Kitchen remodel

All of my recipes and so much more are now over at www.allconsuming.com.au so why not come over and play!

Goats Cheese and Leek tart

Man, do I love a tart. And considering how much I love leeks and adore goats cheese, this is an absolute winner in my books. The recipe comes from an old Gourmet Traveller or Vogue Entertaining, I'm afraid that is as much as I remember so my sincerest apologies to the original author.

Leek and goats cheese tart
One batch of Maggie Beer's sour cream pastry and bake a 9" pie crust blind. (You'll have pastry left over for another tart or use. You're welcome.)

• 2-4 leeks (depending on size and personal taste really)
• 40g butter
• 4 eggs
• 250g fresh goats cheese
• 1 cup cream
• salt and pepper
• nutmeg to taste
• 2 tbsp finely chopped chives

1. Preheat oven to 190C
2. Wash the leeks and chop the white section up finely
3. Melt butter in a pan and saute the leeks until softened but not browned
4. In a bowl beat the eggs, cheese and cream until smooth and season
5. Place leeks in the bottom of baked pastry shell, pour over egg mix and sprinkle over chives
6. Cook for 30 minutes until just golden and set in the middle
7. Allow to cool slightly then serve with crusty bread and a cracking great green salad. 

Pork dumplings with dipping sauce

So Felix wanted to make dinner - how cool is that! He looked through my recipe file and pulled out pork dumplings. This is great food for kids to cook. Easy to mix, easy to compile and DELICIOUS.

Pork Dumplings with dipping sauce

• 500g pork mince
• Bunch of chives, chopped finely
• 8-10 water chestnuts, chopped finely 
• knob of ginger, grated
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 1 egg
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 packets gow gee wrappers

1. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil
2. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl
3. Have a little bowl of water on your kitchen bench
4. Place a scant teaspoon of the pork mix in the centre of a wrapper, dip your finger in the water and run it around the edge of the wrapper, pinch the sides together to seal
5. Put dumplings into the water, when they rise to the top cook for a further 2-3 minutes then drain
6. Serve with the dipping sauce.

Dipping sauce

• 1/3 cup black vinegar
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• knob of ginger, grated
• 1 garlic clove, very finely sliced
• Fresh chilli to taste

1. Mix together 

Anzac Biscuits

It's that time of year, Anzac Day is just around the corner (25 April). This is a trusty Women's Weekly recipe, yep, the one I've been making since 1985 or some such nonsense. There'd be photos but I've made two batches in the last two days and the boys scarf them before I can get the shot.

Anzac Biscuits
Women's Weekly Beautiful Biscuits cookbook

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup dessicated coconut
• 125g butter
• 2 tbsp golden syrup
• 1/2 tsp bicarb soda
• 1 tbsp boiling water

1. Preheat oven to 150C
2. Melt butter with golden syrup
3. Dissolve bicarb in boiling water then add to the butter mixture
4. Combine dry ingredients
5. Pour wet into dry then roll into balls the size of small walnuts. Press down slightly when placing on the tray. 
6. Bake for 20 minutes in the slow oven. 
7. Hold back the crowds. 

Quick, easy and delicious mustard sauce

So I found this yesterday and told Chef that was going to be dinner. The end.

It is SO easy to make and man, is absolutely to die for. I used light sour cream so it is not even that bad for the waistline and I'll tell you now, it is sensational on sandwiches with left over beef the next day.

I did a mini standing rib roast in the oven rather than individual chops in the frypan like Donna Hay suggests - it took about 25mins and was still nicely pink through the middle. Oh, and I doubled the sauce amount because I am quite partial to a condiment

Onward!

Mustard cream sauce
Donna Hay 

• 1/2 cup beef stock
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 teaspoon (heaped) hot English mustard
• 1/2 cup sour cream

1. In the pan in which you've cooked your steak pour in the stock, wine and the mustard
2. Cook for about a minute until reduced by half
3. Stir through the sour cream
4. Serve with steak and swoon at your leisure. 

Maggie Beer's Chocolate Cake with Whisky-soaked Raisins and Orange Zest

So I made this yesterday for our Christmas gathering with my Dad, step-mother and family. I was down for dessert and along with pavlova topped with cream, lemon butter and fresh fruit I was bringing our family's traditional Christmas pudding cooked in cloth. Then the last fortnight came and firmly bit me on the arse. I only got the fruit soaking a few days ago for the pudding so getting one made and on the stove for five hours was just not going to happen.

I'd seen this recipe in Maggie Beer's Maggie's Table and knew it would be good some time ago - it came to me that it would make a fine Christmas pudding alternative and boy, was I bang on the money on that front.

This cake is seriously good. I only had a tiny sliver yesterday due to the dedicated food consumption that had gone before it and man, today all I can think about is making it again so I can sit in front of it like a fat fool and eat it until my head falls off.

I should say, I did not roast the almonds and then grind them, I simply used some store-bought almond meal. I am sure doing that step would take the cake to even greater heights but it was delicious even without doing so.

So go on, make it .

Chocolate Cake with Whisky-soaked Raisins and Orange Zest
Maggie Beer, Maggie's Table
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup Scotch whisky
160g blanched almonds
50g plain flour
375g dark couverture chocolate (70% cocoa)
finely grated zest of 1 orange
210g unsalted butter
170g caster sugar
pinch of salt
5 eggs
175ml pouring cream
250g couverture chocolate
Soak raisins in whisky for a few hours
Preheat fan-forced oven to 180C
Place almonds on baking tray and roast for 10 minutes or until golden. Let cool slightly then process in a food processor until finely ground. Add flour and set aside
Melt chocolate and the add the zest to it
Beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy then add eggs one at a time. The mixture will split but don't worry, it comes back together when the almonds and flour are added
Fold in the melted chocolate then the soaked raisins and any of the whisky juices that are left in the bowl
Sprinkle over the almond and flour mixture and fold through very gently, being careful not to overmix
Lightly grease and line a 20cm springform round cake tin
Bake for an hour or until skewer comes out clean (mine took at least another 10 minutes and probably could have done with another 5 or 10 minutes)
Remove from the oven and sit on a wire rack in its tin for 10 minutes, then turn out and let cake cool completely.
Make the ganache by bringing the cream to the boil and then pouring over the chocolate. Leave for a few minutes to melt and then stir thoroughly
Pour over the cooled cake and then leave to cool for a further hour (not in the refrigerator) before serving
Divine with double cream or vanilla ice cream.

Leek and fresh goat's cheese tart

This is just another fine example of how I could easily become a vegetarian.

Asparagus and ricotta tart

I made this for our recent family reunion - 44 people for lunch - at which several people had a variety of dietary constraints including coeliacs disease. I made this with the gluten-free pastry and it was an absolute hit.

Oh, I also couldn't get white asparagus so just used green, laying them on top in a alternating pattern of the tips and part of the spear.

And as you can see from the picture this is it uncooked. I forgot to take a photo of it cooked. Whoops. Just imagine it golden with the ricotta mix puffed up and golden and the spears cooked.

Asparagus and Ricotta Tart
Donna Hay magazine, Spring issue, Year unknown

• 200g white asparagus, trimmed and peeled
• 200g green asparagus, trimmed and peeled
• 8 sheets filo pastry*
• 30g butter, melted
• 450g ricotta
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup semi-dried tomatoes, chopped
• 1 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
• sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 180C
2. Cut the asparagus into 10cm lengths, finely chop any remaining asparagus and reserve for the filling
3. Trim the pastry sheets to 20cm x 42cm (8 x 16 3/4 in) 
4. Lightly brush 1 sheet of filo with butter and place in a greased 12 x 35cm rectangular tart tin, letting the excess pastry fall over the sides
5. Repeat with the remaining pastry sheets, brushing butter between each layer
6. Combine the ricotta, parmesan and eggs in a food processor until smooth 
7. Place the mixture in a bowl and combine with the tomatoes, parsley, reserved asparagus and seasonings
8. Spoon into the pastry-lined tinand arrange the asparagus on top, alternating colours
9. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden, serves 4-6.

* or use a pastry of your choice. The gluten-free pastry I use I don't blind bake but if I was using the sour-cream shortcrust or standard shortcrust I would. 

Miso roasted pumpkin

I love a good comforting vegetarian dinner and somewhere eons ago I had some sort of pumpkin dish with miso that I'd been dreaming about ever since. In my recent attempt to reduce the piles of magazines littering our life I finally came upon a Donna Hay recipe for pumpkin with miso but it was cooked in a wok and forgive me but I just couldn't come at that. So, using the recipe as a guide I came up with the following and man, it was good.

Miso-roasted Pumpkin with chickpeas and shallots
Adapted from Donna Hay magazine, Autumn issue, Year unknown
500g pumpkin, cubed
1 tbsp peanut oil
1 tbsp shredded ginger
2/3 cup water or stock
2 tbsp white miso paste
1x400g tin chickpeas
2-4 green onions, sliced

Preheat the oven to 200C
Dissolve the miso in the water or stock
Toss the pumpkin and ginger with the oil and miso mix
Roast, turning every so often, until the pumpkin is cooked through
About 10 minutes before the end of cooking, toss in the chickpeas
Serve with rice, soy sauce and sprinkle over the shallots.

Gluten-free pastry

Now look, my limited experience of a wheat/gluten free diet was traumatic and blessedly brief (a few years when Oscar was little and we embarked on a low-allergy diet as part of the Blitz that was trying to limit the impact his dodgy chromosome would have on him - as if we could trick genetics) but I made this last week for some vegetarian tarts I was making for the 2009 Family Reunion as some of Mum's family have coeliac's disease.

It is a Maggie Beer recipe from her wonderful book Maggie's Kitchen. In terms of full disclosure, I should confess here that my adoration of all things Maggie is bordering on creepy - the woman is a true national treasure.

 As with her sour cream pastry it is an absolute dream to work with and tastes fantastic. I am presuming the tiny amount of xanthum gum goes a long way to stabilising the dough because it just comes together a treat. A word of warning though - Maggie stipulates you may not need all the eggs and in my experience you won't. And don't be tempted to add one more dash - I did and made it far too wet. Just go with your gut on this one.

Oh, Maggie also says you can use a gluten-free flour from the supermarket or equal amounts of potato flour, rice flour and maize flour. I did the latter and it was fabulous.

Gluten-Free Pastry
From Maggie's Kitchen, Maggie Beer

• 2 cups water
• 1 tblsp salt
• 180g unsalted butter, chopped
• 300g gluten-free flour 
• 4g xanthum gum 
• 5 free-range eggs

1. Combine the water, salt and butter in a heavy-based saucepan and bring it to a simmer over medium-high heat
2. Add the flour and xanthum gum and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon
3. Decrease the heat to low and cook until the pastry comes away from the side of the pan and is well combined
4. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature
5. Whisk the eggs together and then add a little of the eggs at a time into the cooled flour mixture with a wooden spoon until a dough forms
6. Incorporate each addition fully before adding the next bit as you may not need all the eggs
7. Turn the dough onto a bench dusted with a little gluten-free flour, then knead until shiny
8. Try not to incorporate too much extra flour or the dough will become crumbly
9. Wrap the dough in plastic film and chill for at least 10 minutes

When ready to use

1. Roll the pastry out between two sheets of baking paper (otherwise the dough is too hard to handle) until 3mm thick 
2. Fill with cooled pie filling, top with remaining pastry and bake in a 210C oven for about 20 minutes or until pastry is golden*

* when I used it with quiche-like fillings I baked it for 35-40 minutes at 180C and it came up a treat!