Japanese Pancakes

These used to be our food court staple, until we realised they were so easy to make at home. The secret is buying okonomiyaki sauce, which can be easily found at your nearest Asian grocery store.

To be honest, this is probably not quite the most authentic version of okonomiyaki, but when you drizzle anything in that mayonaise and sauce, it's close enough for us!

1/2 cabbage shredded

1 carrot shredded

2 zucchinis shredded

1 green onion shredded

1 egg

¾ cup of water

1 cup flour

Mayonnaise

Okonomiyaki sauce

Add shredded vegetables to flour, egg and water. Shallow fry in vegetable oil and serve with the mayonnaise and sauce.

Tagine week: Eggplant and Pumpkin Tagine with green chillies

Now that the evenings are much cooler, we have dusted off the tagine and gone a little overboard with it.

This is a hearty vegetarian tagine, prompted by our pile of delicious butternut pumpkins and late season eggplants and zucchinis (although of course we used tromboncino).  This is a bit of a staple recipe in our house whenever we have too much of any of these vegies (usually this time of year).

Eggplant and Pumpkin Tagine with Whole Green Chillies
 

Sauce:

100ml olive oil

2 large onions, finely diced

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 heaped TBS coriander seeds

1 heaped TBS cumin seeds

1 heaped TBS caraway seeds

1  TSP ground allspice

2 TSP sweet paprika

1 TSP chilli powder

1 TSP ginger powder

2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes

6 long green chillies

1 TBS honey

600ml water

Vegetables:

1 kg pumpkin diced

2 small eggplants

2 small zucchini

100mL olive oil

150g cooked chickpeas

100g black olives

Greek yoghurt (to serve)

Use a mortar and pestle to grind coriander, cumin and caraway seeds to a fine powder. Sieve to remove husks. Mix with other remaining spices.

Heat oil in frying pan, sauté the onions and add the garlic- fry until browned. Add the spice mixture to the frying pan and cook for a further 2 minutes.

Add tomatoes, chilli, honey and water and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer uncovered for 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Bake the pumpkin in the oven for 15 minutes.

Cut the eggplant and zucchini into medium sized chunks. Salt and leave for 20 minutes. Wipe off excess water and sauté in olive oil in batches.

Add all the vegetables, chickpeas and olives to the tomato sauce. Add more water if the sauce is too thick. Bring sauce to the boil, season with salt and pepper. Serve with couscous and plenty of thick Greek yoghurt.

Last days of summer...

It seems our daughter has inherited the Italian gene for watering concrete. She also has her father's penchant for posing for photos with vegetables...

Tromboncino and Rick Stein Part One

We were watching Rick Stein travelling (and eating) throughout Sicily and found this recipe for cucuzzo longa. As we didn't grow any this year, we cooked it instead with tromboncino. We normally cook them in a tomato sauce, and have a glut of them every January, so it's nice to find a different way to eat them.

This recipe could all just be substituted with zucchini (especially the sweet white ones) or squash.
 It's simple and extremely tasty.

 

1 tromboncino (or white zucchini or cucuzzo longa)

1 onion

Dried oregano and mint

Olive oil

Pecorino cheese

Slice up tromboncino (or cuccuzo) and dice onion. Place in a saucepan and cover with water. Add dried oregano and mint, salt and pepper. Boil together until the trombocino is soft and water has reduced to make a sauce. Add grated pecorino and drizzle with olive oil.