Broccoli pesto mash

I really like broccoli, it's probably one of the green vegetables that I eat most regularly. The tenderstem stuff is ideal as a simple side dish with butter and salt and pepper, and the big green fists of florets are perfect for everything from stir fries to pakoras. So when I was looking for something green to make a pesto with I thought I'd try some cooked broccoli. And it was really good! You can add this 'pesto' to pasta, or if you keep it thick just have it as a mash. I've had it with some pan-fried salmon instead of mashed potatoes, but it would probably go with most things (apart from pudding). I've included a basic recipe below, but do alter the amounts of things based on taste.

Recipe (enough for two):
Around 250g of broccoli florets
1 medium clove garlic
1 big handful pine nuts (lightly toasted if preferred)
Around 50g hard Italian cheese such as parmesan, grana padano, percorino or a properly veggie substitute
Around 1-2 tblsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the broccoli in boiling water for around 8-10 minutes. You want it to be fully cooked through, and probably a bit softer than if you were just eating it on its own (but not boiled to a deathly grey). Drain, and put it and all the other ingredients apart from the oil into a food processor, and whizz together. I have a small Kenwood mini-chopper and make this pesto in two batches, mixing it all together afterwards. Once the pesto ingredients are all combined, but not totally pulverised, add some oil. If you want a loose pesto to go on pasta be generous with the olive oil, but for the mash just use a tablespoon or so to bring it all together. Add some salt and pepper and you're good to go. This process is a bit more complicated without mechanical assistance, but you could probably still crush the garlic, nuts and cheese in a pestle and mortar, mash the broccoli separately and then combine the two together.

I've made this, and allowed it to cool, before it mixing it with hot pasta for dinner. And had it hot straight after being blitzed too. Broccoli is indeed the king of versatility.

Vegan pesto

Pesto with spaghetti is a very reliable quick supper, but it only takes a couple of minutes longer to make fresh pesto rather than use some ready-made stuff from a jar (especially if you have a Kenwood mini-chopper or something similar). It also has the advantage of being packed full of fresh flavours.
I am not a vegan but a lack of appropriate cheese meant that this pesto ended up being dairy-free. Do add some pecorino, grana padano or parmesan if you have any, but it's not actually essential as the pine nuts do a good job of contributing richness to the pesto. So to make enough for one combine the following:

Small bunch of basil (about 5 or 6 long stalks)
Two fat cloves garlic
Small handful pine nuts (toast first in a dry pan if you want)
Enough olive oil to make a loose paste
Salt and pepper to taste

Whizz up the above in a food processor or by hand, and when it's done stir through some hot spaghetti or other pasta. Warning- the heat from the pasta will 'cook' out the raw garlic a bit but it's still a pretty powerful flavour. I love garlic but you might want to limit consumption of this dish to when you are planning on staying in rather than heading out on a first date, job interview, etc, etc.

When is a chop not a chop?

So, when is a chop not a chop? When it's a cutlet of course! I am referring to a (rather delicious) anomaly in Indian cooking, that I assume stems from the time of Empire. The Indian chop is not a cut of meat and can often be vegetarian. It is in fact a combo of mashed potatoes mixed with either fish or vegetables and various spices, shaped into patties or chunky sausage shapes, coated in breadcrumbs and fried. Oddly enough the alternative name for a chop in India (or at least West Bengal) is a cutlet. I have yet to definitively establish if there is any difference between the two, and in my experience they both seem to be used inter-changeably, though the term chop is always used in my family. The meat version uses mince (keema), but whatever it's made of the Indian chop bares little relation to its British counterpart. I am intrigued about the origins of the use of this term though- were 'British chops' usually cooked coated in breadcrumbs during Empire times? Were the 'Indian chops' once shaped more like a cut of meat? Maybe the term chop meant something else altogether a few hundred years ago? Is this what India got in exchange for introducing Britain to kedgeree? I plan to continue my linguistic food investigations!

Anyway whatever it's origins, macher (fish) chop with dahl and some rice is one of my favourite Bengali meals. I will blog about this at a later date (when I have some more time to make them properly), but in the meantime here's something I came up with the other day. I had some raw prawns in the fridge that really needed to be cooked, and I felt like doing something a bit different than a stir-fry or pasta dish. So instead I prepared a slightly simplied version of a chingri (prawn) chop a.k.a. prawn fishcakes. This included most of the ingredients used in a classic macher chop, but instead of coating them in breadcrumbs I lightly dusted them in plain flour before shallowing frying. To make enough for around four chops (sufficient for one person as a main course or two as a side dish) I used the following:

Around 140g raw prawns, de-veined (do feel free to increase the amount of prawns as I was just using what I had left in the fridge)
1 medium potato, chopped, boiled and then mashed
Couple of large spring onions, or half a regular, medium, white onion
2 medium cloves of garlic
1/2 inch piece of ginger, peeled
1 green chilli (more if you prefer more heat or include ground chilli)
1 tsp ground corriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp-ish salt
plain flour for dusting
oil for frying

I prepared this using a Kenwood mini-chopper, which is one of my most used kitchen gadgets, but pounding and mixing everything by hand is possible (and of course more authentic!). I first made a paste from the onion, chilli, ginger and garlic, before adding in the prawns. The prawns should maintain a bit of texture rather than being blended to a mush. Take this mixture and add it to the (cooled) mashed potato, add the dry spices, and combine. The prawn mix should be wet enough to hold everything together which is why this recipe doesn't include a binding agent like egg (but you can add some beaten egg if it's too dry). Form the chops into patties, put them onto a plate lightly dusted in plain flour, (to stop them sticking) and refrigerate for about 30mins (the longer the better really, but you can get away with 10-15mins in some circumstances i.e. when hungry). When you're ready to cook them, heat enough oil to shallow fry, dust the chops in plain flour, pat off any excess and put them into the hot oil. They'll probably need about 6-8mins on each side, and should be a rich golden brown when they're done. I ate mine with a large salad, but these chops would also be perfect with rice and dahl.

Coming soon- Bengali macher chop and beetroot chop!