The danger of reading a cook book at bed time is, of course, the midnight snack. Cook books, for me, are so evocative - food tastes and smells so powerfully vivid in my imagination - that I love reading them. Like travel books, those tastes and smells can transport you to far away lands. They can also make you crave food like there's no tomorrow.
Crazy Water Pickled Lemons is a journey around some of my favourite parts of the culinary world, centred around the Mediterranean sea. Split into chapters on different types of flavours, from Mediterranean herb flavours, to the warmer earth spices found in Middle Eastern and North African cuisine, Diana Henry has put together a culinary tour which delves into detail of how certain flavours combine to produce food magic. Reading cook books, for me, is not just about producing that night's supper but also about learning good flavour combinations for my own repertoire. I follow a recipe to learn skills for when I'm cooking free form. Diana Henry's book has chapters on how the different Mediterranean flavours combine: how and when to use them together. Each chapter has 3 or so pages of description of different flavours before you get into the recipes - well written, interesting and informative.
This all-important knowledge on how flavours work together reminds me of another great cooking resource - The Flavour Thesaurus. This book does what it say on the tin - it provides complementary and alternative flavour combinations: ingredients and tastes which go well together. If you're the kind of cook that likes to learn flavours so you can get on with the real fun - inventing your own - then both these books are great for honing your skills.
And the recipes in Crazy Water Pickled Lemons? They're easy to follow and straight forward. In her introduction, the author mentions that she has simplified some of the more complex traditional methods. All in all I suspect this is a good thing. Much as I enjoy spending time cooking, when you are pushed for time it is often good to be able to get the essence of something quickly and I am regularly known to short-cut bits of a recipe to save time. I tried the Chermoula-Marinated Tuna with Pomegranate Couscous recipe. This was quick and easy as long as you have a well-stocked spice cupboard and packed a lot of flavour.
Try it Yourself?
The Chermoula marinade itself I would recommend as well as for tuna or sword fish, for chicken or even halloumi. With barbecue season in full swing, I've made a jar of the marinade to keep in the fridge. Topped with a little extra oil to stop the air getting to it, I imagine it will keep OK for a week or two like that. The ingredients for the marinade are:90ml (6 tbsp) olive oil
15ml (3 tsp) ground cumin
7.5ml (1.5 tsp) sweet paprika
1.24ml (Quarter tsb) ground cinnamon
1 medium red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
Zest and Juice 1 lime
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Small bunch each of coriander and parsley leaves, finely chopped
This was enough for 4 tuna steaks. I've made up a double batch of the marinade to keep in the fridge. At this time of year especially I like to have flavours like salsa, dressings and tzatziki ready to go. If I manage to keep the marinade long enough without squandering it all, I'll update this on how well it kept!
