Courgette Fritters

Well, it certainly has been a long time. Life got a little bit mental for a while, but I am now back in the North (good, as I was getting sick of Southern folk asking me to say "You know nothing, Jon Snow" in my accent) and getting back into the kitchen.
My feller's mum gifted us with some courgettes from the garden over the weekend so I've put them to us in these fritters, served with a load of veg. They make a nice, speedy mid-week tea, and you can easily adjust the recipe to what you like - try feta instead of cheddar, or different herbs.

Serves 2
What you need

2 small courgettes - about 250g
25g plain flour
1 egg
1 tsp fresh dill (or fresh herb of your choice!)
50g cheddar cheese
3 spring onions
a pinch of chilli flakes
1 clove garlic
salt
black pepper
something to fry in - I used 10g butter

What to do

First, coarsely grate your courgettes. This isn't as tedious as it sounds, as they grate surprisingly quickly. Spread them out on a clean tea towel, and sprinkle them with a decent pinch of salt. Leave them to it while you do the rest. They need to sit about 10 minutes so you might as well...

Chop your spring onions, the dill, and crush your garlic.

Put the flour, egg, spring onion, herbs, cheese, chilli flakes, garlic and black pepper in a mixing bowl.

Gather up the courgette in the tea towel, take it to the sink and squeeeeeeze for all it's worth, until you've got as much water out of it as you can. Whatever you do, don't skip this step as you won't have fritters, you'll have mush.

Mix it all to combine, until it's all come together. Start heating a large, non-stick frying pan on a medium-high heat, and add your oil/butter/whatever.

Add 4 dollops into the pan, and leave them for about 5 minutes per side. Scoop out and serve with a decent salad or a pile o veg - I've gone for carrots, peas, asparagus, mange tout and new potatoes (the entire contents of my veg tray basically).

A Two-course Vegan, Asian-Inspired Feast

Asparagus Tempura

then

Miso Tofu with Asian Salad

Asparagus Tempura

Miso Tofu

I tend to not use tofu very often, as it has eggy/wibbly tendencies which I'm not too sure about, but this version being roasted in the oven after being simmered in a marinade firms it up no end. The recipe was originally from Good Food magazine (read it here), but was a non-vegan version containing egg.  I used more tofu to compensate for the egg which, handily enough, also corresponded with the pack size of the most readily-available brand of tofu (Cauldron).

I felt very virtuous while doing the supermarket shop for this one, as many of the ingredients are available in seasonal British versions right now - radishes, asparagus, even yellow/orange and green peppers.

These two courses are both completely vegan and are intended to be relatively quick and easy to whip up. For that reason I've suggested using a ready-made sweet chilli sauce rather than making your own dipping sauce, but feel free to make your own if you're not in a rush. This recipe, for example, sounds dead nice.

You may notice in the picture of the tofu that only one piece of it appears to have any miso glaze on it. This is because I ignored the pan while watching telly, and let it reduce too much into a thick, burnt-ish jam - so don't do that.

Serves 2

For the tempura

What you need

50g plain flour
Half a tbsp cornflour
75ml lager or fizzy water
1 bunches of asparagus
any flavourless oil for deep-frying e.g. sunflower oil
sweet chilli sauce for dipping (or a dip of your choosing!)

What to do

Snap the woody ends off the asparagus, and get a pan of water onto a rolling boil. Drop the asparagus in and let it cook for 2 minutes, then drain. Blast with cold tap water to stop the cooking process, or better yet drop it into a bowl of iced water. Leave to one side.

Add enough depth of oil to deep fry into a wok or deep frying pan - you need less than you think, a couple of inches should do it - and put it onto a medium heat while you make up your batter.

Sift the flour and cornflour into a mixing bowl. Grab a balloon whisk and gradually pour in the beer or fizzy water, whisking all the while with the other hand. Get a friend to do the pouring if you're not terribly ambidextrous.

Check whether your oil is up to temperature - they say until a cube of bread browns in 30 seconds. I didn't have any bread, so a beansprout had to do, but the effect was much the same. When you're happy that the oil is hot enough, get a plate ready with a layer of kitchen roll on and grab a slotted spoon. Coat each piece of asparagus with the batter one at a time before dropping it in.

I would suggest doing the tempura in small batches - each should only take around 3 minutes to start browning. Fish them out as they're done with the slotted spoon, before transferring to the kitchen roll plate to soak up any excess oil.

Serve with your dipping sauce.

For the tofu

What you need

400g firm tofu (I used a 396g block of Cauldron tofu, close enough)

1 tbsp miso paste

150ml mirin

75ml soy sauce, plus 1 tbsp for the dressing

150g beansprouts
6 radishes, thinly sliced

half an orange or yellow pepper, deseeded and sliced

1 spring onion, finely sliced

handful of pea shoots

handful of plain roasted peanuts

1.5 tbsp rice vinegar

half a tbsp caster sugar

a nubbin of grated ginger - about half a cm

1.5 tbsp sunflower or rapeseed oil
1 crushed garlic clove

What to do

First of all, press the tofu to squish some of the liquid out of it - take it out of the packaging, wrap it in some layers of kitchen roll and put it under a biggish book or two. Leave it to press while you prepare the salad, as you do want it quite firm for this recipe.

Next, prepare the salad. Blanch the beansprouts in boiling water for two minutes, then drain and flush with cold water to stop them cooking. Transfer to a large bowl with the sliced spring onions, radishes and peppers.

For the dressing, whisk together the rice vinegar, 1 tbsp soy sauce, the ginger, garlic and sugar until the sugar has dissolved. Then pour in the oil in a steady stream, whisking all the while so it combines properly without separating (emulsifies, if you want to get technical). Stir the dressing into the veg and pop it in the fridge until you're ready to serve.

Unwrap the tofu from its kitchen roll, and cut into 8 triangles - cut once width-ways down the whole block so you have two thinner halves, then cut each half into 4 triangles.

Now you can start preparing the glaze for your tofu. Put the tbsp of miso paste in a mug and add 2 tbsp of boiling water, then stir with a fork until smooth. 

Get a large, deep-ish frying pan and pour the miso 'stock' in. Stir in the mirin and soy sauce, then bring it to the boil. Once boiling, add the tofu in a single layer. Let it cook for 15 minutes, turning the tofu over halfway through.

Turn the oven on at 200 degrees and line a baking tray with parchment. Fish the tofu out of the cooking liquid with a slotted spoon - but don't turn off the heat - and transfer to the baking tray. Pop in the oven for 15 minutes. While it's cooking, keep the heat on under the miso until it reduces and becomes syrupy - this will be your glaze! Keep an eye on it as it easily reduces down too much - which is exactly what happened to me! Just take it off the heat when it looks like the consistency you want.

When the tofu is done cooking, allow it to cool slightly and spoon the glaze onto each triangle, spreading it with the back of the spoon.

Pile the beansprout salad onto each plate, with the tofu slices arranged on top. Scatter over the peanuts and pea shoots.

Serve and enjoy!

Griddled Polenta with Roasted Tomatoes

If you have never tried polenta before, please allow me to inform you that it is THE BOMB. Compared to other carb-type stuff, it's pretty low calorie, it's as cheap as 'owt, it's a complex carbohydrate which is apparently a good thing (something something glycaemic index??) and it's gluten free.
It also needs very little adornment other than stock and garlic or herbs to flavour it. Intrigued? Good.

You can buy polenta from major supermarkets (definitely Sainsburys) and health food shops, either in its ground form or even as a ready-made block. Italfresco sell a ready-made version in Sainsburys which is all ready to be sliced and griddled, and costs 75p. Ground polenta is occasionally called fine cornmeal, but it amounts to the same thing. The main thing to check is the cooking time - some grades of polenta/cornmeal apparently take up to 45 minutes of stirring - no thanks. For this recipe, I used Suma's polenta (health food shop) which only needs stirring for one minute.

I've added cheese to the polenta here but it's dead easy to veganise - just omit the cheese and make sure your stock is vegan (for example, Marigold vegan bouillon).

This recipe only really has 2 main ingredients so, apart from beans on toast, it's one of the cheapest and easiest meals for two I can think of.

If after this you're in my club of Polenta Enthusiasts, try some different stuff - add different things to the polenta as it's cooking, eat it in its gloopy porridge-y form, use it as a hotpot topping, as a pizza base...

Anyway. I shall stop enthusing about cornmeal products because it's getting a bit sad. Have fun!

Serves 2

What you need

100g quick-cook polenta
500ml water
2 cloves of garlic,crushed
a good vegetable stock
250g cherry tomatoes - a mix of colours is nice if you can get them
olive oil
50g grated cheddar cheese (optional)
fresh basil
salt and pepper

What to do

Boil the kettle. Add a tiny drizzle of oil to a deep saucepan and add the crushed garlic - just heat it through to take the raw edge off, no need to brown it.

Add 500ml of the boiled water into the pan with the garlic and turn the heat up high to bring it back to the boil. Crumble in a vegetable stock cube, or if you've got 500ml of home-made vegetable stock hanging around then use that instead (if you're fancy like that).

When the pan has reached boiling point, pour in the polenta slowly in a thin stream, stirring all the while. It's easier if you pour the polenta from a jug.

Keep stirring for 1 minute (or however long the packet advises) - watch out because it will bubble like a crazy volcano, but that's normal. When the polenta has thickened, season it generously with salt, pepper and anything else you like (e.g. fresh or dried herbs if you have any knocking around) and add the cheese if using. Stir to combine, then pour into something with a wide, flat base like a roasting tin.

Leave it to cool a bit, then refrigerate it for about half an hour - it will solidify and you'll be able to slice it.

While the polenta is cooling, slice your cherry tomatoes in half and transfer to a roasting tin with a slug of olive oil. About 15 minutes in to the polenta-cooling time, put the tomatoes in the oven at 160 degrees. They need to be in for half an hour, so when the polenta comes out of the fridge you'll have another 15 minutes to slice and griddle it - tweak the timings as you like.

Bring the polenta out of the fridge when it's had its half an hour, and slice it into wedges. Brush a heavy griddle pan with a little bit of olive oil - if it's non-stick, this isn't always necessary - and put it over a high heat until it's outrageously hot.

Add the polenta slices and griddle for a few minutes on each side until they have nice char marks.

Serve the polenta slices with the roasted tomatoes, then scatter with a torn-up handful of fresh basil.