Low-Carb Griddled Baby Butternut with Chorizo, Feta & a Lemon Dressing

This beautiful black plate is the work of my uncle, master potter
David Walters of Franschhoek. The shiny black slick of glaze
 across the plate is designed to stop your fork from grating.

I seldom see these beautiful baby vegetables in the shops, and when I do spy them, I grab a few punnets and race home to cook them. They're similar to courgettes [zucchini] but have a nuttier, sweeter flavour, a denser texture and a beautiful pale-orange colour.

In this easy tapas-style dish, I've griddled them until just tender, and combined them with fried chorizo, crumbled feta and a garlicky lemon vinaigrette, with toasted pumpkin seeds for crunch.  If you can't find baby butternuts, use courgettes, sliced into thick leaves.

I haven't been able to figure out the carbohydrate content of these veggies, but I had a great big bowl of them for lunch, and they didn't cause any spike in my blood sugar, so I can assume their carbohydrate content and glycaemic load is negligible.  This recipe is suitable for anyone on a low-carb, #LCHF or diabetic regime.

The chorizo sausage I used in for this dish wasn't the best in its class, but was all that was available at my local supermarket. The gorgeous smoky note it adds to this dish makes all the difference, and I'm looking forward to trying this with an excellent Italian cured sausage, or with crisp-fried bacon bits.

Wine recommendation from Michael Oliver: La Bri Merlot 2012. 

Low-Carb Griddled Baby Butternut with Chorizo, Feta and a Lemon Dressing

600 g baby butternut (or courgettes, if you can't find mini butternuts)
2 Tbsp (30 ml) olive oil, for frying
1 spicy chorizo sausage, sliced
a squeeze of fresh lemon juice
1 'wheel' (about 70 g) feta cheese
1/3 cup (80 ml) pumpkin seeds [optional]
salt and milled black pepper to taste
baby salad leaves, to serve

For the dressing:
1 clove garlic, peeled (or more, to taste)
a pinch of flaky sea salt
½ tsp (2.5 ml) prepared Dijon mustard, or a big pinch of Hot English Dry Mustard powder
the juice of a small lemon
4 Tbsp (60 ml) extra-virgin olive oil

Rinse the baby butternuts (or courgettes) under cold running water to remove any grit.  Cut lengthways into slices about 7 mm thick.

Add the chorizo slices towards the
end of the cooking time so their smoky
flavour permeates the veggies. 

Heat a griddle pan, or a large flat pan, over a very high heat. Add the olive oil and - when it is shimmering -  arrange the baby butternut slices in a single layer on the pan.  Cook over a medium-high heat for about 5 minutes on each side (three if you're using courgettes) or until toasty and golden on the outside, and just tender on the inside.  Watch them closely, adjusting the heat if necessary because they scorch quickly.

Two minutes before the veggies are ready, add the sliced chorizo, and fry until hot and crisp. Now add a generous spritz of lemon juice. As soon as the juice has evaporated, remove the pan from the heat, set aside and keep warm. Season to taste with salt and milled black pepper.

While the butternut slices are cooking, make the dressing. Put the garlic and salt into a mortar and pound to a paste.  Add the mustard and lemon juice and stir until the salt has dissolved.

Now whisk in the olive oil to form a smooth emulsion.  If the dressing seems a bit sharp, add a pinch of white sugar. Set aside.

Place the pumpkin seeds in a dry frying pan and toast over a medium heat for 1-2 minutes, or until they are hot and crunchy.

To serve, lightly blot the baby-butternut and chorizo slices with kitchen paper to remove any grease.  Arrange them on a platter, sprinkle over the dressing - just enough to coat the slices -  and scatter with the toasted pumpkin seeds, baby salad leaves and crumbled feta.

Serve hot or warm.

Serves 4 as a starter. 

Print Friendly

Low-Carb Tomato, Mozzarella & Chorizo Salad with Caperberries and Basil

It's food heresy to tinker with the three perfect elements of a Caprese salad, but I felt I had to, because the tomatoes I bought yesterday weren't very alluring. Although they fell short of being mealy on the inside, they were neither sweet nor acidic, but somewhere in between, with a top note of tasteless. So I dollied up the dish with some paper-fine chorizo slices, a handful of caperberries, salt, pepper and basil oil, left it to stand for an hour so the salt could draw out the juices, and then fell on it like starving wolf.

Tomato, Mozzarella & Chorizo Salad with Caperberries.
Plate by David Walters.

I'm going to make this again because I love the smoky taste of the chorizo with tomatoes, basil and cheese, and because it's so easy to fling together.

Use ordinary capers if you don't have caperberries and, if you can afford it, an authentic milky-soft mozzarella, not the bog standard supermaket variety. If you can't find pre-sliced chorizo leaves like the ones in the pictures, buy a whole sausage and asked the staff at the supermarket deli counter to cut it very thinly on their magic slicing machine.

Leaving the salad to sit for an hour allows the flavours to mingle

I am going to make a vast platter of this as a starter next time I have friends over for a feast. I haven't thrown a long, lazy weekend lunch since... well, I can't remember when last I cooked for a crowd. It's been such a cold and wet winter here in Cape Town, and I haven't felt in the mood. It's not that I mind spending a lot of time in the kitchen preparing a feast - it's the clearing up and the staggering price of food and booze that puts me off.

How often do you have lunch parties? How much do they cost you? Tell me in a comment!

---

Tomato, Mozzarella & Chorizo Salad with Caperberries

4 large, ripe tomatoes
12 large, thin slices chorizo sausage
12 slices mozzarella
16 caperberries, or 4 Tbps (60 ml) capers
a small bunch of young basil
flaky salt
6 Tbsp (90 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
half a lemon
milled black pepper

Arrange the tomato, chorizo and mozzarella slices on a platter in overlapping circles, and strew the caperberries and half the basil over the top (use the smaller leaves).

Put the remaining basil leaves  into a mortar and add a pinch of flaky sea salt. Pound the leaves to a paste, then stir in 3 Tbsp (45 ml) of the olive oil.

Place little dabs of the basil oil all over the salad.  Sprinkle with the remaining olive oil, and spritz the salad with lemon juice, to taste.  Season with more salt and plenty of black pepper, and set aside, covered, on the counter top for an hour.

Serve with bread.

Serves 4 as a starter; 2 as a salad.



Print Friendly

Cauliflower Salad with Crisp-Fried Chorizo Sausage and a Warm Lemon Dressing

An easy, tapas-style dish with sensational flavours and textures: shaved raw cauliflower with crumbled fried chorizo, crisp breadcrumbs, a whisper of garlic and a warm lemony olive-oil dressing. If you're on a low-carb, #LCHF or diabetic diet, leave out the crumbs and will still taste wonderful.

Cauliflower Salad with Crisp-Fried Chorizo Sausage and a Warm Lemon Dressing

I really like raw cauliflower when it's young, fresh, snappy and unblemished, and reckon it's an ingredient that deserves to be used more often in salads. This vegetable may have a college education, but it's not naturally gifted in the flavour department, so when you serve it raw it's important to give it a kick in the pants with some bright, zingy ingredients. The inspiration for this recipe comes from my version of Robert Carrier's Cauliflower à la Polonaise (which, gratifyingly, remains among the most-viewed recipes on this blog).

It's not easy making neat, thin through-the-stalk slices of cauliflower - there is only so much 'tree-trunk' available on individual florets. Use a mandolin, or a very sharp paring knife. Chop the pieces that don't have a stalk attached, and hide them under the prettiest looking slices.

An authentic Spanish chorizo or Portuguese chouriço, made with smoked red peppers, will give you the best results. These beauties - available at good delis - are not cheap, but you need only one sausage for four servings, and they're of much better quality than most local versions, which tend to be fatty and somewhat, er, flaccid. If you can't find imported chorizo, add a pinch or two of fresh paprika to colour the dressing.

And if you'd like some heat in this dish, add a pinch or two of red chilli flakes to the pan when you cook the garlic.

Cauliflower Salad with Crisp-Fried Chorizo Sausage and a Warm Lemon Dressing

1 young, perfect cauliflower (or two smaller ones)
1 good chorizo sausage (15-20 cm long)
3 Tbsp (45 ml) sunflower oil or similar light vegetable oil
a small clove of garlic, peeled and finely grated
the juice of a lemon
2 breadrolls (or slices of bread),  a day or two old [optional]
6 Tbsp (90 ml) good olive oil
a big handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley
milled black pepper

Cut the core out of the cauliflower and break off the florets. Using mandolin or sharp knife, cut the florets vertically into thin slices and arrange on a platter. Put a piece of kitchen paper on the counter. Cut off a third of the sausage and set aside. Peel the skin off the rest of the sausage and crumble the flesh (or dice into very small pieces).

Heat the sunflower oil in a frying pan, add the sausage bits and fry, over a moderate heat, for a minute or two, until they're beginning to crisp and darken. Crumble the bread into the frying pan - you need some pea-sized nuggets, as well as smaller crumbs - and fry until crisp. (The crumbs tend to carry on browning after you remove them from the heat, so take them off when they're a pale gold, and watch them like a hawk.)

Tip the contents of the pan into a sieve, drain off all the oil and spread them out on the kitchen paper. Return the pan to the heat and add the garlic and a tablespoon of the olive oil. Gently cook the garlic for a minute or two, making sure not to let it brown. Now add the lemon juice, all in one go, and stir briskly to dislodge the sediment on the bottom of the pan. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the remaining olive oil.

Pour the warm dressing over the cauliflower and sprinkle with the fried sausage bits, breadcrumbs and chopped fresh parsley. Finely slice the remaining piece of sausage and arrange the slices on the salad. Grind over plenty of black pepper. You shouldn't need to add any more salt.

Serve immediately.

Serves 4 as a starter or side dish. 

Print Friendly