Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake with Salted Peanut Brittle

Posted on 14 October 2013 by Linda Peek

This recipe will appeal to fans of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, those American sweets which combine chocolate with peanut butter. However, I do know a few other people who will say “yuck” when they see this post!

Half cream cheese and half ricotta results in a somewhat lighter texture, but you can use all cream cheese if you prefer. The addition of salted peanuts and salty biscuit crumbs in the crust make a nice contrast to the sweetness of the filling.

This dessert is very rich, so serve in small slices.

Base:
1½ cups salty biscuit crumbs, such as Jatz, Ritz or pretzels
1/3 cup melted butter
Filling:
1 kg cream cheese (or use half cream cheese and half ricotta)
1 cup sugar
½ tsp salt
1 cup peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)
3 large eggs
Topping:
1 cup cream
100g dark chocolate
Salted Peanut Brittle:
100g sugar
100g salted peanuts
To serve:
Thick pouring cream or whipped cream

Have cream cheese at room temperature. Preheat oven to 170ºC. Crush biscuits or pretzels in food processor till they are like breadcrumbs, tip into a bowl with the melted butter and mix well. Line base of a 22-24 cm (8-9″) spring-form pan with baking paper and grease the sides. Tip biscuit crumbs in and press evenly over the base with your hand or the base of a glass. Place in the fridge while you make the filling.

Place cream cheese (or cream cheese and ricotta) in food processor with sugar and mix well. Add remaining ingredients and mix, stopping to scrape down the sides. Scrape filling into the pan and smooth the top. Bake for between 45 mins and an hour or until just set. As soon as it feels set in the middle when you touch with your fingers it’s ready. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

For topping, heat cream in microwave or a saucepan till almost boiling. Add chocolate broken into squares and stir till melted. Leave until starting to thicken, then spread evenly over the cheesecake. When cheesecake is cold refrigerate overnight.

To make brittle, heat sugar in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat until dark caramel colour. Don’t stir, but you can lift and swirl the pan from time to time, to ensure sugar melts evenly. Add peanuts, swirl to combine, then tip onto a baking pan lined with baking paper or foil.

Remove cheesecake from fridge 15 mins before serving. Run a knife dipped in boiling water around the sides of the cheesecake to loosen, then remove the sides of the pan. Dip knife into boiling water to cut cheesecake into slices. Wipe and dip each time. Break or cut peanut brittle into shards and use to decorate cheesecake. Some whipped or pouring cream goes well.

Serves 16-20 (small slices)

Note: in South America queso fresco can be substituted for the ricotta. You can use sour cream instead of cream and milk chocolate instead of dark in the topping.

Pom’s Crunchy Biscuits

Posted on 10 October 2013 by Linda Peek

My Thai friend Pom makes these delicious crunchy biscuits. She gave me some as a gift recently, but they were so good I ate them all as I was driving home, so Matthew didn’t get any. I asked her for the recipe and decided to double the quantities because I knew that 16 biscuits wouldn’t last long.

They’re like muesli in a biscuit – healthy, satisfying, good for lunch boxes or to go with a cuppa. An Australian cup measure is 250ml or a quarter of a litre.

4 cups cornflakes
2/3 cup sugar or honey
250g butter at room temp
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup sultanas
2 cups SR flour
½ cup sesame seeds (white or black or a mixture)
½ cup shredded or dessicated coconut
½ cup sunflower or pumpkin kernels
1 cup chocolate chips or chopped chocolate

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Place cornflakes in food processor and process briefly to break them up a bit, but not much. If you need to chop the chocolate do it now and add it to the cornflakes. Place sugar or honey and butter in food processor and mix until smooth and creamy. Add eggs and mix well, then flour and vanilla. When smooth, scrape into the bowl with the cornflakes, add remaining ingredients and mix well. Line two or three baking trays with baking paper. Form mixture into 3cm balls and arrange on trays with spaces in between. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden – don’t overcook or they will be dry. Cool then store in a tin with a lid.

Makes about 32

Note: the recipe is easy to halve and you can vary the ingredients to suit you taste. Add more coconut and less sultanas, use chopped nuts instead of the kernels, or leave out the chocolate and substitute something else

How to Cook Flank Steak

Posted on 7 October 2013 by Linda Peek

I recently attended the Fine Food Fair at the Sydney Convention Centre. As I was wandering round I saw a cooking demonstration about to start, grabbed a chair and sat down. The subject of the demo was how to cook cheap cuts of meat quickly, rather than by one of the slow methods we usually use with less tender cuts.

The chef was a Pom like me, so he called the cut of beef he was using skirt. Here in Australia it’s known as flank. He said there were five rules for the successful quick-cooking of flank steak:

use a piece of lean flank steak about 2.5cm thick
marinate for about 30 minutes in a mixture which includes lemon or lime juice
cook over high heat for 3-4 minutes each side, turning once, to achieve medium-rare
rest meat loosely-covered for the same amount of time as you cooked it
slice thinly downwards, across the grain

Samples were passed around and the results were impressive. The meat was tasty and surprisingly tender so I decided try it at home. At the demo they served it in bread rolls which they called Vietnamese Steak Sandwiches. We had ours on top of the salad.

You can use any combination of crunchy vegetables for the salad. I used one carrot instead of two and added one coarsely grated raw beetroot and some finely shredded red cabbage.

The marinade can also be varied with any herbs, spices or sauces that take your fancy.

1 piece of flank steak weighing 600-750g and about 2.5cm thick
Marinade:
Juice of ½ lemon or 1 lime
2 Tbs soy sauce or Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tbs fresh grated ginger or 2 cloves garlic, crushed, or both
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Salad:
2 spring onions, finely sliced on the diagonal
½ cup fresh coriander leaves
1 cucumber, thinly sliced
2 carrots, coarsely grated
Salad Dressing:
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp sugar
Pinch chilli powder (optional)
1 Tbs rice wine vinegar
1 Tbs water
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine marinade ingredients except salt and pepper, add meat, turn to cover and leave for 30 minutes, turning occasionally. At the demo they marinated it in a sealed plastic bag, but I just used a dish. Mix salad ingredients in a bowl and dressing ingredients in a jar with a lid and shake.

Preheat BBQ or griddle to very hot. Drain steak and pat dry with paper towels. Season with salt and pepper on both sides. Cook steak for 3-4 minutes each side, turning once, until medium-rare. Remove from heat, cover loosely with a piece of foil or a saucepan lid and leave to rest for 6-8 minutes. Slice thinly downwards, across the grain. If serving in rolls, split and lightly toast them. Mix salad with dressing.

Serve beef and salad in rolls or arrange on individual plates.

Serves 4

Note: if preferred just use your regular salad dressing instead.

Carrot Cake

Posted on 3 October 2013 by Linda Peek

This is Matthew’s favourite cake and he complained that I didn’t make it very often. The reason is that it’s rather a big cake so I only made it when we had guests, then he would finish it off over the following week.

To keep him happy I now make half the recipe in a large loaf tin which takes about 45 minutes to cook rather than an hour. The quantities for half the recipe are in brackets.

The carrots and cream cheese make this a moist cake which will keep in a tin with a lid for up to a week, refrigerated in warm weather.

4 eggs (2)
1¾ cups sugar (just over ¾)
1½ cups vegetable oil (¾)
2 cups self-raising flour (1)
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (1)
2 tsp cinnamon (1)
1 tsp salt (½)
½ tsp ground cloves (optional) (¼)
1 cup chopped walnuts (or ½ cup walnuts and ½ cup raisins) (½ total)
400g coarsely grated carrots (about 4-5 big carrots) (200g)
Icing:
250g cream cheese at room temperature (not the spreadable kind) (125g)
1-2 cups icing sugar, sifted (¾ to 1 cup)
1 tsp vanilla essence (½)
25 walnut or pecan nut halves

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Peel carrots then grate in food processor if you have a grating attachment or by hand. With electric beaters, beat eggs and sugar until thick and creamy and tripled in volume. Gradually beat in oil, fold in sifted dry ingredients, then walnuts (raisins) and carrots. Pour into a 25 cm (9”) square tin, greased and bottom-lined with greaseproof paper, and smooth the top. You can use a round tin if preferred, but I like the way a square cake can be cut into lots of small servings.

Bake for an hour in the middle of the oven, or till a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool 10-15 minutes in the tin then turn out, cool thoroughly and remove paper. Ice the top only and decorate with 25 walnut halves, 5 down one side and 5 down the other, then fill in the gaps like a chess board. Cut cake into 25 squares. Keeps for several days in a tin.

Icing: Place cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla in food processor and mix until light and fluffy, stopping once to scrape down the sides. Don’t over-mix or it will go thin and runny. If preferred mix the icing by hand. If using a softer, spreadable cream cheese definitely mix by hand.

Cuts into 25 squares

Quick Fish Soup

Posted on 30 September 2013 by Linda Peek

This delicious, creamy Mediterranean-style soup can be on the table in less than 15 minutes. With crusty bread it’s a meal in itself. You want the fish to stay in chunks and not disintegrate, so be careful not to over-cook it.

25g butter
1 leek, finely sliced or 1 lg onion, chopped
1 cup white wine
About 12 mussels, fresh or frozen, in shell, scrubbed
3 cups boiling water
1 vegetable stock cube
1/3 cup cream or sour cream
350-400g fish (I like half white fish and half salmon)
200g raw peeled prawns
pinch saffron or turmeric
1 tsp sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Tabasco sauce (optional)
2 Tbs finely chopped fresh parsley

In a large heavy-based saucepan, melt butter and cook leek or onion gently for 5 minutes until soft but not brown. Add wine, water, stock cube and mussels and bring to the boil, then turn down to simmer. As soon as mussels have opened remove them from the pan and when cool enough to handle open and discard the empty shells. Meanwhile cut fish into large chunks and add to the pan with the prawns, cream and saffron or turmeric. As soon as fish is tender – just a few minutes – return mussels to pan, add sugar and season to taste. Ladle into soup bowls and serve with a drizzle of Tabasco, chopped parsley and crusty bread to mop up the juices.

Serves 4

Note: I bought a kilo of frozen New Zealand mussels from the supermarket which was enough to make this soup twice.

Pear & Avocado Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing & Caramelised Walnuts

Posted on 26 September 2013 by Linda Peek

A perfectly ripe pear and an avocado sitting next to each other in the fruit bowl provided the inspiration for this healthy week-end lunch. I’ve always liked the sweetness fresh fruit adds to an otherwise savoury salad. You can use any type of blue cheese and pecans instead of walnuts.

2 baby cos lettuce hearts
1 large ripe pear
1 ripe avocado
2 tsp oil
About 20 walnut halves
2 tsp honey
Dressing:
½ cup vegetable oil of your choice
Juice of ½ lemon or lime
¼ cup cream or sour cream
2-3 Tbs blue cheese
Freshly ground black pepper
To serve:
Finely chopped parsley or chervil

Arrange lettuce on two plates. Peel and halve pear and remove core with a melon baller, arrange on plate. Peel avocado, remove stone, cut each half into slices but not quite to the narrow end, then fan out on the plate. Heat oil and cook walnuts for a minute or two, stirring. Add honey and continue to cook and stir until sticky and glazed then turn off the heat – be careful, they burn easily. Place all ingredients for dressing in food processor and process until smooth. Start with 2 Tbs cheese, then taste and see if it needs more. Drizzle some of the dressing over the salads, sprinkle with walnut halves and herbs.

Serves 2

Gâteau de Crêpes Florentine

Posted on 23 September 2013 by Linda Peek

Most recipes on this blog are fairly quick and easy. Gâteau de Crêpes Florentine is a bit more time-consuming, so allow an hour to an hour and a half for preparation, plus cooking time. It can however be prepared ahead if you’re serving it to guests.

I used to make this in one large pancake stack and serve it cut into wedges. I decided to modernise it by making individual ones to serve for brunch. Making individual ones is a bit more fiddly than one big one, but using frozen spinach instead of fresh speeds things up.

If you make individual gateaux you will be left with a lot of crepe off-cuts, which can be used to make a quick dessert. Use scissors to snip them into more uniform pieces then mix them with some apple slices, pile into a baking dish, sprinkle with sugar, dot with butter and bake in a hot oven for about 25 minutes.

Crêpes:
2 cups cold water
1 cup cold milk
3 eggs
½ tsp salt
2 cups sifted plain flour
5 Tbs oil
Filling:
100g plain flour
70g butter
2 cups milk
salt, pepper and nutmeg
2 bunches spinach (or 2 x 250g packets frozen)
250g grated Parmesan cheese
To serve:
1 carton sour cream
½ cup chopped parsley
Salt to taste

Blend crepe ingredients in blender or food processor until smooth. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight. Add 1-2 tablespoons of extra water, to ensure the batter is nice and thin, then make 24-28 thin crêpes in a non-stick omelette or crepe pan. No need to grease the pan. Use 1½-2 Tbs batter for each crepe, swirling the pan to cover the whole area. Stack them one on top of the other on a plate. If you’re making individual ones, use a larger non-stick pan so the crêpes are big enough to cut three circles using a stacking ring.

For the filling, wash, cook, drain and chop spinach or use two well-drained packets of frozen spinach. Make a white sauce with butter, flour and milk. Add seasonings and spinach. Sauce should be thick.

For one large gateau, place one crepe on lightly buttered ovenproof plate. Spread with thin layer of spinach sauce and sprinkle generously with grated Parmesan. Continue, ending with a crepe. Cover with foil and leave in the fridge. To serve, heat for about 45 mins at 180°C, remove foil and cut into wedges, like a cake. Serve with the parsley sauce.

For individual gateaux, grease individual stacking rings and arrange on baking paper, on a baking tray. Doing three crepes at a time, cut circles using one stacking ring. So from 3 crepes you will get 9 circles. Place one in each ring, then spread some spinach sauce over, sprinkle with grated parmesan and continue until you reach the top, ending with a plain circle of crepe. You will need 5-6 circles per serving. You can either use up all the crepes and filling or just make six or so and keep the rest for another use.

Sauce: Mix and chill. Add salt just before serving.

Serves 10-12 as a starter or light lunch.

Salmon in Pastry with Currants and Ginger

Posted on 19 September 2013 by Linda Peek

Once it’s been passed on a few times, the origins of a recipe are often lost. I haven’t made this recipe for quite some time, but I remember it was given to me by my dear friend Maggie about 15 years ago. We started primary school together, so we go back a long way!

My friend Karen recently gave me two cook books by British cook book writer and critic Simon Hopkinson, called Roast Chicken and Other Stories and Second Helpings of Roast Chicken. As I was reading the first volume, voilà, there was Maggie’s salmon. Hopkinson says it’s his version of “a most famous creation by George Perry-Smith, one of the great pioneers who changed the eating habits of an apathetic British public.” Perry-Smith was greatly influenced by Elizabeth David and made his name at The Hole in the Wall in Bath, which opened in the late 1950s.

You can either make this in individual parcels or one large one and cut it into slices, which is what I decided to do this time. Hopkinson likes to serve it with a hollandaise sauce, lightened with whipped cream, but concedes that the dish is very rich and just as nice served with a wedge of lemon. The combination of crisp pastry, salmon, ginger and currants is unusual, but delicious. A simple watercress salad and some buttered new potatoes are all that you need to complete the meal. The potatoes took longer to cook than I thought they would, which meant that the salmon got a bit over-cooked as you can see in the photo. Next time I will put the potatoes on earlier!

I served the reheated leftovers with my Cucumber Salad which went extremely well.

2 Tbs currants
2 Tbs stem ginger in syrup, drained, or glace ginger
110g butter, at room temperature
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
A pinch of ground mace or nutmeg
375g puff pastry, bought or home-made
8-900g salmon fillet, skinned and boned
1 egg yolk, beaten

Pour boiling water over the currants and leave to swell for 5-10 minutes, then drain and pat dry on paper towels. Mix currants and finely chopped ginger into butter, then add mace or nutmeg and season to taste. Roll out pastry to a size which is slightly longer and wider than the salmon fillet. Lay the pastry on a lightly oiled baking tray. Spread the butter over the salmon fillet, then fold it over on itself lengthwise. Place on pastry, to one side. Fold over the pastry and seal all the way around. Press with the tines of a fork then trim off any excess to give a neat edge. Salmon can be prepared ahead to this stage and kept, loosely covered, in the fridge for up to several hours.

Pre-heat oven to 200°C. Brush salmon with egg yolk then bake for 20-30 minutes or until golden brown – you don’t want to overcook the salmon. Slice and serve with a wedge of lemon, lightly dressed watercress salad and boiled new potatoes, dressed with a knob of butter and some finely chopped parsley.

Serves 6

Campari and Orange Jelly with Labneh and Oranges

Posted on 16 September 2013 by Linda Peek

Looking for inspiration for a family brunch I remembered my friend Karen telling me about a Campari and orange jelly she made recently from New Food, by Jill Dupleix, published in 1994. I’m not very good at culling cook books as I often find something in an old one which I can adapt or revamp. Amongst my collection I also had a copy of that book.

I made one and a half times the original recipe and, instead of using individual moulds, poured it into a rectangular dish, then cut it into cubes when set. I didn’t have quite enough orange juice so I added the juice of a lime. Served in Martini glasses, layered with labneh and orange segments the jelly cubes looked quite snazzy. A delicious and very refreshing brunch starter, which could also be served as dessert.

3 cups freshly squeezed orange juice
½ cup Campari
¾ cup water
6 tsp powdered gelatine
2 Tbs caster sugar, to taste
To serve:
Labneh
Icing sugar, to taste
Orange flower water, to taste (optional)
2 oranges, cut into segments
Mint sprigs (optional)

You will need to make the labneh the day before.

Mix orange juice with Campari. Place water in a small bowl and mix in gelatine and sugar. Zap in the microwave for 30 seconds or to dissolve the gelatine, then add to the orange juice. Tip into a small rectangular dish and leave in the fridge to set for several hours or overnight.

Mix labneh with icing sugar and a few drops of orange flower water to taste. With a sharp knife, cut jelly into cubes and layer in Martini glasses with the labneh and orange segments. If liked, garnish with a sprig of mint.

Serves 6

Smoked Salmon and Scrambled Egg Tartlets

Posted on 12 September 2013 by Linda Peek

I’m always looking for new ideas for weekend lunches. Something light and tasty to go with a glass of wine. This delicious combination of scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and crisp pastry comes from Gordon Ramsey.

Once cooked the pastry shells will keep for several days in a sealed container in the fridge and just need to be reheated in a hot oven for 2-3 minutes. For the garnish I prefer salmon roe which is a dark pink colour, but had to make do with the fake black “caviar” shown in the photo, because it’s easier to find at the weekend in a suburban supermarket. The rocket leaves look huge, I know, but that’s how they grow in our garden.

Puff pastry, bought or home-made
3-4 eggs
2-3 Tbs milk
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
25g butter
4 slices smoked salmon
Salmon roe or Lumpfish roe (fake caviar)
Rocket salad, lightly dressed

Preheat oven to 200ºC. Line two individual quiche tins with pastry, rolled out thinly. Line with foil then add dry beans or corn to hold the foil flat. Bake blind for 10 mins then remove foil, prick pastry with a fork to make sure it stays flat and put back in the oven for another 5 mins or until golden and crisp. These can be made ahead and kept in a container with a lid for up to a week.

If tarts have been made ahead and are cold, reheat them in a hot oven for 2-3 minutes. Beat eggs with milk and add salt and pepper to taste. Melt butter in a non-stick pan and scramble the eggs. Place two slices smoked salmon in each tart shell, with the darker edges towards the middle. Top with the eggs, garnish with the salmon roe or lumpfish caviar and serve with a rocket salad.

Serves 2