Sweet Potato & Olive Filo Pastry Tunisian Briks

Here is a remnant from Tunisia month, back in January. I've been pretty busy, and generally trying to spend less time sitting and staring at my computer screen. So, as a consequence, I've succeeded in doing a lot less blogging so far this year. That meant that a few of my January Tunisian recipes didn't end up getting posted so I'll bring you a couple of late ones, starting with these briks.

Briks are a popular and common dish in Tunisian cuisine, but these ones are a far cry from the traditional ones! Traditionally they're made with a thicker pastry made with eggs and then deep fried. But I was on a bit of a health kick after Xmas indulgence so I thought I might bake them in flaky filo pastry. Traditional fillings include fish (especially tuna or anchovies), egg, capers, potatoes or cheese. I've made mine using sweet potato (because I love it so much), olives and capers.

Ingredients
1 small sweet potato, peeled and cubed (500g or so)
1/4 cup chopped shallots
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp harissa
1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp capers
8-10 black olives, pitted and roughly chopped
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Filo pastry sheets
Melted vegan butter/margarine 

To Make:
1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C. Boil the sweet potato until just tender. Drain and place in a large bowl. Mash until smooth.
2. Stir through the shallots, olive oil, harissa, cumin, capers, olives and parsley.
3. Take a sheet of filo pastry (keep all the other sheets covered with a damp teatowel while you work to prevent it drying out) and cut it into 3 rectangles. Brush each with melted butter and fold in half so that your rectangle becomes a square. Add a tablespoon of filling to each and fold over to form a triangle. Place on a baking tray and brush the tops with melted butter too. 
4. Continue until you have used up all the mixture. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until just golden brown (keep an eye on them as they will go from "cooked" to "overcooked" very easily).
5. Serve immediately.

Check out my other Tunisian recipe posts:

Cooked Carrot & Olive Salad

{Baked} Tunisian Yoyo (Orange Flavoured Doughnuts)

Mzoura (Harissa Parsnips)

Hlalem (Tunisian Pasta and Beans)

Tunisian Cooked Carrot & Olive Salad

Sweet tender cooked carrots make up the bulk of this easy and delicious north African salad, flavoured with harissa and tangy lemon & vinegar and punctuated with marinated black olives that pack a punch of flavour every time you get one. I love cooked salads, and this one made me really happy. It's healthy, quick to make, a bit different to your usual table salad and perfect for all seasons.

Ingredients
1 kg carrots
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp harissa (you can use paste or spice mix)
1/2 tsp ground caraway seeds
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
10 marinated kalamata olives

To Make
1. Trim and slice the carrots. Place in a pan and cover with water; bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer for for about 10 minutes, or until tender.
2. Combine all the remaining ingredients except the olives in a jar and shake to combine.
3. Drain and rinse carrots. Place in a bowl and dress with the dressing in the jar.
4. Sprinkle olives on top and serve at room temperature.

This month I'm featuring lots of recipes from Tunisia!

Check out my other Tunisian recipe posts:

{Baked} Tunisian Yoyo (Orange Flavoured Doughnuts)

Mzoura (Harissa Parsnips)

Hlalem (Tunisian Pasta and Beans)

Sweet Potato, Olive & Caper Briks

Hearts of Palm & Olive Empadinhas (Brazilian Empadinhas de Palmito)

I've saved my favourite recipe until last this month, to end the year with a really awesome dish! Have you eaten empanadas before? They're pretty popular all over South America, and I made a couple of different types when I featured Argentinian food - Pumpkin Jalapeño Empanadas and Sweetcorn Empanadas, they were both amazing. These aren't empanadas though, they're Brazilian empadinhas. A bit like empanadas but they're in cut little pies which is even better because you can stuff more filling in!

I'm not even exaggerating when I tell you that these were to die for. So tasty!!! Make your new years resolution to make these in 2014! Happy new year everyone!

Hearts of Palm & Olive Empadinhas (Brazilian Empadinhas de Palmito)

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp salt
8 tbsp vegan margarine
1/2 cup oat or soy milk

Filling:
1/4 cup olive oil
2 onions, diced
3 tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups oat or soy milk
1 can hearts of palm, drained and chopped
1/3 cup chopped black olives
Salt and pepper to taste


To Make
1. In a large bowl mix together the flour and salt for the dough. Melt the margarine and set aside to cool down a bit.
2. When cool, stir the melted margarine through the flour with a fork. Gradually add the oat milk until it all starts to come together in a dough. Get it to a consistency which holds together as a dough, but doesn't stick to your fingers when you knead it. You may need to add a little more flour or a little more milk to get it to this.
3. Knead the dough for a few minutes, until it is smooth and stretchy. Wrap in plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature for 40 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
4. Meanwhile you can make the filling. Heat the oil in a large pan and then add the diced onions. Sauté until they are soft and then sprinkle over the flour. Stir well to form a thick paste and cook this paste for about a minute. Gradually add the milk, stirring well each time, until all the milk has been added.
5. Add the chopped hearts of palm and the black olives and stir through. Remove from the heat and set aside.
6. Grease a muffin tin well. Roll out a piece of the dough nice and thin (it should be about 2-3mm) and use a glass to cut out 12 little lids (use a glass that is about the same size as the top of your muffin pans). Divide the  remaining dough into 12 equal pieces (approximately equal, don't get out your scales or anything). Roll out the pieces nice and thin into a circle and line the bottom and sides of the muffin tin. You're circle will fold up about around the sides of the tin, don't worry about that, it just makes it look lovely and rustic. Trim any edges that stick up too high and use the remaining pastry to patch any gaps that spring up.
7. Divide the filling evenly amongst the 12 pies and top each one with a lid. Use a fork to press the edges together around the top and then poke a couple of holes in the top so they don't explode when you cook them.
8. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Makes 12 empadinhas.

This month I'm featuring lots of recipes from Brazil!

Check out my other Brazilian recipe posts:

Avocado Cream & Passion Fruit Mousse (Creme de Abacate & Mousse de Maracujá)

Bolinhos de Arroz (Brazillian Fried RiceBalls) with Orange, Olive & Brazil Nut Rice

Chocolate Coconut Kisses

Pizza de Brigadeiro (Chocolate Pizza) with Strawberries & Cream Cheese

Black Eyed Bean Acaraje

Hearts of Palm & Rocket Pizza

Bolinhos de Arroz (Brazilian Fried Rice Balls) with Orange, Olive & Brazil Nut Rice

Cooking with friends is one of my favourite things to do, and the other day my gorgeous friend Ruth came around to help me cook up a feast of Brazilian dishes. It's so much more relaxing to have an extra pair of hands to help out and to have a great person to chat to while we cook. Not to mention a good excuse to open a bottle of wine while you cook and catch up.

I'm always wanting to try new ideas in food styling, so I thought I would let a fresh pair of hands & eyes contribute. Ruth decided that, since it was Brazil month, everything should be as colourful as possible which I completely agree with! So she dug out my most colourful tablecloth, place mats & table decorations and used them all together. Did it clash? Yes. Was it brilliant? Yes. So I hope you enjoy these colourful photos, courtesy of Ruth's sense of fun :) Keep your eye out and you'll see her slightly crazy influence in some of my other Brazil month photos too!

Onto the food now. These fried rice balls turned out so much better than I had ever imagined. The rice is so delicious and flavourful that you don't need any dipping sauces or condiments with them & they're fried so light and crispy that you can't help going back for one more tasty crunchy bite!

These style of fried rice balls are often made in Brazil to use up leftover rice, but I cooked my own rice flavoured with chilli, orange, olives and Brazil nuts. I don't know about you, but whenever I think of Brazil nuts I think of the episode of the Simpsons in which they go to Brazil. Homer says to his kidnapper: "I have a bladder the size of a Brazil nut" and the man replies: "We just call them nuts here". I find that so funny that every time I think of Brazil nuts I hear his voice in my head saying "We just call them nuts here".

Traditionally, this recipe uses eggs as a binding agent. To make it vegan I just left them out and they held together fine because I cooked the rice by absorption so all the starchiness remained. If you have leftover rice which has been boiled, drained & rinsed then you may have more difficulty making them stay together. I recommend using rice cooked by absorption if you use leftover rice (otherwise you may need to add some egg replacer or cornstarch to bind). But if you follow this recipe you won't need any binder at all.

You can prepare the rice the night before, keep it in the fridge and then roll out and fry them just before serving.

Bolinhos de Arroz (Brazillian Fried Rice Balls) with Orange, Olive & Brazil Nut Rice

Ingredients
2 cups long grain rice
4 cups water
1 tsp chilli powder (add more or less, to taste)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp orange zest (about half an orange)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped Brazil nuts
1/3 cup sliced black olives
Vegetable oil, for frying.

To Make:
1. Combine the rice, water, chilli powder, garlic, olive oil, brown sugar, orange zest & salt in a large saucepan.
2. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook on a low heat, covered, for about 30 minutes - or until the rice is cooked and all the water has been absorbed.
3. Stir in the chopped nuts and olives and set the rice aside to cool.
4. When the rice is cool enough to handle, pick up a handful and press it firmly into a ball. You won't be able to actually roll it between your palms or it will break up, so just press it firmly into place with your hands. Keep doing this until all the mixture is gone.
5. Heat a generous amount of vegetable oil in a wok, frypan or saucepan. Fry the balls in batches for just a few minutes on each side. Drain on paper towel and set aside while you fry all the others.
6. Serve immediately, or keep warm in the oven until ready to eat.

Makes about 30 balls (will vary depending on how big you roll them).

This month I'm featuring lots of recipes from Brazil!

Check out my other Brazilian recipe posts:

Avocado Cream & Passion Fruit Mousse (Creme de Abacate & Mousse de Maracujá)

Chocolate Coconut Kisses

Pizza de Brigadeiro (Chocolate Pizza) with Strawberries & Cream Cheese

Black Eyed Bean Acaraje

Hearts of Palm & Rocket Pizza
Hearts of Palm & Olive Empadinhas (Empadinhas de Palmito)

Peri Peri Hummus Cucumber Bites (Easy Healthy & Vegan Appetiser)

Sometimes you just need appetisers to be quick, easy, delicious and healthy. Because who wants to fiddle around with tiny things when you're in a rush (or just not in the mood). This is the perfect healthy appetiser to whip up quickly - you can even use store bought hummus! Use home made if you feel like it of course. It has a bit of a kick with the addition of some Peri Peri Spice blend from my spice rack. You can substitute peri peri sauce or even just a pinch of dried chilli flakes if you don't have access to either. Start with just a little peri peri and then gradually add  more until you get to the level you like it. If you or your guests don't like it hot at all, just substitute a little cumin or garam masala instead.

Peri Peri
Peri Peri is just chilli really, but it's a chilli blend which is used extensively in South Africa. The term Peri Peri (or Piri Piri) is used loosely to describe chillies in India and South Africa. Both peri peri spice powder and peri peri sauce are simply made from a blend of chillis, generally being quite hot. If you want some interesting facts about chilli that you probably didn't know jump over to my Spicy Chickpea Salad with Olive Hummus Dressing where I've written up some info about chilli :)

Reference: Hemphill, 2006

For my month of spices I'm using Spice Notes and Recipes by Ian Hemphill as my reference tool to learn about spices and for all the information above. Thanks Ian for writing such a great and informative book! 

Peri Peri Hummus Cucumber Bites

Ingredients
1 tub store bought hummus
1/2 tsp peri peri spice blend (or 1 tsp peri peri sauce), add more or less to taste
2 cucumbers
1/2 cup black olives, sliced in half and pitted.

To Make
1. Stir the peri peri through the hummus.
2. Slice the cucumbers about 1 cm thick and arrange on a plate.
3. Top each cucumber slice with 1 tsp of hummus and half a black olive. Serve as soon as they are made (preferably).

Egyptian Orange Olive Salad with Cumin

I love trying new salads, and with spring well and truly here now it's the perfect time to be experimenting with them. I found this beautiful salad on (shifty eyes) wikirecipes. I know, it's not the most reliable source of information. But it was listed with the Egyptian recipes and even though I really wasn't sure if it was authentic at all, I thought it sounded delicious so I decided to make it  anyway - maybe an Egyptian reader can tell me whether it is the kind of thing that Egyptians would actually eat :)

In the end though, it didn't matter if it was authentic or not because it was really, really tasty and I will definitely make this again. It is a fresh and light salad which makes a perfect accompaniment to heavier, carby-er main dishes.

This Orange & Olive Salad is flavoured with ground cumin - which is not an exotic spice but it's not something I normally put in salads in ground form (I often do use toasted cumin seeds in salads which is delicious!), so it was nice to learn a new use for this incredible spice.

Cumin
Cumin is a cooks best friend, it has amazing flavour and enhances any curries, soups, casseroles and salads you could dream to put them in. It is believed to be indingenous to the middle east and has a strong history in Egypt.  Cumin seeds have been found in the pyramids of the pharoahs, they were used by Egyptians in their mummifying process. There is also references in the Old and New Testaments of the bible to cumin. In ancient Rome, cumin was a symbol of greed and the miserly emperor Marcus Aurelius was nicknamed "Cuminus".

Reference: Hemphill, 2006

For my month of spices I'm using Spice Notes and Recipes by Ian Hemphill as my reference tool to learn about spices and for all the information above. Thanks Ian for writing such a great and informative book! 

Orange and Olive Salad with Cumin

Ingredients
8 navel oranges, sliced and with skin and pith sliced off
1/2 cup halved marinated black olives
1 small Spanish onion, peeled and sliced
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt and cracked black pepper to taste

To Make
1. Combine the orange slices, olives and onion in a salad bowl.
2. Mix the lemon juice, cumin, olive oil, salt and pepper in a jar and shake well.
3. Pour the dressing over the salad and allow to sit for 20 minutes to let the flavour meld. Serve at room temperature.

Serves 6-8 as a side salad.

This month I'm featuring lots of delicious food from Egypt.

Check out my other Egyptian recipe posts:

Preserved Lemons

Limoonada (Egyptian Lemonade)

Mesa'a'ah (Spicy Eggplant)

'Ancient Egyptian Peasant' Beer Onions

Creamy Tahini Sauce

Ful Medames

Khoshaf

Spicy Chickpea Salad with Olive Hummus Dressing

This delicious salad uses four spices from my overflowing spice rack - and all of them red, giving this salad a lovely red-orange hue. Chickpeas fried in chilli and sweet and smoked paprika with a creamy olive hummus dressing and a sprinkle of middle eastern sumac.

Chilli

Well, you all know about chilli. There are hundreds of varieties of chilli and they have a long history in many countries. There is evidence that chillies were eaten by Mexican Indians as early as 7000 BCE. In modern times chilli has become a commonly used all over the world in a myriad of ways. Chillis apparently contain more Vitamin C by weight than any citrus fruit and are found in our spice racks in dried form, flakes and many powdered varieties including chilli powder, hot paprika and cayenne pepper. Chilli is also purportedly excellent for weight loss as it speeds up the metabolism (in my experience it also good in this regard because it limits the amount of food you eat - because I can't eat as big a quantity of really hot food as I can mild food!). The heat of chilli can depend on what you cook your chilli with - oils and fats can mollify the heat of a dish so adding a high fat coconut milk can tame your curry. When eating a super chilli dish it's natural to reach for a glass of water - but don't! Water will actually make it worse - the best relief will come from a spoonful of sugar, but beer is also a good accompaniment. Milky drinks using yoghout or coconut milk are also a good option.

Paprika

In the same family as chilli (Capsicum family), paprikas origins go back the same as chilli - to the Mexican Indians in 7000 BCE. However, it was the Spanish that first turned these fruits into a powder after Christopher Columbus brought them back to Europe from the new world. Paprika in it's many forms is now ubiquitous in Spanish and Hungarian cuisines in particular. But during the Turkish occupation of Hungary in the 17th Century, paprika was prohibited and it's use and trade was punishable by death! This resulted in many people growing paprika illegally and a black market for paprika evolved, keeping the spice firmly entrenched in Hungarian cuisine. Interestingly, paprika can be used to tone down a dish if you have accidentally added too much chilli.

Sumac

If you haven't spent much time eating oodles of middle eastern food, then this is a spice which may have passed you by! Sumac is made from berries which grow on a tree in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Since there were no lemons in this region during the Roman era, sumac was used as a sour flavour in many dishes. Not only was it used for flavouring, but the berries were also used for dying as they are a rich deep red. Sumac was brought to Australia by middle eastern migrants, you may have encountered it sprinkled on hummus, fleshly sliced onions or used in salads such as fattoush. When buying sumac, the colour can be a good indication of the quality - darker red sumac contains more berry and less stem and seed than lighter varieties. 

Reference: Hemphill, 2006

For my month of spices I'm using Spice Notes and Recipes by Ian Hemphill as my reference tool to learn about spices and for all the information above. Thanks Ian for writing such a great and informative book! 

Spicy Chickpea Salad with Olive Hummus Dressing

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil

1 x 400g tin of chickpeas (or 350-400g cooked chickpeas), drained well

1 tbsp sweet paprika

1 tbsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp ground chilli (chilli powder)

3 cups baby spinach

3 tomatoes, chopped

Olive Hummus Dressing 

3 tbsp hummus

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

4-5 kalamata olives, finely chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

Sumac

To Make

1. Heat the olive oil in a pan and add the chickpeas and spices. Fry, stirring occasionally until fragrant and the chickpeas are coated in the spices.

2. While they are cooking. Combine all the ingredients for the dressing (except the sumac) in a small bowl and mix well.

3. Remove the chickpeas from the heat and set aside while you put together the salad. Wash the baby spinach leaves and dry as much as you can. Place in a large serving bowl and sprinkle the chopped tomatoes over the top. Add the chickpeas and drizzle with the dressing. Sprinkle liberally with sumac.Toss just before serving.

Serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side.

Rocket Pesto Fettuccine with Tomato, Olives and Artichoke Hearts

Having the rocket pesto already made up in a jar in the fridge makes this seriously a 10 minute dinner - and it tastes so special you would never know you spent less time on it than in your morning shower. 

Ingredients

1 cup Rocket Pesto

1 packet fettuccine

2 tbsp olive oil

4 tomatoes, diced

1 cup marinated artichoke hearts

1/2 cup kalamata olives

2 tbsp fresh lime (or lemon) juice

Salt and cracked pepper, to taste.

To Make

1. Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling water until al dente. Drain and return to the pan.

2. Add the olive oil immediately and stir through the pasta - this will stop it drying out and sticking together.

3. Stir through the rocket pesto until it coats the fettuccine evenly.

4. Add the tomatoes, artichoke hearts, olives, lemon juice and salt and pepper. Stir through and serve immediately!

Serves 4.

Vegan Party Menus Part 2: Tomato, Olive and Red Wine Dip

This one was the perfect companion to the Sweet Potato and Sunflower Seed Dip.

Ingredients:

1 onion, finely chopped

Olive oil, for frying

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tsp dried mixed herbs

1/2 tsp sweet paprika

1 can crushed tomatos

3 tbsp tomato paste

2 tbsp red wine

1/3 cup sliced black olives (although if you are using 'sliced olives' from a jar rather than slicing your own deli kalamata olives I recommend using half a cup because they have a less strong flavour)

To Make:

1. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and sauté the onions and garlic until soft and transparent. Add the mixed herbs and sweet paprika and fry for a further minute until the herbs are fragrant. 

2. Add the remaining ingredients except the olives and heat through. Simmer for about 5 minutes.

3. Remove from the heat and stir the olives through.

4. Serve warm or at room temperature with crackers and/or celery & carrot sticks.

Note: This is also a great base for pasta! If you have any leftovers (which you won't because it's awesome) you can stir it through some hot pasta with a tin of diced tomatoes and some chopped basil and you have a fantastic pasta!