Tag Archives: food

Winter Salads

Learning how to prepare delicious meals with the vegetables that are in season is both challenging and rewarding. Challenging because our choice of repertoire is limited to what we can pick ourselves or purchase locally, but rewarding because it is amazing what lovely meals can be made with a bit of imagination. For those who grow their own vegetables, it is very satisfying to eat a meal using ingredients foraged from the garden.

We have reached a stage in the winter when I feel I have had enough heavy winter food and need an input of some more invigorating lighter food. This week we have made some big salads with farm produce and other locally sourced ingredients.

The chicory family: (clockwise from LHS) Treviso chicory, scarole, sugarloaf chicory, frisee.

Bitter Green salad with Pears and Walnuts

This salad is a perfect way to eat the chicory family greens – radicchio, frisee, scarole and sugarloaf endive. They are amazing performers in a winter garden and well worth growing. Any of these leaves and lettuce leaves are used as a bed, on which sliced slightly underripe pear, a small amount of thinly sliced red onion and walnuts are scattered. A vinaigrette of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper is drizzled over before serving.

Bitter Green salad with fennel and Oranges.

Fennel is another vegetable which thrives in the cool wet Albany winter. Navel oranges are also in season now. Fennel and orange salad is a favourite salad combination, to make a bigger salad make a bed of bitter green and lettuce leaves as above. Scatter over a thinly sliced bulb of fennel, orange slices, red onion slices and kalamata olives. Dress as above.

Coleslaw with oriental dressing.

We made this to serve as a side salad with the well known Vietnamese beef stew Bho kho.

Mix together finely shredded cabbage and other finely shredded vegetables such as carrot and beet leaves, coriander leaves and a shredded apple. Make a dressing from lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, rice wine vinegar, crushed garlic clove and some finely shredded chilli (if you like a bit of heat) and mix this through the shredded ingredients.

Jocelyn Bathgate

In season this week at Bathgate Farm – 3 August 2013

Our supply of vegetables is still small, so be early if you want to make sure you get a few of these goodies.

Potatoes:

Dutch Cream – sought after yellow -fleshed waxy potato, excellent for mashing, roasting, casseroles, salads, boiling;
Norland (red skinned, waxy potatoes for boiling and salads);
Kipfler.

Stems and roots:

new season carrots;
fennel;
leeks.

Greens:

Tuscan kale, collards and curly kale;
Violetta cauliflowers, Romanesco broccoli;
Sugar loaf cabbage;
Mixed beet and perpetual spinach bunches;
Violetta cauliflowers and Romanesco broccoli;
Radicchio.

Fruit:

Argentine pumpkins – on request only.

Preserves from the farm :

Coriander and Garlic Sauce (for marinades, basting, substitute for fresh coriander),
Vietnamese Curry Paste,
Harrief (hot Moroccan style chilli and roasted pepper sauce),
Thai style Chilli Jam,
Red Onion and Tomato Chutney,
Eggplant Kasaundi,
Tomato Kasaundi,
Spicy Tomato Sauce,
Quince Butter and
Quince Jelly – classic jelly and with quince pieces.

All available on Saturday from 8 am to 12 noon at Albany Farmers Market, Collie Street, Albany. Western Australia.

Humble Delaware Potatoes find their place in Gnocchi

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One of the questions we are often asked at the farmer’s market is what is the best potato for making gnocchi? My own reading on the subject had confirmed that a potato which isn’t too floury or too waxy is best, but the specific variety of potatoes to use is often not mentioned in recipes, or may not be available. We grow around 10 potato varieties on Bathgate Farm, these range from waxy varieties such as Norland, Dutch Cream and Nicola to intermediate varieties such as Delaware and Royal Blue and floury and very floury varieties such as King Edward and Ranger Russet. Our friend Owen Cowdell, Head Chef at the White Star Hotel, Albany, is passionate about potatoes, and uses a range of our potato varieties on the restaurant menu, including a popular dish of home-made gnocchi. So we consulted the expert! Owen was quick to answer the question – Delaware is their first choice for gnocchi. For a demonstration and taste test Owen invited us to the White Star to see the Sous Chef, Shaun Barton at work. Shaun has worked extensively in Italian restaurants and making gnocchi is second nature to him. Shaun emphasised that a critical part of making gnocchi is the selection of the potato variety. He uses Delaware potatoes because they produce a fairly dry mash, which is light and fluffy, and they have the superior flavour of a waxy potato. He prefers to dry bake potatoes in the oven as this produces a drier mash. They are then peeled while warm and pressed through a sieve. Minimal working of the potato at this stage is required. A sieve (eg chinois or coarse sieve) or potato ricer is preferable to a potato masher, to produce a light, fine, lump-free mash. Once the potato is mashed, it is mounded together on the bench, a depression is made for the egg yolk. Flour, salt and any other seasonings are added and the mixture is kneaded to incorporate everything and produce a soft dough. More flour is added if the mixture is too sticky, although the finished dough is quite soft. It is then rested. Shaun pointed out it is important not to over work the dough. The dough is then rolled into long sausages and cut into short lengths. The gnocchi are cooked in a pan of simmering water until they float off the bottom of the pan (less than a minute). The cooked gnocchi can be added to a sauce or simply tossed in browned butter.

Shaun’s Gnocchi recipe.

700g potatoes washed (not peeled)
80g flour (plus extra for rolling)
1 medium size egg
pinch of salt and pepper
Chopped herbs of choice eg: parsley
50g parmesan

Bake the potatoes in the oven until their flesh is soft. Peel off the skin with a knife while the potatoes are still hot. Mash or crush the flesh. Add the other ingredients and gently mix together while warm, being careful not to overwork it. The dough should not stick to your hands, add a bit more flour if the dough is sticky. Let the dough rest for 5-10 minutes. Flour a bench or chopping board, then in batches roll the mix into sausages about 1-1.5 cm thick. Cut these into 1.5 cm lengths with a knife. Separate and flour the gnocchi to stop them sticking. Carefully drop the gnocchi into a saucepan of lightly simmering water. The bubbles on the bottom of the pot will lift the gnocchi when they are cooked. If the pan is boiling too vigorously the gnocchi will disintegrate. The gnocchi will cook in less than a minute. They can be put straight into a sauce or simply pan fried in browned butter. Serve with a sprinkling of pecorino.