lamb and feta morsels - let the party begin!

lamb and feta morsels

What is it about party food on a stick that we like so much? I suspect that like me, there are many British people of a certain age (cough, cough) who remember the joys of cheese and pineapple hedgehogs, along with cheese footballs and Twiglets . . . we see a cocktail stick and it speaks to us. "Eat me" it says, not in a trippy Alice in Wonderland kind of a way, but in the way that entices; "this will be fun. It will make you happy. Let's party!" 

I can remember the very first time I ate satay in Malaysia - chicken on a stick served with a sticky peanut sauce. I was seven years old and this food delighted me. It was fun, novel to my English eyes and tasted so very good too.

roast breast of lamb stuffed with spiced couscous

spiced couscous stuffing for lamb breast

Unlike that nice child, Charles Augustus Fortescue, I have always had an aversion to fatty meat, while he "would beg them if they did not mind, the greasiest morsels they could find". In my persuit of thrift and frugality I have avowed to change my ways - although I am unlikely to ever live in Muswell Hill (or marry someone called Fifi!)

nut and mozzarella lamb kebabs

nut, mozzarella and lamb kebabs

Silvena Rowe's Purple Citrus + Sweet Perfume is a glorious adventure in the food of the Eastern Mediterranean. This is the cuisine of the Ottoman Empire; of the Oriental Mediterranean from eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Crimea to Turkey, the Lebanon and Syria. A style of cooking that certainly here in Britain, we seem to be much less familiar with. If this is a best kept secret in the culinary world then it is one that is screaming out to be made heard. So please pass it on!

tapas: marinated cracked green olives

cracked marinated green olives

Spanish cuisine from the Andalusian region has been much influenced by its Arab history, (the Moors and Berbers of north Africa) using spices such as cumin, paprika, saffron, rice, citrus fruit and lots of olives.
 
These olives are full of herbs and spices; the longer they marinate, the tastier they become.

turkish-style stuffed tomatoes

On my mission to be frugal I had decided not to throw out some leftover rice, intending to make a Turkish or Greek rice stuffing for some kind of vegetable. I would decide on which vegetable to use when I actually got to the market and saw what was available. Of course all my frugal intentions went out the window when I saw (actually smelt first) a beautiful mound of the plumpest most scarlet tomatoes I have ever seen.

Still on the vine, you could smell their intense green clove-like aroma from about 30 feet away. I had to have them. At all costs. This turned out to be the debt of a small sovereign nation) All my frugal intentions went out the window. Well life is not too short to stuff a tomato!

tunisian salad (salade meshouiwa)

Tunisian salad (without the egg and tuna!)

I thought I would start August's recipes with this gorgeous refreshing salad, perfect for this week's heatwave, perfect for the summer; it is a sort of North African equivalent of a Salad Nicoise and makes a great accompaniment to grilled or barbecued meat and fish. 

Tunisian cooking is a very rich and quite complex cuisine, with culinary influences both ancient and relatively modern, from Rome, Carthage and the Ottoman Empire, to the Middle East and North Africa. It really is a delightful combination of Mediterranean and Arab cuisine with a strong Italian and French influences, a sort of big hello from the other side of the Mediterranean.

what heathcliffe did next: merguez mezze

merguez with green pepper

Heathcliffe had asked me to pick up some merguez sausages from Phoenicia, my local middle eastern deli in Kentish Town. Fortunately I know what merguez sausages look like. A peculiar thing to say you might think, but the butcher's counter meats are labelled in Arabic (which I don't read) and quite often I am mystified by what I am actually looking at. Gargantuan cuts of meat the like of which I have never seen before, hugger-mugger with somewhat grotesque mounds of sausage. But still I come in to browse, hoping that I'll get one of the friendlier butchers to explain to me what exactly it is I am looking at. Occasionally when I'm feeling brave or adventurous I'll actually buy something.

a feast from the (not-so) mysterious east (that's dalston not the levant) and there's a party going on in my mouth!

heathcliffe's splendiferous mezze

What is a feast?

• A festival of food
• A joyous, happy meal
• A sumptuous entertainment
• Something highly agreeable, which is partaken of, or shared in, with delight
• To gratify or delight (as in to feast your eyes or your soul)
• To treat at the table bountifully

tabbouleh (bulgar wheat salad)

tabbouleh - bulgar wheat salad

A simple but delicious Middle Eastern herb salad that zings with flavour, perfect for a hot summer day. It would seem that my optimism that the sun would make an appearance this weekend was rewarded and as such was the perfect opportunity to make this salad to accompany our Sunday lunch out in the garden.

One of the secrets to a good tabbouleh, is plenty of parsley, the bulgur wheat is more of an afterthought. The second is to slice the parsley by hand (I use a mezzaluna for speed). Don't try to speed things up by using a food processor as you will end up with a mush of parsley, rather than the small flecks required).

fat couscous and chickpea salad with a lemon-chilli dressing

fat couscous salad with feta and chlli

It isn't very often that I eat a supermarket ready-meal and think "delicious. I must rush home and try to create it". In fact it has never happened before. But recently there has been one thing I have rather enjoyed and that is one of Sainsbury's range of Taste the Difference Giant Cous Cous and Feta salad pots.

I spent years trying to track down Israeli couscous in England. But I finally managed to identify it as mograbiah or moghrabbiyeh. This is also known as Lebanese, pearl or Israeli couscous. And until I had a word to describe it, I just called it fat couscous; it shall always be fat couscous to me.

chicken with chilli, lemon and mint

chicken with chilli, lemon and mint

This Easter weekend in April was so warm it felt like summer. Ah, the joys of English weather. Not surprisingly a barbecue party was in order. It was perfect weather and I had good friends who are more than happy to let me do the food.
The first thing I prepared was some grilled chicken. This is one of my favourite barbecue dishes. But it is equally easy to do under the grill and while it is infinitely nicer served warm, but it also works well at ambient temperature; the flavours are strong yet subtle enough to fill your mouth with glorious Moroccan flavours.

chicken tagine with peach and mango salad

A dish designed for a warmer climate was guaranteed to prolong my sunny mood today, despite north London's drizzly, grey backdrop. Although this is not seasonal, I felt in need of something light and fragrant; a temporary banishment of stodge in my winter diet.  


While this tagine tastes rather sumptuous, it is actually ideal as either a simple supper (any leftovers are for lunch tomorrow), and a perfect dinner party recipe as it is simple to prepare ahead; served with a bejewelled vegetable couscous, spicy chickpeas (see tip below) and a variety of refreshing salads, you can get everything ready in advance, ready to serve when your guests arrive, without having to spend too much time in the kitchen. 

moroccan harrira soup

spicy harrira stew

This is a version of a soup recipe from Claudia Roden, traditionally prepared during Ramadan and eaten to break the fast. Apparently, the streets of Morocco are perfumed at sunset with thousands of different versions of this fragrant soup. 

While this version of the soup is vegetarian, you can include meat, such as lamb or beef. It is not a soup that is restricted to Ramadan across the Muslim world; it is also served at special celebrations, and why not? It is deliciously satisfying.

chicken stew with dried limes

I cooked a Persian banquet for friends recently and used dried limes for the first time. (I say "banquet" which sounds terribly sumptuous and as far away from my Victorian cottage in shabby north London as the magic of the ancient Silk Routes or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon can be . . . although saffron and pomegranates were involved). Anyway, the dried limes were a complete revelation and I have to thank John Willoughby in the NY Times for the inspiration. He wrote "Holding one to your nose is a bit like sniffing freshly grated lime rind while standing in the center of a brewery" . . . utterly glorious. I was powerless to resist their  lure.

sweet cherry-stewed meatballs - full of wonderful middle eastern flavours

This delicious recipe has a lovely sweet and sour hint of Persia. I have a confession to make, I have absolutely no idea where I had originally sourced this recipe (Bad Kelly!). I found a notebook with this recipe scribbled down in it and I suspect that this may have been based on a review in the New York Times of a cookbook by the American-Syrian writer, Poopa Dweck,  . . . yes, I too was entranced by her name too!