Red beets salad with caramelized pecans and dill

After travelling and extreme floods, here is finally a new blog post with a fantastic summer salad.

This red beets salad is super refreshing and a perfect way of getting all the raw vegetables and nuts you need.
It's a nice addition to all that meat at your barbecue party and can also be served as a nice and healthy appetizer or as a light lunch or dinner.

I cannot wait to use the beets from our garden for it! Still have to wait a little on those ones...

What you need:

4-5 red beets (fresh)
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
5 spring onions, chopped into fine rings
300-350 g (approx.) 1-1.5 cups of yogurt (around 3.2-3.5% fat)
150-200ml (approx 0,25-0.5 cup) heavy cream
150g pecans chopped
1 bunch of dill, roughly chopped
1 bunch of chives, roughly chopped
salt, pepper, honey/sugar
olive or carmelina oil

Directions:

Peel the red beets.
You may want to use gloves for that because of the red dye. I didn't and it washed off my hands quite easily.
With the grating attachement on a food processor (ideally) roughly grate the beets.

In a pan slowly roast the chopped pecans.
When browned, add some honey or sugar and caramelize the pecans with it.
Remove from heat and set aside to cool down.

In a pan heat up some olive/carmelina oil at medium heat.
Add the garlic and spring onions and sautée for a few minutes, until soft (do not fry them!).
Set aside and let cool down.

In a big salad bowl mix together grated red beets, yoghurt and cream.
Add dill and chive, as well as garlic, spring onions and roasted pecans.

Mix well.

Season to taste with salt and pepper and maybe a tiny bit of sugar.

The salad tastes even better a day later, after it has been sitting in the fridge for a while.

Notes:

All the measurements especially for the yogurt and cream are pretty much measured by eye.
I don't follow a recipe when doing it.
It always depends on how big the beets are. The beets should be nicely coated with the yoghurt-cream mix.
And regarding the dill and chive: Be generous! You cannot really screw anything up by adding 'too many' fresh herbs.

You could use sour cream instead of yoghurt, as well.

Rose Petal Chicken with Green Pistachio Arugula Couscous

Four weeks ago I started my new job at iStock, and I've been busy ever since. So far I like it a lot, given that I have been learning more than in the last five years (it feels like that anyway), and my coworkers are wonderful.
It's been a while since I had a full time job and two other jobs at the same time.
Actually I don't think I ever had that many jobs at the same time.
Aside from working at iStock I also work for the Cookbook Company once or twice a week and on a more irregular bases I contribute photos to the Calgary food and beverage magazine Culinaire.
My photo even made it onto the cover last month. Wohoo!

Both of my 'on-the-side' jobs help me get a great inside on the Calgary food scene (yes, Calgary has one too) and inspire and encourage me to be more willing to experiment in the kitchen.

The recipe I am posting today was prepared by one of the cooking school chefs at the Cookbook Company. As soon as I tried it I knew I had to try this myself at home.

It is soooooo good! And somewhat different.
A light middle eastern dish with lots of herbs and a subtle rose petal aroma that perfectly harmonises with all these beautiful spices.

Here is what you need for the green pistachio arugula couscous

1 cup couscous
3/4 cup boiling water
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp olive oil
1-2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 Tbsp butter / goose, duck, pork fat ... or both

Herb paste

1/3 cup chopped parsley
1 cup chopped cilantro
2 Tbsp chopped Tarragon
2 Tbsp chopped dill
2 Tbsp chopped mint
6 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup pistachios, lightly toasted and chopped
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1 fresh green chile finely sliced
1 cup arugula

Place the couscous in a large bowl and cover with the boiling water.
Cover and leave for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile fry the onion in olive oil and melted butter over medium heat until golden and soft.
Add the salt cumin, and mix well.

To make the herb paste, place all ingredients in a food processor and blitz until smooth.

To assemble the salad, add the herb paste to the couscous, mix it in and then add the remaining ingredients and gently combine.

Here is what you need for the chicken

Two to three small chickens (backbones cut out with scissors and flattened so they look sort of like a butterfly) or 8-10 chicken legs.

For the marinade

1 garlic clove, crushed to a paste with salt (using mortal and pestel)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cumin
3 Tbsp rosewater
1Tbsp lemon juice
Freshly ground pepper

For the sauce

3 Tbsp rose petal jam
1 small garlic clove, crushed to a paste with salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 Tbsp olive oil
A squeeze of lemon juice
salt and ground black pepper
Roughly chopped slightly
toasted pistachios
dried rose petals for decoration

Directions:

Mix the marinade ingredients together and rub all over the chickens/chicken legs, place in a dish and marinade for 1-2 hours at room temperature or overnight in the fridge.

To make the sauce, mix the rose petal jam, garlic, cinnamon together in a bowl.

Add the olive oil and lemon juice and taste for seasoning.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 180°C.
If stored in the fridge, take the chicken out 30-60 minutes before cooking, in order to get room temperature.
Cook the chicken for 30 (legs) to 45 (whole chicken) minutes.
10-15 minutes before the time is up, brush the chicken skin with the sauce.

In the last 3-5 minutes throw on the broiler brush the chicken with the sauce one last time and give that chicken skin a nice tan and crisp.
Let rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Serving:

Place the couscous salad on a plate. Arrange the chicken on top of it, and sprinkle chopped pistachios and dried rose petals over it.


Notes: 

• If you can't find rose petal jam, use quince jelly or something similar instead and mix in 1-1.5 Tbsp rosewater. That's what I did. Careful with the rosewater, though. You don't want your chicken to taste like a perfume store.

• You could also throw the chicken on the barbecue. That adds some extra smoky charred flavors.

And: NONE OF OUR CHICKENS WERE HARMED FOR IT! (...yet)

Health Day!

Fall is approaching and with the constant change from warm and humid to cold and dry and back to warm and humid, Wil and I have been feeling quite a bit under the weather lately.

Our diet also hasn't been the lightest and healthiest, either. 

Therefore we decided to add a little bit unbearable lightness to our being (oh, how I hate this book!) and eat more fruits and veggies.

So my Sunday started with herbal tea and grapefruits, sprinkled with a tiny bit of sugar and cinnamon and ended with a refreshing cucumber salad. 

All I did was cutting the cucumber in really thin slices, adding some sherry vinegar, hibiscus salt, dried dill from our garden, olive oil and again, a tiny little bit of sugar.

Wil brought me the grapefruit to bed! It is sunday after all...

the little red things are from the hibiscus salt..dried hibiscus...

What you don't see is the giant bowl of pasta I ate for lunch. 

But that was totally reasonable!