Nigel Slater: Five exotic ingredients to brighten up the new year

Fried ginger chicken, yuzu dip. Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin for Observer Food Monthly

Ingredients come and go, but in the past couple of years, a handful of new ones have taken up a permanent place in my kitchen. This last year, five ingredients, spice mixes and flavourings made the leap from "fun things to play with" to a much-loved part of my everyday cooking. They include a soft fragrant spice mix; a startling fruit; a blend of herbs and seeds; and a seasoning that is hot and sweet. There is also a fresh ingredient whose flavour is difficult to pin down.
Some of these are available from high-street supermarkets, others from ethnic food shops and almost all are available online. They are all well established within their own cuisines, but haven't, till now, been easy to find in UK shops. Many of them may be already in regular use in your kitchen. But all are recent additions to my cooking that I believe deserve a much wider audience.

Fried ginger chicken, yuzu dip

The yuzu is small Japanese citrus fruit with a flavour that is often described as poised between lemon and grapefruit. Whatever, it is a delightful, sweet-sharp fruit whose juice is sold here in bottles. Occasionally you may find fresh fruit in Japanese food centres. It is my tip for the most likely ingredient to become ubiquitous over the next few years. And that will suit me just fine.
Buy it for sharpening up a marinade; adding a deep citrus flavour to soy sauce-based dips for tempura or sushi.

Get it from Japanese food shops. (It is rather expensive, but a little goes a long way.)
Serves 2
for the marinade:
light soy sauce 75ml
mirin 125ml
fresh ginger grated, 3 tbsp
chicken drumsticks 6
ginger a thumb-sized knob
rice flour 6 tbsp
for the dipping sauce:
dark soy sauce 2tbsp
yuzu juice 2 tbsp
oil for deep frying
Pour the light soy sauce into a sealable plastic bag, add the mirin and the freshly grated ginger.
Remove the skin from the drumsticks and slice the flesh from top to bottom to reveal the bone. Carefully cut the meat away from the bone in one piece and drop into the bag of marinade. Seal the bag and leave the chicken to soak in the seasoned soy and mirin for an hour or more. Overnight won't hurt.
Peel the thumb of ginger and cut into matchstick-size strips. Season the rice flour with salt and a little black pepper and spread it thickly on a plate or shallow bowl. Warm the oil to 180C.
Remove the chicken from its marinade and drop each piece into the seasoned rice flour, then lower carefully into the hot oil. Fry for 4 or 5 minutes until the outside is pale amber and lightly crisp. It is best not to overcrowd the pan, so cook them in two batches, and drain each on kitchen paper.
Fry the shredded ginger till golden and remove with a draining spoon. In a small bowl, mix the dark soy sauce and the yuzu juice together. Give the chicken a last quick fry to crisp it then serve with coriander leaves and the dipping sauce.

Butternut squash and coconut stew with galangal

Butternut squash and coconut stew with galangal. Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin for Observer Food Monthly Galangal looks a little like ginger, but tastes very different, having none of the root's citrus notes. Paler, smoother and often with pink tinges to its plump ivory rhizomes, galangal is used in Vietnamese, Thai and Indonesian cooking.
Buy it for adding to a Vietnamese curry; including in a marinade for beef or pork; or for clear fish soups with crab or prawns.
Get it from Chinese and south-east Asian food shops and some of the larger mainstream supermarkets.
Serves 4-6
butternut squash 600g
groundnut oil a little
coconut milk 400ml
stock 500ml
galangal peeled and grated 3tbsp
lime juice of ½
spring onions 3
assorted Asian greens 3 large handfuls
Thai basil a small handful
coriander a small handful
Peel the squash, discard any seeds and fibres and cut the flesh into small dice roughly 2cm square. Warm a little oil in a frying pan, add the cubes of squash and cook until lightly browned on all sides.
Pour in the coconut milk and stock and bring to the boil, then lower the heat to a simmer. Add the grated galangal and the spring onions, season with salt and black pepper and continue cooking until the squash is tender and on the point of collapse.
Wash and roughly shred or tear the greens then push them down into the hot stew and leave them for 5 or 6 minutes over a low to moderate heat until they have wilted. Finish the stew by adding lime juice and salt to taste. You want a good balance of sour lime and sweet coconut with a little galangal in the background. Add the Thai basil and coriander just before serving.

Sirloin with miso and togarashi

Sirloin with miso and togarashi. Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin for Observer Food Monthly There is more than one form of togarashi seasoning. The most popular is a blend of chilli powder, orange peel, Szechuan pepper, sesame and ginger. Other blends come with dried lemon in them.
Buy it for adding a light, aromatic heat to steaks, aubergines and chicken.
Get it from Japanese grocers and the larger supermarkets.
Serves 2
sirloin steaks 2
radish sprouts to serve
for the dressing:
mirin 120ml
yellow miso paste 2 level tbsp
sugar 1 tbsp
togarashi seasoning a half to 1 tsp
Warm a little oil and a thick slice of butter in a shallow, heavy-based pan. Season the steaks and add them to the pan once the butter starts sizzling. As they brown on the surface, almost continually spoon the butter and oil over them, turning once the underside is done to your liking.
Pour the mirin into a saucepan and warm it gently. Stir in the miso paste and the sugar. When they have dissolved, remove from the heat and stir in the togarashi seasoning.
When the steak is ready, pour the dressing into the pan, roll the steak over in it, then set aside to rest for five minutes before slicing and serving with the radish sprouts.

Za'atar bread

Za'atar bread. Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin for Observer Food Monthly Za'atar, the Middle Eastern spice mixture made, at its most basic, from dried thyme, oregano, salt and sesame seeds, is often eaten with flatbreads and labneh, the strained yoghurt. Mixed with olive oil, when it is known as za'atar-wu-zayt, the mixture is then spread on the outside of flatbreads before baking. Here, I incorporate it into the breads themselves, making them particularly fragrant. I have also used this spice mix with grilled lamb, scattering it over the surface of the oiled meat during grilling.
Buy it for introducing a warm, deeply herbal note to baking and to grilled foods.
Buy it from Lebanese and Middle Eastern grocers. Some large supermarkets.
Makes 8
for the bread:
strong, white bread flour 250g
salt 5g
za'atar 3 tbsp
instant yeast 7g
unsalted butter 15g
water about 150ml
To serve:
labneh or strained yoghurt
mixed olives
extra virgin olive oil
Put the flour in a large, warm mixing bowl and add the salt, za'atar and the yeast. Add the butter and most of the water, then mix with your hands to bring the mixture together. Gradually add the remaining water until all the flour is mixed in.
Put the dough on a lightly floured board and knead for 5-10 minutes. When the dough feels smooth and silky, place it back in the mixing bowl, cover it with a warm tea towel and leave it in a warm place to rise for at least an hour until it has doubled in size.
Tip the dough on to a floured surface, fold repeatedly until all the air is knocked out of it, then tear it into 8 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball then flatten them into discs about the size of a digestive biscuit and set aside.
Warm a dry non-stick frying pan over a moderate heat, place the bread discs in the pan, a few at a time, and cook for 10 minutes or so till they are nicely toasted and a little puffed.
Serve the warm breads with the labneh and olives, trickling a little olive oil over the labneh at the table.

Cauliflower soup with ras el hanout

Cauliflower soup with ras el hanout. Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin for Observer Food Monthly Ras el hanout is a mild, gently flavoured blend of spices from north Africa that can include cinnamon, cumin, cloves, nutmeg, galangal and rose petals.
Buy it for stirring into rice, spicing couscous and mograbia and adding to tagines and casseroles.
Buy it from major supermarkets, Middle Eastern and north African grocers or online.
Serves 4-6
cauliflower 900g
milk 1 litre
butter 50g
ras el hanout 2 tsp
flaked almonds 100g
Remove the green leaves of the cauliflower, discarding anything with tough stalks, but keeping the smaller, tender leaves. Break the cauliflower into large florets then put them, with the reserved tender leaves, into a deep pan with the milk and a good pinch of salt.
Bring the milk to the boil, then turn the heat down to a simmer and let the cauliflower cook for 15-20 minutes until it is tender. Remove the leaves and six fat florets and set aside, then continue cooking till the remaining cauliflower is quite soft.
Process the soft cauliflower and its milk in a blender or food processor with the butter till very smooth then return to the pan, scraping it out of the blender jug with a rubber spatula. Add the ras el hanout and a little salt and pepper to taste.
In a shallow non-stick pan, toast the flaked almonds till golden. Warm the reserved cauliflower florets in the soup for a couple of minutes then ladle into bowls, a large floret and a ladle of soup in each, and add a light dusting of ras el hanout and a scattering of hot flaked almonds over the surface.

How to make the perfect Thanksgiving sweet potato casserole

Adding sugar is a must, but should you boil your sweet potatoes or bake them? And are eggs essential? Then there is the dilemma over toppings. Marshmallows, anyone?

Perfect sweet potato casserole. Photograph: Felicity Cloake for the Guardian

When I asked an American friend what people do to celebrate Thanksgiving, he said that, mostly, they ate. And when they weren’t eating, they were watching football. No church, no gifts, just good food and thankfulness.
And what food! Deep-fried turkeys and pumpkin pies, cornbread stuffing and cranberry relish – and (most exotic of all to these British eyes) candied sweet potatoes, a dessert that has somehow fought its way on to the main course of the biggest meal of the year. Though the sweet potato has been an important part of the continent’s diet for millennia, and early European settlers readily adopted it as a pie filling, the Thanksgiving casserole’s infamous marshmallow topping didn’t appear until the early 20th century, apparently at the behest of interested candy manufacturers.
Sugar and gravy might not be a combination that every American is thankful for, however – Jane Nickerson, writing in the New York Times in 1948, prefaces her recipe with the underwhelming declaration: “I am not a fan, but about 250,000,000 Americans are, so here is my faint nod to their mystifying tastes.” I’m going to out myself – this week I discovered that, though I’m not American, I am a bit of a fan of candied sweet potatoes. Which just goes to show that you should try something before you knock it.

Cooks Illustrated’s candied sweet potato. Photograph: Felicity Cloake/Guardian

The potatoes

Like most tubers, the dense sweet potato requires some serious cooking. Early recipes often boil them in their skins, something also advocated by the classic Joy of Cooking, but the Cook’s Illustrated All-Time Best Recipes warn that this yields a wet texture and a “mild, watery flavour”. They’re right; the Joy may be a bible of American cooking, but its sweet potatoes remind me of boring old boiled carrots.
Instead, Cook’s Illustrated braises the potatoes in a mixture of cream, butter and sugar while Chow goes for a sugar syrup and butter mixture instead – both using just enough liquid to cook the vegetables through, but not enough to wash out their flavour. The Cooks Illustrated version, which eschews water altogether, is better, but it’s still not as good as the baked varieties I try.
Saveur and Southern Living magazines both bake their sweet potatoes in their skins before peeling and mashing them. If you can afford the power, this method yields an intensely sweet, full-flavoured result; sweet potatoes that taste almost ridiculously of themselves. Chow and Joy of Cooking both serve their sweet potatoes in slices, rather than mashing or puréeing them, as other recipes suggest. I think this is a mistake; one of my favourite things about this tuber is its velvety texture when puréed. This also means that the Chow version hasn’t absorbed much of the buttery, sugary flavour of its braising liquid, remaining sweet potato chunks in sauce. Far less satisfactory.

Saveur’s sweet potato casserole. Photograph: Felicity Cloake/Guardian

The fats

Butter is obviously a must here – you can’t have mashed potato of any stamp without it. Southern Living adds milk too, but as it’s a special occasion, I prefer the thicker double cream in the Saveur and Cook’s Illustrated recipes. Saveur and Southern Living also beat in eggs. I’m sceptical; as with the milk, I feel the less water in this casserole the better, but the eggs do give the filling a rich, almost custardy texture. To be safe, I decide to use just the yolks – you could even use the whites for a meringue topping if you’re feeling adventurous, but I’d save them for a puritan post-Thanksgiving breakfast.

The flavourings

Attempt to put a sugar-free sweet potato casserole on the table on Thanksgiving of all days, and you might just have your green card revoked; absolutely everyone adds some. But you don’t have to pour in a whole cup of the stuff, like Southern Living – it’s quite acceptable to stick with a more modest teaspoon, as Cook’s Illustrated suggests, just to accentuate the tuber’s natural sweetness. That said, I’m not going to stop you if you want to go mad on thankfulness for sugar once a year.

The Joy of Cooking’s sweet potato. Photograph: Felicity Cloake/Guardian

Chow and Saveur use dark brown sugar, Joy goes for the simple brown stuff, and no one else specifies, so I use white. As with the pumpkin pie, the more caramelised flavours of the less refined sugars are lovely in combination with the vegetable star, making it taste far more festive, and interesting, than ordinary caster.
Holiday or not, I draw the line at too many spices; the nutmeg, vanilla and cinnamon in the Saveur pie completely overwhelm the poor old potato. The warmth of its grated ginger is inspired, however – much fresher than Joy’s powdered variety or Chow’s crystallised version. That, and a sprinkling of nutmeg, is quite enough for me, though I’d also accept the merest pinch of cinnamon, given the American fondness for the stuff. Joy is the only recipe to balance the sugar with lemon juice – it works because of the ridiculous amount of sugar it uses, but my more restrained recipe renders such an addition unnecessary.

Southern Living’s sweet potato casserole. Photograph: Felicity Cloake/Guardian

Toppings

I have to admit, marshmallows aren’t really my thing outside a Wagon Wheel, but I do like the crunch of the various other toppings the recipes use. Joy goes for a simple brown sugar glaze while Saveur makes an oat and brown sugar crumble with chopped pecan nuts, which, though delicious, I find a bit heavy for a side dish. Southern Living’s crushed cornflakes go down surprisingly well, but in the end, I settle for a classic pecan praline, on the basis that, as I’ve reined back the sugar in the dish itself, I can afford a little on top.
It is Thanksgiving, after all. Whether you crown it with a whole heap of pink and white marshmallows is up to you.
(serves 4-6)
900g sweet potatoes
45g butter
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp double cream
1 tsp dark muscovado sugar
1 tsp grated ginger
Sprinkling of nutmeg
½ tsp salt
For the topping
15g dark muscovado sugar
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp butter, melted
40g pecans, roughly chopped
Heat the oven to 220C/gas mark 7 and prick the sweet potatoes with a fork. Bake until soft – how long this takes will depend on the size of your sweet potatoes, but check after 45 minutes.
Turn the oven down to 180C/gas mark 4. When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel off the skins and put the flesh into a bowl and mash until smooth – or use a stick blender. Add the butter and beat in until melted, then beat in the remaining ingredients. Taste for seasoning.
Spoon into an oven dish. Mix together all the topping ingredients with a pinch of salt and sprinkle over the top of the potatoes. Bake for about 25 minutes until the topping is crunchy and brown.
Candied sweet potatoes – the king of the Thanksgiving table, or a sugary distraction from good honest mash? Are you a marshmallow fan, or does the very idea of serving them with gravy turn your stomach? And, for those celebrating Thanksgiving, what else will you be serving up?