Gettin’ Naked!

We have a new chef over at I Heart Cooking Clubs this week. That’s right, its our first date with Jamie Oliver.  I have always enjoyed watching Jamie, and I find his effervescent style very refreshing (pun entirely intended). I’m not sure how well we will get along over the next six months of cooking together though, as so very few of his recipes are “Leach Family” friendly. I adore his simple salads and his lovely pastas, but, as I have found, sometimes his choice of ingredients leaves me floundering in my lack of shopping options.

But, since I things he is absolutely fabulous, I’m going to give it the ol’ college try. Starting now. Our theme this inaugural week is “Let's Get Naked”, which I think is very forward for a first date, but hey, I’m willing to give it a chance!

When the vote was in and it was announced that Jamie was our next chef, naturally I went looking for recipes. I don’t own a single one of his cookbooks (that’s a new concept for me) so I just did some browsing online, and the very first recipe that jumped out and said “Eat Me!” was Jamie’s Fresh Asian Noodle Salad. Conveniently, I had just happened across some little personal-sized packages of bean thread noodles and stashed a few in my pantry. Finding any decent fresh chiles wasn’t easy, though, and the best I could do was some green serranos.

I have to say, This recipe kicks ass! I wasn’t that optimistic about it with its basic ingredients (and no, I didn’t have any prawns, either, so my medium size frozen shrimp had to stand in), but it came together beautifully and I couldn’t keep my chopsticks out of it as I was packing up the leftovers for lunch last night. This one is definitely going to be making regular appearances over the summer when I have my own home-grown fresh chiles on hand!

fresh asian noodle salad

ingredients

• 300g/10½oz cellophane noodles or beanthread noodles
• 200g/7oz minced beef
• 2 teaspoons five-spice
• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and grated
• 2 heaped teaspoons of grated fresh ginger
• 100g/5½oz cooked peeled prawns
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• 1 bunch of spring onions, finely sliced
• 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 2 fresh red chilies, deseeded and finely sliced
• 1 handful of fresh coriander, chopped
• 1 handful of fresh mint, chopped
• 2 handfuls of roasted peanuts
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

starter | serves 4
This is one of those salads which tastes so amazing that you have to keep making it! It’s spicy, zingy and really gets your tastebuds going.

Soak the noodles in a bowl of warm water until soft, then drain and put back in the bowl. In a hot wok fry the beef and five-spice in the olive oil until brown and crisp, then add the garlic, ginger, prawns and sugar and stir-fry for another 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir the wok mixture into the noodles. Add the spring onions, lime juice, fish sauce, chilies, coriander, mint and peanuts to the bowl. Toss well and correct the seasoning — it wants to be quite zingy with the lime juice. Sprinkle with some extra herb leaves if you like and serve cold.

Try this: You can modify the recipe by using a little wok-fried squid, shellfish or different minced meats.

This is my submission to I Heart Cooking Clubs and Presto Pasta Nights hosted by Ruth at Once Upon a Feast this week.

Sexy Fig Salad

When I first announced to a few select friends that I was the proud new mama to a darling Brown Turkey fig sapling, naturally, they were overjoyed for me.

And they started sending me recipes. (Yeah, they love me.)

Thanks to my MEF (most excellent friend, to you), I discovered this recipe by Jamie Oliver. Really, I’m not even sure you can call it a recipe since it is so darn easy to put together. I whipped this little masterpiece together when I got home from work yesterday and sat gleefully on the couch to dig into it.

And I now know why Jamie calls it “sexy”. I never really thought about it, because he is always using that word in reference to food, but this time.... well, I understand.

See, this could be a knife-and-fork salad. Because the figs aren’t truly separated into pieces, just fanned out on gorgeous display, looking all sensual....and the prosciutto is left in long, leggy strips...which, honestly, you just can’t eat gracefully.

This is how it went.....

I started with the plate on my lap, delicately tucking into the salad with a knife and fork.....

And very gradually, I moved from a sitting position to being semi-reclined, propped up on one elbow.... knife and fork thrown to the wind.... lifting beautiful long drippy pieces of prosciutto and dangling them over my mouth.... picking up blushing segments of fig, nibbling the rosie flesh from the skin, then finishing that off as well.... wiping the luscious dressing from my chin with the back of my hand.

And then I paused..... and I looked down at myself. And I laughed out loud.

And my five year old son says to me, “Mommy WHAT are you EATING??”

I think I blushed.

You just can’t beat walking to your front door after a long day at work, plucking three fresh figs off the tree on your porch, and turning them into this sexy little salad.

Try it...I dare you. Just don’t do it in front of your husband. Well, you know, unless you’re in the mood.

This is the excerpt from Jamie’s article. I just love the way he talks, so I had to include it verbatim.

One thing I do is to criss-cross the figs but not quite to the bottom - 1 fig per person is always a good start. Then, using your thumbs and forefingers, squeeze the base of the fig to expose the inside. At this point you'll think, 'Oooh, that looks nice, I think I'm quite clever ...' or at least I do. More importantly, it allows your dressing to get right into the middle of the fig. All these little things really help to make a salad special. Simply place the figs in a dish, weave around 1 slice of Parma ham or prosciutto per fig, throw in some slices of buffalo mozzarella and rip over some green or purple basil. Mix 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 3 tablespoons of lemon juice, a tablespoon of good honey and some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper together in a bowl and drizzle everything with this dressing. As far as salads go, it's pretty damn sexy.I agree completely, don't you?