would you lend me a couple of squid?

Since 'a few squid is all it takes' KB and I have been on a bit of a calamari kick.  Over a week away at the beach he prepared some squid as a starter, this time omitting any use of flour, and adding to the solitary salt and pepper some freshly chopped dill and coriander, and finely diced chilli.  It was absolutely amazing, the taste was fresh and with a pleasing hint of spice.  To be honest, I think he virtually ditched the salt altogether, so definitely go easy on that.  Enjoy some fruit of the sea, mes amis!! 

harissa me life

I first came across harissa when living in France - there was a guy from Syria living in our building and he used to have a dollop on the side of his meal most nights.  Once I returned to kiwiland I didn't give it any thought until one day I happened upon a jar of it in Sabato, a fabulous deli shop in Auckland. 

Julie le Clerc's harissa is REALLY tasty, but it's even more fun (and just as tasty) to make your own.  Also there's the added benefit of tailoring the spiciness to your own personal taste (Julie's has quite a kick).  So, with the chillies - add as few or many as you wish.  I wouldn't recommended less than 3, or more than 6, but see how you go. 

Once you've made the harissa keep it in a sealed jar in the fridge - it keeps pretty well for a couple of weeks at least, quite possibly more (I wouldn't know, it never lasts that long!).  We've used it to flavour couscous, stuff chicken breasts (my fav), on crackers with a little cheese, mixed with tomato paste on pizza and as a rub on lamb chops on the BBQ.  So it's really a pretty versatile wee sauce.  Nom nom nom!

2 red capsicums

3-6 long chillies (green or red)

1 garlic clove

1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
pinch salt flakes/rock salt
1/4 cup EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
juice and zest of 1 lemon

1. Preheat grill to high.  Cut capsicums into quarters and blacken. 
2. Once blackened and blistering place into plastic bag and sweat, until skins removes easily (and remove skin).
3. Blend with other ingredients.  YUM!!

Lasagne update

It's zucchini season again, so it's zuch lasagne time.  This year I've been making them with a cheese sauce, rather than using ricotta.  Not for any particular reason other than it's something I can make from ingredients in the cupboard and fridge, when there ain't no ricotta.  Also Harry knows how to make a cheese sauce and getting a six-year-old involved in the making of dinner is ALWAYS a good way to go.  So, without further ado, the cheese sauce, should you ever need to replace the ricotta from I ♥ ricotta, here it is...

2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
salt
pepper
good handful grated cheese (1/2 - 1 cup)
tbsp wholegrain mustard (optional)

1. Melt butter in saucepan.  When melted add flour and briskly stir in - this makes what is called a roux.  Add half of the milk, stirring constantly, so the mixture binds and is free of lumps. 
2. Add rest of milk, grind in some salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. 
3. Add cheese and mustard, stir through.  Continue to stir as sauce thickens. 
4. Turn off heat, sauce will continue to thicken. 

Three Kings Cake

Christmas foods seem to fall into one of two categories.  The first - insanely complicated and time-consuming, resulting in copious hours in the kitchen which, given Christmas is in summer here in kiwiland, seems a bit ridiculous.  Secondly you have easy, BBQ-style, low-fuss high-taste.  Much smarter.  Rifling through the November-December edition of Cuisine I discovered that there was a potential third category - relatively time-consuming, but easy.  

There was a recipe for a three milk cake which was topped with a fluffy mound of marshmallow.  It needed to be made over a couple of days (to allow the cake and the marshmallow time in the fridge to do their thing), but it was simple to make and just looked sooooo cool.  Especcially at the end, with green pistachios and red cranberries sprinkled over the top!!  

The original recipe suggested trimming the marshmallow before serving, to make it nicely in line with the cake, but I didn't bother - why waste marshmallow?  Without further ado, meet the Christmas centrepiece of the future...

For the cake 
225 g flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
5 large eggs, separated
225 g caster sugar
1 tbsp vanilla essence (or 1 tsp extract)
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.  Butter 21cm x 12cm loaf tin and line base with baking paper. 
2. Place egg whites in large bowl and whisk to form firm peaks (I used a handheld electric beater).  Gradually add sugar, still whisking. 
3. Turn motor to lowest speed and whisk in egg yolks, vanilla and lemon juice.  Fold in flour, baking powder, salt and milk. 
4. Spoon mixture into prepared tin and bake for 40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. 
5. Turn baked cake onto a wire rack and allow to cool for 1o minutes.

For the three milks
200 ml condensed milk

150 ml cream

150 ml milk

1. Combine ingredients in jug. 
2. Cut any dark sides from cooled cake and place cake into dish slightly bigger than it is. 
3. Poke holes in top of cake and pour half the milk mixture over, reserving remainder for serving. 
4. Cool completely, cover and refridgerate overnight to soak up milks. 

For marshmallow topping

2 egg whites

125 g caster sugar

1 tsp tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp rosewater (I used normal water with a drop red colouring)
1 1/2 tsp powdered gelatine
125 ml boiling water

1. Whisk egg whites to firm peaks then gradually whisk in sugar.  Finally mix in lemon juice and coloured water. 
2. Add gelatine to boiling water, stirring until dissolved. 
3. Slowly pour gelatine into egg mixture while whisking.  Continue whisking until mix is cool and firm (about 8 minutes). 
4. Pile marshmallow on top of cake and return to fridge to chill for at least an hour, or up to a day. 

Remove cake from fridge about 30 minutes before serving andd tidy up the marshmallow with a hot knife, if you wish.  Sprinkle with pistachios and cranberries and put reserved milks into jug alongside. 

Happy Birthday baby, got you on my miii-iiind

It's been birthdays galore lately.  Alistairs, mine, Jan's, KB's, plus a handful of friends'.  Good time to trial a few new cakes.  Plenty of guinea pigs.  Mwa ha haaaa.  Anyway, I came across this recipe, for Rich Chocolate Cake, in my trusty Edmonds Cookery Book (46th ed.) and thought it sounded perfect for a chocolate-lover's birthday repast.  Moist, dense and, presumably, uber-chocolatey.  Unfortunately it wasn't all that chocolatey, or very rich.  It was very nice, and moist and all that, but when one makes a rich chocolate cake, one wants it to be bloody rich and chocolatey, doesn't one? 

However, I think I know what the problem may have been...  The original recipe said 150 g chocolate.  Bugger that - 200 g from now on.  And I used pretty cheap cooking chocolate.  Next time it'll be cadbury energy, or whittikers dark ghana, or something with some real chocolate kick.  So, lesson learned - don't skimp on the chocolate when making a chocolate cake.  You'd think I'd have figured that out by now, wouldn't you? 

Oh well, all's well that ends well - the cake was eaten and enjoyed, which is the main thing.  Great cake, but take note of where I went wrong.  :) 

175 g butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
6 eggs, separated
200 g dark chocolate, melted
140 g ground almonds

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees celcius. 
2. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Beat in egg yolks. 
3. Melt chocolate slowly, by placing bowl over pot of simmering water.  Fold this and the almonds into the butter mixture. 
4. In another bowl beat egg whites until soft peaks form.  Fold into cake mixture. 
5. Pour into greased and lined 20cm springform tin.
6. Bake for 20 mins then reduce heat to 150 degrees for further 35 minutes, or until form. 
7. Allow cake to cool in tin before serving dusted with icing sugar and a dollop of yoghurt or whipped cream. 

Snickerdoodles

About a week or so ago I was in the mood for filling the biscuit tin so turned to the guru of domestic cooking, Nigella Lawson, for inspiration.  This recipe, from How to be a Domestic Goddess, was chosen largely because of the name.  It just sounds so ridiculous, so the resulting food must be fabulous, right?  Well, the biscuits that resulted were plentiful and damned tasty, though not without some tweaking for next time (see note below).  I altered the recipe slightly (adding chocolate chips), to meet the tastes of the intended eaters, and suspect other variations would work equally well, perhaps a handful of crushed up pistachios or almonds would be nice, or coconut.  Anyhoo, without further talking on my part, here it is, snickerdoodles, the most fun-sounding cookie I've come across in ages! 

250 g flour

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (I used mixed spice)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

125 g butter
100 g caster sugar (plus 2 extra tbsp)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)
dash milk

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.
2. Combine together flour, nutmeg, baking powder and salt.  Set aside momentarily.
3. In large bowl cream butter and 100 g sugar together until light and pale, then beat in egg and vanilla.
4. Stir in set-aside dry ingredients and chocolate chips until you have a smooth mixture.  I found mine was too dry and crumbled, so I added a dash of milk here, to help it bind together. 
5. Roll out walnut-sized balls, roll in mixture of sugar and cinnamon, and place on lined or greased baking tray.  Don't squash down - they're more like little biscuity cakes than the typical flat biscuit.  
6. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden-brown.  Makes about 32 (I think I got 40 out of this batch).  

NB: These tasted really good, like little cinnamon doughnuts, but were very crumbly in texture.  Nice for dunking but possibly a bit dry for the majority of peoples' taste in biscuits.  I'm going to make these again, but next time will see how they turn out if flattened a little, to make them crisp, rather than crumbly.  We'll see... 

Procrastibaking

There's just nothing like a bit of procrastibaking when studying for exams (or indeed when one ought to be doing almost anything that one would rather not be doing).  So you can imagine how pleased I was on Tuesday afternoon (with exam looming on Wednesday morning) to be able to convince myself that it really was imperative that I bake a cake for a friend's birthday.  Realistically I doubt she would've given a hoot had we turned up bearing cake or not, but the excuse worked for me. 

Last Sunday, when baking Alistair's pear and ginger birthday cake, our oven's element blew up, necessitating a trip down the street, to bake the cake in a friend's mum's oven (one of the innumerable handy things about small towns).  While I was there she gave me this recipe, for a very speedy chocolate cake/sponge (I guess it depends on how well you beat it).  Anyhoo, I gave it a shot on Tuesday, for Cath's birthday, and it turned out pretty well.  I'm not a massive chocolate cake fan and I liked it.  The others, who are chocolate cake fans, all appeared to like it to.  So here it is - super easy and pretty well foolproof.  I like the whole 'bung everything into a bowl' idea too - go the Waikato Ladies' Golf Association (from whose cookbook it came)! 

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

3 tbsp soft butter

1/2 cup milk

2 tbsp cocoa

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 tsp baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.  Line/grease 20cm round cake tin (or equivilant).
2. Beat all ingredients together for 3 minutes.
3. Pour into tin and bake for 20-30 minutes. 
4. Ice or dust with icing sugar.