What to do with Spiced Plums?

I love delicately spiced, stewed plums. I used to stew my plums with just a touch of sugar, but then I discover James Martin’s delicious Spicy Plum Crumble recipe. So plums at my place tend to get the VIP treatment. 

Of course I don’t always have the ingredients I need so I improvise and that’s what happened this week when I bought too many plums and needed to do something with them quickly. Nothing worse than rotting plums ...

I had about 8 small plums which I sliced in half and threw into a saucepan with 2 pieces of star anise, a few drops of vanilla essence, some grated nutmeg, a tablespoon of sugar and about 75 mls or so of water. I then just cooked this until the plums softened, cooled it down and put it in the fridge. 

As I said, I just needed to cook the plums so they didn’t go off but I had no idea what I was going to do with them.

Came Saturday and I decided to make some drop scones. You might call them flap jacks, or pikelets. These were always a treat when I was growing up. There one of my nostalgia foods. My recipe is based on the one in the CWA Cook Book. We called them drop scones and so do they. 

Beat 1 egg with 125 mls of milk (I use skim milk). Add 120 g SR flour (I can’t find that in Prague so I use 10 g baking powder and 110 g plain flour), and a pinch of salt. Mix it all together. The CWA recipe includes 2 Tbsp sugar, but I leave this out because often I like my drop scones with Vegemite (I am an Aussie after all). Drop spoonfuls of the batter into a medium hot fry pan. When the first side is cooked, flip them and cook the other side. I use a non-stick pan. Sometimes it's hard to judge when they're done. One indicator that the first side is done is when you see air bubbles breaking on top of your drop scones. Make sure the heat isn't too fierce because the bottom will be cooked before the inside.

Half way through cooking the drop scones I remembered the spicy plums.  Out of the fridge, remove the star anise and plum stones, and attack with stick blender – result! Delicious, fragrant, spicy plum spread for drop scones. 

Perfect for afternoon tea.

Let me know if you try it …

Quinoa

Last night I was wondering what I could do with some quinoa I had in the cupboard that needed using up. One of the things I love about quinoa is that it’s a complete protein – brilliant for vegetarians. Anyway, I found inspiration in the June 2012 issue of Australian Good Taste magazine. Of course, being me, I had to mess around with the original recipe. So Melissa’s Quinoa Cakes have metamorphosed into a quinoa frittata. Hope you enjoy it. 

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked quinoa (about 3/4 cup raw)

100 g feta, crumbled

4 eggs, lightly whisked

1 carrot, peeled, coarsely grated

55 g (1/3 cup) toasted pine nuts

20 g baby spinach, chopped

2 Tbs fresh mint, chopped

2 Tbs sultanas

1 tsp finely grated lemon rind

1 tsp each of ground cumin, coriander, turmeric and paprika

Combine quinoa, feta, egg, carrot, pine nuts, spinach, mint, sultanas, spices, and lemon rind (everything really) in a bowl and mix it all up. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat a small amount of oil in a frypan over a low-medium heat. Pour quinoa mixture into pan and cook until base is cooked – probably about 5 minutes. Place under a hot grill to finish cooking.

This is a great way to use up any quinoa leftovers lurking in your fridge, but seriously, don’t wait until you have left-over quinoa. 

Do what I did and use the recipe for inspiration. Vary the spices, maybe add some chilli. Some fried onion and garlic would be great in it. Or ramp up the fresh flavours with loads of fresh herbs. 

(If you’ve never cooked quinoa before, just put 1 part quinoa in with 3 parts of water and simmer it for about 15 minutes. You can also add flavour by using stock, or some wine.)

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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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.

Orange and Ricotta Pancakes

When you want something a little sweet, and very tasty and easy to make, try these Orange and Ricotta Pancakes. This recipe makes about. If you have any left over, you can freeze them - they reheat quite well in the microwave, or feed them to friends.

250g ricotta cheese - low fat works okay if you're watching the fat content in your diet
4 tbspns sugar
3 eggs, separated
1 large orange
50g plain flour
2 tbspns butter

1. Combine ricotta, sugar and egg yolks in a bowl. Add grated orange zest and flour and mix well.
2. Beat egg whites until stiff. 
3. Fold the beaten egg whites into the ricotta mixture (remember, you want to keep as much air in them as possible, so don't beat the mixture too hard - cut and fold with a metal spoon is how Miss Searle taught me to do it in Home Science classes at high school). 
4. Melt butter in a non stick pan. 
5. Drop heaped tablespoons of batter into the pan (don't try more than 3 at a time). Cook over a medium heat until coloured then turn to cook other side.
6. Eat.

They're yummy with honey or jam. They would probably go well with maple syrup. I've got some ideas up my sleeve so will let you know if I come up with something new. After checking Niki Segnit's book, The Flavour Thesaurus, I'm seriously thinking about beefing up the orange flavour (extra orange zest), and making a rich coffee fluffy coffee mousse ...