Tag Archives: family

Crab and Leek Quiche

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A slice of quiche and a large salad makes a perfect evening meal in summer. People with bigger appetites can add some boiled new potatoes, with butter and chopped parsley or chives, sprinkled with sea salt and lots of black pepper.  If you have teenage kids a loaf of good old garlic bread won’t go amiss. Leftover quiche is nice for lunch next day.

One round or rectangular quiche shell made from shortcrust pastry
1 leek, chopped
1 Tbs butter
1 cloves garlic, crushed
100g pancetta, diced
2 Tbs white wine
1 Tbs flour
2 eggs
3/4 cup cream
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 Tbs chopped fresh herbs (I used Marjoram, but could be dill, parsley)
250g crab meat
200g brie or camembert, thinly sliced

Pre-heat oven to 180°C.  Bake the quiche shell blind (with foil and beans to weigh down) for 5-10 mins, then remove foil and cook for a few more mins until fully cooked but pale golden in colour. This is the secret to a good quiche which doesn’t have a soggy bottom! Meanwhile in a medium sized frying pan cook leek and garlic in butter over moderate heat until soft, but not coloured.  Add pancetta and continue to cook, stirring for 3-4 mins.  Add wine and cook till evaporated, stirring.  Add flour and mix well.  Add herbs and spread into quiche shell.  Top with crab, then cheese.  Beat eggs with cream and season to taste.  Pour carefully into quiche so it’s evenly spread.  Bake for 25-30 mins or until well risen and golden.  Serve warm or at room temperature with salad.

Serves 6-8

Variations: use grated hard cheese instead of soft cheese on top.  Use a splash of sherry instead of white wine.  Use a can of drained salmon or tuna, or some whole peeled prawns instead of crab.  Use bacon or ham instead of the pancetta.

Rhubarb Crumbly Slice

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Matthew said the rhubarb was going berserk and needed picking. All the other little desserts you’ve seen on here recently have been devoured and the fridge was looking bare. I thought I would concoct something with this delicious under-rated fruit from the garden and came up with this.  A cross between a crumble and a slice which can double up as a dessert or something sweet to go with a cup of tea for the next few days.

250g plain flour
250g butter
200g brown sugar
200g porridge oats (not the quick cook variety)
About 1 kg washed and trimmed rhubarb, cut into 2-3cm slices
1½ cups jam (any flavour will do)
3 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger (optional)

Preheat oven to 180°C.  Place flour and butter in food processor and process to fine crumbs.  Add sugar and oats and process briefly, just enough to mix.  Butter an oblong cake tin or roasting pan.  I used a roasting pan 28x34cm. Tip in about ¾ of the crumble mix and spread evenly. Top with the rhubarb, then drizzle over the jam, mixed with the ginger if using.  If jam is a bit stiff zap it briefly in the microwave. Cover with remaining crumbs then bake for 30-40 mins or until browned and bubbly. Cut into 16.

Keeps in the fridge, covered, for up to a week. Can be eaten cold as a cake/slice or hot as a dessert. If you just want to heat up one portion use the microwave.  However, if you want to reheat say half a dozen slices to serve as dessert with cream or vanilla ice cream, remove the required number of squares from the tin with a fish slice and reheat in a moderate oven for 10-15 mins on a sheet of baking paper.

Serves 16

Mum’s Lamb Casserole

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When our kids were in their teens we had a dinner roster. I still did most of the cooking, but once or twice a month each of the kids was responsible for the feeding the clan. It didn’t have to be elaborate – just something easy they knew how to do. I’m a great believer in this roster approach to dinner time. Apart from the fact that it’s nice for the Chief Cook and Bottle Washer to have the occasional night off, it means that when the kids leave home – and eventually they do – they won’t starve.

Working on the same principle, my Mum taught me to make this casserole when I was in my early teens. The fact that I still make it is testimony to its success. With creamy mash or baked potatoes it’s still one of my favourite “comfort foods”.

We were given a Crock Pot as a wedding present and I used it for years. Every busy cook should have one. Somehow in a house move it disappeared and I really missed it, so when I saw one in a garage sale I snapped it up.

Crock Pots are great for working mums because you can leave dinner to cook in your absence. Switch it on as you leave, then when you get back check how its going. It just needs an occasional stir and you can turn it up to High if it’s not cooking fast enough, or down to Low if it’s cooking too fast.

Browning the chops adds flavour to the dish, but if you’re really pressed for time skip this stage and you will still have a tasty dish. It may seem strange to see a recipe which can take anything from 4 to 8 hours to cook. But that’s the whole point of a slow cooker – you can adjust the temperature to suit your timetable.

1.5 kg lamb chops (cheap cuts like neck or forequarter chops) trimmed of all excess fat
1 x 425g tin tomatoes, chopped
1 cup water
2-3 parsnips, cut into chunks (optional)
2-3 carrots, sliced thickly
1 beef stock cube, crumbled (I use the Oxo brand my mother used)
1 large onion, chopped
3 Tbs dry sherry or red wine
1 Tbs tomato paste
2 bay leaves or a sprig of fresh rosemary
1 tsp sugar
S and P to taste
2-3 cups frozen peas

Brown chops on both sides in a large frying pan with just a tiny drizzle of oil, almost none. Place chops in slow cooker with remaining ingredients apart from frozen peas. Discard any fat in the frying pan, then pour the cup of water in and scrape it around to remove any brown bits and add to the casserole. Cover and cook on high for 4-6 hrs or on low for 6-8 hrs, until meat is very tender. Stir every hour or two if you are around – if not don’t worry, it can look after itself for quite a while. Add peas during the last 30-60 mins or so of cooking. Once ready the casserole will stay that way for a while if you switch it to Low. Serve with creamy mashed potatoes or potatoes baked in their jackets, with a dollop of sour cream and chives.

Serves 6

Variations: add a tin of drained chickpeas instead of peas and 1-2 tsp cumin, then serve with couscous. Or add a tin of haricot or kidney beans.

Notes: If you don’t have a slow cooker use a large heavy iron casserole with a lid and cook in the oven. It will take 3-4 hours at 160°C and will need a little more water – check and add as necessary.

Recipes usually call for a tablespoon or two of tomato paste, leaving you with the rest of the jar or tin which goes off in the fridge within a week or so. To avoid this fill ice cube trays with tomato paste. When frozen tip cubes into a plastic container to use whenever you need them.

Maggie Beer Inspired Pears

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Everyone dreams of spending a few weeks in Paris. To live there for 4 years, as we did from 1999 to 2002, is nothing short of “jammy” as my dear Uncle Ed would have said.

Our apartment was on the 8th floor of the Australian Embassy complex with spectacular views of the Eiffel Tower. Australian architect Harry Seidler designed this interesting curved building in the 1970s to house the Embassy and staff.

We crammed a lot of food and culture into those four years. Visited the Louvre so many times I could have got a job as a guide, entertained more house guests than we knew we had friends, saw in the new millenium in style, ate our way through scores of Michelin stars, became addicted to champagne (before Paris I didn’t like it very much) and travelled extensively throughout France and the region. Life’s tough, but someone has to do it.

The French played a significant role in the European discovery of Australia and if things had gone differently we could all be speaking French. French navigator Nicolas Baudin first sailed to Australia in about 1793, but two consecutive cyclones prevented him doing any work and he had to take the ship to Bombay for repairs. In 1802 he returned to Encounter Bay, just off South Australia, where he met the British navigator Matthew Flinders who was also there to map the Australian coastline. They could have saved each other a lot of time if they had come to some arrangement – okay you work your way round from here east and I’ll head west and when we meet up we can swap notes, although it could have all been lost in translation.

To mark the bicentenary of this event the Australian and French governments released postage stamps and the Embassy threw a big party. Renowned South Australian cook Maggie Beer flew in to cook up a storm and when I heard that she needed someone to help in the kitchen I put up my hand. A number of South Australian ingredients were also flown in for the occasion, including a whole tuna which arrived in what looked like a small coffin. Nobody knew quite where to start with this beast, but fortunately we found a man on the fish stall at the Rue de Grenelle markets who said “Pas de problème” before cutting it into more manageable pieces.

Two days in the kitchen with Maggie was an unforgettable experience and great fun. We laughed a lot. We made delicious goat’s cheese and leek tartlets, individual champagne sabayons served in shot glasses and deep fried soft shelled crabs, all crispy and crunchy and served with an Asian dipping sauce. It was impossible for Maggie to make all the food for the party, so the Cordon Bleu cooking school made up the shortfall. Everyone learnt a lesson on how not to serve finger food to a large number of people. Don’t send all the waiters carrying food in through the same door. Inevitably guests standing close to this door did extremely well, while those further into the throng got lean pickings. As you can see from the programme it was a wonderful evening.

Flicking through an Australian Women’s Weekly magazine at the hairdresser’s the other day I came across a quick and easy recipe for pears by Maggie Beer. The recipe uses Maggie’s famous verjuice and I have a bottle in the pantry, so I made a mental note of the ingredients and made my interpretation of the dish last night.

4 large pears (Conference or similar elongated variety)
50g unsalted butter
50g sugar
⅓ cup verjuice

Wash and dry pears, but don’t peel or core.  Leave the stalks on for a nice rustic look.  Slice lengthwise about ½ to ¾ cm thick.  Heat butter in a large frying pan, add sugar and stir to dissolve.  Add pears in one layer.  If there are too many, do them in two lots.  Cook slices on both sides until lightly browned, remove then do the remaining slices.  Return all the pears to the pan.  Add verjuice and simmer for a few minutes, shaking the pan and carefully moving the slices around and turning them, to ensure even glazing.  Serve warm with cream or vanilla ice cream.

Serves 4-6

Apple and Blackberry Pie

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My paternal grandmother was born in Scotland, just outside Edinburgh.  When she met my grandfather she was running the dairy in a stately home.  As kids my Dad was always telling us that his mother could make butter into the shape of swans.  My mother would roll her eyes and say if he wanted swans made of butter he’d better go back!

Jessie was a wonderful cook but she died when I was 12, a year after I started to take an interest in cooking, so she didn’t have time to teach me many tricks.  She kept chickens and sold the eggs, so after my grandfather died I used to go and help her to clean them and put them in boxes.  She taught me to make pastry, fruit pies, Yorkshire puddings and gravy.  And a rule I have never forgotten – always put a good pinch of salt into anything sweet (such as cakes) and a good pinch of sugar into anything savoury (such as gravy) because it brings out the flavours.  Jessie insisted that the success of a good gravy or white sauce depended on the way you held your mouth, pronounced “mooth”, with her soft Scottish brogue.  She was what you would call a dour Scot, so I never really knew when she was joking.

Greengrocer’s in the UK sell two kinds of apples – eating apples and cooking apples.  Here in Australia I have never seen cooking apples for sale commercially, except at an orchard outside Canberra in Pialligo, where they sell them for about 3 weeks in the short picking season which starts late January.  For the rest of the year we have to make do with Granny Smiths, which are really not the same.  The most popular cooking apple in England is the Bramley – a large lumpy fruit which makes a deliciously fluffy apple sauce to go with pork or a tangy apple pie.   About two years ago Jonathan Banks at the apple farm in Pialligo grafted a Bramley for us to plant on our rural property near Braidwood.  I can’t wait for it to bear fruit.

My first apple and blackberry pie was made under the watchful eye of Jessie.  When her three sons were growing up she said they could eat one whole pie each.   I thought this was a bit of an exaggeration, but my Dad confirmed it was true.   I don’t make fruit pies very often these days, but whenever I do I’m transported back to that cozy kitchen with its wood-fired Aga stove and Nana standing watching me, holding herself up on wooden crutches.  She was very tall, had undergone two unsuccessful hip operations and had a lot of difficulty getting her large frame from A to B.

The pastry I use for fruit pies is the one Jessie taught me.  It uses self-raising instead of plain flour and a mixture of lard and butter.  It’s not sweet, but it’s the way I like it, contrasting nicely with the filling.

Apple and Blackberry Pie

Filling:
1 kg cooking apples or Granny Smiths, peeled, cored and sliced
1/4 cup sugar, or to taste
1/4 cup water
2 cups blackberries (fresh or frozen, thawed)
Pastry:
250g self-raising flour
75g lard
75g butter
3-4 Tbs cold water
To glaze:
A little milk or a beaten egg
Grantulated sugar

Place apples, water and sugar in a large saucepan.  Cook for 10 minutes or so until softening.  As Granny Smiths tend to hold their shape more than cooking apples I usually break them up a bit at this stage with a potato masher.  Remove from heat and add the blackberries.

Preheat oven to 180°C.  Place flour, lard and butter in food processor.  Process to crumbs then add water gradually through the feed chute, with the motor running.  When mixture starts to form a ball stop adding water and stop the motor, tip out the pastry and form into a ball. Cut pastry in half.  Roll out one half on a floured surface into a circle slightly larger than a 25-30cm pie dish or dinner plate which is not too flat – mine is 28cm. Trim off excess. Fill with apple and blackberry mixture, leaving any excess juice behind.  Mop up any excess on the pastry edges with paper towels.  Roll out remaining pastry to cover the fruit, trim off excess then seal and crimp the edges.  Cut four holes in the pastry lid to allow steam to escape.  Brush surface with milk or beaten egg and sprinkle with granulated sugar.  Bake for 35-40 mins or until nicely browned.  Serve warm with cream or vanilla ice cream.  Keeps for several days in the fridge, then just reheat in the oven to serve.

Serves 12

Variation: use raspberries instead of blackberries or make the pie with just apples, in which case increase the quantity to about 1½ kg.

Note: It’s not a good idea to use your best dinner plates for fruit pies.  Use old ones or acquire a couple at a secondhand shop.

Beef and Polenta Pies

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Last weekend we had lunch at The Old Cheese Factory at Reidsdale.  There was a cool wind, but we sat outside because we had two dogs with us.  Matthew had a nice time talking to the owners Robert and his son Gary about growing apples, asparagus and other gardening stuff. They make their own cider, ginger beer, apple juice, elderberry wine, elderflower sparkling wine and other beverages.  We tasted most of the above and found them all delicious.  The cider is dry, just the way I like it. The Old Cheese Factory serves simple lunches at weekends (best to book) and they also run bread-making, cheese-making and sausage-making classes taught by local artisans from Braidwood.

Matthew and I had the Ploughman’s lunch with a glass of apple cider.  Catherine more sensibly chose a hot dish, described as a beef and eggplant pie with red wine and polenta and a glass of apple juice.  She said the pie was delicious – a variation on a shepherd’s pie.  I decided to make something similar using mushrooms instead of eggplants and the result made a tasty family meal.

Beef and Polenta Pies

Beef filling:
1 Tbs olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
250g mushrooms
500g lean minced beef
1 Tbs tomato paste
1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup sherry or red wine
1 beef stock cube
2 tsp dried mixed herbs or oregano
1 tsp ground cumin
1 cup water
Extra half cup of water mixed with 3 tsp cornflour
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Polenta topping:
2 cups milk
1 cup water
3/4 tsp salt or garlic salt
1 cup instant polenta
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbs butter
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup grated Parmesan, extra

Heat oil in a large frying pan.  Cook onion and garlic over a moderate heat until softened but not browned.  Wipe mushrooms and cut in halves or chunky slices – you don’t want them to get lost in the filling.  Add to the pan with the mince and keep stirring for about 5 minutes or until the meat has browned a bit.  Add remaining ingredients except cornflour mixture and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until meat is tender.  Add cornflour mixture and stir till thickened.  Adjust seasoning – you may not need any salt if stock cube is salty.  Spray six 1 cup souffle or ramekin dishes with oil and divide filling among them.

Bring milk, water and salt to the boil in a medium saucepan.  Add polenta and stir constantly for 3-5 mins until polenta thickens and pulls away from sides of pan.  Add parmesan, butter and egg and remove from heat.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Place 2-3 Tbs of polenta on top of meat filling – whatever fits – and spread with a knife to cover completely.  You will probably have some polenta left over.  Sprinkle with extra cheese.  Place pies on a baking tray and bake for about 25 mins or until golden brown. Serve immediately with a salad or green vegetable.

Note: Unbaked pies can be stored in the fridge, loosely covered, for a day or so. For larger appetites make in four larger dishes, or if preferred use one large dish.

Serves 4-6

Lemon Meringue Pie

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At 3pm on the first Tuesday of November Australia comes to a virtual standstill.  The Melbourne Cup, Australia’s major thoroughbred horse race, has been run since 1861.  Even people who never bet on horses place a bet in this race.  Lunches with sweepstakes are organised all over the country by those who can’t make it to the Flemington racecourse in Melbourne.  Ladies come dressed to kill, wearing their best hat, in order to create the right atmosphere.

Asked to bring a plate to a Melbourne Cup buffet lunch I decided to make an old English favourite, Lemon Meringue Pie.  As you can see, the lemon tree outside our kitchen window is laden with fruit.  Last year we picked all the lemons and put them in a second fridge we keep in the garage for drinks.   After a few weeks they started to go off, so this year we’ve decided to leave them on the tree and pick them as we need them.  Not sure if this will affect next season’s crop, but we’ll find out.

My ceramic quiche dish holds about a litre of filling, so this makes quite a large pie.  If you find you have too much filling,  put the excess into little glasses  to eat with a dollop of cream.

 

1 large fully-baked sweet shortcrust pastry shell
¾ cup caster sugar
¾ cup lemon juice
1 Tbs grated lemon rind
2 cups water
½ cup cornflour
3 eggs, separated
75g unsalted butter
½ cup caster sugar, extra

Keep the egg white from making the pastry and use it in the meringue.

Mix cornflour with some of the water to a smooth paste in a small bowl.  Heat lemon juice, sugar, remaining water and grated rind in a saucepan.  When boiling add cornflour mixture and stir until thickened with a wooden spatula.  Remove from heat and mix in egg yolks and lastly butter.  Cool a bit then push through a sieve to remove any bits of cooked egg white and spoon evenly into the pastry case.

With electric beaters whip the four egg whites (one left from making the pastry) with a pinch of salt until they hold soft peaks, then gradually add the extra sugar and continue whipping until you have a glossy meringue.  Pile onto the lemon filling, covering completely so there are no gaps.  Bake at 170°C for 10-15 minutes or until lightly browned.  Remove from the oven and cool.  Serve chilled.

Serves 10-12

Pasta with Broad Beans and Pesto

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Last weekend our friends Venessa and Tony gave us a packet of orecchiette pasta all the way from Italy, although they had bought it at the local deli.  It’s shaped like baby pig’s ears, hence the name, and they said it was 50% nicer than any normal pasta.  Last Sunday David Herbert’s food column in The Weekend Australian Magazine featured a recipe for Pappardelle with Broad Beans, so I thought I would make it using the orecchiette instead of pappardelle.  The recipe also uses pesto, one of my favourite ways to enjoy pasta.

You can usually whip up a tasty pasta meal without having to go to the shops.  To this end a bag of pesto cubes in the freezer is a great resource for the busy cook. Towards the end of summer, when we  have an abundance of basil in the garden, I start making pesto cubes in ice cube trays,  tip them into a plastic bag and by the time I have finished I  have a couple of kilos – enough to last till next summer.  You’re right, I do have plenty of freezer space!

The third main ingredient in this recipe is broad beans which I always have in the freezer.  Fresh broad beans are delicious, but the season is very short and frozen ones are really very good.  David Herbert used some green chillies in his pesto, but I prefer mine without.  You could always add some to this recipe at the end, to spice it up a bit.  A bottle of wine, a crusty loaf and maybe a rocket salad and dinner’s ready.

Pasta with Broad Beans and Pesto

2 cups broad beans, fresh or frozen
350g pappardelle or pasta of your choice
Pesto:
2 Tbs pine nuts, toasted
1 clove garlic, crushed
3 Tbs grated Parmesan
1 cup basil leaves
4-5 Tbs olive oil
Extra grated parmesan to serve

Put two pans of salted water on to boil, one for the pasta and one for the broad beans.  Cook pasta according to packet instructions and broad beans for about 3 minutes, then refresh under cold water and when cool enough slip off the outer skins and discard.  While pasta is cooking make pesto by mixing all the ingredients together in a food processor until chunky-smooth.

When pasta is al dente drain and return to the pan with the broad beans and the pesto.  Mix well then transfer to four serving bowls.  Sprinkle with extra grated cheese and serve.

Serves 4

Little Crumblies

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When we were living in Paris fruit crumbles, which originated in England, appeared on almost every bistro menu.  Selling British grub to the French is no mean feat, so I always regard it as one of the UK’s biggest culinary successes.

When we were living in Chile in the 1990s we had a Mapuche Indian chef called Jacinto who could make just about anything into what he called a Crumbly.  But he hadn’t quite grasped the need for a Crumbly to be sweet, not savoury.  He once proudly served an apple crumbly which looked fantastic but which the kids refused to eat.  I was abstaining as I sometimes do at dessert time – otherwise I’d be roly-poly – so James said “Mum, you try it, it’s disgusting.”  Turns out Jacinto had put the usual layer of apples underneath, but had made the crumbly topping from some savoury sage and onion stuffing, left over from the Christmas turkey.  It was interesting, but it really didn’t go with vanilla ice cream.

If I have any left over stewed fruit, or a few apples which are looking a bit tired and need using, I make individual crumblies in small souffle dishes.  To make the stewed apples go further you can mix in a few frozen raspberries or blackberries.   I buy both by the kilo and always have them in the freezer. The crumblies in the photo are made from rhubarb from the garden, cooked briefly with a dash of water and sugar to taste.  Once cooked crumblies will keep in the fridge for several days, ready to be whipped out, zapped for a minute in the microwave and eaten with a dollop of cream, or just as they are.  They just hit the spot and are not large enough to be overly filling. People with larger appetites might prefer to use larger dishes.  If you haven’t got a kilo of fruit, just use what you have and adjust the topping accordingly – it’s basically 2 parts flour to 1 part each of butter and sugar.  Any leftover crumble topping can be stored in a jar with a lid in the fridge and used another time.

Fruit Crumbles
800g -1 kg sweetened stewed fruit
250g plain flour
185g butter
3-4 Tbs brown or white sugar, to taste
2 Tbs porridge oats or macadamia nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 180°C.  Cook peeled and sliced apples (rhubarb, peaches or whatever you are using) with a little water and sugar to taste until half cooked, but looking like a compote.  They will continue to cook in the oven.  Don’t use too much water. It should be a thick compote. If using raspberries or blackberries add them now and don’t cook them.  Grease 10-12 small dishes and fill them about two thirds full with the fruit filling.

Place flour, butter (cut into chunks) and sugar in food processor.  Process with the pulse button until it forms crumbs. There should still be small bits of butter visible.  If using oats or nuts add them now and process very briefly.  Cover fruit with crumble, place dishes on a baking tray and bake for about 25 minutes or until browned and bubbling.  Serve now or cool and refrigerate, covered, then reheat in microwave for about a minute each.  Serve with cream or vanilla ice cream.  If preferred make crumble in one large dish.

Serves 10-12 if made in small dishes

Quick Raspberry Ice Cream with Raspberry Compote

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Everyone is short of time.  So while I love to cook, I’m always looking for ways to produce delicious food in record time.  This ice cream recipe, which can be adapted and varied with different berries, is a real winner.  Whip it up a couple of hours before dinner and by the time you reach dessert time it will have firmed up enough to scoop.  You can use fresh raspberries instead of frozen, but the advantage of frozen berries is that it turns the rest of the ingredients into instant ice cream.  I have put 500-600g of raspberries so you know that if your supermarket sells them in half kilo bags you don’t need to buy two!

Quick Raspberry Ice Cream with Raspberry Compote

Ice Cream:
500-600g frozen raspberries
600ml thick Greek-style yoghurt
300ml cream
1 cup icing sugar, or to taste
Raspberry Compote: 
2-3 cups frozen raspberries
¼ cup sugar, or to taste

Place all ingredients for ice cream in food processor and process until mixed. Leave it a bit chunky with some bits of raspberries still visible. Place in freezer for an hour or two or until firm enough to scoop into balls with an ice cream scoop dipped into hot water.  If left in the freezer for longer you will need to remove it about 10 mins before serving so it’s not rock hard.  For the compote, mix raspberries with sugar and leave to thaw, stirring from time to time.  Serve chunky or if preferred, push through a sieve and serve as coulis.

Makes about 1.5 litres of ice cream