date-a-date

We always have fresh dates for Christmas. Great mounds of them piled high in fancy bowls alongside fresh cherries and all the nut varieties: hazels, walnuts, brazil and monkeys. A colourful display of Christmas fare and one that always seems a little decadent yet irresistible to me.

Fresh dates stuffed with an almond or walnut make an excellent hors d'oeuvre (little savoury appetisers) served with drinks. Substituting perfumed almond paste takes them to another level and straight into the petit four department. Excellent with a strong coffee after dinner or lunch.

Ingredients:

20 fresh dates, pitted

225gm almond powder

110gm caster sugar

½ teaspoon orange blossom water

1//8 teaspoon cinnamon powder

2 tablespoons of butter - Lescure is a great French butter worthy of its cost for this recipe

Cream the butter and sugar with an electric hand whisk until it is pale and the sugar is incorporated well into the butter with no grainy bits felt on the tongue at taste. A wooden spoon works just as well but requires plenty of elbow grease.

Add the other ingredients and combine well together.

Stuff each date with a little paste. And place in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

curse of the canapé

I love eating tasty little mouthfuls of delicious food then I get to try everything, well almost everything, at someone else's cocktail party. But my patience wears thin when we have a party of our own and I have to make them myself. All that work and they're devoured in a flash.

Stuck for an idea today and a promise to bring a plate I suddenly remembered a simple recipe for pesto balls. I say simple and they are if you have a food processor and what I call a blitz machine. A small electric food chopper. If you don't happen to have either buy minced chicken and very finely chop everything else by hand.

Ingredients: 35 x 3cm diameter balls

700gm chicken (I used breast) minced in a food processor

1 small to medium onion, blitzed

3 cloves of garlic , blitzed

100gm pine nuts, blitzed

4 slices white bread, crumbed (processed)

3 tablespoons parmesan cheese, grated

2 tablespoons fresh basil, finely chopped

Half teaspoon white pepper, ground

Half teaspoon black pepper , ground

Plain flour to dust

Oil for frying – grape seed, canola or sunflower

Method:

Blitz and process each ingredient separately and combine together in a large bowl, expect the flour and oil.

With wet hands roll the ingredients into 3cm sized balls. Dust in flour, shaking off the excess and cook for 5 minutes in enough hot oil to cover the pan. Shake the pan frequently, rolling the balls for even browning. When cooked through drain on kitchen paper.

Pile the pesto balls hot or cold on a plater with a small bowl of chilli sauce for dipping, on the side.

lifting your spirits!

two reasons to be cheerful.... saucisson and Sicilian olives.....yum!

mini Scotch eggs

Until a few years ago Easter wasn’t Easter for me unless I made Scotch eggs but somehow I’d let that old tradition slip. Yesterday, I was racking my brain for something different to serve with drinks when my old favourite came to mind. What could be more appropriate than mini Scotch eggs making use of the humble quail. Great to serve with drinks – fitting the bill for a snack while still maintaining an Easter custom.

The following mince wrap recipe is not mine and I cannot remember where I came across it. It is far more sophisticated and interesting than the mince I used to make which consisted of pork, a minced onion and a few spices.

Ingredients:

to cover about 20 quail eggs:

½ kilo minced chicken

1 small onion, chopped finely

2 tablespoons basil, finely chopped

100g pine nuts, chopped

2 tablespoons parmesan, grated

2 garlic cloves, creamed

3 slices stale bread, crusts removed, crumbed

Sea salt, cracked pepper

Plain flour to dust

3 tablespoons oil for frying

Method:

Place the eggs in a medium size pan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil on a gentle heat then immediately turn off the heat, cover the pan with a lid and leave for 3 minutes. Plunge the eggs into cold water. Carefully peel the eggs once they are cool enough to handle. Fresh eggs are difficult to peel. Try to use older eggs if you know the collection date or add 1 teaspoon of bi-carb soda to the water when boiling them.

Mix all the other ingredients together and using wet hands wrap a small amount of mince around each quail egg to form a small ball. Place the finished eggs in the fridge for half an hour or more then lightly dust with flour and fry gently until the mince is cooked through and they are brown all over - approximately 7-8 minutes.

Cool and serve with a fresh pesto sauce or a few drops of chilli oil.

Chantilly Cream with Smoked Duck Breast

Espumas (foams) and flavoured chantilly creams are great fun to make all thanks to Ferran Adria, chef-owner of the world's number one restaurant, El Bulli, in Spain. His idea to use a siphon or gourmet whip in the kitchen has revolutionised professional and home cooking - food never looked better nor tasted so good. But first you must buy a siphon and this will cost you about $100 or 50 euros - not too much expense as a one off but it's the gas cartridges that hurt the most at a dollar/euro a pop!

Experiment with cream only until you get the hang of using a siphon - it would be shame to waste expensive ingredients. Read and follow the maufacturer's instructions carefully - they all vary. Do not use a soda siphon as a substitute for the following recipe or any food related recipe. Some siphons are more versatile than others - one that keeps food hot or cold is ideal . For hot place siphon in a bain-marie and keep water temperature under 70C or for cold place it in the fridge to promote the setting of cream and/or gelatine etc. Do not place a siphon in the freezer.

Serves: 10

Ingredients:

100g Roquefort cheese

300ml pouring cream

2 teaspoons honey

10 slices of smoked duck breast rolled into cigar shapes

10 small batons celery

sprigs of dill to garnish

Method:

Place the cheese, cream and honey in a small saucepan and heat gently until the cheese has melted. Remove from the heat and allow the mixture to cool before sieving and pouring into the siphon with the aid of a funnel. Choose a thick decorating nozzle and place a gas cartridge into the charger holder. Screw the holder onto the inlet valve until the content releases with a hissing sound. Remove and discard the spent cartridge. Hold the siphon in the vertical position and shake it about ten times then place it in the refrigerator for at least three hours.

Remove the siphon from the refrigerator, hold it vertically with the decorating nozzle pointing downwards and about 1cm from the surface and dispense a small amount of cream onto each spoon. Place a duck breast cigar, a celery baton and a sprig of dill on each one and serve immediately.

Goats Cheese with Beetroot Log

A year or so ago we overnighted in the beautiful spa town of Aix Les Bains in France up near the Swiss boarder. Arriving there just in time to enjoy an early evening stroll and a glass of wine we happened upon a tiny bistro that looked just about perfect and filled all our criteria for dinner . It was a Monday with few restaurants open and the town was busy so we felt rather lucky we not only had found somewhere so quickly but had managed to book a table as well.

We both ordered a goat's cheese and beetroot pot for a stater which basically was one of those small chocolate pots lined with finely sliced, cooked beetroot with a goat's cheese connoction inside, more finely sliced beetroot on top enclosing the cheese entirely and lastly the lid of the pot popped back on. We were both quite taken by the agreeable combination of flavours so we asked our waiter if there was any possibility of acquiring the recipe.

Some time later during our main course we were surprised to see the chef making his way to our table with a tray upon which was the following: one cooked, skinned beetroot, a log of goat's cheese, a bunch of thyme, a clove of garlic, a jug of olive oil, salt and pepper, an empty pot with a lid, a sharp knife and a small chopping board. In French he explained he was delighted we had taken such a keen interest in his dish and he wanted to be sure we knew and understood exactly the ingredients required and the method to make his dish. He explained how imperative it was to finely slice the beetroot with the sharpest of knives, how important it was to skin the cheese to which the garlic, crushed with salt, must be added along with just the right amount of thyme and seasoning and the oil added drop by drop to achieve the right consistency to maintain necessary firmness of the mixture otherwise one single drop of red beetroot juice might bleed through the pure white goat's cheese and all would be lost.

We agreed unconditionally that if we were ever to make his dish we would follow his instructions to the enth degree and we thanked him profusely for his time and trouble and reassured him we would never ever forget his recipe, his method or his restaurant.

As you an see in the above photo I rather let him down when I came up with this method of my own: I laid out a piece of foil on the bench, I tore off a piece of baking paper the same size and placed it on top of the foil. I sliced the beetroot, ever so finely and laid it in the middle of the paper and using my eye to judge how much beetroot to enclose the cheese mixture I reckoned on three rows all slightly overlapping each other. I did as he had so elaborately explained to the mixture then I laid it upon the beetroot in one long line at the bottom then I used the paper and foil as a rolling aid and rolled it up, torchon style and twisted the ends very tight. I placed the torchon in the fridge overnight then unwrapped it and sliced it with a hot knife, two slices per head; scattered a few thyme flowers over the top and served it with unbuttered toast. Delicious! However, it did bleed a bit the day I took this photo but I put that down to bad luck as it wasn't my first attempt and on previous occasions there wasn't a hint of it.

Bastilla

Bastilla, thanks to Mint, Tea & Rosewater, is a new discovery for me and I now have the recipe thanks to Pete Bakes to which I have made a couple of changes. I used 650gm chicken instead of 2lbs and a small thumb of fresh turmeric, chopped, instead of powdered. I baked the Bastilla at 180˚C in a fan-forced oven and watched it like a hawk. Over all, the flavour was perfect but the chicken and egg mixture was a bit too dry so I would recommend under-cooking the scrambled eggs. I cannot see their ‘wetness’ doing any harm to the pastry. In every other respect this is a delicious recipe and one I shall repeat again, and again. Individual pastries as an alternative look lovely and make a perfect canapé but might prove challenging to prepare.

Lovin' Spoonful!

Asian Spoons - everybody loves them!

Here are four ideas for the moment - I'll be publishing many others over the next few weeks!

Watermelon, feta cheese, baby olive, parsley

Smoked salmon, dill mayonnaise, lime, parsley

Beetroot hummus, poached quail egg, parsley

Mini bell peppers stuffed with pesto

(purchase mini bell peppers & beetroot hummus from any good supermarket or deli)

ENJOY!

A Christmassy Affair!

Goat's Cheese Log


I love the month of December when cooking takes on a whole new meaning. To herald in the season this easy starter symbolizes the colours of Christmas and looks especially beautiful on a plain white plate.

Ingredients:

Setting time: 24 hours Serves: 4

2 x 120g packets goat’s cheese
1 red pepper, chargrilled, skinned, deseeded, sliced
12 capers
1 leek, top used only

Method:

Lay a piece of foil on the workbench, about 30cm x 30cm and put a piece of baking paper, the same size, on top.

Cut all the white part off the leek in one piece and set aside for later use. The left over-piece of dark green fronds should be about seven inches long. Cut down the full length of the fronds in order to peel each one away separately. You should have about seven or eight large widths depending on the size of your leek. Wash thoroughly. Blanch in boiling water for 60 seconds, refresh in ice water, drain and pat dry.

Lay out the leek fronds onto the foil and baking paper, short ends nearest you and overlap each width slightly as you go. Place half the goat’s cheese across the bottom of the leek fronds nearest to you and top with pepper then the capers and then the rest of the goat’s cheese. With the aid of the papers roll up into a sausage shape and twist both ends to create a bonbon (torchon). Wrap again in cling film for extra strength and place in the fridge overnight to ‘set’.

To serve: Slice into approximately eight rings with a hot knife wiped clean and reheated between each slice. Serve with a few micro herbs scattered over the top and a little balsamic vinegar.

Tip: Buy pre-cooked peppers in jars or from the deli counter - they are just as good!