Harissa in a hurry

Triumph
What more can I ask for than something that’s quick, easy and tasty?

Harissa in a hurry

At last! I get to debut the new camera! For those who missed it, I bought a new Panasonic Lumix G2 camera. It’s kind of like a small DSLR. It’s pretty cool, although I have no idea on how to use even half the functions on it, but that will come with using it and reading about it a bit, which I’ve done a little of already. Unfortunately though, I’ve only got the one photo to show of Harissa chicken with lentil mash – it was dinner one night during last week and I was kind of in a hurry.

Harissa chicken with lentil mash

This dish has only very recently made it into my mid-week dinner repertoire. I found it in the Winter issue of Donna Hay Magazine, tried it, and we both really liked it. Actually, I first made this not long after starting my blog, and Emperor D suggested even then that I should post about it. It’s very easy and very quick to make and very tasty to eat. The chicken breast – use free range please, if you can! – is simply tossed in some olive oil, sea salt and black pepper, plus some harissa, which is a spice paste from North Africa, especially Tunisia. You can buy it in gourmet shops and good supermarkets, but there’s loads of recipes out there if you need to make it. A quick search turned up this one, which looks very easy, but I’ve got no idea how authentic it would be.

The great thing about this recipe is that it can be thrown together in the time it takes to boil and mash potatoes. The lentils are a nice touch when they’re mixed with the mash. I think lentils are a seriously underrated and under-used ingredient in Australian households; they’re so easy to cook with (especially the tinned variety) and very healthy too.

The spiciness of the harissa provides a nice contrast with the starchy potatoes; quick, tasty and healthy for a mid-week dinner.

Custard tart and tiramisu make dessert heaven

Transcendent

The custard tart was easily the hit of the evening. The rating explains why.

Triumph

A relatively easy to make and tasty tiramisu deserves this rating.

Custard tart and tiramisu make dessert heaven

I feel that with this week’s post I’ve come back full circle. It was partly because of a great dessert I made for a dinner party at friends’ place that I started this blog – read my second post on the dulce de leche cheesecake and you’ll know what I mean.

Vanilla custard tart
Photo: Renee H

This time, with the same group of friends, a different dessert was needed. There were eight of us this time around; almost enough to make two different desserts, so I did! I thought about what I would make for a week or so before finally settling on vanilla custard tart from the September 2010 issue of delicious; and tiramisu, from Twelve: A Tuscan cookbook by Tessa Kiros.

Twelve was given to me a couple of years ago by my friend Nat – either for Christmas or my birthday, I forget which – when she couldn’t find Jamie’s Italy (which I now have). It’s a book I really like – full of the rustic, Italian flavours I love – but I rarely use it, so I was delighted to have this recipe to cook from, especially given there are at least another five tiramisu recipes in my collection. Oddly enough, this was actually the first time I’d ever made tiramisu.

Popular dessert, and for good reason!
Photo: Renee H

First, a round of applause goes to Renee and her husband Al for hosting the dinner party, and to Renee in particular for the great photos. Stylish! By the way, I mentioned a couple of posts back that I was on the hunt for a new camera. Thanks to Dan’s recommendation (it’s Academy Awards night for Jo’s friends!), I bought a Panasonic Lumix G2. It’s like a small DSLR. I’ve taken photos of dinner during the week, but that will be next week’s post. Now I just need to learn how to use it. Anyway, I had hoped to have my new camera to take these photos, but Emperor D missed the delivery guy by just 15 minutes and I had to wait until Monday to get it.

I’ve seriously digressed, so back to dessert. I made the custard tart first, the night before and, in another first for me, I made sweet shortcrust pastry from scratch. It turned out okay. The custard was easy to make, especially with Betty lending a hand. Put it all together, bake, and… oh! Amazing. Just gorgeous. The custard was just set and had a lovely smooth texture, which contrasted nicely with the crumbliness of the shortcrust base. The taste though – I just can’t describe it. It was divine. There were oohs and aahs all around the table and I think nearly everyone had seconds.

Tiramisu and the layers
of biscuits and cream
Photo: Renee H

Despite making two desserts for this party, I feel like I didn’t raise much of a sweat at all. Tessa Kiros’ tiramisu was quite easy; simply mixing in egg yolks and marscapone, and then folding in egg whites. Then I dipped savoiardi biscuits in strong coffee and, in this case, Marsala wine, before I layered it all and grated dark chocolate over the top. Next time I’d like to try this with Frangelico, which I’m quite partial to, instead of Marsala. It was quite nice, with a great mix of flavours, but really, it was completely outshone by the tart.

There was enough dessert though to feed a small army; Emperor D and I polished off the tart the next day, and there was a third of the tiramisu left. However, that army, and my friends and I, found ourselves in dessert heaven. The next dinner party will be a tough task for me to try and top that effort.

Vying for my husband’s affection – with lasagne.

Transcendent
But then, my lasagne is always perfect. Though perhaps I’m biased.

Vying for my husband’s affection – with lasagne.

Starting the layers; sheet,
meat, sauce

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always loved my mum’s lasagne. Growing up, we had a family tradition where someone would get to choose what the family meal was on their birthday; I remember most years choosing lasagne. As a kid, I never really knew why I loved it so much – I mean, it tastes great; it’s made by my mum – however, there was always something else about it that just made it what it is, but I could never quite put my finger on it. As an adult, I worked it out; it’s texture. There are the soft, thin layers of lasagne sheets; the saucy, chunky, meatiness of the filling; perhaps my favourite part, the creamy gooeyness of the white béchamel sauce; and the slight crispiness of the cheese melted on top.

Once I moved out of home, I got mum to show me how to make it and these days, it’s one of those few recipes that I don’t have an actual recipe written down for; I just grab the ingredients I need, and I just *know* how much of each thing I need to make it perfect.  Some onion, garlic, mince, tinned tomatoes, tomato paste, red wine, oregano, mixed Italian herbs and some bay leaves make up the sauce. Just simple butter, cornflower and milk gives me a great white or béchamel sauce. And lasagne sheets. I use commercial lasagne sheets these days as they’re perfectly fine, but if you want to go the whole hog, make them fresh yourself. I’ve done it once, but it was such a hassle, I’m not sure I’d do it again.

Bubbling and golden out of the oven

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, makes fresh lasagne sheets almost every time. I don’t know how she does it. I mean, I know the method of making them, but for the quantities of lasagne she makes, that’s a lot of lasagne sheets. And I have to feel for poor Emperor D. Being of Italian descent, his mum makes the most amazing pastas. Her pasta sauce is just divine – my sister-in-law has tried many times to replicate it, but apparently has not quite tasted the same. But her lasagne is very different from mine.

I always tease Emperor D about whose lasagne he thinks is better – his wife’s or his mum’s. I shouldn’t be so mean, but I never tire of hearing him emphatically exclaiming that mine is very good, while at the same time diplomatically stating that ‘they’re each very different’, as if comparing apples with oranges. And they are quite different. Emperor D’s mum comes from Sicily, in southern Italy, where it seems they do things a little different to other parts of Italy. But then, most regions of Italy do the same dish with slight variations. I’ve asked her about a particular dish – minestrone for example – that I’ve seen in a cookbook, and she’ll look at the recipe and say, ‘that’s not minestrone – not how we do it. That minestrone is from northern Italy’. I’m amazed that she can tell there’s a difference, let alone what part of Italy it’s from.

Buon appetito!

Emperor D’s mum makes lasagne with only a meat sauce, very thinly layered between thick homemade sheets of fresh pasta. There’s no béchamel or even cheese on top. It’s nice, but for me, I like the structure, the textures and the taste of my own better. And to say that I prefer something of my own cooking over something of Emperor D’s mum is saying a lot – she is an amazing cook and I have no hesitation in saying that I prefer her versions of other dishes I do. But when it comes to lasagne, which my mum has made with love since I was a little girl, I find that the original – the version I’ve grown up with – is still the best.

The proof is in the pudding

Triumph

Bill Granger’s Self-saucing chocolate pudding – easy to make, easy to eat

Trusty

Lemon pudding – great taste, but need another run as they were a bit dry

The proof is in the pudding

Sorry to use such an old cliché, but for the title of this week’s post, it’s rather apt; Bill Granger’s Self-saucing chocolate pudding and Donna Hay’s Lemon pudding. I made these a few weeks ago now when it was decidedly winterish; this last week we’ve definitely seen the four seasons, including a day where it was 37 degrees (that’s 99 for those of you using Farenheit!), so it’s no longer such weather for puddings.

Self saucing chocolate gooey-ness!

The Bill Granger self-saucing chocolate puddings are ones I’ve been making for a few years now. They’re so easy to make, and if there’s only two of you, this is an extremely easy recipe to halve. Because I never had ramekins – until recently, that is – I had use to my delicate, platinum-plated, but oven safe, good tea cups. Well, they don’t get used for tea, so may as well use them for something! I think halving this recipe might be just a fraction too much for the tea cups, because as you can see, the batter spills over.

It doesn’t matter really, because they taste divine. The nice, sweet, cake-y texture on top gradually gives way to gooey, chocolate-y richness down the bottom. The challenge is to dig down so you end up with a spoonful of both textures – soft cake, with gooey batter. I love to eat this with some really good ice cream; while Betty can make ice cream (although I don’t have the attachment yet), Connoisseur’s Vanilla ice cream is among the best commercial stuff you can get.

Although it’s no longer really the weather for puddings, I’m sure I’ll find one night where I can try the chocolate puddings in the new 1 cup ramekins I bought a few weeks ago. I christened these with a new recipe I hadn’t tried, lemon puddings from Donna Hay.

Lemon delicious!

This recipe wasn’t as easy to halve, and consequently I think it might need some adjusting if you’re baking for just two. It had a great, lemony taste, but the texture was mostly cake and not enough goo. I think I added either too little water or too much batter. The ramekins worked a treat though; they’re the perfect size for this recipe. I’ll try these ones again soon as well, taking into account the need for more gooeyness down the bottom.

On another note, I'm currently on the look out for a new camera. I loathe my current Pentax point and shoot digital one, so I'm looking at DSLRs. Suggestions welcome, but I think I might go with a Canon Eos 500D. I want my food that I make to be food porn, not food forlorn. Hopefully, this will be among the last posts with crappy pictures.

Communist supermarkets and how I became the Empress

Communist supermarkets and how I became the Empress

So I'm taking a week off from cooking. I did make some puddings I could blog about, but I'll save that for next week. For anyone who read my first post, you'll know that I promised to explain how my regal nickname came about. It's time to cash in on that promise, so here's how I came to be known as the Empress.

Emperor D and I met over ten years ago working for the same company. It's a financial services company and, back then at least, had a cracking social scene. One of Emperor D's colleagues and workmates - who we'll call Chappers - has a penchant for bestowing nicknames on his mates. His nickname for Emperor D is The Admiral. After all these years, I actually have no idea why. The Admiral, or rather, Emperor D, is not a particular fan of boats or anything. But, nevertheless Chappers christened him The Admiral.

I was nicknamed The Empress. There's probably a deeper reason to it, but I think it basically stems from my nickname Jo being somewhat close to Josephine, also the name of the French empress. (And no, my name is not Josephine.) Since that time, Chappers would always greet me as The Empress. And I kind of like it. Beats being a mere queen. Thanks Chappers - The Empress bestows credit where it's due. With the advent of social media, I needed to come up with a pseudonym that would fit all forums and forms of Web 2.0. I hit upon Empress Jo. So there you have it; the birth of an internet age empress in a nut shell.

A Muscovite spoiled for choice
in his local supermarke

For some of you, what I'm about to write could seem like deja vu. And for that I apologise, but I think it's important everyone knows my opinion on the communist, Soviet-era like supermarket chain (and my local one in particular), Woolworths.

When I think of Soviet-era supermarkets, I conjure up the image of bare shelves, or if they are stocked, filled with one or two brands of a product, one of which will be the favoured, state-sanctioned one. That's my local Woolworths, where I've been shopping for ten years. Perhaps it's a case of familiarity breeds contempt, but it seems every week that Woolworths finds a new product that they decide to stop stocking. And it's always one of my favourite brands or products. Sometimes I feel that they take the information on what I buy when I go through the checkout and deliberately stop stocking that item just to annoy me. And it works. And for the ones they do continue to stock it seems like they've always 'just run out of stock'. I recently tried three times in a week to buy my favourite brand of tea. Nope, out of stock. But even other Woolworths stores managed to have it. They have a small variety of products and an even smaller variety of brands for each product from which to choose.

'Hello! Is there a fully-stocked
supermarket anywhere for
my comrade and I?'

What really annoys me is that they stop stocking some brands of a product, only to infiltrate the shelves with their own Select brand - which I refuse to buy. If Woolworths is like a Soviet-era supermarket, then Select is like the state-sanctioned brand you imagine Soviets or people in East Berlin being forced to buy. We are an unashamedly capitalist society, so why not have the choice that goes with it? I guess that same principle is what led Woolworths to develop the Select brand in the first place - more profit to them.

You're probably reading this and thinking why don't I just go to another supermarket? And you're right - I should. But there's something comforting and familiar about going to a supermarket you know so well that you know exactly which aisle and where in the aisle to find something you're looking for. Nine times out of ten Woolworths has what I need, even if it means I need to compromise. But I hate compromise, at least when it comes to ingredients and cooking and eating with something you know and love. These days, if I can't find something, then it's usually a job for the gourmet supermarkets, and I'm not far from quite a few of those. This is just a vent - but I really do wish that Woolworths would stock more of my favourite brands.

A good tart can be easy

Triumph

While I would’ve given this Trusty myself, I think the last picture speaks volumes

A good tart can be easy

A double entendre for a post title always attracts attention, doesn’t it? But, cooking-wise at least, it can ring true. A couple of weeks ago, my team at work decided to host a morning tea for Pink Ribbon Day, which raises money and awareness of breast cancer, the second most common cancer in Australian women. I decided very early on to make Tobie Puttock’s salted caramel and chocolate tart from the September issue of delicious.

Careme dark chocolate pastry

I’d never made a tart before but, having recently acquired a tart pan, decided to give it a go. And, as the post title suggests, I found it surprisingly easy. I guess I found it even easier having to use the Careme dark chocolate shortcrust pastry, which comes ready rolled. It was divine. I had a little bit left over, so tried making a mini tart with it, but I could have turned the leftover into biscuits to go with icecream.I get nervous making caramel. It seems to take forever and I never think it’ll work out. But then, the syrup that was virtually clear just a moment ago, will suddenly start to colour and caramelise. I love salted caramel. I was first introduced to it via a salted caramel macaron. Who would’ve thought that the sweet, gooey caramel that then gets an unexpected salty hit would work? But it does; just gorgeous.

A slight flaw - the caramel is
pushed out to the sides

Throwing it together was simple enough. But here I will admit a flaw. You would’ve already seen that I’ve rated this recipe Triumph. I’ll explain why in a moment, but I’ll be honest and say that I think I made a mistake when setting the caramel. If you take a look at the image of the tart in delicious, you might be able to make out two distinct layers on top of the pastry; the caramel on the bottom and the chocolate on the top. When I poured the chocolate on top of the caramel layer, I don’t think I’d left the caramel enough time to set, causing the denser chocolate to sink to the bottom in some places and pushing some of the caramel out to the sides. It didn’t look pretty. But it sure did taste amazing. The flavours, especially that salted caramel, just melted together in the mouth.

The presented product

For me to give a recipe a Triumph rating, I used to think it needed to be virtually flawless. I don’t often achieve this and I would have given the tart a Trusty rating myself. However, when I explained to a work colleague what went wrong, he said, ‘but that’s just cosmetic. I bet you it would still taste exactly the same’. And he’s right. Looking over at the plate that once held my tart, I thought that perhaps I’m too hard on myself. My work colleagues absolutely devoured it, and I had comments on how delicious it was and requests for the recipe for the rest of the day.

This says it all.

So I’m going to lighten up. Unlike the tart – it was dense, and very rich. In future, I will give a new rating to recipes that are truly exceptional, that are flawless in every way. When you see a recipe given the rating Transcendent, you’ll know I’ve done something really remarkable. I look forward to plating up my first one.

Grand Final fever – part deux

Trusty

Only the delicious taste saves this from tragedy – gotta turn the oven down and use fresh raspberries!

Grand Final fever – part deux

So a few weeks back, it was the AFL Grand Final. If you’re not familiar with AFL, that’s Australian (rules) Football League. It’s kind of a cross between Gaelic football, football (soccer), basketball even, bit of rugby – it’s kind of a mash of things. But Grand Final day, traditionally held on the last Saturday of September, is a big deal. Over 100,000 people actually go to the match, held at the MCG, and millions more tune in from around the country and the globe. For AFL supporters, it’s a day where you get together with mates and snack on meat pies, hot dogs and sausage rolls – traditional footy fare.

This year was a bit different. The Grand Final ended in a draw – only the third time it’s done so in about a hundred years. In fact, it seems to happen roughly every 30 years – there were draws in 1948, 1977 and this year, 2010. The rules state that, unlike soccer where you would play extra time, the teams call it quits and come back the following week to slog it out and try again. Which is why, unusually, the Grand Final part deux was run – and won this time – on the first Saturday in October.

For the first Grand Final, Emperor D and I gathered a couple of our friends around for the standard footy snacks to watch the game. We threw it together kind of last minute, so I didn’t have time to put too much thought into what we’d serve. When it ended in a draw and we offered to host the game again the following week, I realised I needed to come up with something for dessert. I hit upon something I’d only made once before a few years ago – Nigella’s chocolate and raspberry pavlova.

Chocolate and raspberry pavlova - looks
kind of Christmas-y, doesn't it?

I’m not normally a fan of meringues and things like that. But chocolate and raspberry pavlova? You just know it’s going to taste delicious. Also, I liked the fact that the colours of the pavlova kind of matched those of the team I was going for, St Kilda, whose colours are black, white and red. I thought it would be a good omen. It wasn’t. Second time around, the Saints were thrashed to the tune of 56 points.

Because I’m not a fan of, and I don’t normally make, pavlova, this didn’t turn out as well as it could have. But it certainly wasn’t bad. I don’t think I beat the egg whites enough – or I knocked too much air out of it when I folded in the chocolate – so it ended up flat and collapsed in some places. Also, again, I think my oven is too hot; I turned it down 10 degrees more than I should have, took it out as soon as I could after the recommended cooking time had elapsed, and it still burnt a little in some places. And then fresh raspberries aren’t in season yet, so I used defrosted frozen ones, but I don’t recommend it. They’re a bit too tart in taste and also a bit soggy. Much better off with the perky fresh ones.

But still, it tasted wonderful. The meringue had a nice chocolatey taste and was crunchy on the outside and soft and gooey in the middle. Although fresh raspberries would’ve been better, the frozen ones served their purpose when it was all put together with the cream, meringue and chocolate shavings. I think this might be one I have to try again in summer; in fact, it would make a fantastic Christmas dessert. Might give that a go.