Sorrel Rice Bowl with a Poached Egg

This is such a simple but effective meal and absolutely delicious with the hit of lemony peppery sorrel, which I love and which I grow in the garden.

Sorrel Rice Bowl with a Poached Egg (from Epicurious)
(Serves 4)

250g brown rice
large handful sorrel
4 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
1 tbsp white vinegar
4 large eggs
4 radishes, very thinly sliced
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice, divided
1/2 preserved lemon, finely chopped
1 tbsp chopped dill, plus more for serving
60g feta, crumbled
Hot sauce

Bring a pan of water to the boil and cook the rice according to packet instructions.

Put the sorrel, oil, and 1 tbsp of water into a food processor and blitz until smooth; season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, bring another pan of water to the boil; reduce the heat so the water is at a gentle simmer and add the vinegar. Crack an egg into a small bowl, then gently slide egg into water. Repeat with the remaining eggs, waiting until whites are opaque before adding the next (about 30 seconds apart). Poach until whites are set and yolks are still runny, about 3 mins. Using a slotted spoon, transfer eggs to paper towels as they are done.

Toss the radish with 1 tbsp lemon juice in a small bowl; season with salt. Toss the rice, preserved lemon, 1 tbsp dill, remaining 1 tbsp lemon juice, and the sorrel purée in a medium bowl; season with salt and pepper.

 Serve the sorrel rice topped with poached eggs, radish, feta, hot sauce, and more dill.

Swiss Chard, Potato, and Sorrel Soup with Creme Fraiche

I've had a urge glut of sorrel this year and alive made a few sorrel recipes this summer. This time I went for a soup. This was lovely and tasty, I didn't take the stems out of the chard which made the soup a bit gritty, so if you want a smoother finish I would recommend removing the stems. 

Swiss Chard, Potato, and Sorrel Soup with Creme Fraiche

(Serves 4-6)

• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 red potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 bunch swiss chard, stems removed, about 10 cups leaves
• 250g sorrel leaves
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 80g creme fraiche
• bread, for dipping

Heat the butter in a medium pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and potatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, until just starting to brown, about 8 mins.

Add about 250ml water and scrape the bottom of the pot to release the juices and any stuck bits. Add in the swiss chard and sorrel and some salt. As soon as they wilt down, add 1.5l water. Bring to a boil, then simmer, partially covered for 12 to 15 mins.

Using an immersion blender, puree the soup. Taste for salt and season with pepper. Ladle the soup into serving bowls. Mix the creme fraiche with a tiny bit of water and then stir a tbsp or two into each bowl. Serve with bread for dipping.

Crushed New Potatoes with Horseradish and Sorrel

These are the potatoes that I served with the sea bass instead yesterday. I was bought the cookery book as present from my last job and I've been itching to make something out of it. The sorrel came from the garden as did the potatoes. Like all of the Ottolenghi recipes I've tried, delicious!

Crushed New Potatoes with Horseradish and Sorrel

(from Ottoleghi The Cookbook)

(Serves 6)

1kg new potatoes

300g Greek yoghurt

100ml olive oil

2 garlic cloves, crushed

25g fresh horseradish, grated

4 tbsp sorrel leaves, roughly chopped

2 spring onions, sliced

salt and pepper

Wash the potatoes but don't peel. Put them in a saucepan, cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer for 25-30 mins, until tender. Drain well and add them back to the pan then crush them with a fork whilst still hot.

In a large bowl, mix together the yoghurt, olive oil, garlic, horseradish and salt and pepper to taste. Pour this dressing over the hot potatoes, add the sorrel and mix well. Taste and adjust the seasoning. 

Sprinkle over the spring onions, just before serving.

Fried Butterbeans with Feta, Sorrel and Dukkah

So this is the first recipe I tried from Plenty, I borrowed the book from the library and have bookmarked so many recipes I want to try! This I found a little dry but if you had it as a side dish I think that that would be mitigated a little bit. The flavours however were fantastic, there were lots of layers of flavour and it was delightful!

 

Fried Butterbeans with Feta, Sorrel and Dukkah

(Adapted from Plenty - Ottolenghi)

(Serves 4)

450g dried butterbeans

2 tbsp bicarbonate of soda

60g butter

4 tbsp olive oil

8 spring onions, sliced lengthways

1 garlic clove, crushed

200g sorrel, cut into 2cm strips, plus extra thinly sliced

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice

150g feta, broken into pieces

2 tsp Dukkah

handful chervil or dill, chopped

Place the butterbeans in a large bowl and add twice their volume of cold water and the bicarbonate of soda. Leave to soak overnight.

The following day, drain the beans, place in a large pan and cover with plenty of fresh water. Bring to the boil and boil for at least 30 mins, or until soft but not disintegrating. They could take over an hour to cook, depending on size and freshness. Add more water during cooking if necessary. When done, drain.

Next heat some of the butter and oil in a frying pan, add enough beans to cover the bottom and fry over a medium-high heat for 1-2 mins on each side, or until the skin is a nice golden brown and blistered. Remove to a large bowl and continue with batch of butter, oil and beans.

When cooking the final batch, as soon as the beans are almost done, add the spring onions, garlic and sorrel and sate for about a min. Then add the rest if the beans to the pan, remove from the heat and season with salt. Allow the beans to cool.

Drizzle the beans with the lemon juice and scatter over the feta, dukkah, chopped herbs and some thinly sliced sorrel. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil. Serve.

Quinoa and Pesto Salad

I made a really quick quinoa salad a while back combining leftover ingredients from the fridge. It worked really well and was a filling and tasty lunch.

Quinoa and Pesto Salad
(Serves 1)

60g quinoa
50g peas
1 small courgette, sliced
1 tomato, chopped
1/2 ball mozzarella, chopped
handful sorrel leaves, sliced
1 tsp pesto

Bring a pan of water to the boil and cook the quinoa according to the packet instructions, add the peas for the last 3 mins, drain.

Meanwhile, put a little oil in a frying pan and fry the courgette until golden.

Combine the quinoa, peas, courgette, tomato, mozzarella and sorrel in a bowl. Add the pesto and mix until everything is coated in the pesto. Serve or pack into a lunchbox.

Warm Potato Salad with Sorrel and Samphire

I had never tried sorrel raw before and I loved the lemony taste. It went really well with the salty samphire. I added in some salad leaves and only realised after reading the original recipe that I was supposed to roast the tomatoes and I was hungry so didn't bother! Overall this was a delicious and filling salad with fantastic flavours.

Warm Potato Salad with Sorrel and Samphire (adapted from The Guardian)
(Serves 4)

400g cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
Salt and black pepper
60g samphire
50g sorrel leaves, shredded if large
50g mixed salad leaves
15g roughly chopped parsley
1 crushed garlic clove
600g small potatoes, washed and scraped clean, but skins left on
60ml olive oil

Place the potatoes in a large saucepan, cover with plenty of cold water, add a good dose of salt and boil for 20-25 minutes, until just cooked. Drain, leave to cool a little, then cut into halves (if using baby new potatoes) or quarters (for larger ones).

Gently wash the samphire to get rid of any sand or gritty bits, then taste – if it is very salty, blanch for a minute in boiling water, refresh in cold water, drain and dry.

Place the samphire in a large mixing bowl, along with the tomatoes, sorrel, parsley and garlic.

Wipe clean the potato pan, pour in the olive oil and heat up. Return the potatoes to the pot and fry for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden brown on all sides. Add the warm potatoes to the salad, toss gently, taste and season accordingly; you may also need to add more oil

Salmon, Sorrel and Cream Cheese Parcels

This was delicious. I don't often cook with filo pastry but I think I'm going to have to more often as it's a lovely healthy alternative to puff and tastes just as good.

Salmon, Sorrel and Cream Cheese Parcels (from Lavender and Lovage)
(Serves 4)

4 salmon fillets

2 fresh sorrel leaves

4 tablespoons cream cheese

1/2 red onion, peeled and finely diced

small bunch of fresh chives, finely chopped

juice 1/2 lemon

salt and pepper

8 large sheets of filo pastry

oil

poppy seeds 

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Mix the cream cheese, red onion, chives and lemon juice together, and then season with salt and pepper.

Wrap three sorrel leaves around each salmon, or if they are small, just lay them on top of the salmon. Sit each salmon fillet in the middle of one sheer of filo pastry, and the divide the cream cheese mixture between the salmon, spooning it over the top.

Fold the filo pastry over and the roll to make a tight parcel, tucking in the ends of the pastry as you go; then place the parcels in the middle of the second sheet of filo and roll the salmon once more to make neat parcels.

Brush each parcel with a little oil and place then on a lightly oiled baking tray seam-side-down. Brush a little more oil over the top and scatter some poppy seeds over them, before baking for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the filo is golden brown.

Linguine with Snails, Sorrel, Tomato and Courgette

Another courgette recipe! I hope you're not getting bored of them yet, there's plenty more to come. I have so many of them! I bought a couple of tins of snails when I went to France last year as I really love them in the shells with parsley and garlic butter, but you get about 5 or 6 dozen in each tin so I have to find some alternative things to do with them. I also have a pot of sorrel which keeps reseeding itself. I haven't planted any since last year and it's still going strong, it adds a lovely flavour to this dish.

This was really easy to make, and very tasty as well. I am entering this into this week's Presto Pasta Nights hosted by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast. Check out her blog on Friday for the round up.



Linguine with Snails, Sorrel, Tomato and Courgette
(Serves 4)

24 snails (6 per person)
3 small zucchini
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 bunch of sorrel
1 punnet cherry tomatoes
pinch of saffron
Zest of one lemon

Cook the pasta according to packet instructions.

Put the saffron in a small bowl with a couple of tablespoons of boiling water.

Cut strips of courgette with a vegetable peeler. Sauté the strips of courgette in oil with a punnet of cherry tomatoes and crushed garlic. Put the saffron, snails and sorrel in cook for a couple of minutes. Season to taste, adding lemon zest.

Drain the pasta and toss though the snails and sorrel sauce. Serve.

Broad Bean, Asparagus and Sorrel Risotto

Things are starting to ripen in the garden. I suddenly have more courgettes than I can handle, the broad beans are ready as is the sorrel and strawberries. I had strawberries and ice cream for lunch today and it was so good. Veg and fruit grown in the garden always tastes much better than shop bought. I used the broad beans and sorrel to make risotto earlier on this week. The inspiration for this came from a recipe for sorrel and asparagus risotto in a cook book I looked through in Fortnum and Masons but didn't buy, so I made the recipe up as I went along.



I served it with lamb cutlets and a tomato, onion and tarragon salad.

Broad Bean, Sorrel and Asparagus Risotto
(Serves 4)

2 tbsp olive oil
1 bunch fresh sorrel leaves
400g podded broad beans
250g bunch asparagus
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
350g risotto rice
750ml hot vegetable stock
100ml white wine
handful grated Parmesan plus shavings, to serve

Heat the oil in an ovenproof pan and fry the onion for 2 mins until starting to soften. Add the garlic and cook for another min.

Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5. Add the broad beans and rice to the pan, then stir well. Pour in the stock and wine and bring to the boil.

Season to taste, cover and bake for 20 mins, then add in the sorrel and asparagus and bake for 5 mins longer or until the rice is just cooked and all the liquid has been absorbed. Stir in the grated Parmesan, check the seasoning and sprinkle with extra Parmesan shavings to serve.

Menu Plan Tuesday

I'm late again with this! I spent most of yesterday running around after kids. One of my colleagues set up a project with two local schools to do some archaeological surveying and activities and I did some of the tours to look at the buildings still standing around the site. We also got the kids to do rubbings of the coal holes on the ground. It was a fantastic day although I felt very windswept by the end. Luckily the weather held out and it was a beautiful if rather windy day.



I am coming to the last of the veg which is growing in the garden, the courgette plants are still producing, but thankfully at a much slower rate and size than before, my average size being a couple of inches. I also planted some sorrel quite late on and now that is producing with abundance, and I had no idea what to do with it. I came across this chicken recipe on the Good Food Channel website and it was delicious. The sauce worked really well with the flavours of the sorrel and the chicken. It was definitely the highlight of last week.

This week I'm home for a couple of days, so no cooking and I'm also trying shrimp and grits. I could only get instant grits at the supermarket, so I'm not sure how well they will turn out, but hopefully if I add enough butter and cheese it'll be ok!

Sunday
Lunch: Out with my Mum and Sister (had Eggs Benedict)
Dinner: Out at Yo! Sushi

Monday
Lunch: Chicken, Green Bean and Pesto Pasta Salad
Dinner: Chickpea Curry, Curry Sauce and Rice

Tuesday
Lunch: Ham and Mustard Sandwich
Dinner: Home at my Parents

Wednesday
Lunch: Home
Dinner: Home

Thursday
Lunch: Spaghetti, Chicken, Blue Cheese, Spinach and Beans, Salad
Dinner: Shrimp and Grits, with Old Bay Seasoning, Veg

Friday
Lunch: Mini Quiche, Potato Salad, Ham and Cheese Wraps
Dinner: Chinese Style Fish Soup (Ken Hom)

Saturday
Lunch: Potato and Chicken Croquettes, Broccoli and Mushroom Noodles
Dinner: Grilled Sausages with Rosemary and Garlic Potatoes, Egg