Dancing on My Table

The cold has settled in and we’re in for a long run of wintery days by the looks of it! One comfort is food – soups and homecooked meals fill the kitchen with gorgeous smells that’ll bring them running. Look for dishes based on seasonal vegetables, or inexpensive vegetables which one tends to pass over in favour of something more exotic (think cabbage – how many times do you walk past that and buy something three times the price because you think cabbage is boring).

Potatoes are an excellent ingredient to fill hungry tummies. They’re especially good for us when jacket-baked.

How do you get those gorgeously-crunchy potato skins on jacket-baked potatoes? Easy. Scrub the potatoes and while they’re still damp sprinkle them with salt. Move them to a dry part of the bench, turn them over and sprinkle the top side also with salt. Transfer to an oven preheated to 200°C / 400°F (fanbake) and bake for at least 1 1/2 hours, even longer – up to 2 hours. Immediately you remove the potatoes from the oven, split them in half with a sharp knife, otherwise the steam inside the potato will soften the skin. Either serve as they are, with butter, salt and pepper, or with sour cream, or top them with a homemade Bolognese or tomato sauce – such a great way to use up small amounts of leftover pasta sauce, and you don’t need any added fat!

Alternatively, scoop out the flesh and mash with a little hot milk and butter and pile it back into the potatoes, top with grated cheese and grill until sizzling. Or mix the potato flesh with any manner of ingredients before stuffing it back into the potato shell: chopped ham or bacon or roast chicken, chopped spring onions or snipped chives, canned beans or sweet corn, chopped onion and celery softened in a little olive oil, and so on and so forth. The recipe here is one my kids loved when they were growing up.

Jacket Potatoes with Bacon and Sweet Chilli Sauce

One of the great things about pasta dishes is their speed. They’re also nutritious and fill you up. I always keep canned beans in the pantry, and many types of pasta shapes, and with a bunch of rocket from the garden, a meal like this is easy on the budget, and on me – over and done in twenty minutes.

Rocket & Beans with Fusilli

A mug of homemade soup is an inexpensive nutritious after-school warm-up.

Make the soup, even a double batch, then when it is cool, line soup mugs with snap-lock bags and fill with soup. Seal and freeze, then remove mug. Then you have the perfect amount to thaw quickly in the microwave (or in a saucepan) to fill a mug. Potatoes help thicken the soup, and leeks are inexpensive at this time of year. You could use homemade chicken stock in this soup, and even swirl in a little leftover roast chicken at the end.

Chunky Leek and Potato Soup

Radicchio appears to be native to Italy, and the three types are named after the towns of their origin: Chioggia, Treviso and Castelfranco, all in the Veneto region. Chioggia is the most common radicchio found here, available pretty well throughout the year. It grows in a tight ball, resembling a small red cabbage and should feel weighty for its size. It has an agreeable bitterness and is excellent in salads on its own, mixed with other leaves, or with fennel. Treviso has long tapering red leaves with meaty white ribs, resembling a white witloof in appearance. It’s milder in flavour and is excellent grilled, baked or roasted and in risotto (I used the Chioggia variety for the recipe above, as Treviso is not readily available, and found it quite successful). Castelfranco is more open, like a young butterhead lettuce, creamy in colour, tinged with pink and speckled with purpley-red. It’s used in salads. The latter two are seasonal, appearing in late autumn.

Here’s one of my favourite salads with radicchio. Capers, garlic and parmesan cheese make a gutsy dressing that stands up well against the bitterness of radicchio. Just be warned; it’s very moreish!

Radicchio Salad with Caper & Parmesan Dressing

I know heaps of people who love artichokes but who don’t have a handle on preparing them. The thing is, they look scary and difficult to prepare, and there are many ways to prepare and serve them. Which method to choose? How to start? Which bits do you eat?

For all their beauty and mystique, once you understand what has to be scrapped or salvaged, they’re reasonably easy to prepare. The trick is to be absolutely ruthless. Chop off and discard anything that is inedible – that means peeling the outer layer of the stalk (the outside is fibrous but the inner stalk will become nice and tender once cooked), and discarding the spiky leaf tips and a good percentage of the outer leaves because, no matter how long these are cooked, they will never become tender. The edible part is located in the centre of the vegetable.

The artichoke has a collection of furry fibre called the choke which forms in the centre of the artichoke. It cannot be eaten. Most of the outer leaves are too tough to eat as well, although each leaf has a succulent morsel at the base where it is attached to the artichoke which you can prize off with your teeth. The classic way of presenting a whole cooked artichoke (the choke is generally scraped out before or after cooking) is with the leaves intact. You then break off each leaf and dunk the succulent end in a dressing or sauce and nibble it, then discard the leaf in a separate bowl. Once all the leaves have been eaten in this way, you are left with the best bit, the heart, base or fond (it has various names). This you eat with a knife and fork. A lot of work for a few mouthfuls? Maybe, but once you get a taste for artichokes it’s hard to resist them.

Fill a bowl with water and squeeze in the juice of a lemon. As the artichokes are prepared, put them in the water; the lemon will help prevent them discolouring. Cut off the top third of the artichoke (the leaf tips – they’re inedible) and discard. Then spread the leaves apart, opening and loosening the artichoke. Remove the mauve or pale yellow leaves in the centre, then press the soft, yellowish leaves away from the centre until a cavity is formed and the choke is revealed. The choke is a collection of fibrous hairs, which should be totally scraped out as it is inedible, even after cooking. Use a pointed teaspoon to remove it, but take care to remove only the hairy fibre, because directly below this is the meaty base of the artichoke (referred to as the fond or heart). The artichoke is then ready for seasoning or stuffing. If cooking artichokes Alla Romana prepare as above but leave stalk attached, trim the end and peel off outside fibre. Alternatively, the artichoke can be boiled whole and the tough leaves can be discarded after cooking and the choke scooped out with a teaspoon. The artichoke can then be served with melted butter, vinaigrette or a hollandaise sauce. All the leaves can be peeled away and discarded, leaving the heart, which can be used cold in salads, added to pasta dishes or risotto, or sliced and fried.

Trim off the top third of the leaves, remove outer leaves stopping once the leaves are pale in colour and tender. Scoop out choke. Slice thinly or cut into wedges for frying.

Alternatively, slice whole artichokes in half, remove choke and boil gently in acidulated water until tender. Stuff and bake, or remove outer leaves and any tough fibre and serve with a dressing or sauce.

RECIPES:

Carciofi alla Romana (Artichokes Roman-style)

Artichoke Frittata
Serve frittata with salad and crusty bread, or cut into cubes and serve as finger food.

The globe artichoke is a type of thistle, but we eat the buds of the plant before the flowers bloom. The flower buds are edible at various stages of their growth, but are better picked and eaten while they are young.
If artichoke buds are left on the plant to mature, the thistles develop and burst open into a striking flower. They can be dried and used in flower arrangements.

Young and Tender
If you grow your own artichokes, and three or four plants should do the trick, you’re in for a treat. Pick the buds before the chokes have had a chance to form. Wash and trim them, slice wafer thin, arrange on a plate and dress with a trickle of the finest extra virgin olive oil you can find, a squeeze of lemon and a little freshly milled pepper. They’re incredibly nutty-tasting and wonderfully crunchy…and totally addictive.
A Spanish oil with hints of artichokes, such as Pons, or an Italian oil with hints of almonds such as Salvagno, are both exquisite with young artichokes served this way.

Alternatively, trim and halve young artichoke buds, douse in olive oil and grill lightly. Serve with shavings of prosciutto and a few curls of Parmesan cheese (use a vegetable peeler to peel the cheese).

Top Tips
Watch out for sharp pointy parts on artichokes, and prickles, usually found on the tips of the outer leaves, sometimes on the inner leaves around the choke, and on the stems.
If you lick your fingers after touching artichokes you’ll be amazed at the incredibly bitter taste. To minimize this, and to protect against staining, wear food preparation gloves when preparing artichokes.
Lemon helps prevent artichokes from discolouring. Add some juice to the water they are soaked in, or rub cut surfaces with a piece of cut lemon.
And don’t throw away the stems – they’re edible, too, although they have an earthier taste than the leaves.

RECIPES:

Carciofi alla Romana (Artichokes Roman-style)

Artichoke Frittata
Serve frittata with salad and crusty bread, or cut into cubes and serve as finger food.