Baked chocolate pudding

Sudden desire for a pudding one night lead to the exhuming of an old favourite. The sort of thing we learn to make when we first go flatting, really, ‘cos it’s so easy & the ingredients are always in the pantry. And just the thing on which to use up the left-over whipped cream in the fridge! I think you could make it more interesting than this recipe by adding, I don’t know, dried cranberries or chopped glacé cherries to the mix. And sometimes I double the amount of cocoa in the mix (not the sauce), to give it a stronger, darker appeal. Anyway, it goes down a treat.

          So, sift 1 cup self-raising flour & 2 tspn cocoa into a bowl. Add ¾ cup sugar. Melt 2 tbspn of butter and stir in, then add ½ cup of milk. Pour into a pie dish.

          For the sauce combine ½ cup brown sugar & 2 tspn cocoa. Sprinkle this on top of the mix and then gently pour over 1 ¼ cups boiling water. Put in a moderate oven and bake for around 45 minutes.

Mid-week dining

More entertaining. Mid-week, so it has to be straightforward. And a cauliflower from the Sunday market determined the first course, soup, a Martin Bosley recipe I think, made the night before. An unusual soup, but I like the way the smoked salmon works with the cauliflower … I’d allow about 50 gms of smoked salmon for four servings.

So in a large pot put 1 head of cauliflower, trimmed of greenery, and sliced roughly; a small chopped onion, 500 ml milk, 250 ml chicken stock, and a bay leaf. Simmer for 30 minutes, then remove from heat and blend in a food processor until smooth. Strain through a fine sieve … this gives it a velvety consistency. Season, and serve, garnished with smoked salmon pieces and a delicate sprinkling of chopped parsley. Looks good, the colour of the soup intrigues, and the taste (pleasantly) surprises.

We followed this with Mediterranean chicken, and ended the meal with fruit … sliced, peeled oranges drizzled with Cointreau, chilled, served with whipped cream. Refreshingly simple, simply refreshing. I was pleased with my inventiveness.

The inelegance of beef stew

I was a bit disappointed with dinner the night the foodies came to dine. Perhaps I put too much trust in the Silver Palate gals? Began with their minted sweet pea & spinach soup again, that was fine, and had plucked a menu idea from the book. 

Beef stew with cumin

Parsleyed rice

Orange & onion salad

(I suppose, incidentally, I really ought to resist the temptation to cook new dishes when friends come to dinner … that would manage the stress levels a bit!). The rice was simple, and worked well; the salad unusual, but very successful … the juicy explosion of orange I really liked with the stew. But the stew! Comfort food really, didn’t sit well between the soup & the crème brulée, and far spicier than I’d imagined. But, OMG … I’m just looking at the recipe now and I’m thinking, aaarrgh! No wonder it didn’t work well, overpowered the excellent Australian shiraz someone had provided … the recipe says a TEASPOON of chilli powder … I threw in a generous TABLESPOON!!! Wondered at the time, especially with the experience of the khao soi fresh in my mind, but, you know, never made before, trust the recipe … perhaps I should trust myself?! And perhaps, after all, my disappointment was less to do with the elegance (or otherwise) of the stew and more with the heavy handedness of the short-sighted cook. Give the dish another outing perhaps? But, blast, I had wanted to impress that night.

Performance anxiety

When foodie friends come to dinner, it’s stressful. For instance … very foolishly I had, about a year ago, boasted of my crème brulée to a friend whose wife is a superb cook and now they were coming to dinner … here at last was my chance to perform. So, made it the night beforehand, but wasn’t happy. It seemed to take a very long time in the oven to set, and I just knew it was overcooked. So the next morning decided I’d try again – though quite what I’m going to do with 16 egg whites, I don’t know! But first, I also knew, I needed a brulée torch. Had a very organised car trip planned … could hit three shops in reasonably close vicinity & be home within the hour. Hah! Previously I’d used a gas torch from the garage for brulée -ing … but did the first, or the second hardware store have any in stock? Of course not. Eventually, at the other end of the city, found several different types, some of industrial bulk & clearly not suitable. So I dithered. And eventually ended up at Moore Wilson’s, where they had explicitly labeled brulée torches. Double the price of the hardware store, but at least I knew it was designed for the purpose. Hmm. Adequate at best, I discovered that evening. Anyway, home to make a second dish of custard for the brulée … even this, I thought, a little over-cooked and a tad too sweet … probably shouldn’t have replaced the sugar with caster sugar. Maybe I just need more practice? Have made this recipe before (it’s from Richard Till) and it’s been splendid. Greatly impressed another foodie friend! But am a bit OD’d on crème brulée for now. Won’t be making it again any time soon.

3 cups cream

8 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla essence

Pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 130 C. Put all ingredients in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Pour into an ovenproof dish and set in a roasting pan. Add hot water to pan so it comes halfway up side of brulée dish. Bake for 1 ½ hours or till set. It’s set when the centre wobbles slightly when the dish is lightly shaken.

Cool and refrigerate overnight. Just before serving, dust with about 6 tbsp caster sugar & brulée with torch.

Too trusting

One little achievement during my flying visit to Bangkok was to buy a Thai cook book. Quite a selection available, and in the end choose one written by a farang, not the cheapest but it seemed to explain how to do things, things that someone like me would need explained. All well and good. Home, I decided to make khao soi, long a favourite. However, and despite the recipe’s accompanying photo, I quickly realized that it probably wasn’t the khao soi I particularly like. And did the recipe really call for 2 tablespoons of chilli powder? Trust the recipe, I thought. Hah! The soup-y dish blew your socks off! So might just shelve and forget about this book.

Eating for the recession

The media has certainly picked up on this whole recession thing.  TV, the newspapers are carrying stories about eating cheaply but well. As someone who’s always been drawn to the weekly specials in the meat section of the supermarket, I don’t really see what all the fuss is about. After all, it’s always been possible to eat well, and with great variety, without breaking the bank. Though perhaps you do need, if not a little imagination, at least the willingness to browse cooking books for ideas.

I was quite surprised though to find a tempting recipe in one of last year’s Christmas presents, a school fund-raising cookbook called Essence of Dio, which I had sort of thought of as a collection of recipes showcasing what rich people eat … Dio being a private girls’ school in Auckland. But here was an interesting way to use the chicken thighs, on special this week at New World. Mediterranean chicken. It did mean buying Arborio rice (expensive) (but a little goes a long way), but everything else was in the pantry or fridge … although that also meant replacing black olives with green. With no detrimental effect.

          6 pieces chicken

          2 tbspns olive oil

          1 onion, chopped

          1 capsicum, deseeded & diced

          6 cloves garlic, crushed

          1 cup Arborio rice

          2 cups chicken stock

          1 tin tomatoes

          2 tbspns tomato paste

½ cup capers

½ cup black olives

handful basil leaves for garnish

Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly fry chicken in oil in large ovenproof pan or casserole until browned. Remove & set aside. Gently cook onion, garlic, capsicum. Add rice & coat in oil. Pour in stock, add tomatoes & tomato paste. Stri until well mixed. Bring to boil, making sure rice is covered by liquid. Stir through capers & olives. Arrange chicken pieces on top. Cover and put in oven for about an hour. (I checked regularly to make sure the rice wasn’t drying out – no problems, but be prepared to add more stock or water if necessary.) Garnish with basil. Delicious. A one-pot meal suitable for a gathering of friends.

Greek coconut lemon cake

A colleague brings a generous bag of lemons to work, and as our tree has still never borne a fruit, I’m in. And, once home, inspired again to bake. Greek coconut lemon cake, a Jo “easy peasy” Seagar recipe that perhaps I once photocopied, or someone once gave me, but have never got around to making. Missed opportunity there … it was truly scrumptious. As well as being simple to make … the joys of using a food processor. Anyway, in the favourites stakes, this easily beats the last lemon cake I made.

          125 gms butter

          1 cup sugar

          4 eggs

          2 cups desiccated coconut

          1 cup self-raising flour

In a food processor cream butter & sugar until light & fluffy. Add eggs. Add coconut & flour, and mix well. Pour into baking tin lined with baking paper (the recipe says a square or loaf tin, but I used a round one). Bake in pre-heated 200C oven for 10 minutes then reduce heat to 150C and bake until cooked through when tested with a skewer (for me this was in the 40 – 50 minute range). Stand for 5 minutes in the tin then pour syrup over. For syrup:

          1 cup sugar

          ½ cup water

          juice & grated rind of 2 lemons

Bring to boil in a small saucepan. Stir till sugar dissolved. Simmer for 5 minutes, then pour hot syrup over cake. Cool completely in tin before removing. Delicious served with whipped cream.

I might even make this again for my mother’s birthday. It was that good.

Of cauliflower

One of the joys of travelling is the brief, intense, transient friendships that suddenly spring up. Maybe there’s also a certain tristesse there, too, because they’re so fleeting. For me, memories of one such friendship are always triggered by cauliflowers. It was in Helsinki, and this blonde Californian with one of those ‘Californian’ names – Troy? Trent? Glenn? I forget now – and I bonded over a shared liking for munching on florets of uncooked cauliflower. Seems bizarre now, but maybe back then raw vegetables were less mainstream? But anyway, we got on tremendously well for a few days & then parted somewhere in northern Sweden. Never to cross paths again.

I was put in mind of this by the gorgeous cauliflowers available now … they’re a joy to behold.  And delicious in a cauliflower & egg curry, the recipe discovered in an Alison & Simon Holst cookbook.

But also delicious in that old-fashioned favourite, cauliflower cheese. Always faithfully following the recipe in the trusty Edmonds’ Cookbook. Where would we be without it!

Film festival hamburger

One of the great things about this time of the year in Wellington is the film festival. Two weeks of celluloid surfeit. For me, it’s like a mid-winter ritual; you emerge from a fortnight of dark cinemas and discover that spring is almost here. This year, though, I’ve only booked for a relatively modest ten films … in previous years I’ve often gone for more than double that number … it can become a bit of overload, I admit, but that too is all part of the experience. But a more modest personal programme has meant that only once this year have we had films back-to-back, giving a bare half-hour to grab dinner in-between. Courtenay Place has many fast food outlets, so not a problem really, especially near the Embassy where they tend to be a bit better quality. The other night, though, we were at the Paramount and for some bizarre reason, we went into Burger King! My first burger of the century, I think, and not a pleasant experience. Something crumbed and sold as chicken in a sawdust-y bun. However, true confessions time, I did enjoy the fries, and the chocolate sundae was somehow delicious in its artificialness. Which reminds me – we met a woman in Samoa who creates with chemicals food flavours; that sundae was probably a fine expression of her particular art. Anyway, at least Burger King sustained us during the second film, but I certainly wasn’t tempted to return any time soon.

And so ends my once-in-a-century hamburger encounter.

Return to winter

The most obvious thing to say about returning to NZ from Samoa … it’s cold! Weather for lighting fires and baking cakes. So, as a sort of welcome home consolation prize, I decided to make this lemon syrup cake, a friend’s recipe.

          6 oz caster sugar

          6 oz softened butter

          6 oz self raising flour

          3 eggs

          Juice & zest of a lemon

Put everything in a bowl and beat like mad until fluffy. Put into a buttered and paper-lined 8” cake tin. Cook until golden and done, about 40 minutes at 180C. Then, while the cake’s still hot, pour the syrup over and leave to soak in. For the syrup, put the following in a saucepan and boil for 2 minutes.

          6 oz sugar

          Juice of 3 lemons

          3 tbspns water

Served warm with whipped cream, it made up for the weather outside.