lemonade & wattleseed scones

I have wanted to cook with wattleseed for many years now, but this year I formalised it when I made it one of my 2009 Food Challenges.

Wattleseed is a native Australian product with a delicious coffee-chocolate-hazelnut flavour. Around the world there are so many species of Acacia but only about 120 species (all native to Australia) provide seeds which have delicious culinary value.

The Australian Aborigines have eaten wattleseed for around 6,000 years but it’s the recent interest in native produce that has seen wattleseed truly take off in Australia.

If you have a choice, it’s best to buy wattleseeds whole then dry roast and grind them yourself. This way the flavour remains strong.

Wattleseed can be added to coffee, shakes, whipped cream, ice cream, cookies, pancakes, chocolate sauce and muffins. It’s also useful in a savoury context, being added to beer, bread, sauces and marinades.

Lemonade & Wattleseed Scones

Recipe by Maggie Beer. Makes 8.

Ingredients:
1 cup lemonade
1 cup cream
3 cups of self-raising flour
3 teaspoons ground wattleseed
1 tablespoon sugar
Milk, for brushing

Method:

1. Preheat oven to very hot 220C.

2. Sift flour, sugar and wattleseed.

3. Add lemonade and cream.

4. Mix to form soft dough with pastry cutter or finger tips, then place mixture on floured surface. This is a soft wet mix.

5. Bring together to a 2cm thickness and cut with a floured cutter.

6. Place close together on tray, brush with milk and bake for 10 - 15 minutes.

These wonderful little scones are my contribution to the High Tea Treats themed Monthly Mingle, hosted by Aparna from My Diverse Kitchen.

References:
http://www.cherikoff.net/cherikoff/index.php?id=130
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wattleseed

colcannon

 
Potato Week - Day 4!

Now that we've got some Irish in the family, it's time I posted a decent Irish recipe. And if it's Irish, of course the recipe needs to include potatoes.

My sister, Stinky, came home from her year in Amsterdam with a lovely Irish lass, M.E., whose stories about "Gordon science" and quaint villages with men reeking of silage put me in stitches.

Colcannon, or cál ceannann, is a delicious way of using up leftover cabbage or potatoes by throwing them together into a tasty mash. Traditionally I think white cabbage was used, but I prefer the colour and flavour of kale in this recipe.

I could eat a plate of the stuff for dinner without anything else!

There are as many colcannon recipes as there are cooks in Ireland, so you could easily find versions with leeks, chives, garlic, ham and bacon.

This one's for you M.E.!

Colcannon

Based on a recipe by Maggie Beer. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
1kg potatoes
400g cabbage, shredded
100g butter
100ml milk
3 spring onions, sliced
Salt and white pepper, to taste

Method:

1. Boil potatoes in a pot of salted water until soft but not falling apart. When cooked, drain off water and allow to steam dry.

2. Steam cabbage until tender but crisp, about 2 or three minutes.

3. Warm butter and milk in a pan. Set aside.

4. While potatoes are still warm, put through a mouli/ricer.

5. Add cabbage and spring onion and mix in the milk and butter. Season to taste.

peanut butter pie & roasted banana ice cream

Today is the Fourth of July.

In the wee hours of the morning, after 26hrs of travelling, Jonas and I will have arrived in Daytona Beach (Florida), ready to celebrate the day in the humidity and heat with my aunt, cousin and 90 year old grandfather.

Jonas is over the moon because it’s the first time he will visit mainland USA and we’re spending the day at the Daytona NASCAR . . . on Independence Day.

In preparation for this momentous day, I preblogged this WHB post with an American flavour.

What’s more American than peanut butter? And combining it with chocolate?
Genius! A salty-bittersweet symphony.

And add to this combination some banana? Even better!

Thus you have Maggie Beer’s peanut butter pie with David Lebovitz’s roasted banana ice cream. Delicious!

The ice cream has the most delectable flavour of sweet, caramelised banana but it's best eaten on the day of making as it can get a little icy if left too long in the freezer.

The pie is divine, but it's very rich and fudgy. The filling would be overwhelming but paired with the ganache topping it takes on a wonderful cheesecake salty-sweet-sourness.

Don't be tempted to use smooth peanut butter, the crunchy texture is necessary.

Peanut Butter Pie

Recipe by Maggie Beer in Delicious Magazine March 2009. Serves 16.
Ingredients:
Base
180g digestive biscuits
90g unsalted butter, melted
3 teaspoons caster sugar
Filling
1 cup (250ml) pouring cream
1/3 cup (75g) caster sugar
320g cream cheese, room temperature
375g crunchy, salt-free peanut butter
Topping
150ml thickened cream
150g 70% cocoa chocolate, chopped
20g unsalted butter

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180’C (160’C for fan forced)

2. Process biscuits in a food processor until crumbled.

3. Add melted butter and sugar then pulse to combine. Press crumbs into the base of a 22cm spring form baking tin.

4. Bake base for 10 minutes then set aside to cool.

5. For the filling, place the cream and sugar in a saucepan and simmer on low for 3-4 minutes, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

6. Chop the cream cheese then blend with peanut butter, in a food processor, until combined.

7. Add the warm cream mixture, pulse to combine and then spoon filling onto the cooled cookie base. Set aside to cool.

8. To make the topping, combine the chopped chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl.

9. Bring the cream almost to the boil over high heat then pour over chocolate and butter.

10. Leave for 3 minutes without touching then gentle swirl the bowl to combine the cream, butter and chocolate.

11. Pour the combined topping over the filling then chill in the fridge, uncovered, for 4 hours until set.

12. Serve small slices with ice cream because it’s very, very rich!

Roasted Banana Ice Cream

Recipe from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. Makes 750ml.
Ingredients:3 medium-sized ripe bananas, peeled
1/3 cup (70g), packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces
1½ cups (375ml) whole milk
2 tablespoons caster sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ teaspoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice
¼ teaspoon coarse salt

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 200’C.

2. Slice the bananas into 2cm pieces and toss them with the brown sugar and butter in a 2 litre baking dish.

3. Bake for 40 minutes, stirring just once during baking, until the bananas are browned and cooked through.

4. Scrape the bananas and the thick syrup into a blender or food processor.

5. Add the milk, granulated sugar, vanilla, lemon juice and salt, and purée until smooth.

6. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Note: If the chilled mixture is too thick to pour into your machine, whisking will thin it out.

Banana would be an all-too-simple choice of ingredients for WHB, so I’m going to focus on peanuts.

Did you know they aren’t actually nuts but legumes?

After pollination, the fruit changes into a legume

Yet another wonderful food gift from the abundant Americas, it’s amazing to think what our meals would like without this vast continent. The Americas gave the world pecan, avocado, cashew, passionfruit, turkey, pineapple, chocolate, pumpkin, quinoa, guava, papaya, strawberries, vanilla, allspice, potato, tomato, chilli and maple syrup.


Despite having come from South America, the peanut’s journey into the USA came from Africa through Portugal and Brazil.

Apparently our domesticated peanuts have two sets of chromosomes from two different species, leading scientists to believe domestication occurred in Argentina or Bolivia.

The oldest peanuts found by archaeologists are some 7,600 years old, making them a pretty old fashioned snack!

China leads world production of peanuts, followed by India and then Nigeria. The next largest producers of the top ten are the United States, Indonesia, Myanmar, Argentina, Vietnam, Sudan and Chad.

Peanuts are a rich source of protein, niacin (good for the brain) antioxidants, resveratrol (anti-aging), vitamin B3, vitamin E, magnesium, folate, dietary fibre and monounsaturated fats.

Interestingly, peanut allergies are exacerbated by roasting peanuts. The roasting process increases peanut allergens Ara h1 and Ara h2 and inhibits the necessary digestive enzymes. In other countries like India and China, where peanuts are not roasted before processing, allergies are very rare.

Studies are also showing that exposing children to peanuts much later in life decreases the chances of developing peanut allergies

Whatever the cause, peanut allergies are extremely dangerous and can cause immediate anaphylactic shock just by eating food processed by machines that touched peanuts or by breathing peanut dust.

So that's it from me. Head on over to our WHB host, the lovely Laurie from Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska and Happy 4th of July!

Other peanut recipes:
African Peanut Soup Kalyn's Kitchen
Candied Peanuts David Lebovitz
Carrot & Peanut Muffins Chocolate & Zucchini
Chipotle-Maple Peanut Brittle Culinary in the Country
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake Smitten Kitchen
Chinese Fried Noodles w Spicy Peanut Sauce Morsels & Musings
Groundnut Chutney Mahanandi
Homemade Peanut Butter Cups Baking Bites
Honey-Roasted Peanut Butter Joy The Baker
Lime & Peanut Coleslaw 101 Cookbooks
Peanut Butter & Banana Milkshake Morsels & Musings
Peanut Butter Marshmallow Crispy Brownies The Cooking Photographer
Toasted Peanut Bread 101 Cookbooks
Virginia Peanut Soup CookThink

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_butter

moroccan chicken tagine

I requested a tagine for Christmas and my parents kindly obliged. I have made two of the Moroccan casseroles since then, the chicken and olive version I'm posting here and a vegetarian version that I'll share soon.

Both were delicious.

Tagines are rich with spices and flavoured with preserved lemon, my Weekend Herb Blogging theme ingredient for the week.

Making a tagine was one of my 2009 food challenges, so I’m felling pretty positive about moving through my goals of the year too.

Tagines are so easy to make and you don’t really need the specially shaped conical pot. A good casserole dish will suffice, and may even be necessary for cooking large portions when juices may slosh out of a shallow tagine base.

Djej Emshmel (Moroccan Chicken Tagine w Lemon & Olives)

Anna’s adaptation of Elise’s recipe. Serves 4 - 6.
Ingredients:
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons turmeric
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1.5kg chicken thighs and drumsticks
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
2 zucchini, sliced
2 potatoes, sliced
1 preserved lemon (see recipe below)
1 cup green olives, pitted
2 cups chicken stock
½ cup raisins
¼ cup chopped fresh coriander
¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Salt, for seasoning
Olive oil, for frying

Method:

1. Rinse preserved lemon in cold water. Discard pulp then cut peel into thin strips.

2. Combine all the spices in a large bowl.

3. Pat dry the chicken pieces and put in the bowl, coat well with the spice mixture. In a tagine (or heavy bottomed skillet), heat the olive oil on medium high heat.

4. Add the chicken pieces and brown for five minutes.

5. Remove chicken, lower the heat to medium-low, add the garlic and onions and any spices left in the bowl. Fry until soft.

6. Add potato. Fry for 5 minutes.

7. Add zucchini. Fry for 3 minutes.

8. Add the preserved lemon, olives, raisins and stock.

9. Bring to a simmer then add chicken. Cover and let cook for 10 minutes.

10. Turn chicken pieces over. Cook another 10 minutes (without lid if you need to reduce liquid). 11. Adjust seasonings to taste then mix in fresh parsley and coriander just before serving. Serve with couscous or rice.


My focus for WHB this week is preserved lemons.

I wrote a previous post about lemons, but now specifically I’m drawing your attention to Morocco’s preserved lemons.

They are central to North African and Middle Eastern cuisines and are actually a pickle, since the lemons are preserved in brine (salty liquid).

The flesh can be used, although the rind is preferable. To use, simply wash to remove excess salt and chop. The lemons add an extremely citrus flavour to stews, soups, salad dressings, slow braising casseroles and even as a cocktail garnish.

Hamad Muraqqad (Moroccan Preserved Lemons)

Recipe by Maggie Beer.

Ingredients:
Thick-skinned lemons
Salt: 1 dessertspoon per lemon + one extra for the jar
Freshly squeezed lemon juice
Preserving jars

Method:

1. Cut lemons into quarters. Place the lemons, flesh side down, in the jar, sprinkling each quarter with salt as you add it to the jar.

2. For every lemon use a good dessertspoon of salt, and one for the jar.

3. When the jar is full, press right down on the lemons to squeeze as much juice out, filling the jar with more slices, again squeezing right down. Pack them in very tightly as they will shrink.

4. Immerse all the lemons by topping up the jar with fresh lemon juice.

5. Put a lid on the jar and 6-8 weeks later they will be ready to use.

Note: To hold the lemon quarters under the lemon juice, use the little plastic devices found in takeaway pizza boxes that stop the topping from sticking to the cardboard lid.

To read the WHB round-up for this week, visit Haalo's Cook (almost) Anything At Least Once.

And for more preserved lemon recipes . . . .
Algerian-Style Duck w Preserved Lemon & Olives
Baby Cos Hearts & Asparagus w Preserved Lemon Dressing
Chicken, Haloumi & Preserved Lemon Skewers
Chorizo & Preserved Lemon Turkey Roll
Cumin-Spiced Snapper w Preserved Lemon Moghrabieh
Fennel & Preserved Lemon Salad
Feta & Preserved Lemon Salad
Fettuccine w Preserved Lemon & Roasted Garlic
Fried Artichokes w Preserved Lemon Dressing
Grilled Striped Bass w Preserved Lemon Rub
Kumera & Preserved Lemon Skewers
Marinated Yellow-Tail w Preserved Lemon
Moorish Lamb Cutlets w Preserved Lemon Yoghurt
Preserved Lemon & Goats Cheese Croutes
Split Pea, Sausage & Preserved Lemon Soup
Swiss Chard, Potato & Preserved Lemon Pot Pie
Tuna Tartare w Preserved Lemons
 

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preserved_Lemon
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-moroccan-preserved-lemons.htm
http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/pr/Preserved_Lemon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Preserved_Lemons.jpg
Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes weekend herb blogging whb tagine chicken tagine preserved lemon chicken tagine recipes preserved lemon recipes chicken recipes tagine recipes moroccan recipes moroccan food moroccan cuisine north african recipes north african food north african cuisine

mushroom & barley soup

This recipe is vegetarian, but it certainly feels meaty.

Perhaps it’s because there are so many chunky pieces of mushroom and a rich earthiness to the broth, but it’s so “meaty” some vegetarians might be concerned about what they’re eating!

Never fear, this truly is a vegetarian recipe submitted to the vegetarian food blogging event No Croutons Required. January’s theme is ‘vegetable soup’ in order to built up the nutrients lost during the excesses and gluttony of the festive period.

Our host, Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen, wants us to focus on vegetable concoctions so instead of using a variety of different veggies I've gone with a variety of mushrooms. The barley just adds to the hearty, nutritiousness of it all.

Although I’m in the middle of my summer, and this soup is suited to cooler weather, I thought I’d offer it up to my blogging pals in the northern hemisphere who are shivering through one of the coldest winters in a long while.

Mushroom & Barley Soup

Recipe by Maggie Beer. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
850ml vegetable stock
200g pearl barley (cooked in 1½L water for 1hr)
200g onion, diced
100g shitake mushrooms
200g Swiss brown mushrooms
200g field mushrooms
80ml sherry
40g butter
20g dried porcini (soaked overnight in 500 ml hot water)
20g salt
10g garlic
10g rosemary
3g fresh thyme
1g pepper
Chopped fresh parsley, to serve

Method:

1. After barley has cooked in 1½ litres water for an hour, strain.

2. Melt butter and fry onion until translucent.

3. Add garlic, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper and cook together.

4. Reserving the liquid, strain the porcini (which were soaked overnight in water) and chop.

5. Add chopped porcini, reserved porcini liquid, precooked barley, stock and sherry to the onion mixture.

6. Chop the shitake, swiss brown and field mushrooms

7. In another pan, sauté the mushrooms in olive oil, seasoning with salt.

8. Add mushrooms to the barley and stock.

9. Cook for approx 10 minutes and season with black pepper.

10. Serve topped with chopped parsley.

Note: This can of course be made with all one kind of mushroom to equal 500g.



UPDATE: Thanks to all the wonderful people who voted for my soup! My soup has officially made me the No Croutons Required January Winner! Can you believe that this is the first ever blogging competition/honour I have won? I've come in a close second before, but never won. Thanks everyone! And thanks Maggie Beer for the recipe in the first place.

Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes barley mushroom barley soup mushroom soup soup vegetarian recipes barley soup recipes mushroom soup recipes barley recipes mushroom recipes soup recipes

chocolate chestnut cake & crème fraîche parfait

This was quite a feat. I had never eaten nor cooked chestnuts before and it was also the first time I used my brand new ice cream machine.

Both recipes were successes!

The chocolate chestnut cake is a Nigella Lawson recipe. I have been watching a lot of Nigella lately, with round-the-clock Nigella episodes airing due to Christmas cable programming.

As my friend John put it, after being mesmerised by those curves, cheeky smile and healthy appetite, “Nigella is one hot heifer”. I have to agree.

The chocolate chestnut cake comes from her book, Nigella Bites, and is so easy to make with only 4 ingredients and 5 steps from start to serve.

Nigella suggests serving it with crystallised violets and crème fraîche, but since the weather is so warm in Sydney I opted for an ice cream recipe I saw Maggie Beer make on The Cook And The Chef.

They worked perfectly together and although the cake was luscious, rich and everything you want in a Christmas dessert, I think we all swooned over the sweet-sour flavours of the crème fraîche parfait. There was just something utterly decadent about it.

These two recipes are my contributions to First Thursdays January 2009 theme “challenge yourself”. The recipes each happen to fufill one of my own 2009 Food Challenges: cook with chestnut.

Chocolate Chestnut Cake 
Recipe from Nigella Bites by Nigella Lawson. Makes 10–12 slices. 
Ingredients:
500g sweetened chestnut purée
300g dark chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids
175g unsalted butter, soft
3 tablespoons dark rum

Method:

1. Beat the purée in a bowl until it’s smooth, and then add the butter, beating again to make a well-blended mixture.

2. Melt the chocolate and let it cool slightly, before adding it to the chestnut and butter in the bowl.

3. Beat in the rum, and spoon the chocolate mixture into a 23 x 10cm loaf tin, lined with clingfilm, in two batches, making sure the first layer reaches the corners and sides of the bottom of the tin before you smooth over the rest.

4. Wrap the overhanging clingfilm over the cake so that it is completely covered, and put it in the fridge to set for at least 4 hours, but a day or so in advance if you want.

5. Don’t take the loaf tin out of the fridge until you want to eat it, when you just unmould the cake, cut it into thin slices and serve.

Crème Fraîche Parfait

Recipe by Maggie Beer. Makes 1 litre.

Ingredients:
375g sour cream
3 egg yolks
¾ cups sugar
¼ cup +1 tablespoon of water

Method:

1. Whip the sour cream in an electric mixer until soft peaks form – cover and refrigerate.

2. Dissolve the sugar & the water together in a small pot, washing the sides down with a pastry brush dipped in water.

3. Cook until the syrup reaches the “soft ball” stage. To check that the sugar is at the right stage, dip a teaspoon into the pot and drop a little syrup into a glass of iced water, if you’re able to form a soft ball with the syrup then it’s reached temperature, if not continue to cook and test for the right consistency from time to time. Alternatively if you have a sugar thermometer, the syrup is ready when it reaches about 116C.

4. Beat the egg yolks together in a clean electric mixing bowl and slowly pour the syrup over the eggs in a steady stream and then continue to whip the yolks at a moderate speed until room temperature.

5. Once cooled, fold the egg yolk mixture into the whipped sour cream.

6. Freeze according to ice cream machine instructions.

Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes dessert parfait ice cream cake chocolate chestnut cake chestnuts creme fraiche chocolate creme fraiche recipes parfait recipes ice cream recipes dessert recipes cake recipes chestnut recipes chocolate recipes french recipes french food french cuisine british recipes british food british cuisine

grape & spiced nut salad

I love Maggie Beer. Her enthusiasm about food is infectious. She places so much emphasis on using seasonal and regional produce and all her recipes look simply delicious. Almost every dish she cooks are exactly the kinds of flavours, ingredients and recipes that inspire me.

Her cohost on The Cook and The Chef, Simon Bryant, is also inspirational. He’s a chef with amazing skill but he’s down to earth and has no airs about making food. He promotes good food, not wanky food and even if some of his dishes are more complicated and advanced they are never esoteric. And he’s a vegetarian, so he gets Jonas’ vote.

If you’re looking for interesting, delicious dishes using ordinary ingredients in extraordinary combinations then I suggest you peruse their website where their recipes from every episode are shared with the world.

Maggie Beer was pretty much responsible for introducing verjuice as an acidulate in Australia. I remember, as a teenager, coming home from school and seeing a fancy 750ml bottle of “verjuice” in the fridge. I poured myself a nice cold glass and gasped when I realised it was almost vinegar. I learnt about verjuice pretty fast!

Maggie drinks verjuice over ice, but as I discovered this is pretty sour, so instead she developed one of the most beautiful non-alcoholic drinks I’ve ever had: Desert Pearls.

Made from Cabernet grapes, Desert Pearls has a champagne bead and seems almost like a wine, but then you taste flavours like rose and green tea and the drink ends with a sour finish, almost like sour cherry. I absolutely adore it and could easily drink an entire bottle on my own. Luckily it’s not alcoholic! They recommend you drink it with “anything with mushroom, game, kangaroo or venison but also the richness of duck or goose…brochette with sardines, white bean puree and shaved parmesan, a beautiful quail egg with caviar, seared tuna with a black pepper crust”.

Other Maggie Beer products which have become an institution in Australian gourmet circles are her burnt fig jam, her fruit pastes and her pates.

Last year The Cook and The Chef March autumn episode featured a lot of grape dishes and, since I noticed an abundance of delicious grapes in the shops this year, I decided to replicate this delicious salad.

We served it as part of an autumnal feast that Jonas and I made a few weekends ago. After a white truffle and cauliflower soup, we ate this grape salad alongside Hungarian chicken paprikas (mushroom for Jonas). It cut through the richness of the main course and added sweet, juicy freshness. Superb.

Grape, Rocket & Spiced Nut Salad
Recipe from The Cook and The Chef. Serves 4.
Ingredients:
1 cup grapes, halved
1 green apple, julienned
Rocket leaves
60g sultanas soaked in verjuice or marsala
1 cup mixed nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, walnuts)
2/3 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon coriander seed
½ teaspoon cassia bark
¼ teaspoon allspice
3 cloves
10 green cardamom seeds (not pods).
1 tablespoon olive oil
Drizzle of walnut oil, to finish
Method:
1. Put all the smoked paprika, coriander seed, cassia bark, allspice, cloves and cardamom seeds in a grinder to make a spice blend.
2. Lightly dry fry the nuts in a pan. Add spice mix. When they start to glisten add a little olive oil and fry. This process is really important to stop the nuts from going soggy in the dressing.
3. Cool, and drain on a paper towel. Sprinkle with salt and a little more paprika then spread over the serving plate.
4. Pile up the grapes, apple, sultanas and rocket on the plate.
5. Dress with walnut oil and a touch of salt to finish.

Grapes, of the genus Vitis, are very useful fruits coming from a woody, perennial, deciduous vines.

Most grapes are Vitis Vinifera cultivars, which originated in the Mediterranean and Central Asia. Only a few grapes came from Asia or the Americas, such as Vitis labrusca (US/Canada) and Vitis amurensis (Asia).

According to Wikipedia, the top ten wine grape producing countries are, in order from most to least: Spain, France, Italy, Turkey, United States, Iran, Romania, Portugal, Argentina and Australia.

Around 71% of the world’s grapes go towards wine production, 27% are sold as fresh fruit and 2% are dried.

These days seedless grapes are by far the most popular and since most vines are started from cuttings, this doesn’t seem to be a problem for farmers. Ironically, seedless grapes do not contain the important nutrients attacged to the grapoe seeds and are therefore less healthy.

Raisins, currants and sultanas share a confusing history. While sultanas were once the dried fruit of a specific Turkish grape, raisins were named after a French word for any dried grape and currants were dried Zante grapes, a corrupted word from the French raisin de Corinthe.

Grape skins and seeds seem to contain a polyphenol antioxidant called resveratrol which is suppsed to act as an antifungal as well as prevent heart disease, degenerative nerve disease, viral infections, mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease and even cancer.

Weekend Herb Blogging is being hosted by Margot from Coffee and Vanilla. Be sure to check out the round-up!

Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes weekend herb blogging whb grape salad recipe grape and nut salad recipe grape and nut salad starter snack arugula rocket arugula recipes rocket recipes salad recipes nut recipes maggie beer recipes grape recipes