What's on the menu

So this week (I know, a day late...) dinner schedule should pan out something like this:

Monday - roasted chicken pieces with garlic and onion, rice and gravy
Tuesday - roasted veggies with couscous
Wednesday -

Free form apple pie

OH my lordy be people, this pie is beyond sensational. BEYOND. The recipe is from Ben O'Donoghue - one of those great Aussie chefs who does really flavoursome unpretentious food. For those in the know, he appears on the UK food program called The Best, which is always always entertaining and gives you inspiration to get up and go and start cooking, which is more than I can say for the 98% of the current programming on the Lifestyle Food channel.

Anyway, this recipe comes from the August 2008 issue of Delicious magazine and while I significantly reduced the amound of sugar in with the apples and didn't use the spices because I didn't have them, the pastry is one recipe I will be using over and over again - DIVINE.

Ben says it's his nan's recipe and that rings true - I recall my nan making pastry using some custard powder as well and it being flaky and buttery and divine. It really makes it.

This was also the first time I'd done a free form pie and I expected it to be a disaster, oozing liquid and being a downright mess. It was an absolute sensation. Next time I'd probably add a little - just a little - more liquid and cook the apples just a little longer, but now I'm just nitpicking, go, make it, NOW.

Free form apple pie
From Delicious magazine, August 2008, by Ben Donoghue
The apples

• 1kg granny smith apples
• 1 cup caster sugar
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 3 cloves
• 1 star anise

The pastry

• 3 cups plain flour
• 1/3 cup custard powder
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 350g chilled butter
• 3 egg yolks

1. For the pastry, place the dry ingredients in a food processor
2. Add butter and blitz until it looks like breadcrumbs
3. Add the yolks and process until the pastry comes together in a smooth ball
4. Divide into two then knead into flat discs
5. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour
6. Meanwhile, peel and core the apples and slice into wedges
7. Place in a pan over medium heat with sugar*, juice and spices
8. Cook for 10 minutes or until the fruit is tender but still holds its shape
9. Cool then discard the spices
10. Preheat oven to 180C
11. Roll out the pastry discs between two sheets of baking paper to 3mm thick, 28cm circles
12. Place one circle on a baking tray, leaving the bottom sheet of paper in place as a lining
13. Place the apple mixture in the centre, leaving a 3cm border, brush the border with a lightly beaten egg
14. Top with remaining pastry, press down the border, then trim the edges into a neat circle and pinch edges together to seal
15. Brush the top with some beaten egg, bake for 30 minutes
16. Sprinkle with caster sugar and bake for a further 10 minutes until nice and golden
17. Serve with custard, ice cream or both.

* Now, I'm sure if you used this amount it would caramelise beautifully and draw more liquid out of the apples, but in this house we like the pastry sweet and the apples tart, so I only added 2 tablespoons of sugar. As I said above, next time I'd add a dash more water and/or cook the apples a little longer for the filling to be a little more 'wet'.

Coconut bread

This is another winner from the all white all clean Bill Granger. It is wonderful as part of a breakfast/brunch affair. Divine with lime (or lemon for that matter) curd, on it's own, buttered or done all fancy and dusted with icing sugar. According to Bill it's Jamaican and can be served with a lime relish - or substitute lime marmalade.

Coconut Bread
From Sydney Food, Bill Granger

• 2 eggs
• 300ml milk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 2.5 cups plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 150g shredded coconut
• 75g unsalted butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 180C and grease and flour a 21x10cm loaf tin
2. Whisk the eggs, milk and vanilla together
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon in a bowl then add the sugar and coconut
4. Gradually stir in the egg mixture until just combined, then add the butter - be careful not to overmix
5. Pour into the tin and bake for 1 hour.

Meatloaf

I adore meatloaf so it was with some personal consternation that I realised Winter was almost is over and I hadn't made it once. Shocking. I make the Martha Stewart Meatloaf 101 so if anyone has any variations on the theme, I'd love to hear from you!

Martha Stewart's Meatloaf 101
From The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook, Marth Stewart (the 2000 edition)

• 3 slices white bread
• 1 large carrot
• 1 celery stick
• 1/2 medium yellow onion
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce (ketchup)
• 2 tsp dry mustard
• 8oz (250g) pork mince
• 8oz (250g) veal mince
• 8oz (250g) beef mince (ground round)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp salt*
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper*
• 1 tsp hot red-pepper sauce (I never add this)
• 1/2 tsp rosemary, chopped

For the glaze

• 3 tblsp tomato sauce (ketchup)
• 2.5tsp dry mustard
• 2 tblsp packed dark brown sugar
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 smal red onion, cut into 1/4 inch rings
• 3tblsp water

1. Preheat the oven to 200c (400F)
2. Remove crusts from bread and process in a food processor until they're fine breadcrumbs and tip into a bowl
3. Mince the carrot, celery and onion in the food processor and add to the breadcrumbs
4. Add the ketchup, mustard, pork, veal, beef, eggs, salt, pepper, hot sauce and rosemary
5. Use your hands and knead ingredients until thoroughly combined - the mixture should be wet but tight enough to hold a free-form shape
6. Set a wire baking rack in a 12x17 inch baking pan and cut a 5x11 inch piece of baking paper over the centre of the rack to stop the meat loaf from falling through
7. Use your hands to form an elongated loaf on the paper
   
   

To make the glaze

1. Mix the sauce, mustard and brown sugar in a bowl until smooth then using a pastry brush generously smear it all over the loaf
   
   
2. Heat the oil in a small pan and cook the onion until it's soft and golden in places
3. Add the water and cook, stirring until most of the water has evaporated
4. Cool slightly then sprinkle over the meatloaf
   
   
   

1. Cook for 30 minutes, then sprinkle over some extra rosemary then bake for another 25 minutes or until a thermometre measures 160F on the inside of the loaf (I never do this as I don't have one of those meat thermometres)
2. Let it sit for 15 minutes or so before slicing.

Serve with veggies. It is just sensational.



* I mean, does anyone measure salt and pepper into their recipes?

Tandoori Chicken w/ rice and vegies

Now, we all know that I am very partial to a full sumptuous Indian feast.

I make my own paneer from scratch for goodness sake.

Then there was the seven hour lamb rogan josh which I find myself still daydreaming about in quite moments of food related reflection.

And the most awesomely not like anything you will ever get at a shopping mall bain marie Indian outlet butter chicken.

Not to mention my most delicately delicious fish curry and other sundry condiments and side dishes.

But when I say Tandoori chicken for dinner, well, it involves a jar of Pataks Tandoori paste. Sorry 'bout that.

I mix a ratio of paste to yoghurt to taste (Oscar can't tolerate anything more spicy than pepper) and marinate chicken thigh pieces for a few hours.

Then I make a tzatziki of yoghurt and cucumber and mint, seasoned with some sea salt to serve with it.

I reheat store-bought naan bread and cook up a batch of rice.

And that's the weeknight Tandoori Chicken dinner in this house...

Rigatoni with tomatoes, eggplant and mozzarella

This was one of those recipes I tried when desperate to expand my repertoire - it's a Jamie Oliver special - and is now a regular when those eggplants are all gloriously firm and shiny and call my name at the fruit and veg shop.

Rigatoni w/ tomatoes, eggplant and bocconcini
Adapted from Jamie's Dinners, Jamie Oliver

• 500g rigatoni
• 1 firm, ripe eggplant
  
• extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2x400g tins chopped tomatoes
• 1 tblsp balsamic vinegar
• a bunch of fresh basil - stalks sliced, leaves ripped
• 4 tblsp double cream*
• 200g cows milk mozzarella (or bocconcini or ricotta or fetta)

1. Slice the eggplant into 1cm thick slices then into 1cm cubes
2. Heat a few big glugs of oil in a large saucepan
3. Add the eggplant and stir as you do so it all gets coated with the oil
4. Cook for about 8 minutes until it starts to soften up nicely, then add the onion and garlic (every now and then when I make this the onion just doesn't soften up or colour nicely so I know just cook the eggplant with the onion and garlic together over a lowish heat until it's all sofened and starting to get those lovely caramel colours on the onion)
5. Add the two tins of tomatoes, the vinegar and the basil stalks and simmer for about 15 minutes. (sometimes I also add a jar of sugo here as well)
6. Season with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper - you can add some crumbled up dried chillies at this stage
7. Simmer for around 15 minutes - cook the pasta during this stage
8. Add cream to sauce (I don't do this anymore)
9. Add pasta to the sauce then rip up the mozzarella or bocconcini or crumble the ricotta or fetta and stir through with the ripped up basil leaves.
10. Serve w/ freshly grated parmesan - you could, as Jamie suggests, tip the lot into a baking dish at this stage, top with cheese and reheat as a baked pasta if you so wished.

Divine.