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!

  

Daring Bakers Challenge - Macaroons

Yep, funny how Daring Bakers always forces me to finally make something I've always wanted to but keep putting off. Do you know how long the Australian Gourmet Traveller with the pretty pink macaroons has been sitting in my recipe holder on the kitchen bench? SINCE IT CAME OUT. In July. Yeah.

This month's challenge was brought to us by LA Monkey Girl.

It wasn't a big success I must confess. They were too fragile and the ganache I used (from the Gourmet Traveller) was too runny so what I ended up with was a pink hot mess. Sure, a delicious pink hot mess but a mess all the same.

Next time I'll:

- use old egg whites

- follow the instructions Tartlette - the apparent queen of the macaroon - gives

- not make them when I'm feeling frazzled, pressed for time, making other things for the school's Spring Fair.

Onward!

Macaroons

Adapted from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern

• 2 1/4 cups (225g) icing sugar
• 2 cups (190g) almond flour (which everyone seems to define as almond meal)
• 2 tbsp (25g) sugar
• 5 egg whites

1. Preheat the oven to 93°C. 
2. Combine the icing sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of icing sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery
3. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks
4. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients
5. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter
6. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper)
7. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 190°C 
8. Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored
9. Cool on a rack before filling.

Yield: 10 dozen. (who is she kidding - I got about 5 dozen)

Lemon Shortbread

I adore shortbread. Far more than standard biscuits. Something to do with the mealy buttery nature of them I suspect. This is in the current issue of Donna Hay magazine and as soon as I saw them I knew I must bake them.

Lemon Shortbread
Donna Hay Magazine

• 150g butter
• 1/3 cup icing sugar
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 3/4 cups plain flour
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• 2/3 cup icing sugar

1. Beat the butter and sugar for 8-10 minutes until pale and creamy
2. Add lemon juice, zest and vanilla
3. Add the flour and cornflour and beat until a smooth dough forms
4. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 2 pieces
5. Roll into 2x20cm logs, wrap in cling film and freeze for 30 minutes
6. Preheat oven to 180C
7. Cut dough into 1cm thick rounds
8. Bake for 10-15 minutes until lightly golden
9. Gently toss the warm shortbreads in the extra icing sugar, cool on wire racks and store in an airtight container.

Shepherd's Pie

When I was little Shepherd's Pie was for dinner the night after we'd had a roast leg of  lamb as sure as the sun would rise. Mum had a mincer that attached to her Sunbeam mixer and the lamb, onion and carrot would all go through it.

I can't say that I remember it that fondly but I do remember the ritual of it - the fascination with this scary looking mincer, the mash on top peaked by the prongs of a fork and the slathering the whole thing with tomato sauce.

I don't have a mincer and finely chopping it by hand is not the same. And I was never able to bring myself to make it with mince until I saw this Terry Durack recipe for it in The Sydney Morning Herald's Good Weekend magazine a few months back (It was part of his spread for an Easter lunch or something like that.) Terry's had 200g of mixed mushrooms in it but I have a boy and a mother who don't eat mushrooms so I just ditch those and cook it a little longer so the sauce isn't too runny. Also, I have a mother (the same one in fact) who doesn't like tomatoes, so while Terry's calls for a 400g can of chopped tomatoes I just put a couple of cherry tomatoes or baby Roma tomatoes or two normal toms diced.

All that considered, it's an absolute winner.

Shepherd's Pie
Adapted from Terry Durack, Good Weekend magazine, The Sydney Morning Herald

• Olive oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, finely chopped
• 2 celery stalks, finely chopped (I never have celery in the house so have made this more times w/out than with)
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 500-600g lamb mince
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 125ml red wine
• 300ml stock
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tomatoes, diced (or about 1/2 dozen cherry toms)
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 tbsp fresh thyme (which I hate so I use parsley instead)
• 2 bay leaves
• 800g potatoes
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 egg yolk
• 100ml milk
• 3 tbsp parmesan
• 2 spring onions, finely sliced
• sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper

1. Heat a little oil in a large pan and fry the onion, carrot and celery until nice and soft
2. Add the garlic and cook off a little
3. Add the lamb and cook for a few minutes, breaking up the meat so you don't get any of those manky big lumps of mince (gag)
4. Sprinkle over the flour and cook, stirring, for a minute or two 
5. Add the wine, bring to the boil (whenever I add it it kinda gets absorbed straight away so I just cook it out for a little)
6. Then add the stock, Worcestershire sauce, tomatoes, tomato paste and herbs
7. Season and simmer for about 40 minutes until nice and thick
8. While that's simmering boil the potatoes until soft, about 15 mintues
9. Drain and mash, then beat in the butter, egg yolk, milk, parmesan and the green onions
10. Preheat oven to 180C
11. Pour the meat into a baking dish, top with the potato, rake over with a fork and scatter over some more knobs of butter
12. Bake for 30 minutes or until the meat is bubbling and the potato topping is nice and golden.  
13. Spread potato on top of the meat     

Easy Peasy Custard

Does anything say comfort more than warm homemade custard? Sure but for this post let's say that custard is the pinnacle of sweet comfort food goodness. Sure there is the need to stand and stir and yes there is the mild anxiety you could end up with a big vat of scrambled eggs, but really, when you're running the finger around the edge of the emptied saucepan you know it is all worth it.

Now some of you die hard foodies will baulk at this recipe, claiming it is not real custard due to the presence of cornflour, but you know what? I don't care. I can whip this up toot sweet and watch my kids swoon and that makes the occasional shortcut worthwhile.

This is yet another Bill Granger recipe. What can I say, the shiny happy man can cook.

Easy Custard
Bill Granger

• 300ml milk
• 300ml cream
• 6 egg yolks
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 4 tsp cornflour
• 2 tsp vanilla

1. Bring the milk and cream barely to the boil
2. In a separate dish whisk the yolks with everything else
3. Pour the milk and cream into the yolk mixture, stirring constantly
4. Return it all to the saucepan and stir over a low heat for about 10 minutes. 

I mean COME ON, how simple and how delicious.

Pain Rustique

So many of you are aware of my recent obsession with making sourdough bread. I am now the proud owner of the Bourke Street Bakery cookbook so expect the obsession to pick up where it last waned.

The initial infatuation fell away when the family just wasn't getting as into it as I was and there were issues with the level of rise I was getting from my doughs. A few years back some dear friends had given me Jeffrey Hamelman's book Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes and I decided to try some of his recipes which call for a poolish, or a starter that only requires 12-16 hours rather than weeks.

Enter centre stage the Pain Rustique. The loaf I now make for everything - loaves, free-form loaves, roasted garlic loaves, olive and rosemary loaves... endless. It is easy to make and divine to eat. DIVINE.

Oh, a tip from all the bread making aficionados - always use spring water not tap water.

Pain Rustique
From Jeffrey Hamelman, Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes

Poolish

• 1 lb bread flour (3 5/8 cups)
• 1 lb water (2 cups)
• 1/8 tsp instant dry yeast

Final Dough

• 1 lb bread flour (3 5/8 cups)
• 6.1oz water (3/4 cup)
• Poolish (2lb total)
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp instant dry yeast

To make the poolish

1. Disperse the yeast in the water, add the flour and mix (by hand) until smooth. Cover with plastic and let stand for 12 to 16 hours at 70F. (I never really adhere to the room temperature guidelines, I mean, what are you going to do?? We don't live in a humidor.)

To make the bread

1. Combine the bread flour and water with the poolish in a mixing bowl and mix with a dough hook on the lowest speed until it comes together as a shaggy mess. Cover and let rest for 20-30 minutes.
2. Add the yeast and salt and on the second speed mix together until the dough is fairly well developed (about 1.5-2 mins) - it should be supple and moderately loose (I take this term to mean quite wet)
3. Bulk fermentation is 70 minutes
4. 25 minutes into the bulk fermentation give a quick fold to the dough. This means put the dough on a very liberally floured bench. Pull a third of the dough from the left hand side into the middle and press down gently to expel some of the air. Do the same again from the right, then the top and the bottom, then return to the bowl.
5. 25 minutes after the first fold do another one and return to the bowl.
6. 20 minutes after the second fold turn the dough out onto a floured surface and rest for 15 minutes
7. Gently divide the dough into the sizes you like and shape or place in bread tins
8. Leave the dough for a final fermentation/proofing for 20 to 25 minutes.
9. Cook in a 240C oven for about 35 minutes.  

The pain rustique with kalamata olives. There's about 500g of pitted chopped kalamatas in for the recipe given above with a few sprigs of fresh rosemary finely chopped as well.

Ginger and Sesame Rice with Chicken

I would almost say that this dish is the family's favourite. You'd think I'd make it every week in that case but for some reason it only makes it into circulation about once a month, maybe two. Stupid. This is so good. So very very good. It's quick, it's easy but looks fancy, it's nutritious and best of all - tastes absolutely sensational. 

I am known to increase the rice and stock by half because you know, of the rice-eating child. I also make it in my 28cm le crueset so it's wide enough for the chicken to fit on one level. Just before serving I actually tear up the chicken and mix it through the rice a little but you could always keep the escalopes whole - probably looks more fancy that way.


Ginger and sesame rice with chicken
Bill Granger

• 2 tbsp peanut oil
• 4 tsp sesame oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 3-4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 4 tsp freshly grated ginger
• 500g jasmine rice
• 1 litre chicken stock
• 500g skinless chicken breast, cut into thin escalopes *
• Finely sliced long green shallots
• Freshly chopped red chilli
• Soy sauce

1. Heat the peanut oil and sesame oil in a medium saucepan over a medium-low heat.
2. Add the onion and stir occasionally for 5-6 minutes or until the onion is soft.
3. Add the garlic and ginger and stir for 2 minutes more.
4. Add the rice and stir to coat the grains of rice in the oil.
5. Add the stock and bring to the boil.
6. Cover, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes.
7. Place the chicken in a single layer on top of the rice.
8. Cover again and simmer for a further 7-8 minutes or until rice is just tender and chicken is cooked through.*
9. Remove from heat and set aside with lid on for a further 5 minutes.
10. Serve topped with sliced shallots, chilli and drizzle with soy sauce.
11. Serves 4-6

* You can use firm white fish fillets instead of the chicken.

Whole baked snapper with a lemon butter sauce

Ok, so this was dinner tonight to celebrate my Mum's birthday and can I just say, despite Jasper's meltdown and Grover copying whatever Jasper was doing, it was a sensation. What made it? Apart from spectacularly fresh fish? The.most.delectable.lemon butter sauce and barely cooked freshest of fresh spring vegetables. Heaven.

Whole baked snapper

• 1kg snapper, scaled and gutted (this was just right for feeding two (female) adults and a couple of kids)
• lemon, cut into thick slices
• salt
• olive oil
• Preheat oven to 180C
• Liberally rub salt over the inside of the fish then rinse and pat dry
• Season fish with salt all over, inside and out and lay the slices of lemon in the cavity of the fish
• Drizzle over some oil and rub into the skin
• Slash the fish to ensure even cooking
• Bake for 35-45 minutes depending on your oven and your preference for how well you like your fish cooked.

Lemon Butter Sauce

From Stephanie Alexander on Cuisine

• 1 tbsp very finely diced or sliced shallots (I used a third of a brown onion very finely chopped)
• 1/2 cup dry white wine 
• 6 peppercorns, coarsely crushed (I didn't do this as Mum hates anything peppery)
• 100g unsalted butter, cut into 6 chunks 
• juice of 1/2 a lemon 
• salt 
• freshly ground black pepper

1. Simmer shallots, wine and crushed peppercorns in a small heavy-based saucepan until there is no obvious liquid left and shallots look mushy
2. Over a moderate heat start whisking in the butter, a chunk at a time, adding the next chunk just as the previous one has been incorporated.
3. When all the butter is in the sauce, remove pan from the heat, still whisking, and add the lemon juice and the salt and pepper. 
4. Strain into a warm bowl and hold over warm water (not hot) until ready to serve (this takes minutes not hours). I didn't do this at all as it was ready as the fish was ready and I just plated it up

Serve with barely cooked butter beans, sugar snaps, snow peas and broccolini tossed in a little salt and butter.