Culinary Hotline - 26 October 2022
Starting with a delicious pesto that you could use in multiple ways, sliding into a beautiful mouth watering dessert floral shortbread.
Wild greens pesto
Recipe by: Roushanna Gray
Ingredients:
3 Cups of basil leaves OR a mix of wild and garden greens like stinging nettle, nasturtium leaves, coriander, beet tops, oxalis, imifino, chickweed, mallow, fennel, rocket.
Juice of half a lemon
1 sprig wild garlic (Tulbaghia violacea) or ½ clove of regular garlic
1.5 Tbsp nutritional yeast
3 Tbsp toasted sunflower seeds
60ml extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Method:
Place the nettles in a little bowl and deactivate the stinging hairs on the nettle leaves by pouring boiling water over them and letting it soak for a couple of minutes. Strain and squeeze off the remaining liquid. Place all of the ingredients into a food processor and pulse for a minute. Scrape down the sides of the processor bowl with a silicone spatula and mix again until it combines into a beautiful green pesto. Decant into a glass jar or bowl and top with a thin layer of olive oil so the colour remains a vibrant green. Store in the fridge and eat within a week or freeze for use in soups and stews. Enjoy as a spread, dip or dressing, mixed into pasta, as a garnish for soups and stews, or spread over roast veggies.
Floral shortbread
Recipe by: Roushanna Gray
Ingredients:
200g butter
1/3 Cup caster sugar
2 Cups of flour
A little water to combine the dough
Method:
Create a dough with all of the ingredients, form into a ball and sit it in the fridge for 15mins.
Roll out on a floured surface and cut into shapes.
Par bake in a preheated oven at 180deg for 10mins, cool and decorate with edible flowers, an egg white wash and sprinkle with castor sugar. Bake for another 2 mins or until the egg wash is dry. Be careful not to bake for too long or else your flower petals will discolor or burn.