Enjoy the last few days of British Summer – Jewish Chronicle Summer recipes 2013

Nutty burgers with spinach and carrot buns

Preparation time: 30 mins

Cooking time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

500g minced beef

1 red onion, finely chopped

20g finely chopped fresh flat parsley

60g ground walnuts

60g chopped pistachios

2 medium eggs

Salt, pepper

A generous shake of cumin, paprika and turmeric

Sunflower oil for brushing

For the dressing:

4 tbsp mayonnaise,

1 tsp ketchup

1 tsp mustard

To serve:

Fresh baby spinach, sliced red onions, sliced tomatoes, sliced pickled cucumbers

Method:

Put all the burger ingredients and seasonings in a bowl.
Mix all the ingredients very well with your hands.
Form your burgers and brush both sides with oil.
If you have a BBQ, cook the burgers on both sides
To oven bake, cook at 180C for about 30 minutes, turning halfway.
To make the dressing, mix all the ingredients. Spoon some over each burger before topping with a bun.

Spinach and grated carrot burger buns

Preparation:

Cooking: 20 mins

Makes: 20 medium size rolls

Ingredients:

250g fresh spinach

3 sachets fast action dried yeast

2 large carrots, grated

1 tbs caster sugar

500g-600g of strong white bread flour

Approximately +/- 300ml of warm water

6 tbsp sunflower and olive oil

Salt, pepper

Method:

Rinse the spinach and reduce it in a large pan.
Let it cool down a bit and puree the spinach
In a small bowl, dilute the dried yeast in a bit of warm water
Cook the grated carrots for 5 minutes in the pan on the hob with one tsp of caster sugar and keep aside, you will add them only before you cook the bread (you need to do that so they are not so wet when you incorporate them in the bread)
In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, yeast, spinach puree, some salt, pepper and sunflower oil until you form a neat ball.
If, touching the dough, you feel you need more water or flour, add them very gradually. You should be able to touch the dough without it sticking to your fingers too much.
On a clean worktop, knead the dough for about 15 minutes until it becomes elastic and until you hear a “click” noise when you are kneading it.
Leave the dough to rest and rise on your worktop and cover it with the bowl at least 1.5 hour to 2 hours until the dough at least doubles in size. The room should be warm to help the rising and proving process.
After two hours, preheat the oven to 200°C. Add the carrots and knead the dough for a few minutes until they are amalgamated.
Form burger buns and cook for about 10-15 minutes until they sound hollow when tapped on the underside.

Courgette spaghettis salad with sundried tomatoes and tomatoes

Prep time: 15 minutes

4 large courgettes

12 sundried tomatoes cut in half

12 cherry tomatoes cut in half

Olive oil

White wine vinegar

Salt and pepper

25g of fresh basil

Mustard

Honey

Wash your courgettes and cut both ends
Using a spiral slicer, form your spaghettis and cut them in three; if you have not got a spiral slicer, cut you courgettes in julienne trying to cut on the whole length
Add the tomatoes and sundried tomatoes
Chop the basil thinly
In a bowl, add 8 table spoons of olive oil, 2 of white wine vinegar, the chopped basil, a generous tea spoon of mustard, and one of teaspoon of honey; stir well
Add the dressing to the salad and mix well before serving

Three melons fruits salad with water melon granita

This refreshing and pretty fruits salad will be the perfect desert or afternoon tea treat in a hot summer day.

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

One small water melon
One galia or honeydew melon
One cantaloupe melon

Preparation

20 minutes

No cooking time, but allow one hour for the water melon juice to become frozen and make into granita.

Method:

Using a melon baller, form little balls with the three different melons, keeping them in different bowls
Keep the juice produced by the water melon and freeze it at least for one hour to make it into granita
Using transparent cups or tall glasses, alternate the different colours of melon balls
Once it is frozen, simply prick a fork into the frozen water melon juice to obtain some granita
Add the granita on top of the water melon balls and serve
You can use half of the melon or water melon to serve the rest of the fruit salad