Tag: Lemon Pesto

A lovely bunch of….

~ Fiona ~ 13 Comments

….parsley!

I love parsley. I’m not happy until my garden grows herbs, especially parsley. And the challenge of parsley is that it’s a slow grower and it can be temperamental. My mum also always had parsley in her garden – some of my earliest culinary memories are of being sent to pick parsley – usually just as she was about to serve dinner. She, however, only grew the curly parsley and used it mostly as a garnish and for parsley sauce. I, on the other hand, prefer to grow the flat leaf, Italian parsley – it has a stronger flavour. Parsley is also a fabulous flavour enhancer, so if you are short of a particular herb, add parsley!

The Prima Donna

100_3129Given parsley’s prima donna status (in my experience, anyway), when it just grows, one just let’s it grow as it’s likely to thrive while one’s seedlings, carefully nurtured, and planted in the optimum position just do ok. So, we have self-sewn parsley all over the garden and when our red onion seedlings needed to be planted out, The Husband had to negotiate a parsley plant – in more ways than one!

Pesto al limone e prezzemolo 

It seemed such a waste to hoick out such a beautiful plant and not do anything with it (…the Scottish blood and all that jazz…), so I decided to make Pesto al limone e prezzemolo (aka parsley and lemon pesto). This is a divine, fresh and versatile pesto, and which has just deepened my love affair with parsley. I now try to have a permanent stock of this in the fridge. We use it as the foundation for basting sauces for fish (we braai* fish regularly);  when we roast a chicken (on the Weber, of course), I usually make a stuffing to go under the skin of the breast, and Pesto al limone e prezzemolo is now the base on which I build this stuffing. It’s also divine on warm bread…..

The recipe comes from Katie Caldesi’s The Italian Cookery Course which was a gift for my 50th birthday from good friend and graphic designer, Jaynie Lea.  This is also the book from which I have learned important tips that have improved my home-made pasta and inspired me to start making pizza dough and bread. But more of those, anon….476223_10151622920147848_328187723_o

To make this pesto, you need equal quantities of dry bread crumbs (stale ciabatta is best) and parsley, zest and juice of a lemon, a clove of garlic as well as olive oil. Whizz all of this together until you have a paste and then either use immediately or store. The olive oil and the vitamin C content of both the parsley and the lemon add to the shelf life, so this keeps well.

100_3130Tips:

  • If you are short of parsley leaves, do use the stalks (the whole parsley plant is parsley-flavoured), but before adding them to your food processor, chop them a bit otherwise you’ll be left with pesto with parsley stalks!
  • To make breadcrumbs, put slices of bread into a cool oven (about 40°C) for an hour or so, or until it’s dry, and then whizz in a food processor. If the crumbs are still “damp” put them on a baking tray and back into the oven for a little longer.
  • And pesto is a great way to use up herbs towards the end of summer to use through the winter – if you make sure that peso is always “sealed” with a good layer of olive oil, they keep much longer than one expects – just another Katie Caldesi tip!

And Jayne, thank you for the gift that keeps on giving – I still get a thrill when my produce looks like the picture in the book – and the passata, below, was my first attempt – last year!

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…and you see that “Fiona’s Favourites” was already “branding” my produce…

* this is the Afrikaans and South African word for “barbecue”

Beetroot: it’s beautiful – and delicious

~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

We have a bumper beetroot crop at the moment and although it’s easy to bottle, it’s also100_2859 great doing new things with it.  Freshly pulled, beetroot cooks more quickly than when shop bought, and is beautifully tender and sweet – another reason not to just pickle it.  Besides being delicious roasted or simply added to a leafy green salad, here are two salads that have become firm favourites with us.

This first one is often requested by our friends, so I suppose it has become one of my “signature” dishes.  The other is a new addition to the repertoire.  More of that in a mo….

Beetroot and plum salad

The original recipe for this salad comes from Fruit & Veg City’s range of recipe books which I have adapted (Not that there’s an outlet anywhere near McGregor…).  I’ve served it on a large platter for a buffet meal, and this Christmas, served it plated, as a starter – either way, the presentation is the same, just the scale varies – and it’s very attractive.2013-12-25 18.55.52

In terms of quantity, I usually work on one beetroot (cooked and sliced) and plum per person and then work the leaves and other bits accordingly. Make sure that you select beetroot of similar sizes so that when you assemble your plate or platter, you don’t get all balled up because things don’t look right.

The salad consists of fresh plums, pitted and quartered, red onions, thinly sliced (or chopped spring onion leaves), all marinated, in a lemony vinaigrette for about an hour.

To assemble:  if you’re using a platter, place a circle of overlapping slices of beetroot around the edge and then pile salad leaves in the centre (the original recipe says baby spinach), top with the plums, reserving some of the marinade, and sprinkle crumbled feta over these and then drizzle some of the remaining marinade over the plate.

Rocket, beetroot and goat’s cheese salad

We recently went to see the magnificent gardens at Babylonstoren.  There is al100_2759so a restaurant, Babel.  The menu is based on seasonal fare with much of the produce from the garden and surrounding area.  Although we didn’t eat there, we did get the book about the garden and its produce, and also some of the recipes they use. The approach is interesting, in that it talks about a particular vegetable, and what other ingredients compliment it.  On the way home from our visit, we also passed Fairview and had bought some of their fabulous goat’s cheese.

100_2864So given both the glut of beetroot and my reluctance to use rocket (which, I think can be overpowering), I gave one of the combinations suggested a bash – beetroot, rocket and goat’s cheese.  This is what I came up with:  Beetroot on a bed of rocket, with slices of black pepper chevin, drizzled with lemon and parsley pesto.

It was delicious – the sweet beetroot is a fantastic counter to the peppery harshness of the rocket and the textures work beautifully.

And then, there’s more…

Remember that if you’re growing your own beetroot, the leaves are a wonderful addition to salads and stir fries.  The flavour is rather earthy, like spinach, and young leaves add lovely colour variations.