Season’s greetings my friends! I’m going to say right from the get-go that making these zucchini rolls is a fiddly business. However, they look so Christmassy with the green and the red that I couldn’t resist. They will be part of our appetiser plate for Christmas lunch. Luckily for me, we are a very small group this year so it is definitely worth the pfaffing about in order to serve these delicious little morsels!
Zucchini are also in season here at the moment so this is also a seasonal treat! If you can’t get fresh Zucchini I’m sure you could make these with those char-grilled zucchini strips you can buy at the deli!
So, let’s get started. First, finely slice (I used a mandoline) your zucchini. Sprinkle with olive oil and salt and pepper and place on the griddle pan. You want to cook your zucchini until the griddle marks show but it is still soft enough to roll.
While that is happening you can also blacken your chilli. I try to get them well and truly scorched all over. We are going to be removing the outer skin anyway. If you can’t tolerate the heat of chilli, get out of the kitchen…or use a red capsicum instead!
Then, add a dollop of goat’s cheese, a strip of chilli and half a mint leaf onto your grilled zucchini strip and roll it up. Tie it all up with a little chive. Note, tying the chives is really fiddly so feel free to chop them and sprinkle over the top if you can’t be bothered with the faffing about!
These are very nice to eat just as they are but I particularly like them on a cracker to add some crunch!
The recipe I use for these is based on this recipe from Serious Eats. I don’t use the arugula. Instead, I have my mint leaf sticking out the top to get some festive red and green.
Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!!
I hope you have a merry Christmas wherever and however you are celebrating. If you are in Corona lockdown, look on the brightside – there is more Christmas goodness for you. I’m not going to admit that I ate a whole plate of these by myself when I did a pre-Christmas trial run. But, if you were so inclined, a plate of these make a very good dinner with a couple of rolls leftover for breakfast.
All the best! I hope Santa brings you everything you want!
Hello crime readers and food lovers! The Murder of Roger Ackroydwhich is Christie number 6 has a special memory for me because this was one of the books we had oin the bookshelf when I was growing up. This was probably one of the first Christie books I ever read!. It was also the book that made Christie’s name as a writer for the innovative twist at the end. It has been recognised, many times, as one of the best and/or most influential crime novels ever written. Never mind the accolades though, it also, beautifully and comically features one of my own favourite foods – a Welsh Rarebit!
One of the few good things working from home for the last… Good Lord five months now…. is that I can whip up a Welsh rarebit for lunch whenever I choose. Turns out I choose to do so quite frequently! It’s tasty, filling, perfect with a bowl of soup, a salad, or just on its own! Of course, I ‘ am not alone in loving a bit o’ Welsh Rarebit!
The normally curmudgeonly Martin Lampen claims
Cheese on toast, its Welsh Rarebit to those in the know. It’s the perfect British rainy day lunchtime snack – quick, cheap, easy to prepare….it’s a national icon”
– The Knickerbocker Glory Years
Albert Jack, however, draws attention to the rather origin of its name by calling it
” the most insulting way to serve cheese on toast”
This is because the English thought it would be funny to mock the Welsh by insinuating that they were too poor to have proper meat and so had to have cheese instead!
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd- The Plot
James Sheppard is the local doctor in Kings Abbot. He lives with his sister Caroline who knows all the gossip and scandal in the town and who is currently interested in finding out all about the “foreign” gentleman who has moved in next door.
A wealthy widow in the town has committed suicide by drinking veronal. Her fiance, Roger Ackroyd, is in a state of agitation because the day before Mrs Ferrars (the widow) confessed to him that she murdered her first husband. She also told him that someone knew she had done it and was blackmailing her.
That night, Roger Ackroyd is stabbed to death in his study by persons unknown…
Turns out the foreign gentleman next door is no other than Hercule Poirot who has moved to Kings Abbot to grow marrows in his retirement. (BTW, Kings Abbott is a real place and it looks absolutely GORGEOUS!)
Anyhoo, no one is getting away with stabbing people to death in the neck on Poirot’s watch. What follows are:
Mysterious phonecalls
Strangers lurking in the bushes
Chairs suspiciously out of place
Stolen money
Secret Marriages
And of course, Poirot using his little grey cells to solve the crime and out the murderer!
There is also a bit of slapstick when Dr. Sheppard gets hit over the head with one of Poirot’s marrows. I mean it’s not as good as this classic from the Amazing Race. But in terms of people getting forcefully hit with produce, it’s up there! Also, who knew I was keeping that list?
The Covers
Only three covers this time – the one from my childhood, the one I read which was a graphic novel! And my favourite of them all – I mean is it just me or does Roger look hot in that third one?
The Recipe – Welsh Rarebit
I need to set the scene a bit on this one. Dr. Sheppard invites Poirot round for lunch. However, there were only two chops available for the lunch table. In order to save face, Caroline Sheppard pretends to be a vegetarian and lunches on a Welsh Rarebit.
‘With magnificent mendacity, [she] explained to Poirot that … she adhered strictly to a vegetarian diet. She descanted ecstatically on the delights of nut cutlets (which I am quite sure she has never tasted) and ate a Welsh rarebit with gusto and frequent cutting remarks as to the dangers of ‘flesh’ foods.’
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie
The Recipe for Welsh Rarebit I used comes from Cookery The Australian Way which was my high school home economics cookbook! As you can see from the state of the page, this has been used a LOT! I have tried other recipes for Welsh Rarebit but this is the one I have returned to time and time again for the last…hmmm…lets not count the years since I was in high school!
Other Food Mentioned in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
No, this is not one of Agatha Christie’s little known cases but true-life kitchen drama. Do you think there is such a thing as Covid brain? Because I feel I have become increasingly scatty over the last few…how long have we been in lockdown now? Oh, that’s right, it doesn’t matter how long because we have just gone back into it for another SIX weeks. 😕 For the love of God, people of Melbourne stay TF away from each other. Most of you aren’t even that attractive, why anyone in their right mind would want to get in your personal space is beyond me!
Ok. Rant over. Deep breaths and let’s talk about Vegetarian Scotch Eggs. And explosions.
Oh, these were so good!! The idea from them came from me making Diana Henry’s Baby Pumpkins with mixed mushrooms, leeks, grains. This was also totally delicious and I can heartily recommend making it!
But, after making this, I had a lot of the stuffing mix left. This is no disrespect to Diana. I’m sure had I wanted to stuff 8 eight baby pumpkins her quantities would have been just fine. I was cooking for one. There are usually only a certain amount of times you can divide a recipe before becoming nonsensical. You can generally halve quantities. Sometimes quarter them to no ill effect. Trying to cook to an eighth of a recipe makes no sense. So I guesstimated what I would need for one pumpkin which left me with a lot of leftover filling. The filling was delicious so there was no way I was going to waste it but what to do with it?
My first thought was arancini. But why stop at arancini when you can also put an egg in it? And thus the ideal of my vegetarian scotch egg was born. I popped an egg onto boil, intending to have the perfect four minute boiled egg in the centre of my scotchie. Then went back to work. So, about half an hour later I was drawn out of some intense concentration on a particularly fascinating spreadsheet by what sounded like a bomb going off in my kitchen. First, there was a massive bang, very closely followed by something hitting the window so hard I’m surprised the glass didn’t shatter. The water had dried out in the pan so much that the egg had actually exploded!!!! There was egg shrapnel all over my kitchen. It was like eggmageddon in there!
Like this but on the stove:
Vegetarian Scotch Eggs Take Two
You know how when people who can’t cook say I can’t even boil an egg? So, after the first egg EXPLODED, and I’d cleaned the kitchen and taken a few sedatives because the goddamn thing sounded like a bomb and my heart was pounding like a jackhammer it was time for egg number 2.
On the positive side…this one didn’t explode.
But I did kind of wander off mid-cook to take a call and lost track of egg time. I could tell while peeling it that it was hard-boiled and not the beautiful runny yolk I wanted. But I wrapped it in the mushroom, leek and barley filling regardless. This is the year of not wasting anything remember.
Sure we lost an egg in some explosive collateral damage but you know …I blame Covid for that. I have no rationale for that blame. It’s fucking everything else up so it can also take the blame for my exploding egg. And you know if I hadn’t been working from home and been distracted from cooking it by…errmmmm…work…
Let’s swiftly move away from that one.
Egg 2 turned out pretty delish even though hard-boiled.
Vegetarian Scotch Eggs Take Three
I had a little of the mushroom filling leftover after wapping egg 2. Third-time lucky right? Right! This time I did not take my eyes off that pan for the entire four minutes. I barely blinked. And voila the perfect 4-minute egg as per the pictures above and below
Because it was still so soft it was a little harder to wrap in the filling than the hard-boiled egg. I was terrified I would press too hard and cause the yolk to ooze out before I could get it crumbed and fried.
It’s a bit hard to give you a recipe for this because it was based on the leftovers from the Diana Henry recipe which is here:
You need to judge how many eggs your leftover filling wil cover. To crumb and cook the Scotch Eggs, see my recipe for Pakistani Scotch Eggs. To get your eggs the way you want them, see below:
In lieu of a proper recipe this week, here is a little list of what is currently floating my boat.
Watching
Crazy Delicious – an amazing cooking show on Netflix. Think Heston done by home cooks, a magical ingredient garden, a delightful host in Jayde Adams, oh and Heston is one of the judges!
Dead Pixels – another British show, this time a comedy about the lives of three people obsessed with a video game.
Searching For Sugarman – this was our most recent film club choice. It’s so touching and warm-hearted and as an added bonus, the sounds track is awesome! There has not been a DAY since I watched it when I have not listened to Rodriguez’s Cold Fact at least once!
Reading
I just finished reading “One of Us is Next” which is Karen McManus’ follow up to “One of Us is Lying”. I didn’t love it as much as the first book but it was still a good fun read.
Podding
My current fave is Season 4 of Slow Burn by Slate. I loved Season 1 & 2 of this which covered Watergate and The Clintons respectively. I have not listened to S3 which is about Biggie and Tupac yet but I am going to start it in the next few days. Season 4 is about David Duke who is a total dick a white supremacist politician from Louisiana, and formerly a grand wizard poobah double dragon something from the KuKluxKlan. AKA a total f**king dick..
Here’s Topher Grace brilliantly playing him in Black Klansman.
Please send me your recommendations for books, tv, pods, films, music something, anything to keep me entertained over the next few weeks!
Life Update
Just to make us all feel a little bit better about the state of the world, here is a picture of Holly being adorable. This little dog has absolutely captured our hearts in the last 6 months. She has gone from a timid little thing who was scared of everything to a cheeky little girl who is confident and happy in her life. Being able to give such a lovely girl, who has had such a terrible life, a loving home for the last chapters of her life is the best thing we have done for a long time!
If anyone is thinking about adopting an older dog or a dog rescued from medical research please reach out. I am happy to share our experiences.
Have a great week everyone! Have fun, stay safe, and please, send me your recommendations for books, films, podcasts, tv, etc!
These triple cheese and triple onion empanadas were inspired by two events. The first was my visit to Tasmania in January. There was a stall selling triple cheese and onion empanadas at the Salamanca Markets. I didn’t eat any because I was full of scallop pie but the memory stayed with me. The second inspiration was one of our Film Club pics. And the third, oh yeah, I forgot to mention at the start that there was a third.
It’s empanadas? Hell yeah!
The three kinds of cheese I used for the empanadas were feta, smoked cheddar and parmesan.
And the three onions were Spanish, Spring and leek.
This was the documentary choice in our first round (we are now about to start round 2) and it was a brilliant choice from one of my friends. I had never even heard of this film before this but I was so glad Film Club brought it to my attention.
The film begins with three young men, discovering that they were triplets who were separated at birth and adopted out to different families. Their reunion is the stuff of media wet dreams and the boys achieve a degree of fame with numerous froth pieces showing them dressing the same, talking the same, moving in unison, etc. And initially you think this is all the film is going to be about….how are they the same? How did their different upbringings make them different? What is nature, what is nurture?
Except it doesn’t quite turn out like that because the film then takes a dark turn. And just as you are recovering from that twist? It takes an even darker turn. I’m not going to spoil… but the end? OMG! I don’t think I have ever been that angry at the end of a film before. Talk about the heart of darkness.
I think this is a really clever piece of film making, the timing and pacing is perfect, the story being told is totally compelling. I can highly recommend this film. Except be prepared to be FURIOUS at the end.
If you are watching at home, my triple cheese and triple onion empanadas would make a great movie snack.
I can also heartily recommend the Aji Pique ( a Colombian hot sauce) I made to go with the empanadas. The recipe stated that in Colombia, they use this oosauce on everything fish, eggs, meat, chicken and I can totally see why!
For the empanadas it adds a sharp, spicy tang that complements the smoky cheesy filling and the crisp pastry.
Next weekend, why not bake up a batch of these empanadas and watch Three Identical Strangers?
Hello, and welcome to the fifth and final post of the Food that starts with Z mini-series…We’re heading to Switzerland for some Zurich Mushroom Tartlets. And I have a new book to cook from! Pack your passports friends, we are taking a trip around the world via Good Housekeeping’s World Cookeryfrom 1972.
The book promises
222 illustrations, 48 in full colour
672 pages
2316 recipes from all over the world
The World in 1972
So what was this world of 1972 that we are about to enter into? What was the zeitgeist that spawned this tome?
www.thepeoplehistory.com tells us that
1972 This year is marked as a black year in history due to the use of terrorism entering sport with the massacre of 11 Israel Athletes by Arab Gunman. Also this is the beginning of the biggest political scandal in modern times and the start of the Watergate Scandal. On the other side of the Atlantic a worsening of the problems between the IRA and the British government see wrongs from both sides and innocent lives are lost.
Hmm…cheerful.
But who knew years were colour-coded? Who has that job? And can I have it when you’re done?
On a happier note, in 1972 you could buy these awesome shoes for just $9.97.
And this wig was a bargain at $20. The resting bitch face is possibly a sign of the troubled times…
Or maybe she was just worried about getting her wig wet. Problem solved by this umbrella for a mere fiver. Look how much happier this woman is now she doesn’t have to worry about wet hair.
Switzerland 1972
So in the midst of all this trial and trib, what was going on in the notoriously neutral country of Switzerland? Well, hold onto your hats because while chaos and panic were overtaking the rest of the world? The Swiss were creating an International Convention on Safe Containers.
The Swiss are an orderly, well-mannered, and meticulous people. This is why you could probably take your safe container and join a group of Swiss people mushroom foraging around Zurich without fear of dying from some fungi-induced poisoning.
Which brings us back to do…oh…oh..oh (If ANY of you thought we were going to get through a post on Switzerland WITHOUT a Sound Of Music reference, then you don’t know me at all do you?).
ZURICH MUSHROOM TARTLETS
Let’s start with the recipe. It’s a very good place to start…(Refer paragraph above re The Sound of Music) And let’s hope that it isn’t an omen of things to come…
Hmmmm….make the pastry it says Without actually telling you how to do that. So, If they’re not going to tell you?
I will. Here’s what you do.
Put your flour back in the cupboard, your egg and butter back in the fridge and tip your salted water down the sink. Then you get in your car and drive to the nearest supermarket and by some ready-made pastry shells.
Because if they can’t be bothered, why should you?
I used a mix of mushrooms for my tartlets and added some herbs from the garden into the mix.
I pan-fried the small fancy mushrooms in so they could be artfully strewn over the top of the tarts whilst I cooked the regular ones as per the recipe.
IWhile the mushrooms were cooking, I warmed the shells in the oven, then tipped the filling into them.
A sprinkle of parsley and some smoked paprika and these were good to go!
And they were delicious! Creamy and earthy with a lovely crisp and light pastry.
Despite the initial setback with the pastry, the Zurich Mushroom Tartlets were a good start to this book. Easy to make, quick, and tasty! Best eaten in front of the telly watching The Sound of Music, Or wearing your best curtains. Or both.
