Piyaz Turkish white bean salad

This is a very easy salad - almost as easy to make as a greek salad - and is very healthy given its high protein content.

The basic idea is to take some white beans and soak them for a short time in vinegar. This worked fine with tinned beans after draining them, even though they were rather soft. Soaking in vinegar helped freshen them up. Then simply chop up spring onions, a large tomato and parsley. Add some salt and lemon juice and poor over a decent amount of olive oil and then mix together. Add some black olives and two boiled eggs sliced up as a garnish.

Here is an excellent video from youtube on the original.

Here is a nice turkish website with the recipe as well.

Ingredients

1. white beans, tinned worked fine
2. white wine vinegar
3. spring onions - lots - important
4. large tomato - chopped
5. salt
6. lemon juice
7. virgin olive oil
8. chopped parsley - lots
9. black olives
10. boiled eggs, quartered - good decoration

Essentials of Italian Cooking

Just found brilliant looking blog where bloggers tried cooking all the dishes in the "Essentials of Italian Cooking"!

Sweet and sour tuna steaks trapani style

Basic idea is to soften and then brown the onion in olive oil, add some salt, move the onion out of the way while you shallow fry the tuna and then make a sweet and sour sauce by adding the vinegar, white wine. salt, pepper and onions back to the dish. Then thicken the sauce and add some parsley. Make sure you scrape up all the cooked sauce from the pan

Messed it up the first time - used too much oil and used white wine vinegar instead of white wine. However basic concept seems good and pretty easy. Well worth trying again to put in the repertoire regularly.

• 2-1/2 lbs fresh tuna, cut into 1/2-inch-thick steaks
• 3 cups onion sliced very, very thin
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• Salt
• 1 cup flour, spread on a plate
• Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
• 2 tsp granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup dry white wine
• 2 tbsp chopped parsley

Preparation

1. Remove the skin circling the tuna steaks, wash them in cold water, and pat thoroughly dry with paper towels.
2. Choose a sauté pan broad enough to accommodate later all the steaks in a single layer without overlapping. Put in the sliced onion, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 or 2 large pinches of salt, and turn on the heat to medium low. Cook until the onion has wilted completely, then turn up the heat to medium and continue cooking, stirring from time to time, until the onion becomes colored a deep golden brown.
3. Using a slotted spoon or spatula, transfer the onion to a small bowl. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the pan, turn the heat up to medium high, dredge the tuna steaks in flour on both sides, and slip them into the pan. Cook them for 2 to 3 minutes, depending on their thickness, then sprinkle with salt and pepper, add the sugar, vinegar, wine, and onions, turn the heat up to high, and cover the pan. Cook at high beat for about 2 minutes, uncover the pan, add the parsley, turn the fish steaks over once or twice, then transfer them to a warm serving platter.
4. If there are thin juices left in the pan, boil them down and at the same time scrape loose with a wooden spoon any cooking residue sticking to the bottom. If, on the other hand, there is no liquid in the pan, add 2 tablespoons of water and boll it away while loosening the cooking residues. Pour the contents of the pan over the tuna, and serve at once.

Moroccan spinach salad

On the surface this is a very simple dish but after making twice seems more difficult to get right, probably because of adding too much lemon. Also it is probably easier if made in fairly large quantity given the spinach cooks down. Finally I probably didn't add enough salt.

Basic idea is to chop up spinach finely, add crushed garlic and cook in olive oil. Then add spices - paprika, cumin and cayenne pepper (perhaps red chilli if you have fresh?) and salt. Then also add lemon juice. After cooking turn out on a plate and add olives and preserved lemon.

Here is the youtube video that explained it!

Here is another recipe for the same dish...

Ingredients

• Spinache
• garlic crushed
• cumin
• paprika
• cayenne pepper
• salt
• olive oil
• lemon juice
• olives
• preserved lemon

Ceviche

Basic idea is to cut up some white fish into relatively large lumps - 1.5 to 2cms, chop up some red onion fairly finely and then marinate with lime and coriander red chilli an some salt.

Probably need more lime than you might think and also less marinating time, especially if you are using fish that could be used for sashimi.

Very easy and very tasty. Probably worth making in bulk as well. Here is a guardian article on the best ceviche. Consider also adding some orange juice for a bit of a difference.

Or here is a very good sorted youtube video.