I'm just resting.
Anyway, I was just chatting with a friend about clafouti, and I said that I would blog it if I were still blogging. So hey, why not? Hello strangers! Happy new year 2012, I aten't dead.
Clafouti is basically a light batter pudding. It's a really really easy thing to do for a fruit dessert, and for boring reasons, really really easy is all I do these days. And if you go and research clafouti, you will find a zillion recipes with wildly variable ratios of ingredients. Anything from 1 teaspoon of flour to 1/4 cup of flour per egg. Liquids may be creme fraiche, yoghurt, sour cream, cream, milk. I've tried a few variants recently and this is one I like - a more custardy texture than some, not too solid.
Generic Clafouti, Apricot Almond variety
400g fruit (chopped fresh apricots)
1/4 cup plain flour, sifted
1/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 cup plain yoghurt
1/4 cup milk
dash vanilla essence
2 tablespoons liqueur (amaretto)
flaked almonds to decorate
Preheat the oven to 180C
Lightly butter a small casserole dish.
Toss in the fruit, cut in bite sized pieces.
Mix together the flour and sugar, and beat in the eggs.
Add vanilla, liqueur, yoghurt, and milk, and whisk gently just to free from any lumps.
Pour the batter over the fruit.
Sprinkle with flaked almonds (optional).
Bake for 35-45 minutes, until done - a test skewer comes out clean.
Serve hot or warm, with a dollop of cream or icecream.
I use a 24cm round pyrex casserole dish. If you have a larger flan plate, which is more traditional, it will be shallower and so cook a bit more quickly. So this is very easy, and you can swap in frozen berries or other fruits to taste. Cherries are classic French. I've made this so far with frozen blackberries, and fresh boysenberries and tonight with the apricots.
Showing posts with label desserts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label desserts. Show all posts
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Hot Hobart Berry Cake
A couple of weeks ago I was at a friend's place, and spent a little time browsing How to Cook a Galah by Laurel Evelyn Dyson. This is a fascinating book about Australian culinary history, with plenty of recipes. I copied down a couple of recipes to try out. This one is a sort of fruit sponge, originally titled Hot Hobart Mulberry Cake. Apparently the original cook had a friend with a mulberry tree.The recipe is dead easy, with no fussy creaming of butter and sugar, just a simple stir through. I didn't have mulberries, but I did have some blackberries from the Borenore Hillside orchards and some boysenberries from my back garden, picked about a month ago and frozen. So here is my variant.
Recipe: Hot Hobart Berry Cake
450g berries
juice of one lemon
300ml light sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla brandy
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
- Preheat oven to 180C.
- Beat together the sour cream, vanilla and eggs.
- Sift the flour and sugar together
- Wash berries and dry well, then coat with lemon juice.
- Grease a round casserole dish.
- Stir the sour cream mix through the flour and sugar.
- Turn out into the greased dish.
- Pour berries on top.
- Bake for 45min-1 hour, until sponge is done in the centre when tested with a skewer.
- Serve warm, with cream or icecream.
Notes: There was no vanilla in the original, and of course the sour cream was not light. I'm also guessing that they used butter to grease a dish, rather than a spray of rice bran oil.
Vanilla brandy is what I have on my shelf, it's a small bottle of brandy with vanilla pods in it. Use 1 tsp vanilla essence and 2-3 tsp brandy for the closest equivalent. It's quite a thick batter, and I think the extra dash of liquid is helpful. Possibly the original cook's sour cream was thinner, or her lemons juicier or eggs larger.
It came out very delicious when warm. It did take quite some time for the centre to set - 55 min even in my fan forced oven. By that time the outer part was a little crusty.It went very well with a scoop of vanilla icecream, and I think pouring cream would be a good option, too. On the whole I think this is better warm than cold, and even better with more berries. Luckily it microwaves up alright with 30-60 seconds a serve.
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
I have a problem with stone fruit
I buy too much of it.The Bloke doesn't eat any stone fruit, except for dried apricots. And yes, I can easily get through a couple of kilos of cherries in a week all by myself when they're in season. But right now the markets are packed with plums and nectarines and peaches and plumcots and I wander around thinking "I'll just get half a dozen of these" and "ooh, those look nice, how about I just buy four" and somehow I come home with far too much for me to eat in a week. Especially if I've bought huge punnets of blackberries, strawberries and blueberries as well.
And I have another problem with stone fruit. These days most of them are sold rock hard. Even the peaches from the growers market are too firm to be edible immediately. Stone fruit don't really ripen off the tree, no extra sweetness develops, but they will soften. Pop them in the fruit bowl for two or three days, watch like a hawk, and eat them when they are just softened enough. But if you leave them for even 12 hours longer, they start getting a bit wrinkly and too soft to be nice. And if you then put them in the fridge and leave them for a few more days, some will go off entirely, and some will get a bit squishy in spots.
Here's what I did to salvage the old fruit when I got back from Goulburn.
Recipe: White Peaches in Blood Plum sauce
3 white peaches or nectarines
4 blood plums
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon rose water
2 tablespoons water
Wash the fruit well.
Chop the plums small, removing stones and any nasty dead bits.
Chuck them in a saucepan with the sugar, rosewater and the water.
Bring to a simmer.
Cut the peaches in large pieces - halves, or quarters.
Add them to the plums, and let simmer for another 10-15 minutes.
Allow to cool slightly, then remove peach pieces.
Slip off the peach skins.
Mash the plum sauce, or if you feel energetic, sieve or puree it.
Return the peach pieces, mix well, and chill.
Notes: This was a really great outcome - the rose with the blood plum and hint of vanilla is a very good combination. It's obviously adaptable to other fruits; this is just what was in the fridge, but I think I lucked out here. The aromatic white peach holds up well against the sauce, and matches with the rose.
Peach skins are easy to slip off when the fruit is cooked. If you prefer, you can skin them like tomatoes, by standing then in a bowl of boiling water for a minute or two.
Eat these for breakfast - cold with Greek yoghurt and granola, or warm on porridge, depending on what the weather is doing.
Monday, 26 April 2010
Old fashioned things, and the importance of numeracy
My good friend B1 has been out of town a lot, for personal reasons that I won't go into on this blog. Recently she was back, and hinted shamelessly at me about lamb shanks and creme caramel. So what could I do but comply? I even managed to put this together on a weeknight by dint of moderate planning ahead.I didn't quite manage enough forward planning to get market lamb, so I had to get the shanks from Woolworths, who sell them as whole bones, not the easier to manage French trimmed version. They're not particularly cheap - they averaged about $4.50 a piece, which for the actual amount of meat makes it's cheaper to buy a hunk of rump steak.
I do actually remember when they were cheap - the offcut bit, good for a soup, or a cheap family meal, but not fit to bring out for company. That was before the revival of the slow cooked homestyle food in fancy restaurants. My Mum hasn't kept up with the trends, and a while ago was horrified when some visiting friends chose to eat lamb shanks at a fancy restaurant. To her generation, it sounds like ordering spam. But really, it's good - I remember trying to bags the shank end of the lamb roast whenever possible. Sticky, tender and full of flavour.
I more or less followed this recipe from allrecipes.com.au, which involves browning the meat & veg, then a slow cook in red wine, tomatoes and stock, with lots of herbs, and in my addition, some strips of lean bacon. For six lamb shanks, that's two tins of tomatoes and a whole bottle of red, then stock to top up. Then it's overnight in the huge cooking pot in a very slow oven (120) - my slow cooker was too small to take them. Simply reheat for dinner. I served it with mash, which I enriched with a little leftover cream, and frozen baby peas. Half the shanks minus bone, and most of the veg and sauce went into the freezer, to be a ragout later on. With the Italian tomato, garlic and rosemary flavours, it should go well with pasta.
I had leftover cream, of course, from the creme caramel. This is another easy one to cook ahead, I made the caramel on a Monday night, baked the custard on Tuesday and served them on Wednesday. In this case, I used a Maggie Beer recipe, from the Maggie's Harvest book. I looked up several to get the proportions, and decided to use the one with the whole eggs. I have too many egg whites in the freezer already.The importance of numeracy comes in here. Check the recipe and see if you can spot the problem!
Recipe: Maggie Beer's Creme Caramel
110g sugar
125ml water
-
4 large eggs
125g caster sugar
250ml cream
300ml milk
1 vanilla bean
First, make the caramel. Put the sugar and water in a small saucepan and heat until sugar is dissolved. Continue to heat until it turns into a dark amber colour - watch carefully when it first starts to turn, because it can be quite quick to change. Pour the hot caramel into 4x120ml capacity individual ramekins, and swirl a little to get it around the edges. Leave to set.
Heat the milk and cream together with the vanilla bean and scraped out seeds. Bring to just off boiling, then remove from heat and let cool. Overnight is fine. Later, make the custard by beating the eggs, sugar and re-warmed vanilla infused milk together. Strain this into a jug.
Prepare a large roasting tin with a folded tea-towel on the base, then the caramel ramekins. Pour the custard into the ramekins in situ, then gently pour hot water around them to soak the tea towel. Fill up as high as you can manage around the edges of the ramekins, without getting water into the custard when you move it.
Bake in a 180 degree oven for 25 minutes, or until set. Allow to cool in their water-bath, then refrigerate until ready. To serve, run a knife around the edge of the ramekin and invert it onto a plate. The caramel will mostly have dissolved into a sauce, though if you've done a thick layer there may be some left.
Notes: Actually I reduced the sugar in the custard from the 145g in the recipe, and slightly changed the milk/cream balance because I had low fat milk in the house. (Hers: 375ml milk, 190ml cream.)
And did you spot it? If the eggs make up about 200ml, then what we have here is about 650ml of custard. This is not going to fit into 4x120ml ramekins! I spotted the need to get more ramekins - I used six. I also increased the caramel amount by half, which I think was unnecessary, since the caramel layer came out much thicker than it needed to be.
Making the caramel dark gives it a bitter-sweet sharp edge, which makes the dessert more interesting and less cloying. You can make it a bit lighter, if you prefer.
Friday, 29 January 2010
Sherry Berry Trifle
Blueberry, that is. I contemplated a Sherry Cherry Trifle, but who has time to pit cherries right before Xmas? A trifle, though, is traditional for Christmas, and it's quite useful. It's a dessert that can be made in advance, with whatever is on hand, and yet is quite festive. It's also a traditional way to use up stale sponge cake - though that's not a common thing in my house.
They can be pretty dire, when made from the supermarket jam roll soaked in Aeroplane jelly with tinned fruit and packet custard, and a splash of wino's cheapest sherry. Though if done with care, even that can have nostalgia value. But there's plenty of room to improve on any or all of those options without much effort. Even packet custard can be tweaked into something rather better. And since the packet kind sets, it's actually a better option than a proper egg yolk custard sauce, if you're planning to put it in a large bowl and empty it over a couple of days. And I do still like to have jelly, even though I'm grown up.
Recipe: Sherry & Blueberry Trifle
625g blueberries
3 tablespoons vanilla sugar
150ml water
1 sachet gelatine
--
1 250g sponge cake
1/2 cup medium sweet sherry
--
750ml custard
300ml cream
* Tear up the sponge cake and put it in the serving bowl.
* Drizzle the sherry over the cake.
* Wash 500g of the berries, and pop them into a saucepan with the sugar and water.
* Bring to a gentle simmer and stir well to make sure the sugar is all dissolved and the berries are a bit broken.
* Remove from heat immediately.
* Drain berries, reserving juice.
* Sprinkle cooked berries over the cake.
* Make a jelly with the juice and the gelatine, topping up with water if necessary to make 500ml liquid.
* Pour the warm liquid jelly over the cake and berries, and refrigerate to set.
* When set, top with cold custard.
* Top that with whipped cream, and decorate with fresh berries.
Extra Copious Notes
Cake options -
Make your own sponge, and spread it with a good jam. Make your own swiss roll. Buy a bakery or supermarket one - the quality need not be too high, since it will be soaked.
Soaking options -
A decent sherry matters here, and you want at least a semi-sweet, not a fino. Pedro Ximinez is lovely, if expensive, for a chocolatey one. Or for fruity options, an Amontillado style or premium cream sherry. Other kinds of soaking liquid can be used to taste. Port is traditional, but you could also consider muscat, tokay, a dessert wine, a liqueur or for the non-drinkers, a fruit juice. Or hmmm, how about black coffee, or earl grey tea, or chai?
Fruit options -
Go for cooked fruit (including tinned) unless you are going to eat it very quickly. Fresh fruit is nice, but much less so after a couple of days. You can use frozen berries to make the cooked part, but fresh will still look better as decoration on top.
Custard options -
I made a custard from packet custard powder, you may be shocked, shocked! to learn. But I used 750ml of full cream milk, with powder enough to set 500ml milk, and also added two whole eggs, well beaten, into the mix. This is much less likely to split than a straight egg custard, too. Bought custard could be used - the premium Paul's variety is pretty good for a dollop.
You can probably improvise for the rest. Use your favourite Aeroplane jelly from childhood, or a wine jelly, or no jelly at all. Top with soft thick cream dollops, or whipped cream, use any fruit or nut or even lollies for topping decorations... It's a bit of fun, not a rigid haute cuisine recipe.
I'm sorry I didn't take a picture. I got a bit otherwise preoccupied during Xmas. I will say that it looked very pretty, with a ring of whipped cream around the edge, dotted with fresh blueberries and some maple toasted pecans from the market nut sellers. The pecans didn't age well, though. The sugar coating dissolves, and the nuts start to soften. That would be a same-day decoration option, not good for 2-3 days.
They can be pretty dire, when made from the supermarket jam roll soaked in Aeroplane jelly with tinned fruit and packet custard, and a splash of wino's cheapest sherry. Though if done with care, even that can have nostalgia value. But there's plenty of room to improve on any or all of those options without much effort. Even packet custard can be tweaked into something rather better. And since the packet kind sets, it's actually a better option than a proper egg yolk custard sauce, if you're planning to put it in a large bowl and empty it over a couple of days. And I do still like to have jelly, even though I'm grown up.
Recipe: Sherry & Blueberry Trifle
625g blueberries
3 tablespoons vanilla sugar
150ml water
1 sachet gelatine
--
1 250g sponge cake
1/2 cup medium sweet sherry
--
750ml custard
300ml cream
* Tear up the sponge cake and put it in the serving bowl.
* Drizzle the sherry over the cake.
* Wash 500g of the berries, and pop them into a saucepan with the sugar and water.
* Bring to a gentle simmer and stir well to make sure the sugar is all dissolved and the berries are a bit broken.
* Remove from heat immediately.
* Drain berries, reserving juice.
* Sprinkle cooked berries over the cake.
* Make a jelly with the juice and the gelatine, topping up with water if necessary to make 500ml liquid.
* Pour the warm liquid jelly over the cake and berries, and refrigerate to set.
* When set, top with cold custard.
* Top that with whipped cream, and decorate with fresh berries.
Extra Copious Notes
Cake options -
Make your own sponge, and spread it with a good jam. Make your own swiss roll. Buy a bakery or supermarket one - the quality need not be too high, since it will be soaked.
Soaking options -
A decent sherry matters here, and you want at least a semi-sweet, not a fino. Pedro Ximinez is lovely, if expensive, for a chocolatey one. Or for fruity options, an Amontillado style or premium cream sherry. Other kinds of soaking liquid can be used to taste. Port is traditional, but you could also consider muscat, tokay, a dessert wine, a liqueur or for the non-drinkers, a fruit juice. Or hmmm, how about black coffee, or earl grey tea, or chai?
Fruit options -
Go for cooked fruit (including tinned) unless you are going to eat it very quickly. Fresh fruit is nice, but much less so after a couple of days. You can use frozen berries to make the cooked part, but fresh will still look better as decoration on top.
Custard options -
I made a custard from packet custard powder, you may be shocked, shocked! to learn. But I used 750ml of full cream milk, with powder enough to set 500ml milk, and also added two whole eggs, well beaten, into the mix. This is much less likely to split than a straight egg custard, too. Bought custard could be used - the premium Paul's variety is pretty good for a dollop.
You can probably improvise for the rest. Use your favourite Aeroplane jelly from childhood, or a wine jelly, or no jelly at all. Top with soft thick cream dollops, or whipped cream, use any fruit or nut or even lollies for topping decorations... It's a bit of fun, not a rigid haute cuisine recipe.
I'm sorry I didn't take a picture. I got a bit otherwise preoccupied during Xmas. I will say that it looked very pretty, with a ring of whipped cream around the edge, dotted with fresh blueberries and some maple toasted pecans from the market nut sellers. The pecans didn't age well, though. The sugar coating dissolves, and the nuts start to soften. That would be a same-day decoration option, not good for 2-3 days.
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
The World's Greatest Puddings
Well, that's arguable. Lemon delicious is top, without any doubt, and I won't take arguments! But what's next? Sticky date? Sussex Pond? Christmas? Marmalade roly-poly? Spotted dick? Self-saucing chocolate is a fine candidate, and it even seems to be an Australian invention. Last weekend and the previous one we had a friend round for a casual dinner, and I made puddings.
The self-saucing chocolate pudding didn't come out perfectly. I found a recipe on Taste.com that had a different technique than my old recipe, and I tried that with my recipe's ingredients. The more modern one has you melt the butter, rather than rub it in. It came out a bit too fluffy - it fell apart - and with not enough sauce. So I'll give you my old recipe instead.Recipe 1: Self-saucing Chocolate Pudding
1 cup self-raising flour
4 tablespoons cocoa
75g butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tablespoons milk
1 cup boiling water
Beat eggs together in a cup.
Cream butter and half of the sugar.
Slowly add in eggs
Sift flour and half of the cocoa together.
Fold flour/cocoa mix into the butter/sugar/egg mixture, adding milk and vanilla as you go to keep the mixture soft.
Turn into buttered baking dish.
Sprinkle over the remaining half cup of sugar and 2 tablespoons of (sifted) cocoa.
Pour over boiling water.
Bake at 180C for 30-40 minutes.
Notes: Serve with vanilla icecream, or plain pouring cream. I used a couple of nips of that vanilla vodka, and correspondingly less water. And I think I needed to reduce my oven temperature a bit. My oven is very fast, even without the fan setting on.
And now for the lemon pudding - this was good. Very good. The top is maybe a tiny bit browner than I'd wish, so perhaps I should have reduced heat a little. But it's light and fluffy and there's plenty of sauce. It doesn't really need any icecream or cream, it's fine all by itself.
Recipe 1: Lemon Delicious Pudding
1 oz butter (30g)
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons plain flour
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup milk
small pinch salt
Cream butter and sugar together.
Gradually beat in egg yolks and lemon rind.
Fold in flour.
Mix in lemon juice.
Slowly add milk.
Whisk eggwhites stiff with the salt.
Fold eggwhites through.
Pour into pudding dish.
Place dish in baking pan of water, and bake at 175C for 45 minutes.
Notes: Do not be alarmed that the mixture is very liquid. This serves 4, or as we did, 3 generously. You could serve with vanilla icecream, cream, or better yet, some of that Maggie Beer lemon and orange curd. But it's fine just as it comes.
Sunday, 9 August 2009
Boozy Fruit
My mate B1 brought a boozy fruit compote to dinner recently, and it was so delicious that I decided to try making one of my own. The part I liked best about it was her use of glace orange, which adds that bittersweet citrus kick to it. You can have this warm, with icecream or yoghurt, or dolloped on porridge. Since the alcohol component of the booze is actually cooked out, it's fine to have it for breakfast. You could add a little dash of brandy or liqueur back for dessert if you like.The true recipe is one of those not-recipes. Put whatever dried fruit you want in a bowl. Add some honey and some (milkless!) tea and some booze, whatever you fancy. Soak overnight. Simmer for a while to reduce liquid down.
Recipe: Boozy Fruit Compote
300g mixed dried fruit, large chunks
75g glace orange slices, chopped roughly
50ml marsala
50ml metaxa (a sweet muscatty Greek brandy)
50ml vanilla vodka
100ml strawberry champagne
300ml black chai
1 cinnamon stick
2 tablespoons honey
Assemble all in a glass bowl and soak overnight. Next day, toss in a saucepan and simmer for half an hour or until liquid is reduced to a small amount. Eat.
Notes: For fruit I used dried apricots, dried pineapple, prunes, dates, baby figs, and raisins. The strawberry champagne was a leftover, from last week's houseguest P. Chai made from a teabag from the Indian grocer.
Also while I was writing this, I kept typing compost instead of compote. DO NOT THROW ON GARDEN.
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
Easter is over
I just dropped off the houseguests at the airport, and popped into Woollies on the way home for a couple of important items: catfood, washing up liquid and such. The place was totally packed. I've never seen the carpark so full. Everyone must have been busy doing other things than shopping over Easter, even though the shops were mostly open. I know I was: I was at the folk festival listening to some of the many non-trad-folk acts (gypsy, klezmer, honkytonk), shopping for hippy clothes, and drinking Guinness with friends.
As my friends and I like to cook, my fridge is utterly, chronically jam-packed right now. We have leftovers of:
* my raisin polenta cake
* my pumpkin pie
* my cured salmon and its herbed cream cheese partner
* my hot cross buns
* my cinnamon icecream
* HH's marvellous casseroled chicken: reduced to stock, a few scrappy chook & bacon bits, and the chicken-simmered spuds
* A's terrific Moroccan beef & lentil casserole, made with her own custom spice blend
* A's chocolate sauce
And as I was strolling through the crowd at Woollies I spied some marked down to clear turkey drumsticks, and free range chicken drumsticks & breast. I think they'll have to go in the freezer, with the two beef roasts I bought last week. Or perhaps I could poach up some of the new chook in the stock. I'm feeling a little spoiled for choice on the dinner options right now, and am determined not to waste any of these goodies. One salmon sandwich coming up for lunch, I think.
I can only count myself lucky that B1 took the remnant chocolate pudding home to feed to our guests-in-exile, and that my tricksy oven made a bit of a hash of A's gingerbread cake, otherwise I'd be hip deep in desserts. The icecream will keep for a few weeks, of course. It's a Delia Smith recipe, from her Christmas book, and I make it regularly (about once per year). I'll copy it out below as I've modified it slightly for metrics and Australian packet sizes - the small shifts do not cause any problems. It's a great accompaniment to any spicy or appley or chocolatey dessert, and makes a nice change from vanilla. Also, the recipe includes a nifty cheat which may be applicable to other icecreams.
Recipe: Delia's Cinnamon Icecream
6 medium egg yolks
100g caster sugar
600ml rich milk
300ml whipping cream
2 teaspoons custard powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 stick cinnamon
Whisk egg yolks, custard powder and sugar until pale and thickened.
Heat milk, cinnamon stick and cinnamon until just simmering.
Pour milk over the eggs, whisking continually as you pour.
Return mix to heat, and continue whisking until mixture has thickened to custard.
Pour into a bowl, cover with glad wrap directly on the custard surface, and chill overnight.
Whip the cream to soft peaks.
Stir the cream and custard together gently, discarding the cinnamon stick.
Churn in an icecream maker for 20 minutes, then freeze.
Remove from freezer 10-20 minutes before serving to soften. (Or nuke on defrost setting for 1 minute)
Notes: the nifty cheat is the custard powder. Using this means that even if you accidentally let the custard boil, it will still smooth out with a bit more whisking. Excellent!
If you have used cassia rather than true cinnamon, the stick can be rinsed well, and reused. I like to pop one of those in my chilli. Cassia does come in sticks, too, as I discovered when I accidentally bought some once. The bark is noticeably thicker and coarser than true cinnamon, which is paper thin. But now that cassia is the rage for its supposed health benefits, you're much less likely to find it sailing under false colours as cinnamon. If you're not entirely sure: cassia is the one that's got the more hot flavour. US cinnamon is nearly always cassia - all those "red hot" cinnamon candies are actually cassia.
Oh, and I also have 6 egg whites in the freezer. Hmmm...
As my friends and I like to cook, my fridge is utterly, chronically jam-packed right now. We have leftovers of:
* my raisin polenta cake
* my pumpkin pie
* my cured salmon and its herbed cream cheese partner
* my hot cross buns
* my cinnamon icecream
* HH's marvellous casseroled chicken: reduced to stock, a few scrappy chook & bacon bits, and the chicken-simmered spuds
* A's terrific Moroccan beef & lentil casserole, made with her own custom spice blend
* A's chocolate sauce
And as I was strolling through the crowd at Woollies I spied some marked down to clear turkey drumsticks, and free range chicken drumsticks & breast. I think they'll have to go in the freezer, with the two beef roasts I bought last week. Or perhaps I could poach up some of the new chook in the stock. I'm feeling a little spoiled for choice on the dinner options right now, and am determined not to waste any of these goodies. One salmon sandwich coming up for lunch, I think.
I can only count myself lucky that B1 took the remnant chocolate pudding home to feed to our guests-in-exile, and that my tricksy oven made a bit of a hash of A's gingerbread cake, otherwise I'd be hip deep in desserts. The icecream will keep for a few weeks, of course. It's a Delia Smith recipe, from her Christmas book, and I make it regularly (about once per year). I'll copy it out below as I've modified it slightly for metrics and Australian packet sizes - the small shifts do not cause any problems. It's a great accompaniment to any spicy or appley or chocolatey dessert, and makes a nice change from vanilla. Also, the recipe includes a nifty cheat which may be applicable to other icecreams.
Recipe: Delia's Cinnamon Icecream
6 medium egg yolks
100g caster sugar
600ml rich milk
300ml whipping cream
2 teaspoons custard powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 stick cinnamon
Whisk egg yolks, custard powder and sugar until pale and thickened.
Heat milk, cinnamon stick and cinnamon until just simmering.
Pour milk over the eggs, whisking continually as you pour.
Return mix to heat, and continue whisking until mixture has thickened to custard.
Pour into a bowl, cover with glad wrap directly on the custard surface, and chill overnight.
Whip the cream to soft peaks.
Stir the cream and custard together gently, discarding the cinnamon stick.
Churn in an icecream maker for 20 minutes, then freeze.
Remove from freezer 10-20 minutes before serving to soften. (Or nuke on defrost setting for 1 minute)
Notes: the nifty cheat is the custard powder. Using this means that even if you accidentally let the custard boil, it will still smooth out with a bit more whisking. Excellent!
If you have used cassia rather than true cinnamon, the stick can be rinsed well, and reused. I like to pop one of those in my chilli. Cassia does come in sticks, too, as I discovered when I accidentally bought some once. The bark is noticeably thicker and coarser than true cinnamon, which is paper thin. But now that cassia is the rage for its supposed health benefits, you're much less likely to find it sailing under false colours as cinnamon. If you're not entirely sure: cassia is the one that's got the more hot flavour. US cinnamon is nearly always cassia - all those "red hot" cinnamon candies are actually cassia.
Oh, and I also have 6 egg whites in the freezer. Hmmm...
Monday, 19 January 2009
Rhubarb and Berry Sago
I've been hacking about in the garden, planting inedible screening things like an oleander and a banksia rose, and I've brought in another kilo of rhubarb. It's really taken off this year, but it remains very green.I've googled it, and most likely it's not a problem of soil or light; it's just a green variety. At least, one such green kind is frost hardy. I don't remember it saying that on the label, but plant labels are often a bit lacking. I was very cross a couple of years ago when I bought some creepers from Bunnings, and they died totally in the first frost. And yes, I did buy then from an outlet in Canberra. I learned my lesson; I stick with the specialist nurseries now.
So far I've cooked some of it straight, with just sugar, and I've put rosewater, vanilla and cochineal in another batch. And I've given some away - Belinda says saffron is nice with the rhubarb, but the colour is ridiculously awful. This time I've split it into two batches. One I cooked with lemon and sugar, and have stuck in the freezer for winter. The other one turned into a rhubarb and berry sago - the berries provided an amazingly bright colour.Recipe: Rhubarb and raspberry sago
1/2 kg finely sliced red rhubarb
grated zest of 1/2 lemon
1/5 ltr late-picked white wine
1/2 vanilla bean split
1 and 1/2 tbspn sago
80 g caster sugar
1/2 kg frozen raspberries
1/4 cup water
Place rhubarb, water, lemon zest, sugar, vanilla and wine into a non-reactive pan
Bring to simmering point.
Add sago, reduce heat, place pot on a simmer mat and cook gently for 15 minutes, stirring from time to time.
Tip in frozen berries, cook for a further 5-10 minutes, stirring once or twice, until berries are just thawed and the mix just returns to the simmer.
Allow to cool before serving. The colour will intensify as it cools and the sago will continue to swell.
Notes: first, this isn't an original. The source is here, and it's by Stephanie Alexander.
I've followed it pretty closely - sago needs some precision, as a small amount makes a big difference. 1.5 Australian tablespoons is 30ml, or 2 tablespoons for the rest of the world. The only change I made was to have a few other berries in it. I didn't have half a kilo of frozen raspberries on hand. I had about 200gm and for the rest I used a pack of mixed frozen berries - not the one with the black currants.
It makes a pretty good low fat dessert - or possibly a slightly decadent breakfast, with yoghurt. I'm not 100% happy with it - it's very sharp and needs more sugar. And I say that as one with a taste for bitter and sour flavours. The rhubarb flavour is rather overwhelmed by the berries. Also, the sago texture is mostly lost - it acts as a thickener here, not a feature. It's not set, and the little granules aren't noticeable among the berries.
This may be a plus if you don't like rhubarb or sago, but I do. Which is why I looked for a rhubarb sago recipe in the first place. Oh well, I can try and invent my own next time.
Sunday, 2 November 2008
Saturday Food Binge
It was a big day yesterday. I went to the market and the supermarket; I cleaned out the fridge; I planted tomatoes; I cooked a lot of things. And I wrote two blog posts. Yes, two. I'm cunningly phrasing this as if I were in the future, and setting it to autopublish on Sunday. Woooh, spooky.
Things I made yesterday:
* roasted rhubarb
* roast tomatoes
* fruit salad
* bacon bits, croutons, poached eggs, caesar-ish salad
* granola
* wattleseed pavlova base
A proper recipe and some general chatty how to stuff follows. Basically everything is either just chopped up and assembled as is, or baked in the oven.
The granola comes from Nigella Lawson's Feast. I've made it several times before. Last time I see was February; this one was more faithful to the recipe, though I still made a couple of substitutions. I swapped golden syrup for the rice malt syrup - some insect got into my rice malt syrup and died, so I had to toss it. And I swapped dark brown sugar for light, and I'm using dried blueberries and craisins instead of the raisins.
Caesar salad: well, there are classic versions, and there are variants. Mine was a variant. It's basically the most unhealthy salad you can imagine. Bacon, egg, anchovy and cheese with croutons and a creamy dressing. Oh, and cos lettuce, just so you can pretend it's a bit healthy. I made a slightly healthier variant by making my own bacon bits and croutons - oven roast rather than fried, and with the fat drained off the bacon. Add a poached egg, and a sprinkle of parmesan, and some anchovies for me but not the Bloke. Finally, I made up a random dressing by lightening some mayo with lime juice.
Roast tomatoes and roast rhubarb are simple things. They just get bunged into an oven and left until they look ready - slow or fast, it doesn't matter as long as you watch carefully. Slow is better if you can. Wash the rhubarb well and slice it up, pop into a pie plate so it's just one layer. Sprinkle over vanilla sugar generously, and roast until soft. Yum. I didn't weigh anything, but sugar really is a matter of taste.
The fruit salad was originally a bad melon. Not off, of course, but I had another flavourless early rockmelon. I thought that chopping it up and mixing it with tinned passionfruit, nata de coco, and a small pineapple would improve things. And it has. Some slivers of glace ginger went in, too. It's turned into a decent dessert, with some icecream. Or breakfast, with yoghurt and granola.
Recipe: Wattleseed Pavlova Base
4 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup caster sugar
1.5 tablespoons ground wattleseed
Whisk egg whites to a light froth.
Slowly add caster sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.
Add cream of tartar after about half the sugar is in.
Whisk until eggwhite forms stiff peaks.
Fold in wattleseed.
Line a 24cm cake tin with baking paper, and pour in meringue mix.
Use a spatula to scrape out the whisking bowl, and smooth the surface.
Bake at 140 for 1.5 hours, and let cool in oven.
To assemble pavlova, simply layer on whipped cream and strawberries. Don't worry if the top cracks, no-one will know. You could put some wattleseed in the cream, too if you like.
The pavlova is for Tuesday - we're having a Silly Hat Day BBQ, which now seems to be getting a bit out of hand. Salads for 15? Eek! There's some horse race on in Melbourne, too.
Things I made yesterday:
* roasted rhubarb
* roast tomatoes
* fruit salad
* bacon bits, croutons, poached eggs, caesar-ish salad
* granola
* wattleseed pavlova base
A proper recipe and some general chatty how to stuff follows. Basically everything is either just chopped up and assembled as is, or baked in the oven.
The granola comes from Nigella Lawson's Feast. I've made it several times before. Last time I see was February; this one was more faithful to the recipe, though I still made a couple of substitutions. I swapped golden syrup for the rice malt syrup - some insect got into my rice malt syrup and died, so I had to toss it. And I swapped dark brown sugar for light, and I'm using dried blueberries and craisins instead of the raisins.
Caesar salad: well, there are classic versions, and there are variants. Mine was a variant. It's basically the most unhealthy salad you can imagine. Bacon, egg, anchovy and cheese with croutons and a creamy dressing. Oh, and cos lettuce, just so you can pretend it's a bit healthy. I made a slightly healthier variant by making my own bacon bits and croutons - oven roast rather than fried, and with the fat drained off the bacon. Add a poached egg, and a sprinkle of parmesan, and some anchovies for me but not the Bloke. Finally, I made up a random dressing by lightening some mayo with lime juice.
Roast tomatoes and roast rhubarb are simple things. They just get bunged into an oven and left until they look ready - slow or fast, it doesn't matter as long as you watch carefully. Slow is better if you can. Wash the rhubarb well and slice it up, pop into a pie plate so it's just one layer. Sprinkle over vanilla sugar generously, and roast until soft. Yum. I didn't weigh anything, but sugar really is a matter of taste.
The fruit salad was originally a bad melon. Not off, of course, but I had another flavourless early rockmelon. I thought that chopping it up and mixing it with tinned passionfruit, nata de coco, and a small pineapple would improve things. And it has. Some slivers of glace ginger went in, too. It's turned into a decent dessert, with some icecream. Or breakfast, with yoghurt and granola.
Recipe: Wattleseed Pavlova Base
4 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup caster sugar
1.5 tablespoons ground wattleseed
Whisk egg whites to a light froth.
Slowly add caster sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.
Add cream of tartar after about half the sugar is in.
Whisk until eggwhite forms stiff peaks.
Fold in wattleseed.
Line a 24cm cake tin with baking paper, and pour in meringue mix.
Use a spatula to scrape out the whisking bowl, and smooth the surface.
Bake at 140 for 1.5 hours, and let cool in oven.
To assemble pavlova, simply layer on whipped cream and strawberries. Don't worry if the top cracks, no-one will know. You could put some wattleseed in the cream, too if you like.
The pavlova is for Tuesday - we're having a Silly Hat Day BBQ, which now seems to be getting a bit out of hand. Salads for 15? Eek! There's some horse race on in Melbourne, too.
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
Sorbet, sorbet, sorbet
The bloke's been away and the first batch of our houseguests has arrived. I haven't been cooking much - just a few leftovers from the freezer, some cheese toasties with salads, that sort of thing. I have, however, put some salmon to cure, and have been determinedly making sorbets.
So far I have quince, pear, and chocolate sorbets in the freezer, and an apricot mix ready to freeze tomorrow when the bowl has had time to chill again. The chocolate sorbet is from the recipe I gave earlier. For the others, here's the minimalist recipe.
Recipe: Simple Fruit Sorbet
750g soft fruit
2/3 cup caster sugar
1 cup liquid
very tiny pinch salt
Puree in blender; freeze in icecream maker.
Notes: Easy, huh? Aren't gadgets great to have around. You probably want more detail, though.
For the fruit, if it's already soft like a mango or ripe peach, just puree it without cooking it. If it's harder, then cook it until it's soft, and make sure it's well chilled before proceeding to freeze. If it's not already a sweet fruit, as with quince or rhubarb, cook it with just enough sugar that you would be prepared to eat it. Don't count that as part of the 2/3 cup; you still need that.
For the liquid, use mostly water, or perhaps a compatible juice. A couple of tablespoons of some liqueur can be used, but don't overdo it. I used vanilla vodka with the pears; calvados with the honey and vanilla poached quinces; and amaretto with the apricot.
The apricot sorbet is even more experimental and lazy. I read a lychee sorbet recipe somewhere out on teh interwebz that was as simple as imaginable: "puree a large tin of lychees, syrup and all; freeze". I decided to try that out with a big tin of apricots. I'll let you know how it went. I'm also contemplating Clotilde's Nutella icecream - in theory, I can freeze the apricot mix tomorrow night and the Nutella on Friday morning if I get my act together enough. I might not get there in time for the Friday dinner party, though. There also must be hot cross buns. And two more houseguests. And a folk festival. It's a busy time.
P.S. The sorbets worked brilliantly - I felt the quince was outstanding, but had a few votes for the pear to win. The nutella ice creamturned out great, too, a really nice texture despite my initial worry that it wasn't freezing enough in the churn. All worked, that is, except for the experimental apricot one. It came out far too solid and icy, and the single teaspoon of mixed spice somehow became very unbalanced and dominant. It tasted excessively powerfully of cardamom. I thought tastes became more subdued when frozen; this seems to have strengthened. Oh well. If all experiments worked, they wouldn't be experiments. Four out of five is pretty good going. (Updated 24 March.)
So far I have quince, pear, and chocolate sorbets in the freezer, and an apricot mix ready to freeze tomorrow when the bowl has had time to chill again. The chocolate sorbet is from the recipe I gave earlier. For the others, here's the minimalist recipe.
Recipe: Simple Fruit Sorbet
750g soft fruit
2/3 cup caster sugar
1 cup liquid
very tiny pinch salt
Puree in blender; freeze in icecream maker.
Notes: Easy, huh? Aren't gadgets great to have around. You probably want more detail, though.
For the fruit, if it's already soft like a mango or ripe peach, just puree it without cooking it. If it's harder, then cook it until it's soft, and make sure it's well chilled before proceeding to freeze. If it's not already a sweet fruit, as with quince or rhubarb, cook it with just enough sugar that you would be prepared to eat it. Don't count that as part of the 2/3 cup; you still need that.
For the liquid, use mostly water, or perhaps a compatible juice. A couple of tablespoons of some liqueur can be used, but don't overdo it. I used vanilla vodka with the pears; calvados with the honey and vanilla poached quinces; and amaretto with the apricot.
The apricot sorbet is even more experimental and lazy. I read a lychee sorbet recipe somewhere out on teh interwebz that was as simple as imaginable: "puree a large tin of lychees, syrup and all; freeze". I decided to try that out with a big tin of apricots. I'll let you know how it went. I'm also contemplating Clotilde's Nutella icecream - in theory, I can freeze the apricot mix tomorrow night and the Nutella on Friday morning if I get my act together enough. I might not get there in time for the Friday dinner party, though. There also must be hot cross buns. And two more houseguests. And a folk festival. It's a busy time.
P.S. The sorbets worked brilliantly - I felt the quince was outstanding, but had a few votes for the pear to win. The nutella ice creamturned out great, too, a really nice texture despite my initial worry that it wasn't freezing enough in the churn. All worked, that is, except for the experimental apricot one. It came out far too solid and icy, and the single teaspoon of mixed spice somehow became very unbalanced and dominant. It tasted excessively powerfully of cardamom. I thought tastes became more subdued when frozen; this seems to have strengthened. Oh well. If all experiments worked, they wouldn't be experiments. Four out of five is pretty good going. (Updated 24 March.)
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
Throw it in
I've varied the week's plan slightly, to have chicken tonight, and reheated frittata and salad tomorrow. And I've made a fruit dessert for tonight, just for me. Because some stuff needed using up. Both of these are non-recipe, thrown together kind of things. I'm going to write them up as recipes, but that's not really the spirit.
Recipe 1: Pasta with Chicken and Vegetables
200g chicken strips
1 large onion, sliced in strips
3 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1 tablespoon brandy
1/2 red capsicum, sliced in strips
1/2 green capsicum, sliced in strips
2 small zucchini, sliced in strips
2 tablespoons shredded fresh thai basil
6 roast tomatoes, peeled & chopped
Pasta, cooked
Fry onion, garlic and chicken in olive oil. Deglaze with brandy. Add tomato and vegetables. Simmer for 20 minutes. Add herbs. Serve with pasta.
Notes: Why Thai basil? Because I had half a bunch on hand. The vegetables happened to be in the fridge; I had some chicken that needed using. Throw it in.
Recipe 2: Midnight Black Fruit Compote
2 large fresh black figs
1/2 punnet blackberries
6 prunes, pitted
1/3 cup marsala
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon cocoa
Cut fruit to size of the blackberries. Toss in saucepan with the marsala, and bring to boil. Careful of flames! Add honey and cocoa, and simmer for a few minutes, then tip into a bowl and refrigerate. Leave for an hour before serving to chill, and let prunes swell up. Serve with a scoop of chocolate sorbet!
Notes: I felt this deserved a name of its own. It's good. But basically, the fruit was going to go off if I didn't use it soon. And I had some chocolate honey that was a gift - I thought why not, dark fruits, chocolate, a good match. Toss it in.
Recipe 1: Pasta with Chicken and Vegetables
200g chicken strips
1 large onion, sliced in strips
3 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1 tablespoon brandy
1/2 red capsicum, sliced in strips
1/2 green capsicum, sliced in strips
2 small zucchini, sliced in strips
2 tablespoons shredded fresh thai basil
6 roast tomatoes, peeled & chopped
Pasta, cooked
Fry onion, garlic and chicken in olive oil. Deglaze with brandy. Add tomato and vegetables. Simmer for 20 minutes. Add herbs. Serve with pasta.
Notes: Why Thai basil? Because I had half a bunch on hand. The vegetables happened to be in the fridge; I had some chicken that needed using. Throw it in.
Recipe 2: Midnight Black Fruit Compote
2 large fresh black figs
1/2 punnet blackberries
6 prunes, pitted
1/3 cup marsala
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon cocoa
Cut fruit to size of the blackberries. Toss in saucepan with the marsala, and bring to boil. Careful of flames! Add honey and cocoa, and simmer for a few minutes, then tip into a bowl and refrigerate. Leave for an hour before serving to chill, and let prunes swell up. Serve with a scoop of chocolate sorbet!
Notes: I felt this deserved a name of its own. It's good. But basically, the fruit was going to go off if I didn't use it soon. And I had some chocolate honey that was a gift - I thought why not, dark fruits, chocolate, a good match. Toss it in.
Sunday, 3 February 2008
Planning Ahead
It's dawned on me that it's February, and my after-work commitments are starting this coming week, or next week. I'm going to need to be prepared with the dinners, because an unfed Cath is a cranky Cath. I don't want to spend hours getting dinner ready, when I've only got home at 8pm.
Last year I'd usually work out a rough menu for the week on Saturday after shopping, and make most of it on Sunday. I've been able to lapse from that over the summer break, but it's time to get back to the routines now. So reheatables and leftovers and make-ahead dishes are going to have to be the thing. I've made a plan. I don't know if I'll keep to it, but here it is.
Saturday (yesterday) - Shanghai noodles with brown bean pork sauce.
Sunday (tonight) - BBQ lamb sausages & cajun roo, salads, and sorbets
Monday - stir fry chicken with chilli & Thai basil & rice & veg
Tuesday - Sorrel, Potato & Brie Frittata bake; salad
Wednesday - leftover frittata & salad
Thursday - refrigerator pasta with roast tomatoes
Friday - off to Goulburn for Blues Festival. Pub Grub.
Tonight we're having a BBQ dinner tonight with old friends, and I've promised meat and sorbet. I have saltbush lamb sausages, and roo fillets marinaded in bourbon, lime juice and Herbie's Cajun mix. I've got most of the mango sorbet still, and I've added a chocolate one. To my horror, Chocolate & Zucchini was offline yesterday when I wanted to make the mix, so I had to snaffle the recipe from the Google cache. I'm saving it here (below the fold) for emergencies.
Here's how it works. On Monday I can do stir fry prep while the rice is cooking. I have the chicken now, defatted & sliced to BBQ piece size, in case anyone objects to kangaroo. Tomorrow I can just slice it further to stir fry pieces, and freeze some if there's too much. On Tuesday I may leave a note for the bloke to turn the oven on, so when I get back from dance class I can toss it in the oven & have dinner in 20 minutes. Wednesday after a different dance class is even easier - just reheat. Thursday I have a singing lesson, but I should get home early enough to make a random pasta. I have some ready cooked in the freezer, from a semi-failed recipe, which produced *way* too much pasta for the quantity of sauce and number of diners. I'll add the tomatoes I roasted yesterday, and whatever else needs using up. Maybe the odds and ends of chicken; maybe leftover BBQ meat & veg.
I've also saved brown bean sauce in the freezer for the future; and I have a single night's serve of the lamb chilli. That should form the basis of the following week's meals. I'm so together. Yay for me. Bring on term 1, week 1.
Sorbet & frittata recipes follow.
Recipe 1: Sorbet Chocolat Noir
550 ml water
80g unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
200g sugar
175g dark chocolate, chopped as finely as your patience allows
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
A pinch of salt
Pre-freeze the bowl of your ice cream maker as instructed by your friend the manufacturer.
In a medium saucepan, whisk together the water, cocoa powder, and sugar. Set the pan over medium heat and bring to a boil, whisking continually. Remove from heat, and add the chopped chocolate. Let rest for 30 seconds as the chocolate begins to melt, add the vanilla and salt, then stir until the chocolate is completely melted. Let cool on the counter, then refrigerate until chilled.
Whisk the mixture again just before using, and freeze using your ice cream maker.
Notes: Makes about 1 litre. Recipe adapted from Chocolate & Zucchini, which is also adapted from The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz. The quality of the chocolate and cocoa do matter here. Dutch cocoa is amazingly dark and rich compared to the old Cadbury's. The sorbet is not very sweet, but it is rich and intense.
Recipe 2: Sorrel and Brie Frittata Bake
350g potato, cubed
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
150g sorrel
1 tablespoon butter
100g firm Brie
6 eggs
pinch salt
Fry the potato cubes gently in the olive oil for about 15 minutes, stirring regularly so they do not stick. Add crushed garlic and stir for another minute. Set aside.
Fry the sorrel in the butter for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside.
Beat eggs and salt until well combined.
Chop Brie, combine with potato and sorrel, and mix in eggs. Pour all into a large cake tin, and bake at 180C for 20 minutes or until set.
Notes: Sorrel will shrink massively, and turn an ugly dull green like overcooked spinach. This is perfectly fine. Keep going.
Also, why firm Brie? Well, I found some left over from Xmas, rather dried out, up the back of the fridge. Still in date, definitely not off, but not going to be good enough to eat on its own. So cooking it is the thing, and a frittata is a great use-up dish.
Last year I'd usually work out a rough menu for the week on Saturday after shopping, and make most of it on Sunday. I've been able to lapse from that over the summer break, but it's time to get back to the routines now. So reheatables and leftovers and make-ahead dishes are going to have to be the thing. I've made a plan. I don't know if I'll keep to it, but here it is.
Saturday (yesterday) - Shanghai noodles with brown bean pork sauce.
Sunday (tonight) - BBQ lamb sausages & cajun roo, salads, and sorbets
Monday - stir fry chicken with chilli & Thai basil & rice & veg
Tuesday - Sorrel, Potato & Brie Frittata bake; salad
Wednesday - leftover frittata & salad
Thursday - refrigerator pasta with roast tomatoes
Friday - off to Goulburn for Blues Festival. Pub Grub.
Tonight we're having a BBQ dinner tonight with old friends, and I've promised meat and sorbet. I have saltbush lamb sausages, and roo fillets marinaded in bourbon, lime juice and Herbie's Cajun mix. I've got most of the mango sorbet still, and I've added a chocolate one. To my horror, Chocolate & Zucchini was offline yesterday when I wanted to make the mix, so I had to snaffle the recipe from the Google cache. I'm saving it here (below the fold) for emergencies.
Here's how it works. On Monday I can do stir fry prep while the rice is cooking. I have the chicken now, defatted & sliced to BBQ piece size, in case anyone objects to kangaroo. Tomorrow I can just slice it further to stir fry pieces, and freeze some if there's too much. On Tuesday I may leave a note for the bloke to turn the oven on, so when I get back from dance class I can toss it in the oven & have dinner in 20 minutes. Wednesday after a different dance class is even easier - just reheat. Thursday I have a singing lesson, but I should get home early enough to make a random pasta. I have some ready cooked in the freezer, from a semi-failed recipe, which produced *way* too much pasta for the quantity of sauce and number of diners. I'll add the tomatoes I roasted yesterday, and whatever else needs using up. Maybe the odds and ends of chicken; maybe leftover BBQ meat & veg.
I've also saved brown bean sauce in the freezer for the future; and I have a single night's serve of the lamb chilli. That should form the basis of the following week's meals. I'm so together. Yay for me. Bring on term 1, week 1.
Sorbet & frittata recipes follow.
Recipe 1: Sorbet Chocolat Noir
550 ml water
80g unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
200g sugar
175g dark chocolate, chopped as finely as your patience allows
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
A pinch of salt
Pre-freeze the bowl of your ice cream maker as instructed by your friend the manufacturer.
In a medium saucepan, whisk together the water, cocoa powder, and sugar. Set the pan over medium heat and bring to a boil, whisking continually. Remove from heat, and add the chopped chocolate. Let rest for 30 seconds as the chocolate begins to melt, add the vanilla and salt, then stir until the chocolate is completely melted. Let cool on the counter, then refrigerate until chilled.
Whisk the mixture again just before using, and freeze using your ice cream maker.
Notes: Makes about 1 litre. Recipe adapted from Chocolate & Zucchini, which is also adapted from The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz. The quality of the chocolate and cocoa do matter here. Dutch cocoa is amazingly dark and rich compared to the old Cadbury's. The sorbet is not very sweet, but it is rich and intense.
Recipe 2: Sorrel and Brie Frittata Bake
350g potato, cubed
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
150g sorrel
1 tablespoon butter
100g firm Brie
6 eggs
pinch salt
Fry the potato cubes gently in the olive oil for about 15 minutes, stirring regularly so they do not stick. Add crushed garlic and stir for another minute. Set aside.
Fry the sorrel in the butter for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside.
Beat eggs and salt until well combined.
Chop Brie, combine with potato and sorrel, and mix in eggs. Pour all into a large cake tin, and bake at 180C for 20 minutes or until set.
Notes: Sorrel will shrink massively, and turn an ugly dull green like overcooked spinach. This is perfectly fine. Keep going.
Also, why firm Brie? Well, I found some left over from Xmas, rather dried out, up the back of the fridge. Still in date, definitely not off, but not going to be good enough to eat on its own. So cooking it is the thing, and a frittata is a great use-up dish.
Monday, 28 January 2008
Mexican Fiesta
Quite often after I eat out, I find myself wanting to cook something similar. This time it's a Mexican/TexMex bug that bit. I'm making a lamb and black bean chilli, a jicama salad, and mango sorbet. All is actually for tomorrow night. Today we're in recovery from the party, and there's been a lot of lolling on the couch attempting to read the entire internet. In between that, I've had a few bouts of pottering in the kitchen on clean up and meal prep.
The lamb chilli is a variant on one by the Frugal Gourmet, a twinkly avuncular seeming gentleman, who hosted a cooking show in the US at the time I was living there. I bought his American cookbook back then. It seems he wasn't as nice a man as his TV persona. It doesn't pay to google celebrities you like; you may discover them embroiled in yet another church-related underage sexual abuse scandal. Oh well. The recipe is still good. It uses commercial chilli powder and is a bit vague on measurements, so I'll post my variant.
Jicama is a very nice vegetable that's not much used or known in Australia. I buy it from Saigon Grocery in Dickson. This is a wonderful shop - it's Vietnamese, but has a wide range of other Asian groceries. I love it especially for the fresh food. There's cakes and puddings up the front - all manner of interesting and colourful coconut and sweet bean concoctions. Fresh noodles and tofu are in the fridge at the back. It's most noteworthy, though, for the fresh vegetables, which arrive on Friday afternoons. They have the best and freshest beansprouts, excellent herbs and greens, Thai white eggplants, green salad papayas, and all sorts of other goodies. They have good fruit, too - this week they had fresh longans, as well as huge mangoes and a few other things. The lady at the counter was nice enough to warn me that the jicama was expensive before I bought it; and she also saved my reading glasses that I lost. I love her very much!
Anyway, jicama, or yam bean, or chinese turnip, is a native Mexican plant. Its root is usually eaten raw, in salads, salsas, or fruit plates. Lime, salt and chilli are the common condiments. It's crisp, slightly sweet, and mild in flavour. I've used three quarters of mine to make a salad, and I'll have the rest for work lunches. The salad is very simple - lime, salt, chilli, coriander and onion.
Finally, for dessert we can have Clothilde's Mango Sorbet. Only one slight variant - I only had 750g of mango flesh. I just went ahead with that, not worrying about the missing 50g of fruit. I haven't frozen it yet, so I'll have to let you know later how that worked. (Wednesday update: it worked perfectly. Very good!)
Recipe 1: Lamb and Black Bean Chilli
350g uncooked black turtle beans
500g minced lamb
1 large onion
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon whole cumin seeds
1 stick cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon loomi - dried lime powder
chilli, to taste
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
1 large green capsicum
salt, to taste
juice of half a lime
Soak the beans overnight; discard water. Boil gently in fresh water for 2-3 hours, until almost tender. Set aside - they can continue to soak overnight in the cooking water.
Heat the oil in a large pot. Chop the onion, and add it, with the whole cumin seeds to the pan. Fry until onion is softened, than add crushed garlic and minced lamb. Stir well to brown lamb, then add tomatoes, worcestershire sauce and spices (NOT including salt). Add beans, and simmer gently for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally. About half an hour before serving, add chopped capsicum, lime juice, and salt to taste.
Notes: Black beans really do take a long time. In this method they are finished off in the chilli, so they soak up a bit of the flavour and meld in well. These are not Chinese black beans, which are actually fermented soybeans, but an American bean. I got mine from the Essential Ingredient in Kingston. This isn't a bright red chilli, especially if you use chopped fresh green chillies for your heat. The lime is more unusual - and that's not from the original recipe. I think I got the idea from a chilli & margarita restaurant in Manhattan, umm 20 years ago (woah, is that the time?). Maybe. Anyway, the lime and black bean combo just seems right.
Serve it with some tortillas (or pita bread), a small dollop of sour cream, and some salad. Makes lots, with plenty of handy to freeze leftovers.
Recipe 2: Jicama Salad
350g jicama
2 long mild green chillies
1 small red onion
1 lime
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander leaf
De-seed and shred the chillies into fine straws. Slice the onion into fine straws. Peel and slice the jicama into coarser straws. Mix through the salt, and zest and juice of the lime, and leave to settle for a few hours or overnight. Stir through fresh coriander shortly before serving.
The lamb chilli is a variant on one by the Frugal Gourmet, a twinkly avuncular seeming gentleman, who hosted a cooking show in the US at the time I was living there. I bought his American cookbook back then. It seems he wasn't as nice a man as his TV persona. It doesn't pay to google celebrities you like; you may discover them embroiled in yet another church-related underage sexual abuse scandal. Oh well. The recipe is still good. It uses commercial chilli powder and is a bit vague on measurements, so I'll post my variant.
Jicama is a very nice vegetable that's not much used or known in Australia. I buy it from Saigon Grocery in Dickson. This is a wonderful shop - it's Vietnamese, but has a wide range of other Asian groceries. I love it especially for the fresh food. There's cakes and puddings up the front - all manner of interesting and colourful coconut and sweet bean concoctions. Fresh noodles and tofu are in the fridge at the back. It's most noteworthy, though, for the fresh vegetables, which arrive on Friday afternoons. They have the best and freshest beansprouts, excellent herbs and greens, Thai white eggplants, green salad papayas, and all sorts of other goodies. They have good fruit, too - this week they had fresh longans, as well as huge mangoes and a few other things. The lady at the counter was nice enough to warn me that the jicama was expensive before I bought it; and she also saved my reading glasses that I lost. I love her very much!
Anyway, jicama, or yam bean, or chinese turnip, is a native Mexican plant. Its root is usually eaten raw, in salads, salsas, or fruit plates. Lime, salt and chilli are the common condiments. It's crisp, slightly sweet, and mild in flavour. I've used three quarters of mine to make a salad, and I'll have the rest for work lunches. The salad is very simple - lime, salt, chilli, coriander and onion.
Finally, for dessert we can have Clothilde's Mango Sorbet. Only one slight variant - I only had 750g of mango flesh. I just went ahead with that, not worrying about the missing 50g of fruit. I haven't frozen it yet, so I'll have to let you know later how that worked. (Wednesday update: it worked perfectly. Very good!)
Recipe 1: Lamb and Black Bean Chilli
350g uncooked black turtle beans
500g minced lamb
1 large onion
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon whole cumin seeds
1 stick cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon loomi - dried lime powder
chilli, to taste
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
1 large green capsicum
salt, to taste
juice of half a lime
Soak the beans overnight; discard water. Boil gently in fresh water for 2-3 hours, until almost tender. Set aside - they can continue to soak overnight in the cooking water.
Heat the oil in a large pot. Chop the onion, and add it, with the whole cumin seeds to the pan. Fry until onion is softened, than add crushed garlic and minced lamb. Stir well to brown lamb, then add tomatoes, worcestershire sauce and spices (NOT including salt). Add beans, and simmer gently for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally. About half an hour before serving, add chopped capsicum, lime juice, and salt to taste.
Notes: Black beans really do take a long time. In this method they are finished off in the chilli, so they soak up a bit of the flavour and meld in well. These are not Chinese black beans, which are actually fermented soybeans, but an American bean. I got mine from the Essential Ingredient in Kingston. This isn't a bright red chilli, especially if you use chopped fresh green chillies for your heat. The lime is more unusual - and that's not from the original recipe. I think I got the idea from a chilli & margarita restaurant in Manhattan, umm 20 years ago (woah, is that the time?). Maybe. Anyway, the lime and black bean combo just seems right.
Serve it with some tortillas (or pita bread), a small dollop of sour cream, and some salad. Makes lots, with plenty of handy to freeze leftovers.
Recipe 2: Jicama Salad
350g jicama
2 long mild green chillies
1 small red onion
1 lime
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander leaf
De-seed and shred the chillies into fine straws. Slice the onion into fine straws. Peel and slice the jicama into coarser straws. Mix through the salt, and zest and juice of the lime, and leave to settle for a few hours or overnight. Stir through fresh coriander shortly before serving.
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
Happy New Year!
But first, I have to lose the hangover. Why, FSM, why? I only had some champagne. I even diluted it into pseudo-bellinis with Bundaberg Peachee. I usually don't like soft drinks, but this one isn't outrageously sweet. I've been taking it to parties as my designated driver drink.
Last night was a potluck, with lots of singing - mostly attended by choir people, of course. We were lucky with the dinner balance. Other people supplied antipasti, quiche, frittata, salad and cupcakes. I took a hot artichoke dip, and a tiramisu - recipes to follow. The dip was inspired by Beth, who served her variant at her Xmas party. She gave me the approximate recipe verbally, forgetting the quantities, so I googled and found a lot more, and made one up. I must get her real recipe soon. The tiramisu is an old standard, though I did check my Italian cookbook as a reference for quantities. People liked it a lot, yay!
I made the tiramisu first thing in the morning yesterday. I was still half asleep and whisked all 4 egg whites, though I only needed 2. So I decided to make random macaroons with the other half of the bowl. Macaroons are an extremely forgiving biscuit, in that a random recipe will almost certainly work. All you need is egg white, sugar, and ground nuts or coconut. If you vary the quantities, they'll come out flatter or rounder; crispier or chewier; moister or drier; but as long as you're happy with a surprise texture, you'll be fine. These ones came out flat, slightly moist, and chewy.
I took the tiramisu photo at the party, as I wanted to show the layers. And explained this weird action by talking about my blog. At that moment, it finally dawned on me that "the Canberra Cook" might sound rather arrogant. I'm not the only cook in Canberra, duh. As I actually meant it, my blog should be a useful resource for all you Canberra region cooks out there. Oh well, too late to change now. I just added a note to my profile, though.
I have one more recipe to add - a potato salad that I made a couple of days ago. We've been grazing this week rather than having formal meals; and in this hot weather it's nice to have salads ready in the fridge. I used a lot of tarragon - apart from the chopped leaves, the greenery garnish in the picture is yet more tarragon. I have it by the bucketload. It loves the heat, and is growing like the clappers. Tarragon is a good Canberra garden herb - while it appears to die totally in the frost, it springs back to life.
Recipe 1: Hot Artichoke Dip
1 tin artichoke hearts in water
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup grated parmesan
2 small cloves garlic
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
Rinse the artichoke hearts well and squeeze dry. Chop roughly. Put everything except the paprikas into a blender and whizz until well mixed. Pour mix into an oven safe serving bowl, sprinkle the paprikas on top, and bake at 180C until warmed through and nicely browned. Serve hot, with pita chip and celery sticks for dipping.
Recipe 2: Tiramisu
450g marscapone
4 egg yolks
2 egg whites, whisked to stiff peaks
150g icing sugar
200g Italian sponge finger biscuits
200 ml strong coffee
100ml marsala, plus 2 tablespoons
100ml coffee liqueur
1/4 cup finely grated dark chocolate
Beat egg yolks and sugar until light and creamy. Mix in marscapone and 2 tablespoons marsala, and beat well until smooth. Fold in egg whites gently. Mix coffee, marsala and coffee liqueur in a shallow bowl.
Assemble tiramisu by dunking sponge fingers in the liquid for a few seconds. Make a layer of them in the serving bowl. Top with some of the cream, and repeat dunking and layering to end up with a top layer of cream. Sprinkle grated chocolate thickly over the top.
Notes: It's a good idea to do a test lay out of the biscuits in the serving bowl, just to see how many layers you will need. I had three, but if your bowl is wider and shallower so you only use two layers, then you'll need more chocolate for the top. Also, I usually top it with cocoa, but I had this new microplane grater, see...
Recipe 3: Orange Macaroons
2 egg whites, whisked.
150g almond meal
50g vanilla sugar
1/2 teaspoon Boyajian orange oil
1/8 cup candied orange peel
Mix all well. Blob onto a silicon baking sheet, allowing plenty of room to spread. Bake at 180C for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.
Notes: It's traditional to put them on rice paper; indeed, it's essential if you don't have a silicon mat. Also, candied orange peel, as opposed to "mixed peel", is available only from specialist foodie shops. So is the classy orange oil. But macaroons are forgiving, remember.
Recipe 4: Tarragon & Mustard Potato Salad
1 kg new potatoes
3 hardboiled eggs
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon finely chopped tarragon leaves
4-6 shallots, finely chopped.
Boil potatoes until just done - about 20 minutes. Mix shallots, tarragon, mayo, vinegar and mustard in a large bowl. Toss drained potatoes into the mix while still hot, stir well. Refrigerate, and top with quartered hard boiled eggs before serving.
Notes: I like to keep the peel on the potatoes, and I really mean shallots, not spring onions. This is a very strongly flavoured salad that goes well with sausages and sauerkraut.
Cooking today: turkey risotto, and maybe a bean salad, as long as I revive enough. Vegemite toast and Berocca for 1pm breakfast...
Last night was a potluck, with lots of singing - mostly attended by choir people, of course. We were lucky with the dinner balance. Other people supplied antipasti, quiche, frittata, salad and cupcakes. I took a hot artichoke dip, and a tiramisu - recipes to follow. The dip was inspired by Beth, who served her variant at her Xmas party. She gave me the approximate recipe verbally, forgetting the quantities, so I googled and found a lot more, and made one up. I must get her real recipe soon. The tiramisu is an old standard, though I did check my Italian cookbook as a reference for quantities. People liked it a lot, yay!
I made the tiramisu first thing in the morning yesterday. I was still half asleep and whisked all 4 egg whites, though I only needed 2. So I decided to make random macaroons with the other half of the bowl. Macaroons are an extremely forgiving biscuit, in that a random recipe will almost certainly work. All you need is egg white, sugar, and ground nuts or coconut. If you vary the quantities, they'll come out flatter or rounder; crispier or chewier; moister or drier; but as long as you're happy with a surprise texture, you'll be fine. These ones came out flat, slightly moist, and chewy.
I took the tiramisu photo at the party, as I wanted to show the layers. And explained this weird action by talking about my blog. At that moment, it finally dawned on me that "the Canberra Cook" might sound rather arrogant. I'm not the only cook in Canberra, duh. As I actually meant it, my blog should be a useful resource for all you Canberra region cooks out there. Oh well, too late to change now. I just added a note to my profile, though.
I have one more recipe to add - a potato salad that I made a couple of days ago. We've been grazing this week rather than having formal meals; and in this hot weather it's nice to have salads ready in the fridge. I used a lot of tarragon - apart from the chopped leaves, the greenery garnish in the picture is yet more tarragon. I have it by the bucketload. It loves the heat, and is growing like the clappers. Tarragon is a good Canberra garden herb - while it appears to die totally in the frost, it springs back to life.Recipe 1: Hot Artichoke Dip
1 tin artichoke hearts in water
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup grated parmesan
2 small cloves garlic
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
Rinse the artichoke hearts well and squeeze dry. Chop roughly. Put everything except the paprikas into a blender and whizz until well mixed. Pour mix into an oven safe serving bowl, sprinkle the paprikas on top, and bake at 180C until warmed through and nicely browned. Serve hot, with pita chip and celery sticks for dipping.
Recipe 2: Tiramisu
450g marscapone
4 egg yolks
2 egg whites, whisked to stiff peaks
150g icing sugar
200g Italian sponge finger biscuits
200 ml strong coffee
100ml marsala, plus 2 tablespoons
100ml coffee liqueur
1/4 cup finely grated dark chocolate
Beat egg yolks and sugar until light and creamy. Mix in marscapone and 2 tablespoons marsala, and beat well until smooth. Fold in egg whites gently. Mix coffee, marsala and coffee liqueur in a shallow bowl.
Assemble tiramisu by dunking sponge fingers in the liquid for a few seconds. Make a layer of them in the serving bowl. Top with some of the cream, and repeat dunking and layering to end up with a top layer of cream. Sprinkle grated chocolate thickly over the top.
Notes: It's a good idea to do a test lay out of the biscuits in the serving bowl, just to see how many layers you will need. I had three, but if your bowl is wider and shallower so you only use two layers, then you'll need more chocolate for the top. Also, I usually top it with cocoa, but I had this new microplane grater, see...
Recipe 3: Orange Macaroons
2 egg whites, whisked.
150g almond meal
50g vanilla sugar
1/2 teaspoon Boyajian orange oil
1/8 cup candied orange peel
Mix all well. Blob onto a silicon baking sheet, allowing plenty of room to spread. Bake at 180C for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.
Notes: It's traditional to put them on rice paper; indeed, it's essential if you don't have a silicon mat. Also, candied orange peel, as opposed to "mixed peel", is available only from specialist foodie shops. So is the classy orange oil. But macaroons are forgiving, remember.
Recipe 4: Tarragon & Mustard Potato Salad
1 kg new potatoes
3 hardboiled eggs
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon finely chopped tarragon leaves
4-6 shallots, finely chopped.
Boil potatoes until just done - about 20 minutes. Mix shallots, tarragon, mayo, vinegar and mustard in a large bowl. Toss drained potatoes into the mix while still hot, stir well. Refrigerate, and top with quartered hard boiled eggs before serving.
Notes: I like to keep the peel on the potatoes, and I really mean shallots, not spring onions. This is a very strongly flavoured salad that goes well with sausages and sauerkraut.
Cooking today: turkey risotto, and maybe a bean salad, as long as I revive enough. Vegemite toast and Berocca for 1pm breakfast...
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
Pressies & Puddin'
People seem to have me pegged. I have 2 microplane graters and a travel coffee plunger from the bloke; a charity cookbook and a set of cheese knives with Tasmanian sassafras handles from his Mum. And I bought the icecream maker and Maggie's Harvest (a mammoth tome by Maggie Beer) with money from my Mum, so I think that counts as a foodie present, too.
I haven't cooked much. We had Xmas lunch at my mate Jon's place - an extraordinary cold collation of roast goose, ham, cured beef, two kinds of duck pies, a cheese and mushroom pie, and assorted salads, followed up with pudding, chocolate truffles, shortbreads and more. Everything was home made or cured by Jon and his family, except for the ham and a panettone. He's a great cook, but of course the trouble with going out for Xmas is the lack of leftovers for snacking on in the next week. To alleviate this problem, I bought a large hunk of pre-cooked turkey breast from the supermarket, and made a tray of sage and onion stuffing. I also bought a Maggie Beer pudding and made a frozen brandy cream to go with it, and I made a summer pudding with red currants from my mate Beth's garden and some frozen mixed berries. I intend to do a ham for January, with luck I can get a nice one on sale.
Today we nibbled on the turkey and the summer pudding. Summer pudding is an amazing substance; how could soggy bread be so delicious? It comes out fresh, light and fruity - dollop on some cream and it's heaven, or try it with a good yoghurt for a decadent yet not too heavy holiday breakfast. My recipe is adapted from Stephanie Alexander's.
Recipe: Summer Pudding
1/2 loaf good quality sliced white bread
200g fresh red currants
300g frozen raspberries
300g frozen mixed berries
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons vanilla vodka
Heat the sugar and water in a saucepan large enough to hold all the berries. When it is thoroughly dissolved, add the frozen berries and warm through. Add fresh berries and simmer for another 30 seconds, then leave to cool. Add the vodka, stir well, then drain off and keep the liquid.
Cut the crusts off the bread, dunk each piece in the liquid and line a pudding bowl. Toss in the berries, and top with more soaked bread. Put a plate on top of the pudding, and a weight on top of the plate, and refrigerate overnight. Unmould and serve.
Notes: Well, this is as I made it, but it is a very flexible recipe. Use wholemeal bread or brioche - but not multigrain, it needs to be smooth. Use vanilla vodka or Grand Marnier or creme de cassis or what you will. Use more or less fresh or frozen fruit. Drizzle a little more vodka over the base if you run out of berry juices.
I haven't cooked much. We had Xmas lunch at my mate Jon's place - an extraordinary cold collation of roast goose, ham, cured beef, two kinds of duck pies, a cheese and mushroom pie, and assorted salads, followed up with pudding, chocolate truffles, shortbreads and more. Everything was home made or cured by Jon and his family, except for the ham and a panettone. He's a great cook, but of course the trouble with going out for Xmas is the lack of leftovers for snacking on in the next week. To alleviate this problem, I bought a large hunk of pre-cooked turkey breast from the supermarket, and made a tray of sage and onion stuffing. I also bought a Maggie Beer pudding and made a frozen brandy cream to go with it, and I made a summer pudding with red currants from my mate Beth's garden and some frozen mixed berries. I intend to do a ham for January, with luck I can get a nice one on sale.
Today we nibbled on the turkey and the summer pudding. Summer pudding is an amazing substance; how could soggy bread be so delicious? It comes out fresh, light and fruity - dollop on some cream and it's heaven, or try it with a good yoghurt for a decadent yet not too heavy holiday breakfast. My recipe is adapted from Stephanie Alexander's.
Recipe: Summer Pudding
1/2 loaf good quality sliced white bread
200g fresh red currants
300g frozen raspberries
300g frozen mixed berries
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons vanilla vodka
Heat the sugar and water in a saucepan large enough to hold all the berries. When it is thoroughly dissolved, add the frozen berries and warm through. Add fresh berries and simmer for another 30 seconds, then leave to cool. Add the vodka, stir well, then drain off and keep the liquid.
Cut the crusts off the bread, dunk each piece in the liquid and line a pudding bowl. Toss in the berries, and top with more soaked bread. Put a plate on top of the pudding, and a weight on top of the plate, and refrigerate overnight. Unmould and serve.
Notes: Well, this is as I made it, but it is a very flexible recipe. Use wholemeal bread or brioche - but not multigrain, it needs to be smooth. Use vanilla vodka or Grand Marnier or creme de cassis or what you will. Use more or less fresh or frozen fruit. Drizzle a little more vodka over the base if you run out of berry juices.
Thursday, 11 October 2007
Chocolate and Asparagus
Not together, of course. Eww. Last night we had some friends around, and we ate pide, salads and chocolate cake. I made the salads, and Belinda made the cake, and the bloke made the martinis. A good time was had by all, featuring furniture assembly by candlelight in the Red Room, and a discussion ranging over blue lycra crab costumes, lolcats, Dita von Teese, and the correct pronunciation of Xian and Chengdu.I liked my asparagus salad, and the cake was amazing, so herewith are the recipes. The cake looked like a magnificently crumpled ruin, archaeological more than culinary, and it hit you with chocolate richness. It's not an original recipe - she found it somewhere out on that thar intarweb thing, as you can tell from the American ingredient list. The photo must be from the net, Belinda's wasn't glazed and was more walnut-nobbly on top. A lot of sites come up when I google for the title, so I don't know who to credit.
Recipe 1: Asparagus Salad
2 bunches asparagus (15-20 spears)
100g fetta cheese
8 sundried tomatoes in oil, well drained
1 tablespoon macadamia oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Cook the asparagus as you prefer. Cool it and combine with the crumbled fetta, and the chopped tomatoes. Dress with oil and lemon. Easy.
Notes: I microwaved the asparagus, but this would be great fresh off a barbecue grill.
Recipe 2: Tunnel of Fudge cake
1 3/4 c. butter, softened
1 3/4 c. granulated sugar
6 eggs
2 c. powdered sugar
2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. cocoa
2 c. chopped walnuts
Beat butter and granulated sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually add powdered sugar, blending well. By hand, stir in flour, cocoa and walnuts until well blended.
Spoon batter into greased and floured 12 cup Bundt pan or 10 inch angel food tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 58-62 minutes. Cool upright in pan on cooling rack 1 hour. Invert onto serving plate. Cool completely. Spoon glaze over top of cake, allowing some to run down sides. Yields 16 servings.
Note: Nuts are essential for success of recipe. Because cake has soft tunnel of fudge, ordinary doneness cannot be used. Accurate oven temperature and baking time are critical. In altitudes above 3500 feet, increase flour to 2 1/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons.
GLAZE:
3/4 c. powdered sugar
1/4 c. cocoa powder
1 1/2-2 tbsp. milk
Combine sugar, cocoa and milk in small bowl until well blended. Store tightly covered.
Notes: I love how this recipe is so precise. Alterations for altitude! 58-62 minutes?! 63 shall not be the count, neither count thou 57, excepting that thou then proceed to 58. 65 is right out.
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