Most Australians have their own version of a pavlova. This is mine. I hope you enjoy.
pavlova as taken with iphone camera and dirty fingerprints over the lense
For the meringue:
6 egg whites
300g caster sugar
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp vanilla essence
4 tsp corn flour
For the topping:
500 ml double cream
2 tb icing sugar
kiwi fruit
strawberries
blueberries
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 150 ℃
In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites until they’re stiff. Then gradually add the caster sugar until the mixture can stand in stiff peaks. Quickly beat in the remaining ingredients of the vanilla, vinegar and corn flour.
Either line a baking tray with a baking sheet or cover with oil. Place the meringue mixture into a piping bag, and pipe onto the tray into circles – 2 x 3 wide in a rectangular shape making sure to fill in any gaps. Place in the oven for around 1 hour, or until the meringue is changing to a brownish colour and is slightly crisp on the outside. Leave to cool.
Beat the cream until stiff, and quickly beat in the icing sugar.
If the meringue didn’t work:
Crush the meringue in with the whipped cream, mix with sliced strawberries and you have an Eton Mess. If your guests ask – it was always planned this way.
If the meringue did work:
Spread the beaten cream on the meringue with a knife, or use a piping bag if you can be bothered.
Slice the kiwi fruit and strawberries, and place with the blueberries in some sort of pattern on top of the whipped cream.
After watching an ad on television for a cheese that could be squirted out of a squeeze bottle, it got me to thinking what other cheeses are out there that have been modified for easier use.
Easy Cheese
Very conveniently packaged in an aerosol can, which means you could certainly use it one-handed. Comes in four different varieties: Cheddar, Sharp Cheddar, Cheddar ‘n Bacon, American. It promises to also bring you roasted garlic cheddar real soon. If you go to Easy’s website, there are lots more fun things you can do, and proudly boasts that it’s ‘made with real cheese’.
Cheez Whiz
With such a catchy name (misspelt for extra effect) who could resist! Be careful when going to Whiz’s web site, as it does warn that it looks so tempting that you could ‘lick the screen’. Comes in a handy squeeze bottle and jar. So the very skillful could measure out a portion from the jar with one hand, although the squeeze bottle really can’t be beaten for convenience.
Grated Parmesan
I know that my childhood pantry was never without this favourite! What amazed me was how it was equally at home in the fridge than the pantry. This can certainly be used one-handed, as there is a flip top lid for either free-pour, or sprinkle pour.
If you one day left the shopping to somebody else, and they thought you meant a parmesan block, rather than pre-grated parmesan, don’t panic! Here’s a site which tells you how to convert that block of yellow stuff into the grated parmesan you know best. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but it should at least start you off.
Cheese Strings
Here’s one specifically marketed towards the kiddies. I guess the reason being is to encourage them to start appreciating cheese from an earlier age. So the aim is by the time they’re 18, they’ll know their Epoisse from their Vacherin. I can see no other purpose.
Stay tuned for more!
Ingredients:
225g softened butter
7g yeast
2 tablespoons warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
pinch salt
2 tablespoons cold milk
250g plain flour – preferably ’00’ flour
1 lightly beaten duck egg
Start by putting 7g yeast into a container with the sugar and warm water. Whisk all ingredients through, and put in a warm place. When it forms a froth then it’s ready to use.
Sift the flour into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre, and add the yeast into it with the lightly beaten egg. Add a pinch of salt, and stir the mixture through with the flour.
When it has turned smooth and elastic, mix in a third of the butter at a time. Being careful to not leave any butter lumps.
Cover the dough mixture with a tea towel, and place in the warmest part of the house (wherever that may be) until double in size. This will take around 4 episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm to double in size (2 hours ish), so leave yourself enough time. A watched brioche dough never rises, so I learnt.
When the dough has done it’s thing, then spoon the dough evenly into the greased cupcake trays. If you would like it as a loaf, then spoon all the mixture into a greased loaf tin.
You can brush the brioches with beaten egg if you like at this point. Put them into a pre-heated oven at 200c for 25-30 mins, depending on the size of the individual loaves.
Bake until golden brown, and serve with decent quality vanilla ice-cream or on it’s own with a strong espresso.
Thank god for twitter. Only a medium like that can bring together some 16 or so girls from all over London for a bit of a ladies night to share their passion of food. And what an offering it promised – a night in St John restaurant eating suckling pig. Well, we soon realised that the food was not the only specialty of the night – the service was quite special in it’s own way as well.
Let’s just say the warnings came early when we waited 50 minutes for a starter on a pre-ordered set menu….
The set menu of the night was the following:
Starter:
Roast Bone Marrow & Parsley Salad
The bone marrow was lovely, with the marrow scooping out with ease. The portion size was perfect, and a very tasty. The parsley salad was a great accompaniment, with the sea salt a great addition.
Alas, we were only allocated around one and a half slices of toast per person, which was certainly not enough. And further requests for more fell on deaf ears.
Whole Crab & Mayonnaise
This was probably the best crab I have tasted since the Sydney fish markets. The meat was tender and not too dry or well done, and the mayonnaise went perfectly with it. If there was any more toast, I would’ve loved to scoop some of that mayo and eat it on it’s own with the bread.
The crab shell openers were in short supply, so us girls had to be patient and wait for one to be free.
Main:
Whole Roast Suckling Pig, Potatoes and Greens
There was plenty of jostling for best camera angle when the pig came out. The amount of flashes from our cameras were more than what Brad and Ange would experience on a red carpet.
When we finally got down to eating it – the suckling pig was as expected – wonderful. The skin was crackly, meat tender and moist. And the stuffing was a pleasure too. I was one of the lucky people to get an ear. I wonder who got the tail?
Dessert:
Eccles Cake & Lancashire Cheese, Spotted Dick & Custard
When the dessert came out, I almost couldn’t be bothered. We had been there since 7:30pm, and this was pushing 11pm. Some people had to catch their trains, so missed out which was a shame and put a dampner on the course.
I’m glad I did perservere though. The spotted dick was wonderful and sweet, and the creme anglaise I could have on it’s own. Eccles cakes I’m not too fond of as a dessert, and I found they didn’t really have that freshness to them.
The cheese was wonderful and creamy, although it would’ve been nicer to serve on multiple smaller plates for the large table, as it was almost missed on my side when it was placed at the opposite end.
Conclusion
So there we have it. If it wasn’t for the wonderful company I think that the poor service would have ruined the night. I can’t wait for the next outing with you all, and a big thank you to Meemalee who organised it
Recently I was asked the question ‘what are your favourite cook books?’. I could only think of a few at the time, so now I’m sitting next to my book shelf here’s a few more (in no particular order):
- The Silver Spoon:Calls itself the bible of Italian cooking. It’s certainly concise, and very easy to follow. Plenty of recipes in here that range from ice creams to roasts.
- Larousse Gastronomique:Information on all ingredients and techniques. This is and is the cook’s bible, which concentrates mainly on French cooking. I usually use it as a reference, and have picked up some great tips especially with sauces.
- The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (Marcella Hazan): Probably my favourite Italian cook book. Marcella is like the grandmother of Italian home cooking, and her recipes are really easy to follow and provide the right amount of background information.
- The Gate Easy Vegetarian Cookbook: The cookbook from The Gate restaurant in Hammersmith. It has great salads, and provides great recipes when you need a veg hit.
I think one of my favourite sweets are Macarons. They’re little gems of sweetness that seem to always hit the right spot, and so versitile in how and when you eat them. Do you treat them like a pastry and have them with a cuppa, or like a pudding and have them with a nice ice cream as an accompaniment? If I’m ever at a loss to decide, I just do both.
Who doesn’t love the pop-up shop, which seem to be increasing in popularity and occurance every year. There are ones for books, others for food… and then there’s the latest for Marmite.
Love it or you hate it, even if you don’t want to buy the product, you can now buy the t-shirt. Of course that’s not only what they stock. There are the usual branded mugs, coasters, plates, teatowls, oven gloves and books. If you feel hungry you can even pop upstairs for a cuppa and marmite on toast.
You can find the Marmite pop-up shop at 82 Regent St. Click here to visit the official website.
Here’s a great and quick recipe if you have a few apples and not much else in the cupboard. It’s a recipe that’s one of the specialties of Burgundy, which is also famous for it’s other food.
Ingredients
65g plain flour
75g caster sugar
a pinch of salt
2 duck eggs (or 3 chicken)
450ml milk
3-4 apples. Whichever variety you like best
Mix the flour, caster sugar, salt and beaten eggs in a mixing bowl. Stir until smooth, then gradually mix in the milk.
Peel the apples, and arrange in thin slices so they overlap on a buttered pie dish.
Pour the batter mix over the top. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 150C for 45 minutes.
When serving, turn it over and sprinkle with caster sugar.
I arrived at the Hawksmoor restaurant with trepidation and nervousness as I was on my own and had no idea what exactly was going to happen at this Blaggers Banquet. I knew the basics – that it was for charity (Action Against Hunger), and that everything such as the food, wine and venue had been blagged all for this great cause.
Walking through the door I immediately felt welcomed by one of the hosts and recommeded to go straight to the bar (which is exactly what you would like to hear). There were people mingling talking amongst themselves, and I soon got chatting to many people about mine and their favourite subject – food. Yes, I was amongst fellow foodies. It was so nice to be dining and sharing this experience with others who would appreciate like me the effort involved in getting such a thing organised.
All sorts of canapés and drinks were being served before sitting down. I was drinking the Blaggers cocktail – a sugar lump with champagne and quince liqueur. The canapés I’m sure I tried them all, and had seconds and thirds. The cheese herb puff was great, I’m stealing the recipe of the fresh goats cheese with pomegranates on crisp bread, and the cocktail-sized tomatoes on sticks with mozzarella exploded in your mouth (so you had to be careful). Please excuse me if I missed out on a canapé – it may not have passed where I was standing.
My seating arrangement was near the middle of the biggest table, so there were plenty of people to talk to. I had to ask if I was in a ‘twitter friendly environment’. Thankfully all said yes – they were more curious and quite entertained at how I was twittering all through the courses (@ruduss if you want to look them up). All the volunteers I had noticed were all twittering when they could as well. I saw a group of 4 standing around the bar with their phones tweeting like mad as they needed to catch up on their tweet count for the night.
Food was served on large plates and bowls where everybody just grabbed what they wanted. This added to the great atmosphere and comradeship and made for the extra sociability of the occasion.
The first course was a monkfish and beetroot tartare. I would have to say it is the freshest and best tasting monkfish I had ever tasted. There were whispers by fellow diners saying ‘I hear they just caught it this morning’. This fact was backed up later – driven 5 hours from Devon (I think). The only problem was there wasn’t enough of it – I wanted more it was so good!
Winter lamb and beef stews came out next in huge bowls. Once again – complements to the chef, etc. The meat was so tender and lovely. It was also great dipping the sourdough bread into the last bit of the juices.
My second favourite course was next – who can go wrong with a chocolate fondant cake. They were served with jellies that were moulded out of a breast-shape. Where can I get me one of those? 
And then my favourite course came out – the cheese. You know that the night is being run by foodies when there is a cheese course. There’s nothing worse than having a menu that has a choice between the cheese or the dessert. The main cheeses were represented here – goats, cheddar, Caerphilly. The only thing missing was a juicy munster or epoisse. Although that is not for the faint-hearted. It could have ruined the atmosphere…maybe…..
The wines I was drinking all through the courses were perfectly matched, which I was surprised about. I was expecting a really oaky generic Australian chardonnay, and a really alcoholic red from Spain to be my choices. Thankfully the white and the red I picked were perfect.
So will I be the first in line to go next year? Definitely. I’ll certainly bring friends, although if they decide not to come then I will just go myself again. And next year I’m taking the next day off. I can’t work while still trying to digest such a great meal. Congrats to all who organised it and volunteered – Eat Like a Girl who helped organise it has a better blog post here.
As this is always a hit with whomever I make it for, I call it typecast because that’s all they bloody want. There’s been a few occasions where people have not accepted my offer to make something different such as a cheesecake. They only want the b&b pudding.
My recipe has been adapted from Delia’s, BBC food website and I think I picked up some hints from watching Come Dine With Me. Usually I pick up not what to do, so this was an exception. For people watching what they eat, then you won’t find much nutritional value in this recipe…
Ingredients:
200g raisons soaked in 200ml cognac
9 yolks
374g brown sugar
4 whole eggs
800ml whole milk heated. There is no point with half fat milk – you’re only kidding yourself
1 vanilla pod (or vanilla essence if you can’t be bothered faffing around with the pod)
8 slices estimate, or enough brioche to fit into your baking dish
butter
apricot jam
- Pour 40ml cognac into a glass and sip whilst making this recipe.
- Bring the raisons in the cognac to the boil, then drain off the cognac and put to one side. Trying not to drink that also.
- Mix the egg yolks and sugar by beating gently over a bain-marie.
- Add the whole eggs, milk and vanilla to the egg mix.
- Slice and toast the brioche. Butter each slice, and put a generous amount of apricot jam on each.
- Layer the brioche slices in a baking dish, and sprinkle the raisons over.
- Keep layering the brioche until you can fit no more, then pour the egg mix over.
- If you havne’t drunk the left over cognac that had been drained from the raisons, then pour that on top too if you wish.
- Try to submerge all the slices of brioche so they all soak up the egg mix.
- Place in an oven for 35-40 mins on 160 C.
- Don’t bother about saving calories at this stage by serving with berries. Serve with clotted cream or ice cream.