Glazed Nectarine or Roasted Strawberry Tart Anyone?

Hello!

I'm back! I have been cooking alot lately, but the competing demands of work & trying to get enough sleep have seen my blogging capacity severely curtailed!

But now I'm back! With a tart couple of wonderful tarts to boot!

Mascapone is actually a type of cheese; kind of a sweet cross between cream cheese & ricotta. Have a tub of it in the fridge and you can have a pretty fabulous dessert ready to roll in just a few minutes.

I didn't follow a recipe for the below, I  just kind of made it up. You could use any combination of fruit, fresh or cooked, that you fancy.

Balsamic Roasted Strawberry Tart

If you haven't tried the combination of strawberries & balsamic vinegar you are missing out. It may sound a little odd, but they really bring out the sweetness in each other .

1) quantity shortcrust pastry, blind baked & cooled. Or just buy a shell from the supermarket!
2) 2 punnets of strawberries, hulled, and sliced if you like (I just took the tops of b/c I like the way they looked in the tart)
3) 2 tubs of mascpapone (250g I think it comes in)
4) 3 tbs pouring or thick cream (if you have it)
5) 1 tsp vanilla essence
6) 1 tbs + a bit more of balsamic vinegar

Preheat the oven to 180'c. Take a baking dish put the strawberries in, and then drizzle with the balsamic vinegar. Mix well with your hands. I then stood the strawberries 'up' in the pan (as they appear in the photo of the tart). That way if any of them stuck to the bottom, it wouldn't be obvious in the presentation.

Roast the strawberries for 15-20 mins, but no longer. You want them to be warm, but no-where near mushy.

In another bowl, combine the mascapone, the cream if using, and the vanilla, and gently combine together.

Use to line the base of the tart shell, then top with the strawberries. Serve!

Glazed Nectarine Tart

Everything is the same as it is for the strawberry tart recipe (above), you just substitute 8 nectarines (sliced in the thickest slices you can manage).

Press the flesh into a saucer of caster sugar, so it has a coating of sugar.

Pop into an oven-proof frying pan, and grill, sugar side down, over medium high heat for around 5 minutes until the sugar (combined with the fruit's natural juices) starts to caramelise on the top.

Then put the whole pan into the oven (preheated to 180'c) for 20 minutes or so.

Spread the mascapone mix over the base of the tart (as per the strawberry recipe), and then scatter the nectarines on top.

I'm back! And Baking Pies!

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

I can't believe I haven't pasted a recipe for sweet shortcrust pastry on here yet!

Given how much I love baking pies this just seems like a ludicrous situation, and one that I am rectifying right now.

This recipe is from the wonderful book called 'French' by Damien Pingolet. It is a gorgeous cookbook (thanks little brother!), and he really is an amazing chef.

The trick with pastry, and I've indicated before, is to keep the ingredients chilled, and DO NOT  OVERWORK THE PASTRY!! You don't want to activate the gluten in the flour. so keep kneading / food processor times to an absolute minimum.

It literally takes 3 minutes to make your own pastry; it really is very easy: don't be put off - just try it!

180g unsalted butter, chilled, cut into cubes
240g plain flour
2tbs caster sugar
pinch of salt (omit if using regular butter)
1/4 water, chilled

Combine flour, sugar & butter in a food processor, and pulse until it looks like breadcrumbs.

Add some water, just a little at a time (maybe 2 tbs at a go), pulsing in between until the mixture starts to come together.

Lay a piece of clingwrap on the counter, and turn your dough out onto it.

Form into a flat disc, and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

Roll out on a lightly floured surface, and use to line a pastry dish (chill the dish first in the freezer if you can), and then pop the whole thing back into the freezer for 30 minutes.

Blind bake with pastry shells / rice / beans for 10 minutes, then brush with a beaten egg, and bake for a further 10 minutes or until golden.

Pea, Pecorino & Parmesan Ravioli

 

Hello - yes, it has been a while!

I was hosting the birthday dinner for a friend, and I saw this recipe on the Australian Gourmet Traveller website (which is really fab, by the way), and was just so keen to try it! They are also very handy for a dinner party, as once made, they freeze very well. In fact I would argue that they are easier to cook from a frozen state than a fresh one.

I've posted before about making pasta - it really is a pretty simple task. This is one of those recipes that yes, has a few steps, but is actually really easy if you have guests, as all of the work is done before they arrive.

Pea Ravioli

Serves 8

80 gm unsalted butter

8 sage leaves, coarsely torn
8 basil leaves, thinly sliced

Pasta dough
500 gm (3 1/3 cups) plain flour
5 (55gm each) eggs, lightly whisked
1 tbsp olive oil

Pea filling
240 gm (2 cups) frozen peas, defrosted
160 gm (2 cups) finely grated Pecorino
100 gm (½ cup) ricotta
40 gm (½ cup) finely grated parmesan
1 (55gm) egg

For pasta dough, using a food processor, process flour and 1 tsp sea salt for a few seconds, add eggs and oil and process until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Turn onto a lightly floured surface, knead into a ball and shape into a log. Cover in plastic wrap and rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.


Meanwhile, for pea filling, using a food processor, process peas until finely chopped. Add remaining ingredients and process until well combined. Season to taste with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and set aside.

Cut dough into 4 equal pieces. Working with one piece at a time and keeping the others covered, lightly flour and feed dough through the rollers of a pasta machine on the widest setting, folding sheet once or twice and feeding through rollers again until sheet is smooth. Reduce settings notch by notch, feeding sheet through until you reach the last notch and sheet is about 2mm thick. Place sheet on a lightly floured 3cm-square 24-piece ravioli tray cutter (see note), pressing lightly.

Place a teaspoonful of filling in each cavity, brush edges with water and top with remaining pasta sheet, pressing gently around filling to seal. Using a rolling pin, start at the centre of the tray and roll in both directions until all ravioli are cut and sealed. To remove ravioli, invert tray and tap gently.




Transfer to a baking paper-lined and floured tray and freeze. Repeat with remaining dough and pea filling until filling is used up. Makes about 80 ravioli. Ravioli will keep in a container in the freezer for up to a month.

Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Remove ravioli from freezer, separate and cook until cooked through (6-8 minutes). Drain, reserving 1 cup of liquid.

Add butter and sage to a frying pan and cook until butter foams (about 1 minute). Add reserved pasta water and bring to the boil. Cook until reduced to a sauce consistency (about 1 minute), then add ravioli and toss gently to combine. Add basil, season to taste and serve.

Easy, Quick Chicken Curry!

Hello! 

I haven't been cooking as much of late - but that will change after this weekend :)

This curry came from a great article in The Guardian. I call it a great article b/c the recipes in it are very good, though whoever thinks a student would have half of the ingredients in their pantry, or the money / inclination to buy them is a little deluded me thinks. I doubt many grown ups have 'garam masala' in their pantry.

(Yes, I do, but a spice shop is to me what a crack house is to drug addicts).

This is a very easy one-pot curry. Well 2 pots: one to mix everything in, and then a pan to cook it all in. But still, it is fantastic, and for a made-from-scratch curry, it is very quick - around half an hour. And it is delicious!

I served it with some naan bread I picked up from my local indian take-away.

Chicken, potato and spinach balti by Anjum Anand

3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp ghee or unsalted butter
750g chicken thighs, skinned
7 baby potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 handfuls of baby spinach
Handful of finely chopped coriander leaves and stems

For the curry base:
6 fat garlic cloves, peeled
¾ inch ginger, peeled
3 medium tomatoes, chopped into large chunks
3 good tbsp of full-fat Greek yoghurt
(don't do what I did and by Harris Farm's 'Plain Yighurt' - it is still a sweet yoghurt w/ sugar in there!)
1½ tbsp coriander powder
1¼ tsp garam masala
¼-½ tsp red chilli powder, or more if you like it hot
½ tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp cumin powder
Salt to taste

For the base, make a paste of the ginger, garlic and tomatoes. I used my Bamix thing, but you could use a potato masher for the tomatoes and finely grate the ginger and garlic – the sauce will not be as smooth though. But the taste will be the same.

Stir in the spices, salt and yoghurt. Add the chicken and potatoes.



Heat the oil and butter/ghee in a medium non-stick saucepan. Add the onion and cook over a moderate flame, stirring often, until the onion is well browned on the edges, around 7-8 minutes.

Add the chicken, potatoes and curry base and cook over a moderate-high heat, tossing the chicken in the paste quite often until small oil droplets start to form on the base or edges of the pan; this takes around 10-12  minutes. If it still isn't cooked, you can add a splash of water and cook for another 5 minutes or until the water has reduced.

Add enough water to come halfway up the chicken and bring to the boil. Cover and cook on a low flame until the chicken and potatoes are cooked through, around 12-15 minutes more (depending on the size of the joints and potatoes).

Add the spinach and, once wilted, taste and adjust the seasoning. There should be enough of the sauce for a creamy gravy; if not, add a little more water. If you have added too much (like me! Don't let this picture be your guide! You want less water!), turn the heat up and allow to reduce.

Stir through the coriander and serve, with a dollop of extra yoghurt if desired, and some naan bread, or roti if you fancy. I don't think this needs rice - the potatoes are filling enough, even without naan.

Steak Dinner!

Steak w/  a mushroom red wine 'sauce' kind of thing. This isn't from a recipe, just something I pulled together, but it was very yummy, and quite easy to do.

The weather last night in Sydney was just foul - its been a while since we had that kind of storm hit, almost tropical, and I don't think it is usual to have thunder & lightening in September! Storms in summer are pretty normal.

So I felt like cooking up a comforting meal, and this is what I came up with. You can pick all the bits up on your way home, and have dinner on the table pretty quickly.

1 steak per person
3 - 4 baby (cocktail) potatoes per person
3 mushrooms per person (I used flat mushies)
olive oil
red wine
salt + pepper
I also had some steamed carrot & beans & served them on the side.

Season the steaks w/ salt & pepper, and allow to sit at room temperature whilst you get on with the next step.

Par boil the baby potatoes. Whilst they are boiling, slice the mushrooms into strips. When the potatoes are ready (don't tip out the water!) slice into chunks. Heat some olive oil in a pan, then add a knob of butter (med-high heat). As the butter begins to 'foam' add the potatoes to the pan & cook until golden, then turn & cook the other side. Once golden all over (shouldn't take too long), remove from the pan & cover with foil (or put in a warm oven).

Return the reserved pot of water from cooking potatoes to the boil, and add the beans & carrot, if using.

Return the same pan (don't clean it) to med-high heat & add the steaks, and cook to your preferred level (I like my steaks rare).

Remove the steaks from the pan & let rest.

Still using the same pan, tip in the sliced mushrooms & stir around until coated in the jus. Stir until starting to soften, then increase the heat to high and pour in a good glug (maybe half a cup or so) of red wine. Stir well, scrapping up any bits stuck to the pan.

Place the steak on a plate, top w/ the mushrooms, and w/ the potatoes, beans & carrots on the side.

Have a glass of the red wine too :)

Enjoy!

A Mexican Feast! Ole!

I have a new friend!

The lovely Sarah has just moved here from New York, and I invited her, and her gorgeous black pug to lunch. I decided to do Mexican, mostly because I hear from my American friends it is what they miss most, a good Mexican place.

The only thing was, I loath re-fried beans, and I didn't want to do tacos, or fajitas, etc etc.

So a quick check on a few different American cooking sites and I'd found some fabulous recipes to try out. On the whole, it wasn't too bad at all (I think). I learnt a couple of things along the way, and will be improved for next time! but it really was a yummy and health meal. I will definitley be making these again!

The Menu

Spiced Shredded Pork

Mexican Corn Cakes

Avocado Salad

Rocket & Pepita Salad

Spiced Shredded Pork

This is really easy, and you could make it ahead of time: it would be delicious cold. A note, if you aren't going to do the avocado salad, then put a slice of avocado on top of the corn cake, then top with the pork.  

500g pork fillet

500ml chicken stock

2 small onions, finely diced (about 1/2 cup)

1/2 fresh jalapeno, finely chopped

(I couldn't find a fresh one, so bought a jar & used that. Jalapeno really does have a distinctive flavour, so I'd try and use even preserved jalapenos, rather than use 'asian' chillies)

1 bunch coriander (enough for 2.5 loosely packed cups)

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1 bay leaf

2 tablespoons bitter

2 ripe tomatoes, sliced

1/2 cup sour cream

1) Combine the pork, stock, half the onions, the jalapeno, coriander, cumin, bay leaf & 1/2 teaspoon of salt in a saucepan & bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 10-15 mins, stirring
occasionally. If you have a thermometer, you want the pork to reach 60'C (140'F).

2) Remove pork, and shred using 2 forks. I overcooked mine, which is why it is diced in the picture above! My bad - too much white wine & chatting!

3) Combine the shredded pork w/ the remaining onion, butter & 1 tablespoon of olive oil and season well. Place under the griller until golder brown (4-7 minutes). Actually, the recipe said to 'broil'. I think this means grill, but since I wasn't sure, I grilled it for a while, and when not much happened, I just threw it all in a frying pan over strong heat. If you know what broiling is, please tell me!

4) Serve atop the corn cakes w/ the sour cream & tomato.