Basil | Canalside Community Food - Part 2

Crispy chickpea and carrot pancakes make a quick and tasty base for a variety of toppings. The chickpea flour creates a rich and moist interior that’s satisfying without being heavy. We ate these with spinach and avocado dressed with lemon and olive oil, and some grated goat cheese. You could also try roasted tomatoes topped with basil and a fried egg.
If you use two frying pans you can make two pancakes simultaneously, and the whole thing will take under 15 minutes.

Chickpea and Carrot Pancakes
Serves 2

Ingredients
125g chickpea flour (aka gram flour)
125g carrots, grated
175ml milk or oat milk
1 tsp roasted ground cumin, or coriander, or caraway, or fennel or mustard seed, as you prefer
Salt and pepper, to taste
1-2 tablespoons olive or rapeseed oil, for frying

Preparation
Mix the pancake ingredients aside from the oil in a blender—I used a Nutribullet—and blend until the mixture is smooth.

Heat two frying pans over medium heat and add the oil. Swirl the oil around to coat the bottom of each pan and let the oil get hot. Once it’s hot (test by adding a drop of water and seeing if it sizzles), pour half the batter into each pan and cook for 2 minutes. As it sets the colour will darken a bit and some bubbles will begin to appear on the top. Adjust the heat if you think it’s starting to get too brown on the bottom. Using a fish slice turn each pancake over and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes on the other side, until it looks firm.

Remove each pancake from the pan, and place on a plate. Top with your selected topping (see below) and enjoys.

Pancake Toppings

Spinach with avocado and goat cheese
Toss baby spinach with sliced avocado and dress with an olive oil and lemon vinaigrette (50% olive oil, 50% lemon juice, salt and pepper). Arrange some dressed spinach on each pancake, and top with grated goat or sheep cheese. Garnish with additional slices of avocado and a grind of black pepper.

Tomato, basil and egg
Drizzle cherry tomatoes with olive oil and roast in a 200C oven for 30 minutes. Toss with shredded basil and lemon zest. Arrange on pancake and top with a crispy fried egg.

Brussels sprout slaw with avocado and cheese
Trim the bottoms off several handfuls of Brussels sprouts and shred them finely. Dress with a lemon vinaigrette and toss with chopped parsley or coriander. Arrange on top of each pancake. Garnish with sliced avocado, freshly ground black pepper and lots of grated cheese.

Recipe adapted from Anna Jones, Guardian 6 Oct. 2018.

A friend gave me a very long courgette. It was about ¾ of a meter long. Actually, she gave me two. Research suggests that they are ‘Sicilian courgettes’—genuine courgettes (not hard-skinned marrows) that simply grow to extraordinary lengths. Anyway, we’ve been eating courgettes. Fortunately they are delicious, and came accompanied by several recipe suggestions. This one is for an exceptional courgette soup.

The courgettes are roasted together with onion and garlic, which gives the flavour an unexpected complexity. Peas bring additional sweetness and this is a good way to use the fresh basil we’re enjoying in the shares. As with most soups you can vary the proportions and quantities a bit to match what you have to hand. Serve with crusty bread and some grated cheese.

Roasted Courgette Soup with Peas and Basil
Serves 3

Ingredients
2 tablespoons rapeseed or olive oil
1kg courgettes (approx.)
4 garlic cloves (unpeeled)
7 tiny Canalside onions (or 2 medium onions)
Salt and pepper, to taste
200g frozen peas
20g fresh basil
750 ml stock
4 tablespoons full-fat milk
Parmesan or pecorino, to serve

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 200C. Drizzle the oil onto a large baking sheet.

Trim the ends off the courgettes and slice them into rounds about 1 cm thick. Place them on the baking sheet and scatter the unpeeled garlic cloves around them. Peel the onions, and if they are the tiny Canalside ones leave them whole and scatter them alongside the courgette and garlic. If they’re a bit larger slice them into thick slices before adding them to the baking tray.

Season with salt and pepper, toss them around a bit, and roast them for 40-45 minutes, until the vegetables are golden brown and roasted. Don’t let them char to a crisp but let them get toasted. Remove from the oven and let cool a bit.

Once the vegetables are cool enough to handle squeeze the roasted garlic flesh out of their paper skins into a pan. Add the remaining vegetables, the peas and the basil.

When you’re ready to serve, heat the stock and add it to the pan together with the milk. Blend the soup using an immersion blender and heat gently until warm. Add some additional water if you’d like the consistency to be a bit thinner. Serve with grated cheese on top.

Recipe adapted from The Veg Space, courtesy of Jean Noonan.

The great chef James Beard declared that in his kitchen no pepper was used until it had been roasted. I would not go quite that far, but roasting certainly transforms a pepper into something irresistibly delicious. It’s easy to do. Roasted peppers can be used in many ways—I’ll mention a few in a minute—but it’s hardly worth the effort since in my experience a dish of roasted peppers in a little olive oil and salt will be gobbled up immediately. Serve with an aperitivo or as part of your meal.

If by some miracle the peppers don’t get consumed on the spot you can arrange them on a platter with a few quartered hard-cooked eggs, black olives, and fresh basil, to make a little salad (drizzle with more olive oil before serving). Or use anchovies instead of or in addition to the eggs. You can drape them over a pizza. You can mix them with a tin of white beans, parsley, chopped tomatoes, and olive oil for a more substantial lunch. But really you’re going to eat these right away.

Roasted Peppers

Ingredients
Whole peppers of any colour or shape
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Fresh basil or parsley (optional)

Preparation
Preheat your grill. Arrange the peppers on a baking tray or oven rack and place them about 4 inches from the grill. Roast the peppers for 8-10 minutes, turning them regularly, until they are charred on all sides. The goal is for the skin to go black and flaky so that it can be removed easily.

Once each peppers is charred on all sides remove it from the oven and set it aside to cool a bit. When it’s cool enough to handle rub off the charred skin to reveal the smooth, roasted flesh underneath. Don’t run it under the tap or you’ll remove the flavour. Cut the pepper in half and remove the seeds.

Slice the halved peppers into long strips and put in a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add chopped herbs if you wish. They’re ready to serve.

When you cook beans slowly in olive oil the result is quite different from the snappy crispness produced by a quick dip in boiling water. The oil and tomatoes meld into a rich sauce that gives the dish substance and depth. Add some fresh basil and a slice of salty cheese, and enjoy for dinner with some crusty bread and a glass of red wine.
Rachel Roddy recommends you let the beans sit for a couple of hours before eating them but I think they’re pretty good straight away as well.

Braised Green Beans with Tomato and Basil
Serves 3-4

Ingredients
6 tablespoons olive oil
1 large or 2 small white onions, peeled and sliced thin
Salt
750g green beans or runner beans
750g ripe tomatoes, peeled if you wish, chopped coarsely
A handful of torn basil leaves
Feta, or other salty cheese, sliced, to serve (optional)

Preparation
Warm the oil in a heavy-based frying pan (with a lid) over a medium-low flame. Gently fry the onion with a pinch of salt until it is soft and translucent.

Cut or break the beans into 5cm-long pieces. Add them to the pan and stir well until each piece is glistening with oil. Continue cooking and stirring for a few minutes.

Add the tomatoes and another small pinch of salt, stir, then cover the frying pan. After a couple of minutes uncover the pan and stir – the tomatoes should be relinquishing their juices. Cover the pan and cook for another 5 minutes or so.

Once the tomatoes have given up their juice, uncover the pan and allow it to simmer, uncovered, stirring every now and then for around 40–50 minutes, or until the beans have become very tender and the tomatoes have reduced into a thick, rich sauce. During the final few minutes of cooking time, stir in the ripped basil leaves. Taste and season with more salt, if necessary.

Serve with slices of feta, if desired, or let them sit for a few hours before eating. These are very good the next day, as well.

Recipe adapted from Rachel Roddy, The Guardian, 23 May 2017.

Welcome back to Rebecca – here’s her first recipe after her break in July:

A bruschetta is an Italian open-faced sandwich. To make it you grill some good sourdough bread, rub it with a bit of garlic, drizzle it with olive oil, and add a topping. Roast courgette, grilled aubergine, and chickpeas with Swiss chard all make tasty and quick toppings. Make just one, or serve all three for a fresh and summery dinner.

Basic Bruschetta
For each bruschetta you need:

Ingredients
1 generous slice of a decent sourdough bread
1 garlic clove, peeled
Olive oil, to drizzle

Grill the bread on both sides. Grilling gives a better result, but you can use a toaster if need be. Rub the grilled bread on one side with the garlic, and drizzle with olive oil. Your bruschetta base is now ready for a topping.

Roast Courgette
Enough to top 1-2 bruschetta

Ingredients
1 medium courgette
Olive oil to drizzle
¼ fresh red chile, chopped, or to taste
Several sprigs of fresh mint, chopped

Preheat oven to 200C. Cut the courgette lengthwise into 5mm slices. Place slices on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Bake until crisp, about 10 minutes. Turn the slices over part-way through so they get crisp on both sides. Mix the roast courgettes with the chopped chiles and mint, arrange on the bruschetta, add a final drizzle of olive oil, and eat.

Grilled Aubergine
Enough to top 2 bruschetta

Ingredients
1 Canalside aubergine (i.e. one very small aubergine. . .)
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Small handful of fresh basil, shredded
Salt and pepper, to taste
¼ fresh red chile, chopped, or to taste

Preheat the grill. Cut the aubergine into very thin slices and arrange in the grill pan. Grill on both sides until tender, about 10 minutes in total. Don’t forget to turn them over halfway through. Toss the grilled aubergine with a tablespoon or two of olive oil, a good squeeze of lemon juice, the shredded basil, and salt and pepper to taste. Arrange on the bruschetta, top with the chopped chile, and serve.

Chickpea Chard
Enough to top 2 bruschetta

Ingredients
About 200g Swiss chard (or spinach)
Olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 400g tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
Juice of 1 lemon
¼ fresh red chile, chopped, or to taste

Boil the chard in water until tender, about 3-6 minutes. Drain and chop roughly. Return the cooked chard to the pan with about a tablespoon of olive oil and the garlic, and braise for another 5 minutes or so. Season and set aside.
Heat the chickpeas in a pan with another tablespoon or two of olive oil and the lemon juice, just until warm. Purée or mash the chickpeas and season to taste. Spread some of the puréed chick peas over part of each bruschetta, and arrange some chard alongside it, so that the two toppings are next to each other, rather than one on top of the other. Sprinkle the chile over the top, drizzle with a little more olive oil and eat.

Recipes adapted from Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, River Cafe Cook Book Easy (2003).

Our resident Recipe Meister, Rebecca Earle, is having a break during July, and so newly joined member Pip Smith has stepped forward to tantalise our tastebuds in Rebecca’s absence. Thanks Pip for standing in. Here’s this week’s recipe, the final one from Pip in this guest slot – Rebecca will be back next time:

This is an adapted recipe from a soup in Anna Jones ‘a modern way to cook’ – it’s adapted only because I don’t have the recipe book anymore, otherwise I would have followed it! With all this hot weather there’s probably nothing more important than keeping well hydrated. We take in a lot of our daily water from our food, in particular from fruits and vegetables. When I looked at the cucumbers in my fridge I immediately fancied a cool and hydrating soup, here’s the recipe I used.

Avocado and cucumber soup

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cucumbers chopped
The flesh of 1 avocado
The juice of 1 lemon
1 handful of basil
2 spring onions
2 handfuls of toasted seeds
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Pop the cucumber, avocado, basil, spring onion and lemon juice into a blender or use a stick blender and deep bowl.

Season with salt and pepper.

Dish into bowls, sprinkle with toasted seeds and a dash of extra virgin olive oil.

Optional – you might like to chill before serving. I mean the soup.

Our resident Recipe Meister, Rebecca Earle, is having a break during July, and so newly joined member Pip Smith has stepped forward to tantalise our tastebuds in Rebecca’s absence. Here’s this week’s recipe:

Mediterranean Stuffed Courgettes

Despite having a high water content Courgettes are a great source of vitamin C. The larger they get the more water they hold and it is then best to cook them with as little water as possible. My daughter always picks the largest and I just roll with it as she loves a stuffed courgette. This is the recipe we like to do together at home:

Ingredients:

One courgette
2 spring onions trimmed
Two medium tomatoes, seeds removed
Optional – a handful of chopped black olives
1 clove of garlic
1 slice of day old whole meal bread
1 tsp dried mixed herbs (unless you have some fresh)
1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
Rapeseed oil to spray

Method:
Heat the oven to 180 degrees
Slice the courgette lengthways and dig out the soft flesh and chop (you can choose to discard half the flesh).
Finely chop the tomatoes and spring onion.
Mix the tomato and onion with the olives if using and the courgette flesh.
Spray your baking tray with rapeseed oil and rub the courgette skins over the spray, leave flesh side up on the tray.
Cut the garlic in half and rub the garlic over the fleshy surface of the courgette.
Fill the courgette with the tomato mix.
Grate the bread into breadcrumbs and stir in the herbs and black pepper.
Sprinkle the bread crumbs over the courgette.
Finally spray the stuffed courgettes with rapeseed oil and bake for approximately 20 mins.

If you have fresh herbs leave out the dry ones and sprinkle with fresh herbs once removed from the oven. Enjoy!

This very simple recipe is a nice way to use a smallish quantity of strawberries. You can dress it up by serving with ice cream, or create a version of Eton mess by folding the berries and raspberry sauce into some lightly-whipped cream and crushed meringue.

Strawberries and Blueberries in Raspberry Sauce
Serves 4

Ingredients
200g raspberries (frozen is fine but thaw them first)
1-2 tablespoons icing sugar
250g strawberries, hulled
250g blueberries
a few leaves of fresh basil or mint, shredded (optional)

Preparation
Purée the raspberries in a blender (standard or stick) and then push the purée through a sieve to remove the pips. Sweeten to taste with the icing sugar. You want this to retain a hint of tartness.

Slice the strawberries into thick slices and toss with the raspberry sauce into a serving bowl. Stir in the blueberries and add the shredded herbs if you wish to use them. Leave to sit at room temperature for about an hour so that the flavours blend.

Recipe adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, River Cottage Fruit Every Day! (2013).

21st June 2018

Pasta Primavera was (supposedly) invented at a fashionable New York City restaurant in the 1970s. The idea is to combine the freshest early spring vegetables with pasta, in a light, creamy sauce. This recipe is more of a guide than a strict set of instructions; you can vary the vegetables according to what’s in season (the original included mushrooms, tomatoes, broccoli and courgettes). You can garnish it with pine nuts. You can add red pepper flakes, or even a spoonful of pesto. Just don’t overcook the vegetables.

Pasta Primavera
Serves 4

Ingredients

¼ pound sugar snap peas, stems trimmed
½ pound asparagus, ends snapped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
¾ cup fresh peas (or use frozen)
¼ cup thinly sliced spring onion, white part only (or use shallots)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
12 ounces fettuccine or tagliatelle, preferably fresh
⅔ cup grated Parmesan, at room temperature
½ cup crème fraîche or whole milk Greek yogurt, at room temperature
3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
1 tablespoon finely chopped tarragon or basil
2 radishes, thinly sliced

Preparation

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil over medium-high heat.

While the water is coming to a boil, slice snap peas and asparagus stems into ¼-inch-thick pieces; leave asparagus tips whole.

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add snap peas, asparagus, fresh peas and onion. (If you are using frozen peas don’t add them until later). Cook until vegetables are barely tender but not at all soft or mushy, 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook 1 minute more. If you are using frozen peas, add them now. Season with salt and pepper; set aside.

Drop pasta into boiling water and cook until al dente (1 to 3 minutes for fresh pasta, more for dried). Drain, making sure to save a cup of the cooking water, and transfer pasta to a large bowl. Immediately toss pasta with vegetables, cheese, crème fraîche (or yoghurt) and herbs. If it looks a bit dry, add some of the preserved cooking water to thin it out a bit. Season generously with salt and pepper, if needed. Garnish with the sliced radishes and serve.

Recipe adapted from Melissa Clark

This herby, mayonnaise-based salad dressing is a California classic. It’s also great on top of a piece of grilled fish or roasted vegetables.

Green Goddess Dressing

Ingredients

1/4 cup crème fraiche or soured cream
2 tablespoons good mayonnaise (ideally, you’ll make your own . . .)
2 anchovy fillets, chopped
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon fresh chives, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
2 tablespoon basil, chopped
1½ teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor, and blend until the mixture is bright green and smooth. You can also use a hand-held immersion blender. Test to see if it needs a little more zing from lemon juice, and serve.