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    Monday, December 04, 2006

    Traffic Light Salsas

    First Sunday in Summer

    It’s a lovely day; our courtyard is bathed in sun.
    We are preparing it for Summer Proper ready to entertain...
    and it’s a bit of a mess. Can’t use the table as it is getting a nice new surface; so lunch had to be eaten inside.
    I made bread. I used the Chili and Cheese Bread recipe posted in February 2006.

    My friend Diana gave me a French Bread loaf tin.
    I decided to bake the bread in that.

    A hint from Alton Brown of Good Eats fame on Food TV was to brush the bread with a cornflour and water slurry to get a nice even browning.
    Good idea…See





    To accompany the bread I made 2 salsas.
    A great Christmas look.
    A Green one, red and you can also make an orange one.
    Very simple and very pretty what an asset for the buffet table.
    Here goes:

    Traffic Light Salsas
    Green
    10 cm piece cucumber peeled seeded and large dice
    ½ green freshly ground black pepper deseeded and large dice
    2 x spring onions chopped
    1 green chili chopped
    ½ avocado diced
    Coriander finely chopped and of Fresh mint finely chopped
    Juice 1 small lime
    Extra virgin olive oil drizzled over
    Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

    Mix everything together

    Red
    2 x tomatoes chopped
    ½ red pepper deseeded large dice
    1 x red chili chopped
    ½ red onion diced
    Juice ½ lemon
    Extra virgin olive oil drizzled over
    Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper


    Mix everything together

    Orange (Not pictured I didn't have the ingredients on hand)
    1 mango diced
    ½ small papaya diced
    ½ orange pepper
    1 clove garlic finely chopped
    White balsamic vinegar
    Extra virgin olive oil drizzled over
    Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper


    Mix everything together

    Made it the other day so here it is


    An excellent accompaniment for the fresh bread.



    BBQ Steak

    I grilled 2 beautiful steaks for dinner.
    Buy the New York cut of steak it is thicker
    Which makes better control over the “doneness”
    of the meat. About 2-3 cms thick should give best results.

    A dry rub is a great marinade.
    On this occasion I used Cajun spices
    Just massaged it into the meat on both sides
    and let sit about ½ hour

    Get the grill really hot sprinkle it with some sea salt and olive oil

    Bang on the hot grill listen to the sizzle.
    Don’t move for about 1 minute turn 90 degrees
    to get the lovely criss cross pattern
    Cook for about 3 minutes
    Turn over and same on the other side.
    Remove from grill set aside and rest for 5 minutes

    This gave me med rare steaks.


    I slice them on the diagonal and served with potato salad and
    the remainder of the green salsa.

    It gave us a real taste of how summer is going to be.
    How exciting…

    1 comment:

    FH said...

    I love your french bread baking pan!! Looks cool.I am here to at your scones:)

    Thanks for visiting me,SS!