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Roast Cauliflower & Spiced Honey Carrots with Whipped Hummus

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I sometimes say “This dish is going on the Cafe Menu” – which means that if I were ever to start a cafe, this dish would be on the menu. I’ve gathered together three of Yotam Ottolenghi’s ideas and added a bit.

Serves 2 people.

Whipped Hummus
I’m not even sure if Ottolenghi uses this term, but others do. The idea is that the hummus is smooth and creamy.

The simplest thing is to follow Ottolenghi’s advice here. The secret is to use dried chickpeas and use the bicarb of soda to help get rid of the hulls.

Hummus Recipe

NOTE: Save 2/3 cup of the whole, cooked chickpeas (see below).

Carrot and Cauliflower
Divide 1/4 of a small to medium cauliflower into florets. Mix with 1 tbsp olive oil and 1/2 tsp salt.

The carrots are part of a recipe from his book Plenty More. Just buy it. The book is fantastic…. 

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Sweet Potato, Feta and Onion Quiche

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This is a tasty and simple quiche.

The recipe is from Delicious magazine and is here.

I made Maggie Beer’s Sour Cream Pastry instead (with added thyme leaves).

We had been given the eggs from a friend so they were local and fresh.

It’s great so try it.

[Shortly after taking the photo, the quiche slid off the wooden tray onto the floor! Thankfully it was  still on the metal pie base and landed face up! The pastry was a bit of a mess, but otherwise fine.]

 

Pan-fried Swordfish

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This a fabulous and relatively simple dish from Gary Mehigan. Gary and George’s Your Place or Mine is a really great cookbook. The recipes are tasty, a bit different (in a good way) and not too difficult. Some are super-easy. I highly recommend it. Yes I amended the recipe a bit…

Ingredients
100g dried figs
Olive oil
1 eschallot, sliced thinly
1 small clove garlic, sliced thinly
250ml dry white wine
60g green Sicilian olives
80g small caperberries (or capers)
1 cup flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
4 swordfish steaks
4 large potatoes, each cut into 6 pieces
2 slices of thick, day old bread, preferably sourdough, cubed
1 lemon, thinly sliced
Fig vino cotto

1. Cover the dried figs with boiling water for 10 mins. Drain, pat dry and quarter.

2. Cook eschallot and garlic in 1 tbsp olive oil on medium heat for 2 mins, stirring. Add wine and figs. Cook on high heat until 1/4 cup of liquid remains.

3. Remove from heat. Add olives, 2 tbsp olive oil and caperberries or capers. Allow to cool a little. Add salt, pepper and parsley.

4. Boil the potato pieces for about 7 minutes. Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry the potatoes, adding the bread pieces after 3 or 4 minutes.

5. Cook swordfish on highheat in some olive oil for 2-3 mins per side. They should be browned on the outside but medium rare inside.

6. Serve it all in a hot pan topped with lemon slices and drizzled with fig vino cotto (which I forgot to add).

This looks and tastes great. You really need Sicilian olives for this dish.

 

Roast Turmeric Butter Cauliflower

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The roast cauliflower part of this recipe comes from Duncan Welgemode’s Africola, a remarkable testament to the Adelaide restaurant of the same name. I’ve paired it with a lentil, tomato and roast capsicum curry topped with raisins and pine nuts, some home made hummus and flatbread.

The cauliflower is simmered for 10 minutes before being baked in a hot oven, with turmeric butter brushed on for the last bit of cooking. 100g butter and 50g ground turmeric.

I should mention that at Africola a lot of the cooking is done in an open fire oven, so the cauliflower has an amazing char to it.

The white sauce underneath is made from tahini, lemon juice and garlic.

But I want to make note of the fig and pistachio agrodolce on top of the cauliflower.

2 tbsp chopped dried or semi-dried figs – soak in 2 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar for 15 mins

1tbsp olive oil
1 eschallot, thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Cook onion and garlic gently in oil for 7-10 mins.

Add 400g tinned diced tomatoes and cook for 5-7 minutes, stirring.

Add the figs and vinegar along with 1/2 tsp brown sugar and 2 tbsp toasted pistachios. (I added a bit more brown sugar)

Season with salt and pepper.