The text on the front cover of 500 Best-Ever Recipes Mediterranean includes, “Traditional, best-loved regional dishes from Morocco, Spain, Turkey, Greece, France and Italy…”. This means that other Mediterranean countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, etc aren’t listed as being in this book, even though some of their recipes are.
I also have some minor criticisms of this book. If you tell me to cube eggplant, for example, but not what size cubes, I’ll cube them in a way that I think is tasty, but which won’t cook in the allotted cooking time. This is not something that makes me fond of this book. That said, it was hard to choose which of the 500 recipes I was going to make, because many of them looked and read delicious. Many of the recipes also come with a blurb describing where it is from, whether it is a dish for special occasions or suggestions for different ways to prepare the dish such as alternate or additional ingredients. I won’t include these notes unless I used them in my recipes. Overall I give this book 3 out of 5 stars.
Spicy Walnut Dip
Ingredients:
- 175g broken, shelled walnuts
- 1 tsp cumin seeds, dry-roasted and ground
- 1 – 2 tsp Turkish red pepper, or 1 – 2 fresh red chillies, seeded and finely chopped, or 1 tsp chilli powder
- 1 – 2 garlic cloves (optional)
- 1 slice day-old white bread, sprinkled with water and left for a few minutes, then squeezed dry
- 1 – 2 tbsp tomato puree (paste)
- 1 – 2 tsp granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp pomegranate syrup or juice of 1 lemon
- 1/2 cup olive or sunflower oil plus extra for serving
- salt and ground black pepper
- fresh flat leaf parsley to garnish
- pitta bread to serve
Method:
- Using a mortal and pestle, pound the walnuts with the cumin seeds, red pepper or chilli and garlic (if using). Add the soaked bread and pound to a paste, then beat in the tomato puree, sugar and pomegranate syrup.
- Now slowly drizzle in 1/2 cup oil, beating all the time until the paste is thick and light. Season with salt and pepper, and spoon into a bowl. Splash a little olive oil over top to keep it moist and garnish with parsley leaves. Serve at room temperature.
Notes on this recipe:
- My photo of this dish did not work, but it was really tasty and my favourite dish of the entire night.
- I didn’t have a mortar and pestle big enough so I used a ceramic bowl and the end of the rolling pin to pound the walnuts. Though I was never sure how finely the walnuts should be pounded.
- We didn’t put the full 1/2 cup of oil in as we felt it was thick and light (which I still don’t quite understand) about 75% of the way through it
Meatballs in Tomato Sauce
Ingredients:
- 225g minced beef
- 4 spring onions, thinly sliced
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
- 2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 3 tomatoes, chopped
- 2 tbsp red or dry white wine
- 2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
- pinch of sugar
- salt and ground black pepper
- fresh thyme to garnish
Method:
- Put the minced beef in a bowl. Ad the spring onions, garlic, parmesan and thyme and plenty of salt and pepper
- Stir well to combine, then shape the mixture into 12 small firm meatballs.
- Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy frying pan and cook the meatballs for 5 – 8 minutes, turning often, until evenly browned.
- Add the chopped tomatoes, wine, rosemary and sugar to the pan, with salt and ground black pepper to taste.
- Cover the pan and cook gently for about 15 minutes until the tomatoes are pulpy and the meatballs are cooked through. Check the sauce for seasoning and serve the meatballs hot, garnished with thyme.
Notes on this recipe:
- This was several people’s favourite dish of the evening. I found the meatballs a bit dry, but they were still very tasty.
Spicy Chickpea and Aubergine Stew
Ingredients:
- 3 large aubergines (eggplants), cubed
- 1 cup chickpeas, soaked overnight
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 3 garlic cloves, chopped
- 2 large onions, chopped
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground coriander
- 3 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes
- salt and ground black pepper
- cooked rice, to serve
For the garnish:
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion, sliced
- 1 garlic clove, sliced
- springs of coriander
Method:
- Place the aubergines in a colander and spring them with salt. Sit the colander in a bowl and leave for 30 minutes, to allow the bitter juices to escape. Rinse with cold water and dry on kitchen paper.
- Drain the chickpeas and put in a pan with enough water to cover. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes, or until tender. Drain.
- Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the garlic and onion and cook gently until soft. Add the spice and cook, stirring for a few seconds. Add the aubergine and stir to coat with the spices and onion. Cook for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and chickpeas and season with salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
- To make the garnish, heat the oil in a frying pan and, when very hot, add the sliced onion and garlic. Fry until golden and crisp. Serve the stew with rice, stopped with the onion and garlic and garnished with coriander.
Notes on this recipe:
- For the eggplant to cook in the 20 minutes of this recipe you’ll want to cube the eggplant around 1cm – 1.5cm cubes. The 2cm – 2.5cm cubes I made did not cook in the 20 minutes specified by this recipe and it wasn’t all that tasty – we cooked it more so that we could enjoy the left overs another time.
- I used tinned chickpeas as I didn’t have the time to soak dried chickpeas overnight. This did not detract from the recipe.
Lemon and Lime Syrup Cake
Ingredients:
- 2 cups self-raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup caster sugar
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 4 eggs, beaten
- grated rind of 2 lemons
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
For the topping:
- Finely pared rind of 1 lime
- Juice of 2 limes
- 2/3 cup caster sugar
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 160C. Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin. Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl.
- Add the caster sugar, butter and eggs, and beat thoroughly. Then gradually add the beat in the lemon rind and juice.
- Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin, then smooth the surface and make a shallow indentation in the top with the back of a spoon.
- Bake in the pre-heated oven for 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 hours, or until the top of the cake is golden and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- Meanwhile, mix the topping ingredients together in a small bowl. As soon as the cake is cooked, remove it form the oven and pour the topping evenly over the surface. Allow the cake to cool in the tin.
Notes on this recipe:
- I made a cake as my sister was over for dinner and it had been her birthday in the week before.
- The entire cake was eaten that evening, it was really good and very easy to make
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