Yesterday, Celia, at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, wrote a post about Chilean Pevre (here is the link).  It struck a cord with me because, as soon as I read her post, I knew I would like it.  That got me thinking.  Dr Fugawe, from The Lost World of Dr Fugawe, recently did a post on his idiosyncratic likes (here is the link to the Doc’s post).  After reading his post, I confessed to the Doc that I like all things free but I do like other things. I thought I would tell you about them.

I like, big time:

• coarsely ground black pepper – I put it on absolutely everything.
• sate sauce – most people confess to putting tomato sauce on the strangest things. Not me, I never touch the stuff but, in my humble opinion, a lot of things taste better with the addition of sate sauce.
• coriander, sage and ginger – I have a saying, “you can never have too much …”
• Greek halva – the addiction started in Athens more than 30 years ago.  Maus and I bought a big slab of halva and ate it all before we got back to our lodgings.  If you know how sweet halva is, you would know this is a big effort.  I am not sure how we knew to seek it out, but I am glad we did.
• sesame oil – just love it; anything remotely Asian gets a decent splash of it.
• good quality icecream – Whenever it is in the house, there is a little man in my head who keeps saying, ‘There is icecream in the freezer, eat it!  Eat it all and do it now!’
• avocados – I  remember the first time I ate an avocado.  I was in Jammu, India.  I bought one from a stall, peeled it and ate into it.  I was not impressed (no wonder). Things have moved on from there and now they are one of my most favourite things.
• onion – no salad is complete without onion.
• broccoli – strange one I know but it’s my favourite vegetable.
• mangosteens – I would go to Bali just for mangosteens.
• rose water – it transforms desserts from the mundane to the exotic.
• vinegar – I have always been a big fan.  As a kid, I would drink the dregs of vinegar after the salad was eaten.
• lemons – one of God’s finest creations.
• cumquats – no-one else seems to love them so it is up to me.
• coffee – I like mine strong.  No single shots for me.
• Pernod –  I was introduced to Pernod at a very young age by a delightful barman.  He indicated that Oozo would be much too coarse for me.  I seemed more like a Pernod girl.  I have never looked back.
• shiraz – I blame an old university friend for this addiction.  We used to go to her place for lunch and, being from a traditional Italian family, they served a good red with the meal.  Of course, I partook.
• oh … walnuts, how could I forget walnuts?  Maus has been known to say, ‘Can we have something for dinner tonight without walnuts in it?’

I don’t like:

• mashed potato – weird, I know, but I much prefer plain boiled potatoes.
• peas – it’s my mother’s fault, she forced me to eat them as a child.  As an adult, I refuse to do so.
• basil – I overdosed on pesto once and haven’t eaten it since.  I have been known to triple the amount of coriander that a recipe calls for but I do not put in one skerrick more basil than called for.
• licorice allsorts – it is the only lollie that is safe in our house.  They are Maus’ favourites (which is lucky for her).  I am happy to pick out the plain licorice pieces and the jelly bits with hundreds and thousands (in fact, I like them) but the ones with that sickly icing in them are horrid.  I refuse to eat them except when there is absolutely nothing else.

My favourite meal is T-bone steak, chips and salad (onion, cucumber and tomato).  This is a 70’s thing.  We all could afford big hunks of meat then.  Mothers were told it was good for their kids and it was a simple meal to put on the table … and so my mum did,  regularly.  I loved it, still do, but I try not to eat hunks of meat too often these days.

My favourite food styles are Lebanese, Turkish, Greek, etc (you got it ….. the Middle Eastern/Mediterranean area).

So, anyway, … when I saw Celia’s recipe that looked delightfully fresh, had lots of onions and coriander in it, I knew it was for me.  One of Celia’s readers referred Celia to eatwineblog.  I checked out that blogger’s recipe (which was very similar to Celia’s) and decided to give it a go.  It is very simple and not much different from a salsa that I  regularly make.  I usually use lemon juice (as Celia did) and add an avocado but, in this case, I stuck to eatwineblog’s recipe:

• 1 bunch of coriander
• 3 spring onions
• 3 tomatoes, peeled and finely chopped.  I use Roma tomatoes as they have less juice than most; otherwise squeeze the juice from the tomatoes.
• 1 green chilli, deseeded and finely choppped

Dressing

• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 1 tbs (15 mls) red wine vinegar
• 2 tbs (30 mls) olive oil
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp black pepper

1. Mix the salsa ingredients together.
2. Put the dressing ingredients in a small jar, shake then pour over salsa ingredients.

BTW, the photo is of a piece of barramundi, cooked in butter with lots of coarsely ground black pepper, potato fried in EVOO and eatwineblog’s Pebre.  Bloody good it was, too.

So what do you like?