Comforting Bowl Food: My Perfect Beef Chili

At this time of year, in many parts of the world, the weather and general atmosphere is perfectly fitting for one to curl up with a bowl of steaming comfort food, rich in flavour and laden with warming spices. Having said this, the home of W&W HQ - Sydney, Australia, in the middle of a humid January - is, perhaps, not one of those places which might immediately spring to mind.

However, as unlikely as this seems, a soothing pot of warming beef chili is precisely what has been gracing our table in recent days. Just because it is January - our summer - and the air is sultry and sticky, does not mean that comfort food is beyond our reach. At W&W HQ, we find this meal gratifying because it is simple, yet still flavoursome (a nice change from the indulgent Christmas meals of recent memory), and because it is relatively cheap (also very welcome in January when the hip pocket continues to sting somewhat after the expense incurred during the festive season!). Sure, a bowl of tasty spicy stuff may not be everyone's cup of tea during summer time, but for us here at W&W HQ, this is precisely what the doctor ordered: it's easy, tasty, makes for a bundle of leftovers (we freeze this for easy pie-fillings or for tacos or burritos which make for a light mid-week dinner) and inexpensive, using mostly store-cupboard and freezer staples.

Now, I tend to think of Chili as a distinctly American thing - certainly not something that featured on our typical Australian table when I was growing up. I did eat an imitation of sorts, when my Mum would get a bit exotic and buy a taco kit from the supermarket, but that was some sort of mince concoction jazzed up with the seasoning packet that came in the taco box. Truth be told, I have never been a great big fan of minced/ground beef. In my mind it has always tasted watery and stewy, with an unpleasant beefy odour which hits me in the nose before I have a chance to get a forkful toward my mouth. However, I don't like to "not like" things as I feel as if I am missing out, and for some time now I have been bookmarking (I'm not yet adept at Pinterest!) American blogs featuring big, bubbling pots of steaming chili - rich, meaty goodness that looks and, as I have discovered, tastes nothing like the gruel I recall from my childhood. I'm very glad I stepped out of my comfort zone.

We started cooking this recipe towards the end of last year, and it has quickly become a regular meal at W&W HQ. It's a hybrid of many different recipes I collected from the internet, tweaked to our liking. For example, I like my chili beefy, and thick - not gloopy. I like beans in mine, and I like corn, sometimes. I also like it warming but not knock your socks off spicy, and I love the earthy smokiness that comes from using chipotle chiles, cocoa and smoked paprika. I'm sure many people have their own, traditional, chili recipe - certainly I expect that is true for my American readers. However, if you are like I was - somewhat unfamiliar with the dish and not quite sure where to start, give this a try - you could do worse! I think it's top notch, and it's Mr W&W's current Very Favourite Thing.

Just before you start, a warning: This is not a "quick" meal, in that the longer it cooks, the better it takes. Mine bubbles away on the hob for at least an hour and a half. However, it is simple, with only a few steps, and it can be made ahead (and usually tastes better if it has been made ahead and has had a bit of a rest in the fridge overnight). This is the sort of thing you might make on a Sunday afternoon for the week ahead.

The W&W Favourite Beef Chili

What you need:

• 1.2kg premium beef mince/ground beef
• 2 tbs oil
• 2 brown onions
• 3 heaped tsp ground cumin
• 2 heaped tsp paprika*
• 4 cloves garlic, finely sliced
• 2 chipotle chiles, minced, and 1 tsp of adobo sauce* (see below, but you can substitute 1 tsp chilli flakes) - or to taste
• 1 tbs dried marjoram
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tbs cocoa powder
• 400g tin of black turtle beans (or red kidney beans), rinsed and drained
• 2 x 400g tins of whole tomatoes, chopped*
• 1 heaped tbs of tomato paste
• 2 cups beef stock
• 2 red capsicum (bell peppers) chopped into 2cm chunks
• ½ cup sweet corn kernels - frozen/tinned is perfectly fine (optional)
• avocado pieces and sour cream to serve (if you wish)

What to do:

Look, it's simple. First, grab a big heavy based pot, add the oil and set over medium heat for a moment. Add onions, and fry with a big pinch of salt until the onions become translucent and begin colour. (The addition of salt will prevent the onions burning). Add cumin, paprika, garlic and chilli and fry, stirring, until aromatic ( a couple of minutes). Be careful to ensure the mix does not catch on the bottom of the pan. I use my big Staub cocotte to do this, but if you have a smaller pot, you might need to brown your meat in batches when we come to that (next step). [Crowding the pot will result in the meat tasting a bit stewy, which is not nice].

Next, add the beef mince and break up roughly (I like there to still be some big bits), allowing the meat to brown (which really means to change from red raw to a brownish grey colour - you are sealing the meat). This will probably take 5-10 minutes, depending on heat and your pot.

Once the meat has browned, add tomatoes and their juice, tomato paste, marjoram, sugar, cocoa and, finally, the beef stock. Stir to combine and bring to the boil. Allow to boil for 5 minutes, then reduce your heat to medium-low, letting the mixture bubble and simmer, stirring occasionally. The longer you leave your chili to simmer, the richer your flavour will be. About 30 minutes into the simmering, add your capsicum (bell pepper) and stir to combine. Continue simmering the mix for a further 20 minutes if you are extremely hungry, or another hour if you can wait that long. The flavours will develop to a rich, smoky, delicious concoction the longer you leave it on the hob. Finally, 10 minutes before the end of cooking, taste to check for seasoning (add salt/pepper/extra chilli as needed) and stir through drained beans and corn kernels (if using).

Serve, in bowls, topped with a dollop of sour cream and cubes of luscious, velvety avocado. Sometimes, as an extra treat, I toast some corn chips topped with a teeny amount of grated cheese in a hot oven in the ten minutes before I serve up, and then top the chili bowls with crunchy corn chip croutons in the manner shown here.

Yield: At least 6 very hungry people, with leftovers (or, 2 occupants of W&W HQ with plenty of freezer meals for the fortnight ahead).

* * *

NOTES:

Chipotle Chiles in Adobo Sauce: These are smoked jalopeno chiles which are canned in a sauce comprised of tomatoes, vinegar and delicious spices. They carry a punch, but their smokey heat has no comparison. You can find these in good quality delis and online. One small tin lasts for a while - I open the tin, use what I need and put the remainder (including the sauce) in a small tupperware container in the fridge for as long as required to use them up. When I have these on hand, I use them in place of dried chilli flakes in other dishes. Likewise, if you can't find chipotle chiles, simply substitute 1tsp (or to your liking) of dried chilli flakes.

Paprika: In this recipe I like to use 1 tsp each of sweet paprika and smoked paprika, to continue the smokey spice theme I have in place from the chipotle chiles. You can use 2 tsp of ordinary, sweet paprika if that is all you have. However, I certainly would recommend having some smoked paprika (I use La Chinata, available at Simon Johnson and good quality delis) on hand - a small amount will give everyday dishes a special kick.

Tomatoes: You can, of course, buy tins of tomatoes which have already been crushed or chopped. However, the benefit in purchasing the tinned whole tomatoes and roughly chopping them in a bowl yourself is that you are getting a better quality tomato. The general consensus is that the whole tomatoes are more likely to be unblemished and a higher calibre than the ones which come chopped in the tin. The pre-chopped ones are said to comprise the marked and bruised tomatoes, which have had their bad bits cut out. I prefer to use the whole ones, but this is entirely up to you.

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Well, it's about time we got this show back on the road!

I had grand plans for Whisk & Whimsy during the course of last year but unfortunately life threw me a couple of curve balls and I lost my momentum and, consequently, my interest. I've left things lag somewhat and now I see a couple of other W&W blogs have cropped up on the interwebs and have filled the void this site has left. Oh well, never mind!

Having left it too late to start afresh with the new calendar year, I shall take advantage of the Chinese new year to get back on the blogging wagon. Let us write off 2011 and see where this brand new year of the dragon takes us, shall we!?

Happy new year to you all, especially those of you who have stuck around waiting for an update from me - I hope the year of the dragon brings you all good health, good fortune and exciting times.

xox

Image: altered by W&W, from an original image by David Barrie via flickr.

Caramelised Lotus Root

Hello friends! Sorry for my absence, I have been distracted by life - back again, though.

We are in the depths of winter here at W&W HQ, and I'm sick with the dreaded lurgy. Fortunately, winter brings one of my new favourite ingredients to the produce market and I have a recipe to share which is packed full of garlic, ginger and chilli and sure to ward off any nasty germs.

Now, do you know about Lotus Root? I must say I didn't know much about it until this time last year. Our favourite local Japanese restaurant serves up tasty little pickled lotus root bites before bringing the meal. This, along with lotus chips, was really my only exposure to the ingredient until one Friday last year when I was visiting Chinatown, as I often do to pick up my groceries, and saw piles of this peculiar tuberous root in various asian grocers. After seeing plenty of Chinese shoppers throwing lotus roots into their baskets, I will admit to being quite curious and came home with some to try.

This is what it looks like, before it's peeled and sliced:

Source: flickr.com by jvumn

Attractive, huh?

The lotus root is a starchy little devil and will quickly turn brown when exposed to the air. The key to preparing it is to peel it quickly with a vegetable peeler, cut it into thin slices, about 5mm thick at the most, and throw the slices into acidulated water (a bowl of cold water into which you have squeezed some lemon juice or tipped in some white vinegar). Otherwise, your lovely perforated discs of lotus goodness will turn from an appealing crisp white to an unattractive dark brown.

Once I got home with my bundle of tubers, I was faced with the dilemma of what on earth I should do with it. Of course, I turned to the great font of all knowledge, Google, and eventually came up with Kylie Kwong's Caramelised Lotus Root which I tweaked to suit the ingredients I had and which is adapted below.

To eat, the lotus root is quite crunchy - much more so than some of the pickled versions I have had in the past. It kind of reminds me of potato, or celeriac, but it retains its crunch when cooked (with a crispness rather like celery). It has a subtle flavour not disimilar to a water chestnut and really shows off this sauce to perfection.

Caramelised Lotus Root
(adapted from a recipe by Kylie Kwong)
Serves 4

You will need:

• 500g lotus root, peeled & cut into 5mm slices and immediately placed in acidulated water


• 2 tbs peanut oil


• 3 garlic cloves, finely sliced


• ¼ cup ginger, finely sliced into matchsticks (loosely packed)


• 2 tbs shao hsing rice wine (or dry sherry)


• 1 tbs of black rice vinegar


• 2 tsp soy sauce


• 1 long red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced diagonally.

What to do:

Drain lotus root whilst heating the oil in a wok until shimmering slightly.

Add the garlic slices, ginger and lotus root to the wok and stir fry for about 3 minutes, tossing continuously to prevent the garlic burning. Add brown sugar and stir fry for another 2 minutes or so until caramelised slightly. (Sometimes I take a bit longer in this process to make sure the sugar caramelises nicely). Add rice wine/sherry and stir fry for a minute more before stirring through vinegar and soy. Toss for one last minute and serve with chopped chilli as a garnish.

* * *

Notes: The original recipe serves 4-6. We usually have this as a starter as it is quite rich. Often I will cook this for just Mr W&W and I and adjust the quantities according to how much lotus root I have chopped up - it's a case of a 'splash of this and a dash of that' rather than exact measurements.

If Lotus Root is not in season, you can still enjoy this dish! Frozen sliced Lotus root is available in handy 500g packages at Asian grocers.

Beautiful Beets with Pistachio Butter

Ah, the humble beetroot! For me, beetroot was a childhood staple, although in my youthful experience it came from a tin and, when not forgotten at the back of the fridge, lolling about in a purple pickle bath in an old Tupperware container, it appeared almost exclusively on hamburgers, or bleeding into the grated carrot on a salad sandwich. Whilst beetroot existed in my diet, I didn’t exactly love it.

However, my relationship with beetroot changed considerably for the better a few years ago when I thought to roast a few baby beets and toss them through a salad – only to discover that beetroots didn’t naturally taste of vinegar but were a joy in their clean, satisfying earthiness. One of our favourite winter salads features, among other things, roasted beets, toasted walnuts, green beans and orange segments with a scattering of creamy goats chevre – a total delight, but one which is for another post at another time.

Today, I want to tell you about the dish that had me obsessing and salivating for over two years. This jewel-toned beauty has its origins, for us at least, in New York City, in the cosy, downscale member of the Mario Batali empire, Lupa, in Greenwich Village. On the recommendation of my husband’s cousin who lives in NYC, Mr W&W and I had an amazing lunch at Lupa on our honeymoon almost three years ago and, whilst it’s not the fanciest place out there, the atmosphere, warmth, value for money and downright dreamy food has led to Lupa being one of the few restaurants by which we measure all others.

I remember it as if it was yesterday. We started our Lupa experience with an antipasti plate featuring a plethora of sensory delights – braised artichokes, octopus, asparagus with lemon and parmesan, plump, juicy olives, and magnificent house cured salumi. Also featured was a humble little portion of beets, served with a luscious, velvety pistachio butter - a triumph in simplicity and a match made in heaven.

I thought about those beets for months and months after my return, but couldn’t replicate them. Something was missing – it wasn’t just a case of roasted beetroot tossed in ground pistachios, there was something else - a missing link, but I couldn’t place it. No amount of googling could shed light on the puzzle and in the end I shelved it, distracted by other things. Until one day late last year, that is, when I spied the latest Mario Batali cookbook on the shelves at Dymocks. Flicking through the pages of Molto Gusto, I couldn't believe my luck when it jumped out of the pages at me in black and white (and green and purple!): the recipe for those glorious Beets with Pistachios.

Beets with Pistachio Butter
(Serves 4 as a side dish)

Look, I will concede that the pale green pistachio butter makes this not the most attractive thing to photograph, but you have to believe me when I say that this is a thing of beauty to eat! What follows is very much Mario Batali’s recipe, adapted by me only slightly as to quantities of ingredients to suit our preference. We tend to have it as an accompaniment to grilled meats, but it is marketed in Molto Gusto as antipasti.

Before you launch into this recipe, be aware that, whilst the salad itself is fairly quick to assemble, the beets take a little while to cook and will need time to cool.

What you need:

8 medium beetroot, trimmed of greens and scrubbed*
Olive oil spray
½ cup unsalted pistachio kernels
¼ cup warm water
2 tbs pistachio oil*
¼ cup Red Wine Vinaigrette (recipe below)
2 tbs chopped pistachio kernels, extra
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Red Wine Vinaigrette - Whisk together in a small bowl ¼ cup red wine vinegar, ¼ cup soda water or sparkling mineral water and ½ cup extra virgin olive oil. This will make 1 cup of vinaigrette, which is more than you need for the beets, but you can keep the extra in a container in the fridge for up to 5 days.

What to do:

Preheat oven to 200°C. Pick a baking dish which will comfortably hold the beets and line it with foil (this helps when you come to wash up!). Toss the beets in the lined tray, spray with a little oil spray and give a sprinkling with salt. Roast the beetroot in the oven until tender. This can take anywhere from 40 minutes to about 1 hour and 20 minutes depending on the size of the beets - you might even do this the day before. I test for tenderness with a fine skewer. Allow the beets to cool slightly.

Meanwhile, in a food processor, pulse the pistachio kernels to a fine grinding and add half the water. Pulse to combine, and add the pistachio oil. You want the pistachio mix to be a little runnier than peanut butter - so if your paste is still firm, add the remaining warm water as required.

Peel the beets. You might have success rubbing the skins off with kitchen towel, but I find I usually have to peel them with a paring knife. If using purple beetroot, it can be a good idea to wear gloves to do this, or else you will end up with purple hands! Cut the beets into chunks about 3cm in size and place them in a serving bowl. If you are using golden beets as well as the red ones (as I have in the photo), try and place them carefully so you preserve as much colour as possible - the red beets will bleed into the golden ones otherwise. At least 10 mins before you are serving, gently toss the beetroot in the vinaigrette and season with salt and pepper.

To serve, I like to spoon the pistachio butter over the beets so that everyone can dig in and fight for the good bits.

If you wanted to make this look a little prettier than mine, though, you might serve the beetroot and vinaigrette on a platter, sprinkle the chopped pistachios over and serve the butter spooned alongside. It's up to you. As for me, well I'm happy any way this comes and have even been known to hold some back when serving it to dinner guests so that I can package it up to take to work for my lunch!

* * *

NOTES:

About the Beets: As you can see, I have used a combination of traditional red beetroot and golden beetroot for this dish. This is purely optional, you can use either. I like to include golden beets if I can find them simply because I love the colourful combination of the ruby red, glorious pistachio green and the golden beets. Just plain red beetroot works perfectly well.

About the Pistachio Oil: this is available at good delis. It's not cheap, but you don't use very much of it so you will have it for some time. You could, perhaps, use a light olive oil as a substitute, but your pistachio butter will lack a bit of the added flavour you would otherwise have with pistachio oil.

W&W is Back!

Hello friends!

I had an inkling that it had been some time since I updated Whisk & Whimsy, but I will confess to feeling a bit shocked today to discover that I was last writing here back in November! Oh dear, time does fly.

As some of you know, I have been busy galavanting around the UK with Mr W&W and the W&W family. We left on Boxing Day and we have only been back home for a few weeks. As you can imagine after such a time away, it has taken a little while to get back into a regular routine (although, typically, now that we're back in the swing of things the holiday is a distant memory!). I had grand plans before we went away to schedule posts for publication at regular intervals during my absence but with finishing up work for the year, Christmas and last minute preparations for the holiday, I just ran out of time.

My goodness, what a trip we had! I certainly did my fair share of eating and not surprisingly came back with a few extra kilos (and I don't just mean in my luggage!). A highlight which I intend to tell you about in more detail was the day my Mum and I spent at Rick Stein's Padstow Seafood School in Cornwall, a fantastic experience that I am keen to repeat some day. Mum and I learned both new skills in the kitchen as well as ways to do familiar things a little better. We worked with ingredients that were unfamiliar to us, like Cornish brown crab, mackerel and dover sole. We ate the fruits of our labour whilst sipping on a crisp glass of local wine, all the while overlooking the stunning Camel Estuary. This was a thoroughly enjoyable day, and an experience which I wholeheartedly recommend should you find yourself in Padstow at some stage. Once I get around to sifting through my plethora of photographs I will put together a more detailed report on our day at the Seafood School.

Otherwise, we had some extremely memorable meals in top places in London, Paris and Hong Kong, and we enjoyed simple food done very well in some cosy pubs around the UK. We ambled through markets and sampled fresh produce, devoured wedges of cheese with great gusto and washed it all down with (probably too many) glasses of fantastic wine. I came home from our holiday with so many ideas and so much inspiration - our trip really did recharge the batteries and gave me a lot of enthusiasm to try new things in the kitchen.

Of course it wasn't all about food - we saw all the sights, and I got to see my first snowfall - I was beside myself with excitement! I dragged Mr W&W to all the shops on the high street and we parted quickly with our pounds and euros. Overall, though, our trip was about a change of scenery and a time to escape the doldrums of everyday life, and we certainly did that.

I also did a reasonable amount of this:

(Sampling macarons from Ladurée and Pierre Hermé!)

Back to regular programming (and recipes) shortly.

A Kitchen Education, and Mussels with Tomato & Tarragon

My mother taught me to cook from a very early age. It wasn't an overt thing - she never specifically sat me down and gave me lessons. My education was much more subtle in that I didn't even realise it was happening. In her own way Mum made sure during my youth that I assisted and observed and consequently picked up the necessary skills I would need in the kitchen in later life. Food was always a central part of my family life at home - we had a big eat-in kitchen in which we spent all our time: mum could be pottering around the stove, or sitting at the kitchen table topping beans, while Dad sat there reading the newspaper and I was at the kitchen table doing my homework or, more likely, writing letters to my numerous penpals. Our 'family room' was the kitchen, the hub of the home, and we were all together around the kitchen table, surrounded by the sounds and smells of the evening meal bubbling away on the stove.

Sure enough, as my mother had intended, I absorbed her teachings as if by osmosis. Prior to moving out of the family home, I could count the number of times I prepared a meal on my own on one hand. However, when faced with preparing dinner in my own tiny kitchen for the first time, I discovered that instinctively I understood what to do. I felt like Jason Bourne, the amnesiac spy in Robert Ludlum's gripping novels, who had no recollection of his earlier life of espionage, yet instinctively knew how to move, how to fight and how to converse in countless languages! Perhaps I was not quite like Bourne, but I did possess cooking skills I had no recollection of learning: I could work in the kitchen on autopilot, by instinct, and I am forever grateful to my mum for the skills which she instilled in me without my knowing.

I was in my early twenties when Mr W&W and I set up together, and it was my first time out of home. In anticipation of having to cook meals for someone worth impressing, I scoured my mum's cookbooks before leaving the nest and compiled a number of recipes which I thought might be worth a go. One such recipe was a Rick Stein beauty for these Mussels with Tomato and Tarragon. At this stage I was just coming out of a long exile from seafood had begun to appreciate the joy of mussels (particularly their price, ridiculously cheap at $6.00/kg in those days). We have eaten this meal countless times since, and it has been twisted and tweaked to what is in our minds absolute perfection.

Steamed Mussels with Tomato and Tarragon
(adapted from a recipe by Rick Stein)

Serves 2 as a comforting main meal*

What you need:

1 kg mussels, scrubbed clean and debearded**

splash extra virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1⁄3 cup dry white wine

2 small tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced (juice retained)

1 tbs tomato paste

30g cold unsalted butter, diced

1 tbs chopped french tarragon

crusty bread, to serve

What to do:

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large saucepan or stockpot and soften garlic for a minute or two (do not let it colour).

Add the mussels, increase heat to high and tip in the white wine. Cover pan and cook 2-3 minutes until all the shells have opened - but only just! Don't cook them too long beyond the shells opening or they will become rubbery. Gently stir the shells once or twice in the cooking.

Remove mussels from the heat and cover to keep warm. (Discard any mussels which have not opened - these should not be eaten). Pour the cooking liquor through a sieve and return to the saucepan with the tomato paste. Heat the cooking liquor until boiling and then whisk in the butter a knob at a time. Add the tomato and tarragon, season to taste. Return the mussels to the saucepan and gently stir to combine with the sauce.

Serve in bowls with crusty bread to mop up the juices.

* * *

* A Note on the Yield: To make this recipe go further you might serve the mussels and juices on a mound of linguine - which will do for 4 guests.

** A Note on the Mussels: I used to hand pick the best mussels from the fish market when I first started making this dish, but these days I can't go past the kilo packs of live, scrubbed and debearded Boston Bay mussels. I never have to discard any where the shells haven't opened during cooking.

Simple sides - Kipfler Potato Salad with Crispy Prosciutto

Hello friends, I'm back! Now if you promise to keep your fingers and toes crossed for me, and perhaps to say a few prayers if you're that way inclined, then it just might be safe for me to say that I have finished my Masters degree. At least I finished my last exam this week, and I am hopeful of passing it (although truth be told the exam was a bit touch and go), although I won't be put out of my suspense for a few weeks now. Here's hoping!

Meanwhile, thank you all for your kind comments on my croquembouche in the last post (I was quite chuffed with the result), as well as for the well-wishes for my Masters (I can safely say that I will not be doing my doctorate - no more study please!).

For the past few weeks I've had my nose in textbooks and during that time the W&W Study Menu has been startlingly lacking in gourmet. Fortunately, we refrained from relying too much on takeaway (although we are now regulars at our local cheap and cheerful Japanese restaurant). For the last few weeks the standard dinner routine has seen me leaving the textbooks after a day of study at around 5.00pm, rummaging through the freezer for some kind of barbecue-friendly meat, defrosting same in the microwave and then whipping up some sort of vegetable side dish, before hitting the books once more and letting Mr W&W deal with the grill. It might sound a little dull, but it has been enjoyable in a comforting, homely way.

One of my favourite veggie sides has been the recipe which follows. Like most people, I love a potato salad, but sometimes I find them gluggy and tangy and the flavours are over the top. The salad which follows uses firm and waxy kipfler potatoes which hold their shape and don't break up into mush. These potatoes have a delicious flavour of their own and they deserved to be championed with a simple dressing. The prosciutto is a salty, crispy treat. Regular, garden variety bacon can be substituted for the prosciutto if you haven't any of the posh ham on hand (I frequently use ordinary bacon) but if you are planning on making this then I recommend going to the effort of buying prosciutto - the thin slices make for delicious little shards of flavour throughout the salad.

This recipe is so simple that I wasn't sure whether it was 'blog-worthy', but after a brief wrestle with my thoughts I elected to post the recipe. For starters, the salad is delicious and is readily wolfed down when we have a barbecue with friends. Also, though, I think it's nice to have a simple salad in your repertoire, something that you can keep on stand by in your back pocket until needed, to whip out when something tasty is called for, but without too much effort.

Kipfler Potato Salad with Crispy Prosciutto

serves 4 as a side dish

What you need:

About 600g kipfler potatoes, scrubbed
8 slices prosciutto (or a few rashers bacon, chopped)
3 or 4 spring onions (scallions) thinly sliced (I use both the green and white part)
1/4 cup best quality mayonnaise (home-made is best, but certainly was not used in the Study Menu!)
1 heaped teaspoon dijon or French mustard
1 tablespoon seeded mustard
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

What to do:

I like to keep the skin on the potatoes (but if you really want to you can peel them). Bring the potatoes to the boil in a big pot of salted, cold water and cook until tender. Drain and allow to cool.

Meanwhile, fry the prosciutto (or bacon, if using) in a non-stick skillet over medium heat until crispy. I don't use any oil to do this as I find the prosciutto has sufficient fat of its own. You might need to oil the pan if yours is non-stick, however, and I would recommend an olive oil spray in this circumstance. Set aside to cool.

Combine the mayonnaise, mustards, salt and pepper and be sure to taste the mixture. You might want to adjust the dressing to your taste, with more mustard or mayonnaise as desired.

[The salad can be prepared ahead to this point, with the separate components refrigerated and brought to room temperature before using. I tend not to compile the salad until I am ready to serve as, when I have mixed the salad the day before, the spring onion flavour is a little overpowering.]

Cut the pototoes into 1-1½ inch chunks and place in a bowl with the spring onions, reserving 1 tbs of the spring onions for a garnish. Crumble the prosciutto over the potato mixure and stir through the mustard mayonnaise. Taste to check seasoning and adjust if necessary. Serve with some reserved spring onion sprinkled over.

* * *

Please don't just stick with the recipe, by the way! Consider it a starting point, a base. This is how we like it at W&W HQ; we revel in the taste of the individual components and we like the simplicity of the dish. You can jazz it up, by all means - maybe with the addition of some hard boiled eggs, or maybe some capers tossed through - it's up to you. There are no rules.