The Irritable Working Woman’s Cookbook
by Shea Albert
for Steven, the apple of my eye
Copyright
Published by Heart Space Publications
PO Box 1085, Daylesford,
Vic, 3460, Australia.
Tel 0450 260 348
Graysonian Press South Africa is an imprint of Heartspace Publications.
Postal: PO Box 4389, Cresta, 2118 Tel +27 11 431 1274
For information about this or any of our other books:
pat@heartspacebooks.com
or visit us at:
http://www.heartspacebooks.com
Copyright © 2011 Shea Albert
Cover design and layout by Ian Stokol
All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recorded or otherwise without written permission from Shea Albert and Heart Space Publications
While every care has been taken to check the accuracy of the information in this book, the publisher cannot be held responsible for any errors, omissions or originality.
ePub:
ISBN: 978-0-9874997-7-6
Printed Book:
ISBN: 978-0-9872816-1-6
INTRODUCTION
This book has been written with working women in mind. And they are sometimes irritable. I don’t know anyone who comes home euphoric and ready to whip on an apron, whip up a soufflé or whip off her clothes.
If you are depressed, food will cheer you up. Here are fast, easy dishes to nourish your spirit and uplift your body. Or vice versa. If you are still depressed, behold recipes that are more time consuming and guaranteed to take your mind off your troubles – but you have to pay attention.
If you hate cooking I can’t understand why you bought this book. Perhaps you are in search of a kindred sort of irritability.
If you don’t get satisfaction from cooking, head over to Nandos. If you like junk food, go to KFC. If you are too depressed to lift up a ladle, go to Woolworths (if you’re an irritable working woman, I assume you can pay for the privilege).
If you are a working man who has managed to compartmentalise everything in the universe, welcome aboard. Just store the contents under ‘Cooking’ and ‘Emotion’.
Some cooks are courageous, some are inspired. I followed recipes for most of my life but developed intuition as I went along. My daughter practiced alchemy without a cookbook. I include her favourite recipes here, so she can inspire you too.
‘Hospitality is one form of worship,’ says the Talmud. And that’s true. When visitors’ faces light up at the mere thought of your food, who cares about the crabby nitpickers at the office.
CONTENTS
Complementary Contents
Essential Utensils
(even for the uninitiated)
Icons
(Not of cooking!)
A guide to the recipes
No icons for guilt.
*See appendices
A Short word on Schmaltz
Schmaltz is a Yiddish word meaning fat, usually chicken fat. It has since been applied to behaviour or language or even Broadway plays that are over the top, too flowery, too wordy, too demonstrative.
Nowadays, people don’t render the fat from the chicken – it’s too much trouble, and besides, you could, god forbid, have a heart attack and die.
Also it’s fleishik, i.e. can never be mixed with milk products if you are an observant Jew.
We are able to buy imitation vegetarian shortening that tastes just like the chicken fat of our imagination. It is a must for kneidlach and as a spread, topped with mustard for meat sandwiches. It makes light and flavorsome pastry for meat pies too. Find it in the kosher deli section of your supermarket.
For those of you living in a galactic diaspora here is a recipe for making your own schmaltz.
Schmaltz
aka Mock Chicken Fat
500g block of margarine or shortening
1 bottle sunflower oil (750ml)
7 onions – grated
7 carrots – grated
METHOD
Melt margarine or shortening and oil. Add onions and carrots and simmer until golden brown. Cool slightly, strain into a large container, which you have sterilised or at the very least washed thoroughly.
Chopped Liver
(Healthier than Most)
250g fresh chicken livers
2 hard-boiled eggs
1 large onion, sliced
1 tbsp schmaltz
2 tsp sherry (or even brandy!)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
METHOD
Place washed and fresh chicken livers in a pot with cold water and bring to a boil.
Cook for 4 to 5 minutes and drain. They should be virtually done, but not overcooked.
Rinse the livers under cold water.
Fry the sliced onion in the schmaltz until soft.
Combine liver, onion and one hard-boiled (like those very determined career women) egg in a food processor and pulse about 6 times. If you want a smooth paté, pulse to your liking.
Stir in the sherry or brandy and season to taste.
Put on a plate and decorate with the second hard-boiled egg. If you are too tired, eat the egg with a salad later.
Serves 4
Eat on kichel*, challah** or rye bread.
*See Biscuits and Other Treatlets
**See Glossary of Indispensable Jewish Food
Unbearably Delicious Mustard Herring
This is the best herring recipe of all time. It was given to me by my cousin Naomi, daughter of my aunt Agnes, the oldest of six sisters, each one more resourceful than the last.
(See Agnes’s Astonishing Meat Roll for Soup in Affirmative Additions for Soup)
6 filleted, pre-soaked herrings (I use matjes herring)
½ cup sugar
1 cup white vinegar
1 egg
2 level tsp mustard powder
250ml sweet cream
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
METHOD
Boil the sugar and vinegar together.
Cool (I know).
Beat 1 egg into the mustard powder.
Strain this into the vinegar mixture.
Stirring, bring to the boil.
Stir again and cool (again).
When cool, add the sweet cream.
Place layers of herring pieces alternating with thinly sliced raw onion, in a tasteful dish.
Pour the sauce over and let it seep through.
Keep in fridge.
This dish can be made 48 hours before serving.
Serves 6
Chicken Soup
Jewish Penicillin
1 small chicken
1 onion
3 large leeks with green leaves
4 turnips, peeled
3 parsnips, peeled
5 carrots, peeled
Soup celery (if you haven’t got, use the other variety but with some leaves, for goodness sake)
A healthy clump of parsley or a clump of healthy parsley or both
1 Tbsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp chicken or beef stock powder
METHOD
Wash all the vegetables and the chicken.
Please remove any plastic bags that may be residing in the cavity of the chicken. You can use the neck, the heart and the stomach (gizzard) in the soup, but not the liver – give that to your dog.
Put chicken and onion in a large pot. Cover with cold water.
Bring to boil and simmer for 1 hour.
Skim off the scum that comes to the top at regular intervals (just like you wish you could do at the office).
Then add the salt, pepper, stock powder and vegetables. Some people prefer to slice or dice the vegetables first. I do that at the end with the carrots.
Simmer the soup for another two hours or so. It should be sweet tasting.
Make kneidlach or lokshen (noodles – see Affirmative Additions for Soup) as an accompaniment. Or just use pieces of chicken and veg.
Serves 10
Borscht
Sweet and Sour, like most of us
8 medium size beetroot
10 cups water
1 Tbsp salt
½ cup lemon juice
3 Tbsp sugar
Sweet or sour cream for serving
Small hot boiled potatoes for serving
METHOD
Wash the beetroot well. Leave some root and some leaves so the beetroot doesn’t bleed. (There’s a poem in there somewhere.)
Combine beetroot, water and salt.
Bring to the boil and cook for 1 hour or until tender.
Remove beetroot and peel. This should be easy.
Grate 4 or 5 beetroot on the medium side of the grater and reserve the rest for the salad you will find surprisingly under Salads.
Add the lemon juice and sugar to the beetroot water.
Add the grated beetroot to the mixture.
Taste for seasoning.
Heat but do not boil.
Chill the soup.
Serve cold with a hot boiled potato for each person.
Decorate with a swirl of sweet cream or a hefty dollop of sour (like married women friends once you are single – no matter whether via divorce or widowhood).
Serves 6 – 8
Vichysoisse
Superbe! With a French accent…
6 leeks
1 large onion
4 potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
6 – 8 cups water or chicken stock (or vegetable stock for those committed types)
125g butter or use 1 Tbsp butter and 3 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 Tbsp sweet cream
Chopped chives to garnish
METHOD
Chop the leeks and onion.
Melt the butter and oil in a pot.
Gently cook the leeks and onion until soft, but not brown.
Slowly add water or stock.
Add potatoes, salt and pepper.
Cook until potatoes are soft.
Now take your cocktail blender and process the soup until smooth. Or cool and process batches in your food processor.
Heat the mixture.
Slowly add the cream.
Do not boil.
Serve with an arty signature of sweet cream.
Fling a few chopped chives around.
I serve this soup hot.
Serves 6 – 8
Beef Bone, Tomato and Barley Soup
An Original Winter Comforter
3 shin bones with meat and marrow
1 onion
2 large leeks, coarsely chopped
4 turnips, peeled and roughly diced
3 parsnips, peeled and sliced
5 carrots, peeled and sliced
Soup celery (see recipe for chicken soup), coarsely chopped
A healthy clump of parsley, chopped
All the soft tomatoes you haven’t used yet (about 6) or 1x 400g tin tomatoes, chopped by hand or in the food processor
¼ cup barley
1 Tbsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper
METHOD
Wash all the vegetables and the marrowbones.
Put bones and onion in a large pot.
Cover with cold water.
Bring to boil and simmer for I hour.
Skim off the scum that comes to the top at regular intervals (again like you wish you could do at the office).
Then add the salt, pepper, vegetables, tomatoes and barley and cook for another hour or two.
You can serve the marrow on toast or bread.
Serves 10
Gazpacho
Instant Gratification
My friend Diana is a working woman and a remarkable cook. I don’t know if her levels of irritability affect her cooking. Here is her phenomenally easy recipe for gazpacho that tastes difficult.
1 x 400g tin tomatoes
1 unpeeled cucumber ((half an English cucumber)
1 peeled cucumber (the other half)
1 piece of green pepper (be a devil). By the way, green pepper is called capsicum in other parts of the world
1 tin tomato juice
3 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground pepper
METHOD
Use a blender or food processor.
Combine ingredients and blend.
Chill (you and the soup).
Serve with a sophisticated swirl of sweet cream (I love alliteration too) and some chopped chives.
Serves 6
Spicy Fragrant Butternut Soup
Adapted from the Curried Winter Squash Bisque recipe by the phenomenal Bert Greene in Greene on Greens, a definitive and inspirational last word on vegetables and how to cook them.
2 Tbsp olive oil or butter
4 – 6 spring onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed (like your dreams, on occasion)
1 small green pepper, finely chopped
¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped
2 tsp fresh basil
1kg peeled and cubed butternut
1 x 400g tin tomatoes
4 cups chicken stock (or vegetable for vegetarians)
½ tsp ground allspice
¼ tsp ground mace if you can get it (or use dried pieces)
Some freshly grated nutmeg or ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
2 level tsp curry (I use mild and spicy)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
METHOD
Heat oil (or butter) in a large pot over medium heat.
Add spring onions and cook for 2 minutes.
Add the garlic, green pepper, parsley and basil and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the butternut cubes and coat with the spring onion, garlic, green pepper and herb mixture.
Add the tomatoes, chicken stock, allspice, mace and nutmeg.
Heat to boiling.
Reduce heat and simmer, covered, until the squash is tender – about 1 hour.
Using one of those canny little hand blenders, puree the soup until smooth. Or cool and then blend in batches in a food processor or blender.
Stir in the curry powder and bring to the boil.
Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring more often than not.
Add salt and pepper to taste. If you are feeling irrepressibly carefree, sprinkle with a little chopped parsley.
Positively, absolutely the best butternut soup in creation.
Serves 8
Scrumptious Sweet Potato Soup
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
2 ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 large onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 healthy piece of ginger, grated
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 green, yellow or red pepper, diced
1 tin chickpeas
1 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp fresh basil, chopped
¼ tsp cinnamon
1 pinch cayenne pepper
3 cups water
METHOD
Heat the olive oil.
Add onion, garlic, ginger and celery and sauté over medium heat for 5 minutes.
Add sweet potato and fry for another five minutes.
Add seasonings and spices and sauté for 5 minutes.
Add water and bring to the boil.
Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
Add tomatoes, green, yellow or red pepper and drained chickpeas.
Cover and simmer for 10 more minutes or until the vegetables are tender.
Lovely in winter.
Serves 6
Shea’s Kneidlach