Showing posts with label sides. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sides. Show all posts
Ahh Spring. I love this time of year when everything it sprouting in the gardens and we begin to enjoy asparagus, early strawberries and new potatoes.
Back home there is a dish that takes full advantage of all of the early new vegetables called Hodge Podge.
It is a wonderful melange of fresh vegetables . . . peas, carrots, beans, potatoes, etc. briefly cooked and then tossed together in a mix of cream and salt pork.
Oh, it is so good. Its a bit early for that yet . . .
But not too early to be enjoying new potatoes and fresh asparagus.
The fresh asparagus season is very brief, so I try to enjoy it as much as I can this time of year when it is at its very best!
This is a very simple recipe composed of quartered new potatoes and fresh asparagus cut into 2 inch lengths . . .
Tossed together and roasted in the oven with some good olive oil and Balsamic vinegar. Don't use cheap Balsamic . . . you won't get the same delicious flavour. Trust me on this.
You don't want to use the very best quality either as it is so expensive, but you do want to use something somewhere in the middle between the two.
A really fine, pure Balsamic vinegar has a beautiful viscosity and is glossy and dark brown in colour, with a wonderful flavour and velvety texture.
It should have a mellow tartness and not be overly acidic to the taste.
I would not hesitate to eat a good Balsamic alone by the spoonful.
A good Balsamic in the mouth gives you hints of cherry, chocolate, fig, molasses and prune . . . and does not jar the tastebuds at all.
A cheap Balsamic is none of those things. You usually pay a lot more for it than a regular vinegar and in all truth you are wasting your money on something which just isn't worth it.
It IS worth it however to pay a bit more and get something much closer to the real deal.
You can get some very delicious moderately priced Balsamics now that won't cost you the bank and that are perfectly suited to cooking with.
I would never cook with a pure Balsamic, that would be a waste of a vinegar that is better suited to drizzling on berries . . .
Having said all that, you really need to try this recipe now, while the new potatoes and asparagus are at their very best.
This is a simple dish, with anything but simple flavours.
Golden edged potatoes and crispy tender asparagus cuts . . . flavoured with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and bit of garlic . . . and some salt and pepper of course.
I can't think of anything these wouldn't go with!
Balsamic Roasted New Potatoes & Asparagus
Yield: 2
Quick, easy and very delicious. A beautiful sidedish highlighting some of the best flavours of Spring!
Ingredients:
- 1/2 KG of new potatoes (1.1 pounds)
- 250g fresh asparagus (1/2 pound)
- 1 TBS olive oil
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 2 TBS good quality Balsamic vinegar
- salt and black pepper to taste
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Line a baking tray with sides with some aluminium foil.
- Wash and trim the asparagus. Cut into 1 inch lengths. Set aside.
- Wash your potatoes and cut them into quarters. Dry. Put them into a bowl, together with the olive oil, garlic powder, Balsamic vinegar and some salt and pepper. Toss to coat them well. Pour out onto the baking tray.
- Roast in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and add the aspargus. Add a bit more oil if necessary, give everthing a good stir together and return the baking tray to the oven.
- Roast for a further 20 minutes.
- Serve hot with an extra drizzle of Balsamic vinegar if desired.
I drizzled mine with a little bit more balsamic on the plate. Oh boy but these are some good. If you really want something special, you could try a sprinkle of good Parmesan cheese. Wowza wowza!
My mother always hated parsnips. She used to tell a story about how, when she was a small child and during a family meal, she had refused to eat or touch the parsnips on her plate. She simply did not like them. Her grandfather tried to tempt her by putting a nickle on the table and telling her that she could have it if she would only eat one piece of parsnip.
As you can imagine, during the Great Depression (in the early 1930's) five cents, or a nickle would have been quite a sum of money. You probably could have purchased a cup of coffee for five cents or two newspapers and a penny stamp. Eight cents would buy you a pound of beef, so five cents was quite a bit for a little girl to have.
End result, she hated parsnips so much that you could not even tempt her with five cents to eat even a tiny bite of them.
They were not something that we ever had to eat. I can remember once when I was a teenager mom buying some and frying them (as her mother had cooked them) so as to see if her tastes had changed in the intervening years. They had not. She still hated them, but I took one taste of them and fell in love with them and have been eating them ever since.
Parsnips are a root vegetable which somewhat resemble very pale carrots. They are commonly grown in cold climate regions, as they need a longer growing period to develop their sweet flavour and in fact I have been told that they are at their best after the first frost. Interesting to note that at one time this rather anoemic looking vegetable was more popular in Europe than either carrots or potatoes, and considered to be a good meat subsitute during Lent!
They are a good source of folate, potassium and vitamin C. They also contain fiber, which is beneficial for digestion.
Putting that all aside, they are a vegetable I love and one which I use frequently in soups and stews, and of course roasted along side roast dinners. A MUST for our holiday meals!
I had not tasted butter fried parsnips since my teen years however, and that one time my mother had made them. Yesterday I was longing for them.
I couldn't remember exactly how my mother had cooked them . . . if she had parboiled them first or what . . . so I decided to wing it.
Pan frying them in butter was how my great grandmother and grandmother had cooked them, and I like to think that all three of them . . . my mother, nan and great nan were standing next to me while I was cooking these yesterday.
I did nothing special to them . . . I simply peeled them and cut the larger ones into half moons and the smaller ones into rounds. I then sliced them about 1/4 inch thick.
They can act a bit like a sponge, absorbing any liquid or fat around them. So make sure your butter is foaming before you add them to the skillet, and also leave some butter to stir into them at the end.
These were seasoned simply with some fine sea salt and black pepper . . .
Try not to rush them. Cook them slowly in the hot butter, and at a low temperature so that the butter doesn't burn . . .
Flip them over when they are golden on the underside and lightly season them again . . . . continue to cook them slowly until they are soft, and lightly caramelised . . . and that is when you add a final taste touch to them . . .
One final knob of butter and a soupçon of mild flavoured honey. Perfection . . .
Butter Fried Parsnips
Yield: 4
Pan fried in butter, lightly caramelised and sweeted with just a touch of honey. Something so simple and yet so very delicious.
Ingredients:
- 2 large or 4 small to medium sized parsnips
- fine sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper to taste
- 3 TBS butter, divided
- 1 TBS of honey
Instructions:
- Peel your parsnips and then slice into rounds. If they are very large, take the largest part and cut in half down the centre and then into half moons. (About 1/4 inch thickness.) Cut the smaller parts simply into rounds.
- Melt 2 TBS of the butter in a heavy bottomed skillet over medium low heat. Once it begins to foam add the parsnip slices in a single layer. (You may need to add them in batches, moving cooked ones to the side as you go.)
- Season lightly all over to taste with salt and pepper. Cook until beginning to turn golden brown on the underside and then flip them over, seasoning the other side lightly. Cook until fork tender and golden brown.
- Add the remaining TBS of butter and the honey, stirring to coat them all.
- Remove from the heat and serve immediately. Delicious!
I really love recipes where I can feel the tug of my ancestors leading me on, inspiring me to cook well and to feed my family as they had always done, don't you? We are the sum of our roots and those who came before us. Family is everything. Its a pity not everyone "gets" that. For me, it is enough that "I" do.
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