Recipes

Quick Dinner: Spicy Lamb and Prunes with Couscous

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment
Lamb with prunes, served with couscous
I’m going to have to make this again to get a picture …

School is back and we really need to get back into our menu planning. Not only does it get us organised, it also means we try out new stuff.

Last week we enjoyed a prawn curry recipe which came out of one of my old Olive magazines. I’d last made it in 2004 and written it out on a card to go in my recipe box. The Olive magazine was excellent (it may well still be – I’m just not in England buying it any more!) and that inspired me to delve into the cupboard where the mags are languishing and fish one out at random.

Which is funny because I pulled out a March issue: the recipes were the antithesis of seasonal and it seemed to have a strong baking focus. I’m not sure that either treacle or bakewell tarts would have cut it for dinner.

So even though I didn’t like the sound of ‘spicy lamb and prunes on pistachio couscous’ it was my best bet. It was from a section on weeknight food, where the recipes are for 2 and promise to be ready in 30 minutes. I often find that these kind of timings are at best optimistic and at worst erratic. However, in this instance, it was pretty close to the mark. I made work for myself because my prunes were stone in and I made up my own harissa-like marinade, but they’re definitely optional extras.

I’m so glad I tried this because, despite my reservations, it was excellent. The bonus was that my butcher sold me the lamb neck fillets for just $10.99/kilo (I was expecting to be in backstrap territory but happily no!) making it a very cheap meal.

You do have to be careful cooking lamb neck. You either cook it long and slow (often on the bone in things like curries) or super-fast. This is definitely the latter. On the plate it was occasionally a little tough to cut but in the mouth it was fine.

Whatever you do, do not omit the mint. It gives the dish a fresh lift. I cannot recommend growing your own mint highly enough – it does require quite a lot of water but you are rewarded with a vigorous and easy to grow herb that has plenty of uses.

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Quick Dinner: Spicy Lamb and Prunes with Couscous

Serving Size: 2

Adapted from Olive magazine, March 2004. This serves two but the chances are you will have a little left over.

Ingredients

  • 350g lamb neck fillet (probably around 6 fillets), cut into thick slices
  • 1 tbsp harissa (or make your own marinade with oil, garlic, chilli, ground cumin & ground coriander)
  • 100g prunes, roughly chopped
  • 150mL vegetable stock
  • 100g couscous
  • 50g walnuts
  • handful of mint leaves, chopped
  • lemon wedges

Instructions

  1. Begin by mixing the lamb and harissa together in a bowl. Set to one side to marinate.
  2. Put the prunes in a mug and just cover with boiling water. Set aside.
  3. Put the couscous in a bowl, pour over the hot stock. Cover and set aside.
  4. Roughly chop the walnuts.
  5. Heat a dry frying pan. When hot, add the lamb and cook for 2 minutes on each side so it's well browned. Lamb neck does have some fat on it so you probably won't need to add any to the pan. If you do, only add a little.
  6. Add the prunes and what remains of their soaking liquid. Allow the water to bubble and scrape the bottom of the pan. This is your sauce after all! Cook until your lamb is cooked how you like it.
  7. Mix the walnuts through the couscous and stir the mint through the lamb just prior to serving.
  8. Serve the lamb and prunes on top of the couscous, with lemon wedges on the side.
https://eatingadelaide.com/quick-dinner-spicy-lamb-prunes-couscous/

Ottolenghi’s Baby Spinach Salad

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

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Today, for the first time this ‘summer’ (it’s not actually summer yet), the mercury topped 40°C. Tomorrow’s 35 seems almost chilly by comparison (cough, splutter).

So it would seem that salad season is well and truly upon us.

I would love to pretend that we routinely eat interesting salads but … woooah, that is so not true. We throw some lettuce, tomato and cucumber on a plate. Maybe there’s also avocado or spring onions. And if I’ve thought ahead and been able to track down both Australian feta and olives then they’ll be on the plate too. I don’t like dressing, so that doesn’t even get a look in.

And you know what? I actually LIKE salad.

Anyway, my slender repertoire now has an extension.

A friend organised a ‘cookbook club afternoon’ (for want of a more pithy term). A book was chosen (Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem) and we were all to select different recipes and then come together and share our creations.

Circumstances meant I knew I was going to pushed for time so I picked a salad (it turned out that this was horrendously lazy when compared with other efforts …). In haste I chose the baby spinach and date salad. It ticked all my boxes – easy to shop for, quick to make. Job done.

Come Sunday morning I was able to throw this together, keeping aside the dressing to stir through at the last minute. While I was concerned about the sweetness of the dates, they worked really well and the vinegar and onion helped offset the sweetness. The almonds, of course, added crunch.

You can easily make this in advance – not too much because the pita won’t retain its crispness – but it’s definitely a ‘prep first thing in the morning’ kind of dish. And it tastes really good too!

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Ottolenghi’s Baby Spinach Salad

Ingredients

  • ½ red onion, very finely sliced
  • 100g pitted dates, quartered lengthwise
  • 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
  • 30g unsalted butter
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 100g pita bread, torn into generous bite sized pieces
  • 75g almonds, roughly chopped
  • 2 tsp sumac
  • ½ tsp chilli flakes (or to taste, but don't go crazy)
  • 150g baby spinach leaves
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice

Instructions

  1. Place the sliced onion, dates and vinegar in a small bowl and leave for about 15-20 minutes.
  2. Heat the butter and 1tbsp oil in a pan and add the pita bread and nuts. Toast until the almonds take on colour and the pita gets all lovely and crispy. Remove from the heat and stir through the sumac and chilli.
  3. Drain any remaining vinegar from the onion and dates (in my case, there was pretty much none).
  4. Toss the spinach with the dates and onion and pita and almond mix.
  5. When ready to serve, pour over the remaining 1tbsp of oil and lemon juice (I actually shook them together) and season to taste.
  6. Serve immediately.
https://eatingadelaide.com/ottolenghis-baby-spinach-salad/

Chocolate Chip Biscuits (or Cookies, if you must)

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

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For some reason, we are not big chocolate chip biscuit makers in this household. This does not mean that we are not enthusiastic consumers of said comestible. I LOVE them and when the mid-morning or mid-afternoon hunger pangs hit at work I’ll often nip next door to the café and buy one.

I suspect the lack of home production stems more from the fact that we rarely have biscuits in the household full stop. However, last Friday afternoon Master 4 and I were off to a play date and I asked him what he wanted to take. Cue a search for a quick, simple chocolate chip biscuit recipe that wouldn’t require multiple trips to the shops.

Luckily (as always) UK’s Delicious came to the rescue with this recipe. For anyone cooking with a child, it’s easy (OK – we do have a stand mixer!) and they will love eating the mixture, shaping the biscuits and pressing in the chocolate chips. As you can see from the photo, four chocolate chips per biscuit is woefully inadequate!

These biscuits strike, for me at least, the right balance between crispy and chewy. I think that that’s down to the combination of caster and light brown sugars. Make sure you use a good quality vanilla essence as the flavour does really shine through (especially if you are mean on the choc chip count and also if the biscuits last a couple of days). If you’re going to beef up the chocolate content, then you could probably omit the vanilla altogether.

We’ve really enjoyed eating these and as they were super quick to do I’m sure they’ll be making more regular appearances in our kitchen.

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Chocolate Chip Biscuits

Ingredients

  • 100g unsalted butter, softened
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 100g light brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or good quality extract, or omit altogether)
  • 165g plain flour
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp bicarb
  • chocolate chips - as many as you want!

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 150°C fan (170°C conv) and line two baking trays with baking paper.
  2. Cream the butter and sugars until pale. Add in the egg then the vanilla, flour, salt and bicarb. Mix until well combined and smooth.
  3. Take a tablespoon and form large walnut sized balls of biscuit mixture. Place them on the baking trays - well spaced as they spread a lot (they are easy to separate so don't be too worried about them joining up during baking) and press in choc chips. Four per biscuit looks like a lot when they're a ball but looks like nothing once they're cooked - so be generous rather than mean.
  4. Bake for 15 minutes - the biscuits will spread and start to pick up a hint of brown at the edges. Depending on your oven you may want to keep an eye on them from the 10-12 minute mark. In my oven - 15 minutes was perfect.
  5. The recipe will make between 16 and 20 biscuits. The biscuits do end up quite large but they are also quite flat so they are not like the biscuits you get in cafes that are often as big as your head.
  6. Remove from the oven and allow to cool ever so slightly before carefully moving on to racks to cool completely.
  7. Eat!
https://eatingadelaide.com/chocolate-chip-biscuits-cookies/