Oh, Diana!

Here's another back-post from the "drafts" queue.

Diana Lampe writes the vegetarian kitchen column for the weekly Canberra Times food and wine pages. She's a very nice person and I usually like her recipes. Back in October, she had a recipe for "Anglesea Eggs", a recipe from north Wales. You can tell that it's Welsh, because it has both Caerphilly cheese AND leeks in it! I not only have Welsh ancestry but I also had some nice leeks on hand, so I decided to make it. And I have to say - never again!

It's not that it's bland, though it is. It's warm cheesy comfort food, and you don't usually want that sort of thing to be highly spiced. (Or if you do, then some chutney, HP or chilli sauce at table will do well.) The problem is that you really don't want to use so many saucepans, or do so much prep, to achieve just a simple bit of comfort food.


Recipe: Anglesey Eggs
2-3 medium leeks
500g potatoes
6-8 eggs
1 tablespoon olive oil
20g butter
1 round tablespoon plain flour
300ml milk
100g Caerphilly cheese
2 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs
nutmeg, salt, pepper
butter to grease baking dish

* Hard boil and shell the eggs. (saucepans: 1)
* Peel the potatoes, and boil them, then mash them. (saucepans: 2)
* Clean the leeks well, and cut into slice about 1cm thick.
* Saute them gently in the olive oil. (saucepans: 3)
* Add a pinch of salt, a dash of water, cover and stew gently until soft.
* Remove lid and reduce liquid.
* Combine leeks with the warm mashed potato, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add a dash of milk if it's too dry. It should be soft, but not sloppy. Enough to hold a shape.
* Warm the milk. (saucepans: 4)
* Melt butter over a gentle heat, and stir in flour to make a roux (saucepans: 5)
* Remove from heat and add the warm milk gradually, stirring well each time.
* Return to heat and cook, stirring often, until thickened.
* Add all but 2 tablespoons of the grated cheese, and stir well to melt the cheese.
* Grease a baking dish, and spoon in the leek mash mix. Flatten it and hollow it out in the centre to make a sort of pie shell shape.
* Halve the eggs and lay them on top of the mash.
* Spoon over the cheese sauce.
* Grate on a little nutmeg, and sprinkle remaining cheese and breadcrumbs over the top
* Bake at 180C for about 30 minutes.

Final count: 5 saucepans, one baking dish. Of course you can reduce the saucepan count by re-using the egg pan (which needs only a quick rinse) for the spuds. And a jug in the microwave works well to warm the milk. But don't forget you've also peeled hardboiled eggs and potatoes and washed and chopped leeks, and grated cheese and made a mornay sauce. And maybe cooked some bacon strips to add to the mash, like I did. You can just see them in this part-way picture. So that's six saucepans! All that for a homely simple meal. As I said, never again - unless I happen to have a lot of leftover mash and veg from some other meal.

Diana suggests serving this with baked asparagus on side, which is an excellent idea.

She also suggests cheddar instead of the Caerphilly. Now, Caerphilly is quite hard to find, though one of the Belconnen delis gets it occasionally. It's a slightly sharp firm white cheese, which will crumble rather than grate. White Leicester is not a terrible substitute, especially if you mix it with a quarter amount of fetta to add some sharpness. Cheddar is just different.

By the way, if you're reheating this for another day, pop it in the oven. Or remove the eggs before nuking. Microwaves make hardboiled eggs go rubbery.

Sausage, Egg & Chips - with TRUFFLES!!!

Because I can.

And because the bloke's resolution for more vegetables doesn't seem to have lasted. And because I really wanted to use up the eggs. I decided to bake them with silverbeet, as I'd originally planned, but instead of having the cauliflower side dish, we have little low fat chipolatas and oven chips. And HP sauce.

Recipe: Baked Eggs on Winter Greens

4 truffle-infused eggs
1 bunch silverbeet, leaf only
1 bunch beetroot, tops only
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup cream
nutmeg

Chop the greens coarsely, and wilt them down in a frypan with the olive oil.
Press out any extra water and place in a shallow baking dish.
Pour over most of the cream.
Make 4 hollows in the greens, and break an egg into each one.
Drizzle a little extra cream over the top, and dust with nutmeg.
Bake at 180C for 10-15 minutes, until egg is set to your liking.


Notes: OK, so this is quite a standard dish if you use normal eggs and less cream. You can use any greens you like - kale, spinach, whatever, but I prefer not to have large stalks mixing up the texture. (They can go in the soup!) I like using the beetroot greens: it makes things go a bit pink.

And honestly, it was a bit hard to tell if there was any truffle flavour. The eggs were 3 weeks old, but the whites still clung together like very fresh eggs. They were the last of my latest batch from Fi's chooks, which she gave me back at the truffle cooking demo in Bungendore. They were very tasty, very delicious - but was that truffle, or just the result of happy insect-scratching chooks? I'm a little disappointed in these, as I'd hoped the truffle would be more obvious.

Allons, Enfants!

Omelette aux truffes, salade verte, fromage de chèvre, tarte au citron.

Well, it was 14th July, so it seemed appropriate. The omelette recipe was a minor variant on the one handed out by the truffle sellers; the salad simple mixed leaves with an olive oil and lemon dressing. We followed it with a small cheese course of Hobbit Farm ashed chèvre with oatcakes and quince paste. Dessert was a lemon tart from the Jamison sourdough bakery - it was pretty good, a crisp sweet shortcrust and a fluffy mousse filling. I think this is a very honorable meal to restart the cooking with.

Yes, I used the stove! The tiles behind it are dry; there's not much left to do except painting. Since I won't be cooking much with drop sheets and paint fumes everywhere, this is an interlude. But normal service isn't far off now.

Recipe: Omelette aux Truffes
6 free-range truffle infused eggs
15g truffle
2 tablespoons butter
2 tsp cognac
75ml sherry
a pinch of salt
Shave the truffle and chop finely.

Put one tablespoon of butter, the truffle, the cognac and sherry in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer then cover and let reduce slowly until just a tablespoon of liquid remains.

Beat the eggs well with the salt.

Heat up the other tablespoon of butter in a frypan until sizzling. Pour in eggs and stir a little, lifting the edges to allow uncooked egg to run down.

Mix in the truffles while egg is still quite liquid so it can spread evenly.

Fold over while centre is still moist, and serve immediately.


Notes: the original recipe has more truffles, but this was plenty. The sherry was a very nice Hanwood Amontillado style, and the cognac Remy Martin - this is no time to use the cheap stuff. And the eggs were from Fi's chooks, which is why they're such a stunning rich yellow.

I don't think $50 omelettes are going to be regular fare around here, but it was very good. And I still have some truffle-infused eggs and rice, and another 5g of truffle. I plan to use the truffle in a pasta tomorrow.

Smoky Devils at the Tiki Party

We went all out for last Saturday night's cocktail party. The Bloke assembled an amazing outdoor bar with lots of fake flowers and vines, flaming torches, and swivelling barstools. He even provided leis for everyone, and the first couple of rounds of drinks. Later on, Master Mixologist Len presided over the bar. I recall a planter's punch, and a lime rickey, and a margarita, and several Campari based drinks...

And when you're going retro, you've got to have retro food. I went for the classic cheese & pickled onion hedgehog; egg & caviar dip; and devils on horseback. With Jatz for the dips, of course. We also had melon balls in a basket, and french onion dip, and coconut cherry cupcakes, and mini sausage rolls (home made), and lots more. All good for soaking up the cocktails. I made up a smoky variant on the devils on horseback, which people seemed to like quite a lot. But man, this is not something you want to do too often! See the recipe for more detail...


Here the divine Miss Em models with a hedgehog and one half serve of the egg dip. I'm sure you don't need a hedgehog recipe - put cheese cubes on sticks with luridly coloured pickled onions; shove into half grapefruit. It may look tacky, but it gets eaten - who doesn't love a bit of cheese and pickle?

Recipe 1: Egg & Caviar Dip
10 free range eggs
250ml sour cream
2 tsp finely chopped fresh dill
1 tblsp finely chopped green spring onion
1 small jar black caviar (lumpfish)
1 small jar red caviar (salmon or lumpfish)
additional finely chopped herbs to garnish
Hardboil the eggs.
Peel and cool.
Mash eggs with herbs and sour cream.
Put into a bowl, and decorate the top with the caviar and herbs.
Serve with Jatz biscuits to dip.


Notes: To hardboil eggs straight from the fridge, put them in the saucepan and fill with hot tap water. Leave for 5 minutes to warm up. Then drain, refresh with more hot tap water, and put on the stove. Leave to simmer for ten minutes. Bash them around under cold water to break the shells thoroughly, and then you can leave them to peel later if you like. If you put cold eggs in boiling water, they crack easily. If you leave boiled eggs sitting around hot for too long, then they go grey around the yolk.

I actually made this with light sour cream and it didn't work quite as well as I'd intended. It was too sloppy. Oh well. I sat the leftovers in a sieve for a couple of hours and got some very nice egg salad for my lunch.



Recipe 2: Smoky Devils on Horseback
500g large pitted prunes
1 kg bacon rashers
250g smooth smoked cheese
packet of melba toasts
1/2 cup red wine
Pour the red wine over the prunes and leave to soften for an hour or two, stirring occasionally.
Cut the smoked cheese into short straws, about 1cm long and 3mm in other dimensions.
Stuff each prune with a piece of cheese.
Remove the bacon rind and eyes. Use short lengths of the streaky bacon to wrap each prune, securing with a toothpick. Cutting it lengthwise may hep if they're wide rashers.
Lay the devils on a baking sheet, and bake at 180C for 15 minutes, or until bacon is crisped.
Put each one on a piece of melba toast.
Serve hot.


Notes: Yes, you do have to be slightly insane to stuff and wrap 70-odd prunes. The 1950s were a very strange time, much better in fantasy than reality, what with all the segregation and unequal pay and McCarthyism going on. By the time I'd finished putting these together, not to mention all the cheese and onion skewering, I was thinking of adopting a gin-and-valium soaked desperate housewife persona. But luckily I recovered by the time of the party.

The cheese needs to be the smooth kind, not a crumbly cheddar. The dimensions are, of course, general guidelines to what makes it easier to stuff. Try one or two to see how big they should be for your prunes. It's not as bad as it sounds; the machine pitted prunes have a hole at each end that you can shove your cheese in quite easily.

I didn't have quite enough streaky bacon so had to use some of the eye pieces to wrap the last dozen or so. The rest of the lean bacon went into BLT sandwiches for us on Friday dinner (we weren't too hungry after our lunch out), and into the lasagna.

Pancakes and the River Moruya

I had a terrific weekend down the coast, at Michael & Belinda's house. We did a little shopping at Bateman's Bay - I got some black pearl earrings and a nice cheap red knit cardie - and had Friday night dinner at Monet's. We had a couple of walks, one round the Eurobodalla Botanic Gardens, and one rock hopping at Guerilla Bay. We had a fabulous dinner at the River Moruya on Saturday night. Everyone except Michael slept very late on Sunday, and I made pancakes for our afternoon breakfast.

My usual pancakes, the ones I can do without looking anything up, are my Mum's Welsh pancakes. They're a little bit unusual, being rather thicker than a crepe but a lot thinner than a pikelet or an American pancake. Here's the recipe.

Welsh Pancakes
2 cups self-raising flour
2 eggs
milk, 1 to 1 1/2 cups
butter, about 1-2 tablespoons
currants, about 1/4 cup
lemons
caster sugar
Put the flour in a bowl, make a hollow, and put in the eggs. Whisk them in gradually, adding milk as you go, incorporating in more flour from the edges until it's all mixed in and not lumpy. Add enough milk to make the batter easily pourable, just a bit thicker than single cream.

To cook the pancakes, heat a small chip of butter in a frypan (nonstick is helpful). It should sizzle, but not burn brown. Pour on a dollop of the batter, swirl the pan around a bit to spread it out, and sprinkle over a few currants. Wait until the batter looks quite set - bubbles coming up - and flip it over to brown the other side briefly. They won't go very brown, as the batter contains no sugar. Just a nice light gold.

Sprinkle with some caster sugar and lemon juice, and roll up to eat. Makes about 12 pancakes. Yummy.

Notes: The vague quantities are deliberate. Recipe can be halved for two people. And I swear the weather seems to affect the amount of milk the batter needs. And how big a dollop of batter and chip of butter depends on the frypan you use - I use about a soup ladle and about 1/8 teaspoon per pancake. And as for currants, sugar, and lemon, that really is a matter of taste. I like lots of currants.

Regional reviews follow:
North St Cafe, Bateman's Bay
Good coffee, unusual cakes, many of them gluten-free. The lunch salads were very fresh and packed with fresh herbs. I had corncakes and salad, which was the lunch special, at $8. No meals over $20, I think. It's urban in style, with banquette seating and bright open space. I'd go back regularly if I lived round there.

Monet, Bateman's Bay
A French restaurant, BYO or a short but decent wine list. Decor runs heavily to French country, with lots of Monet posters. Not too bad for a local cheapie - the service was decent; the food was reasonable, but very Australian country provincial. The charcuterie plate ($18 for two) was just basic supermarket cold cuts; all the dishes had way too much iceberg lettuce everywhere. My fish with risotto ($25) was competently cooked, but too bland. The highlight was the outstanding Grand Marnier zabaglione ($12.50) - no iceberg lettuce there, but it did have redundant icecream. I suspect this might be a better lunch spot; it's a pleasing atmosphere and the crepes and salad looked like they'd make much better lunch dishes than entrees.

The River Moruya
Wow. My second visit and I'm just as impressed. This is a great place for a seriously good dinner out; though I think it's even better for a long lunch, because you get the river view in daylight. The Canberra Times didn't favour it as much as I think it deserves, but I hear on the grapevine that the reviewer had very poor service. It must have been a bad night. We've twice now had excellent service there.

I had an entree of scallops with pea puree and crisp crumbed cubes of ham hock - a terrific blend of flavours and textures. The assiette of lamb three ways had morsels of roast loin, slow cooked shoulder and crumbed sweetbread; all excellent. We had a side of green beans, with butter and almonds, cooked perfectly to just three seconds past squeaky. My dessert was another mixed plate, this time of citrus. I had a scoop of a stunning campari and grapefruit sorbet; a tiny but intense lemon creme brulee; and a flourless orange cake. The cake was pretty normal, good but not up to the amazingness of the others.

It's not a cheap night out - with my three courses and a share of a bottle of white, plus a couple of other glasses, I chipped in $90. But it seemed well worth it to me. We were celebrating a birthday and an anniversary; definitely a special occasion.

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.

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...

Xmas Breakfast Eggs

Today's Breakfast Menu:
Irish coffee, made with Laphroaig
Xmas scrambled eggs with grainy seedy toast
A chocolate or two. Or three. (Lindt ball? Guylian shell? Decisions, decisions.)

Recipe: Xmas Scrambled Eggs
6 eggs
2 tablespoons cream
3 eyes of bacon, pre-cooked & sliced in fine strips (optional)
6 large sundried tomatoes (the softish kind), sliced in fine strips
2 teaspoons real pesto, extended with a tiny bit of olive oil if it's not runny enough to drizzle.
15g butter
Toast of choice

Beat eggs with cream. Melt butter on a gentle heat. Toss eggs in and scramble SLOWLY, over the lowest heat you can manage. Add bacon and sundried tomato strips during the scrambling.

Serve with toast. Drizzle pesto over the top so you have green & red Xmassy colour to your eggs, as well as yumminess. Serves 2.

How to poach an egg

I bought the September Delicious magazine yesterday, and read Sydney chef Matt Moran's article on how to poach an egg. I thought I already knew. Drop a nice fresh egg in a shallow pan full of very gently simmering water with a dash of vinegar. Leave until white is cooked, drain and serve. But the draining can be a pain, and you can end up with soggy toast. Anathema! Kitchen paper helps, but I've been trying other methods recently and been disappointed. Little gadgets float away, or don't contain the egg properly; the microwave leads to raw bits or explosions. It's always back to Mum & Gran's method.

But Matt Moran's method is a neat trick. You get your saucepan of water simmering as usual - but no need for vinegar or salt. Crack each egg into a gladwrap lined cup, tie up the glad wrap in a knot, leaving as little air as possible, and lower the parcels into the water. Leave for 4 minutes, then cut open the knotted gladwrap and tip the egg onto your plate. It worked really well. Except maybe next time I'll add the tiniest drop of vinegar to make it JUST like Mum's.

We polished off some leftovers tonight. I had the rest of the baked peas with poached eggs, leftover roast sweet potato and turkish toast; the Bloke ate the chilli. The baked peas went brilliantly with poached eggs; I think that recipe's a keeper.


Cooking today: Leftovers.