Green herbs and pea salad

Simone (junglefrog) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 08:00:36 +0000

As soon as I arrive in the small street in Amsterdam I frantically start looking for a parking spot and luck seems to be on my side as I find one within 200 meters of my final destination. I park, put on my parkline parking thingie, grab my bag from the passenger seat and run rather then walk those last 200 meters to De Sperwer. Unfortunately the door is already closed when I arrive, so I feel even worse when the workshop leader comes down the stairs to open the doors. The typical ‘who are you’ round is nearly finished when I mumble some excuses for being half an hour late and quickly take the one empty seat.

Maybe not the best start of my culinary writing course I am taking under the esteemed Onno Kleyn, a rather famous culinary writer here in the Netherlands. But I had to work and as luck would have it, the cooking contest I was shooting ran late by two hours. I had anticipated a little delay but not two hours… I am thirsty and slightly exhausted when I take my seat at the workshop (afraid to ask for a coffee) and listen to the last few people introducing themselves. It’s a mixed company and I’m already mortified that I might have to introduce myself as well. I hate introducing myself. I always feel I need to say a lot more then “My name is Simone, I am a photographer and I like to write.” The stories I’m hearing from the contestants don’t help. Entire life histories are being recited and one fact sounds even more impressive then the next. For just a brief moment I hope they forget all about me, but one person is so smart as to notice I haven’t said anything so I squeek out the previously mentioned part… Not very impressive no…

That part over we continue with a lot of information about form, content and your target audience which is all hugely interesting so I’m relaxing a bit. Before we came to the course we were asked to write a piece. It’s all shared on dropbox so we could read each others entries before coming to the first lesson. I wrote a – apparently slightly controversial – piece about Vietnam, dogs being eaten there and chickens that are very cruelly treated at the markets. My controversial statement was that I truly think that most caged chickens here would rather die a cruel death if that meant having a life filled with roaming around farms and even roaming around villages for a considerable longer period then the 6-8 weeks they get to life here. Bundled up together with god knows how many other chickens. Never seeing the sky, never knowing the pleasure of picking up little bits of this and little bits of that and every now and then a fat worm… I don’t think that is controversial. I hate animal cruelty. Anywhere, anyplace, so I’m not saying that is ok. I’m just wondering which cruelty is worse….

After all that reflecting I leave you with a deceptively simply salad. Easy to throw together and delicious in all it’s simplicity!

Green salad with herbs and peas

Print recipe

Serves	2
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	5 minutes
Total time	15 minutes
Meal type	Salad, Side Dish
From magazine	Allerhande

Ingredients

75g bacon (small strips)
150g green peas
1 lime (washed)
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon clear honey
a few sprig fresh mint (just the leaves)
1 bunch basil (just the leaves)
a few sprig fresh coriander (just the leaves)
75g rocket

Directions


Bake the bacon crispy in their own fat (so use a dry frying pan). take out of the pan and leave to drain on paper towels

if using frozen green peas, quickly blanch them in boiling water and rinse with cold water and leave to drain

Grate the zest of the lime and squeeze out the juice.Add the zest and the juice to the olive oil and add the honey to make it a dressing

Add salt and pepper to taste. Tear the mint and basil leaves in pieces. Mix with the peas, bacon, coriander and rocket. Sprinkle with the dressing

Note

This is a very green but lovely salad. It's good on it's own but will also work as a sidedish!

Green peas and broadbeans with mint and mozarella

Simone (junglefrog) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:50:48 +0000

Beans on toast

There are many things that can be said about Jamie Oliver and you either love him or you hate him (apparently) but you cannot say he has a lack of enthusiasm for cooking and product in general! Yesterday we were watching an episode of Jamie at home which we have on DVD (in case you were wondering; I am a fan.. ) and this particular episode was about beans, peas and anything related to that family. With the fresh pods from his garden (what a garden!!!) he made this lovely recipe, which is really quick and really simple and I found it very refreshing with the weather right now. So definitely a fabulous lunchrecipe. Healthy too!

It’s incredibly hot and humid right now and huge thunderstorms are being predicted for later this afternoon, which – quite frankly – is probably good since it’s too hot to do anything really. Yesterday I decided to go for a bike ride to my parents house which is in a little town called Eemnes. But to get there you have to cross a bridge and it’s 25 kilometers to get there (so yes, that is 50 km in total) and that may not be a huge distance for a lot of people, but for me it’s a big distance! Plus on top of that it was 30 degrees C yesterday as well. Luckily I got fed fresh strawberries at my folks so I was nourished before going back.

Why is that you always have the wind against you on the way back?? Anyway, I made it. Slightly sore bum today though…

I was up early this morning as I had to get to Amsterdam to pick up my brand new Canon Eos 5D Mark II!! Whoohoo!! Photos above are taken with this new toy (well not really a toy with these prices..) The one thing I am a little unhappy about is the fact that they thought it was a good idea to change the battery type from the original 5D to the 5D mark II! That means I have to get a whole stack of expensive new batteries. I hate it when they do that for no good reason really as the other ones where perfect.

I will play around with it and let you know how I like it! Curious about the filming too!!

Here is the recipe for the lovely lunch I had!

PEAS AND BROADBEANS ON TOAST WITH MINT AND MOZARELLA (serves four) From at home with Jamie

500 gr fresh peas in the pod (about 150 gr out of their shells)

700 gr broadbeans (about 250 gr. once pods are removed)

fresh mint, use only the leaves

seasalt and black pepper

extra virgin oliveoil

50 gr grated pecorino, plus some extra for serving

juice of 1 lemon

4 slices of sourdough bread

1 clove of garlic, unpealed, cut in two

2 large balls of mozarella

a handful of peasprouts (I couldn’t get those so used wild rocket instead, which works well too)

Remove the peas and broadbeans from their pods and put them in separate tubs. Keep the smallest ones apart to mix through the salad.

For pureeing the beans and peas, Jamie is telling you to use a pestle and mortar but I chose the lazy option and used a small kitchenmachine. Mix half of the mindleaves with the peas and ad some salt. Puree and then ad the broadbeans. Make it all into a thick green paste.

Gizmo hiding from the sunshine

Ad a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to make the puree lovely moist. Add the grated pecorino. If the puree becomes too stiff you can thin it with a little extra olive oil.

Add about 3/4 of the lemonjuice – that will bring all the flavours together. Have a taste and if needed ad salt and pepper to taste.

Grill or toast the bread on a bbq or on a grillpan on both sides and rub them only twice with the halved garlic and cover them with a big spoon of the puree and half a ball of mozarella.

Add the peashoots, the rest of the mintleaves and the small beans and peas that you kept separate in a bowl with the rest of the lemonjuice, salt and pepper and put the salad on top of the crostini. Decorate with a few drips of olive oil and some grated pecorino.

Now to just leave you with something rather funny; I was throwing something away in the bin at the end of the garden and heard serious buzzing. We have a bird’s house hanging there which is occupied by a nest of bumblebees. The house is hanging against our shed and we’ve had the bumblebees there for the second year now. I had a quick look to see what all the buzzing was about and then I noticed this tiny bumblebee sitting in the opening of the house flapping it’s wings like crazy. That was the humming sound I had heard! I think he was trying to get some cool air into the nest. I can only imagine how hot it must be in there if they do that! I thought it was rather cute.

In the meantime the thunder and rain has started here, so hopefully it will become a little bit cooler now!

Junglefrog Cooking » green