burnt toast

Lemons and Coconut

one little lemon slice

Little Cousin Eileen used to love lemon slices.  So small and frail with a big cloudy mop of blue hair, you’d think she’d get blown away if you’d turn the fan up high enough. But it was that wilful, slightly cantankerous character of hers that kept her going till 96. An interesting little lady she was. I often sit in the rocking chair Grandma inherited from her and ask myself how she didn’t get dizzy by that rocking rate. And the consumption of the many lemon slices. Perhaps even the two combined?

I don’t know if she’d like these – they’re a little different to the dense standard version you can get at the bakery. If it’s an indication at all, the first time I made a batch, Grandma’s lady friends went nuts about them. And if three lots of women with four times more cooking experience than I have ask me for a recipe, well then it is definitely an honour on my behalf to share it.

What you end up with is a cinnamon-kissed shortbread base, slathered with a tart and creamy lemon curd with a crisp coconut macaroon topping. Sexy stuff.

lemon slices

Lemon Curd and Coconut Macaroon Slice

Makes 12 or so

For the crust

150g / 1 cup plain flour

75g / 1/3 cup caster sugar

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground cinnamon

125g cold unsalted butter, cubed

For the lemon curd

150g butter

¾ cup caster sugar

pinch salt

½ cup fresh lemon juice (about 3 lemons)

1 tsp grated lemon zest

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

2 Tbsp double cream

2 Tbsp plain flour

For the coconut topping

2 egg whites

pinch of salt

½ caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

180g / 2 cups shredded coconut

For the base, preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 20 cm square baking dish with baking paper. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Rub in the butter with your fingers until it resembles sand, then knead together until a dough forms. Press into the bottom of the prepared tin and bake for 10 minutes until ever so slightly golden around the edges. Remove from the oven and lower the heat to 160°C.

In the meantime, make your lemon curd. I am an impatient person so I forego the double boiler method and just do it in a saucepan. Just keep whisking the crap out of your curd and you won’t have to worry about curdled egg. So in a small saucepan, melt the butter on a low heat. Add the sugar, salt, lemon juice, zest and vanilla. You don’t want the mixture boiling, just nicely warm. Again, a shortcut created by me to speed up the process. (You can start with cold ingredients if you want.) Add the eggs and yolks, and start whisking. Keep at it until it thickens to the consistency of custard, or yoghurt or whatever you want to compare it to. Remove from the heat and stir in the double cream and flour. You can now pour it over the base.

Whisk the egg whites in a medium bowl for a few seconds with a fork, then add the salt, sugar and vanilla and whisk a little longer. Stir in the coconut and distribute over the lemon curd. Bake for 20 minutes, checking regularly to see how the coconut’s going, because it browns quite quickly. Once it’s golden brown and some of the tips have caramelised even darker, remove from the oven and cool. Then place in the fridge to firm up before cutting into as many squares as you want.

Chances are your grandma will love these, too.

The Lentil of Salad

the best lentil salad

Lentil salad, chicken. You heard me. Lentils. Hippie heaven on a plate. No, I am being serious. This is the stuff. Rip out that prejudice you have sticking up on the wall of your brain of how unenjoyable lentil salad is. Because baby, it isn’t.  I went to a whole lot of trouble to make it into something beautiful and delicious, just to put a smile on your face. I know, I’m such a good person.

I want you to know why I love this salad, and why you should to. First of all, there is no celery in it. Celery is such a spoilsport. Secondly, no raw vegetables. They make salads like this one taste more healthy than delicious. And I would choose tasty over healthy any day. The sesame oil, the feta and the fresh coriander leaves are what make this lovely rock in my opinion. And even though I’m not usually a big fan, a confettied scatter of the ever so popular beetroot makes this salad enter a dimension of its own. Funny, Australians are the largest consumers of beetroot. I never would have guessed. It’s not like we’re big on beet salad or anything. Health Conscious? God no. You know what it is? Burgers. Burgers with a slice of pickled beetroot. At least we get a point for aesthetics. So yes. Sweet, salty and sour deliciousness.

And while you’re at it, you should go buy this cookbook called The Modern Vegetarian: Food Adventures for the Contemporary Palate by Maria Elia. It’s the initial source of inspiration for this recipe. Also, this is a vegetarian cookbook where literally every single recipe makes you want to get cooking immediately. Get it.

The Best Lentil Salad

Serves 2 really hungry people, 3 medium hungry people or 4 as part of a meal. Your pick.

1 cup brown lentils

2 Tsp olive oil

2 carrots, finely diced

1 onion, finely chopped

2 Tbsp olive oil

3 Tbsp sesame oil

3 Tbsp white balsamic vinegar

2 Tbsp soy sauce

1 ½ Tbsp Dijon mustard

2 tsp vegetable stock powder

1 garlic clove, crushed

freshly ground black pepper

½ cup (4-5 beets) canned baby beetroot, finely diced

1 bunch coriander, finely chopped

100g Danish feta or goat’s cheese, crumbled

You may have your own way of cooking brown lentils, so do it your way if you want – this here is how I do it: Pour the lentils in a medium saucepan and cover with about 5 cm of water. Let them sit for about half an hour until they have soaked up some of the water, then put over a low flame. You may have to top up with more water along the way, but see how it goes. Simmer lentils till soft but not squishy. We need them to hold their shape. Drain them and keep to one side.

Now while the lentils are cooking, add the chopped carrots, onion and olive oil to a frypan and cook, covered, until soft. Turn off the heat. Add the sesame oil, vinegar, soy sauce, mustard, stock powder, garlic and pepper. I do this in the same pan to save on dirty dishes. Now add the lentils and give it a good stir. Cover, and let them absorb all those delicious flavours, for about 15 minutes. Once the salad has cooled down, you can add the beetroot, coriander and feta.

Yum.

Pears

roasted caramel pears

Dylan Moran once said “You can get addicted to anything, except for fruit.” I wholeheartedly agree. Fruit’s alright. But I never crave it. There are no wistful daydreams about ruby red apples, no heated discussions on when to buy the ripest mangoes, and certainly no long and lonely nights of clutching the doona tightly, thinking naughty thoughts about sliced watermelon. It just isn’t like that. I will just briefly not that I have been forcing myself to up my fruit intake, just so that my conscience will shut up and let me have an extra chocolate, after I’ve eaten my nectarine. Fruit is alright. Just don’t get me started on fruit salad again, because we all know that it turns me into an irritated opinionated brat, and that’s not what we want now, is it.

One way to make fruit desirable is to disguise it. I’m not talking about the spinach and beetroot brownies or the avocado chocolate mousse here. I’m talking about obvious disguises, namely sugar. Sexy delicious sugar. Give me some pears and some caramelised sugar and let them tango in the oven for a few hours. Now that’s what I call natural beauty. Gleaming little globes of almost translucent auburn-coloured pears, enrobed in rich layers of cinnamony caramel, which upon contact with the cold creamy ice cream (which you will hopefully eat it with) turns the experience into a chewy mouthful of wonderfulness.

Roasted Caramel Pears

Serves about 6

6 firm, ripe pears

1 lemon

440g caster sugar

250ml water

¼ tsp salt

1 cinnamon stick

2 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp vanilla essence

Preheat your oven to 160°C. Peel the pears and cut them in half lengthways, keeping the stems intact. Don’t remove the core and seeds.

Place the pear halves in a large bowl and squeeze over the lemon. Toss the pears and cover with cold water. This will keep them from browning.

In a large heavy saucepan, combine the water, sugar and salt and stir over a high heat until the sugar dissolves. Add the cinnamon stick and bring to the boil. Let it boil, untouched, until the colour starts to take on a light golden hue. Watch closely please, okay? We all know how quickly sugar can turn on us. So after about 8 minutes of staring at the pot, which feels like an eternity, but be patient, you should have a lovely golden caramel, smelling deliciously of cinnamon. Quickly remove from the heat and stir in the butter and the vanilla.

Remove the pears from their lemon bath and place them cut-side-down on a large baking tray. Pour over the caramel. It will have thickened again, but don’t worry, this will change again shortly. And also, add the cinnamon stick to the pan. The longer it hangs out with the caramel, the better. Put the pan in the oven and as soon as the caramel starts to melt again, spoon over the pears. Repeat this every half hour for the next 4 hours. The pears are ready when they are an even colour all the way through and have become slightly transparent. They will also have shrunk quite a bit, which is great – an excuse to eat more of them then. Serve them warm with the caramel drizzled over the top, with cream or ice cream.

You can refrigerate them in their sauce for up to 4 days and just reheat them in a warm oven, but seriously, who keeps desserts for that long?

Kulfi time

cardamom pistachio kulfi

When I was in high school, my mum and I had a Friday evening tradition of going to our favourite Indian restaurant for dinner. Amongst many other places, we’ve been to India three times together, and I will say without a smidge of shame that one of the main reasons that made us keep wanting to go back was the food. The history and the culture and all that amazingness too of course, but man, that food.

This is possibly my favourite Indian dessert, although I’d rather not have favourites. To all you kulfi-novices-soon-to be-onverted out there, kulfi is a type of ice cream. It is prepared by evaporating sweetened and flavoured milk by slowly cooking it, until it has reduced considerably in volume and has thickened in consistency. This deliciousness is then frozen in little moulds and then people like me stuff their faces with them.

Without further ado, make this, now. Especially if you’re in Melbourne and sweating yourself senseless. Or because you just think you need to impress the pants off yourself.

By all means, replace the milk partially or fully with cream. I’ve just always done it with milk. And basically it’s just a very rare occasion where I find half a litre of cream in my fridge looking at me with big eyes, begging to be made into ice cream. But then again, the dairy section of your fridge might be different.

Cardamom and Pistachio Kulfi

 

400ml mi full cream milk

10 cardamom pods, seeds removed and finely ground

1 big pinch of salt

1 can/379g condensed milk

1 can/354ml evaporated milk

50g pistachios, finely chopped

Combine the milk, the cardamom and the salt in a small saucepan and slowly bring to the boil. Remove from heat and pour into a large square plastic container. Whisk in the condensed- and evaporated milk. Let it come to room temperature, or if your as impatient as me, immediately stick it in the freezer. Every half hour or so, whisk the mixture with a fork so as to break the ice crystals, you know the story. After about 4 hours or more, depending on how good your freezer is, your mixture will have the consistency of slushy snow. Now stir in the pistachios and fill into whatever mould makes you happy. I usually use small cups or those popsicle trays you can buy. If you’re lucky enough to have 2 of those trays, I reckon you could make 14-16. Now put them back into the freezer to firm up. When ready, hold a knife under a hot tap and slide it around the edge of each popsicle until it comes out.

Punching it up

white peach and vanilla punch

Lets talk about punch.

It can be a delight to the tastebuds or evidently a punch in the stomach. Preferably, I go for option a. There is nothing I despise more than a bowl of fizzed up sugary nail polish remover with three kilos of fruit salad bobbing around the bucket, waiting for their unpredicted fate.

I don’t like fruit salad. It is boring as hell. The worst kind you can get is on the airplane, as a half frozen dessert component of your western vegetarian meal. The best is possibly the one you make at home, made with a maximum of 4 different fruit at the peak of their season. Less is more. I feel the same about punches. The fewer fruit, the better. Let their individual personalities shine baby, let them be the centrepiece of the tastebud tango.

In this case, it’s just peaches. White peaches. Their alluring, fruity sexiness, combined with the musky aroma of the vanilla seeds – their combined effort results in what I like to call “the little black dress of punch.”

White Peach and Vanilla Punch

Now I don’t have to tell you that this will be no good if the peaches aren’t ripe, or even worse, if you use the tinned version. All good? Bring out your best crystal, lover.

Makes lots, or a bit over 2.5 Litres

6 beautifully ripe white peaches

½ lemon, juice

2 tsp vanilla paste, or 2 vanilla pods, seeds

200g icing sugar

1 bottle (7 1/2 dl) of white wine

1 bottle (71/2 dl) champagne or prosecco

1 Litre of sparkling mineral water

Now first, we’re going to skin the peaches. Score a cross across the bottom of each one, then place them in a large bowl or plastic container. Fill up the kettle with water and bring to the boil. Pour over the peaches and let them soak for 2-4 minutes, or until the skins come off easily when poked with a finger. Drain, then pull the skins off. Now chop the flesh into eensy squares and put them back into the container. Squeeze over the lemon juice and add the vanilla paste, or the scraped out vanilla seeds. Stir in the icing sugar and add the bottle of wine. Swirl with a spoon to make sure all the icing sugar is dissolved, then cover and place in the fridge for at least an hour, preferably up to six. Then, when ready to serve, crack open the champers and the sparkling water and add to the mix. You may want to transfer everything (before adding the bubbles) into a fancier bowl, but I leave that up to you.

Cheers darling.

Raspberry goodness

raspberry and white chocolate muffin

Hi. Yes more sweets for you today. Why? Because I think you’re too skinny. And because cake is really good for you. It’s got like berries in it, which are supposedly high in antioxidants, and there’s dairy, which contains calcium, which everybody knows is good for your bones and stuff. Just watching out for ya love. I know, I know. I would think I was an awesome friend, too. And look, I made twelve individual “cakes,” because I know you and your conscience too well and I wouldn’t want you two getting into a quarrel now.

half left

But now, on muffins quickly – because after all, I’m giving you yet another awesome recipe and I think I should explain why exactly. I’m sure I’m not alone in this when  I say I like the top the best. But only if it’s crunchy, with light but moist buttery crumb. And the caramelised morcels of white chocolate, well they’re just a bonus.

The reason why I’ve stared including cups as measurements is because I currently don’t own any kitchen scales. And because It’s easy. Just thought I’d let you know.

three muffins

Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins

300g / 2 cups plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

220g / 1 cup caster sugar

220g butter, cut into cubes

125ml / 1/2 cup buttermilk

2 tsp vanilla essence

1 egg

250g / 2 cups frozen raspberries, ½ cup set aside

200g white chocolate, roughly chopped, 1/5 set aside

icing sugar, to dust

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a muffin tin with muffin cases or squares of baking paper.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and the sugar. In a small pan, melt the butter and let it cool slightly. In a jug, combine the butter with the milk, vanilla and egg, giving it a bit of a whisk with a fork. Pour into the bowl and gently stir until just combined. Stir in the berries and the chocolate. Divide amongst the muffin holes and top with the berries and chocolate you set aside. Pop in the oven for 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Once the pretties are cool enough to handle, give them a bit of a sprinkle with the icing sugar and eat one while it’s still warm.

More chocolaty than chocolate

chocolate brownie

Ever since I can remember, I have been a worshipper of the brownie. The reason for this, as it is for many things when you are small, was because it was a special occasion thing. So from an early age, I knew. I knew what a good brownie was. It was heaven it was. It was chocolaty and delicious. This object of desire should be chewy and dense. If it needed icing someone was obviously trying to hide its lack of character. A perfect brownie must contain walnuts, as they offset its fudgy texture and cuts through the richness. Those children’s birthday buffet-style lumps of sugary brown foam, now they didn’t deserve to be called brownies.

I took it upon me to make an end to the disappointment, and succeeded. Or at least I thought so, until I stumbled upon something so very much better.

A brownie more chocolatey than chocolate. The perfect balance of fudge, chocolate chip and walnut crunch. It is beautiful. It is intense. It is the missing part of the puzzle. You will want to take it out to dinner, introduce it to your parents, and have its babies.

chocolate crumbs

Eat responsibly.

Best Brownies, Ever

This recipe is adapted from this lovely place. Check it out sometime.

250g dark chocolate

250g unsalted butter

300g caster sugar

3 eggs

60g plain flour

60g good quality cocoa powder

½ tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla essence

100g walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a 24cm x 24cm baking tin with baking paper.

Now to end up with the perfect fudgy consistency, here a little trick. Or rather a big square ice-filled trick. Get a baking tray bigger than the one you’re using, and fill it with 2cm of cold water, and as many ice cubes as you can find. This will stop the brownies cooking any further.

Melt the butter and 200g of the chocolate in a large saucepan (this is my way of using as few dishes as possible. You’ll see how soon). Remove from heat. Stir in sugar. In a jug, whisk eggs with a fork, then slowly incorporate into the chocolate mixture. Stir in the flour, cocoa powder, salt and vanilla, then add the remaining 50g of chocolate, which you have finely chopped, and the walnuts. Give it a nice good stir and then pour into the prepared tin. Bake for 35 minutes, but start checking at 30, because the last thing you want is a cakey brownie. When tested with a toothpick, it should come out sticky, but not coated with raw mixture. Take the tin out and place it into the prepared water bath. Leave them to cool for about an hour before cutting them into squares. Little sqares. That way you can have two.

Delish.

caramelised onion and goat's cheese tarts

Sweet, meltingly soft onion, crisp buttery pastry, salty tangy goat’s cheese and the heat of cracked black pepper, the aroma of fresh thyme wafting up your nose, into the back of your head, into your heart, into your stomach, making you giddy with desire.

Have another one. I know you want to.

Caramelised Onion and Goat’s Cheese tartlets

Makes 18

Just a note on the puff pastry. The stuff we get here is different in size to what I used to get in Switzerland, so I’m sure this varies everywhere. The sheets I work with are 25cm x 25cm, so adjust accordingly.

2 sheets frozen puff pastry

6 large onions, halved and finely sliced

30g butter

3 Tbsp each of olive oil and water

2 teaspoons honey

2 tsp vegetable stock granules

3 Tbsp soy sauce

pepper

salt, if needed

1 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme, plus extra for garnish

50-100g soft goat’s cheese, depending on how intense you want it

Take your puff pastry out of the freezer and let it thaw while you get on with the rest of the recipe.

Preheat oven to 200°C.

Combine onions, butter, oil and water in a big frying pan. Cover and cook over low heat until onion has softened. Remove lid and add honey, stock granules, soy sauce, pepper and thyme and cook until they have taken on a lovely caramel brown colour. Remove from heat.

Cut each pastry sheet into 9 squares and prick them with a fork so they don’t puff up like crazy. Lay them out on a baking sheet. Pop in the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden. Take them out and let them cool down.

To assemble, Top each square of pastry with some of the onion, then sprinkle over some goat’s cheese. Top with a few little leaves of the thyme and you’re ready to go.

These are best eaten on the day they are made. Not as if you’d let them last that long anyway.

Crunch

roasted pumpkin and pesto muffin

I used to work at this cute little take-away deli/café, which was renowned for its coffee, and especially for its savoury muffins. They were the embodiment of what the god of muffins would be like. They were divine. Later, the café changed hands and our lovely cook left, leaving a big hole in our customer’s stomachs and hearts. But not all was lost. Before I left to go on adventures of my own, I acquired the recipe from the grey ring-bound book in which the previous cooks had found enlightenment. And I too, found it. This is it. The Holy Grail. The muffin of muffins. Crunchy and crumbly on the outside, soft and delicately fluffy on the inside. The master recipe is endlessly adaptable of course, so over the course of time I will bring you my favourites. I shall start with my personal favourite, the roasted pumpkin and pesto muffin. You’re very welcome.

crumbled pesto muffin

Roasted Pumpkin and Pesto Muffins

You will have to prepare the roast pumpkin an hour or so in advance, just for time management and stuff. And yes, there is a lot of oil. But that’s just how it is honey. Go with it.

Makes 12 standard muffins, or if you have a giant muffin pan, 6. Adjust cooking times accordingly.

¼ large jap pumpkin, cut into 2cm dice

12 garlic cloves, peeled

salt, pepper and olive oil

2 cups/300g plain flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

220ml canola oil

250ml milk

1 egg

6 Tbsp basil pesto, plus 2 Tbsp extra, for decorating

For the pumpkin, you can preheat the oven to 200°C while you chop it up. Place the pumpkin on a baking tray with the garlic cloves, and drizzle with some olive oil and grind over some salt and pepper. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until soft. Cool. You will only need half of this, about 2 cups or two handful’s worth. From that, put aside 12 pieces of pumpkin and the garlic cloves. These you’ll need to decorate the top with. The leftover pumpkin, well I’ll leave that up to your imagination what you’ll do with that. I’ve got all confidence in you.

Get a muffin tin and line each hole with a square of baking paper.

Now turn the oven down to 190°C. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. In a jug, whisk together the oil, milk, egg and pesto. Pour into the flour mix and give it a few stirs. Add the pumpkin and incorporate with as few stirs as possible – you must not over mix the batter, or else they won’t come out beautifully fluffy and gorgeous like I told you. And we really want fluffy. Scoop the mixture into the prepared muffin tin and divide evenly amongst the holes. Top each muffin with a piece of pumpkin and a clove of garlic, and dollop a tiny bit of pesto on top. Place the tray into the oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, and the top is nicely golden brown.

Delicious, right?

If you’re going to have them the next day, reheat them in the oven at the same heat for a few minutes for the best results. Microwaves are completely unwelcome, unless you’re looking for a de-crunchified, slightly soggy experience.

Egging it on.

egg salad on toast

Now, living a life of a pseudo vegetarian can be… how shall I put it. A fucking nuisance? Not for me, no, no. I’m fine with being difficult. As in “Barbequed chicken? Where? Who? You! GIVE IT TO ME. I want some NOW.” The bit I feel most ashamed about is when I’m invited round for dinner and I have to check in with the cook beforehand, who’s lovingly prepared a 7 day roast for me, and tell him that I don’t really like “real” meat and that I’ll have sides, yes just sides, no don’t worry about me, I love peas. Meat is still very much a mood thing in the world of Watson. So when I’m alone, just me, myself and the kitchen, the menu will almost exclusively be rabbit food. Rabbits also have chocolate and crisps, they just don’t like to talk about it you know. Anyway. What I’m trying to get at is I do get protein cravings, as a normal human being should. And so I choose eggs. Fried, poached, but mainly scrambled, and ever since my last visit to Switzerland, in egg salad form.

The “incident” that got me hooked, was a small and rather insignificant one. But I have found that moments like these are ones that stay with you until you’re old and wrinkly, and those are the ones we like. And so I shall share it with you. Bern, the capital city of Switzerland, to refresh some memories out there, as small as it is, actually has its own airport. Belp airport. At the time of my visit, two of my closest friends were living Holland, so it was imperative that I go visit them – I had last seen them two years ago, on my last trip back home, and I will say this: two years is always too long. So back to Belp. My flight was at eleven o’clock, and I had arrived nice and early, as you would being Swiss, so I had plenty of time to kill. A book to read, a few mints to chew, but nothing to fill my empty tummy. I usually avoid buying food at airports, mainly because they are overpriced, but that day I felt like living dangerously. And besides, Swiss snacks are good. I opted for an egg salad roll at the kiosk, and once I had done paying I sat down at one of the silvery round tables and took a bite. It was perfect. So perfect. The crunchy crust of the fresh little bread roll, then its chewy interior, made complete with the creamy and slightly tangy, finely chopped egg salad. Pure quality.

I know I will never find anything that lives up to a memory like that, but I can still try, and tried I have. And I’m pretty happy with the result. I have a saying that if there’s anything I really like, I can eat it by the spoonful. This is another one of those recipes. Add or subtract toast, as you feel is necessary (unless you’re in Switzerland, then you must use bread. Any bread. You lucky bastard).

Egg Salad

Serves 2 relatively greedy people

6 eggs

1 Tbsp sour cream

2 Tbsp good-quality mayonnaise

1 1/2 Tbsp seeded mustard

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 1/2 tsp vegetable stock powder

1 Tbsp parsley, finely chopped

1 Tbsp chives, finely chopped

lots of freshly ground black pepper

Fill up the kettle and let it boil. While it’s heating up, poke a little hole with a pin or a sharp pointy knife into the bottom of the eggs. This will ensure the air can escape when the egg cooks, preventing them from exploding. Place them in a small saucepan and cover with the just boiled water. Put on the heat and let them boil for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat, pour off the water and cover with cold water. Let sit until cool enough to handle. Peel those babies.

In a bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients. Chop the eggs as finely as you can or can be bothered to, and add to the mixture. Adjust the seasoning if need be. Delish.