Mushroom Risotto

Risotto is perfect winter food. Making and eating it warms you up. It has a reputation as hard work, but it really just requires a little attention and once you've mastered the basic risotto bianco, the possibilities are endless. You can prepare your mushrooms however you like and just throw them in when you stir in the cheese and butter, or even add them raw halfway through the cooking time. You can omit the celery, but it means you can use a little less rice. You can also use barley instead of rice. The method is similar, here is Maggie's version.  

Ingredients:

olive oil 

1 onion, finely chopped

3 celery sticks, finely chopped

1 1/2 cups aborio or other risotto rice

half a cup of dry white wine 

1 litre vegetable stock  

400g mushroom, one type or a mix i.e. swiss brown, slippery jack, field mushrooms 

30g porcini mushrooms, soaked in boiling water (to cover) for 15-20 minutes then drained and finely chopped. 

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

1 handful parsley, finely chopped

squeeze of lemon

knob of butter

handful of freshly grated parmesan 

salt and pepper

Method:

Soffritto (sauté on a low heat for 15 or so minutes) the onion and celery in a splash of olive oil. Add the rice and stir over a medium heat for three minutes or until rice is partially translucent. Add the wine and stir, allow to evaporate before adding a ladleful or two of hot stock. Massage the rice to release the starch, place on a low heat, you want to stock to be a gentle simmer, so the rice cooks but is not hard in the middle and fluffy on the outside. Add a ladleful or two of stock as he liquid evaporates. Make Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200 degrees, peel the mushrooms or wipe them tith a damp cloth, chop into even sized chunks, douse in olive oil and place in the oven for 3-5 minutes. Reomove stir in garlic, salt, pepper, a little butter and return to the oven for another 3 minutes. Remove and stir in parlsey, set aside. Keep adding stock until the rice has swelled, released its starch, it should be soft but have a little bit if bite. Add a little more stock (or boiling water if you are out of stock) to make it a little more liquidy than you would like. take it off the heat, stir in butter, cheese, and 1/3 of the mushrooms and porcini mushrooms. Put the lid back on and allow to rest for 5 minutes. Ladle into serving bowls, divide remaining mushrooms among the bowls and some extra parmesan if desired.

Serves 4

A little Jamie, a little Maggie

Lemon Tart(s)

I had wanted to make Maggie Beer's lemon tart for so long but it asks for 600ml of creme fraiche, which for some reason is really hard to get here and is ultra expensive when you can find it. I did a google search, however, and apparently its easy to make yourself. Just add 1 tablespoon of buttermilk to a cup of heavy cream and leave it, covered, at room temp for 12 hours (to make your own buttermilk add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice/vinegar to a cup of milk). I ended up finding some reasonably priced creme fraiche but needed an extra 200ml, i mixed half double cream and half sour cream, which resulted in a similar texture and taste. Next time i will probably try the first method as it is a more affordable way of using better ingredients. I'm not sure why creme fraiche is so hard to get here, it seems to be just like slightly soured cream, which our uptight food safety people have no problem with. Maybe in its true form its unpasteurised or something.

Anyway, this is not the tart to make for someone with a heart condition. Wow. But it does taste phenomenal. Maggie's sour cream pastry is so simple to make and always gives a good result, just make allowances for a bit of shrinkage. She bakes the tart in a deep, 20cm tin, one of which i now really want. I did it in a much shallower dish and shrinking was a slight issue. I forgot to take a picture of the finished tart, but there was leftover pastry and filling so the next day i made these mini lemon tarts. The trick to getting the filling nice and silky is to cook it until it is just at a gentle set. After a while in the oven just check it every so often by giving it a little shake, when it wobbles as one, it is done. Maggie suggests serving it with clotted cream, but i think your arteries are already getting a hefty workout. A few strawberries and maybe some lightly whipped pouring cream would be nice. 

From Maggie's Harvest, Maggie Beer. 

Sour cream pastry:

Ingredients: 

200g chilled unsalted butter, chopped into small pieces

250g plain flour

1/2 cup (125ml) sour cream

Method: 

Put the butter and flour into the bowl of a food processor, hen pulse until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the sour cream and pulse again until the dough just forms a ball. Wrap dough in cling wrap and leave to rest in the fridge for 20 minutes. 

Roll the dough until it is 5mm thick, then use it to line a 20-24cm tart tine, with a removable base or greased and lined. Chill the pastry case for 20 minutes. 

To blind bake, preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Line the pastry case with foil, then cover with pastry weights or uncooked rice. Blind bake for 15 minutes, then remove the foil and pastry weights and bake for another 5 minutes. 

For the filling:

Ingredients:

150g castor sugar

8 egg yolks (freeze the whites)

100ml lemon juice

grated rind on 1 lemon 

600ml creme fraiche

icing sugar, optional (to serve)

After blind baking the pastry case, reduce the oven temp to 180 degrees C. Meanwhile, beat the sugar, egg yolks, lemon juice and rind until smooth, then fold in the creme fraiche. Fill the warm pastry case with the lemon mixture, taking care not to overfill (depending on the size of you pastry case, there may be left over). Bake until set, about 25 minutes. Serve the lemon tart lukewarm, dusted with icing sugar if desired.

Choc-Orange Cake

I love making this cake because it uses both my beloved machines: my magi-mix and my kitchenaid. I also love eating this cake because it is moist, chocolaty and rich but it is almost good for you. It has two whole oranges, boiled and pureed, ground almonds and no butter or flour! It was my Grandpa's birthday the other week and so i made this cake for the occasion. My cousin and uncle are coeliac and as this cake is naturally gluten free it seemed the obvious choice. It is best to grind up your own almonds, just lightly roast them in the oven, allow them to cool and pulse them in a food processor to a coarse meal. You can eat this cake nude or ice it with a simple ganache, the actual cake is so moist you don't need it iced, except for presentation. Some people don't like the chocolate-orange combo, but i think it is a match made in heaven. Also, the orange taste is not too intense, even though it has two whole oranges in it. The only problem is mixing all the ingredients together thoroughly, I always have a few streaks of orange pulp. I have been experimenting with the sugar, using less refined varieties and a little less than the recipe states. A muscovado works well, resulting in a more dense, sticky cake or a raw caster sugar which produces a similar texture to white caster sugar, but a slightly more complex taste. This cake is best made a day ahead, to allow the flavours to develop.

P.S. One of the best investments i ever made was an oven thermometer. There is basically no correlation between the temperature on the dial and the temperature inside my oven. The true temp is way hotter, as such my cakes were always peaked, with crusty and cracked tops. The correct temperature is crucial for cakes, so if you don't have one and are encountering problems like i did, buy an oven thermometer! The other piece of equipment that changed my life was an electronic scale. WOW! Such a revelation, it completely transformed baking, where precision is so important. 

Ingredients: 

2 large oranges

6 large (80g) eggs, i generally have to use 8 slightly smaller ones

30g (1oz, 1/4 cup) unsweetened cocoa powder, dutch style

1 tsp baking powder

200g (7oz, 1 1/3 cups) chopped dark chocolate, melted and cooled

310g (10 1/2 oz, 1 1/3 cups) caster sugar, muscovado, raw caster or preferred sugar

300g (10 1/2 oz, 3 cups) ground almonds, (i forgot to measure how many raw almonds this is, as they loose a lot of water weight when roasted, try maybe 4 cups, any extra almond meal can be kept in the fridge)

Method: 

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (350F, Gas 4). Grease a 20-22cm tin and line with baking paper.

Wash the oranges and put them whole in a small saucepan with a cup of water. Cover with a lid, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer the oranges until tender when pierced with a skewer, about 1 hour. Remove from the heat, drain and allow to cool. Chop the oranges roughly and remove the seeds, then puree, peel and all, in a food processor or blender. 

Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs in a large bowl until pale and thick, and ribbons form when the beaters are lifted out of the mixture. Sift the cocoa powder and baking powder together. Using a rubber spatula, fold the melted chocolate, cocoa powder, baking powder and sugar into the eggs. Stir in the orange puree and the ground almonds till combined.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Bake for 1 hour (usually a bit more, depending on the size of your tin), until tested with a skewer. As it is a moist cake, a few crumbs will cling to the skewer. If the cake is browning too much, cover loosely with foil toward the end of the cooking time. Allow to cool in the tine on a wire rack. 

Ice if desired or sprinkle with icing sugar or cocoa powder. 

Serves 8 - 10. 

From "Crave: A Passion for Chocolate", Maureen McKeon

Bourke Street Bakery Tarts

The Bourke St Bakery cookbook is my baking bible. It was given to me by three of my FANTASTIC friends for my 21st a couple of years ago. It has detailed step by step instructions often accompanied by pictures, which are invaluable for those first attempts at puff pastry and croissants. My favourites include the BSB sausage rolls and beef pies (which, made mini are excellent for parties) and the quiches, tarts, plain and chocolate croissants, which got a great reception at a brunch i baked for recently. One recipe in particular i keep coming back to is the one for rhubarb tarts. Blind baked mini tart shells are filled with a mixture of creme patisserie and frangipane and a piece of poached rhubarb (or pear, or plum, ect...) is placed in the centre. They are so moorish!  You can use your preferred sweet shortcrust pastry recipe. Theirs is a fairly robust one as they aim for the rustic look. This recipe also rates high for convenience, you can line all the pastry tins, wrap them up in cling film and freeze them for up to 3 months, you can do the same with the frangipane. I've often had left over mixture and frozen that as well, and it seems to cope just fine.