thepassionatecook

Aubergine rolls stuffed with couscous, mince, pine nuts and sour cherries

Ooops... I almost wrote "mice" instead of mince... of course no mice in my food, I am not called Ronald after all, am I? So this is another one of those dishes that will possibly provoke some controversy... I may not be a complete stranger to Middle Eastern cuisine, I have spent the last year slowly immersing myself into the dishes, ingredients, restaurants of the region - but at the same time, it's a really broad church and inevitably, as I get used to ingredients that don't pertain to my culinary heritage, I am bound to create some sort of fusion cuisine... authentic? Maybe not. Wrong? I don't think so. I hope you can forgive me and embrace this dish with the same, heart-warming ignorance that I have!

So I have been playing with Middle Eastern food stuff for the last 12 months - and that's BEFORE I even made the trek to the Iraqi shop in Kingston Vale! If there is one culinary prediction I have for 2010 in London, it would be that we're being invaded by Middle Eastern cuisine! Not a month goes by without another Lebanese restaurant, deli or cafe to open and the ingredients belonging to this type of kitchen also have become more widely available. The pomegranate molasses I spent months finding (and eventually got fom my Iraqi friend) is now easily obtainable from Sainsbury's. The day when they stock something because it features in one of MY recipes, not Jamie Oliver's or Delia Smith's, will be a happy day and possibly the end of the world as I know it. (not a new year's resolution, this!)

How I came up with this dish? Hhmm? Ask me something a little easier, ok? I remembered aubergine rolls of some sort and format when I trawled through a bunch of old photographs today and came across the wonderful Arabic Feast my friend Dabia laid out for us last year. I had a picture only and couldn't for the life of me remember what it was (sorry Dabia, there were just too many delicious things you made for us...) I guessed it was a combination of mince and stodge and decided to go for beef mince (rump steak) and barley couscous. A fair amount of onions and garlic (which feature in all of my recipes, desserts - mostly - excluded) and then, there comes the more exotoc bit, sour cherries and pine kernels and a generous amount of pomegranate molasses to which I have become addicted.

Not your average mince stuffing, but wonderfully fruity, the molasses are bursting with flavour, sweetening and slightly sour at the same time, you might think it a strange combination, but I have tried this on the most conservative of palates and they loved it, so you're quite safe!

Also, before I forget, there's a wonderful book that's just come out - if you enjoy to read about global food and search out the best dishes or ingredients to be had on any given continent, this might be for you. It's National Geographic's "Food Journey's of a Lifetime - 500 extraordinary places to eat around the globe", featuring articles from yours truly! It's been out for a month and already re-printing... an excellent browse, you know you want it!

Smoked haddock, spinach, asapargus lasagne with poached egg

Reading the title of this post, you might think I've gone a bit coocoo - lasagne? fish? egg??? - but this is not a lasagne in its true sense. It is a much lighter version, more subtle in taste, little hassle to assemble and the poached egg, well, that's a little extra treat for the more adventurous eaters among you. Feel free to leave the egg out if the idea of an open lasagne and especially one using fish is already pushing the boat out into uncomfortably deep culinary waters so to speak.

I made a similar lasagne, based on a recipe by Gordon Ramsay, five years ago already and the very fact that it's stuck with me for all this time should tell you that there's something undoubtedly attractive and almost addictive about this combination of flavours. The only downside is the assembly - unless you have warming lamps or are lucky enough to live in a hot climate, the chances are that you won't serve this dish piping hot... make sure you warm the plates first to conserve as much heat as possible and just learn to live with the fact that lukewarm is the new hot. It's much healthier for you that way, anyway ;-)

This is the recipe for you if you want something unusual, creamy and scrumptious... you can prepare most ingredients ahead, then reheat at the time of assembly - the only thing that needs attention on the spot is the poached egg. I have made a vow to adapt this recipe even further by assembling and baking in the oven shortly before serving - but the opportunity hasn't presented itself yet! So there you have it, that's my resolution for 2010!

Potato and blue cheese soup shots with garlic butter ryes

I can't believe we're almost half-way through the first month of a new year... January, of course, is always a busy month around here - unlike other households, we're not going on a diet to keep half-hearted resolutions, on the contrary! We have so many birthdays to celebrate that we just go on indulging as if we had managed to keep our waists from expanding over the holidays! I have never been one for birthdays, I love celebrating other people's, but I normally tend to ignore my own. Ever since my youngest son, Henrik, was born three days after my birthday in 2007, my birthday has turned into a complete non-event... so much so that this year, I am rising in defiance and will celebrate not once, but at least four times: dinner with food blogging friends tomorrow, birthday brunch with local Mums on Friday, birthday dinner with the family (seafood extravaganza at home, yeah, in important situations like this one, I don't trust anyone else to cook my food ;-)) and a surprise dinner organised by my husband, probably a bit later in the year as he's left it till too late as usual...

Plenty of occasions to serve up some finger food then - this recipe is one that I promised to post in English eventually and here it is: a creamy, indulgent potato and blue cheese soup served in shot glasses, accompanied by crispy garlic butter toasts. The soup is wonderfully moreish and comforting on a cold winter evening, so also stands in as a perfect and quick weekday supper! You can use any blue cheese, but I tend to go for a creamy gorgonzola, if you prefer something a bit more pungent, try it with stilton or roquefort. If you want to go for something a bit less rustic and more luxurious, you could also use some truffles instead of the cheese and truffle oil for the toasts... You must, however, go out of your way to find good rye bread for the garlic butter crisps, the wonderful aroma of caraway and honey that is traditionally used in Austrian/German rye bread is a great complement for this wintery soup - simple toast just wouldn't cut the mustard here!