Food & Drink
You only need a roasting tin for the recipes in the latest book by author Rukmini Iyer, who drew inspiration for the dishes from around the world
One pot dishes from Rukmini Iyer, plus Rose Murray Brown on viognier
Iwas the kind of 15-year-old who took a few bites of a new dish on holiday and experienced the sort of heady rush that I’d later recognise in Remy from Ratatouille. Hollandaise sauce with salmon and asparagus in Mauritius – magical. A paella, cooked on an open flame at the table next to us in Granada, downing tiny cups of hot soup or interesting pastry confections pre-starter in Seville, taking pizza by the slice from an open window in Florence that was unlike any pizza I’d had before and realising in those moments that eating food abroad was the best thing. The only dish I remember returning was squid ink pasta in Rome – jet-black, complete with tentacles – ordered on the basis that sepia pasta, of which I’d never heard, sounded like a painting; what arrived didn’t look like one.
Visiting family in California, I could (and did) wander round supermarkets in a sort of ecstatic daze, admiring the perfect fresh produce just as much as the aisles of bright, unfamiliarly packaged biscuits, cereal and cake mix. Trips to India included my insistence on a return visit to a less than salubrious hotel in the South, on the basis that they had served the best doughnuts (cardamom scented; perfect) on a visit many years earlier. We arrived to find that they were no longer on the menu and this was met with howls. I was 23-years old. But I still think about those doughnuts.
Luckily for this book, my most dedicated attempts to Marie Kondo the house haven’t shifted the drawerful of collected roundthe-world recipes – some kitchensmudged and handed over by harried but kind chefs, some beautifully typed up and presented in envelopes from hotels, and more recently scrawled down in my travel notebooks, as restaurants seem surprisingly unwilling to give out recipes to young women with an intent cheffy glint in their eye. ■
Chermoula roasted tuna, peppers, chickpeas and raisins
Chermoula is a North African spice paste, the perfect marinade for fish and vegetables, and, it’s easy to make. Traditionally you’d use coriander, but I love using fresh mint. I’d happily eat this at a restaurant: a wonderful combination of flavours and textures.
Serves four
45g fresh mint, leaves only
1½ tsp ground cumin
1½ tsp ground paprika
4 cloves of garlic, peeled
3 tbsp olive oil a pinch of sea salt
1 preserved lemon or ½ lemon, zest only
1 tsp white vinegar
3 colourful pointy peppers, halved 1 medium aubergine, cut into eighths
1 red onion, cut into 1cm slices 300g cherry tomatoes, with their vines
1 x 400g tin of chickpeas, drained 4 nice thick tuna steaks
100g raisins
100ml warm water a handful of flaked almonds a handful of fresh mint
1 Preheat the oven to 180C fan/gas Mark 4.
2 Tip the first eight ingredients into a blender and blitz until combined. Taste and add a little more salt as needed.
3 Tip the peppers, aubergine, onion, cherry tomatoes with their vines and the chickpeas into a roasting tin large enough to more or less hold the vegetables in one layer. Mix through three-quarters of the chermoula, making sure to coat the vegetables evenly, then transfer to the oven and roast for 40 minutes.
4 Meanwhile, spread the remaining chermoula all over the tuna steaks, then return them to the fridge to marinate. Don’t wash the blender – tip in the raisins and water, stir and set aside.
5 Once the vegetables have had 40 minutes, tip in the raisins and liquid. Remove the tomato vines, squash down the tomatoes, then lay the tuna over the vegetables. Scatter over the almonds, then return to the oven for 10-12 minutes, until the tuna is just cooked and the almonds are crisp.
6 Scatter the mint over the top and serve.
Korean-style aubergines with spring onions and sesame rice
In the traditional Korean dish, aubergines are steamed for just 7 minutes before you gently stir in the red pepper and sesame dressing. In this version, I let the oven steam the aubergines, while fresh basmati rice and cabbage cook underneath for a simple and filling all-in-one dish. Gochugaru, or Korean red pepper flakes, are easily available online, at specialist shops, and even miraculously on Amazon – they really make the dish, and once you have a jar, you’ll find yourself scattering the flakes on everything (scrambled eggs are my favourite).
Serves four 200g basmati rice, rinsed
2 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
2 leeks, or 1 small Chinese cabbage, thinly sliced
400ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp sesame oil (and a further 30ml for the dressing)
2 aubergines, cut into 1½ cm slices 1 tsp sea salt flakes
3 fat spring onions, very thinly sliced 1 tbsp sesame seeds
15g Korean red pepper flakes (gochugaru)
30ml rice vinegar
30ml soy sauce
5cm ginger, grated
1 clove of garlic, finely grated
1 Preheat the oven to 230C/gas Mark 8.
2 Tip the rice and garlic into a wide lidded casserole dish or a medium roasting tin, then evenly cover with the sliced leeks or Chinese cabbage. Pour over the vegetable stock and sesame oil, then lay the aubergines over the top in one layer. Scatter over the sea salt, cover with the lid or very tightly with foil (this is important or the rice won’t cook properly), then transfer to the oven and bake for 30 minutes.
3 Meanwhile, mix the 30ml of sesame oil, red pepper flakes, rice vinegar, soy sauce, ginger and garlic together. As soon as you take the tin out of the oven, remove the lid or foil and dress the aubergines with the red pepper dressing.
4 Scatter the spring onions and sesame seeds over the top and serve hot.
S’mores rocky road with peanuts, marshmallows and chocolate
This is possibly my proudest creation: chocolate refrigerator cake, or tiffin, crossed with rocky road, crossed with s’mores – the American campfire classic of Graham crackers and marshmallows sandwiched with a piece of chocolate, and toasted over a fire. In this version, the marshmallows just start to catch and caramelise under a hot oven. Perfect to take over to friends’ houses, as it is rich and generously proportioned.
Serves: many, many people Prep: 10 minutes Cook: 10 minutes, plus 1 hour chilling
200g unsalted butter
300g dark chocolate (minimum 70 per cent cocoa solids, broken up 250g digestive biscuits or Graham crackers
150g mini vegetarian marshmallows (I like pink and white)
75g salted peanuts, roughly chopped
1 Preheat the oven to 180C/gas Mark 4.
2 Tip the butter and chocolate into a saucepan over a low heat and stir until both have fully melted.
3 Break up all but 4 of the digestive biscuits or Graham crackers and stir them into the chocolate butter, then stir in 100g of the marshmallows. Spread the mixture in a lined shallow roasting tin, then scatter with the remaining digestive biscuits, broken into larger pieces, the marshmallows and the peanuts.
4 Transfer the tin to the oven and bake for 5-10 minutes, until the marshmallows have just started to catch and turn golden brown.
5 Let the tin cool on the side before cutting the cake into squares. (I rather like a square or two while it’s still warm out of the oven, but for a proper refrigerator cake, you’ll need to pop it into the fridge to chill for a few hours before serving, so it sets properly.)