Guest post: Qarabaghli mimli

I’m very excited to be presenting to you my very first guest blogger – my cousin Dathan. Like me, he is Maltese living in England and this is a classic Maltese dish – his end product makes my mouth water!

“Up to a few months ago, I would have never thought I would be eating vegetables, let alone writing, or guest-blogging, about it. Then I don’t know why, but a few weeks ago I bought 4 marrows from the greengrocer. So I HAD to do something with them. I went for this dish that my Nanna Katie used to make (which I used to greedily half-eat by only having the stuffing) with some changes.

So, I bought four biggish marrows (qargha baghli) and cut them towards the top. I then “carved” them by scooping them and keeping the pulp for the sauce. The marrows where then boiled until they were softer – not too soft as I feel it’s better if there is some “bite” to them.

For the sauce, I first fry some finely chopped garlic and onions in olive oil. I then add the mince (beef or pork would do – or even both mixed) and the pulp from the marrows, also chopped. I then add Dolmio sauce for bolognese – purists can do their own sauce from scratch, but why complicate things?

The sauce needs to be quite watery – so I add water as required.

The sauce is finished by adding freshly chopped parsley, seasoning and chilli to taste – I use this very sparingly.

Then the fun begins – the sauce is stuffed into the marrows, stopping just below the top. I then finish this by topping up with grated cheese – I used cheddar, since this melts into the sauce. You could use Parmesan cheese for a bit more flavour. I place any left-over sauce at the bottom of the dish.

I then put everything in a medium heat oven for 15 minutes or till the cheese melts. Again, I prefer it if the marrows aren’t too soft.

I serve them simply with some bread for dipping into the sauce. I guess you could serve with rice or even potatoes.

Voila – stuffed marrows a la Dathan”

BBQ Time

I escaped the British rain for a few days this weekend for a quick trip Malta. Yesterday my family held a BBQ on their terrace with some delicious food cooked by my mum and grilled by my dad.

To start… home made hummus made by mummy:

And olive tapenade with a big garlic kick made by Auntie Maria:

Then my dad got grilling…first some squid then some swordfish:

Both were really fresh so needed very little..the swordfish was marinated in lemon juice and parsley and the squid cooked plain and mixed with some good quality olive oil, salt, pepper and parsley again.

Served with qarabali (marrows) roasted in the oven with onions, insalata tat-tadam: tomato salad made simply with some seasoning, oil and fresh mint and roasted patata (potatoes).

Here’s the family ready to enjoy!

Have you had your first BBQ of the season yet?

Seabass with mediterranean veg

On the weekends I like to visit the fish stall on Chelmsford high street and pick up something for dinner.

The other day I bought some lovely fresh seabass, which I seasoned and fried skin side down until crispy and then turned over for 2-3 minutes. Seabass has a lovely delicate taste, and a fresh fish like this one just melts in the mouth.

Served with red and green peppers, onion, asparagus, whole cloves of garlic and cherry tomatoes roasted in the oven for 25 minutes with olive oil, chopped chilli and salt + pepper. I add my tomatoes in the last 10 minutes so they just split but don’t over cook.

Also served with some crispy roast potatoes, which I’ll post about seperately soon.

Chicken Kievs

Our Saturday dinner was home made chicken kievs, made using Simon Rimmer’s recipe .

Cutting the pockets for the butter in the chicken breast I wasn’t as careful as I could have been, so they leaked but still tasted yummy.

Swiss food in Switzerland

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, it’s been a busy time for me recently but I’ve just had a much needed break in Switzerland to join 2 friends at their wedding in a village outside Zurich. Yesterday they took us to their favourite restaurant serving classic Swiss food.

To drink, a beer:

And to eat, kalbsbrateurst an zwiebelsauce mit rosti – or veal sausage with onion sauce and rosti potatoes:

And because it looked so good, my friend’s rosti with bacon and egg:

Deep fried Calamari with garlic and lime mayonnaise

Here’s what we had for dinner last night – I cut up and battered the squid rings (and tentacles – the best bit!) in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs with dried chilli mixed in, and then deep fried them until crispy.

Served with mayonnaise with 1 clove of garlic and the rind and juice of 1 lime mixed in as well as a salad with a spicy dressing made with olive oil, white wine vinegar, 1 tsp of cayenne pepper and fresh coriander.

Figolli

If you’re Maltese, Easter means figolli (or figolla in the singular). Its basically a big biscuit with an almond marzipan filling, colourfully decorated. We make lots to give to each other as gifts on Easter Sunday, and then spend the next 2 weeks eating them.

As with any traditional recipe each family has their own version, this is my Nanna Mary’s recipe.

First you need to make the shortcrust pastry: Ghagina tal-figolli

Ingredients:
800 g plain flour
4 eggs
1½ packets Stork margarine (or similar)
3 teaspoons baking powder
300 g sugar
grated rind of one lemon

Method:
Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl.
Cut the margarine into small cubes. Add to flour and rub the margarine into the flour until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. (You can do this by hand or in the mixer).
Add the lemon rind and sugar and mix in.
Beat eggs and use them to bind the mixture.

Next, the marzipan filling: Mili tal-marzipan ghall-figolli

Ingredients:
300 g ground almonds
200 g icing sugar
1 tsp. lemon juice
a few drops of almond essence
2 egg whites, beaten and added one at a time

Method:
Mix the almonds and sugar in a bowl.
Add the lemon juice and a little almond essence.
Gradually add the egg whites. (The paste has spread easily but not be runny. If stiff, add a few drops of lemon juice or a little bit of water).

Roll out the pastry to around 5mm thick, and cut out 2 shapes for each figolla you’re going to make. Put the filling on the bottom shape, with a little space around the edges, use water to moisten the space and put the other shape on top.

Cook in an oven on 180 degrees for around 20 minutes, until the pastry is cooked.

Leave to cool completely before you ice for the first time.

Glacé icing (for the base cover)
Ingredients:
Icing sugar
warm water

Method:
Sift the icing sugar into a bowl.
Carefully, add a few drops of food colouring and some water and mix, till you get a coating consistency.

The more colourful the better!

Once your base icing is fully dry it’s time for decorating with royal icing.

Royal Icing (for the piping)

Ingredients:
icing sugar
egg whites
lemon juice

Method:
In practice, the best way to do this is to start by beating the egg white slightly with a wooden spoon in a bowl.
Gradually add sifted icing sugar and stir until you get a thick smooth consistency that is suitable for piping.

Pipe patterns onto your figolli, decorating with a chocolate egg (it is Easter, after all).

This year, my decorating efforts could have been better (my royal icing was a bit thin and my base not colourful enough):

But, here’s some I made a couple of years ago to redeem me:

Have you made figolli this year? Send me your pictures and I’ll put them up! mrs.christina.hunter@gmail.com

Fajitas

We had these for dinner earlier this week. My husband did all the slicing of peppers, onion, a chilli, chicken breast and beef rump steak. I usually use a packet seasoning mix but this time I tried to make it myself.

To each meat type I added smoked paprika (2 tbsp), ground cumin (1 tbsp), ground ginger (1 tbsp), Tabasco Habanero (about 1 tsp) and a good squeeze of lime.

After stir frying the veg, I added the chicken to the pan and fried until cooked, also adding 3 cloves of crushed garlic at the same time. I try to add the steak at the very end so it’s still a little rare. Once I added the steak I added squeezed in the rest of the lime and a few more drops of the Tabasco sauce.

Served with warmer flour tortillas (in the microwave for 40mins), shop bought sour cream, salsa and guacamole, grated cheddar, shredded lettuce and some more lime wedges.

Stuffed chicken breast

A new quick weekday meal in our recipe rotation is stuffed chicken breast.

The trickiest bit (and to be honest it’s not that tricky) is cutting the breast along the edge so that you’re ‘opening’ it.

Then, you need to put some stuffing in – I used creamy goats’ cheese, slices of chorizo (still in love with chorizo) and a bit of rocket. If I’d had some I would have put sun dried tomatoes in too, but could do normal tomatoes, spinach, olives…lots of options. The key so that it doesn’t taste dry is the creamy cheese, if it’s not goats’ cheese it could be feta or a cream cheese – like Philadelphia, which I’ve had at a friend’s house with apricot as the other filling and it was lovely.

There are 2 easy ways to cook the chicken. The first is put it in a dish covered in foil in the oven (190deg) for 20-25 mins. In the week I try to cut the cooking time down by lightly frying on each side before putting in the oven for 10mins, which also gives the breast a nice colour.

While its in the oven make your accompaniments- we had saffron rice (rice cooked with a pinch of saffron in the water), corn on the cob and rocket salad, made with a simple dressing of oil & white vinegar, and pine nuts.

Home made egg pasta

One of my birthday presents this year was a pasta machine from my sister which I wanted to try straight away so yesterday I made pasta from scratch for the very first time.

The recipe I used is from my How to Cook Everything app, and my first surprise was how little ingredients you need, basically just flour and eggs:
250g all‐purpose flour, plus more if needed
1 teaspoon salt
2 whole eggs
3 egg yolks

Method:
By hand: Combine the flour and the salt on a counter or large bowl (I used a bowl). Make a well in the middle. Put the eggs and yolks into this well. Beat the eggs with a fork, slowly and gradually incorporating the flour, a little at a time. When it becomes too hard to stir with the fork, use your hands. When all the flour on the surface has been mixed in, knead the dough, pushing it against the board and folding it repeatedly, until it is not at all sticky and has become quite stiff. Add only small amounts of flour during kneading if you absolutely need it.

Sprinkle the dough with a little of the reserved flour and cover with plastic or a cloth; let it rest for about 30 minutes. (At this point, you may refrigerate the dough, wrapped in plastic, until you’re ready to roll it out, for up to 24 hours.)

Next, the fun bit- using the machine. This was a lot harder than I initially expected and as the clamp for my machine didn’t quite fit with my work top I had to get my friend to hold onto it to keep it steady.

Clean your hands and clamp a pasta machine to the counter; sprinkle your work surface lightly with flour. Cut off about one‐third of the dough; wrap the rest in plastic or cloth while you work. Roll the dough lightly in the flour and use your hands to flatten it into a rectangle about the width of the machine. Set the machine to its highest (that is, thickest) setting and crank the dough through. If it sticks, dust it with a little more flour. Repeat. Set the machine to its next‐thinnest setting and repeat. Each time, if the pasta sticks, sprinkle it with a little more flour, and each time put the dough through the machine twice.
Use as much flour as you need to, but in small amounts each time.

Keep going until it is a thickness you are happy with.

At this point the dough is ready to be used. You can leave it as sheets to make lasagne or stuffed pasta or cut the sheets to make other types of pasta. I put mine through the machine to make tagliatelle.

To cook the pasta, drop them into boiling salted water; they’ll be done when tender, in less than 3 minutes (and probably less than 2 minutes).

My learning point here was not to drop too much in at once (or maybe have a bigger pan of water), as I had to stir furiously to stop it all sticking together. My second learning point, or warning, is that you will get flour everywhere while you make your own pasta.

Served with a creamy mushroom and bacon sauce: