Posts tagged as:

limes

The Breakfast Challenge – Avocado, Lime and Coriander Wrap

by Linda on July 28, 2011

The possums have finished off all my avocados,  but I live in an avocado growing region and we’re smack bang in the middle of the season so there’s always a few ripening on my kitchen bench.  They marry so well with limes, and this is the last of the limes for the year.  I also have heaps of coriander in the garden. In another few weeks all the leafy greens will realise spring is on the way and will want to go to seed, so this is the time to take advantage of luxurient foliage.

Avos have lots of calories but they’re such good calories – full of vitamins A, B, C, E and K, omega-3, monounsaturated fats, potassium, magnesium, antioxidant phytonutrients, and importantly, an amino acid called glutathione that slows down aging. I make a face mask out of them this time of year, but really, they’re much more effective from the inside!

The Recipe:

Very simply, mash together an avocado with plenty of lime juice, lots of finely chopped coriander, and a pinch of salt. (You’ll be surprised how much coriander you can add and it still keeps tasting better and better).

It’s good scooped up with pita chips, or, my favourite, wrapped in a warm home-made tortilla.

(The Breakfast Cereal Challenge is my 2011 challenge – to the overpackaged, overpriced, mostly empty packets of junk food marketed as “cereal”. I’m going for a year’s worth of breakfast recipes, based on in-season ingredients, quick and easy enough to be a real option for weekdays, and  preferable, in nutrition, ethics, and taste.  The Muesli Bar Challenge was my 2010 Challenge.)

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The Breakfast Challenge – Sweet Corn, Chili and Lime Pikelets

by Linda on April 8, 2011

I saw an episode of Jamie Oliver’s American Food Revolution, where they were teaching people to cook corn on the cob with chili and lime.  The flavour combination inspired these.  They work really well.

Sweet corn and lime basil are both in season in my garden and I’m just starting to pick the first of the limes. If you don’t have lime basil, it’s a different recipe but it works with coriander.

What’s The Breakfast Challenge? A weekly fast, easy, healthy, ethical, in season recipe to challenge the big boxes of mostly air.

The Recipe:

Strip the kernels from 3 cobs of corn.

In the food processor, blend them with

  • 2 eggs
  • 2 dessertspoons of wholemeal self-raising flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 chili (seeds removed)
  • a good handful of lime basil leaves
  • salt and black pepper

Blend for a minute until the chili is chopped quite fine through the mix.

Fry spoonfuls of mixture in a little olive oil until they are golden and set.

Eat hot straight from the pan with a squeeze of lime juice.

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Thai Fish Cakes

by Linda on March 19, 2011

Bream is not one of my favourite fish, but it’s one of the easier ones to catch, and Lewie likes fishing. Bream are a good source of omega 3 and listed as sustainable, so it’s very unfortunate that they’re a bit bland and soft for my taste.  I could never get appropriately excited about the catch until I discovered just how easy Thai Fish Cakes are to make – easy enough to knock up after a day at the beach and good enough for me to properly praise the fisherman!

The Recipe:

It’s a good idea to make the dipping sauce first, because like many Asian dishes, this comes together really fast.

Cucumber Dipping Sauce

In a small pan, dry roast 2 dessertspoons of chopped macadamias or (more traditionally) peanuts.

In a small saucepan bring to the boil:

  • ¼ cup white vinegar
  • 3 dessertspoons sugar
  • 1 chili, deseeded and finely chopped
  • 2 teaspoons fish sauce
  • the 2 dessertspoons of roasted chopped macadamias.

Cook for a few minutes, then take the pot off and put it in the sink with some water to cool down.

Deseed and finely dice about 3 dessertspoons of cucumber. When the vinegar is cool, stir in the cucumber.

While it is cooling, you can be making the fish cakes

Fish Cakes

This can all be done in a food processor.  Mine will do it all in one go, but you may like to do it in two batches the first time just to test your  food processor. It makes about 20 cakes.

First batch:

  • 350 grams of fish fillets with no bones (Use the skeleton for stock for Lao Style Fragrant Fish Soup, and you won’t resent wasteful filleting)
  • 1 chili minus seeds
  • 3 dessertspoons fish sauce
  • 3 dessertspoons lime cordial (or 3 teaspoons lime juice and 3 teaspoons brown sugar)
  • 1 egg
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • small knob of ginger and/or galangal

You can also add the white part of a stem of lemon grass or a couple of kaffir lime leaves if you have them and you like a strong citrus flavour (but go easy – it can be overpowering).

Blend this lot into a smooth paste.

Second batch:

I can just change the blade in my food processor for a grater and carry on into the same bowl.  But you may want to empty the fish paste into a bowl to check the texture your food processor delivers the first time you do this. You want this second batch to be very finely chopped or grated rather than a paste.

  • 2 small or 1 large spring onion
  • half a dozen snake beans
  • 1/3 cup packed coriander and/or Thai basil

Mix the two batches together.

Thai fish cakes are small – take a heaped teaspoon of the mixture and drop it on a plate of flour. Sprinkle flour on top and you will be able to pat the cake into a small, flat patty.

Heat a little oil in a pan – I use olive oil although it is not very traditional, just because I use it for almost all cooking. Fry the cakes in hot oil for just two minutes or so on each side until golden and puffed up.

Serve hot straight out of the pan with the dipping sauce.

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Mandarin, Macadamia and Poppyseed Cake

September 13, 2010

For practically the first time in my adult life, I have no chooks at present.  This is the culprit. I am working on a new roost design.  If it works, the chooks will be able to put themselves to bed at night.  I will be able to let them free range in the daytime and [...]

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Avocado and Lime Juice on Toast

July 28, 2010

Not so much a recipe as a reminder.  I have at long last moved on from Tangelo Breakfast Compote as my favourite breakfast.  There’s still a few tangelos, but the avocados are so beautifully in season now, and there’s also still plenty of limes.  Avocado on home-made heavy bread, toasted, with salt, pepper and a [...]

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Kangaroo with Tangelo, Lime and Ginger Sauce

June 27, 2010

No picture for this one.  It was one of those cooking experiments that just developed along the way, and was already eaten by the time I realised, hmm, this is a good one! My tangelo compote is still my current breakfast fetish, but the possum is starting in on the tangelos, so I decided it [...]

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Lao Style Fragrant Fish Soup

May 27, 2010

It’s getting a bit cold now of an evening for barbeques, but my partner still loves fishing. Fish soup is a great way to make a dinner party of the catch, and using the whole fish –  head, bones and all - I feel like an ethical predator. This recipe works really well with bony fish [...]

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Lime Cordial

May 12, 2010

I have a thing about preserves.  I can see the sense in climates where it snows and for several months there is no fresh food, but in my climate it seems like make-work.  Why eat bottled peaches when there are fresh pears?  Why eat frozen peas when there are fresh beans?  Especially given that preserving [...]

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Grilled Flathead on Banana Leaves

May 7, 2010

The idea for this recipe came partly from Steamy Kitchen, and partly from remembering as a kid cooking our catch of butter bream on pandanus leaves over a fire on the beach with no kitchen utensils at all and believing it was the best food ever (a memory I really want my grandkids to be [...]

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