Pilaf

This is the pilaf I've made so may times that I can nearly do it without looking now! It's a very savoury, rich and delicious rice dish that goes great with Moroccan and Middle-Eastern food. It can pass as Indian in a pinch (and much less cooking time than you need for the real biryani) and it travels well and needs no refrigeration, so also great for pot-luck dinners, picnics, etc. I like to leave the cardamom pods and cinnamon sticks arrayed across the top of the dish for decoration, but take them out if you're worried someone might start munching away. If you need cardamom, cinnamon, pine nuts, ground cloves and basmati all in one place, All India Foods is the spot.

Pilaf (serves 4, but it's really good so that might be stretching it)

• 1 and a quarter cups basmati rice
• 100g butter
• Quarter cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large white onion, finely chopped
• 75g whole blanched almonds
• 50g pine nuts
• 5 black cardamom pods, whacked with a rolling pin to bruise them (you can use green ones)
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken
• half a teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 100g currants
• 600ml chicken stock ( I use Knorr powder)
• half a teaspoon ground cloves
• half a teaspoon salt (optional)

Wash the rice very well under running water until water runs clear. Leave it to drain thoroughly. In a large heavy-based saucepan with a tight fitting lid, warm half the butter with the olive oil over a medium heat. Add onion, cover, and cook for 5-7 mins or until translucent but not coloured. Increase heat slightly, add nuts, cardamom and cinnamon, and cook for 3-4 mins, stirring constantly, until nuts are lightly browned and spices are fragrant. Remove from heat. Stir in the pepper and currants.

Meanwhile, heat the stock to a simmer. Add the rice to the onion mixture and stir well to coat the grains. Add the hot stock, cloves and salt if using. Stir once and bring to the boil, then cover and cook for 3 minutes. Puffs of steam may be visible. Reduce heat to low and cook, still covered for another 10 minutes.

Take pot away from the heat. Remove lid, cover the pot with a clean tea towel, replace the lid and set aside for 10 minutes. Toss the pilaf with a fork and stir through the remaining butter.

Beef and couscous summer salad

Seems like I'm all about salads right now. Salads and ciabatta; but I'm trying to lose the bread and increase the foliage. This was made with some leftover grilled rump steak, cold, the next day. I sliced it thinly, added torn butter lettuce, flat-leaf parsley, basil, lemon juice, olive oil, cooked couscous, and a gremolata of lemon zest, chili and grated garlic. Salt and pepper to finish. With a huge glass of icy water with a lemon slice floating in it. Refreshing!

Jamie Oliver's lamb kofta kebabs with onion salad, grilled corn and couscous

These were really good. From Jamie at Home. I made the kebabs as instructed, but changed the rest of it.

The kebabs were a mixture of lamb mince, pistachios, sumac, crushed chili, salt, pepper and cumin powder. You smash the lot together in the food processor, then mould it around skewers. (I used wooden skewers, but just be sure to soak them in water for a while first so they don't burn.)

I grilled the koftas on my humumgous Le Chasseur grill pan. A heavy frying pan would be fine, too. Jamie cooks his in the coals of a barbecue: I will try this if and when I get the outdoor barbecue I want.

(Note: I want a pit full of rocks with a grill over the top that everyone can sit round and stare at glowing embers and roast marshmallows. None of this gas-fired, temperature-controlled pansy work).

They don't take very long at all to cook. I had mine done medium-rare: still tender and juicy inside, with a tinge of pink in the middle. Meanwhile, the salad was just finely-sliced red onion marinated in lemon juice for five minutes, and torn basil leaves. I also made some plain couscous, and corn cobs wrapped in husk pieces and then in tin foil. I grilled the cobs on the grill pan with the koftas.

Maybe the only thing that would have been good with this might be some plain Greek-style yoghurt.

Christmas feast 2007

Christmas this year was a celebration of laughing, roasting, barbecuing, fresh cool salads and the massive and tenfold-rewarding benefits of cooking in advance. Mum and I roasted the meats two days before, and we served a cold buffet for 18 on a breezy and warm Christmas Day. The only things we served hot were the potatoes (both kinds) and the pudding. The first major event was the ham with orange glaze. We did that in the big hooded barbecue. Then there was the boned and rolled turkey with a couscous stuffing, also in the hooded barbecue. Mum did a small rolled pork roast in the Weber with woodchips, to give it that soft smoky flavour.
As well as the three meats, there was a tricolour tomato salad with balsamic dressing, and a salad of green and yellow beans (blanched and cooled) with a dressing of garlic olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest and salt.
Then the potatoes... these crunchy ones, and these soft flavoursome ones.
What else? My cranberry sauce, made by putting a 500g packet of frozen cranberries in a saucepan with sugar, orange juice and Tabasco until thick and syrupy. Excellent, it was.

Then there was the summer pudding. We used about a kilo of fresh berries (strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries), cooked them with a little sugar, drained off the syrup, lined a mould with white sliced bread and filled with the berries, let it sit overnight in the fridge weighted with a can on top, and then turned out onto a serving dish. There was also my aunt's Christmas pudding, vanilla ice cream, custard and hard sauce, and my Christmas cake.

The full menu was as follows:

• Strawberry spritzer / champagne


• Pork and chicken terrine, served with fennel, radicchio and curly endive salad with a light French vinaigrette (using white balsamic)


• Ham with orange glaze


• Turkey with couscous stuffing


• Smoked pork roast


• Bean salad


• Tomato salad


• Cranberry sauce


• Apple and cranberry chutney


• Hot mustard


• Crunchy roast potatoes


• Garlicky potatoes


• Summer pudding


• Christmas pudding


• Christmas cake


• Vanilla icecream


• Custard


• Hard sauce

Middle-eastern feastern

Possible thoughts for my upcoming middle-eastern birthday dinner:

Watermelon, rosewater and mint salad
Cumin / cardamom lamb meatballs on a platter
Rice pilaf with cinnamon, pine nuts, almonds and currants
Yoghurt and cucumber salad (with....something)
Flat bread (hmm)
Mint tea (gotta find a proper old Moroccan teapot to go with my green glasses)

The birthday cake could be something like figs with honey on a pastry base, spiked with candles.

I want to do a scarlet or red tablecloth with some ornate striped fabric as a runner. Touches of gold would be good too: maybe in a centrepiece or napkins.

I need to consider appropriate music, too.

I bought the latest issue of ABC Delicious today and there is a big section on middle-eastern flavours. That should help me along.

My biggest problem is: a) the DAMN oven (it totally screwed up the pork roast I made for Pete on Sunday...took nearly an hour longer than it should have), and b) my continuing pooritude. Car rego and car insurance have both gone onto the credit card this month, plus rent and normal groceries. Choir fees are due and I still haven't done my tax return. The volunteer unpaid work doesn't help either. I just want to be able to cook and make what I want ( within reason, or course), without feeling resentment towards my dinner recipients, or stressing myself out with ten tons of planning and super-control-freakiness.

So I will try to relax and think about why I am doing it: for the love of friendship, for my own interest and experience and to see my friends enjoy themselves.

***update***

It went well. I made the dishes as above. For the dessert, I used frozen filo and baked it with a filling that I made by soaking dried figs and dates in a syrup of honey, orange juice and orange blossom water. I set some little pieces of rose and almond turkish delight around the edge of the platter, and sprinkled the fruit with pistachios.

I additionally made a platter of carrots and beans chopped into matchsticks, which I poached briefly in lemon and orange juice. They were good, quite tart and still crunchy.

To nitpick, I thought that the overall effect was quite dry. I made the meatballs that morning and then reheated them in the oven, but they dried out a little, and without a dip or a sauce, with the savoury rice and the plain pita bread, I found it a little dry. Next time I will make a tahini or hummus sauce on the side, as well as the cucumber yoghurt.

The table setting was great. I used a scarlet tablecloth from Spotlight, with a orange striped placemat on top. I arranged a vase of oranges, a few tealights in coloured holders and a vase of sand with a tealight inside. I had little dishes of salt and coarse ground pepper, and one of finely chopped lemon peel.

I found a CD of bellydance music at Toombul Music for ten bucks, and had that on repeat. It was effective.