Charred Marinated Fresh Artichokes

Fresh artichokes, charred in a frying pan then marinated with garlic, lemon, thyme and oregano make a wonderful addition to any dish or salad. 

Reflections on the move to Egypt
So, I am sitting here and it’s dark and I think it must be very late since the afternoon/evening has been long and dear husband is traveling and it’s just the hound and I.  But it’s just 7:25.  I look around at the empty room and I think I should feel lonely (and I do, a little) but I have a comfy chair and a warm home and I went out to eat with a couple of new friends today and I was introduced to a huge mall with a Marks and Spencers and a Spinneys grocery store.  The biggest Spinneys I have ever seen!  And I bought some new tights in Marky’s.  So, all in all, today has been a good day. 

And thinking back to Abu Dhabi

My very first Spinneys was a small affair in Abu Dhabi.  Way back when (1987) our Spinneys kept the same hours as the general working public.  9 a.m. – 1 p.m. and 4 - 7 p.m., so, if you worked, you really couldn’t shop there.  Simon and the hound (three Boxers back) moved there alone while I waited in Houston for my visa. They wanted my birth certificate, our marriage certificate, copies of passports, copies of my university degree, two leaps through a burning hoop and, finally, I had to prove that I could pirouette on toe shoes. Needless to say, the visa took a while. (Damn those toe shoes; my feet have never been the same.) The dog, on the other hand, needed a health certificate and he was IN. They moved directly into a company villa, vacated by the previous family, who had kindly left all the edible food in the cupboards.  For the first few days, the dog was fed on chocolate cake because Simon couldn’t seem to find a store that was open when he was off. And that was my introduction to Spinneys.  (You fed my dog what?!)

Meanwhile, here in my neck of Cairo, another of my blessings is a grocery store mere walking minutes from our home.  You can’t really plan a meal ahead because you never know if they will have what you were counting on, but sometimes gifts are dropped in your lap.  Yesterday, it was fresh artichokes. We love them but every place else we have lived, when you can find them, they are not cheap.  Here they are about 50 cents each in US money. I call that cheap.

So I took them home and decided to marinate them myself. 

Ingredients

Lemon juice – fresh or bottled

5 fresh artichokes

5 cloves garlic

Olive oil

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 lemon – for fresh juice

Sea salt

Black pepper

Method

Fill a bowl with cold water and a few good squeezes of bottled or fresh lemon juice. This will be used for dipping your artichokes while you clean them and also to pop them in once the cleaning is done.  The lemon juice is supposed to help keep them from turning brown.

Clean your artichokes by trimming the end of the stem and cutting off the top inch and a half (about 3cm) of the leaves.

Rip the outside hard leaves off until you get to the tender inside leaves.  Try nibbling on a few to see how tender they are. 

The tender leaves are pretty tasty.

Once you get to the tender ones, trim the top again if you need to.  Peel the stem and the outside of the bottom.  Dip the artichoke in the lemon water.  

Cut the artichoke in half.

Using a spoon, place it at the top of the fuzzy bit (the choke) and use a twisting motion to remove all the fuzz.  Scrape the area clean with your spoon. 

Pop the artichoke in the lemon water.

Continue until all the artichokes are cleaned.  Change the water and add more lemon juice. 

Heat a non-stick skillet until roasting hot.  Lift the artichokes out a few at a time and give them a good shake over the sink to dry them as best you can.  Put them directly into the scorching skillet. 

Let them brown, checking  every few minutes by turning them over with tongs to peek.  When they are starting to brown, drizzle them with olive oil.

Meanwhile, slice your garlic very thinly.

When the artichokes are well browned, turn them over and do the same to the other side.

Once both sides are well colored, add in about a half a cup of water and put the lid on.  Cook until the water runs out and check for tenderness with a fork.  Add more water and put the lid back on until both sides are fork tender.

Turn the heat down to medium and season with salt and pepper.  Add a goodly amount of olive oil.  The artichokes don’t have to be knee deep but they should be at least ankle deep, so to speak. 

Add in the sliced garlic.  Let it cook until softened.  Add in the thyme and oregano.  Cook a minute or two more and then squeeze in the juice of your one lemon.  Turn the heat off. 

Allow to cool and then preserve in a sterilized jar or Ziploc bag.  Top with a little more olive oil to cover.  If you are using a bag, you can add some more olive oil but also try to get all the air out.  

Marinate for several days before eating.  (Actually you could probably eat them right now but I think the flavors will develop more with at least a couple of days of marinating.)  

Enjoy!

UPDATE: We ate half of the artichokes last night as part of a tomato with fresh mozzarella salad and they were DIVINE!  After sprinkling the sliced tomato with a little sea salt,  I drizzled a bit of the marinade on the cheese and then used some more as the dressing on the baby leaf greens.

Oven-roasted Filet of Grouper

This oven-roasted filet of grouper recipe is one of our favorite ways of cooking fish in the oven. The topping of thinly sliced onions and lemons keeps the fish from drying out, plus they add a lot of flavor.



While I was in Cairo on my house-hunting trip, one of the first things I asked about is the availability of seafood, particularly fish. Seafood probably features on the house menu at least once a week in some form: Lemon sole, whole Red Snapper, Prawns, Grouper, Salmon steaks. Pan-fried, grilled, oven-roasted, étouffée or courtbouillon.

I figured we are only about three hours from Alexandria and the Mediterranean Sea so there should be seafood in abundance here, possibly even a fish market.It seems I was wrong.Fortunately my nearby Carrefour has a newly renovated, well-stocked seafood department but that’s the only option I know of so far.

Anyone from Cairo out there reading who would like to set me straight, please, please do. Last week we had Grouper – oven-roasted and topped with an abundance of sliced onions and lemons that kept it moist.Any fish would do here so use what you have.

Ingredients
800g or 1 3/4lb fish filet
2 small onions
1 large lemon
Sea salt
Black pepper
Olive oil
3 generous tablespoons of butter

Method Preheat the oven to 200C or 400F.Cut all the scraggly bits off of your filet and make sure all bones have been removed. Slice your onions and your lemon very thinly.Using your hands, mix the two together and make sure to pick out any lemon seeds.

Drizzle a little olive oil in the bottom of your baking tray and sprinkle a fish-sized area with sea salt and a good few grinds of black pepper.

Lay the fish in the baking tray and sprinkle the top with sea salt and black pepper.

Heap the fish with the lemon and onion slices.  Balance the butter on top and drizzle liberally with olive oil.

Roast in the preheated oven for 20-30 minutes, depending on the thickness of your fish.

Enjoy!

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Lemon Lime Passionfruit Cream Tart

Expat. Expatriate. Person who lives in a country that is not his or her own native land.  I have figured out over my last 25 years as same, that the term expat is not widely known among people who do not live overseas or travel extensively.  Those who are familiar with the term often have some exaggerated preconceived notions of what it means and they usually involve a fancy lifestyle and living high on the hog. 

I cannot deny that there are many advantages to expat living, especially if one is sent somewhere wonderful (And here I quote my friend, Valorie, who, upon being told that my family was being transferred from our mutual location of Balikpapan, Indonesia, to Paris, France, exclaimed, “People don’t LIVE in Paris, Stacy!  They go there on holiday!) but there are also disadvantages.  The biggest one is saying goodbye to people we have worked with, cheered at school sporting events with, parented our children with, grown to love. 

This is a long and very round about way of saying that I went to a going-away party last night.  And the only thing that eases the pain of saying of goodbye is good food and good drink. And spending the evening laughing with good friends.

Here’s what I brought along:

Lemon Lime Passionfruit Cream Tart

This recipe has three parts but don't be alarmed. None of them are tricky. We will blind bake a crust though, which just means we are going to bake it for a little bit before we put the filling in. 

Ingredients
For the crust which fits a large 11-inch tart tin:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup shortening (Crisco is my preferred but I have had to use butter in some countries where Crisco is not available. It works but the crust is not as flaky.)

5-6 tablespoons of cold water

1 egg for the egg wash after the crust is blind baked

For the filling:

8 large eggs

1 1/2 cups or 340g caster sugar

1/2 cup or 120ml double cream170g of passionfruit pulp in syrup (which is just a dab less than 150ml or a little more than a1/2 cup) or the same volume of fresh passionfruit pulp plus an extra 1/2 cup or 115g sugar) 

1/3 cup or 85ml lime juice

1/2 cup or 120ml lemon juice

Confectioner's or powdered sugar for sprinkling

For the optional topping:

5-6 fresh passionfruit

1 tablespoon cornstarch or cornflour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon of butter

Method

Put the flour, shortening and salt together in one bowl. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut the flour into the shortening until you have small crumbs.

Add the cold water a tablespoon at a time, blending with the tines of a fork, until the mixture forms a soft dough which can be rolled into a ball.   

Flatten the ball into a patty and wrap it in cling film and chill in the refrigerator for at least half an hour.

When you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.  Roll the dough out into a circle to fit your pie pan.

For more information about this handy rolling bag, check out my quiche recipe.  You can, of course, do it the old-fashioned way but it will be easier to insert in your tart pan if you roll it out on some parchment or waxed paper. 

Put the inside of your tart pan on the dough or the whole pan if that's what you are using. 

Center the rim part and put your hand under the whole thing.  Flip the crust over and remove the rolling bag or your parchment. 

Gently ease the crust into the tart pan. 

Turn the edges over and crimp them to make them look nice.  Poke the crust all over with a fork to help it stop puffing up when baking.

Cut a piece of parchment paper the width of your tart pan.  Fold it in half and then in half again.

Now fold it one side to the other so it has a point, as if you were making a paper airplane.

Fold that in half again so the point is very pointy. 

Trim the paper to the diameter of your pan and open up to reveal a circle. 

Push this gently into your crust and top with dried beans or ceramic baking beads. 

Bake for around 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, start the filling.

Whisk together the sugar and eggs in a bowl.  Set aside.  

Remove from crust from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Turn the oven down to 350°F or 180°C. Remove the beads.

Beat your spare egg from the crust ingredients and add a splash of water.  Apply it to the crust with a brush. This eggwash will keep the crust from getting soggy when the filling is put in it. 

Give the egg-sugar mixture another good whisk and slowly stir in the cream and the juices.

Put the cooked tart shell back into the oven and then pour the filling into it – This helps reduce spillage.

Bake for around 40 to 45 minutes or until the filling is set, but still semi-wobbly just in the middle. Give the baking pan a gentle shake at 40 minutes and, if too much jiggles, leave it in again for 10 minutes and test again.  Just the very center should wobble.

After cooling for an hour, the semi-wobbly filling will have firmed up to the perfect consistency; soft and smooth. If you cut it before it has had time to rest it will pour out or be extremely gooey.

Now we are ready for the topping. (You can skip this step and serve with just a sprinkling of confectioners' or powdered sugar but it sure looks pretty and tastes good too.)

Cut the passionfruit open and gently scrape the pulp out into a fine sieve, over a bowl to catch the juice. You don’t want to get the white part of the peel, just the pulp.  

Let it drain for a few minutes then pour the juice into a small pot.  Whisk in the cornstarch and sugar and make sure there are no lumps before putting the pot on the heat.

Turn the heat on, to medium, and keep adding in the juice that is dripping into your bowl from under the pulp as the mixture warms.  Whisk constantly until the sauce starts to get hot and thicken ever so slightly.

 Add in the pulp and cook until it is thick but still pourable. Take the sauce off the heat and whisk in the teaspoon of butter. 

Pour the sauce on top of the tart and spread it around.  Allow to cool completely before trying to serve.

Enjoy!

This recipe was adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Lemon Lime Cream Tart in The Naked Chef, now available, apparently, in paperback or, if you prefer, the version I have.