Tasty Herbalist

A summer recipe for your homemade sushi ginger

Ok, so remember the sushi ginger recipe I posted in the winter? Perhaps not. Well, it's not where it was anymore which is a long and boring story in itself. So very quickly, before I launch into the more summery recipe here it is again.

Simple pickled sushi ginger

¼ lb fresh, peeled ginger

1 tsp sea salt

1 ½ tbsp sugar

1 cup rice vinegar

1)Slice your peeled ginger just about as thinly as you possibly can.

2) Put it in a bowl (or straight into a jar) and cover it with salt. Toss it about so it is all covered. Leave it to sit  for a couple of hours or overnight.      

3)Put your sliced salted ginger in a jar.

4) In a small pan heat up the sugar and rice vinegar and once it is boiling pour it over your ginger and seal the jar. Done!

Now let's move on.

What I have is a recipe for miso and mirin dressing which also contains a substantial amount of sushi ginger.( I have to say that if I didn't make my own sushi ginger I wouldn't make this as small jars of the stuff costs so much and this calls for 125g of it.)It's from Terre a Terre: The Vegetarian Cookbook and really if you like fabulous imaginative food, regardless of whether you are vegan, vegetarian or omnivore, you need this book. Admittedly on first glance some of the recipes sound and look complex but this doesn't mean you have to make every component of the dish. I make this dressing and serve it with a much more simplified noodle salad than in the book and it still works and tastes great. For most people it will probably require a trip to a specialist Asian supermarket and I'm not sure what it says about me that I had all the ingredients already to hand but not say the ingredients required to make a simple pasta sauce. 

Miso and mirin dressing

50g white miso

50ml mirin

25ml toasted sesame oil

2 teaspoons umeboshi puree 

125g sushi ginger

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

2 tablespoons lime juice

75ml grapeseed (or sunflower) oil

about 20 ml water

Put it all in a blender and blitz until smooth. Only add enough of the water to thin the mixture.

Now pour it all over cold soba noodles, or a big bowl of salad leaves or a mixture of both.

Now go buy the book so you can enjoy such recipes as: Colada Toddy, Sin Sin Salad, Uttapam and Dudhi, Sodden Socca, Strawberry Lush, Vodka Cherry Chocolate Churros and Yuba Juba Beefy Tea. 

A seasonal recipe...mango and coconut cake!

 

Mangoes are back in season and there is much rejoicing in my house. I'm not referring to those mainly large and green boulders often sold as mangoes with an extortionate price tag all year round. No. I'm talking about honey mangoes...sweet juicy perfumed golden beauties...only available for about a month.

They almost always come sold in boxes complete with small bits of coloured tinsel attached to each mango. Of course, mangoes are good for you but really I make this cake because we have bought too many and their perfumed sweetness is starting to take over the house. 

I'd like to say that the coconut is also seasonal, but then I'd be lying.

Mango cake with coconut frosting

Make the frosting first and if possible either the day before as coconut oil can take a while to set again once melted and you'll end up with a very runny frosting (as can be seen from the top photo).

Coconut frosting

2 Cans coconut milk

4 very heaped teaspoons cornflour

1/2 Cup caster sugar

50-75g finely desiccated coconut (plus extra for sprinkling)

1/4 Cup melted coconut oil

1)Mix a little of the coconut milk in with the cornflour to make a smooth paste and put the rest of the coconut milk in a pan with the sugar and stir in the cornflour mix. Bring to a simmer stirring constantly.

2)When the mixture is smooth, thick and creamy take off the heat and stir in the desiccated coconut. Let it cool then whisk in the melted coconut oil. Chill.

Mango cake

150g caster sugar

100g self raising flour

200g plain flour

2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

150ml sunflower oil

200ml soya milk

2 large honey mangoes (peeled and the flesh removed)

1) Heat oven to 180C. Grease and line a deep 8" cake tin.

2) Sieve all the dry ingredients into a bowl. Blend the soya milk, mango flesh and sunflower oil together and add this to the dry ingredients. Mix.

3)Pour into your prepared cake tin and bake for 45 minutes (although it can sometimes take up to an hour. I think this is more to do with the size of mangoes used). 

4)Let it cool

5) Slice cake in half. Spread coconut frosting inside (and a layer of freshly sliced mango too if you want) and top it with more frosting and sprinkle over desiccated coconut