Pumpkin, Sweet Potato and Hazelnut Salad

It was my mum’s birthday the other day and my gift was to cook her dinner (a bit cheap, perhaps, but the best I can manage at the moment). For the main, I made spinach tortellini stuffed with herbed ricotta. As I get tired cutting, filling and folding the tortellini fairly quickly I can never make too many and so needed a fairly substantial salad to accompany them. Pumpkins have been fabulous this year and hazelnuts provide a nice alternative to the ubiquitous pine nut. I used beetroot leave but baby spinach, rocket or any lettuce greens would do.

Ingredients:

½ butternut pumpkin (or other variety)

1 medium purple sweet potato, peeled

1/3 cup hazelnuts

Half cup of labne (or goats curd or feta)

3 handfuls of greens, rinsed and spun

1 tblsp lemon juice

3 tblsp extra virgin olive oil

Cut clove of garlic

Salt and pepper

Method:

Preheat the oven to 190*C. lightly toast the nuts, wrap in a tea-towel allow to cool and then rub the skins off. Chop the pumpkin and peeled sweet potato into 2cm by 2cm cubes, toss with 1 tblsp of the olive oil, salt and pepper and place on a lined tray and in the oven for 30-40mins, until golden and tender, turning with a spatula every so often to promote even baking. Once cooked, remove and allow to cool to warm or room temp. To make the dressing combine the lemon juice and remaining olive oil, salt and pepper in a cup and whisk until combined. Rub a salad bowl with the cut garlic, add the greens and a little dressing, toss to combine. Add the  pumpkin mix, hazelnuts and top with labne/cheese and drizzle over the rest of the dressing. 

Panforte

Every year at around this time my family and I head up to the mid north coast for a week or two. I am probably too old to still be going on family holidays but I love it too much to give it up just yet. Boomerang Beach, a 20 minute drive from Foster, will always be my favourite beach in the world. It is the perfect length for a mildly strenuous jog and in a gentle nor-easter there is no place better to be. Swimming conditions this year were superb; gentle surf and warm water. We were also lucky with the weather, considering the all-round abysmal summer it has been, and had plenty of sunny days. For the last few years I have made a couple of panforte to take away with us. They travel well and improve with age, making them the perfect holiday treat. Serve a thin(ish) slice with coffee and savour slowly. Heaven. 

Ingredients:

140g/1 cup hazelnuts

310g/2 cups blanched almonds (see below)

320g/2 cups unsalted macadamia nuts

120g unsalted raw pistachio nuts (if available, otherwise make up the wight with the other nuts)

200g dried figs or apricots, thinly sliced

300g/2 cups good quality dark chocolate, chopped

600g honey

115g raw or white caster sugar

185g plain flour

2 tblsp unsweetened dutch cocoa powder

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp fresh grated nutmeg

Method:

Toast the nuts, keeping each type separate, on baking paper lined trays in a hot oven to a pale golden. Rub the hot hazelnuts in a clean cloth to remove the skins (or as much as will come off). Combine the hot nuts and sliced figs. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water. 

In a heavy based saucepan, gently heat the honey and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil and remove from the heat. Add the melted chocolate and beat well using a wooden spoon. 

Stir the flour, cocoa and spices into the nut and flour mixture, stir to mix, then add the chocolate and honey syrup. Do this fairly quickly as the mixture will be quite stiff. Distribute between the two tins, smoothing the top. 

Bake for 45-50 minutes. The cake should be firm but still quite glossy looking. It is almost better a little undercooked, where only the edges dry out a little and the centre is soft and chewy. 

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

Blanched Almonds

Blanched (skinned) almonds are expensive, far more so than regular almonds. I had no idea that you could skin them yourself, until the Greek lady at the vegetable shop enlightened me. The process is simple but a little time consuming. All you need to do is place the required number of almonds into a heat proof bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave for 3-4 minutes, drain and dry with a tea towl. Leave to cool slightly and then slip of the skins. Most will come off easily but there will be a few stubborn ones that won't budge. Once peeled, spread them out onto an oven tray and dry out in a hot oven for 8 minutes or so. 

Plum Jam

The steady rain we've had this summer over much of NSW has at least meant that everything is green and growing like crazy. My mum managed to pick these little plums before the birds got to them. They are so juicy that they are bursting at the seams. A little tart, however, they are perfect for making jam. They clung to their stones pretty tight but i got a reasonable amount of flesh, about 650g, from a kilo bag. It is important to reserve the stones, tie them up in a muslin bag and add them to the pot for pectin. The jam set perfectly, is sweet but retains a nice touch of tartness. It is also a beautiful colour. Be careful not to over boil. I noticed that the syrup went a slightly darker colour just as it reached boiling point. Keep a saucer in the freezer and every so often drip a teaspoon full of syrup onto it, allow it to cool and push it gently with the back of a spoon. At first it will run freely, but as it reaches setting point it will thicken up and offer a little resistance to the spoon. 

Ingredients:

650g plums, destoned (stones reserved and tied in a muslin bag)

300g water (around half the weight of the fruit)

400g raw sugar (more or less to taste)

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 50*C. Wash 3 or so jam jars, rinse with boiling water, place on a tea-towl lined tray and into the oven to dry. Place the sugar in a heat proof bowl and into the oven to warm up. Place the fruit, water and stones in a pot and simmer until the fruit and skins are soft. Remove from the heat. Stir in the sugar. Return to a high heat and boiling, testing every so often, until boiling point is reached. Remove from the heat, remove the bag of stones and ladle into jam jars. 

Ox-tail Ragu

I wish I was cool with eating offal but I’m not, just the thought of tucking into a plate of sautéed lambs brains or roasted cow heart makes me feel queasy. I am ok with tails, though, specifically ox-tails. I buy them from the Marion Plains people at the markets and it comes chopped in chunks, so I can mostly forget that it's a tail. As is the rule with muscular cuts of meat, long slow cooking is the way to go. Steaks do nothing for me, but  braised beef, tender and falling off the bone, makes me salivate. This recipe comes from the Careme pastry website and is used to make individual pies. Whenever I make them there is always some mixture left over. It is very rich on its own but mixed with some passata makes the perfect ragu for fresh tagliatelli or papperdelle.

Ingredients: 

Approx. 1.4kg Oxtail

Olive oil

1 carrot diced

1 brown onion diced

1 celery stalk diced

4 plump cloves garlic sliced

500ml full bodied red wine (Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon)

2 x 400g tin plum tomatoes

Zest of one orange

1 tablespoon fennel seeds ground

1 tablespoon black peppercorns ground

3 sprigs rosemary

2 bay leaves

500ml vegetable stock

tomato passata 

See here for fresh pasta

Method:

Preheat oven to 160C*. Pre heat pan, season and lightly flour the meat. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan once hot and seal meat in batches. Remove and set to one side. Now add the carrot, onion, celery and garlic to the same pan, scraping the bottom of the pan to remove any meat residue, sauté until soft.

Return meat to the pan add the wine, tomatoes, orange zest, spices, herbs and stock, ensuring the meat is submerged, if need be top up with a little water or more stock. Bring to a simmer, cover with lid and place in the oven for 4 hours.

Once cooked remove meat from the pan and set aside to cool. Once cool enough to handle pick the meat from the bones – discard bones.

Reduce the remaining sauce by approximately half until rich and thick – check sauce for seasoning. Once reduced add meat back to the sauce, remove from heat and transfer to a container and place in the fridge to cool (ideally for 24 hours).

Use to make pies or add 3 (or to taste) cups of passata to 1 cup of the oxtail mixture. 

Meat Patties

It's dangerous to make general comments about hamburgers. They have the potential to make a tasty, nutritious and satisfying meal. Obviously, though, there are also the bad sort. For an experiment, one of my sister's friends ate a month old maccas hamburger that hadn't been kept in the fridge, just in its original packaging. And they were fine! Apparently the burger looked the same and tasted pretty much the same as a fresh one. That is disturbing on so many levels. Anyway, on the flip side, home made burger patties: easy to make and they freeze very well. Serve them however you desire. At the moment my favourite combo is hummus, tomato and rocket on toasted sourdough. 

Meat Patties:

Ingredients:

500g organic chuck steak, trimmed (leave some fat) 

olive oil 

1 brown onion, finely sliced

1 clove of garlic, finely sliced

1 chilli (or to taste) finely chopped

handful of parsley, chopped

tbslp chopped rosemary

1/2 cup of fresh breadcrumbs

1/4 cup milk 

salt and pepper

Method:

Heat up a small frypan over a low heat, add the oil, add the onion and chilli and cook slowly until the onion is translucent, but no browning. Add the garlic cook for 30 seconds or so. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Soak the breadcrumbs in the milk. Grind up the meat, add some salt and pepper, the herbs, onion mix and breadcrumbs. Shape into 5 balls and flatten into patties, wrap in cling wrap and freeze, or place in the fridge for half and hour or so to firm up before cooking. Cook on a griddle pan set over low to medium heat on each side until cooked through, about 5-7 mins each side. Serve preferred way. 

Serves 5. 

Simple Beetroot Dip

My birthday is on December 26, the day after Christmas. In a lot of ways, it's a really crappy day to have a birthday. People are hungover, stuffed full of food and sick of celebrating. On the other hand, it's a public holiday and i've never had to work or study. This year I had a few friends over and kept things simple as I was pretty pooped from Christmas day preparations. I just made a few dips, a tabouli and some baked olives. Everybody mixed their own drinks, the most popular being fresh drinking coconuts from Thailand spiked with Bacardi. This beetroot dip was the easiest to prepare and added a vivid streak of colour to the spread. 

Ingredients: 

4 medium sized beetroots

1/2 to 2/3 cup Labne*

1/2 large lemon, juiced

salt and pepper

Method: 

Pre-heat the oven to 200*C, line an ovenproof dish with baking paper. Trim the stems of the beets 2 cm from the base, rinse clean. Place in the baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and cover with foil. Bake for 2 1/2 hours, or until tender when pierced with a skewer. Leave to cool enough to handle, slip of skins. Coarsely grate beets into a bowl, stir in the yogurt, lemon juice, salt and pepper until well combined. Serve with pita bread, cibatta or wraps. 

* Mix a teaspoon of salt into 1 to 1 1/2 cup of natural yogurt, place into a strainer lined with muslin over a bowl and leave for a few hours or overnight.