Celery seed is well known for its beneficial effects on gout and arthritis, both of which are tendencies in our family.
I love the intense celery flavour of celery seed – the seed not of the common garden celery but of a wild cousin, Apium graveolens. So it is both a culinary pleasure and a preventative measure to make regular use of home made celery seed salt.
I make an intensely flavoured version of celery salt, by simply combining one quantity of celery seed with one quantity of quality salt (I use Murray River flaky salt).
Because celery seeds can be bitter they need to be lightly roasted, but only briefly and in a mildly heated cast iron pan as they are so tiny they will burn quickly. Just put them in the pan until they begin to be fragrant, then immediately tip out onto a clean plate and shake around to cool them down. Grind them, either in a mortar and pestle or in a spice grinder, then add the salt and grind both together to a fine consistency.
Use wherever you would use ordinary salt. Celery seed salt is great to dip crudites and hard boiled eggs into, and fills out the flavour of stocks, stews and sauces.
(C) Clare Richards 2012
Brazilian spinach (Alternanthera Sissoo)
I’ve just had an enquiry from Meg in Babinda about where to get Brazilian spinach. This is one green I included in tropical cuisine: cooking in clare’s kitchen knowing that it is not easy to source commercially. I decided to include it though as it is SO easy to grow at home in the tropics and suvives both dry spells and heavy rain. Furthermore it is probably the best ‘spinach’ style green in my book for flavour and texture.
At www.herbs-to-use.com they stock seed of Brazilian spinach which they call by another of its names, Sissoo lettuce, so you can source it there. It is also listed on the stock list for Northey Street City Farm, so Brisbane residents should also be able to source it at Northey Street.
What I will do for locals is pass some branches on to members of Permaculture Cairns and the Cairns Gardening Club to grow and pass on to others. I am also taking some to one of the growers and stallholders at Rusty’s Markets, Rick who is happy to trial growing them and selling them if they take off (which they will, they are so easy).
If there are other gardening and permaculture groups in the region who would like some branches to get local stock going to share around, email me at info@tropicalcuisine.com and we’ll see what we can organise.
Hope that helps!
Posts, Produce
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Alternanthera sissoo, Brazilian spinach, Cairns, cookbook, Sissoo lettuce, tropical Australia, tropical cooking, tropical cuisine cooking in clare’s kitchen, tropical food, tropical produce, tropical Queensland, tropical recipes
I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
I’ve been wanting to experiment with cooking with coconut water, and I’ve got my chance today with a lovely bunch of young coconuts given to me by Paul Richardson, the inventor of the marvellous Cocotap. Cocotap is a bit of a tropical essential as it makes getting into young coconuts for their juice dead easy. I’m into things being easy to use, and given that coconuts are so much better when fresh, the Cocotap is a great tool to have in my kitchen drawer. It’s also great that it’s a local inventor who has come up with it – Paul lives only 20 minutes away! Small world.
Coconut fact: the different colour of the husks is not an indicator of age, but simply because coconut varieties produce a range of husk colours. One tip Paul has for knowing when the coconut water is lovely and sweet is the presence of green ants. If they’ve set up camp on a bunch it’s an indicator that the nuts will provide great drinking.
I’ve been experimenting with jicama as well, although it’s hard to resist simply eating peeled slices of it straight from the fridge. They are as refreshing as a cold apple or nashi pear, particularly in this humid weather. We had small cubes of it in a fried rice last night, and the crunch that they retain when cooked was a fabulous contrast to the silky texture of some of the other ingredients.
The farmers who I sourced the jicama from, Julie and Lester Loder, also juice them and mix with other fruit juices such as orange juice. I haven’t tried this one yet but imagine it is great as they are so succulent. I’ll post again once I’ve tried it. One of my other favourite uses for jicama apart from eating it plain and cold is grating it to use in salads. Like green papaya it adds a satisfyingly crispy, succulent texture to a salad.
jicama I'm sprouting to plant out
This one I’ve deliberately left out of the fridge to sprout so that I can plant it. The jicama I’m using today in my cooking is sitting quietly in the fridge where no sprouting is allowed. Jicama keep really well in the fridge, but like most produce are at their best when used fresh. They can be kept out of the fridge just like potatoes, in a cool dark place but I prefer them cold and crispy so I keep them in the fridge.
Today’s recipe is chicken simmered in coconut water with jicama, wild pepper leaf and kaffir lime. I’ll be sending it out in my next newsletter exclusively to subscribers, so if you’d like to see it, complete the simple sign up in the top right column, and you’ll also receive a 40 page sample of my cookbook tropical cuisine: cooking in clare’s kitchen.
© Clare Richards 2010
It occurred to me that it might be helpful to other tropical home kitchen gardeners and cooks to share some of the great online resources that I tap into when researching ingredients, so here is a start to some of the sites I visit:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/
Home page for the Purdue University New Crop website which has an enormous amount of information and links, some of which are below.
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/parmar/index.html
An online copy of the Indian book Wild Fruits
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/index.html
An online copy of Julia Morton’s classic reference for tropical and sub-tropical fruits, Fruits of Warm Climates
http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/documents/Research/Qld-Tropical-Fruit.pdf
A downloadable PDF by the Queensland Government with a nutritional summary of a range of tropical fruit.
http://www.rirdc.gov.au/
If you have an interest in in-depth information on particular tropical food plants, both introduced and native to Australia, it is worth searching through the reports and publications produced by RIRDC.
I thought it might be of interest to some readers to see the main items that will be covered in the Produce Glossary of Tropical Cuisine: Cooking in Clare’s Kitchen. As you may already know this cookbook is the first of what will be several volumes, and in each one a new set of produce will be featured. You may also know that in the produce glossary I am focusing on featuring produce which is available in markets and quality retailers, and/or grows easily at home, but with which many people are not so familiar. One aim of Tropical Cuisine: Cooking in Clare’s Kitchen is to provide information that assists people to experiment or make greater use of the fantastic array of produce we have available in tropical Australia. Continue reading 'Produce glossary'»
Posts, Produce
| Abiu, Acacia spp., Aibika or New Guinea Spinach, Allspice, Alpinia galanga, Alternanthera sissoo, Amaranth, Amaranthus spp., Annatto, Annona atemoya, Annona muricata, Artocarpus altilis, Artocarpus heterophyllus, Averrhoa carambola, Backhousia citriodora, Bamboo shoots, Bambusa spp., Basella alba, Bitter melon, Bixa orellana, black sapote, Boesenbergia rotunda, Brazilian Spinach or Sambu Lettuce, breadfruit, C. terminalis, Canistel, Carambola, Cardamom, Carica papaya, Cassava, Ceylon spinach, Chinese Keys, Choko, Chrysophyllum caimito, Cinnamomum zeylandicum, Cinnamon, Citrus Aurantifolia, Citrus grandis, Citrus hystrix, Citrus Latifolia, Cocoa, Coconut, Cocos nucifera, Coffea Arabica, Coffee, Colocasia esculenta, Cordyline fruticosa, Cordyline or Ti leaves, Coriander, cuban, Curcuma longa, Curry leaf, Custard Apple, Daikon, Davidson plum, Davidsonia pruriens, Dendrocalamus spp., Dimocarpus longan, Diospyros digyna, Drumstick tree, durian, Durio zibethinus, Elettaria cardamomum, Eryngium foetidum, galangal, Garcinia mangostana, Ginger, Granadilla, Guanabana, Hibiscus manihot, Hylocereus spp., Illicium verum, Ipomoea aquatica, Ipomoea batatas, Jaboticaba, Jackfruit, Jicama, Kaffir, Kankong or Water Spinach, Lemon Myrtle, lime, Litchi chinensis, long leaf, Longan, lychee, Macadamia, Macadamia integrifolia, Mamey sapote, Mangifera indica, mango, Mangosteen, Manihot esculenta, Manilkara zapota, Mint, Momordica charantia, Moringa oleifera, Murraya koenigii, Musa spp., Mushroom plant, Myrciaria cauliflora, Myristica fragrans, Nephelium lappaceum, Nutmeg, Oregano, Pachyrhizus erosus, Pandan, Pandanus amaryllifolius, papaya, Passiflora quadrangularis, Pepper, Persicaria odorata, Pimenta dioica, Piper nigrum, Piper sarmentosum, Pitaya, Plantain, Plectranthus amboinicus, Pouteria caimito, Pouteria campechiana, Pouteria sapota, Psophocarpus tetragonolobus, Pummelo, Radish, Rambutan, Raphanus sativus, Rollinia, Rollinia deliciosa, Rungia klossii, Sapodilla, Sauropus androgynus, Sechium edule, Snake Beans, Star Anise, Star Apple, Sweet leaf, Sweet potatoes, Tahitian, tamarind, Tamarindus indica, Taro root & leaves, Theobroma cacao, Turmeric, Vanilla, Vanilla planifolia, vietnamese, Vigna unguiculata ssp. sesquipedalis, Wattle seed, West Indian, Wild Pepper leaves, Wing bean, Zingiber officinale, Zingiberaceae
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