Author Archives: Linda Peek

Salmon, Preserved Lemon & Cucumber on Cauliflower Cream

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This dish was inspired by a starter we were served at a black tie dinner at the Commonwealth Club in Canberra. It was created by Executive Chef, Mr Karl Krautler.

Karl used salmon confit while I used home-made salmon gravlax. I added some pickled radish slices and a few pink peppercorns and made larger servings to serve as a light main course. This quantity is enough for two light mains or four starters.

There’s a recipe on this blog for Gravlax which you can use in this dish – slice thickly then cut into small cubes. Or use what I call my quick Gravlax. Just buy between two and four salmon portions (preferably without skin) and put them in a plastic container with a tablespoonful each of sugar and salt and maybe a small slug of gin or vodka (optional). Refrigerate for 2-3 days, turning once or twice, then pat dry, wrap with clingfilm and use within a day or so or freeze. Very useful for all sorts of dishes, including canapés.

1 small cauliflower or ½ large
2-3 Tbs cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
250-300g cubed salmon Gravlax (see above for link)
1 Lebanese cucumber, half the peel removed (if preferred remove it all)
¼ preserved lemon
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
2-4 tsp lemon or lime juice, to taste
Sliced pickled radishes (see note below)
2-3 tsp pink peppercorns
A few micro-herbs or tiny rocket leaves
Extra virgin olive oil to drizzle

Break cauliflower into florets, place in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Cook for 15 minutes or until tender then drain and blend in food processor with the cream and seasoning.

When cool spread some cauliflower cream on two serving plates (or four if doing starters). Discard pulp from the preserved lemon, then finely dice the skin. Mix with the salmon, oil and lemon juice. Arrange the salmon evenly over the cauliflower cream, then decorate with the cucumber (seeds removed, cut into chunks), radish slices (whole or halved), pink peppercorns and micro-herbs. Drizzle a little oil around each serving.

Serves 2-4

Pickled radishes: thinly slice 1 or 2 bunches of radishes (discarding the ends) and place in an empty jar. Heat ½ cup each sugar, water and vinegar in a saucepan with a tsp mustard seeds. Pour over the radish slices. Keep in the fridge. Give them a few days to mature before use.

Crispy oven-baked Cauliflower Bites

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Serve these delicious, crunchy cauliflower bites as an aperitif or light meal. The ones in the photo are larger florets which we had as a light meal. I served smaller ones with Christmas drinks and they were a great success. All the preparation can be done several hours ahead.

1 small to medium cauliflower or half a large one
Batter:
2 Tbs Besan (chickpea) flour
1 Tbs cornflour (corn starch)
1 tsp each of turmeric, salt, oregano and paprika
2 eggs and a little water
Coating:
3 cups panko breadcrumbs
1 Tbs sesame seeds
Dipping Sauce:
½ cup mayonnaise (preferably home-made)
¼ cup sour cream or plain yoghurt
1 Tbs tomato sauce
A little chilli sauce such as Tabasco or Sriracha, to taste (optional)
Paprika

Cut cauliflower into florets – one or two bites in size. Mix the batter all together in a bowl with a fork, adding enough cold water to make a coating consistency. Add the cauliflower florets and toss well until thoroughly coated. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a shallow baking tray with baking paper.

Mix the coating ingredients in a shallow bowl. Remove cauliflower, one or two pieces at a time and toss in the crumbs, patting them on. Arrange in a single layer on the baking tray. Can be prepared in advance to this stage.

Bake for 20-30 minutes until tender (test with a skewer or sharp knife), golden and crispy. Smaller florets will take less time. Mix sauce ingredients together, sprinkle with paprika and serve with the cauliflower.

Makes 36-40

Note: feel free to use different herbs and spices such as dried basil, cumin etc

Roast Pork with Black Pudding, Bacon and Rhubarb Sauce

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This recipe from the BBC’s Good Food site makes an elegant dish for entertaining (just double the recipe) or dinner for two on a special occasion such as a birthday, anniversary or Valentines Day. It’s very easy and most of the preparation can be done ahead of serving time.

1 fillet of pork, weighing about 350g
125g black pudding
6-8 rashers streaky bacon
2-3 tsp oil
Black pepper
2 tsp honey
6 stalks rhubarb
½ cup stock (chicken or veg)
2 Tbs cream, sour cream or crème fraîche

Cut the pork along the middle without cutting right through. Skin and finely chop the black pudding and stuff into the hole in the pork. Squeeze the fillet closed. Stretch out the bacon rashers with the back of a knife and use to wrap around the pork, with the ends underneath, or use toothpicks to hold it in place. Can be prepared ahead to this stage.

Preheat oven to 190°C. Place pork in a roasting pan, drizzle with the oil and season with pepper. Roast for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile wash and trim the rhubarb, cut into 3cm lengths and mix with the honey. Add to the roasting pan after 30mins, then cook for a further 10-12 minutes or until rhubarb is tender and bacon is browned. Remove pork and rhubarb from the roasting pan and keep warm. Place roasting pan on the hotplate, add the stock and cream and cook, stirring, until thickened to the consistency of a coating sauce. Check for seasoning.

Slice pork thickly and serve with the rhubarb and the sauce.

Serves 3

Curry Dip

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I’ve been making this dip since I was at school, which is quite some time ago. Served  with a colourful array of raw vegetables it makes a healthy accompaniment to drinks. Make it the day before serving, for the flavours to develop.

250g cream cheese
1 cup thick Greek-style yoghurt
4 Tbs mayonnaise (preferably home-made)
4 tsp curry paste or powder
1 Tbs grated onion
¼ cup raisins or sultanas, chopped finely
1 tsp sugar
Paprika to garnish

Have the cream cheese at room temperature. Mix with remaining ingredients and refrigerate, covered, overnight, for the flavours to develop. Sprinkle with paprika and serve with raw vegetables or crackers.

Christmas Recipes

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Whether you celebrate Christmas with a traditional hot meal of roast turkey with all the trimmings, a barbecue with side salads or a seafood spread, a lot of planning, shopping and cooking takes place at this time of year. If you’re the host or hostess, anything you can make ahead of time will allow you to feel more relaxed when the guests arrive.

Or perhaps you’re not hosting this year, but have been asked to bring something. Whichever the case, there are heaps of festive recipes on this blog which you can find here and here.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my faithful readers as we come to the end of the first decade of Café Cat. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and that 2022 will be a safe, healthy and happy year for one and all. I look forward to sharing more recipes next year.

Quick Coffee Cake with Caramel Icing

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A cake made in a loaf tin is just the right size, now there are just two of us. Any bigger and it gets stale before we can finish it and it ends up going to the birds. One solution with a big cake is to put half in the freezer, but cakes are always nicer when freshly made.

I learnt to cook all the basics at Chatham Grammar School for Girls in England where I grew up. Home Economics was a weekly double class for the seven years I spent there and it was one of my three favourite subjects, along with French and Spanish. The classes took place in a large room divided into six (or maybe it was eight?) kitchens, each with its own oven and sink. When we made cakes by the creamed method, Mrs Wood would walk around to make sure we had thoroughly creamed the butter and sugar before we were allowed to add the eggs and the dry ingredients. We creamed away like demons, until our arms nearly dropped off, trying to be the first to get her tick of approval.

Nowadays I use my Magimix to do this job. So long as the butter is at room temperature this method works well. The trick is not to over mix once you’ve added the flour – just enough to combine everything. If you haven’t got a food processor, use a stand mixer or give your biceps a work out!

2 Tbs instant coffee
¼ cup boiling water
200g butter, at room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup condensed milk from a 400g can
3 eggs
2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
½ cup milk
Caramel Icing:
The rest of the condensed milk
2 Tbs Golden Syrup
60g butter
To decorate: 
Walnut or pecan halves (optional)

Grease and line a loaf pan with baking paper. Or use a silicone one which doesn’t need to be lined. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Mix coffee with boiling water. Place butter, sugar and condensed milk in food processor and mix until smooth and creamy, stopping halfway to scrape down the sides. Add the eggs, sifted flour, milk and coffee and mix just enough to combine all the ingredients, stopping halfway to scrape down the sides. Scrape into the loaf pan and bake for 35 minutes, or until well-risen, golden and a toothpick or skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool, then ice and decorate with nuts.

Icing: place all ingredients in a small saucepan. Cook, stirring for 2-3 minutes until thick and golden. Cool slightly before using.

 

Roast Pork Belly with Plum Sauce

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I recently gave away my deep fat fryer, to make room in the cupboard for a newly-acquired air fryer.

Deep fried food isn’t good for cholesterol levels and I never knew what to do with all that half-used oil. I put the deep fat fryer on a local Facebook “buy nothing” website and a friendly Turkish man collected it within an hour. Better his cholesterol than ours.

I bought a smallish 5 litre air fryer for under $100. It has a five litre capacity which is big enough to make a family-sized batch of chips (French fries) when the grandkids come, or as a treat for us – steak and chips or fish and chips for dinner never fails to put a smile on Matthew’s face.

Since it arrived a couple of weeks ago I’ve tried my new gadget on chips and calamari rings – the ready crumbed frozen ones you buy in a supermarket – and suffice it to say, I’m hooked. They took less than half an hour to cook from frozen and were perfect. There are only two settings to deal with on the model I bought – temperature and time. You can pull out the drawer at any time to give the food a shake and see how it’s doing. No. 1 son was impressed and put it on his Xmas Wish List.

Last night it was time to put the machine to the ultimate test – crispy roast pork belly. As you can see from the photos, it was amazing and all done in less than an hour. Two big pluses with an air fryer are firstly that the kitchen stays cool (this will be great in mid-summer) and secondly the oven doesn’t get spattered with pork fat. I haven’t done a whole roast chicken yet, but that’s on the list.

800g – 1kg boneless pork belly, with skin
2 tsp salt
Oil spray
Plum Sauce:
6 medium plums, stoned (see note below)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
½ red onion, chopped
2 Tbs tamari sauce (or substitute ketchup manis or soy sauce)
1 tsp chilli flakes (or to taste)
1 Tbs chopped fresh ginger
Sugar, honey or maple syrup to taste

Preheat air fryer to 200°C for three minutes. Cut through the pork skin with parallel cuts in two directions. Rub all over with salt, place in the air fryer basket and spray the skin with oil. Cook for 25 minutes, then lower the heat to 160°C and cook for a further 30 minutes, or until cooked to your liking. Serve with the sauce and a steamed green vegetable.

Sauce: Place all ingredients except sweetener in a medium saucepan and simmer for 20 minutes or until everything is soft. Cool then blend until smooth. Sweeten to taste with a little sugar, honey or maple syrup. I used a tablespoonful of sugar.

Serves 4

Note: Freeze stoned plums during the season, six to a bag. They are useful to make this recipe, or to add to fruit crumbles. The plum sauce keeps in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer for several months.

 

 

 

 

Smoked Salmon with Ricotta and Asparagus

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I’m always on the lookout for tasty, low carb lunches which can be made quickly. During the asparagus season we often have this easy combo. Aldi sells a fresh creamy ricotta in a 500g plastic container like a sieve, which we really like. It’s enough to make this recipe two or three times. Often the simplest of recipes are the best.

The smoked salmon rolls are quite filling, so if preferred use only two slices and less ricotta filling, to make them smaller.

6 slices smoked salmon
1 cup fresh ricotta cheese (or substitution see below)
2 Tbs chopped chives
Balsamic Glaze
10-12 spears of fresh asparagus
Kewpie mayonnaise or butter (optional)

Place 3 slices of smoked salmon on a chopping board, slightly overlapping, to make a rough circle or square. Mix the ricotta with the chives and season if you like – I don’t find it’s necessary. Place half the mixture on the smoked salmon in a sausage shape in the middle, then roll up into a neat package. Repeat and place one on each of 2 serving plates. Meanwhile cook the asparagus for about 6 minutes in boiling water, drain and pat dry. Arrange asparagus on the plates. Drizzle a little balsamic glaze over the smoked salmon packages. Serve with kewpie mayonnaise or butter on the asparagus.

Serves 2

Substitutions: soft goat’s cheese, queso fresco in South America, cottage cheese.

Shepherd’s Pie with Black Pudding and Bacon

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This delicious recipe for Shepherd’s Pie, slightly tweaked, comes from Prue Leith, now 81 years of age and one of the great British cooks of all time. It’s without a doubt the best Shepherd’s Pie I’ve ever eaten.

On the other side of the world, Margaret Fulton began the post-War crusade to improve what we were cooking and eating in Australia, closely followed by Stephanie Alexander and Maggie Beer.

These four women provided inspiration to aspiring cooks like me. However, I believe the real watershed came with the publication of the Australian Women’s Weekly cookbook in 1970. In the mid-1970s they started to publish a series of paperback cookbooks, covering a different topic in each book. Every few months another title was published and my friend Ferne and I waited impatiently for each one. The recipes were simple to follow with great photography and we both cooked almost every recipe in every book. We spent hours browsing through, jotting down the names of recipes and swapping notes after we made something. They published a book on Chinese cooking, Italian cooking and other cuisines we hadn’t seriously tackled before. Local supermarkets started to stock the ingredients called for in these “exotic” recipes, because people kept asking for them. The children’s birthday cake book was a huge hit with our kids, who often chose the cake they wanted months before the big event. Here’s an interesting article about this cooking revolution.

If you’ve never eaten black pudding, give it a go in this recipe. With the bacon it adds depth to the meat sauce, but you can’t tell it’s there. Black pudding is available in Woolworths and IGA supermarkets under the Clonakilty brand. Adding sweet potatoes to the traditional potato topping is also a winner. Use half and half or any ratio you prefer. Sorry I forgot to take a photo until we had eaten half of it!

2 Tbs oil
2 onions, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
500g minced beef or lamb
100g black pudding, skinned and diced
3-4 rashers rindless streaky bacon, chopped
2-3 stalks celery, finely chopped
1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes, including juice
1 Tbs tomato paste
½ tsp dried thyme
1 beef stock cube (I used an Oxo)
1 tsp sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Water or wine (red or white) as required (1 cup or more)
Topping:
500g potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
500g sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
50g butter
1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Heat the oil in a large, deep frying pan and cook the onion and garlic until soft but not browned. Add the minced beef, black pudding, celery and bacon and cook, stirring, for ten or more minutes, until nicely browned. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, thyme, stock cube, sugar and then simmer the sauce for 45 minutes, stirring often. As required during this time, add a bit more water or, if preferred, wine, so the sauce doesn’t stick. After 45 minutes it should be thick and syrupy. Season to taste then spread it in a lasagne-type dish, large enough to cover the meat sauce with the potatoes.

While the meat sauce is cooking, boil the potatoes and sweet potatoes in water to cover, with a teaspoon of salt for 15-25 minutes, or until tender. The sweet potatoes will cook faster than the ordinary potatoes. Cut them into larger pieces, so everything will be cooked at the same time. Drain well, add the butter and mash until light and smooth. Season with salt and pepper then dollop over the meat sauce and spread out evenly with a fork. Sprinkle grated cheese over the top. Dish can be prepared in advance to this point.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Bake the pie for about half an hour if the mixture is still hot, or about three quarters of an hour if it’s been made ahead and is cold. Serve with a salad or green vegetable.

Serves 6-8

 

Mum’s Chicken Curry

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When I was growing up in the UK in the sixties, Mum used to make a chicken curry, using leftover chicken from the Sunday roast.

We were a family of five, so it’s hard to imagine there being any leftovers from one chicken, but meat was expensive and servings were small. Dad did the carving and gave everyone their modest ration. You were expected to fill up on veggies.

The Sunday roast rotated: chicken, beef, lamb, pork and back to chicken again and produced the protein element for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday’s main meal. After removing the chicken meat to make a curry on Monday, the carcass went into a pot with some sliced leeks, carrots, potatoes, onions and stock to make a hearty soup for Tuesday. Leftover lamb or beef was usually made into rissoles or a shepherd’s pie.

Mum’s curry wasn’t a proper Indian curry, but we didn’t know any better. Special events in our family were often celebrated in a Chinese restaurant rather than an Indian one. If you grew up in England you might recognise my Mum’s curry, because she wasn’t the only Mum who made it. Anglo-Indian recipes were passed around amongst the officer’s wives who had been posted to India and subsequently became quite popular in England during Victorian times. Grandpa was in the Army and although they were never posted to India one of her Army chums had taught Nana to make this curry, as well as an Anglo-Indian kedgeree which she passed on to Mum.

Occasionally I buy a cooked chicken at the supermarket when they’re half price and make Mum’s curry, with a few tweaks. She used curry powder, while I use curry paste. Fresh ginger, chillies, garlic and a few ground spices, plus a couple of handfuls of fresh spinach, mixed in just before serving, are also good additions. Mum sometimes added a handful of raisins or canned pineapple cubes, but I don’t.

Once the chicken has been added the curry only needs to heat through, so be careful not to overcook it. Side dishes are optional, but go down well, especially if the curry is a bit spicy. This will depend on how much curry paste you use and whether or not you add fresh chilli. Side dishes also make the curry go further. Mum was an expert at making a small amount of meat feed a family.

1 Tbs butter or ghee
1 Tbs vegetable oil
1 large onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic
3-4 Tbs curry paste (your favourite or whatever you have on hand)
1 Tbs finely grated or chopped fresh ginger
1 fresh green chilli, finely chopped (optional)
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 400g can tomatoes, including juice, chopped
½ a 400g can coconut cream or milk (optional) or ½ cup water
1-2 tsp sugar, to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Leftover roast chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces (half a kilo or so)
A couple handfuls baby spinach leaves, or larger leaves, shredded (optional)
To serve:
Chopped fresh coriander
Side dishes:
Steamed rice
Fruit chutney
One or two sliced  bananas mixed with shredded coconut
1 small diced cucumber mixed with plain yoghurt
Diced tomato and onion
Naan bread, warmed

Steam the rice and prepare the side dishes.

In a large deep frying pan heat the butter and oil and cook the onion and garlic, gently, until soft but not browned. Add the curry paste, ginger, chilli and ground spices and cook, stirring over low to moderate heat, for a couple of minutes. Add the tomatoes and coconut cream/milk or water and simmer the sauce for a few minutes while you wait for the rice to cook. Add sugar and seasoning to taste.

Add the chicken a couple of minutes before serving and, if using, the spinach. Don’t overcook – serve as soon as the chicken is heated through, adding a little more water if necessary. Garnish with coriander and serve with steamed rice, naan bread and side dishes. If you add the spinach you can skip the coriander if you like, as you have some greenery.

Serves 4-6

Note: adding about half a 400g can of coconut milk or cream to the sauce is optional, but it does make it nice and creamy. Freeze the unused half to use another time.