Wild Garlic, Quinoa, and Cauliflower Cakes

This recipe makes a really nice light dinner, and is particularly good on those long spring days as we move into summer. These cakes are a really nice combination of lots of ingredients which make them really delicious and everyone coming back for more. This is my take on these cakes inspired by The Green Kitchen.

Wild Garlic, Quinoa and Cauliflower Cakes (v)(gf)
Makes 6 cakes

You will need:
100g/½ cup of quinoa
100g/1 cup of cauliflower florets blitzed in a magimix until you have a rice like texture.
Large handful of wild garlic, washed, dried and coarsely chopped.
2 eggs
100g/¾ cup of feta cheese, crumbled
50g/½ cup of rolled oats (use gluten free to make sure the recipe is gluten free if you desire)
grated rind and juice of 1 lemon
small handful of chopped flat leaf parsley
sea salt and cracked black pepper
1 tbsp ghee, coconut oil or olive oil for frying

Cook the quinoa--place the quinoa in a pan and cover with about double the amount of water and add a bit of salt. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until the quinoa is tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 15 minutes. Drain any excess liquid, and set the quinoa aside to cool.

Tip all your remaining ingredients into a large bowl, and add the quinoa once cooled. Stir well and place in the fridge to firm up a bit. If you find the mix too wet to shape into patties, add a few more oats.

Form into 6 patties with your hands, or use a mousse ring. I found it easier to use this as a sort of mould as the mixture can be a little bit wet. Heat the ghee or oil in a frying pan on a medium-high heat and fry the patties gently for about 3-4 minutes on each side. You want a nice golden brown on each side.
















Serve warm or cold, with a fresh salad. I served mine with a fresh basil, roasted tomato and fresh tomato salad, it was delicious.

Aubergine-wrapped Ricotta Gnocchi

I made this the other night for dinner and it was really tasty. It's quite straight forward to make, you just need to leave some time to let the ricotta mixture chill before you make the gnocchi. I took inspiration from an Ottolenghi recipe, he really uses some lovely flavours, so I adapted this slightly to what I thought would taste nice. It's quite a light supper, but it's very filling! If you like large portions I would maybe do 1.5 times the recipe, but I found it was enough.

This recipe serves 2 as a main course, or 4 as a starter. 
You will need:
1 small to medium aubergine
2-4 tbsp olive oil

30g/¼ cup pine nuts
250g/1 cup ricotta cheese
2 egg yolks
35g/¼ cup plain flour
40g/ ½ cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated, plus a little extra to sprinkle 
1 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 tbsp chopped mint
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
black pepper
finely grated zest of 1 lemon

For the sage butter:
90g/6 tbsp unsalted butter
20 sage leaves
salt
squeeze of 1/2 a lemon

Dry roast the pine nuts in a frying pan to colour evenly. Transfer to a bowl and add the ricotta, egg yolks, flour, Parmesan cheese, herbs, nutmeg, lemon zest and salt and pepper. Stir well then cover and leave in the fridge for at least 4 hours to allow it to firm up. 

Later heat the oven to 180C/350F. Trim the bottom and top off the aubergine and cut it lengthways into 5mm slices (quite thin slices as you need about 8-12 slices from an aubergine). Lay it on a baking tray and brush with a little olive oil and roast for 10-12 minutes until tender and golden. 
Once the gnocchi has chilled for awhile, wet hands and scoop out portions (about 2 tbsp) and shape into barrel shapes. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil. Once boiling add the gnocchi in batches to the saucepan and boil for about 2 minutes whereby they will start to float. With a slotted spoon, transfer to kitchen paper to drain. Pat dry and brush with a little melted butter. Repeat until all the gnocchi are cooked. 

Once cooled, take a strip of aubergine and wrap it around the gnocchi like a belt and place in a greased ovenproof dish seam side down. Here you can cover and leave in the fridge until you want to finish cooking it. When you are ready, sprinkle with some Parmesan and bake in the oven (180C) for about 10 minutes to warm through. 

Meanwhile make the sage butter sauce. In a small saucepan over a moderate heat, add the butter and simmer a few minutes until golden brown and nutty. Remove from the heat and add the sage leaves, lemon juice and salt. Return to the heat for a few seconds to cook the sage lightly. 
Divide the gnocchi between plates, pour the hot butter on top with a few sage leaves and serve immediately!

*I found the sage butter to be very basic, so I squeezed more lemon onto my final dish which was really tasty. I would feel free to experiment with other sauces as I think a tomato based one would go quite well also and I will be trying it with that next time.*

Pearl Barley Risotto

So this recipe is one I made whilst working for Jill at Pinkerton's. I remember making it as there was no one else there that day and I was left to my own devices to attempt this recipe how I wanted.
I have tweaked it and changed it to my liking, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

This recipe serves 2 people as a main course, 4 as a starter.
You will need:
50ml olive oil
180g/just under 1 cup of pearl barley 
1 onion finely chopped
1 small clove garlic, crushed
450ml good quality chicken stock (or vegetable if you are cooking for vegetarians)
170ml red wine
2.5 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp chopped chives, or chopped parsley
optional: sautéed mushrooms

The first thing I do is to heat the oil in a heavy based pan while I weigh out the pearl barley. When the oil is good and hot, add the pearl barley to the pan and stir to coat in the oil. Keep it on a medium-low heat. This part takes up to five minutes, as you want to get the pearl barley really good and toasted. When it starts to smell like you are cooking popcorn, you are nearly there!

Once the barley is toasted, I add my finely chopped onion and my clove of garlic and stir it around. I cook the onion and garlic with the barley for about 10 minutes on a low heat to soften the onion. (*You can stop here after softening the onion, and leave it like this to finish with later if you like).

Once your onion is slightly soft (about 10 minutes), add your stock, red wine and soy sauce to the pan. (If you are coming back to this, heat up your onion mixture until hot, then add stock, red wine etc.) Bring it up to the boil and then turn the heat down low and simmer for about 30 minutes. At this point it will look like there is so much liquid, but believe me when I say it will all get absorbed!

Once your pearl barley has absorbed most of the liquid, taste it and add more liquid if it needs slightly longer cooking. It should still have a bit of a bite to it.  You want there to still be a little liquid, more like a sauce to coat the pearl barley.

Top with some chopped chives (or parsley, or whatever is to hand) to add some colour to the dish. Last time I made this dish I was serving it to friends and I had some amazing porcini mushrooms. I simply sautéed them in a little butter and oil, and topped the risotto with the mushrooms. If you don't have mushrooms, this dish is perfect on its own, or with some crusty bread!