Roast Aubergine, Gammon & Mung Bean Salad, to please a Christmas crowd

My festive recipes every year always include a dish made with left-overs from the main feast, and this year I thought I'd devise a big, sumptuous salad ideal for feeding a hungry horde the day after Christmas.  But once I'd made it - using left-overs from this dish - I liked it so much that it struck me it's worth buying a small gammon specifically for this recipe. So the second time I made this, I bought a 1.5 kg boneless gammon, used half of it for the salad, and put the other half in the fridge for filling future sandwiches. It was flattened in a day, but I'm not complaining, because gammon is still remarkably inexpensive compared to lamb or beef, and it's way cheaper than buying sliced ham at your local deli counter.

I love the mysterious browns and greens of this salad,  and adore the earthy combination of beans, salty pork, garlic, lemon and cumin, but I have to say my kids weren't wild about it. Then again, they are suspicious of anything resembling a lentil.

If you're a vegetarian, or expecting vegetarian guests, I suggest you use crisp-fried halloumi cheese in place of gammon in this recipe: make the salad a few hours ahead, and then add the hot cheese at the last minute.

The first time I made this, I noticed that the flavours of the dressing had faded considerably by the next morning as they were absorbed by the beans.  In my second try, I tweaked the dressing to make it more punchy, so please don't be alarmed by all the garlic and mustard - the flavours will mellow and mingle as the salad sits.  This is best at room temperature, so if you make it the day before, take it out of the fridge an hour or two before you serve it.

This quantity serves six to eight as part of a festive meal; make double this amount if you're entertaining a bigger crowd, or serving it as a meal in its own right.  If you can't be bothered to soak and cook dried mung beans, used tinned lentils (4 tins should be enough), but rinse them in a sieve and drain them well before you add them to the salad.  You don't need to salt and rinse the brinjals if they are very young and sleek, but I usually do as this stops them from soaking up oil like a sponge.

Roast Aubergine, Gammon and Mung Bean Salad, to please a Christmas crowd

2 cups (500 ml) dried green mung beans, soaked for an hour in water
6 large aubergines
5 Tbsp (75 ml) olive oil
salt and milled black pepper
1 tsp (5 ml) cumin
about 3 cups (750 ml) of gammon chunks or shreds (see gammon recipe at the end of this page)
6 spring onions, green parts only, finely sliced
150 g (about two 'wheels') feta cheese, crumbled
½ cup (125 ml) pumpkin seeds
5 Tbsp (75 ml) finely chopped fresh mint

For the dressing: 
4 fat cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
a pinch of salt
a pinch of sugar
4 tsp (20 ml) Dijon mustard
1 tsp (5 ml) cumin
1 tsp (5 ml) good quality paprika
the juice of two medium lemons
¾ cup (180 ml) olive oil

Heat the oven to 190 ºC. Drain and rinse the mung beans and simmer them in unsalted water for 30-40 minutes, or until soft. Drain and set aside. Skip this step if you're using tinned lentils.

In the meantime, cut the aubergines into large cubes.  Place these in a large colander, in layers, and sprinkle with salt. Weigh down with a plate and allow to degorge for 20 minutes. Rinse the aubergine cubes under running water to remove excess salt, and pat dry on a tea towel. Arrange the pieces in a single layer in a  roasting tray, drizzle with the olive oil and, using your hands, toss well to coat. Roast for 35-45 minutes, or until they are golden and rustling, soft on the inside and beginning to collapse. Sprinkle with one teaspoon (5 ml) of  cumin and season generously with salt and pepper.

Put the mung beans, aubergine cubes, gammon chunks, feta and spring onions in a large mixing bowl.  Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing and pour it over the salad, tossing gently to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover with clingfilm and set aside for an hour or two so the flavours can mingle. Just before you serve the salad, stir in the freshly chopped mint.  Taste the salad, and add a little more lemon juice if you think it needs sharpening up. Pile the salad onto a platter and drizzle with a little extra olive oil.  Toast the pumpkin seeds in a dry frying pan, over a low heat, and sprinkle them over the salad.

Serves 6. 

To cook the gammon:

1 x 1.5 kg boneless gammon
one bottle (330 ml) of your favourite beer, or ginger beer, or apple juice, or cider
1 large onion, peel on, quartered
3 carrots, peeled and thickly sliced
2 bay leaves
12 black peppercorns
4 whole cloves
a small bunch of parsley
water, to cover

Put the gammon, fat side up, in a large, deep pot and add the beer, onion, carrots, bay leaves, peppercorns, cloves and parsley. Pour in enough water to cover the gammon to a depth of 2 cm. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat so that the gammon cooks at a brisk simmer. Partially cover the pot with a tilted lid.  Cook the meat for 30-35 minutes per kilogram (an hour and a half for a 1.5 kg piece), or according to the directions on the packaging. Check the pot now and then, and top up with more water: the meat must be completely submerged. Turn the gammon over half way through the cooking process.

Turn off the heat and leave it in its liquid to cool completely. Strip off the skin and trim off all the fat.  Put half in the fridge for sandwiches, and shred the other half to use in the salad.

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Low-Carb Oven-Roasted Ratatouille

My Oven-Roasted Ratatouille 

Ratatouille (or Rat-a-Toolie, as my sister calls it) has fallen out of favour a little since its heydey in the Eighties, which is a pity, because this traditional Provençal dish of stewed vegetables is arguably the best combination of non-meaty ingredients ever invented.

The troublesome word, in my opinion, is 'stewed'. I just don't much like stewed veggies, any way you slice them.

A ratatoolie made by sautéeing the ingredients in olive oil and then chucking them into a baking dish - in layers or mixed up, depending on whose gospel you are following - for a long stewing in the oven will taste okay, but doesn't do justice, in my opinion, to the key ingredients of this dish, namely tomatoes, aubergine, courgettes, red peppers, garlic, onions and herbs. I'm all for the mingling of flavours, but I don't want them to mingle to the extent that all you can taste is, well, ratatouille, with a lightly mushy texture, and a top note of seeped veggie water.

Try this method of oven-roasting the ingredients, in batches, before you combine them with a purée of tomatoes. The roasting intensifies the flavour of each vegetable, and prevents a watery result.

This recipe takes little effort, but a lot of time. It also contains quite a lot of olive oil, but it's very low in carbohydrates, making it a brilliant choice of veggie accompaniment for a low-carb diet.

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Oven-Roasted Ratatouille

First stage:

• three large onions, peeled and quartered
• two large, shining brinjals [eggplants], cut into cubes
• three red peppers [capsicums], sliced
• ½ cup (125 ml) olive oil
• salt and freshly milled pepper
• a few sprigs of thyme
• a few needles of fresh or dried rosemary

Set the oven temperature to its highest setting (mine goes up to 260 °C). Arrange the vegetables in three separate stripes [see left] in a deep metal roasting dish. Trickle the olive oil over the vegetables, rubbing with your fingers to ensure that every piece is glossed with oil, and season well with salt and pepper. Top with a few sprigs of thyme and the rosemary needles. Put the dish into the blazing hot oven and roast for 15 to 20 minutes, or until they are just beginning to blacken on the edges. Now turn the oven down to 180 °C and bake the vegetables for another 15 minutes, or until they are soft.

Second stage:

• three cups (750 ml) plump, ripe cherry tomatoes, halved
• 12 courgettes, thickly sliced
• 6 cloves fresh garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
• a handful of fresh basil leaves, torn into small pieces
• 2 Tbsp (30 ml) olive oil

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and toss well to combine. Remove the roasted vegetables from the oven, and tip in the new raw ingredients. Stir well to combine. 

Put the dish back in the oven and baked for about 25 minutes, or until the cherry tomatoes have just started to collapse and the courgettes are tender. In the meantime, make the tomato sauce.

Third stage:

• 2 Tbsp (30 ml)
• 2 fat cloves fresh garlic, peeled and crushed
• two tins canned Italian tomatoes, and their juice, roughly chopped
• 4 big, ripe tomatoes, cut into small chunks
• 1 tsp (5 ml) white sugar
• 1 bay leaf
• a sprig of thyme
• salt and freshly milled black pepper

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and add the garlic. Fry gently, but don't allow the garlic to brown. Now tip in all the remaining ingredients. Simmer over a very low heat for about 30 minutes. If the sauce seems lumpy, give it a light blitz with a stick blender (but remember to remove the bay leaf and thyme sprig)

Fourth stage:

• A handful of fresh basil, torn

Remove the vegetables from the oven. Tip the hot tomato sauce over the veggies, add the torn basil leaves, and toss to combine. Adjust seasoning, adding more salt and pepper if necessary, and return to the oven for ten minutes.



Serve hot or, even better, just warm.

Excellent with a crumble of feta cheese, over a tangle of pasta, or warm on bruschetta. Or on its own, with a few rocket leaves.

Serves 4 as main dish, 6-8 as a snack on bruschetta.



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Potato-topped Celery, Leek and Cheese Pie

It doesn't sound very tempting, does it? Who wants to eat leeks and celery, apart from rabbits and rabid vegetarians? How tempting is a recipe that contains nine vowels of the E variety? But this dish is just delicious, and I urge you to give it a try.

I have frothing fountains of celery growing in the narrow strip I call my vegetable garden, and I've been scratching my head trying to think what to do with all the celery, before it goes to seed. I'm really not mad about the texture and taste of celery, although I do understand the logic of adding a few pared toenails of the stuff to stews, stocks and soups, especially when a few nuggets of crispy bacon are involved. I have about 95 litres of celery soup in the freezer, cunningly frozen in 500-ml zip-lock bags (that's what I did with last year's crop; I even labelled and dated them, Martha-Stewart style), but frankly all they've been useful for is ice-packery when someone's sprained an ankle or walked into a door.

Anyway, this recipe came about because my husband mentioned, out of the blue, that his late mum (a wonderful cook) used to cook whole stalks of celery in a cheesy white sauce.

I had a jugful of the same in the fridge, plus a big bowl of left-over mash, and here is the result. It was so tasty, and even better the next day, when the leeky and celeryish flavours delivered a smart punch to my tastebuds.

Potato-topped Celery and Leek Pie

For the cheesy white sauce (note: these measurements are approximate; the final thickness of the sauce depends on the strength of the flour. If the sauce seems too thick, thin it down with more milk. )

3 T (45 ml) butter
3 T (45 ml) white cake or bread flour
750 ml cold milk
1 cup (250 ml) grated Cheddar or other sharp cheese
2 tsp (5-1o ml) Dijon or wholegrain mustard
juice of half a lemon
salt and pepper

For the pie:

2 T (30 ml) olive oil
4 fat leeks, trimmed, rinsed and finely sliced
8-10 sticks young celery, trimmed of all green leaves and finely sliced
1/2 cup (125 ml) chicken or vegetable stock, or white wine
a squeeze of fresh lemon juice
salt and milled black pepper

For the topping:
2 cups (500 ml) mashed potato, warmed

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

First make the cheesy white sauce. Put the flour and the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat. Using a whisk, stir briskly until the butter melts, and allow to cook for two minutes. Now tip in a cup or so of the cold milk, whisking well as you pour. When the mixture begins to thicken, add the remaining milk, turn up the heat to its fullest setting, and continue whisking until the sauce has thickened and come to the boil. Turn the heat down to its lowest setting and allow it to bubble gently for another two minutes. Remove the sauce from the heat and stir in the grated cheese, the mustard and the lemon juce. Add salt and pepper.

Set aside (put a piece of clingfilm or waxed paper on the top of sauce, to prevent a skin forming, if you're making it in advance).

Heat the olive oil in a deep pan or wok and add the leeks and celery. Stir-fry, over a fierce heat, for a minute or so, but don't allow the veggies to brown. Now add the stock or wine, and allow to bubble furiously for a minute. Cover the pot with a lid or a piece of tin foil, turn the heat to its lowest setting, and allow to simmer gently for 10 minutes, or until the celery is just tender. Season with salt and pepper.

Tip the reserved cheesy white sauce into the leek and celery pan and stir well to combine. Tip the mixture into a serving dish, smooth the surface, and top with mashed potato. Brush with melted butter (or peanut-sized bits of cold butter) and bake at 180 C until the potato topping is golden brown.

Serves 6. Print Friendly