Cherry Tomato, Herb & Chilli Fish

For my birthday this year, Megan gave me this great little cookbook that I had never heard of, The Hungry Girls cookbook. It is a small collection of recipes put together by 3 Melbourne friends, each of the limited 200 copies are stamped, lined with cloth & sewn together by hand & it is truly a special gift. The recipes all look delicious & here is a look in, last night I made my first attempt which was seriously good & so very simple. I used flathead which cooked up perfectly, I was worried it would break up but no chance of that. The flavour of the tomatoes really penetrates the fish & along with the simple herb sauce went well with a simple baked potato & salad. The book was released In April so I’m not sure if there are any left but if you can get to any of the stores that stock it, pick up a copy, it is a real treat & I love something unique, especially when produced by local girls.

Cherry Tomato, Herb & Chilli Fish

1 whole white fleshed fish weighing 1.5kg, filleted & skinned, each fillet cut into 2 pieces
or
4 x 150-200g white fish fillets
salt & pepper
75g butter
1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1-2 red birds eye chillies, finely chopped
2 punnets cherry tomatoes, halved
2 tablespoons chopped basil
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 tablespoons chopped chives

Pat the fish dry & rub with a little salt. Heat the butter & oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat until the butter foams, then add the garlic & chilli, frying until the garlic begins to color. Add the tomatoes & fry for 30 seconds, then add the herbs & season with salt & pepper. Stir to combine, and make sure the tomatoes cover the base of the pan fairly evenly. Lay the fish fillets on top & gently press them into the tomatoes. After 2-3 minutes, when you can see the fish turning opaque up the sides, turn the fillets. Try to pick up some of the tomatoes underneath so they end up on top. Cook for another 2 minutes then serve. Serves 4.

Iced Spice Fingers

Today Rach was coming over for a nice early (11am) visit with Ethan so I thought I would whip up a batch up bickies for morning tea, biscuits are my craze at the moment & there will be a few more coming up soon. I don’t think starting at 7.30am on baking is a good idea as I must have been half asleep, they were nearly a disaster but somehow managed to turn out very nice indeed in the end by some miracle. Do you like the nice fluorescent shade of pink I managed to attain? Firstly after stage one I ran upstairs to do my morning exercise, bike & some sit ups (still trying to regain pre pregnancy bod) & 5 minutes in remembered that I forgot to add the egg & vanilla so ran down, took the mix out of the fridge & added them in completely the wrong order, it was so tough to stir these in that I actually broke my wooden spoon in half. After my exercise session I then realized that I forgot to preheat my oven but went ahead without waiting as I only had so much of a window while the little Miss was asleep. Next I made the icing with 2 tablespoons instead of teaspoons of flour & was worried that this would lend a floury flavour but no taste of flour at all. I guess the lesson is that even when it looks like you might have to bin the mix all can still turn out & exact measurements or following of the recipe is not really necessary even in the more unforgiving world of baking where I thought that precision was always the key!

Iced Spice Fingers

180g butter
100g brown sugar
265g (3/4 cup) golden syrup
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
450g plain flour
75g self raising flour
½ teaspoon bicarb of soda
3 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon each of ground cinnamon & mixed spice
½ teaspoon ground cloves

Icing
240g (1 ½ cups) icing sugar
2 teaspoon plain flour
1 egg white
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Preheat oven to 170c. Combine butter, sugar & golden syrup in a saucepan and stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved and butter melted. Cool for 10 minutes, then stir through egg & vanilla.

Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl, pour over golden syrup mixture & stir to combine. Turn mixture out onto a lightly floured work surface & knead until combined. Wrap in plastic wrap & refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Using your hands, roll tablespoons of the mixture into 6cm lengths. Place onto baking paper lined oven trays & press lightly to flatten. Bake for 12 minutes or until browned. Cool on a wire rack.

For the icing, sift together sugar & flour. In a bowl lightly whisk egg white until foamy, gradually stir in icing sugar mixture, then add lemon juice & mix to combine. Halve icing, add a few drops of pink colouring to half & stir to combine. Spread icing over biscuits and stand until set.

Chocolate & Coconut Budino

This recipe was by Tobie Puttock from a recent Delicious magazine. A Budino is an Italian version of a self-saucing pudding. One tip that you probably don’t need, never attempt to make a self saucing pudding in a spring form tin, when you pour over the boiling water, it will leak straight out the bottom & you will have a big mess! Despite this minor disaster I managed to save the pudding by pouring extra water on top, banging it in the oven on a tray & crossing my fingers hoping for the best. The result was pretty darn good, I loved the addition of coconut for a bit of a change to your plain old chocolate pudding. I served it with some home made vanilla bean ice cream, yum.

Chocolate & Coconut Budino

1 cup (150g) plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons cocoa powder plus 2 tablespoons extra for topping
¼ cup (20g) desiccated coconut
¼ cup (55g) caster sugar
40g unsalted butter, melted
½ cup (125ml) milk
1 egg
1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped
1 firmly packed cup (200g) brown sugar
halved strawberries & crème fraiche or ice cream or whatever takes your fancy to serve

Preheat oven to 175c & grease a 24cm non-stick metal pie or ceramic dish. Sift the flour, baking powder, cocoa & a pinch of salt into a large bowl, then stir in the coconut and caster sugar. In a separate bowl, combine the melted butter, milk, egg and vanilla seeds with a wooden spoon, then mix with the dry ingredients. Pour the mixture into the dish & set aside for a minute. Combine the extra cocoa powder & brown sugar in a bowl. Sprinkle the mixture over the pudding, then carefully pour 1 cup boiling water over the top. Bake in the oven until the centre has puffed & the pudding feels firm – this should take about 30 minutes (If you’re using a ceramic dish it will take about 40-45 minutes).

Serve immediately with strawberries & ice-cream or whatever takes your fancy! Serves 4-6

Soft Polenta with Wine Lamb

This week my new experience for my mum & dad was polenta which they again had never tried before. I used this recipe from Marie Claire’s Cooking, which had parmesan, butter & mascarpone added to it to provide an irresistible, creamy & cheesy polenta. This topped with the gorgeous lamb cutlets & rich red wine & quince sauce was a match well made & they were very impressed so I’m happy to have turned them on to another exciting food staple.

Soft Polenta with Wine Lamb

4 cups hot water
1 ¼ cups polenta
sea salt & pepper
65g butter
½ cup grated parmesan cheese
½ cup mascarpone
cracked black pepper
8 lamb cutlets
½ cup red wine
½ cup beef stock
2 tablespoons quince paste

To cook polenta, place water in a heavy based saucepan over medium heat. Allow water to come to a slow simmer. Slowly pour polenta into water while whisking to combine. Reduce heat to as low as possible. Stir polenta occasionally with a wooden spoon for 40-45 minutes. Polenta is cooked when it comes away from the sides of the pan. Stir salt, pepper, butter, parmesan, mascarpone & extra pepper through polenta & keep warm.

Place a frying pan over high heat, add cutlets & cook for 2 minutes on each side or until they are cooked medium. Remove from pan & keep warm. Add wine, stock & quince paste to pan & simmer for 5 minutes or until sauce has thickened.

Serve lamb on polenta with sauce spooned over. Serves 4.

Banana, Cherry and White Chocolate Cupcakes

Here is another delicious concoction from Nigella Lawson’s How to be a domestic Goddess’. They are called cupcakes yet I think they are more of a muffin, in my thinking a muffin is a heavier stir everything together job whereas cupcakes are more like mini cakes, light , airy & made with lots of creaming of butter & sugar & so forth. Here is another opinion on the matter which seems to be in line with my thinking, what is your definition?

Banana, Cherry and White Chocolate Cupcakes

125g unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 ripe bananas
60ml (4 tablespoons) sour cream
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon bicarb of soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
300g plain flour
40g dried cherries, chopped
50g white chocolate, chopped or buttons
12 bun muffin tin with paper cases

Preheat the oven to 180c. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then, off the heat, add the sugar, vanilla and soft bananas, mashing them with a fork in the pan. Stir in the sour cream & the eggs and – still using your fork or a wooden spoon if you prefer – beat to mix. Add the bicarb & the baking powder, & stir in as well, then finally stir in the flour, cherries and chocolate. When the mixtures just blended, divide between the 12 muffin cases & cook for 20 minutes or until golden & springy on top. Remove the cupcakes in their papers to a wire rack & leave till cool. Makes 12.

Passionfruit Yo-Yo’s with White Chocolate Ganache

Here is a delicious recipe for Yo-Yo’s from a recent Gourmet Traveller, I think it was thier passionfruit special. Passionfruits are going for $1.50 a pop now so I used the tin of passionfruit pulp in syrup you can but from the supermarket instead, seemed to do the job without a problem & much less fiddly then pulping & processing too.

Passionfruit Yo-Yo’s with White Chocolate Ganache

Makes about 24 biscuits

180gm butter, softened
90g pure icing sugar
80ml (1/3 cup) passionfruit juice
225g (1 ½ cups) plain flour
100g (2/3 cup) cornflour

Ganache
90ml pouring cream
45ml passionfruit juice
2 pieces of lemon rind, removed with a peeler
180g white chocolate, finely chopped

For Ganache, combine, cream, juice & rind in a saucepan and bring just to the boil over medium-high heat. Place chocolate in a bowl, strain over hot cream mixture, whisk until smooth & refrigerate for 4 hours or until thick.

Beat butter & sugar in an electric mixer until light & fluffy, add juice & combine. Add flours & mix until just combined, then turn onto a floured surface, form into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap & refrigerate for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 180c. Roll out pastry to 8mm thick & using a 3cm diameter cutter, cut rounds from pastry & place on baking paper lined oven trays. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until just golden, cool on trays for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Spread half the biscuits with a teaspoon of Ganache, sandwich with remaining biscuits & stand until set. Uniced yo-yo’s will keep for up to 1 week in an airtight container.

Note: To make your own passionfruit juice, blend passionfruit pulp in a food processor to crack seeds, then strain through a fine sieve. 12 passionfruits yield about 1 cup of juice.

Caramelised Pecan Tart

For Mothers day I made a couple of cakes to take along for the family lunch. One was a black forest cake which tasted great but was a bit of a disaster in that the top sort of fell apart so I wont be giving that recipe. The second offering was this pecan pie at my mum’s request. She had recently tried making one which didn’t quite work out so this was another recipe, this one from a recent Delicious Magazine, the original recipe also came with bourbon ice cream which I have skipped. Also I used normal everyday supermarket caster sugar as I have no idea what ‘golden’ caster sugar is. It was really very yummy & my mother has also approved, sorry about the crap photo taken very hurriedly on the paper plate before scoffing!

Caramelised Pecan Tart

225g plain flour, sifted
150g chilled unsalted butter, cubed, plus 120g for the filling
300g pecan halves, broken into pieces
150g runny honey
100ml thickened cream
2 tablespoons (40ml) bourbon or whiskey
5 egg yolks
150g golden caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon grated fresh nutmeg

For pastry, combine flour with a pinch of salt. Use your fingertips to rub in cubed butter until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs (or whiz in a food processor). Add 2 tablespoon of iced water & stir with a knife (or whiz again) until pastry forms a ball. Knead briefly on a lightly floured surface until smooth, then roll out & use to line a 24cm loose bottomed tart pan. Prick base with a fork & chill for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200c. Line pastry with baking paper & fill with pastry weights or uncooked rice. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove paper & weights. Bake for a further 5 minutes or until pastry is a pale biscuit color.

Remove pastry case from oven & reduce oven temp to 190c. Spread nuts on a tray & toast for 5-6 minutes. Meanwhile warm honey, butter, cream & bourbon over low heat until butter melts. Beat yolks in a bowl, then stir in honey mixture, nuts, sugar, vanilla, nutmeg & a pinch of salt. Pour filling into pastry & bake for 40 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday to me! To celebrate I had my friends over for an afternoon bbq, the sun was out, the rain stayed away (Not that we want the rain to stay away forever but it was nice just for the day!) & it was a beautiful afternoon. To fulfill everyone’s sweet tooth’s I made up this batch of brownies from Nigella Lawson’s How to be a Domestic Goddess. They were very nice though my favourites are still the cherry brownies from Jamie Oliver’s latest book. Also they weren’t quite cooked after the specified 25 minutes & even after leaving them for a few extra minutes I think I still took them out too early as the recipe put the fear of God into me that they would turn out crumbly & horrible if left too long. This was definitely not a problem with the center being almost gooey rather than chewy although they did hold their form so maybe this was how they were supposed to turn out, who knows, I have just discovered brownie cooking & am no expert as yet, will have to keep experimenting.

Brownies

375g soft unsalted butter
375g dark chocolate
6 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
500g caster sugar
225g plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
300g chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 180. Line a 33 x 23 x 5.5cm tin with baking paper. Melt the butter and chocolate together in a large heavy based pan. In a bowl or jug, beat the eggs with the sugar & vanilla. Measure the flour into another bowl & add the salt.

When the chocolate mixture has melted, let it cool a bit before beating in the eggs & sugar, and then the nuts & flour. Neat to combine smoothly then scrape out of the pan & into the lined tin.

Bake for about 25 minutes. When it’s ready, the top should be dried to a paler brown speckle, but the middle still dark & dense & gooey. And even with such a big batch you do need to keep alert, keep checking: the difference between gungy brownies & dry brownies is only a few minutes, remember they will continue to cook as they cool. Makes a maximum of 48.

Happy Birthday Michael!

Happy Birthday Michael aka Daddy! For the man who is not that into cake I let him choose his own cake, ie I read out a huge list of cakes from my books & he picked the one he liked best – he didn’t actually look through my books & do the hard work himself. So that is how we ended up with this very festive looking cake from the Kiddiefeast chapter of Nigella Lawson’s Feast. It looked fantastic, and tasted great even though it was very, very sweet. The buttercream filling is very rich & the chocolate icing just tops it off so you really can only have a small slice or risk feeling ill from sugar overdrive. I can imagine this one would go down well with the kiddies.

Birthday Custard Sponge

Cake
200g plain flour
3 tablespoons Bird’s custard powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
4 eggs
225g soft butter
200g caster sugar
2-3 tablespoons milk

Make sure everything you need is at room temperature before you start. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180c, and butter and line two 20cm sandwich tins.

Put all of the above ingredients except the milk, into a food processor. Process to a smooth batter, and then add the milk a tablespoon at a time to make a soft dropping consistency. Divide between the two cake tins & bake for 20 minutes. The cakes will have risen & feel puffy, this is because of the cornflour in the custard powder.

Let the tins sit on a cooling rack for 5 minutes & then turn them out on to a rack, peeling away the paper & cool completely.

Buttercream Filling
125g icing sugar
4 teaspoons Bird’s custard powder
75g soft unsalted butter
1 ½ teaspoons boiling water

Process the icing sugar & custard powder to get rid of any lumps, and then add the butter, processing again to make the buttercream come together. Feed the boiling water down the funnel with the motor running to make the filling easier to spread. Then sandwich the cooled sponges together with the cream.

Chocolate Icing
60ml water
2 tablespoons golden syrup
125g caster sugar
175g dark chocolate
1 pot hundreds & thousands

Combine the water, syrup & sugar in a saucepan, stirring to dissolve over a low heat. Let it come to the boil & then take it off the heat. Break up the chocolate into small pieces then add to the pan, swirling it around to cover in the hot liquid. Leave to melt for a few minutes, and then whisk the icing to make it smooth & shiny. Pour over the buttercream filled cake, letting it drip down the sides, and then sprinkle generously with the hundreds & thousands before the icing sets.

Puy Lentil Soup

Well with the cold weather setting in it’s time for me to start making my usual pot of soup per week. Today I felt like I needed some fiber so it was this very hearty soup from Bill Granger’s Sydney Food. The soup was very tasty & didn’t require any extra seasoning, I think this is because my vege stock was very salty. It was also quite thick with almost no liquid remaining, bordering on a stew I guess, no complaints from me there, served with some crusty fresh bread it was the perfect lunch.

Puy Lentil Soup

50g butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup chopped carrots
½ cup chopped Spanish onion
½ cup sliced leek, white part only
½ cup chopped celery
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 small red chilli, finely chopped
400g tin chopped Italian tomatoes
1 litre vegetable stock, or water
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
½ cup lentils du Puy
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
½ cup finely chopped parsley

Melt butter and oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add carrots, onion and leeks & cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add celery, garlic & chilli and cook for a further 5 minutes. Add chopped tomatoes, stock (or water), bay leaves, oregano & lentils & bring to the boil. Reduce heat & simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes. Season with salt & pepper if needed & stir through parsley.

Potato Cakes with Smoked Salmon & Mustard Dressing

Another breakfast from Bill Granger, this one from Bill’s Food. As I absolutely love potato pancakes of any description, even the ones from Macca’s when I have a hangover though of course it has been a long time since one of those was present, ahh those were the days! Anyway I thought that I would try this recipe of Bills even though I thought it sounded like an odd combination, you never know until you try right? The pancakes were good but I hate to admit that I don’t think they worked too well with smoked salmon & most of all not with the mustard dressing but who knows some of you might love these 3 together, all elements were great alone, they just didn’t do it for me as a mix, you decide.

Potato Cakes with Smoked Salmon & Mustard Dressing

3 large potatoes (about 700g)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
60g butter, melted
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
60ml (1/4 cup) olive oil

Mustard Dressing

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
60ml (1/4 cup) canola oil

To serve
8 slices smoked salmon

Preheat oven to 150c. Grate the peeled potatoes & squeeze out any excess liquid. Put the potato in a bowl & add the chives, butter & a little salt & pepper.

Heat the oil in a large non-stick pan over a medium to high heat. For each potato cake, spoon 1 ½ tablespoons of mixture into the pan & fry until golden on both sides. Drain on paper towels & keep warm in the oven until all the potato cakes are made.

Meanwhile to make the dressing, whisk the mustard, sugar, salt & vinegar together in a bowl until the sugar has dissolved, then whisk in the oil in a thin stream.

Put two potato cakes on each plate, top with salmon & drizzle with dressing

Jam Roly Poly & a letter from the past

Yesterday my mum was over for the day to help out & hangout with Chloe. To amuse me she brought over some of my old school essays & other mementos that I hadn’t seen in years, in fact I can’t even remember writing any of them. They all had me in stitches, stories of running away from home, robbing the town snobs & setting up house in the Hilton Hotel to a plane crash in Columbia where I met Scott Carne (for those of you who remember he was the lead singer of Kids in The Kitchen & my first love!) & lived happily ever after with him. Amongst these treasures was this letter to my parents declaring what I wanted for Christmas, I found it hysterical & had to share it, I was in about grade 5 or 6 when I wrote it, I hope you find it amusing too.

Anyway all of this reminiscing reminded me of the Jam Roly Poly that I learned to make in home economics in Year 7 & which I used to cook up for dessert all of the time when I was a teen, I don’t think I’ve made it since I left home 15 or so years ago so of course it had to be done, with some adjustments – I added fresh strawberries which gave the syrup a berry flavour & changed it quite a bit, either way is great. And as you can see I did start my love of cooking early, in fact in one of the papers my mum brought over I declared cooking to be my favourite subject at School & she also had my old primary school black & white photography license & what do I do in my spare time now, funny how things end up isn’t it?

Jam Roly Poly

Scone Dough
1 cup self raising flour
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of butter
½ cup milk

Syrup
1 Cup water
1 tablespoon of butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup
juice of half a lemon

Strawberry Jam
Strawberries, hulled & cut in half (optional)

Sift the flour & salt into a bowl & rub in the butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the milk to form a dough & roll into an oblong.

Meanwhile bring to the boil all of the syrup ingredients.

Spread jam on the dough & top with fresh strawberries if desired. Roll up lengthways & place roll into a cake tin. Pour over the syrup & bake in the oven at 200c for 35-40 minutes. Serve with custard.

Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake

I made this fabulous cake for Rach’s birthday. It comes from Nigella’s ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess’, a book I have been trying out a lot lately, the recipes are all great & usually pretty simple too, I have bookmarked heaps to try out. The theory behind this one is that it can be whipped up in 5 minutes using things you already have in your cupboards or if not then the corner store, this may be a little more true for Brits as I don’t know if every cupboard or corner store in Melbourne stocks marmalade, luckily I had a nice jar of tangelo marmalade sitting in my pantry just begging to be put to use. My cake turned out a little thin as I used a bigger tin than the 20cm specified, no problems other than the thickness & the cooking time didn’t change. The cake is beautifully moist & chewy (in a good way) thanks to the sticky marmalade & of course the flavours are amazing, choc orange always works doesn’t it? Suggested variations are for any jam of your choice, raspberry, apricot, prune puree or I think cherry would work really well here too.

Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake

125g unsalted butter
100g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
300g good, thin cut marmalade
150g caster sugar
pinch of salt
2 large eggs, beaten
150g self raising flour
20cm springform tin, buttered & floured

Preheat the oven to 180c. Put the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan & put over a low heat to melt. When it’s nearly completely melted, stir in the chocolate. Leave for a moment to begin softening, then take the pan off the heat & stir with a wooden spoon until the butter & chocolate are smooth & melted. Now add the marmalade, sugar, salt & eggs. Stir with your wooden spoon & when it’s all pretty well amalgamated, beat in the flour bit by bit. Put into your prepared tin & bake for about 50 minutes or until a cake tester or skewer comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes before turning out.

You can eat this warm with perhaps some crème fraiche or double cream or even ice cream would go beautifully. It tastes just as good cold.

over the top. Serves 4.

Lemon-Raspberry Muffins

For Mothers Group this week I took along a treat, as you know I don’t need much of a reason to bake up a storm so as soon as it was suggested we bring something along I was ready for it. Being somewhere that children are always present the rule is nothing with nuts in it is to enter the premises, fine with me, just something to keep in mind for the future. I chose these delicious, packed full of fresh sweet raspberries with a lovely tang of lemon muffins. Muffins are great, they take about 5 minutes to whip up which is good for when you don’t know if you’re going to have a good or screaming baby on your hands when you need to prepare them, I had a pretty good one this morning though I did need to get a feed in while they were in the oven, lucky she is a fast drinker like her mum! The recipe is courtesy of Nigella, from How to be a Domestic Goddess.

Lemon-Raspberry Muffins

60g butter
200g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
150g caster sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
juice & finely chopped zest of 1 lemon
approx 120ml milk
1 large egg
150g raspberries
12 bun muffin tray lined with paper cases

Preheat oven to 200c. Melt the butter & set aside to cool. Stir together in a large bowl, the flour, baking powder, bicarb, sugar, salt & zest. In a measuring jug, pour in the lemon juice, then enough milk to come up to the 200ml mark, then beat in the egg & butter. Pour into the dry ingredients & stir briefly, the batter should scarcely be combined. Fold in the raspberries, spoon the mixture into the muffin cases & bake for about 25 minutes. When cooked, the tops should spring back to your touch. Leave in the pan for 5 minutes to cool slightly, then sit them on a rack to cool for a further 10-15 minutes. Makes 12.

Chicken & Sweet Leek Pie with Flaky Pastry

This is another dish from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Dinners in his top ten. It’s a pretty good pie, I’m a pie fan loving any type of pastry dish so this was a winner for me, a good combination including lots of veggies & the filling was not too runny as I find a lot of pie recipes are. One note however, the recipe is to serve 4, once you add the mash & any other sides you will get at least 6 very generous serves out of it & that’s saying something as Michael & I are pretty big eaters (I hate to admit it but its true, can you tell?)

Chicken & Sweet Leek Pie with Flaky Pastry

Olive Oil
2 knobs of butter
1kg boned & skinned chicken legs (cut into pieces) – I used thigh fillets
2 medium leeks, trimmed, washed & sliced into 1cm pieces
2 carrots, peeled & roughly chopped
3 sticks of celery, finely sliced
a small handful of thyme, leaves picked
2 tablespoons flour
1 wineglass of white wine
285ml/1/2 pint milk
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
255g good pork sausages
1 x 500g pack of all butter puff pastry (or a couple of sheets of ready rolled as I used)
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 220c. Take a large casserole pot & add a lug of olive oil & the butter. Add the chicken, leeks, carrots, celery & thyme & cook slowly on the hob for 15 minutes. Turn the heat right up, add the flour, and keep stirring for a couple of minutes before adding the wine, a wineglass of water & the milk. Season with a little salt & pepper, then cover with a tight fitting lid & simmer very slowly on the hob for about 30-40 minutes until the chicken is tender. Stir it every so often so it doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan. The sauce should be loose but quite thick. If it’s too liquid, just continue to simmer it with the lid off until it thickens slightly.

Pour the mixture into a pie dish. Squeeze the meat out of the sausage skins, roll it into balls, brown then in a little oil & sprinkle them over the stew. Roll out your pastry to about 0.5cm thick. Egg wash the rim of the dish & drape the pastry over the edges & trim. Egg wash the top, crimp the edges & cut criss crosses into the top to allow the pastry to go crisp & flaky. Cook in the oven for about 30 to 40 minutes, until golden on top. Serve with sweetcorn & mash.

Pears baked in red wine and vanilla

After my wonderfully light & healthy tuna salad for dinner the other night I was left wanting more, can you blame me? So to not entirely spoil my good intentions I steered away from cakes or anything stodgy & instead tried out a new recipe for baked pears. These were sensational, the best I have ever made & maybe even eaten! The red wine sauce goes all sticky, sweet & syrupy which is perfect with the soft juicy pears & tiny dollop of cream on the side. The recipe also comes from Ben O’Donoghue and Curtis Stones’s Surfing the Menu.

Pears baked in red wine and vanilla

4 ripe pears
55g unsalted butter
100g caster sugar
2 vanilla pods, split in half lengthways
grated zest of ¼ orange
500ml red wine (Cabernet)
4 tablespoons crème fraiche, cream or ice cream to serve

Preheat oven to 150c.

Wash & dry the pears, then cut a small slice from the bottom so each can stand upright. Smear the butter all over them & sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of the sugar.

Mix the remaining sugar with enough eater (1-1/2 tablespoons) to make a paste. Place in a heavy based flameproof pot large enough to hold the pears upright. Heat until the sugar paste turns a light golden color. Add the vanilla pods, zest & half the red wine. Place the pears upright in the pot & transfer to the oven.

Bake, spooning the red wine sauce over the pears at frequent intervals until the pear is soft and the syrup is reduced, about 45 minutes. Add more wine if the liquid reduces too much.

The pear is cooked when the flesh is soft & the outside slightly wrinkled. Remove from the oven & cool in the pot to room temperature. Serve drizzled with syrup & a dollop of crème fraiche, cream or ice cream.

Chocolate Berry Torte

To finish off the bbq on the weekend & to celebrate James birthday, of course I had to finish with a cake. Today I chose this wicked chocolate Torte from Green and Black’s Chocolate recipes. It was sensational, note the small amount of flour which resulted in a thin intense cake which was rich, smooth & a perfect blend of chocolate and berries, as well as the suggested whipped cream I also served it with a berry coulis but forgot to serve with the extra berries!

Chocolate Berry Torte

Torte
25g plain flour
5 teaspoons cocoa powder
75g dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
25g unsalted butter
5 teaspoons double cream
4 egg whites
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons caster sugar
250g fresh blueberries or raspberries
125ml whipping cream, to serve

Icing
100g dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
50g unsalted butter
3 tablespoons double cream
1 teaspoon icing sugar

Preheat oven to 140c. Butter and line a 18-20cm cake tin with greaseproof paper.

Sift together the flour & cocoa & set aside.

Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl suspended over barley simmering water. Remove from the heat, add the butter & the cream, and stir well until the mixture is quite liquid.

Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, add the sugar & continue to whisk until thick & glossy. Beat together the egg yolks & then gently fold in the flour & cocoa mixture. Add the melted chocolate & mix well. Spoon a few dollops of egg white into the mixture, stir, then gently fold in the remainder of the egg whites.

Gently pour half the mixture into the prepared cake tin, dot half the berries evenly over it, then pour the rest of the mixture on top of the berries.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes and unmould on to a wire rack to cool.

To make the icing, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl suspended over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Remove from the heat, stir in the butter, cream & icing sugar. Immediately pour over the cake to coat it completely, smoothing the icing using a palette knife. Leave for 1 hour to harden.

Serve with whipped cream & remaining berries.

Lynda’s Lemon-rub Steak with Charred Tomato Salsa

For my bbq on the weekend, as well as various snags, including some gorgeous kransky & some lamb chops I made some steaks with a gorgeous rub & salsa from Ainsley Harriott’s Ultimate Barbecue Bible. The rub was easy, just bash everything up in the mortar & pestle & it made the steaks lovely & tender & gave them a great flavour, they weren’t too hot either despite the extra hot cayenne pepper in the rub. The salsa went well alongside & the green chilly surprisingly packed quite a punch. I also made up some garlic bread to thrown on the Barbie after seeing a recipe for it in his book too, I know its daggy & old fashioned but what boy doesn’t like a bit of garlic bread & they all did, it was very well received indeed & the barbecue gave it a nice smoky flavour (and the house too, so much smoke came in that the smoke alarms even went crazy – Michael does it every time). We also had a few salads & as usual went way overboard with everything so guess what’s for dinner this week most nights?

Lynda’s Lemon-rub Steak with Charred Tomato Salsa

2 x 175g Sirloin Steaks ( I used Rump)
grated rind of 1 lemon
2 garlic cloves
½ teaspoon black peppercorns
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Salsa
3 plum tomatoes
1 small bunch fresh coriander
1 small bunch fresh mint
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 fresh green chilli, finely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
juice of half a lemon
rock salt & freshly ground black pepper

Using a mortar & pestle, grind the lemon rind, garlic, peppercorns & cumin seeds together until well blended. Add the oregano, cayenne & salt & grind again. Run the mixture into the meat & set aside for an hour or two.

Meanwhile, halve the tomatoes lengthways and place on the barbecue, cut side down, for 5-8 minutes until softened & a little charred. Slip off the skins & roughly chop the flesh. Finely chop the herbs & mix with the tomato, onion, chilli, olive oil & lemon juice. Season well to taste.

Barbecue the st4eaks for 3-4 minutes on each side for a nice medium to medium rare cooked steak. Serve with the salsa.

Traditional Garlic Butter Bread

1 long fat French stick
3 garlic cloves
75g slightly salted butter, softened
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
salt & freshly ground black pepper

Cut the bread diagonally into 2.5cm thick slices without cutting right through. Peel the garlic& crush in a mortar & pestle with a little salt until you have a smooth paste. Mix the butter with the garlic, parsley & some pepper. Spread both sides of each slice of bread with the butter & place the loaf on some foil. Wrap well & place on the side of the barbecue for 1012 minutes, turning regularly until crisp & hot.

Madeira Cake

Here is a recipe for Madeira cake, a nice change from my usual rich offerings, this cake is beautiful in its lemony, buttery goodness, try some. The recipe is from Nigella Lawson’s ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess’

Madeira Cake

240g unsalted butter, softened
200g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
grated zest & juice of 1 lemon
3 large eggs
210g self raising flour
90g plain flour
23 x 13 x 7 cm loaf tin, buttered & lined

Preheat oven to 170c. Cream the butter & sugar, add the lemon zest. Add the eggs one at a time with a tablespoon of the flour for each. Then gently mix in the rest of the flour and, finally, the lemon juice. Sprinkle with caster sugar as it goes into the oven & bake for 1 hour or until a cake tester comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack & let cool in the tin before turning out.

Hot Cross Buns & A Belated Happy Easter

Being Easter of course I had to make my first ever batch of hot cross buns & what better book to look to for the recipe but Nigella Lawson’s Feast of course. Traditionally they are meant to be eaten on Good Friday however I made them for Easter Sunday as that’s when the family was getting together for a picnic & I wanted to share them (read – not eat the whole batch myself). The fact that you make the dough the night before I loved as with little Missy on my hands these days, recipes done in stages are better than long drawn out sessions in the kitchen which would be interrupted by a hungry baby no doubt & of course the baby does come first! In the end the flavour was pretty darn good with all the extra’s, ie cardamom & cloves though due to my own stupidity (I misread & didn’t notice the ‘let come to room temperature first ‘ bit) I think my dough was a little on the hard & chewy side & possibly could have risen a bit more if I had followed the recipe correctly. They still rocked, especially when first out of the oven, later I tried them at room temp – nice & in the microwave – even better I think so all in all pretty good & much nicer than the store bought variety by far.

Hot Cross Buns

Dough
150ml milk
50g butter
zest of 1 orange
1 clove
2 cardamom pods
400g bread flour
1 packet easy blend yeast 97g)
125g mixed dried fruit
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
1 egg

Egg Wash
1 egg, beaten with a little milk

For the crosses
3 tablespoons plain flour
½ tablespoon caster sugar
2 tablespoons water

Sugar Glaze
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 tablespoon boiling water

Heat the milk, butter, orange zest, clove & cardamom pods in a saucepan until the butter melts, then leave to infuse.

Measure the flour, yeast & dried fruit into a bowl & add the spices. When the infused milk has reached blood temperature take out the clove & cardamom pods & beat in the egg. Pour this liquid into the bowl of dry ingredients.

Knead the dough either by hand or with a machine with a dough hook. If it is too dry add a little more milk or water. Keep kneading until you have silky, elastic dough but bear in mind that the dried fruit will stop this from being exactly satin smooth. Form into a ball & place in a buttered bowl covered with cling film, & leave to prove overnight in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 220c. Take the dough out of the fridge & let it come to room temperature.

Punch the dough down, and knead it again until it is smooth & elastic. Divide into 16 balls & shape into smooth round buns.

Sit the buns on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Make sure they are quite snug together but not touching. Using the back of an eating knife, score the tops of the buns with the imprint of a cross. Cover with a tea towel & leave to prove again for about 45 minutes – they should have risen & almost joined up.

Brush the buns with the egg wash, then mix the flour, sugar & water into a smooth thick paste. Using a teaspoon, dribble two lines over the buns in the indent to make a cross, then bake for 15-20 minutes.

When they come out of the oven, mix the sugar & boiling water, and brush each bun to make then sweet & shiny.