What To Do With Parsley

I don't have much of a green thumb. The sum total of my gardening exploits are getting the lawn mowed, keeping weeds out of stone edges and watering the myriad of pot plants we have grouped together to form some sort of a green oasis around our house. I have tried growing veges on occasion but they have all succumbed to the wind so I don't bother anymore - apart from growing rosemary and parsley.

parsley

I love the smell of fresh herbs - rosemary, basil, mint, coriander, sage, thyme. The only green herb that has had any success with me is parsley - oodles of it! Both frilly and flat-leafed varieties. So this post will be my homage to all the delectableness that parsley has given us.

WALNUT and PARSLEY PESTO

You'll need:  1 cup of walnuts (obviously shelled)
                     2 cups chopped parsley
                     half a cup of grated Parmesan cheese
                     3 cloves of garlic - chopped
                     half a teaspoon of salt
                     half a cup of extra virgin olive oil

Put all ingredients - except the olive oil into a food processor and blitz a few times to combine.
Run the machine at half speed and drizzle the olive oil into the mixture for no more than 30 seconds
Use straight away or cover and keep in the fridge - but use within 5 days

parsley and walnut pesto

How to use it?
Spread on crackers, toast or similar
It's great mixed into pasta
Dollop it over new seasons potatoes
Great with fish too

There ya go - enjoy


What To Do With Parsley

Lychee, Lime and White Chocolate Mousse

I woke up the other morning with the heady smell of freshly peeled tropical lychee still lingering from my dream. As kids we used to eat them fresh from the tree, cracking open the brittle skin, biting the flesh off the big seed inside, then spitting the seed out and finish chewing the sweet juicy fruit before enjoying more.
I no longer live close enough to the tropical temperate zone where a lychee tree in the garden is an option, but have found that these lovely fruits do come canned these days.

lychee fruit

This is what you need:
1 can (565g) lychees
2 teaspoons gelatin
2 tablespoons water
150g white chocolate
1 cup cream
1 lime - finely grated zest and juice


Drain lychees and blitz the fruit few times in a food processor
Push this mix through a sieve to make a smooth purée

Lychee purée

Sprinkle gelatin over the water in a small bowl and let it swell (about 5 minutes)
Break the white chocolate into pieces and add ½ cup cream. You can melt this in a microwave dish on medium power or by using a double boiler - stirring till smooth
Add gelatin - stirring until dissolved
Stir in the lychee purée
Stir in the lime juice and zest
Chill this in the fridge for around 10 minutes
Whip the remaining ½ cup cream just until soft peaks form - not too runny, not too thick
Fold this into the chocolate mixture
Then spoon into small serving glasses (we used Martini glasses)
Back into the fridge for at least half an hour before serving

Sadly, I didn't get to photograph the mousse chilling in the fridge, but here it is half eaten...

Lychee Lime and White Choc mousse

Not a disappointing dish at all...



Lychee, Lime and White Chocolate Mousse

Turkish Delight as Irish Moss - recipe

Did I already tell you I like sweet things? Yeah?
And on those rare occasions when I'm allowed to have free reign in the kitchen - I make sweet treats - and according to the top chef of the kitchen - a mighty BIG mess too. But we get there...

Since my attempt at making pink Turkish Delight was successful, I decided to try mixing things up a bit and make Irish Moss. Well, it's what we call it in this corner of the world - not a piece of seaweed was used...

home made Irish Moss - liquorice jube

This is what you need:
* 400g sugar - 2 cups
* 35g (75ml) cornflour - 2 Tbl spoons/¼ cup
* 1ml (a pinch) of citric acid
* 200ml water

* 125g licorice - chopped
* 1 or 2 tots black Sambuca (optional)

* 6 teaspons powdered gelatine sprinkled onto 50mls water (or if you have leaf gelatine, use 12 sheets soaked in 400mls of water for 5 minutes before squeezing out the water)
black food colouring
50g cornflour (105mls)
50g icing sugar (95mls)


This is how you do it:
Rub/spray some rice bran oil (or canola/sunflower oil - you want an oil with very little flavour/taste) around a 12x12cm pan/dish/tin. Make sure your dish is at least 5cm deep...

Mix 400g sugar, 35g cornflour, pinch of citric acid and the chopped up licorice in 200mls of water and stir over a LOW heat until the sugar has dissolved. Sadly, you will never get the licorice to completely melt
Then cook this for 7 minutes (no need to use a temperature gauge - nice!)

boil for 7 minutes

Add the Sambuca (if you've chosen this. The alcohol content will boil away and leave you with just the essence,) and prepared gelatin
Mix this in and stir until the gelatine has melted
Then add some black food colouring until you have the desired shade of night (I've tried it with and without food coloring... and in this case, my preference is eating with my eyes first... it HAS to be black)
Simply pour this mix into your oil smeared pan and let it set/ cool down for a bit
(BUT - if you prefer a perfectly smooth jube without little bits of licorice, then push this mixture through a sieve first. And remember, this stuff is like molten lava at this stage, so be careful)

molten licorice jelly 

Slam it in the fridge for 4 hours at least (on a breadboard worked well for us - to absorb any residual heat and also keep the mix level)
prepare the 50g cornflour and 50g icing sugar by sifting it into a flat bottomed bowl (or into a plastic bag)
Sprinkle some over your breadboard
When you're ready to serve/package: dunk the underside of your pan in hot water for literally a few seconds so that it comes loose easily and goes straight onto your dusted breadboard - ready to be sliced into small blocks or cut into whatever shapes you desire
Roll these blocks of sweet goodness into your cornflour/icing sugar mix
Then enjoy


Turkish Delight as Irish Moss

Turkish Delight - easy recipe

I LOVE a sweet treat on a regular basis. Turkish delight is one of those indulgences that just appeals to me, though not everyone in this household would agree - their loss. No more store bought delight for me...
Finally!! another recipe here that let's us make use of that bottle of rosewater just sitting in the pantry.

This is what you need:
400g sugar (500mls)
35g cornflour (75mls)
1ml (a pinch) of citric acid
200mls water
2 teaspoons rosewater (any more than that and you'll land up with something that tastes like bubblebath - so easy on the rosewater)
6 teaspons powdered gelatine mixed with 50mls water (or if you have leaf gelatine, use 12 sheets soaked in 400mls of water for 5 minutes before squeezing out the water)
pink food colouring
50g cornflour (105mls)
50g icing sugar (95mls)

This is how you do it:
Rub/spray some rice bran oil (or canola/sunflower oil - you want an oil with very little flavour/taste) around a 12x12cm pan/dish/tin. Make sure your dish is at least 5cm deep...
Mix 400g sugar, 35g cornflour, pinch of citric acid in 200mls of water
Heat over a LOW heat until the sugar has dissolved
Then cook this for 7 minutes (no need to use a temperature gauge - nice!)
Add the rosewater and prepared gelatine
Mix this in by stirring until the gelatine has melted
Then add some food colouring until you have the desired shade of pink
Simply pour this mix into your oil smeared pan and let it set/ cool down for a bit
Slam it in the fridge for 4 hours at least (on a breadboard worked well for us - to absorb any residual heat and also keep the mix level)
prepare the 50g cornflour and 50g icing sugar by sifting it into a flat bottomed bowl (or into a plastic bag)
Sprinkle some over your breadboard
When you're ready to serve/package: dunk the underside of your pan in hot water for literally a few seconds so that it comes loose easily and goes straight onto your dusted breadboard - ready to be sliced into small blocks or cut into whatever shapes you desire
Roll these blocks of sweet goodness into your cornflour/icing sugar mix
Then enjoy

If you want to jazz things up a bit, use orange-blossom water instead of rosewater and yellow/orange food colouring instead of the pink. Add some pistachio bits when you put the mix into the oiled pan

And if that ain't enough, look out for our Irish Moss recipe coming up soon - using this recipe but with liqourice and black Sambuka



Turkish Delight - easy recipe

Rhubarb Rose Cake with a swish of ginger syrup

So you've bought yourself a 250ml bottle of Rose Water for a recipe you liked - but it only required 1 or 2 teaspoons. Now you have 240mls left over - just sitting in the pantry cupboard. What to do? Well, try this...

This is what you need:
2½ cups diced rhubarb
1-2 teaspoons rosewater
1 teaspoon cornflour
¼ cup caster sugar
150g butter - softened
¾ cup sugar
3 eggs
1¼ cups self-raising flour
½ cup ground almonds
¼ cup milk

This is how you do it:
Slap your oven onto 175 Celcius - fan bake
Line a 22cm square cake tin with greaseproof paper
Combine diced rhubarb, rosewater, cornflour and caster sugar. Mix it up real good
Spread this mix evenly over the base of your cake tin
Haul out your electric beater from that drawer that has everything in it (I always seem to find one beater attachment quite easily but spend a good deal of time rifling through all the other bits and pieces of utensils before finding the other one) then cream the butter and sugar together for a good 3-4 minutes on medium speed
Add eggs (at room temperature) one at a time, beating well
Into this mixture, fold the sifted flour, almonds and milk until you have a smooth batter. No need to overdo it...
Spoon this batter over the top of the rhubarb - making sure it has a smooth even top
Then bake it for 45 minutes or so - or until your cake is golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean
Leave the cake in the tin and let it cool on your bench for around 20 minutes - while you make the ginger syrup.
Put a serving tray over the top of the tin and invert/flip it. Now remove the baking paper
And - you're ready to serve as is, or cooled down a bit more. The good news about this cake is that it keeps well in the fridge for 2-3 days and is quite ok when heated up in the microwave.

For the Ginger syrup:
1 cup water
¼ cup honey
6 pieces crystallised ginger - sliced

Combine water, honey and ginger in a medium saucepan and simmer for 5-10 minutes. You want it slightly reduced but definitely syrupy. Best way to serve is warm (or at room temperature) spooned over the cake.
No need to say that the cake and syrup deserves to be accompanied with whipped cream or a good vanilla ice cream.
There you go... Enjoy

Special thanks to Jo Wilcox and NZ House and Garden magazine for the recipe


Rhubarb Rose Cake