Recipe: Soba Salad

Ideal for a mid summer lunch, this refreshing soba salad draws on the principles of Japanese flavour with sweet, salty and sour accents. Alongside the moreish texture of buckwheat noodles, beware of becoming addicted!

Ingredients

250g soba noodles

5tb japanese soy sauce

1tb sesame oil

2tb rice wine vinegar

2tb honey

1 spring onion, finely sliced

4tb black sesame seeds

juice of 1 orange

100g tofu puffs, optional for when you want to make the salad a bit more substantial.

Boil the soba as per packet instructions. They normally take about 4 minutes in rapidly boiling water and should be soft but still a little firm to the tooth. Drain off the noodles and rinse under cold water, turning the noodles over as you go so as to ensure all the noodles are cooled.

Combine all the ingredients except the spring onion, sesame seeds and tofu in a large bowl and stir well.

Add the noodles and toss to coat. Sprinkle in the spring onion and sesame seeds and toss them through as well. If you are using tofu puffs, chop them in to manageable bite sized chunks and toss them through the salad too.

Let the salad sit in the fridge for about 20 minutes to let the flavours infuse, if you can wait that long, we never ever can!

A few notes and variations:

We use organic soba noodles and they seem to be a bit more robust or something. 

Also give green tea noodles a try instead of plain soba for a bit of variation.

Leo likes to put a few orange segments and a scattering of baby spinach leaves through his salad, which makes for a new level of texture. 

All the ingredients will be available at your local asian grocer. 

To Market: The Queen Vic

The market of the longest reigning British monarch has had Melbournians ritualistically making the pilgrimage to peruse and gather goods for over 125 years, and for good reason. This market offers diversity, a darn good atmosphere and price tags to suit even students especially for fresh produce with the many stalls competing.

I lie, staring at the cracks of blue light peeping through the timber venetians, wide awake. It's about 5.30am. I ponder whether to just stay in bed and rest, get up and clean, write, do something useful. I remember it's market day. The market opens at 6am so I quietly slink out of bed, avoiding the burdensome set of creaking floor boards below. I pull on tights, boots, a woolen skirt, turtleneck, overcoat and hat and sit down at the coffee table to write a note lest my other should wake up and find me gone. Pulling my shopping cart behind me, I walk through the dark and dormant streets of Melbourne, chopping and changing my route through streets and lanes as I please.

As I approach the market I can here the busy chatter and clatter of vendors setting up shop. Rugged up, hauling crates and containers off the back off trucks, the hardworking men and women prepare to begin their day of business. In the wee hours of this chilly morning, I witness what most of us shoppers take for granted. A thousand smells waft past my nose; a warm yeasty aroma as I wander past bakeries, an ocean breeze near the seafood hall and the musty, creamy scent wafting from the delicatessens specialising in cheese.


In the general area, treat your mantle to an adorable set of Babushka dolls for around $12, pamper yourself with a variety of essentials oils for about $5 each, stock up on socks, knickers and thermals for the whole tribe or prepare for Christmas stocking stuffing with hand-painted wooden toys.

The general stalls offer a lot but this market is famous for it's foodstuffs.

Fresh ricotta from 'Curds & Whey' in the deli hall, heaped onto caraway seed rye, topped with capers, roasted capsicum and black pepper.

See the lovely folk at The Epicurean in the deli section to get tips on what's ripe for your cheese and wine gathering and if you are a meat eater - the Gypsy ham is a must. You might also like to try their blonde Calamatta olives. Just across from the Epicurean is Curds and Whey and be sure to get a hunk of fresh ricotta - absolutely divine. Up the aisle a little is Andrew's Bakery and if you haven't tried A&G Bakehouse's Vital Rye, you are seriously missing out, for a slice of this bread (always toasted) is a superb meal unto itself. We like to spread its toasted flesh with tahini, top with a crumbling of a nice sharp vintage cheddar and a pile of alfalfa or watercress, a big grind of black pepper, squeeze of lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil...I digress.

Here are the details:

Queen Victoria Market
Corner Elizabeth and Victoria Streets
Melbourne
Victoria

Tel: (03) 9320 5822
Fax: (03) 9328 2710

Market Trading Hours
Tuesday: 6am - 2pm
Thursday: 6am - 2pm
Friday: 6am - 6pm (General merchandise closes at 4pm)
Saturday: 6am - 3pm
Sunday: 9am - 4pm

Closed every Monday and Wednesday, Good Friday, Anzac Day, Melbourne Cup Day, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day

For more information, have a look here.

Recipe: Zucchini Cake

Like the hearty, moist goodness of our old friend carrot cake, zucchini cake is at once light yet substantial, sweet but not too sweet and overall, scrumptious. 

I have adapted this recipe from one belonging to Nigella. We tend to like less sweetness than the decadent Nigella suggests though we always unanimously vote that her decision to fill the cake with home made lime curd is pure genius, adding a refreshing surprise of tartness to every bite. 

You will need two 21cm sandwich tins, greased and lined

Ingredients

60g raisins

250g zucchini (2-3), weighed prior to grating

2 large good quality eggs

125ml vegetable oil

100g castor sugar

225g self-raising flour

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

For the lime curd filling

25g unsalted butter

1 large good quality egg

25g castor sugar

40ml lime juice (1-2 limes)

zest of one lime

For the icing

200g cream cheese

70g icing sugar

juice of 1 one lime

Preheat your oven to 180C

Put the raisins in a bowl and cover with warm water to plump them up. 

Wipe the zucchini with a kitchen towel and coarsely grate them. Turn them into a sieve to let the liquid drain from them.

Place the eggs, oil and sugar in a bowl and beat them until creamy. Sift in the flour, bicarb and baking powder and continue to beat until well combined. Stir through the grated zucchini and add the drained raisins. Pour the mixture into the tins, and bake for 30 minutes until golden and firm to the touch. Turn out on to a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes.

To make the lime curd filling

Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan, add all the other ingredients and whisk to a custard over a very gentle heat. Let the lime curd cool before laying your first cake on a plate, spreading it with lime curd and placing your second cake on top.

To make the icing

Beat the cream cheese in a bowl, gradually adding the icing sugar and then the lime juice. Once you have assembled your cake with the lime curd filling, spread your icing on the top of the cake.

Nigella says that if you feel like the icing is too runny, you can put the cake in the fridge for a little while.

In Season: Zucchini

The yellow or green hued zucchini (or courgette) is actually a fruit, though is usually treated as a vegetable in a gastronomic sense. Botanically speaking, zucchini is the swollen ovary of the female zucchini flower and is picked for eating when the seeds are soft and immature. A key ingredient in the famous French dish Ratatouille, a mainstay in Japanese tempura and a firm favourite when breaded and pan fried in Italian cooking, zucchini is used culinarily in many cultures.

With its delicate flavour, buttery flesh and thin layer of edible skin, zucchini requires little cooking and lends itself to a variety of cooking methods including sautéing, baking and steaming. Cooked zucchini should be tender yet slightly firm to the tooth and can also be enjoyed raw when finely shaved with a vegetable peeler into salads. Keep an eye out for for zucchini with flower in tact, for these lovelies are said to be the sweetest and most fresh.

With widely documented health benefits, zucchinis are said to be cooling in hot weather, blood purifying, anti-inflammatory and diuretic. They have been used to treat ailments such as indigestion, colitis, constipation, kidney and bladder disorders and hypertension.

Zucchini will keep for up to about four days at room temperature or in the vegetable compartment of your fridge though they can be prone to damage from over-chilling which will appear as sunken pits in the surface of the fruit. 

Check in later on today for an amazing zucchini cake recipe adapted from a piece by the sultry Nigella Lawson.

In Season: Mid Summer

Buying produce in season holds benefits not only for ones taste-buds but also ones purse. Here on Magic Bean, we’re going to kick off the dawn of each month with a guide to seasonal produce.

Take advantage of January, the most fruitful (and vegieful) time of year, with a plethora of tantilising colours, tastes and textures.

This month, sink your teeth into these delectable gifts of nature:

apricot, avocado, banana, basil, beans (butter and green), blackberry, blueberry, boysenberry, cantaloupe, capsicum, celery, cherry, chervil, chives, coriander, cucumber, currants, dill, eggplant, gooseberry, honeydew, lettuce, loganberry, lychee, marjoram, mulberry, mango, mint, nectarine, okra, onion, oregano, passionfruit, peach, peas, pineapple, plum, radish, raspberry, sage, spring onion, squash, starfruit, strawberry, sweet corn, thyme, tomato, watermelon, zucchini, zucchini flower

Come back tomorrow when we’ll be posting a feature on one of this months pick of the crop including recipes.