I don't care if it's raining. It is also muggy. The paths by the river are nearly impassable in sandals due to their nettly springiness. It is time get veg forward again. Also, frankly, meat week ended with disgraceful scenes involving mammoth-size steak and chips, and I need vitaminning.
Lunch yesterday and for the foreseeable future was green hummus from Simply - your standard garlic/lemon/chickpea/tahini/salt with a big handful each of parsley and coriander, a half handful of tarragon and possibly also some mint, I've lost track. Not much if mint, but wouldn't be the worst idea.
This is delicious and also absolutely bungs up your stick blender, so beware. If it's a new and more sensitive stick blender than previously, make sure you unplug it before unbunging the stick. Nearly (but not) a nasty accident. Also, next time I need tahini, remind me I do (as I knew) have a big jar of it, but it's not on the usual shelf because it's, you know, a big jar, and I needn't take the kitchen apart finding it. Grrr.
It was rather that kind of day in the kitchen - nothing terrible, but higher levels of stress than actually required. Dinner was laksa, which was going to be very quick to cook, but I cut it far too fine for Confined Cocktails after a Zoom tea and finishing some more of the new Benedict Jacka (it's not that new, I missed it coming out in December and needed a real bookshop to make me aware of that). Hence, stressful.
(I also think it's kind of blasphemy but I made laksa without chilli. My guts required it. It's still very worth doing.)
Spice paste is ginger, garlic, lemongrass, turmeric, cumin, stalks from some coriander, whites from some spring onions (keep the green bits of both for later); blitzed in a little blender (oh the joy of washing up two blenders in one day; obvs this is where your chilli goes if using). Cook it out for a couple of minutes.
Then add: coconut milk, stock, and tamarind paste, from the ancient block in the fridge (at least that was easy to spot, unlike the tahini).
Realise that you took the "fry the paste" notion rather too seriously but unstrategically and sigh. Make soup in your frying pan, whatever. It doesn't need to cook for long, just get hot and take on the spices.
Meanwhile, blanch some spring veg - examples given included asparagus and broccoli, which I did, and broad beans or spinach, which I didn't. Cook rice noodles in this too, or however else you do noodles.
Put it all together in the biggest bowl you have, add chopped coriander leaves and green bits of spring onions, and some chopped mint leaves. I had some watercress the second day, and that was also good. Another spring veg, right?
Big bowl o green:
One thing that made this a tad more stressful was knocking together a cocktail at the same time. But it was an *excellent* one. Again from The Spirits, which I can see all over my twitter feed now, bless it. A French Pearl - a gin sour with mint and absinthe, or in this case Pernod. Delicious. But trying to eke enough juice out of a recalcitrant lime while making a spice paste is a recipe for butterfingers and swearing.
Although Confined Cocktails is moving to a natural end if all continues to go well, I've every intention of keeping up Unconfined Cocktails as a hashtag in a looser, more fluid way. It's been amazing, messing with cocktail recipes properly and I have no plans to stop that just because we're allowed out of the house occasionally.
But it is going to be summer. Asparagus *and* strawberries this weekend. We're getting out, people.
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