Mini (quail) scotch eggs

As soon as my quails started laying eggs, I was already wondering what i could try to do with all those eggs... Besides the obvious mini sunny side up, poached hard boiled etc... I wanted to try the mini scotch eggs...

Salt Cured Olives

This is the other method of curing olives i promised you... Salt curing. 

Water Cured Maltese Olives

October is the month when olives are picked. Traditionally my father has been curing our olives in brine... This year I decided to try 2 other methods: water curing and salt curing.

This is the result of my water cured olives.

Method:

You can either crush the olives with a mallet or cut the olives (as i did) with a paring knife.
Place the olives in a bowl full of cold water and put a weight on so that all the olives are submerged.
I used a plastic bag filled with water and placed it on the olives.

Tabouleh

Tabouleh is uswally greener, but when I did this I had a limited amount of parsley

• Summer is a good time to try different salads. 
• The first time I was in Damascus I had this wonderful parsley salad and I have been trying to find the recipie ever since... 
• Tabouleh... it is very refreshing and tasty and you can still get free parsley from your vegetable vendor here in Malta... actually it's the only free thing we still get :)

So try it out and enjoy... 

Ful bit-Tewm - (Broad bean casserole)

Ingredients 

1.4grms  broad beans
Several cloves of garlic
Chopped parsley
Fresh mint
2 or 3 tablespoons vinegar
2 or 3 tablespoons oil
Courgettes cut into small pieces
1 potato cut into small pieces
Salt and pepper
1 large white onion small pieces

Method

Remove both the outer pods and the inner skins from beans.Put them in a saucepan and add the cloves of garlic.

Add the other ingredients together with water to moisten, about half a pint.

Bring to the boil and then simmer slowly until beans are cooked.

May be served hot or cold.

Enjoy with some malteses bread.

Gbejniet Friski

Here is a recipe for gbejniet which makes use of commercial rennet.

Ingredients

1 pint of milk

2 teaspoons rennet

A pinch of salt

Method

Put the milk in a saucepan and heat to 98° or until it reaches body temperature.  Stir in while heating.  Remove from the fire and add the rennet and the salt.  Cover and leave strictly alone for 1 hour.  Now spoon the mixture into 2 baskets and put these in a colander.  There may be too mcuh milk for the two baskets; you may have to wait until some moisture is lost.  After about 6 hours they should be fairly set.  Take one basket at a time, turn the cheese into the palm of one hand; now transfer it to the other hand and replace it in the basket.  This serves to turn the cheese upside down.  Put the baskets in a soup plate or pie dish and leave it to set until the next day.  Remember to empty out the liquid which oozes out.  Sprinkle the cheeses with rough salt and freshly ground black pepper and east with toasted Malta bread.

Stuffed Calamari

Stuffed Calamari

This is an exquisite recipe I got from a good friend of mine.  You should try it out.  Especially now with summer being around the corner, there is nothing better than this typical Mediterranean dish.

For the calamari

4 medium calamari

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, finely diced

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

50g  uncooked Arborio rice

½ tbsp finely chopped rosemary leaves

½ tbsp finely chopped thyme leaves

200g  chorizo, finely chopped

¼ tsp fennel seeds

125g pork mince

2 tsp paprika
handful of mixed seafood

pinch cayenne pepper

½ lemon, juice only

salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the sauce

1 tbsp olive oil

2 garlic cloves, finely sliced

500g tomato juice

200ml/7fl oz fish stock

2 bay leaves

7 tbsp dry sherry

1 tsp finely chopped thyme leaves

salt and freshly ground black pepper

finely chopped parsley leaves to garnish

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 125C, or as close to this temperature as possible.
2. For the squid, prepare the squid by pulling out the tentacles along with the innards and the quill. Trim off and discard the innards and the quill. Pull the wings off the body then rinse the body, tentacles and wings and set aside.
3. Heat the olive oil in a large pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and fry gently for 8-10 minutes, or until softened. Set aside to cool.
4. Finely chop the tentacles and wings from the squid and put them into a mixing bowl with the cooked onion mixture and all of the remaining squid ingredients.

 

5. Mix the stuffing well - it's easiest to just use your hands - then stuff it into the cleaned squid bodies. Don't pack the stuffing in too tightly as the rice will expand quite a lot during cooking - each squid body should be about half full. Secure the open ends of the squid bodies with cocktail sticks. Any remaining stuffing can be added to the sauce.

6. For the sauce, heat a heavy-based casserole dish (large enough to fit your squid snugly side by side) over a medium heat. Add the olive oil and throw in the sliced garlic. When it's just starting to turn golden-brown, add the tomatoes, followed by the fish stock, bay leaves, lemon zest, sherry and thyme leaves. Season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black 

pepper.  

 

7. Carefully place the stuffed squid into the casserole, pushing them down into the sauce, then bring to a very gentle simmer.

8. Transfer the dish to the oven and cook for two hours, or until the squid is very tender. Don't worry if some of the stuffing has forced its way out, just serve it with the sauce. 

9. Serve the squid with a few spoonfuls of sauce over the top. Scatter with the chopped parsley, and serve a crisp green salad alongside.