Divine Dessert - with Chocolate, of course

Some years back I enjoyed a fabulous foodie holiday at Cascina Papaveri in Italy. Not only did I get to cook fabulous food every day in a magnificent kitchen, but I also discovered Pilates. 

Poppies at the Poppy Farmhouse - Cascina Papaveri

 Anyway, I thought I’d share the recipe for one of the delightful, decadent, delicious, divine desserts that we made. Chef Gino called it a Chocolate Soufflé. Most of us now would recognise it if it were called a Chocolate Fondant. You know, the ones with the gooey middle ...

Chocolate Fondant

Prep and Cooking time – about 45 minutes

Serves 6

4 eggs

100 g caster sugar

100 g butter

100 g flour

100 g dark chocolate (Chef Gino used 79%)

1.      Melt butter and sugar in a bowl over a saucepan of hot water. Make sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water. You want indirect heat.

2.      Beat the sugar and eggs together until light and fluffy.

3.      Fold in the flour.

4.      Add the melted chocolate and butter.

5.      Place into small moulds (grease with butter).

6.      Bake in oven at 170-180 C for 7 – 8 minutes.

7.      Serve with crème anglaise, whipped cream or a delicious, real vanilla icecream.

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S is for Salads

Salads are so good for us and they have so much potential. The days of lettuce, tomato and maybe onion and cucumber are long gone. There is nothing as satisfying as a salad when a salad is what you really want to eat. You know those times when you want to feel the crunch of the vegetables, enjoying the different textures and flavours. Add to this the visual delight offered by a multi-hued array of food and what more could you want. By the way, did I mention that they’re mostly quick to prepare as well.

 Salads are a great way to get your five-a-day. And making salads is one area where cooking can be fun. Let your imagination go. Making salads isn’t a precision science. Play around with quantities and ingredients to suit your own tastes. 

Here are some of my favourites.

Spinach, Peas and Feta (thanks to Jamie Oliver for this one)

Make a salad of baby spinach, fresh green peas straight from their pods and bite-size chunks of feta cheese. Dress it with lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil (I use about 2 parts juice to 5 parts oil). Season with pepper. Taste it and add salt if it needs it (remember, the feta is salty).

 

Watermelon and Feta

Toss cubes of watermelon in a bowl with thinly sliced red onion. Throw in chunks of feta. Drizzle some good quality balsamic vinegar over the top – not a lot. 

My Version of Caprese Salad – Mozzarella with Slow Roasted Tomatoes

To slow roast cherry tomatoes, cut them in half and place cut side up on a baking tray. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast in a slow oven , about 100 C for about 90 minutes, until they’ve almost dried out. Tear up a ball of mozzarella cheese. Arrange mozzarella tomatoes and some fresh basil leaves on a plate – mix them together, make nice patterns, whatever you like. Drizzle over some extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. 

ANZAC Biscuits for ANZAC Day

In Australia and New Zealand, ANZAC Day is our day of remembrance. On 25 April 1915 our forces were part of an allied force that landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula. 

It being ANZAC Day I thought I would make some ANZAC Biscuits. The last time I made these was over 20 years ago. On that occasion I was making them to sell for a charity fundraiser and I pretty much felt like never baking ANZAC Biscuits again after making hundreds and packaging them into cellophane bags. But being away from Australia and seeing messages posted on various social media forums by my compatriots put me in the mood for a taste of home ...

The recipe I used today is by Merle Parrish (viewers of the Aussie version of Masterchef might remember her), and I downloaded it from here. I’ve also copied it for you. I made some of mine small and some larger; the photo is of some of the bigger ones. If you make them all small I’m sure the recipe makes 45, but the size I made, I think I made around 30. 

 This is a very simple recipe - great for making with kids. And it's quick so from the time you decide on the spur of the moment that you really want something sweet, to the time you bite into your first warm ANZAC biscuit is about 30 minutes. But a ward of warning, they really are nicer when you give them about 10 or so minutes after taking them out of the oven to crisp up.

Enjoy! 

Merle Parrish's Anzac biscuit recipe

Prep time: 20 mins

Cooking time: 6-7 mins per batch

Makes: 45

1 cup plain flour

2 tsp ground ginger

1 1/2 cups rolled oats

1 cup desiccated coconut

1 cup white sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

2 tbsp boiling water

1 tsp bicarb soda

160g butter, melted

1.      Preheat oven to moderate (170C) and grease two large baking trays.

2.      Sift the flour and ground ginger into a mixing bowl, and add the oats, coconut and sugar. Make a well in the centre.

3.      Stir the golden syrup, boiling water and bicarb in a small bowl until combined. Add to the dry ingredients, along with the melted butter. Mix well.

4.      Take heaped teaspoons of mixture and roll into balls. Place onto trays, and flatten gently. Bake for 6–7 minutes, until lightly golden.

5.      Cool on the trays for 10 minutes, until they firm up slightly, then lift onto wire racks to cool completely.

I Love Tomato Water

Tomato water has an intense, summery tomato flavour and with a piece of Melba toast makes a lovely, light appetiser. UK chef Gary Rhodes uses a similar concoction as the basis of his famous White Tomato Soup. Use it as stock for vegetarian risotto or mix it with vodka for an contemporary version of a Bloody Mary.  

Ripe tomatoes (one large tomato will probably yield one very small serve of tomato water – I recommend you make up more than you need. It’s unlikely you won’t be able to finish it. It keeps for about 3 or 4 days in the fridge.)

1 teaspoon caster sugar for every 400 grams of tomatoes

Salt and pepper to season

1.      Chop the tomatoes roughly and mix with the sugar, salt and pepper.

2.      Line a large sieve with cheesecloth and set it over a bowl (plastic or glass is best). Pour the tomatoes into the centre of the fabric.

3.      Strain the tomatoes, without pressing or squeezing, for at least 8 hours or overnight. If you squeeze your puree the tomato water will become cloudy. If you want to have an even clearer liquid, strain it again. And again, and again ...

4.      Serve in small glasses, at room temperature. (Some people serve it chilled, but the intensity of the flavour diminishes with cold.)

This is the most basic version of the recipe You can add other veggies, try onions and fennel. Or mix it up with white wine. The salt helps draw the moisture out, but don’t use too much or you’ll end up with a salty liquid. Leave out the pepper and the sugar if you wish. The sugar helps balance the acidity of the tomatoes. 

Some kitchen shops sell straining bags for jams which work really well for this and are easier to handle than cheesecloth or muslin. I use one that I bought at Lakeland in the UK. And don’t be tempted to hurry up the process by squeezing, poking or prodding. The result won’t look as good, although it will probably still taste okay.

Paprika Spiced Cannellini Beans

Have you noticed that there are still people who believe that vegetarians live on salads, or stacks of roasted Mediterranean vegetables? I'm sure at least part of my passion for experimenting with food grew from this and the dire shortage of vegetarian recipe books that were around when I first stopped eating meat many years ago. There are plenty of books and websites around now and they are a constant source of inspiration, but I still love messing around. Especially with different spices and flavours - finding out what works, trying new things. 

So here's one of my favourite recipes. A great storecupboard special.  You can serve this with all kinds of things. Crumble over some feta cheese, add some chunks of avocado, serve with rice, or mop it up with bread. Pile on toast (bruschetta style) or serve with salad. For extra richness top with some sour cream. Use your imagination and have fun. The recipe is just the starting point.

1. Dice an onion and finely chop a couple of cloves of garlic. Cook slowly in olive oil to soften. Cook them until they're soft and pale making sure you don't burn the garlic. 
2. Add about one tablespoon of paprika and the same of ground cumin. Stir and cook for a few minutes. 
3. Then add about one tablespoon of cider vinegar and half a tablespoon of brown sugar. Stir.
4. Add 3 chopped tomatoes. (If you prefer, or don't have fresh tomatoes on hand, use a can of tomatoes). 
5. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. 
6. Add a can of Cannellini beans and heat through - about 10 minutes.

Unlike baking where ratios are important, this kind of dish is easy to adjust to suit your own tastes. Do you prefer more tomatoes, or more beans? Do you want a stronger cumin flavour? More garlic? You can leave out the paprika and cumin and spice it up with some thyme or oregano, or use a different kind of bean.

Remember, recipes aren't prescriptive. Have fun with your food and experiment. Let me know if you come up with something good!

Mushroom and Red Wine Pies

Yesterday mushrooms were on sale at my local store. Without anything clear in mind to do with them (apart from eat them, of course), I bought a bag and then dived in to my extensive selection of recipe books to seek inspiration.

Maggie Beer’s sour-cream pastry is a legend in my home country (Australia) and a photo of an Asparagus and Leek Tart using this pastry attracted my attention in her gorgeous book Maggie’s Kitchen. (The recipe is also on her website along with some other recipes that use it.) A mushroom tart? I continued my search and stumbled across Simon Rimmer’s Peppered Mushroom and Stilton Pie in The Seasoned Vegetarian. Not a tart. A pie. A delicious, warm, wintry pie (it was raining in Prague yesterday.) But here I hit a problem; I didn’t have any Stilton, nor any green peppercorns in brine. 

What the heck? It’s no fun following a recipe, is it? So I played around with and came up with my own delicious mushroom pie. Here’s the recipe.

Mushroom and Red Wine Pies

 

Sour-Cream Pastry (based on Maggie Beer’s recipe, but I substituted some of the plain flour with rye flour)

80 g plain flour

45 g rye flour (or skip this and use 125 g plain flour)

100 g chilled butter

60 ml sour cream

1.      Using a food processor, blitz together the flours and butter until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs

2.      While food processor is running, add about two-thirds of the sour cream at first. If pastry doesn’t come together, add more of the sour cream – but only as much as you need to form a ball. (The amount of liquid you need depends on your flour.)

3.      Form the pastry into a rectangle on a lightly floured board or bench. Wrap it in plastic film and chill for at least 20 minutes.

Mushroom Filling

1 onion, chopped

500 g mushrooms, ripped into pieces

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon tomato puree

1 tablespoon soy sauce

125 mls vegetable stock

125 mls red wine (if you don’t want to use red wine, use 250 mls stock)

Salt/pepper to taste

1.      Fry onions and mushrooms in the oil until soft.

2.      Stir in the tomato puree and cook for about 5 minutes

3.      Add the soy sauce, stock and red wine. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer until liquid has reduced and you have the consistency you want for your pie filling. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

To Make and Bake the Pies

1.      Preheat the oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6.

2.      Divide the mushroom mix between three or four individual pie dishes, or just two if you like big pies with loads of fillings.

3.      Divide the pastry - this recipe is probably about enough for four. I have trouble being more accurate because I made quite small pies … You can freeze the left over pastry

4.      Press or roll the pastry until it’s about 1 mm thick. You want it thin, but you don’t want it breaking because it’s too thin.

5.      Dampen the edge of your pie dishes with water, and then put a piece of pastry on top of the pie. Cut a small hole in the top of the pastry to let steam out while it’s cooking.

6.      Brush each of your pies with whole, beaten egg – this will make sure that your pastry is a rich, golden brown when cooked

7.      Bake the pies for about 20 minutes.

Eat and enjoy with a glass of red. I served mine with green beans. Simon Rimmer serves his mushroom and stilton pie with mashed potato and beans. I’m sure it would go wonderfully with a crisp green salad too.