Biscuits

I'm saving hard at the moment for an overseas adventure scheduled for next year, which means everyone's getting home-made presents this Christmas. People generally appreciate the effort this entails and forget that you're being a bit cheap. This year I made a few different batches of biscuits/cookies for my work mates and some sweet-toothed family members. The selection included some short bread, these fig and date scrolls from Lottie and Doof and chocolate chunk biscuits. I did also make jam thumbprints (Gwyneth Paltrow's recipe) but i over cooked them a little, they are very tasty, however, and a healthier alternative. Packed in a jar or chinese takeaway box and tied with a festive ribbon they make a sweet and pretty Christmas gift. Happy holiday!!

Chocolate chunk biscuits:

Ingredients: 

1 tblsp instant coffee granules

2 tblsp boiling water

200 g plain flour

1/4 tsp bi-carb (baking) soda

185 g unsalted butter

175 g caster sugar

115 g firmly packed soft brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp natural vanilla extract

250 g roughly chopped dark chocolate

185 g chopped unsalted nuts (walnuts, almonds, pecans)

Method:

Line two baking trays with baking paper. 

Dissolve the coffee granules in the boiling water. Allow to cool. 

Sift the flour and bi-carb soda together.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter an sugar together until pale and fluffy. Beat in the dissolved coffee, the egg and vanilla. 

Add the flour and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture is well blended. Add the chopped chocolate and nuts, mixing thoroughly. 

Cover the mixture and chill for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 170*C.

Roll about 1 tblsp of dough at a time into a ball the size of a walnut and place on the prepared trays, allowing room for the biscuits to spread. Bake for 12-14=5 minutes, or until golden brown. 

Allow to firm on the trays for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. 

  

Makes 30-35.

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

Fig and date scrolls 

Pumpkin and Goats Cheese Pasta

I haven't had a dud pumpkin this whole year. A while back, I had to stop buying them because every second one was watery and tasteless. This was the time I got heavily into purple sweet potatoes and would use them to make this dish. It is really better suited to pumpkin, however, as it is a less carby accompaniment to the pasta. This is a simple meal to prepare and quite attractive with its contrasting colours. The combination of flavours and textures, sweet pumpkin, salty olives and creamy goats cheese and crunchy almonds make it exceptionally tasty. 

Ingredients:

1/2 (600g) pumpkin (i used jap)

extra virgin olive oil

20 black olives, pitted

fresh thyme

2 handfuls greens, baby spinach, beetroot leaves, warrigal greens 

half cup of slivered almonds 

120g goats curd or chevre  

350g good quality dried papperdelle

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200*C.  Dry roast the almonds in a hot pan until golden, set aside. Chop the pumpkin into 2cm by 2cm chunks, rum with olive oil and bake for 30-40 minutes, until tender and caramelised. Half way through the cooking time, add the olives and picked time. Wash greens thoroughly and dry. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil for the pasta, add a teaspoon or so of sea salt and cook the pasta until al dente. Drain, and return the pasta to the pot. Add a dash of olive oil and the greens, stir to wilt. Add half the pumpkin and olives to the pasta and combine. Distribute pasta among four serving plates. Top with the remaining pumpkin, a dollop of goats cheese and scatter with slivered almonds. Serve immediately.    

Serves Four. 

Recipe adapted from Maggie Beer on the Cook and the Chef. 

Poached Rhubarb

With the amount of rhubarb I go through each week I am so regretful that I didn't plant any in my veggie patch. We are still in peak season in Sydney, so it is plentiful and fairly cheap. For my sister's brunch a couple of weeks back I poached some rhubarb to go with the granola and yogurt. It was very easy and looked great on the table. There was a fair amount left over, however, and I became slightly addicted to it. I ate so much that my teeth got that gritty feeling which is caused by the small amount of the toxin present in the stalks, mainly found in the leaves (why you shouldn't eat them). It was especially delicious with a blob of homemade yogurt, and I suspect would be equally so with some vanilla ice cream. 

Poached Rhubarb:

Ingredients: 

Two bunches rhubarb - 750g, chopped into two cm lengths 

150 unrefined cane sugar

2 tblsp water, if necessary

Method:

Place the rhubarb and sugar in a thick bottomed saucepan and stir to combine. Leave for an hour for the sugar to extract the moisture in the rhubarb. Cook on a very low heat, stirring every so often, for 30-45 minutes, until the rhubarb is soft and disintegrating. Add the water if the rhubarb is too dry. Allow to cool. 

Store in an airtight container in the fridge. 

Recipe adapted from Gourmet Traveller, June.  

Garlic

My first ever post featured Patrice Newel's superb biodynamic purple garlic, of which i had ordered a couple of kilos. In March this year I planted about 10 cloves in my veggie patch. For 8 months or so I watched the garlic sprout and produce tendrils of long green leaves. I resisted (for the most part) digging into the soil to check the size of the bulb and having minimal gardening skills I prepared myself for failure. But in mid-november I dug up the first row and found perfectly formed (though a little small) purple garlic bulbs! I was beyond excited and just sat and stared at them for a while. The second row didn't fare so well, they were blocked from the sun by more broad beans and I think I may have planted them later. Garlic is actually one of the best things to have in the garden, it requires very little labour and keeps the bugs off better than any spray or pellet. To plant your own garlic crop you'll need to buy some organic, local garlic. In around March (early Autumn) it will begin to sprout, when this happens simply plant individual cloves about 20cm apart and 5cm deep in the soil, with the green shoot pointing upwards. Keep well watered. The garlic can't have been sprayed, else it won't sprout. Whilst garlic is delicious and a component of so many dishes, I think people forget that it isn't available all year round. It does store fairly well dried but from about August to miid October I use very little garlic, maybe occasionally some Russian garlic, which has a different season. I have found that for the most part this really doesn't detract from the flavour of most dishes. I never buy Chinese or South American garlic, I would prefer to wait and enjoy it in all its glory when the season arrives.  

Eton Mess

I cooked for my sister's birthday brunch over weekend. I love making brunch food; croissants, puff pastry, mini tarts, granola, yogurt, jams! All my favourites. I especially enjoyed making pissaladiere's, circles of puff pastry topped with caramelised onion and then roasted capsicum, olives and goats cheese or mushrooms and mozzarella and then baked. So tasty! Unfortunately, things got a bit hectic and i didn't get to take as many photos as i'd wanted. I do have a sneaking suspicion that many of my sister's friends think i have no life, as everything from the puff pastry to the yogurt and jams were homemade. Oh well. Doing it that way is hard work but so satisfying and it means I have control over all the ingredients. I love watching people enjoy my food, appreciating the effort and asking questions about the process. I managed to get some photos of the Eton mess' served at the end. They were hastily put together but I still like the look of them in my new mason jars, next time, however, I will make more coulis. 

Meringues: 

Ingredients:

200g egg whites (about 6)

400g castor sugar

Method:

Preheat the over to 150*C. In a stainless steel bowl stir the sugar and whites together. Place over a saucepan of simmering water and stir with a spatula until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is warm. Scrape down the sides of the bowl frequently to prevent sugar crystals forming. Remove the bowl from over the saucepan, wipe the base clean and transfer to the bowl of an electric mixer. Whisk on high speed for 8-10mins, until stiff peaks have formed and the mixture is cool. Spoon or pipe the mixture onto trays lined with baking paper and place in the oven. reduce the heat to 130*C. Cook for 1 1/2 hours. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Store in an airtight container. 

Makes 20 medium sized meringues. 

Eton Mess:

Ingredients: 

5 Punnets (punnet = 250g) strawberries

Half a lemon

5 tblsp icing sugar, sifted

1 litre whipping cream

20 meringues (above)

Method:

To make the coulis, wash and hull 3 punnets of the strawberries. Puree in a food processor with the lemon juice and four tblsp of the icing sugar. pass through a fine mesh sieve, pushing the pulp with the back of a spoon to good as much liquid out as possible. Whip the cream to soft peaks with the remaining tblsp of icing sugar (do not over whip) and wash, hull and slice the remaining strawberries. Break up the meringues into bite sized pieces and place in a large mixing bowl. Carefully fold in the cream and 2/3 of the remaining strawbs. Fold in half the coulis to give a marbled effect. Distribute the remaining coulis between 16-18 200ml jars or glasses. Spoon the eton mess into the jars. Top with the remaining strawberries and if desired, sift over some icing sugar. 

Makes 16-18 individual Eton Mess'. 

Recipe Sources: 

Meringues: Bourke Street Bakery Cookbook

Eton Mess: Based on David Herbert's Recipe in The Weekend Australian Magazine, October, 2007. 

Cumquat Marmalade

I've never been a big fan of marmalade, the bitter bits of skin can be an unpleasant intrusion in an otherwise sweet, syrupy jam. We have, however, three cumquat trees. They did not produce a lot of fruit, but enough to warrant preserving. I collected 500g of fruit and it took me ONE HOUR to painstakingly slice each cumquat as thinly as possible. It was worth it, i think. The jam is a lovely amber colour speckled with perfectly distributed thin curls of skin. And i don't even mind the taste. Probably because of all the work i put in, the skin is thin enough so the bitterness isn't too dominant. Pretty good with some salted butter and toasted sourdough. 

Ingredients:

Equal parts cumquats, water, and sugar (i used raw).

Method:

Wash the fruit and slice with a sharp knife as thin as possible, removing the seeds and setting aside as you find them. Place the sliced fruit in a wide and (if possible) shallow saucepan with the water. Place the seeds in a muslin bag, secure with some string and place in the post. Bring to a simmer and cook gently until the fruit is soft - minimal 'bite' left in the skin, 1/2-1 hour, depending on how thin you sliced the skin. While the fruit is cooking, place a saucer in the freezer and preheat the oven to low. Wash the jars and rinse with boiling water, place on a tray lined with a tea towel and into the oven. Warm the sugar in the oven as well. When the fruit is soft, remove from the heat and take out the muslin bag, squeezing off any excess jam with a pair of tongs. Pour in the sugar, stirring to dissolve. Return to a high heat and boil until setting point in reached (20-30mins, though its hard to give a time), to test for setting place a teaspoonful of jam on the cold saucer, move the sauce around and then push the jam with a fingertip, if it wrinkles or holds its shape well, it is set, if it runs freely, boil for longer. Once set, ladle into jars and seal. 

Pizza Pie!

My favourite meal in the whole world is pizza. I love it so much that sometimes I can't think of anything else. It has to be really good pizza, though. Pizza Mario's in Surry Hills is the best i've ever had (i haven't been to the birthplace of pizza yet, but a trip is immanent). The crust is thin but chewy, baked to perfection in a wood fired oven. Strict topping rules are enforced: simple and restrained, using top notch ingredients. I always get the margarita with mushrooms and olives. So so good. I have been making pizza at home for a while now, they are never anywhere near as good as PM's, but i refuse to give up and i feel they are slowly improving as i experiment with different methods. I use fresh yeast when i can and half white bakers flour/half wholemeal flour, for texture. My sauce is slow cooked until thick and flavoursome. For this batch, I splurged on buffalo mozzarella, which is the perfect cheese for pizza. The pesto is a tasty alternative. Just follow the recipe here, though i used macadamias in place of pine nuts (I don't trust pine nuts anymore, and they are ridiculously expensive). You could also slice some fresh tomato over the top and/or dot with goats curd to liven it up a bit. Pizza done this way is not at all bad for you and should be eaten regularly. Serve with a fresh green salad dressed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a splash of red wine vinegar.  

Pizza Base (makes 6):

Ingredients: 

15g fresh yeast

1/2 tsp castor sugar

1tblsp warm water

250g strong white bakers flour (plus extra for dusting)

250g wholemeal fllour
2tblsp whole milk powder (optional)

1 1/2tsp salt

375ml warm water

1/4 cup olive oil
polenta for the final dust

Method:

Mix the yeast, sugar and 1 tbslp of warm water in a small dish. Set aside for 5-10 mins until frothy and bubbly. Mix together the flours, salt and milk powder (if using) in a large bowl, making a well in the centre. Pour the yeast mixture and oil into the centre, pour the warm water in and stir with a fork until the mixture becomes too thick and you need to use your hands. Tip out onto a floured surface and need for 10mins until it is 'tacky' (not to wet nor dry) to the touch. Leave in a oil slicked bowl covered with cling film for 90mins, until doubled in size. Take out of the bowl and need briefly, divide unto 6 equal sized balls, place on a floured surface and cover with a damp tea towel for 15mins to prove. Dust with polenta and roll out the balls into flat discs, stretching with your hands to get them fairly thin, Its up to personal preference as to how thin you stretch them. Set in a very hot oven for a couple of mins. Cool on wire racks (they can be frozen at this point as well). Top as desired and return to the oven until golden and bubbly. Slice and serve immediately.

Tomato sauce (makes enough for about 4 pizzas):

Ingredients: 

olive oil 

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 small chilli (or more, to taste), chopped

2 tins whole, peeled tomatoes 

1 tblsp dried oregano

salt n' pepper

Method:

Heat a splash of olive oil in a saucepan, sauté the garlic and chilli being careful not to burn the garlic (as it will turn bitter). Add the tomatoes and oregano, bring to a slow simmer and cook for and hour and an hour and a half, breaking up the tomatoes towards the end. 

Base Recipe from Maggie Beer, Maggie's Harvest.