Feast from the East

I've been back from my trip to China for a week now, and I still feel like I'm getting over the jet lag!

It's an amazing place, stuffed full of history and intrigue at every turn. However, for a country whose religious population is predominantly Buddhist, China's not the great vegetarian Mecca you might think, as Chinese Buddhists happily tend to eat meat, and many vegetable dishes contain pork for flavouring. However, there were a couple of really delicious dishes that I was party to out there, and here's my recipe for one of my favourites. It's a really simple cucumber salad, where the cucumber has a very spicy tang due to marinading with chilli. Great as a pick-me-up in hot weather, this serves as the perfect accompaniment to Western and Chinese-style dishes.

Spicy cucumber and chilli salad

Ingredients:
4 dessert spoons of sesame oil
1 red chilli, sliced into rounds
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
4 small cucumbers (the short stumpy ones are best, not the large smooth ones that are most common in the UK)
2 dessert spoons cider vinegar

Method:
1. Very gently heat the oil in a saucepan with the chilli and garlic. It should not bubble or spit, but should just become slightly warm, so that you could drip it on your hand without being burned.

2. Remove from the heat and transfer to a bowl. Allow to rest until it reaches room temperature. This allows the flavours to develop.

3. When the oil has reached room temperature, add in the cider vinegar and mix. Peel the cucumber and slice into rounds. Mix with the dressing. Allow to chill in the fridge for 30 minutes, then serve.

Aubergine Caviar and Courgette Caviar

Traditionally, Good Friday is a meat-free day, aka 'Fish Friday'. And what better way to bring this to life here than with a bit of fish free 'caviar'?

For those who don't know, I'm particularly interested in all things Russian, though I'm not sure that my interest extends to the food. Whilst the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia have yielded some pretty delicious dishes, I'm afraid that traditional Russian cuisine dosn't speak to me quite so much. Perhaps this is because (aside from soups and pickles, which are in a league of their own) traditional Russian cooking only has a limited lot to offer to vegetarians, let alone vegans.

However, there are the odd couple of things that are worth mentioning, and they come into their own when the weather turns warmer, and we start craving simpler, lighter food. These two 'caviar' recipes are inspired by Sofka Skipwith's 'Eat Russian', a charming little food and cookbook from the Soviet era. They are partcularly good served with a nice wholesome bread (here served with Marathon Bread from Barbakan), and a simple salad of tomato and cucumber or gherkin.

Aubergine Caviar and Courgette Caviar

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

2 aubergines

3 courgettes

2 onions

2 tomatoes

3 tblsp sunflower oil

3 tblsp cider vinegar

salt and pepper to taste.

Method:

1. Cut the courgettes and aubergines in half lenthways and arrange, cut-side down, on baking trays with about a centimetre of hot water on the tray. Pop in the oven for about 15-20 mins at 180 degrees celcius to steam gently.

2. Meanwhile, prepare the rest of the vegetables. Firstly, you will need to skin the tomatoes. To do so, score a small cross in the top of each tomato, then submerge completely in boiled water. Leave for about 10 minutes, after which time, you can remove the tomatoes and the skin should peel off easily.Then finely chop the skinned tomatoes.

3. Whilst the tomatoes are sitting in the boiling water, very finely chop the onion.

4. When the aubergines and courgettes are steamed, remove them from the oven and allow to sit until cool enough to handle. Finely chop the flesh (keeping the courgette and the aubergine separate).

5. Set up two frying pans, and divide the oil, vinegar, onion and tomato equally between them. Add the aubergine to one pan and the courgette to the other. Gently simmeron a low heat to evaporate off any exess liquid. Allow to cool and refrigerate - serve very cold as part of a buffet dinner with bread and salad.

Bulgar wheat salad

I'm not a fan of stodgy fare at the best of times, and particularly when the weather is warm and sunny. This recipe is just the kind of guilt-free, veg-filled, colourful food heaven that I like to indulge in over summer.

Serves 4-6 people

Ingredients:

200g bulgar wheat

dessertspoonful of onion pickle for popadoms (I had some left over in the fridge, but you can use one small onion, finely chopped and sprinkled with lemon juice instead)

the juice of one lemon

half a cucumber

5 ripe tomatoes (vine tomatoes are best)

one cup of garden peas

2 large carrots, grated

2 dessertspoons of spinach puree (puree is easier, but fresh spinach, finely chopped will also work)

Method:

1. In a large bowl, mix the onion pickle into the dried bulgar wheat. Add the lemon juice, then just cover with boiling water. Cover the top of the bowl with a plate to keep the steam in. The bulgar wheat will be rehydrated in about 30 minutes.

2. In the meantime, cube the cucumber, cut the tomatoes into wedges, grate the carrots, and cook your peas if you are using frozen ones

3. When the bulgar wheat is rehydrated, add the spinach, cucumber, tomato, carrots and peas, and stir gently, but thouroughly. Add salt and black pepper to taste. 

Personally, I tend to like the fresh taste of the salad 'as is', with just the lemon juice and black pepper to set off the taste of all of the fresh ingredients. However, if you prefer something with a bit more punch, then balsamic would work really well on this salad, as would a nice fruit vinegar.