cakes.
Fresh as daisies, these guys are succulent, filling and generally fabamundo.
TOMORROW’S TAMALES
FOR THE POUGH:
200g polenta
300g Joubere (or 300ml homemade) chicken stock
A big knob of butter
1½ teaspoons baking powder
Heat all the dough ingredients in a pan over a medium heat. Using an open whisk, beat the mixture well as it cooks. This action will keep the dough light and fluffy. When cooked through, take the dough off the heat and leave it to cool.
FOR THE FILLING:
You can fill tamales with just about anything, even sweet fillings. Try soaking dried mushrooms or tomatoes, then chopping them to make a stuffing. Saute some fresh spinach by steaming it in its own water. Simply wash the spinach, then put the wet leaves into a frying pan over a medium heat and it will steam within a few minutes. Use some fried shrimps or flaky fish like cod or lemon sole, or fry up some shredded chicken or pork. You could also use up some of last night’s dinner leftovers, or try some of the ready-made meze ingredients available in store, such as:
Roasted artichoke hearts
Roasted onions
Grilled aubergines
Pomorella – sun-dried tomato paste
Asparagus cream
Roasted red peppers
FOR THE WRAPPING:
Some outer leaves from fresh sweetcorn ears, or baking paper
If you’re using fresh sweetcorn leaves, they’ll be pliable enough to use as a wrapping. I’ve got into the habit of keeping all my sweetcorn leaves, so that when corn is not in season, I can still make tomorrow’s tamales. If you’re using dried leaves, soak them in warm water overnight, so they become fully flexible again. If you want, use baking paper instead, as it’s just as good in terms of keeping the tamales at the right moisture level. However, leaf-wrapped tamales look nice and appetizing, and this is how they’re always served in South and Central American countries.
Once you’ve chosen your flavouring du jour, take two-thirds of the dough out of the pan, divide it into six equal bits and shape these into 7–8cm X 2–3cm rectangles. Make a little channel along each one and fill it with the filling of your choice. Divide the remaining dough into six, shape into lids and use to cover the filled rectangles. Make sure the filling is totally hidden and that the lids are squashed together with the bottoms so that they’re watertight.
If you’re using corn ear leaves, take one and wrap it lengthwise around the tamale. Tie some string around each of the ends, so it looks like a strange green Christmas cracker. If there are gaps in the middle, take another leaf and wrap it around the middle, then tie that one with another piece of string. If you’re using baking paper, wrap them in that. Either way, make sure that the wrapping overlaps with itself to keep all the dough covered. Follow the same procedure with the remaining tamales.
Put the tamales into a steamer or colander over a saucepan of boiling water and steam them, over a medium heat, for about 20 minutes. Try serving these tamales with peperoncino on the side, a lovely Sicilian chilli pepper tapenade sold in Fresh & Wild’s condiments section.
Lawrence, one of my two lovely nephews, has a very kooky sense of taste. Contrary to popular belief, lots of very young children like Lawrence love strong, fresh flavours. It’s only when they get to the school playground that they start conforming more and saying things like ‘I don’t like it’. Give little ones olives and strawberries if you want to see them smile and just check out that dimple-factor when they’re munching garlic, onions and leeks.
I developed this cake to celebrate Lawrence’s love of all things allium. It’s surprisingly sweet if the leeks are caramelized well, but is definitely a savoury lunch dish and not a dessert. The sun-dried tomatoes make it a pretty salty cake, with the poppy seeds matching the earthy oniony taste, and the herbs and spices supporting the central allium zing.
To grow garlic chives, simply make some clove-sized dents in a pot of soil, sprinkle a little sand inside the holes, then put a clove of garlic into each, root-end down, and cover with soil. Crop the shoots when they’re about 10–15cm high. More shoots will keep coming, so you can make more cakes or add the snipped shoots to salads or hot dishes to give them a lovely ‘chivesy’ flavour.
Kuzu root is a natural thickener that has been used in Japanese and Chinese cooking for the last 2000 years. It looks a bit like chalk. The gravel-sized lumps can be dissolved directly in water or ground in a suribachi before use. A suribachi is a rough stoneware bowl in which you grind foods with a surikogi. It’s basically a pestle and mortar, but better, as the bowl is rough inside so you can get a more effective grinding action.
A suribachi and surikogi set is great if you plan to grind kuzu, as this chalklike root will ruin your coffee grinder. They’ve got them at Fresh & Wild, imported from Japan by Clearspring, the same company that supply the jars of kuzu. Alternatively, just mash the kuzu in a bowl with the back of a metal spoon, and use your suribachi to grind fresh ginger and garlic.
Kuzu root does pretty much the same job as cornflour and costs a lot more for pretty much the same thickening power. However, whilst cornflour is low on nutritional value and healing properties, dried kuzu root is really good for you. In the Far East, people use kuzu in the same way that echinacea is used in the West. As well as helping prevent colds, it’s also good for your tummy, eases back and shoulder cramps, and is even good for hangovers. Not bad for a humble cake ingredient.
Rapadura is simply sugar cane juice that’s been evaporated to leave unrefined sugar. The difference is that rapadura is a kind of sugar that’s still rich in micro-nutrients, with a pleasantly toffee-ish flavour and less sickly sticky sweetness.
The beetroot and carrots in this recipe add a bit of sweetness, a bit of texture and a lot of colour. Wear washing-up gloves when you grate the beetroot, or wash your hands in cold water straight afterwards. Serve with Root Salad (see page 216) or a really herby tabbouleh salad.
LAWRENCE CAKE
75g sun-dried tomatoes (the dry ones, not in oil)
175ml goat’s milk
2 medium leeks
150ml olive oil
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic chives
1 tablespoon blue poppy seeds
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 tablespoon rapadura
300g spelt flour