Lentils with roasted eggplant

First published Canberra Times 21 March 2012.

Photos by Steve Shananan, Ceramics by Robin Furner of Handmad Emporium

Well, I’ve finally faced the inevitable, my tomatoes are awash and have split on the vine.  It’s distressing to see the huge red and green heritage varieties, hanging forlorn and broken, spewing seeds from their injuries.

I turn my attention to my burgeoning, but painfully slow growing eggplant that produces two perfectly purple globes, precisely timed to feature my current lentil mania.

This is a bright and interesting dish and the eggplants provide a lovely smoky, musky flavour to the traditionally cooked lentils. I decide to go organic with the rest of the ingredients to complement my organic eggplants, including the lentils.

This dish doesn’t stretch your time or budget and is a healthy midweek meal, suitable for those on vegan, gluten free or general weight loss diets. If you make extra, it’s also a good one to take to work and reheat for lunch.

A useful tip – if you are using the oven griller technique to roast the eggplants, ensure that you pierce them a few times before cooking them, as this allows the moisture to escape. Otherwise you may end up with an eggplant explosion.

Serves 4

2 medium eggplants


2 tbsp good quality red wine vinegar


salt and black pepper

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 cup small dark lentils (such as Puy), rinsed


3 small carrots, peeled

2 celery stalks, peeled


1 bay leaf


3 thyme sprigs


½ white onion, diced


½ tsp of ground cumin

4 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to finish


good pinch of smoky paprika

12 cherry tomatoes, halved

1/3 tsp brown sugar


1 tbsp each roughly chopped parsley, coriander and dill


2 tbsp full cream natural yogurt

To cook the eggplants on a gas stovetop, which is the most effective way, start by lining the area around the burners with foil to protect them. Put the eggplants directly on to the moderate flames and roast for 12 to 15 minutes, turning frequently with metal tongs, until the flesh is soft and smoky and the skin is burnt all over. Keep an eye on them the whole time so they don’t catch fire. You may need to turn on your exhaust fan.  Alternatively, this could be done over a burner on a barbeque.

For an electric stove, pierce the eggplants with a sharp knife in a few places and place them on a foil-lined tray directly under a hot griller for one hour, turning them a few times. The eggplants need to deflate completely and their skin should burn and break.

Remove the eggplants from the heat. Pre heat the oven to 140°C. Cut a slit down the center of the eggplants and scoop out the flesh into a colander, discarding the black skin. Leave to drain for at least 15 minutes, and transfer the contents to a bowl. Add the crushed garlic, season with plenty of salt and pepper, 1½  tablespoons of the red wine vinegar and a splash of olive oil. Puree with a stick blender or mash with a potato masher until the eggplant is a coarse consistency.

While the eggplants are grilling, place the lentils in a medium saucepan. Cut one carrot and half a celery stalk into large chunks and throw them in. Add the bay leaf, thyme, onion and cumin and cover with plenty of water and bring to the boil. Simmer on a low heat for up to 25 minutes, or until the lentils are tender, skimming away the froth from the surface from time to time. Drain in a sieve.

Remove and discard the carrot, celery, bay leaf, thyme and onion and transfer the lentils to a mixing bowl. Add the rest of the vinegar, 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and plenty of salt and pepper; stir and set aside somewhere warm.

Cut the remaining carrot and celery into 1cm dice and mix with the tomatoes, the remaining oil, sugar and some salt. Spread in an ovenproof dish and cook in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the carrot is tender but still firm.

Add the cooked vegetables to the warm lentils, followed by the chopped herbs and stir gently. Add the remaining vinegar, olive oil, taste and adjust the seasoning. Spoon the lentils onto serving plates. Pile some eggplant in the center of each portion and top it with a dollop of yoghurt and a sprinkle of paprika. Finish with a trickle of oil.

Amaretti and Citrus Curd Parfait

Photo by Steve Shanahan

First published Canberra Times 7 March 2012

It’s one of those weeks when work is busier than usual, kids and extended family require attention and even the family dog decides to add to the chaos and needs an emergency trip to the vet.  This new year flurry always hits and I’m never prepared for the round of birthdays that seem to appear without notice at this time of year.

With a crowd appearing in a few hours time for a birthday celebration, I have dips and crackers sorted, the main dish is seafood; easy and under control, but dessert is elusive today. The pantry still has a lingering bag of Amaretti biscuits left over from a Christmas visitor, which, combined with my fruit bowl of oranges and lemons, inspires an Italian theme.

I am an absolute sucker for lemon and orange curd, so set out to make the curd first so it can go straight into the freezer to cool, ready to assemble the dessert. Ideally, this dessert should be made a few hours in advance to allow the flavours of the ingredients to infuse.

I used a few tablespoons of Grand Marnier in this, although you could also use Limoncello or any citrus flavoured liqueur you have in the cupboard.

Find some pretty glasses to serve it in , so the layers are visible and you have a very easy, but impressive dessert to serve guests.

Citrus curd

½ cup of a mixture of freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice

100g unsalted butter

½ cup sugar

1 egg

3 egg yolks

Amaretti and citrus cream

2 cups pure cream

1/3 cup icing sugar, sifted

2 tbsp Grand Marnier liqueur or Limoncello

200g of crushed Amaretti biscuits

1 quantity of citrus curd

Toasted almonds or orange zest

Make the citrus curd first to ensure it is fully cooled before assembling the dessert. Place the citrus juice and butter in a saucepan over low heat and stir until the butter is melted. Mix the sugar, egg and egg yolks together in a small bowl or jug and slowly drizzle into the saucepan of butter and juice, whisking continually to avoid the egg from curdling. Keeping the pan over a low to medium heat, stir constantly until the mixture thickens. Set aside to cool, or force the cooling by placing in the freezer for 15 minutes.

To make the parfait, place the cream, icing sugar and liqueur in a bowl and whisk until soft creamy peaks form. Stir the cooled citrus curd to remove the skin that may have formed on the top. Spoon half of the citrus curd into four glasses and spoon half of the flavoured cream on top of that to form 2 layers. Top each with the crushed Amaretti biscuits, then spoon over the remaining cream to form a top layer. Drizzle a teaspoon of citrus curd over the top and decorate with toasted almonds or orange zest. Refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving.

Homemade Fettucine and Pangritata

Photo by Steve Shanahan

First published Canberra Times 22 February 2012.

With the low carb fad that’s been around for the past few years, pasta has definitely been placed on the ‘B’ list in our house, along with bread and potatoes.

For some time now we have been dutifully eating our protein and vegetables without carbs. That is until recently, when I unpacked a long lost box of kitchen items that had been stored away and rediscovered my pasta machine.

Chef Giorgio Locatelli reckons that every authentic Italian is made up of two-thirds pasta and that pasta is the fuel that keeps Italy running smoothly. He also wonders that at ten to midday in Italy, how many millions of kilos of pasta are being placed in pots of boiling water ready to be transformed into lunch before siesta? Sophia Loren famously claims she owes her voluptuous figure to spaghetti, and Garibaldi vowed that it was pasta that united Italy.

With this level of devotion, and despite a lingering fondness for spaghettio’s out of a tin on white toast, Australians have become pretty sophisticated in the subject of pasta and embraced the bow ties and spirals with gusto.

Although we are likely to reach for whatever tin of tomatoes or dried pasta is available to us in our cupboards, Locatelli says that the different shapes and textures of pasta are meant to match their sauce. He instructs that you would not use penne to go with a tomato based sauce, you would use spaghetti. Similarly, you would not use spaghetti to make a cream based dish. There also seems to be a number of unspoken rules around dried and fresh pasta. Locatelli further instructs, you would only use fresh pasta to go with a ragu style sauce. He believes that Italian mothers and grandmothers just ‘know’ these things and it is purely instinctive.

So many rules! I’m feeling pretty confused by now, and resign myself to accommodating the harvest from my vegetable patch. It seems that I’m one of the lucky ones to have ripe tomatoes, which was more good luck than skill. So I bend the rules a little, deviating from tradition, with a sauce made from fresh, sweet cherry tomatoes mixed through a home made fettucine style pasta. I topped it with a pangritata, which is a garlic, herb and breadcrumb mix fried in olive oil.

Over the ten years I’ve owned my pasta machine and as many times that I’ve actually used it to make fresh pasta, I am reminded that it really is so easy to make. Although for me, it’s the sense of satisfaction to see it bubbling away in the pot that really does it. Then of course there is the fantastic eggy flavour and the silken texture, comparatively difficult to achieve with the dried variety.

When I made my pasta, it was early in the day. I then hung it over the rungs of a clothes airer, secured behind closed doors in the laundry, so the resident food focused spoodle would not be tempted. You can store the dried pasta for months in the cupboard in airtight containers or bags if you dry it properly. Alternatively, if you are using your pasta straight after making it, you can wind handfuls of it into little nests and store them under a damp tea towel to stay moist before you are ready to cook it.

Pasta making, like breadmaking, is the kind of thing I wouldn’t choose to do if I was in a hurry or not in the right frame of mind. If I was either of those, I would succumb to the instant variety and reach for a packet in the cupboard.

In saying that, I highly recommend giving pasta making a go, it’s incredibly easy and therapeutic, not to mention the sense of achievement and excitement you will feel when you tell people you made it yourself.

Serves 4

Home made fettucine

500g 00 flour or strong flour

3 large eggs

8 egg yolks

Place flour in a large bowl and make a well in the centre, add the eggs and yolks. Mix with a fork, breaking up the eggs as you mix the flour in from the middle. Mix until the dough forms a ball and you can work it with your hands. Tip out onto a clean, floured surface and knead well until the dough ball comes together and is silky and elastic. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and rest in the fridge for half an hour or so.

I use a pasta machine, but if you don’t have one you can roll the dough by hand, however it is a tough job and takes a lot of rolling to get it as thin as a machine can. A machine really is great if you can lay your hands on one. They are not very expensive and worth it if you love your pasta.

Divide your ball of pasta into 4 pieces and keep covered. Working with one ball at a time, dust the pasta ball with flour and flatten out by hand. Run it through the widest setting on your pasta machine. Do this 5 or 6 times, incrementally reducing the thickness until it is on the thinnest setting. You will get the hang of it once you do it a few times.

Once I have a long thin sheet I then run it through the fettucine setting to make the long flat noodles. Use one hand to lift the noodles as they come out of the machine and one to turn the handle.

I hang the noodles on a clothes airer to dry for a few hours. You can hang them over the back of a chair, just remember to cover the chair seat with a tea towel as the noodles will be coated in flour.

If you are using them straight away, just twirl each portion into a nest and store them between two damp teatowels while you are boiling your water ready for cooking them. They will stay fresh like that for a few hours if you store them in the fridge in the teatowel.

Repeat with the remaining portions of pasta dough.

Tip: keep the balls of dough coated in flour along with the fettucine noodles once they are cut. This will stop them from sticking together.

Pangritata

5 tbsp olive oil

200g of roughly torn bread into small pieces

1 clove of garlic, chopped

handful of fresh thyme or oregano leaves

salt and ground pepper

Fettucine

1 quantity of home-made fettucine, or use about 400g of dried pasta

6 tbsp olive oil

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

15 anchovies

juice of 2 lemons

2 small

chillies, chopped

grated fresh parmesan

First cook the pangritata. Place the olive oil into a hot large hot frying pan. Add the garlic, thyme and bread. Fry until they begin to go golden. Stir around for a couple of minutes until they are crisp. Season with salt and pepper and drain on kitchen paper.

Cook the fettucine in salted boiling water until al dente and drain. While it’s cooking, place the oil and garlic in a frying pan (use the same one you used earlier) and heat gently. As the garlic begins to soften, add the anchovies and mix gently. They will melt into the mixture. Add the lemon juice and the chillies. Toss in the drained fettucine and coat it in the sauce. Taste for seasoning, you find you will need a little more lemon juice. Serve immediately sprinkled with the pangritata and a little parmesan.