Carrot Pickle

Our local supermarket sold some Carrot Pickle, and it was really nice. Very spicy. Needless to say, when I went back to get some more, they had cased stocking it, and as it was their own brand there was no chance of getting some from anywhere else. Fortunately, I still had the jar with its list of ingredients. I looked up how to make some other pickles and chutneys that were similar and came up with this recipe, which I made this weekend:

1 kg carrots, chopped into short sticks
4 tbspns ground nut oil
3 tsbns black mustard seeds
1 star anise
2 tspns fenugreek seeds
6 allspice berries
2 tspns turmeric
250 g tamarind
5 green chillies, de-seeded and chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
4 tbspns tomato purée
750 ml malt vinegar
500 g muscavado sugar
250 g sultanas
1 tspn sea salt

Method
Grind the fenugreek, star anise and allspice. Heat the oil until almost smoking hot, then add mustard seeds. Cook until they have all popped, then turn off heat. After it has cooled a little, add the chillies, garlic and turmeric, and cook for a couple of minutes. Add tomato purée and tamarind, and stir it in. Stir in the carrots, then add the vinegar, sugar, sultanas and salt. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cook for an hour or so until it is ready. Transfer to warmed jars and seal while hot. Makes six jars. Store it for two months before using it.

So, it is in the cupboard now, for the regulation two months, then we can try it. I hope it is at least as good as the Waitrose one.

Pickled eggs

Sitting in the pub the other evening with a small group, the only snacks available were salt and vinegar or plain crisps, or some strange nuts with honey and chilli. Behind the bar was the ubiquitous jar of pickled eggs. I have been aware of pickled eggs for decades, as they are behind the bar of every traditional English pub. I thought it was time I tried one. My 50p egg was handed to me in a small shallow dish, with no condiments of any kind. Just a plain looking hard boiled egg. Surprisingly, it was fine. Nice and creamy, tasting very fresh, and more than a hint of vinegar flavour, but not too much. I decided I liked it. I am a convert, and now thinking about making some of my own at home. A quick search on the internet reveals that there are many different ways of going about pickling eggs. Could it be a new hobby?

Goulash

I found a recipe on the back of a packet of organic Paprika. It was for Goulash, and involved piles of steak, which was not of much interest to us vegetarians. However, I realized that it would be pretty tasty with vegetarian sausages and some vegetables, so I adapted the ingredients a bit. But then, while I was cooking it, as well the ingredients, I changed the sequence and nature of the cooking and ended up with something almost completely unrelated to the initial recipe. So I'll claim this one as an original:

2 tbs oil, 2 chopped onions, 400g grilled vegetarian Lincolnshire sausages, 2 tbs wholemeal flour, 2 tbs paprika, 1 crushed clove garlic, 2 tbs tomato purée, 150ml beer, 400g tinned chopped tomatoes, 2 sliced cooked carrots, salt and pepper, 2 roasted red peppers, skinned and sliced (buy them in a jar if you don't know how to do this), 150ml natural yoghurt.

Heat the oil, cook onions until soft. Add paprika and cook for 5 minutes, then add the flour. Add the garlic, tomato purée, beer, tomatoes, salt and pepper, bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the red peppers, carrots and yoghurt and heat for a further 5 minutes. Serve with white rice.

Try it. Let me know how it went...

No ordinary beans

Chatting to Milan Radosavljevic in the coffee bar, I learned that his daughter has developed a liking for tinned baked beans. I shared with Milan what I did with baked beans when wanted to make them special: soften a finely chopped onion with crushed garlic and finely chopped ginger for five minutes, then add some sliced celery and chopped green peppers. After five more minutes, add a handful of curry powder, or ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, cardamom, cloves, chilli, arrowroot and so on in whatever proportions you prefer. Cook the spices for a couple of minutes, then add a couple of tablespoons of tomato puree and a small glass of apple juice. Chop a dessert apple and add this with the tin of baked beans. This can be served on toast with a fried egg on top. If you want to make the egg special, sprinkle paprika on top of it while it is frying. We thought you'd like this suggestion, so go on, give it a try!