Quesadilla and chunky salsa - quick weekend lunch!

I used to work in this café in the town I grew up in on the coast of south west Ireland which would be pretty quiet during the winter and absolutely heaving with tourists during the summer. I remember once a coachload of German tourists all ordered the same thing - a toasted panini and we only had one grill! That was interesting, to say the least.

We had a kind of a tex-mex thing going alongside the brownies, bagels and soups, and I got a taste for this particular chunky salsa I used to make in buckets and now I'm devoted to it. It's more of a salad, than a salsa and I love it - it's the perfect foil to spicy jalapeno and greasy fried quesdailla - five ingredients: tomato, white onion, lime, coriander and salt. It is utterly delicious on plain salted tortilla chips as well and takes two seconds to make. I don't purport to know ANYTHING about Mexican food by the way - my idea of Mexican is basically peppers and onions covered in fajita spice with chicken. I don't even like beans, for god's sake. But this is really yummy, I promise - just no guarantees about it being authentically anything other than being delicious thanks to the combined wonders of cheese, butter and carbohydrate.

Chunky basic salsa

• Handful of coriander (finely chopped)
• 2 tomatoes
• Half a white onion
• Half a lime, juiced
• A decent amount of table salt

 

Chop the tomato cleanly in half, then slice into three or four thick vertical slices without disturbing the semi-circle shape of the tomato if possible, then turn it round and slice again making chunks - a sharp knife here helps or you'll end up with tomato mush and water! Do the same with the onion half, and mix together in a big enough bowl that you'll be able to thoroughly encorporate the salt, lime juice and coriander. Use your hand to make sure all the flavours blend, if you can be bothered - and taste as you go. More salt than you think you need is often the secret.

Quesadilla with cheese and jalapeno

Below are the ingredients per quesadilla - this is a really nice open recipe, so feel free to experiment. Avocado, roasted chicken strips, mince, quorn...or substitute the cheddar with feta and make it with spinach and sundried tomato! And work from there. This is my favourite though.

• 1 tsp of soft-ish butter
• 1 tortilla wrap
• 1 or 2 handfuls of grated cheddar or similar
• 4 or 5 jalapenos, depending on how much heat you like

Get a large frying pan good and hot, and have your cheese pre-grated at the ready. Smear a tsp or equivalent of  spoonful of butter on the underside of your wrap, then using your hand, put the tortilla in the pan and move it around so the butter coats the pan and wrap nicely as it melts. It'll sizzle pretty loudly if you're doing it right. 

Rapidly sprinkle your cheese over roughly one half of the wrap, quickly add your jalapenos, then fold the wrap over and press down with a spatula. The cheese will melt, the tortilla will crisp, flip it over until it gets lovely and dark but don't let it burn and don't panic if some of the cheese oozes out.

Slice it up like a pizza and serve it with some sour cream if you have some. So bad for you. And yet so good. And it really only takes about 2 minutes to make one. Enjoy!

Thin crust pizza for weekdays

For the record, I only ate half of this! Plus cold homemade pizza is great as lunchbox-fodder the next day.

Whoops - it's been a while! January and February got the better of me and combined with getting a bit cooked-out for my boyfriend's birthday and just trying to get through that last dark shivery part of winter I failed completely to update this. And I've had the pictures all along. But now look what it looked like over Camden when I got home tonight! Light! And sunsets!

This pizza is pretty fantastic stuff in any case. You can easily make this weeknights for supper, you can add whatever toppings you do or don't like, although it's nice with some pepperoni (not very veggie though) and a handful of rocket salad on top with a nice glass of wine on the side. Although don't go too crazy on the toppings, otherwise it doesn't cook properly and stays all soggy in the middle - my boyfriend always finds this out this hard way.

Flat crust pizza (makes 2 large pizzas) 

• 175ml (3/4 of a cup) of lukewarm water
• 1/2 tsp yeast
• 2 cups of plain flour (or strong flour)
• 1/2 tsp salt 

Plus, a tin of chopped tomatoes and rosemary for a tomato pizza sauce, plus toppings - mozzarella, pepperoni, peppers, onions, tomatoes, capers...

 The secret to this, apparently, is preheating your oven to some insane temperature then getting the pizza in quickly on a very hot baking tray so it crisps up perfectly, but I am nowhere near dextrous enough for that. I do pre-heat very hot, but, I tend to lay my pizza on the back of a tray, then 'decorate' it (hah) carefully before putting in the oven. Basically, step one, pre-heat your oven.

In a bowl, mix the flour and salt. Sometimes I like to try putting dried herbs in at this point - you can experiment as much as you like, it's just dough! If the yeast needs to be activated, stir into the water. Otherwise you can just add the yeast into the flour and mix well. I have spent my entire cooking life up to very recently not using a tbsp/tsp measurer and just kind of winging it, but I have to say this little spoon-device is pretty handy if you're a little on the perfectionist side.

Make a well in the centre of the dry and pour in the water, then use your fingers to mix. When the dough starts to begin to stick together, tip the whole lot onto a well floured surface. Here's how it looks before you tip it out. 

Knead for five minutes or so, the texture will change rather dramatically and get all smooth and tacky and elastic. Then using a chopping knife (I love this part) slice the ball in two. Et voila. Now all you have to do is find a handy method for making it into a nice thin pizza - I find a combo of rolling pin - well floured!! - and using my hands to pull it out is the best way.

At some point, you'll need to make a tomato-sauce to spread on top, so chop two or three cloves garlic or onion, whatever you feel like, and put into a sauce pan. Fry lightly in olive oil, maybe add a bit of rosemary or oregano, and then the chopped tomatoes. Give the sauce a stir, just bring to boiling, then take off the heat. Spread over the two pizza bases. Then add your toppings - leaving off the cheese - and put in the oven for five minutes. 

 This gives the base and toppings a chance to cook. Then after the time is up, remove from oven, add the cheese, and put back in the oven for about ten minutes until it's looking nice and crispy. Yum. If you have the oven space maybe this would be nice for guests, it's always fun letting someone top their own pizza.

Credit where credit is due: The Kitchn