Two Birds and a Dinner Party.

Last night I had a mid-week dinner party for five.

Grilled Spatchcocked Chicken with New Potatoes, Roast Asparagus and Herby Yoghurt

Party of Five = three boys two girls. I’d decided on my recipe, but for three boys, thought it was best to double up on the birds, so went with two chickens. I got the butcher to butterfly them (a.k.a spitchcock them) for me so I was good to go as soon as I got home.

I made the marinade – fresh marjoram leaves, dried oregano leaves, lemon juice, olive oil and S&P – slashed the fleshy parts of the chooks, poured it on, rubbed it in and left them to sit for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, the BBQ was heating up and once the chooks were suitably juiced, I put them on the barbie, skin side down and flattened out. It wasn’t long before the flames were raging – the chooks were on fire. From the barbie, I transferred them – charcoal skin-side up – into trays and into the oven (with half a lemon each) for 50 minutes.

Meanwhile, I boiled the potatoes, tossed them in butter, lemon juice and S&P, then pan fried the asparagus (no room in the oven for roasting I’m afraid) and tossed them in lemon and butter as well.

Served with a yoghurt and roasted lemon juice dressing, it was a very tender, very tasty charcoal chicken dinner.

The boys went back for seconds and then we followed it up with Ween’s creamy chocolate mousse. I know there are cookbooks out there, preaching about the kinds of meals that men like to eat, but surely a guy like Jamie knows best.

Xx

Pretty as a picture. Fat as a duck.

On Tuesday night I had Mum for dinner. I was pretty sure she was going to love the recipe choice, but it went down a whole lot better than even I expected.

Middle Eastern Duck Salad

There are three duck recipes in the book – salad, pasta, roast – and originally I had them all allocated to Mum. It’s looking less and less like she’ll get all three, but this salad had to be Mum’s.

With a roasting time of 2 hours, the oven went on the minute I walked through the door, then I seasoned the duck (inside and out) with a combo of cinnamon and S&P, stuffed the cavity with two orange quarters and some sprigs of rosemary and whacked it into the oven. After an hour, I flipped the duck and put it back in (minus several spoonfuls of duck fat) for another hour.

Meanwhile, I made the salad with chopped preserved lemon skin, pomegranate seeds (thwacked – a la Nigella!), mint & parsley leaves, rocket, toasted slivered almonds, pistachios and dried cranberries.

For the dressing, I whizzed in the food processor the preserved lemon flesh, a third of the pomegranate seeds and the juice from the orange (removed from roasted duck’s bottom) then strained and shaken with a good glug of olive oil and S&P.

Once the duck was done, Mum very kindly pulled all the meat off and we served up. A pile of duck with a pile of very colourful salad on top.

It was probably one of the best looking meals I’ve cooked during the experiment and I’ve never heard Mum swoon so much over her dinner (well, not since the Easter bunny anyway!), but I just couldn’t finish it. Truth? I’m not a duck fan, but I was sure that home cooked, fat scooped away during roasting, amazingly tasty salad (with pomegranates – a favourite) and an open mind would change my mind. Alas, it wasn’t so. So I sent Mum home with a rather large doggy bag and a big smile on her face. And now I ponder the next duck recipe – maybe it’ll be the one to convert me…

Xx

High fives for a messy success.

I knew that tonight’s recipe was going to be a challenge, but I’d put it off for long enough, so tonight was the night to take it on.

Oozy Egg Ravioli

The picture shows a perfectly formed ravioli parcel, sliced cleanly down the middle and bright yellow egg yolk oozing neatly out the cut. Runny egg yolk inside pasta parcel? Piece of cake.

I started by making the pasta. I think I can safely say I have perfected this now and I am pleased with myself for that and proud of the fact that among many other things, the experiment has taught me to be an Italian Mama of sorts, kneading the dough and turning the pasta wheel.

On the rectangular pasta sheets, I spooned a dollop of ricotta (with a sprinkle of nutmeg and pinch of salt mixed in) and created a little well in the middle of each dollop. Into the little well, I carefully plopped an egg yolk.

I was pretty worried about how this was going to go – would the well be big enough for the yolk, would the yolk sit neatly, how would I go sealing the ravioli parcel without busting the yolk – but it all went according to plan, bar one where the yolk broke while I was separating it from the white and then when I plopped it into the well, it burst the banks and spilled over the edge of the ricotta, the pasta and onto the bench. I gave up on that one and went back to the others, ready to seal them up.

I folded over the top of the ravioli parcel, and gently squeezed around the lump in the middle, being really careful not to pop the yolk, but making sure the seal was tight. Then using a slotted spoon, I gently lowered each ravioli parcel into a pot of boiling salted water. They only needed to be in there for a few minutes, because the pasta had to cook and suction in around the egg & ricotta mix, but I didn’t want to hard boil the yolk either. It had to be oozy.

When it looked ready (purely a guessing game), I used the slotted spoon to transfer the ravioli from the water to a pan with bubbling melted butter, just for a few seconds, to coat them in the buttery sauce.

Then I served them up – neat little pasta parcels, with a cute yellow rounded bump in the middle. Sprinkled with parmesan and some pepper. The real test was going to be when I cut them open.

So without a moments hesitation, I sliced through and hip-hip-hooray, there, right in front of me, was a glorious picture of yellow goo. Ozzing. Perfectly. From the pasta parcel.

I’ve done it before and I’m sorry, but I have to do it again – it’s time for some trumpet blowing. How cool is oozy egg ravioli?!!!!! And I cooked them, disaster-free. I am so impressed that they worked, every step of the way. I was convinced I’d have egg all over the kitchen or at least exploding in the boiling water. But it worked beautifully and they tasted great. High fives all round!

+ Spiced Vinegar Dressing – I quickly whipped this up, so I can have it on my salads for lunch this week. White wine vinegar with a couple of cloved and a star anise, boiled to reduce liquid to half, then shaken with oil and S&P. Should be tasty.

Xx

A weighty issue. To bake or not to bake?

On Saturday night I went to Sarah and Craig’s for dinner. Sarah was cooking a Moroccan feast and I offered to bring dessert. That’s just what I do these days.

Bloomin’ Easy Vanilla Cheesecake

On Saturday morning I made a quick trip to Woollies – all very normal and uneventful except for the fact that carrying around a kilo of cream cheese nearly cost me an arm. Yes, that’s right, Jamie’s cheesecake calls for almost a kilo of cream cheese. Shite. That’s a damn lot of cheese Oliver.

Anyway, back in the kitchen and I started by whizzing a packet of digestive biscuits in the food processor and adding the crumbs to melted butter to create the biscuit base. Pushed into a springform pan, this went into the oven for 10 minutes (except it was a little bit more like 15 minutes, coz I got distracted chatting to Evans who’d popped in for a quick visit, so it may have been a little darker on the bottom than planned…).

Then for the filling, I added the great lump of cream cheese to caster sugar and corn flour and tried to mix it with my (usually pretty handy) egg beaters. My god – they nearly had a heart attack. I think the beaters felt the same way about whipping 900 grams of cream cheese as I felt about eating. Tired and on the edge of a burn out. So, after cleaning up a few stray blobs of cream cheese from the floor and carefully removing the beaters (checking for bent metal – not kidding!), I added two eggs, some thickened cream, the seeds from a vanilla pod and the zest of an orange and a lemon and beat it together well (a slightly less daunting task for the beaters once I’d given it a bit of a mix first off with the wooden spoon, but still, they may not ever forgive me! Will they have the strength to whip egg whites to stiff peaks for my next pavlova outing? I can only wait and see…).

Pouring the cheesey mixture onto the biscuit base and giving it a bang to remove air bubbles, it went into the oven for 45 minutes.

After the amazing Moroccan feast that Sarah served up for dinner that night – lamb tagine with almonds & prunes, spicy Moroccan chicken and cous cous – we had a short break before I served up the cheesecake – with the cherries on top (I cheated and used tinned cherries, as trying to find fresh ones to then stew anyway, seemed like a task far beyond me after the effort with cream cheese).

The reaction from everyone else was very positive and I don’t think they were just being nice, but if I am going to be completely honest – and what have I got hide? – I thought it was pretty disgusting. Yep, in 36 weeks of cooking with Jamie, I can quite honestly say that this is the recipe that I have enjoyed the least. To be completely fair, I don’t love baked cheesecake (I love the kind of cream cheese cheesecake that sets in the fridge), but I thought that was because I don’t really love ricotta and as this one didn’t have ricotta in it, I thought I’d be pleasantly surprised. Quite the opposite.

But at least it means that I can now answer the oft asked question – “what’s the dish you’ve enjoyed the least during your experiment?” The bloomin’ cheesecake.

Xx

Fine now, but earlier. With cauliflower you can soldier on…!

I think we’ve talked about this before, but cauliflower is a seriously underrated and under-appreciated vegetable and I am keen to start a love–the-cauliflower campaign to make sure that people give it the credit it deserves.

Roasted Cauliflower with Cumin, Coriander & Almonds

Mum is already a big cauliflower fan, so she was pretty excited when I told her that she was coming over for a dinner cased around the last cauliflower recipe in the book.

She arrived just as I was throwing the pestle-and-mortared cumin seeds, coriander seeds, dried chilli, and salt into a hot, dry frying pan with crushed almonds. Not only did she walk in and smell the aromas (she guessed the cumin straight away) but she found me bent over having a coughing attack and wiping tears from eyes. The smells might have been amazing, but they were strong and went straight into your sinuses and the back of your throat. Who needs Vicks when you’ve got a well-stocked spice cupboard?!

Once the spices and nuts were lightly toasted, I added the blanched, drained and tossed in butter and oil cauliflower, to the pan and fried that til there was a touch of brown to the tips of the c-flower trees. I stirred through the juice and zest of one lemon, transferred to an oven proof dish then baked for 10 minutes.




I served the cauliflower with lamb chops (sprinkled with Moroccan spice and BBQ’d) and steamed green beans.

It was a relatively simple dinner and nice and light, but it packed a punch. The cauliflower was sensational – the spices combined with the tangy lemon and the nutty crunch of the almonds was a perfect combo. And I cleared my sinuses!

Xx

Back to where it all began – chowder style.

Who would have thought that a clam chowder could have such an effect on my life?

The Nicest Clam Chowder, Essex Girl Style

Way back, before I made a wild decision to cook myself into oblivion, I was at dinner at Ash’s and she cooked clam chowder. I’d never made chowder before, but had eaten it out (a very memorable experience in Bicheno, Tasmania comes to mind before a night spent with fairy penguins) and after watching Ash make the chowder and then after I headed back for seconds of Ash’s chowder, I asked Ash where the recipe was from and wouldn’t you know it was from COOK with Jamie. It was on this night, after flipping through the book, that I decided COOK with Jamie would be the book I’d use for my experiment. And the rest, as they say, is history.

So you can imagine that I had been saving the chowder for a special occasion and what a special occasion it was too. A Monday night in, with Deb for dinner and couch time for Brothers & Sisters. Trust me, after the weekend I had, this scenario does actually constitute a special occasion.

With our clams pre-ordered – a moment of foresighted brilliance over the weekend – and picked up, Deb and I headed home. In a large pot, I gently pan-fried finely chopped bacon, onion, garlic, celery and potato cubes with a bay leaf and some olive oil. Once softened, but not browned, I added fresh corn kernels, chicken stock and thyme leaves and left to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Meanwhile, I heated up an empty saucepan, threw in the clams and a splash of water, put the lid on let things work their magic. The clams opened up pretty quickly, then I added the clam water and the clams removed from their shells into the veggie mix, with finely chopped parsley and chilli and a squeeze of lemon juice.

The last step was taking half the mixture from the pot and whizzing it through the blender then adding it back to the soup mixture with a spoonful of mascarpone, to create a creamy chowder. But still with some lumps and bumps. The best of both worlds.

Xx

PS – Made a quick salad for dinner tonight with Japanese Dressing – soy sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar, mustard powder, sesame oil and S&P.

Sloppy seconds. The best ever day after.

I’ve decided to combine two nights of cooking in this post because the second dinner is all thanks to the first. In amongst all my counting down, I’ve been doing lots of planning and thinking about when and where I’ll do the remaining recipes and it just made sense to do these two together.

Melt-in-Your-Mouth Shin Stew

Leftover Stew Risotto

On Monday night, I made the stew. I struggled to get shin, which I can’t say I was overly devastated about. I know it makes no sense, because I eat thigh or rump or wing, but shin just kinda creeped me out. I think because I’ve grazed, scraped, nicked-while-shaving, bruised, bumped and bashed my own shins so many times, that to me, a shin conjures up images too close to the bone. Ha! The shin is the bone right? Not the flesh?

In the end, I just used some good heart smart beef. But before that, I chopped red onions, carrots and celery and gently fried them with whole cloves of garlic, some rosemary sprigs, bay leaves, dried mushrooms and a cinnamon stick. Once softened, I added the beef (lightly floured) and stirred it all together before adding S&P, two tins of tomatoes and ¾ of a bottle of red wine. After bringing it to the boil, I covered it with a layer of double thickness foil then the lid of the pot and bunged it in a warm oven for 2.5 hours.

The best thing about this stew? The smell of the cinnamon wafting through my apartment during cooking. It was quite distracting and kept making me want to open the oven and check, but then the double layer of lids – foil and lid – would deter me. Torn, so torn.

Once it had reached melt in the mouth status – the meat literally fell apart when you forked it – we served it up with cous cous and peas. Delicious.

Then on Tuesday night, I whipped up a quick risotto and stirred through the leftover stew. This is actually one of Jamie’s risotto recipes and as my cousin Peps and I recovered from the mouth watering delight that was this gooey dinner, we both reflected on the randomness, yet so-rightness, of using leftover stew to flavour a plain risotto. Your mixing the saucey stew straight into the soak-it-up rice.

Genius. Jamie, you never cease to amaze.

Xx

Hopping mad for the Easter Bunny.

Isn’t Easter all about the bunnies? The ones who deliver eggs and the ones who deliver culinary happiness right?

Tender-As-You-Like Rabbit Stew with the Best Dumplings Ever

A Rather Pleasing Carrot Cake with Lime Mascarpone Icing

In the beginning, there were a few mixed feelings amongst the family when I announced that we’d be eating rabbit stew over Easter – who’ll deliver the Easter eggs if we eat the Easter bunny? Ahem. And they’re all over 20 years old…

I started off making the dumplings, rubbing together self-raising flour, butter, finely chopped thyme & a pinch of S&P to make dough crumbs, then added a dash of milk and mixed it all with a fork to create an unsticky dough. With floury hands and a floury bench, I kneaded the dough, then rolled it out into a big sausage. It’s kind of tricky to keep an almost metre long sausage the same thickness the whole way along, when one only has two hands, but I seemed to get there in the end, only to then chop it into inch long pieces and roll them into balls, sprinkle with nutmeg and popped into the fridge to firm up, ready for later.

In a hot oven proof dish, I cooked the lightly floured rabbit pieces until lightly browned, then added sliced bacon, two sprigs of rosemary, a whole lot of button mushrooms and a handful of baby onions, cooking until the meat was nicely coloured and the veg softened. Then I poured in chicken stock and two bottles of beer. Then I totally freaked out when it fizzed up, out of control and nearly bubbled over the top. Jamie might have mentioned that I was supposed to pour the beer in slowly so the bubbles had time to do their thing. Crisis - only just - averted. Covered, it simmered away for half an hour. Then instead of the lid of the pot, I created a lid of dumplings, sitting neatly on top of the stew, the whole thing went into the oven for 45 minutes. The dumplings went brown on top and meshed together, with bubbly stew creeping up in between.

Served up with mashed potato and peas, we each had a piece of rabbit, a couple of dumplings and lots of the incredible sauce. The rabbit was tender, the flavours perfectly complemented each other and the best ever dumplings were just that – the best ever. It was an absolute smash hit and I don’t think for a second that anyone gave a second thought to how their eggs would be delivered on Sunday!

A day of complete over-indulgence on Sunday, I tried to counter the chocolate consumption by baking a healthy carrot cake… I tried something different in the kitchen and actually got all the ingredients ready and measured before I got started. I don’t actually think it saved time and it certainly didn’t save any bench space – I had little bowls of ingredients on every free surface in the kitchen! – but it’s always good to try something new and I kind of felt like I was on a TV show – they love the pre-prepared bowls! So I mixed butter, brown sugar, egg yolks, orange zest and juice, self raising flour, baking soda, almond meal, chopped walnuts and ground cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg and of course the grated carrot. To this I added whipped-to-stiff-peaks-egg-whites, folding them through then into a greased tin and into the over for 45 minutes.

Does the fact it weighed a tonne mean it’s good for us? Surely…

Once cooled, I smothered it with the icing – mascarpone, cream cheese, lime juice and zest.

Served up for arvo tea with a good cuppa on a cold afternoon, the dense, but crunchy and sweet cake, with the makes-you-squint tangy icing was a hit with crowds. I won’t name names, but there were those who went back for seconds.

This Easter was all about rabbits. We ate carrots to make the rabbits feel better. We ate rabbits to make the chocolate feel better. And we ate chocolate to make the carrots feel better. Or maybe I’m just trying to make all the bunny-lovers out there feel better?

Xx