Banoffee Pie

Banoffee Pie from the latest Masterchef Magazine (the one with Matt Moran on the cover). Made it for my Mum for her birthday dinner as a surprise. Two words....Big Hit! And another two words ..... Too Easy!

Can't really offer any words of wisdom here other than you should definately try it. I boiled my own cans of condensed milk but I'm sure you could use top'n'fill if you really didn't have time.

Happy baking!

Until next time

Love
Toni

Caramelised Pork Belly

Anyone would think I was obsessed with Masterchef. Here is my attempt at Alvin's Caramelized Pork Belly with Saffron Sesame Rice. It certainly was a hit with my partner. Was it worth the effort though? I'm not sure. The braising liquid was simple enough and it really did have a wonderful flavour. I used golden syryp in place of dark cooking caramel which I can't imagine made much difference. The frying of the pork after braising was a fiddly and dangerous step. I imagine that you would acheive the same result with baking at a high temperature for 10 mins or so. It would be far less messy and less dangerous. I ended up doing this anyway to warm the pork for serving. The sauce itself was quite rich. Had a strong aftertaste which I couldn't quite place. Was either too salty or too sweet...All in all, an interesting dish which I would probably make again with amendments as part of a bigger banquet.

I didn't post the pictures but last weekend I also made the Drunken Chicken which was quite tasty too. Not sure what they were all raving about on the show. It had a lovely sweet and different flavour. But in the end it was fairly simple poached chicken. Maybe I did something wrong? The bruised salad however was really lovely and even without the key ingredients of dried shrimp and cucumber, was still a hit. Who else has been making some interesting things?

I don't know about you, but I could eat Asian every day of the week. I wish I lived somewhere with a Chinatown!

Take care
Love Toni

Classic Apple Pie

Yes, it has been a while I know. I thought I would share this picture of an apple pie I made a few weeks ago. Nothing special, just a recipe from taste.com.au

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/17448/apple+pie

The recipe was Ok. I probably prefer my pastry a little shorter and would therefore use less self raising flour and a little more butter next time, but all in all it was a success.

I can't quite remember the occassion, maybe I had just bought a bag of apples and felt inspired. Anyway, the reason I posted it is to show that something really simple can look great and give you a sense of acheivement. There's nothing quite like the ooh's and aah's you get from serving warm slice of homemade apple pie to someone.

Would love to hear if anyone as a favourite apple pie pastry recipe.

Take care
Love
Toni

Masterchefing with Adrienne

Here she is. The Masterchef pressure test Black Forest Cake. What better way to spend a Sunday than sharing an ultimate baking test with an equally enthusiastic cook. My friend Adrienne (from the famous bookclub) and I got together to tackle this number. After quite a number of hours (we won't say the exact time it took), equally as many blocks of chocolate and many saucepans later we were very pleased with our efforts.

Has anyone else had a go? It is soooo rich and chocolatey, I could literaly feel the sugar buzz after just a small sliver.

There are heaps of steps and lots of techniques so a lot of effort for one cake. But there are lots of individual parts that would be great on their own. The chocolate sponge was easy and very light and fluffy. Adrienne suggested the hazelnut praline and cherry syryp would be great on their own. Perhaps add the praline to icecream or the syryp to coffee.

Anyway, enough making you crave chocolate, have a go yourself and share your experience!

Happy baking!
Toni

Winter Warmer

Yes, I know it's been a while. PhD's and weddings tend to get in the way of cooking which I really wish wasn't the case.

So, I thought I'd share something simple. I bought this fantasic deep pie dish yesterday so wanted to test it out. That also reminded me I wanted to test out Maggie Beer's sour cream pastry from MasterChef. So, a quiche was on the cards. You already know I'm a fan of making pies, so wanted to do something different.

Here is my bacon and caramelised onion quiche with Maggie Beer's sour cream pastry. The pastry was fantastic and had this short but crunchy texture. You can get the recipe from the MasterChef website. No tips or tricks really, just follow the instructions. Unlike me...I forgot to put the pastry back in the fridge after rolling it into the tin. Then when it shrunk back in blind baking I couldn't work out what went wrong. My Mum kindly reminded me this was the same mistake Aaron made on the show...oops..pays to listen. My exuse was that I was talking on the phone the whole way through making and rolling. Anyway as Maggie pointed out, the pastry is quite forgiving, so a little bit of massaging fixed it all up. I blind baked for about 10 mins before adding the egg mixture.

The quiche mixture was nothing special; eggs, cream, sauted bacon, well caramelised onion, a handful of yummy cheese like gruyere, parmesan and parsely.

So next time bacon is on special at your supermarket think about making a quiche with home made pastry. Even being generous, at about $15 works out to be a great (and cheap) packed lunch for my fiance this week.

Stay tuned I am thinking of sharing my next winter warmer (my very yummy pumpkin soup) really soon.

Take care
Love
Toni

Curry Banquet for 9

Hi All

I thought I would blog my recent indian dinner for 9 people. It was my turn for bookclub dinner this month and after someone (not mentioning any names) decided to mention my Masterchef experience to the whole group, I felt under pressure to live up to some fairly high expectations of my abilities.

Anyway, after a successful attempt a while ago at a Balinese Lamb Curry, I decided to go with that as an option and also do a milder/creamier chicken curry along with this fantastic spiced yellow rice. As it turns out it was all in the theme of our book, 'Eat Pray Love'. If you haven't read the book, the author is writing about her travels to Italy, India and Indonesia....Indian chicken curry, indonesian lamb curry and italian desert (see previous post of choc hazelnut cake)...total coincidence I promise!

Now, I am by no means an indian food expert, so I didn't worry about indian themed entrees or deserts. However, I did feel that the heavily spiced curries needed something green to cut through them. After some research on traditional Indian vegetable/salad accompaniments (and no inspiration) I decided to go with a large bowl of freshly steamed green beans dressed lightly with a tiny splash of oil, lemon juice and black pepper.

All went down really well with some good reviews. Personally I was a bit disappointed with the rice (a little gluggy) but that was probably because I doubled the recipe (4 cups uncooked rice).

Now for the recipes, the Lamb Curry and Rice came from the March Australian Good Taste, so I have included it here along with my tips. The Chicken one is a Nigella recipe which I have made at least 4 times and absolutely love. To give her proper credit, I have included the link to her website along with my hints and tips.

I truly hope you next indian dinner is fantastic!

Love
Toni

Kari kambing (Balinese Lamb Curry)

2 Tblspns oil
1 kg boneless leg of lamb
2 -3 tomatoes depending on size (finely chopped)
1 ½ cups chicken stock
1 cinnamon stick
6 cardamom pods
400mls coconut milk (1 can) (I use low fat)
2 tspns tamarind puree

Spice Paste
2 tspns coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
5 whole cloves
½ tspn peppercorns
1 large brown onion (roughly chopped)
6 macadamia nuts
2.5cm piece fresh ginger (roughly chopped)
2 garlic cloves
1 small fresh red chilli (roughly chopped)
3 tsp water
½ tsp ground turmeric
¼ tsp ground nutmeg

- Dice the lamb into cubes about 4cm or so. I also try and remove as much of the fat as I can from the outside of the lamb. If you leave too much of the outside on, the curry will be really oily at the end. Leave a little though for flavour. Don’t worry too much about trimming up the meat, it will cook really slowly to it will all be really tender regardless of what you do at the beginning.

- Make the spice paste by firstly dry frying the coriander seeds (I use coriander powder if I can’t get the seeds), cumin seeds, fennel seeds, cloves and peppercorns in a small pan over medium heat. Cook for about 3-4 mins stirring occasionally and making sure not to burn. Transfer to the bowl of a food processor (I use my trusty bowl attachment for the stab blender, but you could go old school and use a mortar and pestle..if you had all day). Add the onion, macadamias, ginger, garlic, chilli, water, turmeric and nutmeg. Process until you get a smooth paste.

-Heat the oil in a large wok or heavy based pan. Cook the spice paste in the oil for 3 mins or so. Add the lamb and cook for another couple of minutes until browned all over. Add the tomatoes, stock, cinnamon stick and lightly bruised cardamom pods. Reduce heat to very low and simmer, uncovered for 1 hour.

- Add the coconut milk and cook for 1 ½ hours or until lamb is tender.

-Stir in the tamarind paste and season with salt and pepper.

- Sprinkle with fried shallots (if you have them) before serving.

Notes:
You can’t substitute the cinnamon sticks for cinnamon powder, it’s just not the same, please buy the sticks.

Also, you really need to go out and buy the tamarind paste. Before adding the paste you would be forgiven for thinking it was a nice, but fairly boring lamb curry. The tamarind paste makes it. You could maybe get away with adding lime juice…but no.. I really don’t think so, please buy the paste, you can get it from the supermarket in the Asian section.

Once it has cooked for the first hour taste for heat and if you want to spice it up a bit, add some ground dried chillies until you think it’s hot enough. The recipe itself will be a fairly subtle heat.

Spiced Yellow Rice

2 tsp peanut oil
1 brown onion finely chopped
2 cups medium grain rice, rinsed
½ tsp turmeric
400ml can coconut milk (use light here)
500mls chicken stock
½ cinnamon stick
10 cardamom pods bruised
6 whole cloves
2 dried bay leaves
1 lemon grass stem (either tied in a not or cut into chunks)

- Heat oil in saucepan and cook the onion stirring until golden brown (but not burnt). Sir in the rice and turmeric and stir a little.
- Add the coconut milk, stock and rest of the spices. Bring to the boil and then cover tightly with a lid and cook for about 15 mins (I usually check after 12) or until rice is just tender. Take off the heat and let stand for 5 mins with the lid on. Fluff lightly with a fork before serving.

Mulghai Chicken Curry

http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=196

My Notes:

If cooking for a crowd, I chop up the thigh fillets into 4-5 pieces, just to make it go further and be easier to eat.

Make sure you buy runny cream (i.e. pure cream) not thickened cream. Also, don’t buy low fat cream as it might split the sauce.

Don’t scrimp on the spices here. The garam masala really makes it.

At step 4 – I like to cook the onions for a bit first until they change colour before I add the whole spices (cardamom pods, cinnamon, cloves and bay leaves). Again at this step, when you add the blended spice paste make sure you do cook it out a bit. At least 3-4 mins, but making sure the temperature doesn’t cause it to stick and burn.

I really believe Nigella when she says this curry is best if you leave it overnight and serve the next day. Somehow the flavours are just so much better. So plan in advance and make it the day before.

I also add chopped coriander to the flaked almonds for the sprinkle at the end.

Hazelnut Meringue Cake - Dinner Party Fave

Hi

By request (from my lovely bookclub friends) I am posting the recipe (and pic) for the Chocolate Hazelnut Meringue Cake I made them last night.

Click on the following link for the recipe;

http://recipefinder.ninemsn.com.au/tablerecipes/798798/hazelnut-meringue-cake-with-chocolate-sauce

This is one of my party and special occasion staples. It's seriously foolproof and looks spectacular with very little effort.

So, given that it's so simple I probably can't add anything worthwhile. But here are my top tips anyway;

- read the recipe carefully..there is 1 1/2 cups caster sugar, but only 1 cup goes in the meringue.

- don't buy the dry roasted hazelnuts from the supermarket. Buy raw hazelnuts and toast them yourself in a medium (160) oven for about 6-7 mins. Then, grind them yourself. I have one of those stab blenders with the bowl attachment (couldn't live without it) but a food processor would do fine. I also rub the toasted nuts between a teatowel to get rid of most of the dark skin as too much can be quite bitter.

-don't be scared of adding water to the melting chocolate, just keep stirring and it will come together...Oh and always use 70% chocolate.

- I find that my meringue cakes only take about 33 mins to cook (but check after 32 as it always depends on your oven). Also, I don't have two tins the same size, but they're only about 1-2 cm different. Rather than risk cooking them separately and having the mixture sit around, I always cook them at the same time, but put the bigger one on the bottom. Also, if you line with glad baking paper (bottom and sides) you won't have any disasters.

Hope yours turns out successfully! You should get lots of mmmm's

Take care

Toni

Banana Bread with Fig Butter

This was a really yummy banana bread recipe and the fig butter, just added something really different. However, I'd say that with the addition of oil, it's probably technically closer to banana cake than banana bread, but nevertheless, I'm sure you will enjoy.

The recipe came from the March issue of Australian Good Taste, but I can't find the recipe online, so I will put it here in the mean time (incorporating my changes);

1 1/3 cups SR Flour

1 cup plain flour

2/3 cup raw sugar

1/4 cup desicated coconut

1 tsp cinnamon

3 eggs

3 mashed bananas (approx 400g)

160 mls canola or vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla extract

125g blueberries (or rasberries...or leave them out)

100g butter softened

1/4 cup icing sugar

3-4 dried figs finely chopped or 1/4 cup fig jam

- Preheat oven to 150 degrees. Grease and line a loaf tin (20x 10cm)

- Sift flours into a bowl, then add sugar, cinnamon, coconut and mix well. Make a well in the centre.

- In a mixing jug mix together the oil, eggs, mashed banana and vanilla. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix slowly until just combined.

- Pour into tin and bake at 150 for about 1 1/2 hours. Cool in pan for 20 mins before turning out.

- To make the fig butter, beat the butter and sugar with electric mixers until really light and fluffy, then beat through the fig.

- Serve slices with the fig butter!

This will be our lunchbox treat for the week!

Hope you are keeping well!

Toni

Honey Sponge Roll

My first ever sponge roll attempt...not sure yet if it was a triumph or tragedy...I'd say somewhere in between....it all got eaten thought so I guess that's the main thing.

Anyway, the recipe is from one of my magazines and can be found here;

Honey Sponge Roll Recipe

If you were thinking of making it yourself, I would change the honey butter filling slightly. There was nowhere near enough to do the whole sponge roll (although I did use a slightly larger tin than recommended) and it probably needed a 1/4 cup of icing sugar to get a lighter fluffier texter.

If you've never done a sponge roll before, then follow the recipe as it says (roll up in a tea towel straight from the over) and I'm sure you'll be fine.

Also, I probably took the egg whites too far before adding the sugar, so make sure you whip them till they're fluffy and have changed colour, but don't beat as long as you would for a meringue.

Happy Baking!

Toni

Lemon Chicken Couscous Salald

Lemon Chicken Couscous Salad with with spiced yoghurt


I thought I would share this recipe with you. I made it tonight for the second time and I remembered how good the flavour combinations were. Not your normal weeknight dinner, but today was a public holiday here, so I made more of an effort than ususal.

This recipe is inspired by one I found in Donna Hay Magazine (Spring 2009 Issue 47), although I have made some changes because of my fussyness (I don't eat cucumber or mint).

6 chicken thigh fillets
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons garam marsala powder (or cumin powder)
1 tblspn finely grated lemon rind
1/2 cup uncooked couscous
1/2 red onion finely diced
2 spring onions finely chopped
1 large punnet cherry tomatoes
large handful fresh green beans
1 1/2 cups of herbs (i use flat leaf parsley and coriander)
1/2 cup plain greek yoghurt
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon honey

- Marinate the chicken thighs in the olive oil, garlic, lemon rind, garam marsala and salt and pepper for as long as you can (2-3 hours would be good).
- Make the dressing by combining the yoghurt, cumin, honey and a small squeeze of the lemon from earlier.
- Cook the couscous according to the directions on the packet and then add a small amount of butter and salt and pepper.
- Blanch the beans until just tender then plunge into very cold water to stop cooking.
- Prep the tomatoes by slicing in half, chop the herbs, finely slice the red onion and shallots. Mix all together in a large bowl with the cooked couscous and a couple of spoonfuls of the dressing.
- Meanwhile grill the chicken thighs in a grill pan until well browned, crispy on the outside and cooked through.
- Serve the chicken on top of a mound of the salad and then more of the yohgurt dressing, some more herbs and a wedge of lemon.

Also would be a great weekend lunch or would likely have wow factor at your next picnic!

Keep cooking!
Toni

Roux’s Rule

I have come to the conclusion that if you can make a roux you can feed your family forever…and they will love you for it. In case you’re not sure, a roux is the fancy term for when you melt butter then add flour to make a thick paste.

You probably already know that roux’s form the base for any white or cheese sauce. If you can perfect a cheese sauce from scratch, your options are endless. Lasagne is a classic that comes to mind, but to keep it simpler for a weeknight meal, I like to add well browned chicken, onion and broccolini to a baking dish, smother with my cheese sauce and then bake in a hot oven til golden brown.

Tuna Mornay is another classic which is making a comeback in our house, mainly because my partner asks for it almost every week. Personally I don’t get the attraction, but if I can get brownie points from a meal that takes literally 15 mins, I’ll take it.

So, what are my tips for a good cheese sauce? I always add a good teaspoon of seeded mustard to the melted butter before the flour. Also try to always make sure you cook the flour out for a full 2 mins over a medium heat. If you heat the milk in the microwave until nearly boiling, you can just about add it all in one go (as long as you have a good whisk). For tuna mornay I always heat the milk with half an onion in the jug for extra flavour.

But why do Roux’s rule? They also form the base of all my pie fillings and classic stews. Homemade pies are a great weeknight meal. Sauté your filling combinations in the pan (chicken, bacon, mushroom…beef , bacon and mushroom …mmm), add a spoonful of butter and flour (amount will depend on how much you’re making). Cook out for 2 mins then add ½ a glass of red or white wine, then chicken or beef stock being sure to stir well to avoid lumps. Add your favourite herbs and let cool before adding to your pastry shell. My only other tip with pies is to always cook them in a metal tin of some description or even a muffin tin for mini versions. It’s the easiest way to get the pastry crisp on the bottom.

Anyway, I hope I have convinced you that roux’s rule…and have inspired you to go back to some classics!
Take care
Toni

Hot Cross Buns

Here is a picture of my first attempt at hot cross buns (last easter). I have no idea where the recipe came from but I remember they tasted and looked good. If I find the recipe I used, I will post for you.

Toni

Orange and Almond Flower Cupcakes

My profile picture (and the one above) was taken of the completed Orange and Marshmallow flower cupcakes from the September 2008 Australian Good Taste (available from the following link);

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/20461/orange+marshmallow+flower+cupcakes

The actual cake recipe was quite good and I would use it again as it was very moist, orangey and didn't go stale straight away (because of the almonds and sour cream). The icing used in the recipe just didn't work and I am fairly convinced that the picture used a butter icing also as I can't imagine a runny icing over heat would ever be able to be piped. Anyway, I added about 2-3 tablespoons butter and an extra 1/2 cup of icing sugar to the original recipe and just kept beating until it was the right consistency (really thick, light and fluffy with no grainy sugar particles when you taste it). If it still tastes sugary, keep beating.

The marshmallow flowers were easy as and looked great too!

Welcome!

Hi
Welcome to my first ever blog all about food, cooking, entertaining ... basically sharing my passion with you all. I hope to share my kitchen triumphs (or tragedies) with you and inspire you to challenge yourself in the kitchen and try new things. Hopefully we can find answers to all our cooking questions together, share tips and secrets and all time fool-proof favourites.

I have always loved cooking, especially baking and I love finding out all there is to know about the science and techniques of cooking. I also work in education so I love combining my passions and teaching others the basic skills and techniques, why things will work (not work) or why we do things a certain way. Hopefully I will be able to share some of those things with you too....so feel free to ask.

Anyway, please feel free to introduce yourself or say hi. Hopefully I will remember to take pics of my latest creations but in the mean time I will post a couple of oldies.

Take care
Toni