When Busy, Fritter Away Your Time!

Spring has arrived along with all the work, excitement, and joy that goes with it.  So what can a gardener working long hours throw together fast for a hot and tasty supper?  How about gathering whatever is lurking in the cupboard/fridge/garden such as canned tuna, broccoli, adding some flour, baking powder, and herbs/spices then binding the mixture with a beaten egg, forming it into patties and sauteing them until golden brown and happily dipping (finger food!) the warm, crunchy-but-moist delights in a cold sauce of yogurt, capers, and tomato paste?  I am speaking of course of the ever versatile fritter.

Or how I like to describe them:  a meal in a biscuit though these are more like pan-fried stuffing morphing into fish cakes.

Broccoli, garlic, and thyme came from our potager.

Spicy Roasted Broccoli & Tuna Fritters with Yogurt Dipping Sauce
(Makes sixteen 3-inch fritters)

• Flour, white, 155 grams/1 cup*
• Tuna, drained and mashed, individual serving can, 95 grams
• Salt, 1/2 tsp
• Baking powder, 1/2 tsp
• Egg, one large
• Broccoli, roasted, 50 grams/1/2 cup* (I used fresh, but frozen should work also though you may need less water or more flour to make the mixture)
• Red pepper flakes or ground cayenne pepper per preferred heat level (I used just a few flakes)
• Ginger, fresh or frozen, finely chopped, 1/2 tsp
• Thyme, fresh, finely chopped, 1/2 tsp or dried, 1/4 tsp
• Garlic, 1 or 2 cloves, crushed
• Oil, vegetable (I used a mix of olive and sunflower as olive oil by itself is not the best frying medium but I love its flavour!)
• Tomato paste, 1 T
• Capers, whole or finely chopped (for more flavour and ease of dipping), 1 T
• Yogurt, plain, 125 ml/4 oz
• Lemon, sliced thinly
• Thyme, fresh, several sprigs for garnishing

* American measure, that is, 8 oz

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/175 degrees C.  Gather your ingredients.

Ever since my G+ friend +Rajini Rao turned me on to roasting cauliflower and broccoli, I have put away my childish things, that is, boiled broccoli and became an adult, at least in how I handle members of the cruciferous family.  Coarsely chop and put the pieces on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Dribble one tablespoon of olive oil and mix until all the broccoli is well coated.  Roast about 10 minutes.  Then stir them and roast for another 10 minutes till browned on the edges and mostly tender.

Meanwhile mix the flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium-sized bowl.  Make a well in the centre and crack an egg into it.

Stir with a fork until lumpy and add the ginger, red pepper flakes, crushed garlic, minced thyme, and mashed tuna.

Add the finely minced, roasted broccoli (mince finely after the coarsely chopped broccoli is roasted). Dribble water tablespoon by tablespoon till mixture becomes a paste.

Pour an inch of oil into a skillet over high heat for a couple of minutes.  Meanwhile dip your fingers into cold water, make approximately 3-inch patties from about a slightly rounded tablespoon of mixture.

Test to see if the oil is hot enough by flinging a few drops of water; they should sizzle for a few seconds.  If the oil is sufficiently hot, you are actually steaming the fritters more than you are frying them as the oil will stay mostly on the outside and can be blotted off with paper towels--fried food is not demonic!  Lower the heat to medium-low and place the patties in the skillet, without any of them touching each other.  Brown about 3 minutes on each side.

While the fritters are frittering, mix yogurt, tomato paste, and capers together and reserve.  Thinly slice a lemon.

When nicely golden brown, remove the fritters and drain on paper towels.

Serve garnished with the lemon slices and fresh thyme along with the dipping sauce.

In the garden, pruning which has been going on for a couple of weeks will be finished soon.  I do all I can on my own, and then I make an appointment with The Calm One.  After a few cancellations and reschedulings, we come together, me armed with a pointer--not that one, this one and cut above the swollen bit, that is, the collar--and him with everything else: ladder, lopers, saws, ropes, and a very business-like attitude.

The Box Elder which enjoys a serious flirtation with various wires strung along the street--hovering just underneath them with its plentiful buds insinuating eventual luscious summer growth when a full-blown affair could happen--takes our animated discussion as to the fate of its limbs in stride as if it knows love will conquer all, and it will some day have a rendezvous with those tempting wires.

The Calm One rigged up a rope set-up with my pulling down at one end so when he completed the pruning cut the large limb did not crash into the wires or on the car parked below.  Success!  Perhaps now we will be left in peace during the summer when various work bombers descend on the quartier, 'suggesting' our tree's affection for the wires must be tamed with butchery pruning done in the wrong season.

The Box Elder was no exception to the abuse done to the trees during the ten years prior to our moving here.  The collar which contains wound-healing chemicals is still trying to knit over an inconsiderate pruning cut done years ago.

The Box Elder's main crotch is where Dayo likes to snooze.

Spring is also the time when promises made to crowded and ill-placed plants are kept.  I pledged the whole block bed to the rhubarb in a weak moment late last summer.  As the two plants looked up at me from their wedged-in corner of the bed I could see they had not forgotten my word.

I first carefully spaded around the rhubarb to determine the depth and width of the hole needed to be dug--the hole needs to be a few inches wider and deeper than the plant.  Soil was then filled into the space around the transplant and firmed.  Lastly, the rhubarb was watered thoroughly.

The compost in the red crate was put in the bottom of the hole and mixed into the soil.

And when I did the rounds, their long-lost sibling hurriedly planted in a not-so-sunny spot in the front garden made it known that it wants out of the darkness and into the light.  It arrived with the other two in a shipping box several years ago and pines for a family union.

Soon, little one, you will join the others!

If all this exuberant budding and birdsong were not enough clues that spring has sprung then Dayo pulling his first all-nighter of the season is indisputable proof that Spring is officially here.  Early the next morning The Calm One opened the sous sol and in dashed the Prodigal Cat.  So knackered he was, he slept most of the day.

Gallivanting all the night apparently is thirsty work.

ASHOO! (Yet another clue, oh, dastardly spring allergies!)  Ooops, I meant, à bientôt!

RELATED POSTS/LINKS

Pruning Guidelines 
Joe Pastry on frying is more like steaming
Roasted Broccoli Parmesan Bechamel Soup 
Composting

Late-Winter Doldrums? Think Green Herbs!

Late winter can be quite rude, dragging its feet, refusing to leave, and spluttering the same stale conversation over and over, fatiguing everyone. If you have overwintered some herbs in the garden under fleece/potted some to bring indoors/have a supermarket which stocks fresh herbs, one way to hasten the vivid green of early spring is adding chives, parsley, and dill along with a bracing dose of crushed garlic to spaetzle batter.  This cross between fresh pasta and dumpling is first boiled, then lightly sauteed in butter till their green-flecked, yellow squiggly shapes glisten with golden-brown edges, only needing to be topped with freshly grated Parmesan to make a lovely supper dish.

My recipe differs significantly from the one my mother made during my childhood.   Her version was traditional, that is, made with just flour and eggs, served boiled and laced with butter and salt that mostly appealed to our inner familial circle;  she used a teaspoon to shape them and when done, they were the size of small eggs, not particularly tender but substantial and tasty.  Enjoying those as much as I did, I wanted to spread spaetzle love to a wider audience.  After some research, I have come up with a succulent, visually attractive, and delicious dish!

Ingredients
(makes either two moderately sized servings or a really big and satisfying one for a main course OR four servings as a side dish)

• Flour, white, 1 cup*
• Eggs, large, 3
• Salt, a minimum of 1/4 tsp, to be included in the batter, more can be added into the batter if desired or just before serving--as spaetzle is rather bland.
• Dill, fresh, 1 tsp; dried 1/2 tsp
• Parsley, fresh, 1 tsp; dried 1/2 tsp
• Chives, fresh, 1 T; dried 1 tsp
• Garlic, 1 fat clove, pressed or minced finely
• Butter, sweet, 2 T
• Parmesan, freshly grated, about 1/4 cup*

* American measure, that is, 8 oz

Quantities can be proportionally increased if desired.  Dried herbs work well also, but try to include at least one fresh variety.  Though there are various presses for making neat, dainty spaetzle, pasta ribbons can be made easily by using a butter knife to scrape the batter into boiling water.  A plain knife is also way easier to clean than a press.  Additionally, I prefer the more free-form shapes that sometimes resemble jumbo shrimp!

Bring water to a brisk boil in a medium-sized pot.  Meanwhile prepare the batter.  Crack the eggs into a mixing bowl with curved sides, preferably a light-weight plastic one as it will serve as a 'board' for scraping batter into the boiling water--holding a heavy glass bowl over the pot can become taxing.  Whisk the eggs until well mixed.

Add the flour and at first gradually incorporate the flour until there are no dry bits.

Then beat vigorously with a fork until batter is stretchy and sticky.  This batter will fight back so don't be timid, wield that fork!  As your flour's ability for absorbing water (based on its age) may vary from mine, you may need more or less than the recommended amount.  Keep in mind the consistency you are looking for is a very thick batter and that it will become more fluid when spread with a warm knife.  If the batter is too thick, the pasta will be heavy in texture, if too thin, it will fall apart in the boiling water. 

When learning how to make this dish, I erred on the side of having a too thick batter, because at least, the finished spaetzle would be edible.  I would recommend your testing this dish out first for yourself before serving it to others.  But, please have fun with it!

Add the herbs, garlic, and salt and beat until well mixed.

Taking a butter knife, dip it in the boiling water, and spread some batter along the area just under the rim of the bowl, scraping off strips of batter into the boiling water while tilting the bowl.  An alternate, but somewhat messy way, is to transfer the batter onto a flat plate or wooden board and then scrape strips into the pot.

Remove the spaetzle when they rise to the surface and have been in the boiling water for a total of about 2 minutes.  Since this kind of egg-rich pasta can become rubbery if cooked too long and it will be pan-fried also, be careful not to over do it at this stage.  It took two batches for me to scrap batter fast enough so there was time to fish them out.  If necessary, work with smaller batches.  With practice, you will get quicker--my grandmother's speed for spaetzle making was legendary!  Drain them well.

Melt the butter in a skillet and toss in the spaetzle.  Over moderately high heat, saute not more than five minutes.  Be sure to scrape any browned bits stuck to the pan.

Salt to taste and serve with Parmesan, either already grated in a small serving bowl or presented whole accompanied by a grater, which is the Italian familial way.

When I hear the cold wind whistling past the kitchen window or if I feel a bit unsettled or if I just, oh, I don't need any reason to make this cheerful, comforting, and yummy dish!

In the garden, I see signs of spring--daffodils and sweet violets--that coincides with what Edith Holden saw in Edwardian England during March in 1906.  Her quote from Shakespeare is sublime:

Daffodils, that come before
the swallow dares,
And take the winds of March
with beauty.

Once my nursery order arrives, I will be sowing all those beds!

Her March 20 entry: 

Went to Daffodil field again;  The buds are just breaking into yellow.  Found two Thrush nests, both in holly bushes; one nest was empty, the bird was sitting on the other.  She looked at me with such brave, bright eyes, I could not disturb her, much as I would have liked a peep at her speckled blue eggs.
 

Sweet violets being gathered for making candied violets.

Holden's watercolour of sweet violets is one of the best illustrations in her diary.  She caught sweet violets' demeanour, charm, and communal identity in sure but graceful strokes.

Holden's Shelley quote captures my present experience well:

And the Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
The snowdrop and then the violet,
Arose from the ground with warm rain wet;
And their breath was mixed with sweet odour sent
From the turf like the voice and the instrument.

Influenced by the rainy, windy late winter, Dayo has developed a ritual. When the banging of the shutters and flapping of the more flimsy parts of the pergola gets to him, he whooshes into the sous sol, bounds up the inside stairs straight to the bedroom, settling down a bit on the bed.  The bedroom shutters then bang against the outside wall, and Dayo sharply turns his head to make sure the wind has not followed him.

He relaxes again a bit and realises, oops, I have not yet clean my muddy paws and gets right down to that pressing task, a chore I wish he tended to before he jumped on the bed!

Soon after he notices a general wash is in order.

Suddenly he feels a nap coming on and soon all is peaceful on the furry front--for the time being, that is.

À la prochaine!

RELATED POSTS

Excerpts from Holden's Dairy for November, January, February.

Tarted-Up: A Leek/Apple/Thyme Appetiser!

The French are very fond of regaling their guests with a pre-dinner apéritif which consists of a beverage, usually alcoholic like kir or/and some savoury tidbits, either hot like gougeres or cold like a selection of nuts/crackers. Since the French like to spend time in the kitchen doing it right, the guests need to be able to stave off their hunger without spoiling their appetite so when the cook finally makes an appearance, somewhat stressed, though attractively so, with some flour on their person here and there and a few strands of hair out of place, they will not regard him as the main dish!  Just as importantly, pre-dinner drinks and snacks serve as a means to encourage conviviality.

Meanwhile the potager is brimming over with plump leeks and tons of thyme.

So as not to succumb--not yet anyway--to the lure of a cheesy leek and bacon quiche, I have decided to go the appetiser route and instead wrangle up a rustic leek tart.

Ingredients

• Onions, sliced thinly, 1 cup*
• Leeks, just the white & yellow parts, sliced thinly, 1 cup*
• crème fraîche, approximately 1 heaping T
• Butter, 1 T
• Olive oil, 1 T 
• Sugar, 1/4 tsp
• Apple, Granny Smith, peeled, diced, 1/8 cup*
• Lovage, diced, a few sprigs, or celery, diced 1/8 cup*
• Thyme, fresh, minced, 1/2 tsp and sprigs for garnishing--it's worth the bother of getting fresh, any extra can be dried or frozen for future use.
• Egg yolk, one mixed with a tsp of cold water for glaze
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Mustard, Dijon, approximately 1.5 teaspoons
• Short pastry, if buying, get the best you can, enough for a 9 inch round

*cup is 8 oz, that is, American measure.

Complete instructions on how to clean leeks thoroughly can be found in this past post.  Gather the ingredients and preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Put the butter and olive oil in a skillet over high heat until foaming--the olive oil will raise the burning point a bit, but still be careful not to burn the fat.   Toss in the sliced leeks and onions, finely chopped apple, and the sugar.  Stir over moderately high heat for a few minutes or until some edges of the onions and leeks are browned.

Then lower the heat as much as is possible, add the lovage/celery and let carmelize for about 15-20 minutes, stirring from time to time.  The onions and leeks need not be fully carmelized as they are for French Onion Soup as they will spend some time in the oven also.

Put them in a mixing bowl.  Add the thyme and the crème fraîche bit by bit as the mixture needs to be moist without being soupy--more or less than the suggested amount can be added to get the right consistency.  Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Let cool.

Roll out the pastry on parchment paper to 1/8 thick and using a 9 inch pie plate as a template, cut around the edge of the plate with a knife.  Beat the mustard with a fork--to get it more fluid--and coat thinly the round with it, leaving an one-inch-wide brim around the perimeter.  Gather the scraps together into a small ball and put in the fridge.

Spread the filling as evenly as possible.

Fold the edge over, pleating it as necessary.  Apply the egg wash either with a pastry brush or with your fingers or with a piece of paper towel on the folded-over edges.  Using the edges of the parchment paper to carry it, put the tart on a shallow baking pan and place on the middle rack in the oven.

Take out the small ball of dough gathered from the scraps.  Roll out and cut out small rounds to make biscuits which can be dusted with powdered sugar after baking.  Another approach is to pair two rounds on top of each other, with some raspberry jam spread between them.  Cut off a small round opening on the top, letting the jewelled colour of the jam show--a rough-and-ready version of a Linzer cookie.  Put them in the oven.

Bake the tart for about 25 minutes until golden brown, rotating it if necessary halfway through the baking time to ensure even browning.  The small rounds should take less time, around 15 minutes.

I really liked how these turned out--fairly easy to slide off the serving plate onto individual napkins and truly tasty, a bit of tang, a bit of sweetness with a bright note of herb, luscious without being overwhelming.  They were best served warm or tepid, as when they become cold, their zesty appeal is somewhat subdued.  Any extra can be frozen, thawed, and re-heated gently, though the crust seems to get crumbly.

I dusted the biscuits well with confectioner's sugar; they reminded me of a baked version of Crusciki, a deep-fried Slavic pastry.

Damp and soggy conditions continue in the potager. My shipment from the plant nursery has been delayed by inclement weather. I am patiently trying to prune and prepare beds for planting between bouts of rain.  The daffodils are in full bloom though.

The buds on some bearded Irises are colouring.  There are already lots of sweet violets with their lush evergreen foliage in that part of the garden, and soon there will be bluebells and lilacs--blue on blue on blue on blue.  It's my favourite colour so I am not complaining!

Dayo is happy with how good this warm, wet winter has been for the grass.  Yum!

He also was very pleased with an art postcard sent from Tokyo by our favourite conceptual archivist, +Arthur Huang.  Apparently Dayo would have some competition from other felines as Tokyo has a huge cat population.  Arthur enjoys looking for such postcards among other things at craft markets, and one of his favourites is this one, which takes place monthly on the grounds of a shrine.

Conceptual Archivist?  You must mean Conceptual Artist, no?  He is a Conceptual Archivist because he has coupled his conceptual art with his love of collecting personal artefacts.   Among other projects, you can keep up-to-date with his work-in-progress, Houses for Light at his website.

Using several varieties of Japanese mushrooms, Arthur has adapted my recipe for mushroom soup à la forestière.  He is planning to make my minestrone soup soon.  If he can't get white beans or chick peas, he will substitute soy, fresh or dried.  In any case, I am sure it will be delicious!

À la prochaine!

RELATED POSTS

Leek and Potato Soup
Twice-baked Potatoes With Leek Stuffing