Cucumber and Chilli Salad

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Cucumber & Chilli Salad

I’m generally pretty rubbish when it comes to things horticultural, particularly if they’re vegetables. Flowers I’m actually reasonable at. Vegetables – horrendous. So it’s come as something of a shock to harvest four telegraph cucumbers in the space of 2 days.

This set me to start investigating cucumber recipes … and cucumber and chilli salad seemed a super easy place to start.

Of course, I didn’t rush off an buy Lebanese cucumbers, I made use of what I had. I used approximately half one of my cucumbers and I halved the remainder of the ingredients. I opted to use fresh chilli instead of chilli flakes too – I think it made the finished product just that bit more colourful.

Begin by halving and then finely slicing your cucumber(s) of choice. I used a mandoline because that way you know your slices will be even and actually fine!

Place the sliced cucumber in a bowl and add 1 clove of garlic, crushed and finely chopped, half a finely chopped red chilli, 1 tsp of caster sugar, 1 tbsp of vinegar (I used white wine vinegar) and 1 tsp of sesame oil. Give it all a good mix together to help the caster sugar dissolve and to ensure the cucumber is well coated.

Set the salad aside for at least an hour. This is one of those great salads that doesn’t wilt if you leave it – so next time you need to take a salad to a BBQ it’s worth considering. If you want to make it well in advance, cover in cling film and pop it in the fridge until about half an hour before you need it.

As this is a cucumber salad, make sure you have to salt to hand!

We ate this sald with our favourite quick and easy mid week dinner, a spicy chicken stir fry.

Tasca Viva

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Tasca Viva

date of visit: Monday 9 January 2012

There had been a bit of buzz on twitter about Tasca Viva when it opened late last year but it’s taken us a little while to head down to Jetty Road to check it out for ourselves.

It’s a good thing we ended up going on a Monday because I rang up about an hour before we wanted lunch to book a table for 6, plus a high chair. No problems at all. Marvellous.

When we arrived we’d been seated at one of the high tables inside (the inside part was requested) but we quickly decided we didn’t fancy sitting on bar stools so we asked to move. No problems at all. This helpful, friendly service set the tone for the whole rest of our lunch. Full marks for a casual venue getting it so right.

Finally settled in, we were able to take a serious look at the menu. Tasca Viva recommends 3-4 tapas plates per person or 2 raciones (larger portions) so for our group our waiter recommend 8-12 raciones. Inside I was having kittens because the raciones all come in around the $20 and this was meant to be a light (and therefore not too expensive) lunch.

Because everyone at our table had eaten breakfast at different times, we felt justified in ignoring the advice and ordered 5 raciones and two serves of patatas fritas (that would be chips, then). This actually turned out to be the perfect amount of food so I’d say unless you’re starving, go easy on the ordering. The great thing about this type of food is that it’s sharing food and comes to the table in a staggered manner, so if you’re still starving you can order more and indulge in some people watching while you wait.

We chose whitebait, octopus with chorizo, meatballs, pork belly and the chickpea and spinach stew. The definite winner was the whitebait. They were fab – crumbed in panko they were crunchy, fishy and not a bit oily. Served with a bit of parsley and lemon, they were perfect bar a pinch of salt.

Everything else was good too – just not as good as the whitebait. The octopus was tender, the meatballs (a very generous serve) were dense, tasty and with just the right amount of sauce, the pork belly, with apples and spinach, was melt in the mouth and the chickpea and spinach stew was aromatic with spices such as cinnamon, which remind us Spain has a Moorish past.

The chips were actually forgotten so we had a brief hiatus, which provided a useful excuse to order another bottle of wine. While the chips, with a smoky paprika and tomato sauce, were better than average, they actually fell a long way short of everything else we’d eaten (although my mum said she’d go back for the chips and whitebait alone).

We finished up all feeling quite full – so a walk along the jetty was called for. The final bill came in at $40 a head, which included 2 bottles of wine and 6 beers – so my initial worries about lunch being expensive were unfounded.

You could spend a fortune at Tasca Viva but our experience suggests that you needn’t. I imagine that on a Friday or Saturday night the place is packed, but if you’re after a lazy lunch then Tasca Viva can tick that box too.

Tasca Viva Restaurant Tapas Bar on Urbanspoon

Dan Lepard’s Toll House Yo-Yos

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One of my Christmas presents was Dan Lepard‘s new book Short and Sweet. I’m a huge fan of his thanks to his column in the Guardian – his recipes never seem to go wrong.

I’ve made these toll house yo-yos before and I have mucked around with the recipe a bit – mainly because the original makes use of custard powder and this is something we never have in the house.

These are easy to make and you can pretend they’re healthy, as they contain oats. In addition, you can make the mixture up, wrap it in cling film and freeze it for when you need it.

Grind 75g of rolled oats to a powder.

Then beat 150g unsalted butter with 175g of icing sugar, until light and creamy. Add 175g of plain flour, the ground oats, 2 tsp vanilla essence and 2-4 tbsp of milk (enough to bring the mixture together). Finish by adding 150g of dark chocolate, broken up. Lepard says to cut the chocolate into ½ cm chips. I am way too impatient for that type of thing. Typically, I roughly chop the chocolate and then throw it into the MagiMix. However, I think this is the wrong approach. You are better off using a stand mixer to make the biscuits (yes, you’ll need to make sure you butter is slightly soft and not rock hard out of the fridge) and mixing in good quality dark chocolate chips/buttons at the end.

Why?

Because if you use my slap dash approach, you end up with biscuits that have a kind of uniform brown background to them, and if you take a bit more time, you’ll have cream biscuits attractively studded with chocolate.

However you get there, roll your dough into a log approximately 5cm in diameter, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for around ½ an hour.

When you’re ready to cook, preheat your oven to 180°C, line a baking sheet with baking paper and simply cut your log into discs 1-1½ cm thick.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden and cool on a baking rack. Dan Lepard sandwiches the biscuits together with an icing made from icing sugar, vanilla essence and milk. I am FAR too lazy health conscious for that! The biscuits are perfectly good to eat without sandwiching!