overnight garden focaccia
SERVES 8
OVERNIGHT DOUGH
450g (3 cups) strong white flour
(see Notes)
2 teaspoons (1 x 7g sachet)
dried yeast
1½ teaspoons salt flakes, plus
extra for seasoning
375ml (1½ cups) lukewarm water 1 tablespoon olive oil, plus extra
for tossing and drizzling
GARDEN TOPPINGS Multi-coloured capsicums and
mild chillies, thinly sliced Multi-coloured tomato slices
Red onion or spring onions,
thinly sliced
Mixed herbs (marjoram, basil, chives and parsley), chopped, plus extra to serve
Olives and/or other pickled goodies such as capers, artichokes or sun-dried tomatoes
Small handful rosemary leaves (optional, for a more traditional version)
Freshly cracked black pepper,
for seasoning
1 To make the overnight dough, place all the ingredients in a bowl. Mix with a wooden spoon or spatula to combine, until you have a wet, sticky dough. Cover with a clean, damp tea towel and leave in the fridge for at least 8 hours, preferably overnight (you can even leave the dough for 48 hours or more, to really develop the flavour).
2 About 4 hours before you want to bake the dough, take it out of the fridge and let it warm to room temperature — during this time it should rise a little more. Punch the dough down (which is exactly how it sounds!) and give it a little knead to bring it all together into a ball. The oil in the dough will make it easy to handle.
3 Line a 25cm x 30cm baking tray with baking paper. Place the dough on top, stretching and pressing it out with your fingers into whatever shape you like — round, oval, square or rectangle. Allow the dough to rise in a warm spot for 1—2 hours, covered with a damp tea towel.
4 When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180°C. In a bowl, toss your garden topping ingredients (or rosemary leaves if you’re going for a more traditional topping) in a few tablespoons of extra olive oil, so they don’t go dry too quickly and burn.
5 Using your fingers, press dimples into the dough, then squish the topping ingredients into your creation. Scatter with extra salt flakes and freshly cracked black pepper.
6 Pour water into a heatproof mug or baking dish and sit it on the bottom of the oven to create steam (this helps the focaccia expand before forming a crust). Bake the focaccia on the middle shelf of the preheated oven for 35—45 minutes, or until golden and cooked through. Some of your vegies might char a bit, but that’s cool
— these can be the most delicious aspects of the bake.
7 Once cooked but while still hot, drizzle with a little more olive oil and garnish with more fresh herbs. Then either show off as a whole loaf at the table, or cut into jaunty pieces to serve.
NOTES You should be able to find strong flour, also called ‘bread flour’, at most supermarkets these days. Strong flour has a higher level of protein, and therefore gluten, which helps with a nice open crumb (the holes or ‘alveolation’ in the middle of the bread). If you plan on baking lots of bread or focaccia, investing in a bag of strong flour (with 11—13 per cent protein) and storing it in the fridge between bakes is worthwhile. Otherwise, plain (all-purpose) flour is totally fine, too. It might not rise quite as high, but if you’re only baking loaves on the odd occasion, you’ll be right.
broad bean, asparagus & soba noodle salad
SERVES 4
500g broad beans (see Notes),
podded
1 head broccoli, chopped into small florets, stalk peeled and chopped into 8mm discs 1 bunch asparagus, cut into
2cm lengths (see Notes)
270g (3 bundles) buckwheat
soba noodles
100g baby English spinach
leaves, washed and dried
(shichimi togarashi or furikake), plus extra for
sprinkling (see Notes) 2 teaspoons miso paste ½ teaspoon wasabi paste A good pinch freshly ground
black pepper
1cm knob fresh ginger, peeled
and finely grated
1 garlic clove, peeled and
finely grated
TAHINI GINGER MISO DRESSING 2 tablespoons tamari or soy
sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar 2 tablespoons sesame oil 1 tablespoon tahini or smooth
peanut butter
1 tablespoon honey or soft
brown sugar
1 tablespoon rice seasoning
RICE CRISPS 1 litre (4 cups) frying oil
(try grapeseed oil) 6 rice-paper rounds
TO SERVE 1 ripe, creamy avocado, peeled
and cut into cubes
¼ bunch coriander, washed
and roughly chopped 2 spring onions, thinly sliced
1 Bring a large saucepan of well-salted water to the boil.
2 Add the broad beans and blanch until bright green and soft
(2—3 minutes if they’re small, 3—4 minutes if larger). Scoop them out and refresh under a cold tap until cool enough to touch. Double-pod the broad beans into a bowl by splitting the skin with your fingernail and popping out the bright green flesh.
3 Bring the water back to the boil and blanch the broccoli for
3—4 minutes, until vibrant green. Scoop out, refresh under a cold tap, add to the broad beans and set aside. Bring the water back to the boil and blanch the asparagus for 2—3 minutes, until bright green. Scoop out and set this aside with the broccoli.
4 Bring the blanching water to the boil again. Add the buckwheat noodles, wait until they soften enough to submerge, then cook for 1 minute less than suggested by the noodles’ packet instructions. Drain the noodles and dunk into iced water to stop them cooking.
5 To make the tahini ginger miso dressing, combine all ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Plonk the noodles into the dressing and stir to coat. These can be further refrigerated if you want them cold-cold, but I quite like them at room temperature.
6 To make the rice crisps, heat the frying oil of choice to 200°C in a medium-sized pan (it should take around 5 minutes on medium–low heat). The oil should be shimmering, and if you drop a little of the rice paper into the oil, it should frizz up instantly. Meanwhile, stack three rice-paper sheets together, cut them in half, then in half again, and then cut each one in half again, until you have what look like pizza slices of rice paper. Briefly deep-fry in batches of five or six, fishing them out with tongs or a slotted spoon once they puff up and turn white. Drain on paper towel and sprinkle liberally with extra rice seasoning.
7 When ready to serve, add the blanched veg and baby spinach leaves to the dressed noodles, tossing everything together until well coated. Taste for seasoning — an extra splash of soy is worth it if the salad needs a salty kick.
8 Scatter avocado, coriander and spring onion on top and sprinkle with extra rice seasoning. Serve with rice crisps on the side.
NOTES Use green beans when broad beans aren’t in season, and blanch them for 4—5 minutes. Instead of asparagus, use broccolini cut into 2cm lengths and blanch for 2—3 minutes. Rice seasoning is more of a sprinkle — like a Japanese dukkah, full of seeds and spices. Asian grocers sell different varieties, from nori-rich, savoury–sweet furikake to spicy shichimi togarashi. It’s handy as a salad sprinkle, to quickly zhoosh up steamed rice and even to shake over tempura. You can also sprinkle it over deep-fried rice crisps for an easy and delicious snack. Store your jar of rice seasoning in the fridge door for freshness. The rice crisps in this recipe are best eaten right away, as they start to soften if left out. If the thought of deep-frying rice crisps is overwhelming, try microwaving them. Cut the rice-paper rounds into triangles, place six of them on a plate and microwave for 1—1½ minutes, or until crisp.
prawn, macadamia & asparagus stir-fry
SERVES 4
250g peeled raw prawn tails
(see Notes)
¾ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 1 generous thumb-sized knob
fresh ginger, peeled
2—3 garlic cloves, peeled 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
(see Notes)
1 tablespoon light soy sauce 1 tablespoon shaoxing rice wine 1 tablespoon sesame oil 1 tablespoon cornflour 125ml (½ cup) water, plus an
extra ½ cup on standby 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 2 bunches asparagus, cut into
5cm lengths (see Notes) 6 spring onions, white and green bits cut into 5cm lengths, plus extra thinly sliced spring onion to serve 150g (1 cup) roasted
macadamias (see Notes) Steamed jasmine rice, to serve
1 To ‘velvet’ the prawns (see Notes), slice the tails in half through the centre and massage bicarbonate of soda into the flesh, then leave to rest for 15 minutes. (Sounds weird, I know, but go with me here.)
2 Finely grate half the ginger and all the garlic. Slice the other ginger half into rough chunks and reserve.
3 In a bowl, whisk together the grated ginger, garlic, oyster sauce, soy sauce, rice wine, sesame oil, cornflour and ½ cup (125ml) water until combined. Set aside as your stir-fry sauce.
4 Rinse the prawns in a colander and pat dry with paper towel.
5 Heat 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil in a wok or large frying pan until very hot. Add the prawn meat and stir-fry for 30—60 seconds, or until it just changes colour. Remove from the wok and set aside. Wipe out the wok with paper towel and reheat the remaining oil.
6 Boil a kettle. Pop the asparagus and spring onion into a colander and into the sink, then pour boiled water over them. Drain well, then add to the hot wok and stir-fry for 2 minutes.
7 Give your stir-fry sauce another whisk to reincorporate everything, then pour it into the hot wok and bring to the boil. Toss the prawns and nuts through. The sauce should be silky and glossy, which will happen almost instantly. If the liquid gets absorbed too fast, splash in standby water and allow this to incorporate, too. Taste for seasoning.
8 Serve topped with extra spring onion and steamed jasmine rice. NOTES Go fully plant-based by replacing the prawns with firm or even extra-firm tofu. The tofu doesn’t need to be silkened — just boiled as a whole block (out of the pack) for 2 minutes or so, drained of liquid, chopped, pre-seasoned with plenty of soy sauce and other spices of choice, then tossed with cornflour to coat each cube, before searing as you would the prawns. You could also replace the oyster sauce with mushroom sauce (Megachef is my favourite brand). Velveting is a technique that brings the bounce factor to everything from seafood to sizzling beef. Asparagus is seasonal, but this is the kind of stir-fry you’ll want to make all year round. So, use broccolini or even broccoli florets chopped into fork-sized bits at any time that isn’t spring. Snow peas would be fantastic here, too. No macadamias? Use cashews. If using raw nuts, toast them in a dry pan until golden and pull out before cooking the prawns. For a nut-free alternative, you could try tinned water chestnuts, rinsed and chopped into chunks.
“Asparagus is seasonal but you’ll want to make this stir-fry all year so use broccolini or snow peas at any time that isn’t spring” ALICE ZASLAVSKY