Tomato sauce/ketchup

So I had made the sausage rolls, but it seemed a terrible shame to serve them with commercial tomato sauce.

But what recipe to use? A quick rummage through my cookbooks turned up nothing. Hmm... time to get inventing!

1.7kg tomatoes, roughly chopped
4 large onions
1.5 cups vinegar
1 cup sugar
2 cups water

Chop the onions finely. Cook with a splash of olive oil in a deep heavy bottomed saucepan until softened and transparent. Add the other ingredients and bring to the boil. Drop to a simmer, and simmer for an hour, topping up with water if required. Push through a seive and pour into jars.

-----------
Someone asked for my judgement on how it worked out. I would describe it as a complete success (I don't post up my failures ).  Texturally it was just right, pouring and dipping in just the way you want from a sauce - clinging to the sausage rolls perfectly.

Well worth the effort to make it. It was a little spicier somehow than a commercial tomato sauce. I would definitely make this sauce again. 

Maybe if I am lucky one of the guests at the wedding will post up their perspectives on it!
 

Party food - traditional sausage rolls

I have another catering gig - my friend Oggy's wedding. I gave the bride and groom a list of potential dishes, from which they could choose a menu. They asked what the chances were of having every one of them, as they liked the sound of all of them so much! But the groom also had his own special request: sausage rolls.

I have posted up a sausage roll recipe previously: my chicken, basil and prosciutto sausage rolls. Various friends having made them have declared them to be a great success. That said, these are not going to fulfill the desire of the groom: I think he wants a good red meat sausage roll. So a bit of experimentation has produced this recipe, which I think will fit the bill perfectly. It makes 100 cocktail sized sausage rolls. I know that this sounds like a lot, but believe me, they disappear quickly during a party!

You do need a food processor for this recipe, and it is super quick and easy. Be warned though, there is no way to avoid getting your hands messy!

1.3kg beef mince
2 medium eggs
2 large onions
2 1/2 cups fresh white breadcrumbs - use the food processor to process stale 'square' bread.
4tsp dried herbs - I used sage, oregano, basil and marjoram
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 kg pre-rolled puff pastry (5 rolls)
1 egg lightly beaten, for brushing on top of the rolls

Peel and roughly chop the onion. Pop it into the food processor and process until it is quite fine in texture (but not liquid!). Put into a large bowl with the breadcrumbs. Stir in the herbs, salt and pepper.

There is no need to rinse the bowl of the food processor. Just put in the mince (you might need to process in two lots) and process it down to make it a sort of paste. It doesn't need to be perfectly smooth, but it does need to be much finer than the original mince. This will help the filling to hold together. Put into the bowl, and break into the bowl, two of the eggs. With your hands, mix the whole lot together.

Cut the sheet of puff pastry in half lengthwise. Take a good handful of the filling and form into a fat sausage (I guess about 2.5 cm/1 inch in diameter) and lay along the long edge of one piece of the pastry. Brush the opposite edge with water and then fold the pastry over to make a roll. Place seam side down. Repeat with the other pieces of pastry.

Cut the rolls in 3cm lengths. Brush the tops with egg yolk, and chill for at least 15 minutes. Bake for about 15 minutes until golden brown in quite a hot oven - 240 degrees. Serve warm with tomato sauce, home made or otherwise. (These can happily be made the day before, or even made and frozen uncooked)

Medieval cookery - duck pies

This recipe for duck pie has few ingredients and may seem a little odd, using the juice but not flesh of onions as a seasoning. These were so good that back in the kitchens we spent quite a while trying to figure out an excuse not to send them out to be eaten at all... we wanted to keep them all for ourselves!

The hardest thing about the recipe is tracking down Verjuice. Verjuice is unfermented wine grape juice and is a common ingredient used in medieval and renaissance cooking. It has come back into modern cookery quite recently and adds a very special taste to dishes. In Australia, Maggie Beer produces verjuice commercially - sadly I have yet to find a supplier here in Europe.

At a total pinch you could use a very mild vinegar - I had a bottle of verjuice that a friend sent me and with experimentation, I made up a mixture of grape juice and wine vinegar and was able to get something that resembled verjuice for the feast, as my little bottle certainly didn't contain enough to feed 138 people!

Somewhat unusually for an ancient 'receipt', this recipe does have some guidance as to quantities of ingredients. My version used this as a guide but I made it with duck meat rather than a whole bird.

To bake a Mallard (The Good Housewife's Jewell 1596)

Take three or foure Onyons, and stampe them in a morter, then straine them with a saucer full of vergice, then take your mallard and put him into the iuyce of the sayde onyons, and season him with pepper, and salte, cloves and mace, then put your Mallard into the coffin with the saide juyce of the onyons, and a good quantity of Winter-savorye, a little tyme, and perselye chopped small, and sweete Butter, so close it up and bake it.

Take three onions and food process them. Pour 1/3 of a cup of verjuice into the food processor, then strain through muslin to extract the juices (I recommend setting aside the onions to make into onion soup). Take 1/2 a kilo of duck meat, chopped into pieces and marinate in the onion juice, with pepper, salt, 1/4 tsp ground mace and a pinch of ground cloves. I couldn't find fresh winter savory, so used dried - about 1/2 a tablespoon, then a teaspoon of thyme and a tablespoon of parsley.

Bake in a closed pie shell, or as little individual pies. Eat while piping hot.

Clementine Cookies

I had a fit of baking last night: we are doing some fundraising at work for the Australian bushfire appeals. I did a giant batch of anzac bikkies. I finished the anzacs at about 2am but by then the baking bug had bit me and I found myself searching through my cupboards for ingredients to make something, anything more! My eyes fell upon the net of clementines in the big fridge (ie, on the balcony, which during winter becomes my second fridge). Grand. I would make something from them. Grand. umm... what?? From this 2am dilemma sprang this invention: 

Clementine Cookies 

 2 dessert spoons of finely grated clementine rind 

2 egg yolks

125 g butter 

1 cup caster sugar 

2 tablespoons clementine juice 

2 and a half cups self raising flour 

Turn your oven onto moderate (approx 170 degrees C) to warm up. Beat the egg yolk, butter, rind and sugar until fluffy. Add the flour and then drizzle in the juice until it comes together into a dough. 

Knead gently on a lightly floured surface until the dough is smooth. Take dessertspoons of the mixture and roll into balls. Press onto baking trays that are either lightly greased or have silicon paper. 

Bake for 15 minutes until lightly browned and allow to cool on the tray. Once cool ice and decorate - make up an icing with clementine juice and icing sugar. 

This recipe makes about 60 biscuits.

First experimentation with the new pasta machine - Foie Gras Ravioli with Pumpkin Veloute

Foie gras is a very traditional thing to eat at Christmas time in France and (at least southern) Switzerland. 

Last year I made tiny little foie gras and red onion tartlets (which I completely failed to photograph, how bad am I?) and this year I thought I would put my new pasta making machine to work and make foie gras ravioli. 

I started with a basic egg pasta dough: 

300g fine white flour 

3 eggs 

Place the flour in a heap on the work bench, and make a well in the centre. Break the eggs into the centre and then using your fingertips work the flour into the eggs. This is the really fun messy bit. Once incorporated, knead the dough, if necessary adding just a drop of water or two to get a good workable consistency. How long to knead? Till the dough stops feeling sort of grainy and starts feeling smooth.

Wrap up in plastic wrap and let sit for at least half an hour. Break the dough into two pieces (leaving one wrapped up) and set your pasta machine to the widest aperture. flatten the ball of dough out a bit so it can fit through and feed it through by cranking the handle on the machine. Once fed through, fold it in half and feed it through again. If the dough kind of catches on the rollers and has a rough knobbly surface, smooth just a little flour on to the dough before folding and feed through again. Do this 6 or 7 times... I promise you will know when it is done as your pasta dough will be smooth and silky. 

Then take the machine in a step and feed the pasta through again. In another notch and feed again... You might find you now have an unmanageably large length of dough; if so, cut it in half and put one half under a damp clean dishcloth while you deal with the other half. Keep taking the machine in a notch and feeding the pasta through until you have the finest sheet you can get. Don't worry if the edges are not perfect! 

Stage 2: the Ravioli 

1 bloc du foie gras (about 200g) 

1 batch egg pasta dough 

If you are making square or triangular ravioli you can simply place the sheet on the bench, brush it with water, put your ingredients on top, lay another sheet on top of that, and then press together and cut out the ravioli. In my case I wanted to make something a little more festive, so I cut out heart shapes. Then I (and my handsome assistant) brushed the edges of one heart with water and then placed pieces of bloc du foie gras on the pastry, leaving a good edge of pastry. We then placed another heart of pasta on top and pinched around the edges firmly. Sprinkle the hearts with flour to stop them sticking together then spread out on a tray and pop them in the freezer. Once frozen you can put them into a ziplock bag and keep them that way until ready to use. 

Stage 3: Pumpkin Veloute 

1 medium onion, finely diced 

1 butternut pumpkin (aka squash) 

1 tsp caster sugar drizzle of olive oil 

1 litre of chicken stock. 

In a large pan, soften the onion in the oil until translucent. Add the cubed pumpkin and sprinkle with the caster sugar. Stir the cubed pumpkin over medium heat until the pumpkin is browned and the sugar has caramelised. Pour over the chicken stock and raise the heat to bring to the boil. Simmer until the pumpkin has cooked completely then put through a ricer, after which you can use a stick blender to blend to a velvety smooth veloute. 

To complete the dish: Heat the veloute until warmed. 

Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Once it has reached boiling point, add the ravioli (still frozen). 

Cook for just a few minutes till al dente. Put out serving plates, add some of the veloute and then lay the ravioli on top in a decorative fashion. 

Grate a little nutmeg on top.

Photo courtesy of Ed.

Handful soup

Dinner tonight was a super quick and easy soup. I am dubbing it "handful soup" because it is assembled from handfuls of ingredients; no measurements, no fuss. 1 handful of dried mushrooms 1 handful of frozen peas 1 handful of snow peas torn in to pieces 1 handful of rice stick noodles 1 mushroom (or beef will do) stock cube about 2 cups of water 1/2 a star anise In a saucepan, bring the water to the boil. Add the dried mushrooms and star anise and simmer for about 15 minutes until the mushrooms are rehydrated and tender. Add the stock cube, rice stick, frozen peas and bring back to the boil. After about 3 minutes (when the rice stick has softened), add the snow peas and turn off the heat. Allow to sit for a minute, and serve. Easy eh? The star anise is the real secret to making this soup fragrant and irresistibly delicious.

Impromptu fig conserve

With figs in season as they are, I just had to buy some more didn't I? I had this idea in mind for tomorrow night's dinner, but tonight, the figs were looking a bit peaky... not to be left for tomorrow night. Hmmm... what do I do with them then? I know, I will make jam!

The challenge is that I only had 6 figs, not the kilo or so that most recipes seem to demand. So I just had to invent something, and here it is.

6 figs
1 cup jam sugar*
1/2 cup grand marnier
1 star anise
1 tsp lemon juice

In a small saucepan, combine the chopped figs, jelly sugar, lemon juice and grand marnier. Sit for an hour to soak.

Start the stove and bring the mixture to a gentle bubble. Add the star anise. Cook for 15 minutes stirring regularly. Remove the star anise and then continue to cook for another 15-20 minutes, stirring regularly, and crushing with a potato masher, to break up the bigger pieces. Once thickened to "soft ball" stage, pour into sterilised glass jar. Makes 1 x 500g jar of jam.

*jam sugar is a sugar which includes pectin

The figs starting to break down into delicious jam..

Sweet potato, pumpkin & feta pizza

Long gone are the days of pizza having to have tomatoes and mozzarella. Nowadays you can get pretty much anything on a pizza, for example, tandoori chicken & thai green curry. You can even buy strange dessert pizzas. I am all for pushing the envelope in cooking, so I am pretty open minded about what should or should not go on a pizza. That said, there are some things that should simply not go there... along with deep fried mars bar and deep fried cupcakes, and I am thinking that rocky road pizzas are one of those things.

But this delicious pizza is all good. The combination of the sweetness of the pumpkin and sweet potato and saltiness of feta create a perfect partnership joined with the textural joys of the softness of the vegetables and crispness of the crust. 

1 small sweet potato (around 200g) 

1 wedge of pumpkin (around 200g) 

1 onion 

50g feta 

pizza dough 

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C. Peel and dice the pumpkin, sweet potato and onion. Pan fry with a little olive oil on a relatively low heat until the onion has gone transparent and the vegetables have softened. 

Spread the mixture onto the pizza dough and crumble feta on top. Bake for 20 minutes until the crust has crisped and the cheese has browned.

Dinner for one... figs three ways

Tonight is the least glamorous night of the month for me: my fortnightly access to the laundry in the basement. A night of tedium waiting for one load to finish before loading up the next. The plus is that it is a night that I get to spend at home alone, in my own space, which always inspires me to cook! As my dear friend Cate calls it, it's "darling self" time.

A quick meander around the shop brought me my inspiration for the night. It's the season of figs... those gorgeous plump purple fruits with their sensuous gem-toned flesh. There is something incredibly sexy about the look, the texture and the taste of this glorious fruit. I decided to spoil myself for dinner alone tonight... figs three ways.

Firstly, a whole fig split and roasted slowly until tender and juicy, then gorgonzola tucked into it, going soft and melding with the sweet juices of the fruit. Drizzled with honey or just as it is... fabulous.

Melted and soft to be picked up and eaten with the fingers, just to give an excuse to lick the lush nectar up.. or spread over bread still warm from the oven.

Second, cut up into chunky jewells and wrapped in jambon cru and slow roasted until the jambon starts to crisp up and a glorious mingling of ham and fig juice dribbles out from underneath. Served with a balsamic vinegar reduction, this is simply irresistable.

I baked these on a silicone sheet, and between you and I, when the liqueur cooled, I licked it all up!

Then finally time for dessert... Simple and sweet... a fig sliced in quarters, cooked with port and honey and served with a dollop of creamy rich greek yoghurt.

Utterly content with dinner alone.

A little bit of silliness - deconstructed potato salad

I have canapes on my mind at the moment because next week I am catering a small cocktail reception for 40 people. Anyway, I had this thought about raclette potatoes. If you aren't familiar with raclette potatoes, they are golden, buttery and totally delicious. Boiled, they taste like they have been soaked in melted butter. They also keep their shape really well when cooked, which makes them lousy for irish stew but excellent for samosas and, I theorise, for cocktail food.

My thought was to do a sort of deconstructed potato salad... potatoes sliced skewered and layered with mustard mayonnaise. But this alone, while tasty, would be texturally dull as dishwater, and equally boring to the eye.

So what to do? How about a sliver of cucumber, to add some colour and texture... not bad, not bad at all.


Completely coincidentally, tonight's little invention fits into the Recipe Remix food challenge - to rethink a traditional summer "cookout" food. Now to be truthful I am not entirely sure what a cookout is (I am thinking it is what we Aussies call a "barbie") but potato salad is one of the dishes listed as a dish to be played with, so this becomes my little contribution to the fun!

Savoury pullapart bread

I have been having a bit of a bread baking frenzy. It started after the fete de Geneve, when a friend gave me a big bag of rehydrated dried mushrooms. I couldn't use them all so I froze it in bags. I also made a batch of bread dough for a dinner, which completely failed to rise. I am a persistent sort of girl though, so I put the bread dough in the fridge, and the next morning, when I looked in the fridge there was risen dough! Hmmm... what to do with it? I took it to work and at morning tea time, used some of the mushroom mix to make a loaf of cheese and mushroom pull apart bread. My colleagues devoured it and that just got me started...

Next thing I know, I am making cinnamon scrolls, fruit bread, and today, bacon onion and cheese pull apart bread.

Pull apart bread is great fun both to make and eat. Kneading bread is always satisfying, as is seeing the wonderful dough double, and then the pleasure of forming the lovely savoury bites. The scent of baking bread fills my apartment and I am only surprised that my neighbours haven't been knocking on the door demanding a bite!

This recipe is pretty flexible and you can put whatever filling inspires you into the centre, sweet or savoury.

Pull apart bread

1 package instant yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
500g flour
1 cup warm milk
1 large egg
8 tablespoons melted butter or oil

Filling
1 onion finely chopped
150g bacon, finely chopped
200g cheese grated

Method 1
Combine the dry ingredients. In another bowl put all the liquid ingredients, egg, milk & oil. Add a cup of the dry ingredients and stir well. Gradually add the other dry ingredients until you get a soft dough. Knead on a lightly floured work surface for about 6 minutes until the dough is smooth and springy to the touch.

Method 2
Place dry ingredients in bowl of electric mixer (not food processor). Use the mixing blade and add the wet ingredients. Once combined, change to dough hooks and knead for 4-6 minutes, until the dough is smooth and springy to the touch.

Oil a large bowl. Put the dough into the bowl and then turn it over so that the surface is oiled. Cover with plastic wrap. Place somewhere warmish (funnily enough, beside my laptop seems to work well for me, so that the warm air from the fan circulates around it) for about an hour and a half until the dough doubles in size.

Fry the onion gently it starts going transparent, then add the bacon. Fry just for a minute. Allow to cool while you grate the cheese.

Once the dough has risen, deflate and then grab pinches of dough (about the size of a walnut. Form into a ball, then flatten it out into a disk. Put a little of the onion and bacon and grated cheese onto the centre of the disk and then pinch it closed to make a little ball. Layer into a lightly oiled loaf tin.

Allow to rise about 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Once the bread has risen, bake for about 30 minutes until the bread is a dark golden brown and when turned out of the tin the bottom of the loaf sound hollow when tapped.

Eat, ideally while still warm!

Coquelet with couscous and mushroom stuffing

I stumbled across a food event somewhere, which was a sort of paddock to plate affair. Cook up your dish, but show the before and after shots.

I found a little coquelet for sale at the markets, just the right size for dinner for one (well actually it made two dinners for one) being just 500g. As a single woman living alone, its not often I get to have a roast, so I snapped this up. I just adore my chickens stuffed (in some countries its called "dressed" which is up there with scones being called "biscuits" for weird descriptions) and it is something I miss very much living in Europe where beasts are roasted a naturale. But I didn't have any bread in the house, so what do I stuff the bird with? Ahah! Couscous... why not!?

So in fact, as I have lost where the paddock to plate food event is happening, this actually became an entry in "Culinarty"'s first foodblog event for an original recipe. Mind you, I could enter just about every dish I cook into this one, as I tend to be a bit of an original when it comes to cooking!

I am afraid I can't offer much in the way of guidance on quantities, as I did it all by eye. The stuffing was pretty straightforward though: make up a half cup of couscous with hot stock, some oregano and some broken up dried mushrooms (bolets and shitakes in this case). Allow to cool and mix in an egg. Stuff inside your bird, then roast. I actually had some extra left of the stuffing and put it into a butterfly cake mould to make this terribly cute stuffing extra.

I served the cooked coquelet with snow peas and potatoes au gratin and discovered that no matter how I arranged things, this meal refused to photograph beautifully. Still, it tasted great, and I guess that is what counts! The couscous stuffing was really very good - I had wondered whether the texture would be odd, but it was tasty and texturally interesting but not too interesting, if you know what I mean.

I decided too to go on to smugly celebrate my all round inventiveness and have added a label to the recipes I put up on the web, marking those which are my own original inventions. So you can go to the list of keywords and choose "Original" to make a collection of Kiriel originals.

Fine cakes

Here is a truly old recipe from "The Good Husewife's Jewell" published in 1596:

Take fine flowre and good Damaske water you must have no other liqueur but that, then take sweet butter, two or three yolkes of egges and a good quantity of Suger, and a few cloves, and mace, as your Cookes mouth shall serve him, and a lyttle saffron, and a little Gods good about a sponfull if you put in too much they shall arise, cutte them in squares lyke unto trenchers, and pricke them well, and let your oven be well swept and lay them uppon papers and so set them into the oven. Do not burne them if they be three or foure days old they bee the better.

My redaction:

• 2 cups flour
  
• 175g butter
  
• 3 egg yolks
  
• 1 cup sugar
• 1tsp saffron, ground
• ½ tsp cloves
• 2 tsp mace, ground
  
• 3 tablespoons rosewater
  
• 1 tsp baking powder

Mix dry ingredients, and rub in the butter to make something resembling fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolks and rosewater, and mix to make a dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and keep in the fridge for an hour or so to settle. Roll out to 5mm and cut out shapes. Bake for about 20 minutes at 175 degrees until lightly golden.

When the chemistry is right

A trip to Barcelona for three days to visit a friend who was down, became a bit of a gastronomic adventure. Tamara and I met through a mutual interest in illuminated manuscripts, but it was a love of cooking that really drew us together and made us fast friends.

When I found out she was feeling a bit down, I decided that it was my solemn duty to get my butt over to Barcelona to see her. And if, during the weekend, I managed to get a bit of shopping done, and maybe even eat some good food...

Maybe? HA! I arrived at 7.50pm on Friday night and by the time I wound my way through the public transport system to meet up with Tamara it was 9pm. But the Spanish are late night people so the late hour was no reason not to eat, and Tamara had made a booking at a restaurant called "Les 11 Virtuits" for 10pm with two of her girlfriends. We took the degustation menu (with a bit of fiddling because of my sensitivities to shellfish and Tamara's dislike of chicken), and settled ourselves down for some eating. I won't share with you the full menu just yet, as the photos are in Tamara's camera (I will do something a bit more comprehensive once she emails them to me), but it wasn't bad at all, and the company was, of course, superb. Tamara's friends were kind enough to try to speak mostly in English because I have absolutely no Spanish, and we had a few good giggles together.

Saturday started with brunch of lovely fresh bread, spanish ham, fresh cheese and matured cheeses. My kinda start to the day!

After returning from the hunt (shopping bag in hand) we decided to have a quick tapas to give us the energy to survive until dinner. Tamara produced some anchovies from the depths of the fridge and brought out the toaster.

I had brought for her a little gift from Geneva, some of my dried strawberries, and in a moment of brilliance (I admit inspired by something I had seen on the net but I hasten to add not the same thing), suggested that we combine the two. Now I can just tell that some of you, dear readers, will be reeling in horror at the concept of this combination, but have faith... they were great! The sweetness of the strawberries was a great foil to the citric saltiness of the anchovies and together they were sublime.

That evening, we met with another girlfriend of Tamara (all her friends seem to be ridiculously intelligent, charming and nice) at a spot called Inopia for a bite to eat. Sadly since we were all dressed up to go out dancing, I didn't have a camera with me, but you will just have to take it on faith that the crunchy lemon battered anchovies were divine, the mixed olives were a gastronomic adventure and the patatas bravas were so good we just had to have seconds. The fact that the waiter was more than a little decorative didn't do any harm to the atmosphere of the evening too. ;-)

The next night Tamara cooked up a lovely vegetable risotto, and while she bemoaned the fact that the transport strike meant that there was no fresh asparagus to be had anywhere in Barcelona, it was still very tasty.

We followed that up with fish cooked on top of potatoes and garlic, and topped with ever so sweet tomatoes.

I can't tell you how we managed to fit in after that (she cooked a WHOLE fish each!) a local speciality of sweet cheese flan, but you know, I felt that it would be rude of me to refuse.

Monday, my last day in Barcelona got off to a late start. Well actually every day did, because I slept in. Late nights, big comfy bed, very dark room and earplugs will do that for a girl. But the quick snack we grabbed at a tapas bar was only a brief breakfast to keep us going until we got to the main event... Alkimi.

One of the many Michelin starred restaurants in Barcelona, Alkimia is actually very reasonably priced. The amuse bouche+three course+dessert menu is only 32 euro, making it about the price of an average restaurant in Geneva.

and believe me, there is nothing average about Alkimia.

To be continued....

Strawberry shortbread

Simple and sweet, this invention was inspired by the wonderful strawberries in season at the moment. It will be a way to use the delicious dehydrated strawberries I dried this very week.

Strawberry shortbread (original recipe by Kiriel)

175g flour
75g semolina flour
20g dried strawberries (the crisp kind)
250g chilled butter
75g caster sugar

Chop butter roughly. Put all ingredients in a foodprocessor and process until a ball of dough forms. Be careful not to over process, or the shortbread will toughen.

Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap and chill for an hour.

Roll out on a lightly floured board to 5mm and cut out shapes. Bake at 190 degrees for 15-20 minutes until very lightly golden.

Chicken, basil & prosciutto sausage rolls

I had a Tupperware party on the weekend; a good excuse to get together with the girls and drink champagne.... and a good excuse to cook party food!

So...

Chicken, Basil & Prosciutto Sausage Rolls (original recipe by Kiriel)

200g chicken breast fillet
150g prosciutto
1 onion
6-7 basil leaves
pinch of salt and pepper
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
1 sheet of puff pastry (around 30x40cm)

Put the oven on to warm up to 180 degrees.

Roughly chop the onion, chicken and proscuitto. Put into a food processor with the basil leaves and blend until combined.

Cut the sheet of puff pastry in half lengthways. Take half the filling and place in a sort of sausage along the long edge of one piece of the pastry. Brush the opposite edge with water and then fold the pastry over to make a roll. Place seam side down. Repeat with the other piece of pastry.

Cut the rolls in 3cm lengths. Brush the tops with egg yolk and sprinkle with sesame seeds. bake for about 15 minutes until golden brown. Serve warm. (These can happily be made the day before and reheated in the oven)

Challenge: Pineapple & Blue Cheese

I am getting addicted to these food challenges. This one really quirked my interest... "TRGWT: They Really Go Well Together". These challenges are based on molecular gastronomy food pairings, and this month the challenge was to pair pineapple and blue cheese (being hosted by David at "Eat Foo(d)")

Now I had already eaten blue cheese and pineapple on one of my home made pizzas, and so knew that the potential for all sorts of deliciousness was there... the problem lay in the timing. I found out about the challenge on Monday morning (31 March) at about 1am when trawling the internet in a bout of insomnia. On Monday nights I have my singing lesson followed by choir and don't get home till after 11pm. The challenge closes on the 1st of April. That gave me one day to think of something and 1 evening in which to perfect it. Phew!

So... my contribution? Something very simple indeed:

Pineapple and blue cheese soup (original recipe by Kiriel)

2 small onions
30g butter
60 blue cheese
480g pineapple (I was in a pinch so used drained pineapple in natural syrup)
2 cups chicken stock

Dice the onions finely and sweat in the butter until they go clear. Chop the pineapple into pieces (if using fresh pineapple make sure you remove the hard core) and add to the butter. Sweat until the pineapple has absorbed the butter and softened.

Blend the pineapple in a food processor or blender. Add the chicken stock and return to the pan. Simmer for about half an hour to give the pineapple more time to soften. Crumble in the blue cheese and remove from the heat. Stir to blend the cheese in but don't over stir - you want to discover lovely little nuggets of cheese as you eat.

I tried two different versions of this recipe. The first used St Agur which is a mild creamy blue cheese, quite solid in texture and with a nutty taste. The second used a cave-ripened roquefort, strong, sharp and acid.

Both had their merits and in the end I simply couldn't decide which was better, although I think I lean just a teeny bit towards the milder St Agur. I also couldn't define for you why the soup ended up tasting so good... it just does! Go on... be brave and give it a try.

Red Fruit Crumble

On the way home from work I popped into the shops to buy some mince for dinner. And there in the supermarket were glorious red stalks of rhubarb. mmmmm... yummm. Time for apple and rhubarb crumble methinks! But whats there? Strawberries... fresh ripe and rosy red. So red apples instead of green and all the makings are there for a gloriously fresh and delicious fruit crumble. And in perfect timing, this month's Monthly Mingle is on the theme of Spring Fruit Sensation, and Mike's Table is focusing on Strawberry Seduction... mmmm...

Red Fruit Crumble (original recipe by Kiriel)

500g Strawberries, hulled
330g rhubarb (2 long stalks or 3 medium)
3 gala apples
2 dessert spoons caster sugar
2 tsp lemon juice

Crumble
100g butter
1 cup plain flour
1 cup rolled oates
3/4 cup brown sugar

Clean the rhubarb and cut into pieces about 2cm in size. Core and chop the apple into chunks a similar size to the strawberries and sprinkle with the lemon juice to keep the apple white. Put rhubarb, strawberries and apples into a wide casserole dish. Just before topping with crumble, sprinkle with the caster sugar.

To make the crumble: Rub butter into flour to create something the consistency of breadcrumbs. Mix in brown sugar and oats.

Spread generously over the fruit and bake at 190 degrees for 20 minutes. Allow to cool just a little so the sauce will thicken up before serving.

Maple Syrup Cookies

I got spoilt on the weekend - a friend gave me half a litre of maple syrup. Now that is a thoughtful gift eh? So I just had to make Maple Syrup Cookies didn't I? (Even calling them cookies, as I know that the Canadians call what we Aussies call biscuits cookies).

These biscuits are deliciously crisp and tasty. There is a teeny bit of work in preparing the maple syrup, but it's well worth the effort for this crunchy mapley goodness and the recipe is simplicity itself.

Maple Syrup cookies (original recipe by Kiriel)

1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
175g butter
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups plain flour

Pour the maple syrup into a small pan and simmer down until it becomes 1/4 cup of liquid with a syrupy molasses-type consistency. Dice the butter, and put it and the caster sugar, brown sugar,and maple molasses in a food processor. Blend for about three minutes until the mix is creamy. Add the flour and baking powder and pulse until the dough is mixed. Wrap in plastic and sit for at least two hours or overnight.

Turn on your oven to heat to 180 degrees. Break off a piece of the dough and roll out to around 3mm thickness. Cut out shapes and bake in the oven for around 15 minutes until a light golden colour. Cool and decorate. I iced mine with an icing made of icing sugar, maple syrup and just a little teeny bit of lemon juice to help the setting.

Lemon mousse tartlets

Another invention, these wee tartlets were something I whipped up (quite literally) to take as nibblies at the concert I sang in last weekend. They were a great success, and I caught one of my fellow singers polishing off 6 in a row!

So this one is definitely worth sharing as a super simple dessert dish. Its so much fun playing with food! Best of all, this recipe is pretty much a "from the cupboard" recipe, where the only fresh ingredient that is needed is cream so it can be made up at very little notice.

Lemon Mousse Tartlets (Original recipe by Kiriel)

400ml cream

200g lemon curd (also known as lemon butter)

3 tablespoons icing sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

yellow food colouring

Sweet tartlet shells (this quantity made 50 tiny tartlets)

Whip cream until it has firm peaks. In a bowl combine the lemon curd, lemon juice and icing sugar, then fold gently into the cream. Add yellow food colouring if you want, to give a stronger colour. Pipe into tartlet shells and serve - this can be done up to about an hour and a half before serving - much longer and the shells start to soften. This simple lemon mousse would also work well served in glasses as a dessert at a dinner party - the quantity above will do dessert for 8. I had some left over which I folded fresh strawberries into, which was divine!