Some Interesting Recipes

Today I just have some interesting recipes for you, no particular theme or rhyme to them:


The first is for a traditional Tunisian doughnut:

Tunisian Doughnuts Recipe

Ingredients

3 Medium Eggs
500ml Cups Oil
60ml Orange Juice
2 Tablespoons Coconut
250 Sugar
210g Flour
1 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
500ml Water
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
250ml Honey

Directions Place the eggs, 60ml of the oil, orange juice, 1 tablespoon of the coconut and 50g of the sugar in a blender. Blend until smooth. Transfer to bowl, then sift in flour and baking soda and knead until the mixture is soft. Cover bowl with a towel, then set aside to rest for 1 hour. Make a syrup by placing the remaining sugar, water and lemon juice. Boil over high heat until the sugar dissolves, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low and add honey and the remaining coconut.

Simmer for 10 minutes, then turn heat to very low to keep warm. Place remaining oil in small saucepan, then heat to moderately hot. Divide dough into walnut sized balls then flatten slightly. Hold the doughnut in your hand and punch a hole through the middle with a floured finger. Fry a few at a time for about 5 minutes, until golden brown on both sides. With tongs pick up doughnuts and dip into warm syrup and serve.

This recipe is reproduced, with permission, from the following Tunisian Recipes page.


Maintaining the Tunisian theme, the next is just an interesting recipe that I came across:

Tunisian - Fish Fillets With Harissa And Black Olives Recipe

Ingredients:

1kg Thick Fish Fillet (any white fish)
Salt And Pepper, to taste
Flour, for dusting
Oil, for frying
1 Small Onion, finely chopped
2 Cloves Garlic, finely chopped
250ml Passata (Tomato Sauce)
1/2 tsp Harissa
1 Medium Bay Leaf
150g Pitted Greek Olives
juice of 1 Lemon
Chopped Parsley, to garnish

Directions:
Season the fish with salt and pepper. Dust with flour and fry in hot olive oil until golden brown on all sides. Transfer fish to a side dish. Add onion and garlic to the skillet and cook for a few minutes. Add tomato sauce, harissa, bay leaf and 120ml water.

Cook for 10 minutes then add the olives and fish fillets and continue cooking, uncovered, until the fish is tender and the sauce thick. Add lemon juice to taste. Discard the bay leaf. Serve, sprinkled with parsley.

Serves 4

For more African Recipes, see the Celtnet Recipes Blog African Recipes page.

This list of African regions and African recipes is brought to you in association with the Recipes of Africa eBook. With over 1000 recipes covering each and every country in Africa, this is the most comprehensive book of African recipes available anywhere.

If you love African food, or are just interested in African cookery, then the Recipes of Africa eBook is a must-buy. You get information about every region of Africa and every African country along with a selection of classic and traditional recipes from that country.

This is a must-get book for anyone interested in food. Learn about a continent that to this day remains mysterious to many people. The recipes presented here are written by someone who has travelled extensively in Africa and who is a published Author. The book is a properly-produce and published eBook and the collection is immense.

Don't delay, get yourself a copy of the Recipes of Africa eBook today!

Wild Food Guide 'O'

Wild Foods Guide 'O'

This is the fiftenth of my series of 26 postings on wild foods. Each post will deal with a separate letter of the alphabet ('O' today) and will describe a wild food beginning with that letter as well as presenting a classic recipe incorporating that wild food.

Today I'm dealing with the letter 'O', the fiftenth letter of the English alphabet, which includes foods such as Oak, Oyster Plant, Old Man's Pepper, Orache and many others. Today, however I am going to devote this page to Oak Leaves and Orache.


The Oak Quercus spp refers to of any of several hundred species of trees and shrubs in the genus Quercus (from Latin 'oak tree') Oaks have spirally arranged leaves, with a lobed margin in many species; some have serrated leaves or entire leaves with a smooth margin. The flowers are catkins, produced in spring. The fruit is a nut called an acorn, borne in a cup-like structure known as a cupule; each acorn contains one seed (rarely two or three) and takes 6-18 months to mature, depending on species.

In Britain the commonest oak is the sessile oak, Quercus robur and certain parts can be used as a foodstuff. The leaves, when fully fallen from the tree and dry and brown can be used as a bittering agent in mead. It is also possible to make a mead out of young oak leaves. The acorns when roasted and leached of their tannins in running water can be made into a substitute for coffee. But they should be soaked in boiling water before roasting or the resultant drink will be unpleasantly bitter. The same is true for making flour from acorns.

Acorns are the nutty fruit of the various species of the genus Quercus (oak). The acorn itself is a nut, containing a single seed, enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne in a cup-shaped cupule. There are almost 130 species of oaks, all of which generate acorns of one description or other.

Only mature oaks produce acorns and mature oak trees and mature oaks are extremely tough. As a result oak trees will bear their fruit even during the worst droughts. This is why acorns, turned into acorn flour were a survival food during times of drought in all periods up to and including the Middle Ages and why they were very important to the diet of many native Americans.

It should also be remembered that the Europe of the past was a continent of broad-leaved oak-based forests. Oak trees were the natural biological climax and oak trees covered the entire continent. As a result oaks would have been in abundance and acorns along with acorn flour would have been a staple of the diet. Despite this, European (and especially the Englis oak, Quercus robur contain lots more tannin than their North American equivaent, Quercus alba. Tannins are toxic and though roasting removes some tannins the only effective way to leach tannins from acorns is to soak them repeatedly in water. Our ancestors probably suspended baked and shelled acorns in streams for several days before rendering the acorns into flour.

Though acorns, are by far the commonest wild food derived from oak trees, it should be noted that oak laves are also useful as a wild food and here I present a classic traditional recipe for a meat bittered with oak leaves :

Oak Leaf Mead

Ingredients:
4.5l young oak leaves
5l of unchlorinated water
1kg clover honey
2 tsp yeast nutrient
Yeast (Epernay II is good but champagne yeast would also work)

Method:
As with most of the other mead recipes presented on this site, this recipe has been gauged to make 5l of mead. Only a basic listing of ingredients is given, and for a brewing method please see this page for a step-by-step guide. Also see this page for a list of the equipment you'll need.

I used fresh-pulped apples to make the juice, predominantly using sour cooking apples, but the recipe works equally-well with store-bought apple juice. Add the apple juice and 2l water to the boil and add the honey a little at a time as well. When the mixture has boiled, remove the skim from the surface then take off the heat, add the remaining water and the yeast nutrient and allow to cool. When it reaches about 37°C add the yeast and allow to ferment for about four days. At the end of this time strain and add a fresh yeast culture to resume fermentation. You can now return to following the instructions given in the basic mead brewing page to make your mead. Again, this is not a 'short' mead, and you can follow the recipe given for my 'standard' basic mead exactly. As a wine-like mead, once bottled, this preparation needs to be left to mature in the bottle for at least a three months. At this point you can return to following the instructions given in the basic extract brewing page to make your mead. Again, this is not a 'short' mead, and you can follow the recipe given for my 'standard' basic mead exactly. As a wine-like mead, once bottled, this preparation needs to be left to mature in the bottle for at least a three months.

This results in a fairly dry wine (for a mead) and the flavour is interesting.

This recipe is reproduced, with permission, from the Oak Leaf Mead Recipe from the Brewing Recipes collection of the Celtnet Recipes Collection.

If you are interested in recipes for oak leaves then you can find a range of oak leaf recipes.



Orache Atriplex patula, also known as Wild Orache is an annual flowering plant and a member of the Chenopodiaceae (goosefoot) family. Most of which are edible to some degree. Common Orache typically grows to 75cm tall and is in flower from July to September with its seeds ripening from August to October. The flowers themselves are monoecious (ie either male or female) though both flower types are found ona single plant. The plant tends to grow in disturbed ground and requires moist un-shades soil.

Of the entire Goosefoot family, Common Orache is both the commonest of the group and is the one with most flavour. The young leaves can be used raw in salads or can be cooked as a spinach substitute. The seeds can also be ground and mixed into cornmeal, or used as a thickener to soups (thogh they are more than a little difficult to harvest, to say the least).

The recipe presented below is for a classic Greek recipe for a classic dish of leg of lamb stuffed with greens that include orache.

Leg of Lamb Stuffed with Greens and Feta Cheese

Ingredients:
80ml olive oil, plus more for brushing
1 fennel bulb, trimmed (fronds and tender stalks reserved), halved and thinly sliced
250g thinly sliced spring onions
1 tbsp coarsely-chopped garlic
2 garlic cloves, quartered
240g coarsely chopped mixed greens (egs baby spinach, tender Swiss chard leaves, lamb's lettuce, pea shoots, orache, green amaranth, outer leaves of romaine lettuce, and/or beet greens)
1 tsp fennel seeds, freshly ground
freshly-ground black pepper
35g chopped fresh mint
1.8kg half leg of lamb (shank half), with some fat left on and the shank bone left in (remove the hip end of bone if still attached)
100g crumbled Feta cheese
salt, to taste
1 tsp dried oregano, crumbled
120ml dry white wine, (plus more if needed)
75g chopped fennel fronds plus tender stalks, (or fresh dill)

Method:
Heat the oil in a large pan and fry the fennel bulb over medium heat until just tender (about 3 minutes). Add the scallions and chopped garlic and fry for 2 minutes. Add the greens and fry until just wilted. Remove from the heat and stir-in the fennel seeds, adding black pepper to taste. Allow to cool before adding the mint.

With a sharp knife make eight small slits in the lamb and insert the garlic quarters in these.

Meanwhile transfer half the greens to a bowl and set aside. Add the Feta cheese to the remaining greens in the pan and use this to stuff the lamb (where the bone was). Use cocktail sticks to close the opening. Rub the remaining greens over the lamb, cover and refrigerate over night.

The following day scrape the greens from the surface of the lamb (reserve these) and liberally brush the meat with oil before sprinkling with the oregano and seasoning. Place the meat in a roasting dish and roast in an oven pre-heated to 210°C for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile add the wine to a pan and bring to a boil. Add the reserved greens and simmer for 1 minute before pouring this mixture over the meat. Return the lamb to the oven and roast for 5 minutes more. Then reduce the oven temperature to 170°C and roast the lamb, basting frequently with the pan juices, for about 30 minutes more. Add a little water if the pan juices become too dry.

Remove from the oven, sprinkle the chopped fennel or dill then cover with aluminium foil and allow to rest for 15 minutes. Pour the pan juices into a sauce boat then carve the lamb and serve. The perfect accompaniment are potatoes roasted with garlic, lemon and oregano.


This recipe is reproduced, with permission, from the Leg of Lamb Stuffed with Greens and Feta Cheese Recipe from the Celtnet Greek Recipes Collection, part of the Celtnet Northern European Recipes Collection

If you are interested in recipes for Common Orache then you can find a range of common Orache recipes.

This guide is brought to you in conjunction with the Celtnet Wild Food Recipes collection.

You can find more wild foods beginning with the letter 'O' on the Wild Food Guide for the letter 'O', part of the Celtnet Wild Food Guide.

Wild Food Guide 'N'

Wild Foods Guide 'N'

This is the fourteenth of my series of 26 postings on wild foods. Each post will deal with a separate letter of the alphabet ('M' today) and will describe a wild food beginning with that letter as well as presenting a classic recipe incorporating that wild food.

Today I'm dealing with the letter 'N', the fourteenth letter of the English alphabet, which includes foods such as Navew, Nosebleed Plant, Nettles, Navelwort, Nori and many others. Today, however I am going to devote this page to Navew (Field Mustard) and Nettles.


The Navew (also known as also known as Filed Mustard, Wild Mustard, Yellow Mustard, Wild Turnip, Wild Kale, Bird Rape, Cale), Brassica rapa var campestris is the annual or biennial ancestor of modern Turnip, Rutabaga, some kales and rapeseed (canola). It hybridizes readily with many other barssicas and as such is agriculturally considered a weed. It is not a true 'mustard' in that mustard seeds are produced from the related species Brassica nigra (black mustard). However, in late winter or early spring, mustard greens present one of the most valuable wild foods. Substantial, highly nutritious, deliciously hot-flavored, they are top-notch added to salads, cooked, or juiced. Such keen concentration of flavor and nutrients makes an eminently healthy, even shocking, addition to the diet. The seeds can also be harvested for use as a flavoring, or can be sprouted. Thus wild mustard is a very useful addition to the store of wild foods available to us. It can also be cultivated and makes an useful pot herb and can be substituted in any recipe calling for 'mustard greens'.

Here I present a classic modern Fusion recipe for an Indian-inspired curry of Navew (wild mustard greens) with green beans :

Curried Wild Mustard Greens with Beans

Ingredients:
200g wild mustard greens (or you can use any strongly-flavoured greens eg kale, collards etc)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp mustard seeds (preferrably black)
1 small onion, chopped
1 tbsp freshly-grated ginger root
3 birds-eye chillies, finely chopped (de seeded if you don't want it very hot)
1 400g tin of beans (butter beans, barlotti beans, black beans etc)
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp curry powder
80ml double cream

Method:
Wash the mustard greens, remove the stems and cut into strips. Bring a large pot of lighly-salted water to a boil, add the mustard greens and blanch for a two minutes or so. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain and rinse under cold water to prevent further cooking.

Meanwhile heat the oil in a large pan and add the mustard seeds. Cook until these begin to pop and flavour the oil then add the onion and fry until gently browned. Stir-in the ginger and chillies then add the spices. Now mix-in the beans and tomatoes. Bring to a simmer and cook gently for 5 minutes before stirring-in the mustard greens and cream. Continue cooking until heated through and serve on a bed of rice.

This recipe is reproduced, with permission, from the Curried Wild Mustard Greens with Beans Recipe from the Fusion Recipes collection of the Celtnet Recipes Collection.

If you are interested in recipes for Navew (Wild Mustard) then you can find a range of Navew (Wild Mustard) recipes.



Nettles (Stinging) Urtica dioica, is an herbacious flowering plant in the Urticaceae (nettle) family. they grow to some 1.5m tall in summer, when they flower, before dying down to ground-cover in winter. Their soft green leaves are broadly spear-shaped and have a strongly-serrated margin.

Everyone recognises the stinging nettle (generally referred to just as 'nettles') and many of us have been stung by this plant. Nettles are covered with tiny, nearly invisible stinging hairs that contain histamine and formic acid that produce an intense, stinging pain, followed by redness and skin irritation. The generic name comes from the Latin word, uro which means 'I burn'. Bizarrely, whilst the stinging nettle is normally ery painful to the touch, when it comes into contact with an area of the body that is already in pain, the chemicals can actually decrease the original pain. This is why the stinging nettle is also termed a counterirritant. Indeed, Applying juice from the stinging nettle to the skin can actually relieve painful nettle stings or insect bites.

In ancient times, the nettle was an extremely versatile plant. It was used as an analgesic, the fibres from the stems were woven into string, ropes and cloth. Mature nettle leaves were used to wrap fish, meat and cheeses. Most importantly, the young leaves of nettles do not sting and can be used in salads, to make soups, to make puddings. Even the older leaves of nettles, once boiled, do not sting and can be used in a variety of dishes.

The recipe presented below is for a classic Estonain recipe for a classic nettle soup garnished with eggs.

Nettle Soup with Egg Garnish

Ingredients:
100g young nettle tops
500ml water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp plain flour
500ml vegetable or beef stock
salt and black pepper, to taste
2 hard-boiled eggs halved lengthways
1 tbsp finely-chopped dill
1 tbsp finely-chopped chives

Method:
Bring the water to a boil, plunge the nettle leaves in this and blanch for 2 minutes (this will remove the formic acid that causes the stinging). Drain the nettles in a colander, rinse under cold water and drain before roughly chopping. Add to a blender along with a little of the stock and purée until smooth.

Meanwhile, add the oil to a pan and use this to fry the onion on medium heat until soft but not coloured (about 6 minutes). Sprinkle the flour over the top and stir to mix in. Fry for 1 minute to remove the rawness of the flour then slowly add the stock, mixing in to blend with the flour roux. Add the remaining stock, stirring in, then bring to a boil and cook for about 3 minutes before adding the puréed nettles. Allow to heat through, season with salt and pepper then ladle into warmed soup bowls.

Add a halved egg to the soup and sprinkle the chopped herbs on top. Serve immediately


This recipe is reproduced, with permission, from the Nettle Soup with Egg Garnish Recipe from the Celtnet Estonian Recipes Collection, part of the Celtnet Northern European Recipes Collection

If you are interested in recipes for Stinging Nettle then you can find a range of Stinging Nettle recipes.

This guide is brought to you in conjunction with the Celtnet Wild Food Recipes collection.

You can find more wild foods beginning with the letter 'N' on the Wild Food Guide for the letter 'N', part of the Celtnet Wild Food Guide.

Wild Food Guide 'M'

Wild Foods Guide 'M'

This is the thirteenth of my series of 26 postings on wild foods. Each post will deal with a separate letter of the alphabet ('M' today) and will describe a wild food beginning with that letter as well as presenting a classic recipe incorporating that wild food.

Today I'm dealing with the letter 'M', the thirteenth letter of the English alphabet, which includes foods such asMarsh Mallow, Mint, Morel, Marsh Samphire, Myrtle and many others. Today, however I am going to devote this page to Marsh Samphire and the Myrtle (Bog).


The Marsh Samphire (), Salicons, represents a genusof succulent, salt tolerant plants that grow in salt marshes, on beaches, and among mangroves and are native to Europe and the United States. The common European glasswort is Salicornia europea which is more commonly referred to simply as Marsh Samphire. This is a small (about 15cm tall) green succulent herb with a jointed horizontal main stem and erect lateral branches. The leaves are small and scale-like and as such the plant may appear leafless. It grows extensively in estuarine salt marshes and was collected extensively during Elizabethan times.

The plant makes excellent eating and for anyone living near to the sea this plant will be their first introduction to foragin in the wild. It is best picked in June and July when the stems are young and succulent. If collecting always wash in sea water before taking home and wash as little as possible in fresh water as the rigidity of the stem is dependent on the salt water within it. This will be leached out if the plant is kept too long in fresh water. When young they can be eaten raw and used thus for salads or garnishes. Otherwise they can be boiled like asparagus for about eight minutes in salted water before being served with salted water. Tender samphire tops make and excellent accompaniment to fish and pasta dishes. Samphire can also be pickled. Just pack the stems into a pickling jar and cover with spiced pickling vinegar.

Here I present a classic modern British recipe for a classic seashore soup of crab and marsh samphire :

Crab and Samphire Soup

Ingredients:
1 dressed crab
1 medium potato
500g marsh samphire shoots
600ml vegetable or fish stock
50g butter
200ml single cream
salt and black pepper to taste

Method:
Peel the potato and slice as finely as you can (best done with a mandolin). Heat the butter in a pan and use this to fry the potato slices until soft.

Meanwhile, clean the samphire and place in a pan of boiling water. Cook for about 10 minutes (or until the green flesh slides off the stalks) then add to the potatoes and continue frying for two minutes or so, before adding the stock. Bring the mixture to a boil then allow to cool and blend to a purée in a liquidizer. Return the mixture to the pan and stir-in the crab meat. Allow to heat through then season and add the cream. Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer (but do not allow to boil).

This soup can be served immediately, or it can be served chilled.

This recipe is reproduced, with permission, from the Crab and Samphire Soup Recipe from the British Recipes collection of the Celtnet Recipes Collection.

If you are interested in recipes for Marsh Samphire then you can find a range of Marsh Samphire recipes.



Myrtle (Bog) Myrica gale, (also known as Sweet Gale, Helig Mair) is the wild form of the herb, myrtle, the leaves of which can be found in spice stores. It is a a shrub that grows up to 1.5m tall in poor acid marshy soils of the bogs of north-western Europe. It is a member of the Myricaceae (myrtle) family. In Britain it can be found in a band extending through Northern Ireleand, North Wales, North-eastern England and Scotland.

The foliage has a sweet rather resinous scent and this has been used for centuries as a natural insect repellent. In north-western Europe myrtle leaves was used as one component of gruit that was used as a traditional flavouring for beer, though it fell into disuse with the adoption of hops as a bittering agent.

In May myrtle becomes covered in golden catkins that disappear as the grey-green leaves emerge. The leaves can be harvested nad infused into a rather refreshing tea. Myrtle leaves are also an excellent and very versatile herb that can be used with both sweet and savoury dishes.

The recipe presented below is for a classic reconstructed Ancient recipe for a classic dessert of wild bilberries flavoured with bog myrtle.

Myrtle and Bilberry Pudding

Ingredients:
60g young hawthorn leaves
handful of gorse flowers (still available in the region in July)
small handful of heather flowers
large handful of bilberries (these are wild cousins of Blueberries [if using commercial blueberries quarter them and add a tablespoon of red wine vinegar to add tartness])
small sprig of myrtle leaves
240g fine oatmeal
½ tsp sea salt, or to taste

Method:
Place the flour and salt in a large bowl then add the finely-chopped herbs and mix together thoroughly with a fork. Next add the blueberries and mix in well. Add just enough water (for a different flavour you can also substitute beer) so that the mixture comes together as a stiff dough.

Tip the dough into the centre of a muslin cloth which then needs to be drawn-up tightly around the pudding before being securely tied-off at the top. Leave enough string free so that it's easy to pull the puding out of the pot in which it's cooked.

Stew the pudding with mutton or kid (it also works well with game birds such as partridge [the pudding also goes well with rabbit and pheasant but these are later introductions to Britain so would not be entirely authentic in an 'ancient' meal]). Ensure that you boil the pudding for at last two hours. Allow to cool slightly before cutting into thick sections. Serve with the meat as you would a chunk of bread.


This recipe is reproduced, with permission, from the Myrtle and Bilberry Pudding Recipe from the Celtnet Ancient Recipes Collection.

If you are interested in recipes for Bog Myrtle then you can find a range of Bog Myrtle recipes.

This guide is brought to you in conjunction with the Celtnet Wild Food Recipes collection.

You can find more wild foods beginning with the letter 'M' on the Wild Food Guide for the letter 'M', part of the Celtnet Wild Food Guide.