Sauce on Epicurious.

Recipe Scout 8

With one hand eating my dinner (very fine leftover couscous salad, with chunks of smoked eel**, red onion, sweet corn, tomato, mint and mayo-spiked dressing), and with the other hand, seeing what people around the world are having for dinner:

1. Korean Baba Ganoush on ZenKimchi Food Journal (with sesame oil and seeds, lemon, garlic).
2. A Mad Tea Party's  Sunny Salubri Tea.
3. Brown Seaweed Soup (Miyeok Guk) on My Korean Kitchen.
4. Catalan Tomato Bread on Figs Olives Wine.
5. Tea and Cookies' Lemon Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes.
6. White Sesame Ice-Cream with Molasses Swirl, White Sesame Tuile Biscuits on Nordljus.
7. Nourish Me's Rainbow Chard and Feta Filo Pie.
8. Asian Pork Burgers with Kimchi on Jaden's Steamy Kitchen.
9. Spicy Blue Lake Bean Salad with Tofu on Cooking with the Single Guy.
10. Baking and Book's Strawberry Bread for the Masses.

**Will discuss my eel addiction another day. This from the Polish Deli at the Queen Vic Markets, vacuum-packed.

Recipe Scout 7

So many recipes, so little time:

1. Salmon and Tomatoes en Papillote  on In the Kitchen and On the Road with Dorie.
2. Tea and Cookies' Chimichurri sauce for pasta.
3. Zaafrani Zamudud (Sweetened Saffron Yoghurt) on A Mad Tea Party.
4. Eggplant salad with peppers, mint and caper-fetta vinaigrette  on The New York Times.
5. 101 Cookbooks' Baby bran muffins.
6.  Baking and Books' Watermelon Strawberry Sorbet.
7. Wine-poached pear and blue cheese risotto on Nourish Me.
8. Epicurious's Basil Lemonade.
9. Nobu's Matsuhisa's salad dressing.
10. Spicy Corn Fritters on Simply Recipes.

Recipe Scout 6

Good things to cook and eat, found online this week.

1. Arroz con Leche (Rice Pudding with Milk) on Baking and Books.
2. Kuidaore’s Fig and Anise Cake.
3. Fregola Sarda (Pasta with Eggplant and Walnuts) on Rosa Jackson.
4. Stone Soup’s Sauteed Brussels Sprouts with a Poached Egg on Top.
5. Swiss Chard Tzatziki on Simply Recipes.
6. 101 Cookbooks’ Zucchini Bread.
7. Mostarda on Cooking with Amy.
8. Nourish Me’s Kohlrabi Remoulade.
9. Fresh Lemongrass Ginger Ale on Steamy Kitchen.
10. Carrot and Olive Oil Cake on BBC Food.

Recipe Scout 5

A perfumed Saturday afternoon leading into a cosy Saturday night.

Fragrance-bearing quinces in the oven, simmering in a sugar syrup with vanilla bean and lemon. Mohair rug, roast chicken, blinds down, lamps on, rain on the roof, friends, silly DVDs. Then, nothing like Bloglines and a host of Northern Hemisphere blogs to bring into stark relief the differences between Northern and Southern Hemisphere seasons. Cold here, bare trees, fog in the mornings. And then I read my Bloglines. And this is what you lot, sunny-side up, are cooking:

1. Rosewater Plum Compote on 101 Cookbooks.
2. Delicious Days' Strawberry Dumplings.
3. Potato Salad with Prosciutto Crudo, Grilled Zucchini and Parmesan Flakes on Lucullian Delights.
4. Simply Recipes' Barbecued Butterflied Leg of Lamb.
5. Heirloom Tomato Sauce on Hedonia.
6. BBC Food's Limoncello-Flavoured Pannacotta.   
7. Salmon with Tomato-Basil Dressing and White Beans on Rosa Jackson.
8. Cold Noodle Salad with Ponzu Sauce on Epicurious.
9. Sophie Grigson's Broadbean Yoghurt and Mint Soup on BBC Food.
10. Perry Jelly and Summer Berries with Edelflower Mousse on Nordljus.

Recipe Scout 4

The results of my online trawling this week ... 10 terrific recipes:

1. Egg Custard with Clams on Cooking for Engineers.
2. Tarte au Citron on Smitten Kitchen (intriguingly, using a whole lemon, skin, pith and all).
3. BBC Food's Sour Lime and Lemongrass Granita.
4. Dorie Greenspan's Cherry Clafouti on Dessert First
5. Mighty Foods' Banana Blueberry Muffins.
6. Tiramisu with Marsala and Crème Fraîche on The Traveler's Lunchbox.
7. Jugalbandi's Whole Grain Idlis with Ulli Sambar, Coconut-Cilantro Chutney and Podi.
8. Pâtes au Pistou on Rosa Jackson.
9. Stonesoup's Warm Salad of Lentils, Cavala Nero and Baby Onions.
10. Kaffir Lime Leaf and Mushroom Gyoza on Nourish Me.

Recipe Scout 3

10 Great Recipes found online this week:

1. Alice B. Toklas’s Singapore Ice-Cream (with vanilla bean, black peppercorns, red pepper flakes, diced ginger and pistachio nuts) on Tea and Cookies
2. Orangette’s Grilled Tomato Salsa
3. La Vignarola (Roman-Style Spring-Vegetable Stew) on Smitten Kitchen (for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere)
4. Heston Blumenthal’s lesson in Curing your Own Ham
5. Eggplant Stewed in Honey and Spices on Traveler’s Lunchbox
6. Toasted Muesli on Poppalina
7. Rosa Jackson’s really impressive Carrot Cake
8. Baked Sea Bass with Ginger Ponzu Sauce on Rasa Malaysia
9. 101 Cookbooks’ Bulger and Spinach Pilaf
10. Cold Soba Noodles with Dipping Sauce on Just Hungry

And … from Saffron Trail … before you start cooking … a recipe for reducing your kitchen's carbon footprint 

Recipe Scout 2

10 Great Online Recipes this Week... note Indian influence:

How to Smoke Salmon in a Wok from Saveur magazine.

The prettiest Egg Ravioli on Delicious Days.

Cook & Eat's Sambar Spiced Cauliflower and Fennel Bulb.

Lemon Iced Popsicles on Simply Recipes.

Rosa Jackson's Good Chocolate Cake.

Talas Boregi on Baking and Books.

Spring Onion Dal on Jugalbandi.

Mark Bittman in The New York Times on how to make a Great Burger.

Little Pistachio and Raspberry Cakes on Milk & Cookies.

Mahanandi's Fig (Anjeer) Cake.

Recipe Scout 1

10 great recipes online this week:

Smitten Kitchen's Baked Eggs on a Bed of Sauteed Spinach, Mushrooms and Onions (and with a splash of cream)
Eric Gower's Baked Peas with Tarragon, Yoghurt and Pistachios on 101 Cookbooks
Rhubarb Compote with Ginger and Vanilla (and Granola) on Once Upon a Tart
David Lebovitz's Fresh Mint Ice Cream on Orangette
Corn Fritters from the book Martha's Vineyard Table on Leite's Culinaria
Galician Fish Soup (that's "Caldereta Gallega" when it's at home) from Elisabeth Luard's The Food of Spain & Portugal on The Independent
Xiao Long Bao dumplings on Jaden's Steamy Kitchen (I stand corrected on my translation of the Chinese)
Stir-Fried Green Beans with Lemon, Parmesan and Pine Nuts on Kalyn's Kitchen
Roast Banana Tarte Tatin on Stone Soup
Rasa Malaysia's Steamed Scallops with Fermented Black Beans