~ seeking peace spice by spice by spice
I love avocado spreads! And instead of buying them ready made from the supermarket (which can be soooo expensive) I’d rather make myself. Plus it’s so easy to just dump all in a mini food processor and whiz everything to a pulp.
In my version, I used three ripe avocados, half a large tomato, a tablespoon of jalapeno hot sauce I had got from London, sea salt, black pepper and half a large lemon juice.
It was delicious!
I first heard of ayver back in 2011 or 2013 when a colleague went on a trip to Macedonia and came back with a bottle of this wonderful red spread for us all ro share.
This evening I had four rather small red peppers and so decided to make this spread.
Original recipes, or rather, many recipes called for eggplant to be mixed but since I didn’t have any I used purely red peppers.
First I roasted them till blackened then removed the skin and seeds. I placed the red pepper meat into a food processor together with lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and salt.
So many times I’ve made croquettes and failed. Until one day a helper of a friend showed us all how it’s done. And the type of potatoes seem to be the key to the success. That said, all the Youtube shows and Japanese style korokke seem to use only russet potatoes. But I can’t seem to work with russet potatoes.
This is like Indonesian style croquettes or kroket, as they say it. Only thing is I shaped them too large so they look like Japanese korokke.
The ingredients are just so simple. Boil, steam and mash potatoes till very fine and almost gummy. Yes! In this case, you want gummy potatoes! So I used local Indonesian brastagi potatoes. Season.
Make filling. Today, it’s minced chicken and peas. Season.
And when cooled, insert filling into a potato disc which you’ve already balled and pressed. Shape into balls or oblong or oval discs. Then on to the breading station.
Eaten with Thai chilli sauce or garlic mayonnaise, croquettes is my boy’s favorite snack of all time!
This is one snack I doubt I can make though it’s supposedly simple. Maybe one day… for now, enjoy the delectable photos of a South Indian street snack eaten in the cool comfort of a restaurant in SG. 😂
I’m sad that a place I’ve been going to yearly for years has closed down because the entire building it was on got en bloc. Goodbye my dearest Porta-Porta.
And suddenly I felt sad also for losing my favourite Italian starters. So I decided to try and make one of them – masserated in good pure organic olive oil roasted peppers.
In a pan roast peppers till soft and skin blackened.
When cooled, remove skin. Cut into strips and then place in a jar. Add sea salt generously and then pour oil over. Leave in fride (just because Singapore is so very hot now, nothing can stay good out).
Later I’ll see if I can get some great ciabatta to go with this.
The Occasional Cook 