Book 20: Pressure Cooking - The Australian Women's Weekly

I love the lead up to Christmas (yes I'm aware its September), not only do I lurve the holiday season, presents, trees etc.  But its the time of year when all the new cookbooks are released!  May not sound very exciting and most normal people probably won't even notice it, but seriously everyone releases new cookbooks before Christmas and I'm like a kid in a candy store...  Or me in a book store?  There is something so magical about brand new cookbooks,  especially when you didn't know about it.  I love randomly coming across a unknown book, especially good dessert books, whilst browsing through book stores.  You can always tell if I find something good I don't have, I tend to do a really embarrassing squeal and a small amount of dancing.  I know its ridiculous that I get so excited about new cookbooks, I really shouldn't be looking at them at all, but I just love them so much.  I love that someone has found the time and motivation to knuckle down in the kitchen and invent some food.  Cos that's what cookbooks are, invented or reimagined food.  Now I'm fairly competent in the kitchen (ignoring choux pastry, scones and lasagna) but its a very rare occasion I come across something that would be worth putting in a book.  When I say 'very rare' I really mean never, if I'd ever stumbled across anything remotely book worthy I'd be on here quicker than you could say "Wow! I invented a cheesecake".  That's not true.... I'd eat it all first, whilst bragging to everyone I know and then I'd forget how to make it and what I actually made...  Damn you imaginary cheesecake!!!  (This comes with me shaking my fist at the sky, Basil Faulty style) :)

Recipe - Greek-Style Lamb Shanks

1 tblsp olive oil
4 French-trimmed lamb shanks  (I used regular)
1 medium brown onion, chopped finely
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
410g canned crushed tomatoes
125mls dry red wine
1 sprig fresh rosemary

1.  Heat half the oil in a 6-litre pressure cooker, cook lamb in batches, until browned.  Remove from cooker.

2.  Heat remaining oil in cooker, cook onion and garlic until onion softens.  Add spices, cook until fragrant.  Return lamb to cooker with undrained tomatoes, wine and rosemary, secure lid.  Bring cooker to high pressure.  Reduce heat to stabilise pressure and cook for 30 minutes.

3.  Release pressure using the quick release method and remove lid.  Season to taste.

___________________________________

This book was purchased in what I like to call my pressure cooker phase.  The problem with this pressure cooker book is that almost everything in it has meat.  Apart from a small section of desserts, the other chapters are almost exclusively meat dishes, chicken, beef, lamb etc.  Which is perfectly fine but is kinda annoying when you may not be a huge meat eater.  I have another pressure cooker book which is brilliant and includes heaps of vegetarian meals.  But if you are a meat eater and really like stewy like things, this may be the book for you!

To talk about the recipe, I need to first explain my aversion to lamb shanks.  My first experience of lamb shanks was having them boiled, have you ever had boiled lamb shanks?  The come out grey and sludgy and horrid.  So when other people drool over lamb shanks, I feel vaguely ill.  Matty on the other and adores lamb shanks, so I put aside my dislike and gave them a go.  I've got to say that they were fairly awesome.  I was a bit concerned that 30 minutes wouldn't be long enough to have them falling off the bone, I shouldn't of worried.  I actually had trouble getting them out of the pot they were falling apart that much.  This recipe recommends that you serve them with mashed potatoes, I'd also add some green veggies for colour.  The recipe is delicious and even though I'm not completely sold on shanks, they didn't make me feel sick at all :)

Thanks
Kate
xx

Book 19: Cookies - The Australian Women's Weekly

Thursday is the day I get all my jobs done, by jobs I mean shopping. Charli goes to kinder and Sam and I head off to throw some money away (at the supermarket, my life is boring!). Sam and I have one main rule whilst shopping, No Touching the Things! Its fairly simple, you could say straight forward even? Before we walk into a store we repeat the rule and then  just as quickly, it gets discarded. I must clarify that this rule is not discarded by me, but by the very angelic terror who shares my shopping time. The instant we go somewhere the hands go out and the fingers start twinkling, I've come to the conclusion Sam thinks that if his hand accidentally come in contact with something its not touching!  Shopping time also seems to be Sam's visiting time with the toys he thinks he shares custody with, luckily its supervised visits.  Target in particular has a very set routine, first we visit Elmo (the one with the singing and drums), the Dinosaurs (fingers get a great workout here) and finally Lightning McQueen, lets ignore the slight detour we sometimes (always) make to the recipe books.  The problem with these visits is we can never move quickly through Target, every toy gets its special time of singing and dancing, Elmo in particular has to sing two or three times and god help me if we don't see him!  Now it may seem like bad parenting on my behalf to allow this to happen, especially when I get annoyed with the tantrums... but, my rational is that we don't go home with any of the toys, we only visit them, plus it keeps my giant 2 year old (he is big for his age) from screaming the shop down.  I cannot stand my children screaming and I find I can't discipline them the same way I would at home, while we are out and about (mixed signals much?).   Nothing screams bad parenting more, than my loud threats to take his Baxter (very, VERY, loved soft toy) and throw him out the car window if he doesn't stop carrying on.  So instead I pretend to be a good parent and confuse the little bugger by visiting toys he will probably never get to have (I'm not having stupid singing Elmo anywhere near my lounge room!) all the while avoiding tantrums and promising donuts....  Aren't you glad you come here for the recipes and not the parenting advise?

 Recipe - Praline Custard Creams
150g Plain flour
90g almond meal
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbls icing sugar

Custard filling
75g caster sugar
2 egg yolks
250ml milk
125g butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
80g icing sugar

Almond Praline
40g flaked almonds
110g caster sugar
2 tbls water

Custard Filling
Combine sugar and flour in a small saucepan;  Gradually stir in combined yolks and milk until smooth.  Cook, stirring, until mixture boils and thickens.  Simmer, stirring, over low heat, 1 minute;  remove from the heat.  Cover surface of custard with plastic wrap, refrigerate until cold.  Beat butter and extract until mixture is as white as possible, beat in the sifted icing sugar.  Beat in the cooled custard in four batches, until smooth.

Almond Praline
Place nuts on a baking-paper lined oven tray.  Combine sugar and the water in a small frying pan, stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved.  Bring to a boil and boil, uncovered, without stirring until golden brown. Pour toffee over nuts and leave to set at room temperature.  Crush praline finely in a food processor.

1.  Make custard filling and almond praline.
2.  Preheat oven to 160c/140c fan-forced.  Grease oven trays, line with baking paper.
3.  Process flour, meal and butter until crumbly.  Add egg yolk and extract, pulse until combined.
4.  Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth.  Roll dough between sheets of baking paper until 3mm thick.
5.  Using 3.5cm round cutter, cut 72 rounds from dough.  Place about 2cm apart on oven trays and bake for about 12 minutes.  Cool on trays.
6.  Sandwich cookies with custard filling.  Spread a little more custard filling around side of cookies.  Roll cookies in praline then dust with sifted icing sugar.

__________________________________________

This is a very cute little book!  Along with Cookies, you can also get Sweet, Chocolate, Cupcakes by Colour and Cheesecake, shockingly I have all of them.  It has a fantastic range of cookies in this book, from basic Tropical Florentines and Chocolate Brownies to the truly awesome Rhubarb Custard Melting Moments and Double Choc Chip Chili Cookies.  It really appeals to this snobby baking phase I'm going through, "Why these are my hand-made Wholemeal Rosemary Butter Rounds  Mrs Nesbit, surely you've heard of them?" <--- said in a very snobby voice with extremely rounded vowels! I have a stack of pink sticky notes, marking things I want to make from it, sticking out of the top.

No idea why I put these on a red plate??

The recipe itself has some great parts, the custard cream is a revelation (I'm going to use it to fill macaroons), the praline gives it a fantastic bitter bite and the biscuits aren't overly sweet.  The down side is, they are fiddly to put together and they don't last long.  When I say don't last long I don't mean eating wise.  It makes 36 biscuits which is great if you're having 40 people for morning tea, but is kinda hard to polish off quickly, even for me.  The reason speed is an issue is because as soon as you roll the cookies in praline it starts to soften, then melt.  You can't store these, well you can but they look sloppy and kinda horrid after a day in the fridge.  So while I like these cookies and they taste delicious, for the amount of farting around you have to do to make them, its kinda not worth it.  What I would suggest, if you feel like having a go, is halve the recipe and make a more realistic amount.  Alternatively get some profiteroles from the Vietnamese bakery and save yourself the hassle of stuffing around with cookies that no-one will realise how much work you have put into.... :)

Aren't you glad I'm here to take all these recipe bullets for you, I only have this many recipe books because I'm trying to be helpful  :P  

Thanks
Kate
xx

On a side note, Matty actually asked me to make the Mudcake Sandwiches, so I put aside my dislike of all things chocolate flavoured and knocked some out :)

Book 18 : Collected Recipes - Belinda Jeffery's

I don't know why, but I get really annoyed with snobby recipe ingredients. Like most things that shit me it doesn't make much sense, but I get really annoyed when basic recipes require something that isn't available at the local supermarket.  A good example of a shit me ingredient is 'Free range organic chicken', seriously!  The reason this irritates me, is because I can't always get frochicken (I've shortened it) and sometimes I don't want to.  Don't get me wrong I'm all for chickens running around in the sunshine and I'd prefer the food I feed my children not to be filled with chemicals, but I don't want to feel guilty about not having enough time to hunt for them and for the price that makes my wallet hurt.   Another mega annoyance is sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Because iodised table salt is soooo crap and how dare you grind your pepper before you need it!  It might be hypocritical of me to dislike the sea salt request, considering I've got three types of spiffy sea salts in my pantry.  But I really don't think when you eat the below eggs you are going to comment on how the Muldon sea salt bring out the flavour of the tomatoes....  I also feel slightly better commenting on this knowing I've never opened my smoked and black sea salt, mainly cos I have no idea what to do with them!  I better go my frochicken, with Muldon sea salt and freshly ground pepper needs turning....  just kidding, I making cinnamon buns with iodised table salt :)

 Recipe - Sunday Night Eggs

2 tbls extra virgin olive
2 medium-sized red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 small red chilli, finely chopped
2 large red capsicums in thumbnail-sized chunks
1 tbls tomato paste
2 large ripe tomatoes, seeded and chopped
3/4 tsp sugar
1-2 tbls red or white wine vinegar
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
about 55g slivered black olives
4 fresh free-range eggs
2 chorizo sausages, sliced into rounds (optional)

Garnish
basil or parsley leaves
To Serve
crusty bread

1.  Heat the oil in a small frying pan over medium heat.  Add the onions and cook them, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes.  Stir in the garlic and cook them for 1 minute more.

2. Increase the heat to high and tip in the capsicum.  Cook it, tossing regularly, for 5 minutes.  Now add the tomato pesto  or paste, tomatoes, sugar and a good splash of vinegar.  Cook everything for 2-3 minutes more, giving it a stir occasionally.  Then reduce the heat to a low, cover the an and cook everything until capsicum is just tender, about 15 minutes.

3.  At this stage you want the mixture to be quite thick.  If it looks a bit watery, remove the lid, increase the heat and cook off any excess liquid (just be careful it doesn't catch on the base of the frying pan).  With the heat on low, stir in the salt, pepper and olives, if you're using them.  Taste the mixture and add a little ore vinegar if you think it need it.

4.  Now use the back of a spoon to make four little hollows in the capsicum mixture.  If you can, pile up the sides around the hollows a bit to help hold the eggs.  Break 1 egg at a time into a cup.  (If the eggs are really big, tip out a little of the white; it will overflow its hollow otherwise and look a bit messy.)  Slide an egg into each of the hollows.  Cover the pan and leave the eggs until they're just cooked how you like them.  The cooking time can vary quite a bit but the usually take 8-10 minutes.

5.  While the eggs are coking, saute the chorizo slices in a non-stick frying pan for 2-3 minutes, or until the are lightly coloured on both sides.

6.  When the eggs are ready, remove the pan from the heat.  Tuck the chorizo slices down into the mixture and sprinkle some basil  or parsley leaves over the top.  Make sure you have lots of crusty bread to mop up the juices.

__________________________________________________

This book was one of my more recent acquisitions, I got over excited at Myer's 40% off cookbooks sale and purchased this and another book.  I really like the look of this book, its got large pictures and separate recipes, which as you know is a favourite of mine.  There is also a great selection of recipes, from the basics to spiffy.  I actually was going to feature a lemon slice recipe that was more like a lemon tart, but it was rather sickly (because of the type of lemons I used), so I made the eggs instead.  (nothing like cracking the shits with a recipe).

The recipe itself is interesting (tasty interesting not blurk interesting) its the sort of thing you really could add anything to.  I wouldn't add the chorizo next time, I love chorizo but it made this a tad greasy.  I also wouldn't be to concerned about using only 4 eggs, I stuck a stack in ours and it looked and tasted fine.  Go nuts with the basil, I even added a little bit of grated Parmesan at the end.  Very delicious and fairly quick to make  so I think it will go on our slack night menu :)

Thanks
Kate
xx

Book 17 : Picnic Hamper - Jane Price

I'm slightly obsessive (just in case the number of cookbooks didn't tip you off!), so last year when Matt and the kids brought me a apple tree for mothers day I got slightly (read massively) over excited and went a bit tree nuts. Before you could say nice tree, I had 6 apples, 3 pears, 3 olives, 2 plums, 2 figs and 8 other various fruit trees, not including the 3 citrus trees. I'm pretty sure the only thing that slowed me down was the end of bare rooted season (always makes me laugh) and that Matt point blank refused to dig anymore holes until we had a house to go with the trees. The problem with me having a brief fruit tree obsession (there was also a short vegie garden bit) was that everyone assumes I like gardening, I don't! Because I don't like gardening you can almost set your watch to when things will start to die. Strangely my fruit trees seem to be holding up, mainly because its survival of the fittest, if any die I'll leave them there to show the others what will happen if they don't pull their weight. I know that makes no sense, but I planted (supervised) the damn things, my work here is done. Unfortunately my Mum, Grandmother, Sister and Mother-in-law,seem to think that having fruit trees also means I'll do other gardening. They keep asking me when I'll be putting in garden beds and plants etc. I assumed really tall weeds could be feature plants? Mum keeps dropping hints about weeding, I assumed that's what Round-up is for? I can honestly say I would rather staple my eyelids to my forehead than garden. Usually when we have a gardening day I make up some kind of excuse to go inside (glass of water?) and accidentally start making Cinnamon buns. Hopefully I'll come home one day and my front lawn will have a few garden beds, selectively planted with plants that required no maintenance at all (hint, hint Mum/Shirl)..... I spose I can dream.

I've stopped trying to tie my intros into the book I've been cooking from, so from now on sit back and enjoy some random, confused, waffling without trying to work out how it applies to Paella (or what ever else I'm cooking). Cos as usual I have no idea either :)

Recipe - Chicken and Chorizo Paella

60ml Olive Oil
1 large Red Capsicum, 5mm cut into strips
600g boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 3cm cubes
200g mushrooms, thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbls grated lemon zest
700g ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
200g green beans, trimmed and cut into 3cm lengths
1tbls chopped rosemary
2 tbls chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/4 tsp saffron threads dissolved in 60ml hot water
440g short-grain white rice
750ml hot chicken stock
6 lemon wedges, to serve

Heat the olive oil in a paella pan or in a large, heavy-based, deep frying pan over medium heat. Add the red capsicum strips and cook, stirring for about 6 minutes, or until softened, then remove from the pan.
  Add the chicken to the pan and cook for 10 minutes, or until browned.  Remove from the pan.  Add the chorizo to the pan and cook for 5 minutes, or until golden.  Remove from the pan.  Add the mushrooms, garlic and lemon zest to the pan, and cook over medium for 5 minutes.
  Stir in the tomatoes and capsicum, and cook for a further 5 minutes, or until the tomato is soft.
Add the beans, rosemary, parsley, saffron mixture, rice, chicken and chorizo.  Stir briefly and add the stock.  Do not stir at this point.  Reduce the heat ad simmer for 30 minutes.  Remove from the heat, cover and leave to stand for 10 minutes.  Serve with lemon wedges.

_____________________________________________

I brought this book when we were planning a trip to the zoo and it was an excuse to get another book (very poor excuse).  Not really sure taking a full dinner set and cutlery to the zoo is overly practical, but there are some nice recipes in here.  There are stacks of little finger foods, rolls, quiches etc along with a huge range of salads.  It also has some more impractical items like the above Paella and seafood's that I wouldn't want sitting in a picnic basket while I farted around looking at the gorillas.   On the other hand it has a really good desert section (always a winner for me) with a Apple Custard Slice that looks awesome.  Although its not a ground breaking book, it is fairly good with a wide range of picnicy recipes.

Be warned the recipe takes a while to cook, its messy (if you're me) and has a stack of steps, so its easy to forget something.  Luckily I didn't this time, but I did have issues with my paella pan, I picked mine up for $5.99 at Aldi, sadly it doesn't conduct heat very well so took ages to get going.  The paella itself seems fairly bland, although that might of been my annoyance with how long it took to cook, I'm sure there are better recipes around.  Next time I think I'd make the custard slice... mmm

Thanks
Kate
xx

Ps:  Did you notice how I pretended that all my previous intros had something to do with the books :)

Book 16: Cakes - Country Women's Association

I'm a compulsory volunteerer (not a word?), whenever anyone is asking for volunteers for committees or anything remotely similar, I seem to get helium in my hand and is raises itself!..  The stupid thing is I like helping out, but I also have a memory like a siv.  I will quite often volunteer for things and then forget what I'm suppose to do.  Last year was a prime example when I put my hand up for the communications coordinator position at my daughters kinder.  Massively over-excited I headed off to my first meeting where I was told that the job wasn't required, so I could be a regular committee member instead.  I was a bit disappointed at first because I had grand plans for my position, facebook etc (facebook was pretty much it, but I'm sure it would have been awesome).   When they finally asked me (I volunteered) to organise a girls night out for the women at the kinder, I organised the time, date and venue to book and then promptly forgot everything about it.  So when someone reminded me 3 days before the night I panicked a tad and half-arsely organised something which no-one could attend.  I also forgot to do minutes, the monthly newsletter (every time), plates for a fundraiser and a few other things that I've forgotten.  So you will imagine my surprise when I rocked up to the final meeting and they had volunteered me (not me this time) for the vice-presidents job this year.  The vice-presidents job sucks, you have to fill in for everyone when they aren't there and considering there are only 4 of us that ever turn up its kinda horrid.  I still have 3 sets of minutes I needs to type up and people expect me to know what I'm talking about.   I have to tell you, I have no idea what I'm doing!  I'm horrible at taking minutes, I tend to take over any conversations, forget what we were talking about and waffle on for 10 minutes about something stupid I've done (there are lots of options).  I also forget to write anything down and can never remember anyones names.  Strangely they don't appreciate me taking minutes how interesting I find Aldi catalogues.........

Recipe - Apple Kuchen
1\2 cup plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
salt
sugar, to taste
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup yogurt
2 eggs

Topping
1/2 cup self-raising flour
1/3 cup sugar
3 tblsp butter
2 medium apples, peeled and sliced

Preheat oven to 175c.  Grease a 23-cm square baking pan (line it to or you won't get it out!!)
  To make streusel topping, place flour, sugar and butter in a food processor and process until crumbly.  Transfer to a bowl and add apple slices, stirring to coat.
  For the cake, add all ingredients to the food processor and process briefly.  Scrape down the sides, the process for a few more seconds.
  Spread batter in prepared pan.  Neatly arrange the apple-streusel mixture on top.  Bake for 40-45 minutes.

_______________________________________________

This is a typical CWA cookbook, there are about eight different fruit cake recipes and its all measured in volume (which I hate!).  There are some lovely looking recipes, Custard cake, Hawaiian Tea cake and Orange Tea cake.  There are also the standard Carrot cake, Pavlova and 15 types of Fruit cake, I'm not a fan of fruit cake so this seemed a tad excessive to me.  But fruit cake aside, it is a very nicely set out book, with clear pictures and very stripped back recipes.  My biggest draw back is the measurements in volume (cups) and not weight.  I love my scales so I'd prefer everything to be in weight, plus the kids are always stealing my measuring cups.

The recipe itself looks really delicious, in reality its really bland.  The apple is soft and so is the rest of the cake, next time I would cut the apples chunkier and add cinnamon and macadamia nuts to the topping.  On the bright side, it takes about 20 minutes to make from start to oven and is really easy to put together.  But if you make it as is be prepared for nice, add the extra stuff and it should be awesome.  Next thing you know I'll be calling myself the recipe whisperer..... I'll go now

Thanks
Kate
xx

Have you noticed my introductions are getting slightly more random?  I'd like to pretend I'll stay on track, but we all know that's not going to happen  :)

Book 15: Easy Kids' Party Food - Woman's Day

I think the funniest thing we do in my household is to cook together.  I say funniest and not fun because its only afterwards that I can look at it in a funny way.  The problem with anyone cooking with me, is my territorial control freak comes rearing to the surface.  Don't get me wrong its never far from the surface but when ever anyone steps into my kitchen it rears its ugly head more than usual.  I try really hard not to be a control freak (so lying!), but when it comes to my kitchen (and most other things) I'm like a crocodile in a pond, I come out snapping!  Its really not intentional, I do like having people in my kitchen, feel free to come and watch me cook anytime (although I do get distracted) just don't give me advise and don't try to help!  If you ask if you can help me and I say no, I seriously mean no (in the nicest possible way)!  I'm not just trying to be nice, I have everything under control and even if the stove is on fire, I've got it.  So when the kids step into the kitchen (metaphorically, they are on stools on the other side of the bench) it tends to go down hill quickly.  I love cooking with my children, they are the biggest joy in my life (queue the violins) and such brilliant kids that doing anything with them is fun (except going to the supermarket, don't do that!).  The problem is I'm set in my ways, what ever I'm cooking I have it in my head how we are going to make it and what its going to look like.  Unfortunately children in their 2's and 4's have their own ideas on how its going to go down, these don't always mesh with mine.  Our biggest issue seems to lie with the quantity of ingredients, I want to use it in the recipe, Sam and Charli on the other hand think it should be eaten now.  Today's recipe is a great example, we had twice the amount of ingredients required, in some cases like cheese we had four times the required amount.  Still, at the end of the cooking process we had no cheese left, noses missing on most pizzas and the hair had disappeared.  I think its hilarious that Sam yells at Charli for eating anything, apparently its for the cooking, whilst managing to shovel handfuls of cheese into his gob.  Poor Charli loves cooking, she gets so excited whenever she gets to help and generally she is quite helpful.  She can crack eggs like its nobodies business and its very good at cutting things up.  But she also likes to do everything and know exactly what we are doing every step of the way, sometimes I can only say I'm folding the ingredients so many times before my head rotates 360c and explodes...  One awesome thing with cooking with kids is that if something doesn't turn out right or is a bit messy I just explain that the kids helped...  even if they haven't!!  :)


I found my camera, YAY!!

Recipe - Pizza Faces
makes 4

2 small prepared pizza bases
1/2 cup tomato pasta sauce
1 cup grated pizza cheese
8 stuffed olives (for eyes)
4 slices kabana (for noses)
4 slices of red capsicum (for mouths)
8 slices button mushrooms (for ears)
1/3 cup chopped rindless bacon (for hair)

Preheat oven to hot, 200c.  Line an oven tray with baking paper.  Cut 2 x 12cm rounds for each   pizza bases.
Spread each round with pasta sauce.  Place on prepared tray.  Sprinkle with cheese.
Arrange ingredients on bases to make faces.  Bake for 5-10 minutes until golden and the bases are crisp.

__________________________________________

Charli making her first pizza

This is a fun little book, as the title suggests its full of kids party food ideas and some of them are brilliant.  There are so many kids party books around now, that you tend to find duplicate recipes in all of them.  This book is quite original and the recipes are easy to follow and make.


This recipe is ok, we used WAY to much cheese on ours (I was trying to beat Sam) and some of the topping slid off the sides.  But they are very cute and when they weren't eating the ingredients the kids had a great time putting them together.  I would recommend cooking them longer than suggested as they were still a bit soft.  But otherwise, we will make them again, although I'll make my own bases next time as paying $6.99 for 2 medium bases annoyed me (I've been living with Matt to long).  All in all this is the simplest thing I've cooked so far in my challenge and its been kinda nice...... now on to something a little more complicated :P
Thanks
Kate
xx

If you are having trouble commenting, make sure you preview your comment before posting otherwise it doesn't seem to work.... feel free to comment when ever you like, bad, good I'm happy to hear from you and would love to know if making any sense cos have no idea what I'm doing :)

Not much pizza making going on!

Book 14: Dinner at Matt's - Matt Moran

I love deserts, I may have mentioned  it before? Knowing me, a number of times.  I don't so much like the deserts themselves, if I made it myself, but i love the preparation and planning that goes into deserts.  At the moment I'm going through a snobby desert phase, which involves me scouring my recipe books to find something I've never cooked before but looks spectacular.  This sometimes ends badly, recently for my sister Kristy's birthday she asked for Creme Brulees.  I was in luck when she left it up to me to decide what sort of creme brulee to make.  On a side note if I ever ask you what you want for desert (or anything else) I've already got it in my head what I want to make, your opinion is not really required but as I'm fairly (not always) polite I'll ask for you thoughts, for future reference you response should be "I don't mind, you decide!".  Anyway back to the Creme Brulee, I decide on a spiced creme brulee and it was delicious!  The problem was the recipe called for the egg yolks to be whisked in a stand mixer, which is brilliant unless you forget they are mixing and come back to mega fluffy yolks (I'm easily distracted).  Not sound to up myself, but I rock at custards!  You know how you hear about custards splitting and going clotty?  Well that doesn't happen to me.. I'm the custard whisperer.  So, custard whisperer aside, I added the hot cream mixture to my fluffy yolks, confident that all was well.  The custard was smooth and silky, but is was also mega bubbly.  I didn't think much about it until the brulees all sank in their molds.  I cannot tell you how hard it is to brulee (melt sugar) whilst your custard catches on fire because of all the weird bubble mess on the sides.  To make a long, waffley, slightly incoherent story short, the Spicy Creme Brulees looked like gungy crud but tasted great.  Needless to say I'll never be able to make a good custard again after my 'custard whisperer" comment, it will be the damn Choux pastry all over again (see earlier blogs)... 

Recipe - Chocolate and Earl Gray Tea Tart

750ml pouring cream
5 Earl Grey tea tarts
50g good-quality dark chocolate
420g good-quality milk chocolate
50g unsalted butter, softened
good-quality cocoa powder, for dusting

Chocolate sponge
50g good-quality dark chocolate
5 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
1 1/2 tblsp good-quality cocoa powder
4 egg whites

Creme Chantilly
150ml cream
1 tblsp icing sugar
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped and reserved pot set aside for another use

Firstly, make the chocolate sponge.  Preheat the oven to 190c and  lightly grease a 30cm x 40cm baking tray, then line with non-stick baking paper.
  Melt the 50g dark chocolate in a dry heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure that you don't let any water come into contact with the chocolate.  Once the chocolate has melted, transfer it to a mixing bowl and set aside to cool slightly.
  In a electric mixer, whisk the egg yolks with half the caster sugar until thick and pale.  Fold this in the melted chocolate, then fold in the cocoa.
  Whisk the egg whites in the electric mixer until soft peaks form, then gradually add the remaining sugar and whisk until stiff peaks form.  Gently fold this into the chocolate mixture until combined.  Spread the mixture evenly onto the prepared tray to a thickness of 1cm and top with another sheet of non-stick baking paper.  Bake for about 10 minutes or until the sponge is just cooked and springy to the touch.
  Meanwhile, bring the 750mls of cream to a simmer in a saucepan, then remove from the heat and add the tea bags, leaving to infuse while the cream cools to room temp.
  Lightly grease 23 cm x 24cm x 2.5cm depth lamington or swiss roll tin.
Remove the sponge from the oven and, when cool enough to handle, take a rolling pin and firmly roll it over the top sheet of non-stick baking paper.  This will flatten the sponge and make it denser (you want it about 3mm thick).  Remove and discard the top layer of non-stick baking paper and then trim the sponge to fit the prepared tin.  Pick up the ends of the bottom layer of non-stick baking paper and transfer the sponge to the tin - it should fit snugly.  Fold the excess non-stick baking paper over the sides of the tin.
  Melt the dark chocolate in a dry heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure that you don't let any water come into contact with the chocolate.  Once melted, brush the chocolate evenly over the sponge and place the tin in the fridge for about 10 minutes to set.
  Melt the milk chocolate in a dry heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water (don't get water in it).  Once melted, pour the chocolate into a bowl of a electric mixer, then pour over the infused cream, discarding the tea bags.  Mixing slowly, add the butter, a little at a time, and continue mixing until the chocolate cools, then pour this mixture evenly over a sponge and place the tin back in the fridge to set overnight.
  To make the creme chantilly, place the cream, icing sugar and vanilla seeds into a large bowl and whip until firm.
  Just prior to serving, remove the tart from the fridge, cut into rectangles about 6cm x 9cm and dust with a thick layer of cocoa powder.  Serve with a generous dollop of creme chantilly.

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This is an interesting book, it looks amazing and its got Matt Moran in it, which is never bad ( I like Matt Moran).  I got this book from the kids for Christmas and its very fancy.  It has all sorts of recipes in it that would be perfect if you had people coming for dinner and heaps of time on your hands.  Sadly I don't have heaps of time on my hands, I'm way to busy writing blogs and planning for zombie invasion (I'm kidding!).  But I do like this book, its fancy and nice to look at and has a fairly wide selection of recipes from meat, fish and deserts etc. 

The recipe itself is delicious, it may look like a lot of work but its fairly straight forward.  Next time I would tip the tea leave into the cream so it infuses better, you could hardly taste the tea at all.  But the tart was creamy and very tasty!  The layer of dark chocolate on the sponge added some delicious texture.  Normally I'm not a fan of chocolate deserts, I like chocolate not chocolate flavoured deserts (yes, i know it doesn't make sense), but considering the amount of chocolate in this its really nice...  But I would leave it over night in the fridge as it advises, I left mine in for about 6 hours and it was still really soft, edible but soft...

Thanks
Kate
xx

Oh, I'm sorry about the extra crappy photos this week, I've misplaced my camera so I'm using my phone.. never good..