Wellington's beef

Beef Wellington is a simple dish to make but there are cooks out there who just won't attempt it. I suppose it's the thought of ruining a whole fillet of beef in just one go. The expense of it AND not just the beef but the dinner too – there's the chance the whole evening could go down the gurgler.

But, for those who dare, the following method is pretty much a foolproof way to successfully cook and present one of the world's classiest and classic dishes.

Take your whole fillet and trim it of any excess fat and any white sinewy pieces. If there's a skinny piece at one end cut it off and save it for another day. The beef fillet should be of even thickness throughout.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and sear the beef all over. This means all sides and both ends. Do this quickly then remove the beef onto a plate. Paint the top and sides with mustard of your choice and place in the refrigerator to cool.

Now comes the decision of what you would like to include in the pastry along with the meat. You could use a smooth paté and some sliced mushrooms or one or the other. Some spinach would be good for colour, too. If you choose to include mushrooms whizz about 500gm of them up in a food processor then sweat them in a pan with no oil until the water evaporates.

Lay a large piece of cling film on the bench and gather the chosen ingredients around you .

Lay as many slices of prosciutto on top of the cling film, short ends facing you, so they will cover the entire length of the fillet.

Spread, alternating layers of paté/or/and mushrooms and fresh spinach leaves all over the prosciutto.

Lay the whole fillet on top and roll up with the aid of the cling film.

Twist the ends of the cling film, torchon style, as tight as you can and put it in the fridge for 1 hour or over night.

Remove the fillet from the fridge.

Lay a piece of cling film on the bench. Lay a sheet of puff pastry on top of the cling film large enough to enclose the whole fillet or if necessary join two/four sheets of pastry together so it is big enough. Lay the unravelled fillet on top of the pastry. Roll the fillet up in the pastry as tightly as possible, torchon style, using the cling film as an aid and place in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

Place a piece of greased baking paper on a flat oven tray. Unravel the fillet from the cling film, lay it on the papered tray and make some attractive decorations on the top with a sharp knife (optional).

Brush the fillet with egg wash and sprinkle a little sea salt on top.

Cook on 190C for 35 mins or until the pastry is brown

Rest the cooked fillet for 10 – 15 mins. Slice and serve.

heirloom tomatoes with lemon and caper dressing

What has the world come to when the only good tomato with any taste at all is one we've grown ourselves or bought from a farmer's market. The past couple of decades has seen emerge new and exciting foods, rare and unusual products, extraordinary cooking techniques, a bombardment of exotic recipes. The food revolution with its celebrity chefs hasn't exactly passed us by yet we still can't find a good tomato.

My heirloom tomato recipe below with lemon and caper dressing is a taste sensation but please only make this if you have access to sweet, perfect tomatoes. There is nothing like them. Supermarket ones will not do this justice.

Ingredients:

2-3 handfuls heirloom tomatoes,

2 lemons, peeled to the bare fruit (all pith removed), filleted with the membranes squeezed and juice reserved

Dressing ingredients:

2 tablespoons spring onions, chopped

2 tablespoons salted baby capers, washed and drained

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

100ml extra virgin olive oil

Method:

Mix together the dressing ingredients and lastly add the lemon segments taking care not to break them up. Carefully mix the dressing through the cut tomatoes. Sprinkle with a little sea salt and serve immediately.

berry roulade

This is pretty much a fool proof way to make a roulade but watch your oven temperature does not exceed 17OC. You don't want the meringue to brown too quickly. Overcooking the meringue gives a brittle result causing cracks to appear once rolled.

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients for roulade:

6 egg whites

1.25 cups caster sugar

1 tablespoon cornflour

1 teaspoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons icing sugar

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

Ingredients for filling:

1 cup double cream

2 punnets of berries: blueberries, raspberries

2 tablespoons grated dark chocolate

Method for roulade:

Preheat the over to 170C. Line a Swiss-roll pan with buttered baking paper.

Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add half the caster sugar then beat in the remaining caster sugar until stiff, glossy peaks form. Fold in the cornflour and lemon juice.

Spread the meringue evenly in the prepared pan. Bake for 20 minutes or until pale golden, allow to cool for 1 hour. Place another sheet of baking paper the same size on the work surface and dust with icing sugar and cocoa powder. Turn the meringue onto the baking paper. Carefully remove the top sheet of paper.

For the filling:

Beat the cream until soft peaks form. Spread the cream over the meringue. Evenly place the fruit on the cream and grate the chocolate over the top.

Use the paper to help roll up the meringue from the short end. Once rolled, dust with a little extra icing sugar. Ease the roulade, seam side down, onto a serving dish and refrigerate for one hour or until ready to serve in thick slices.

ricotta cakes

Use your imagination to restyle a traditional serving of a classic dish.

A thick slice of baked ricotta loaf makes an ideal presentation for lunch but for a change use a fluted pastry cutter. The loaf, scaled down, becomes an appealing starter instead.

Ingredients: (serves 6 sliced or 10 little cakes)

3 eggs

750g full fat ricotta

400g grated parmesan, freshly grated

6 springs lemon thyme, leaves picked

Extra virgin olive oil

Roast tomatoes halves or whole TINY cherry tomatoes

Basil oil

Black olives, pitted (tiny ones for cakes)

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly whisk eggs in a large bowl and stir in ricotta. Mix in the parmesan, thyme and season well. Grease a loaf tin with olive oil and spoon in the mixture. Place the loaf tin in a large baking tray and pour in the water so it comes half way up the sides of the loaf tin. Bake approximately 45-50 mins, test with a skewer or until ricotta is firm and golden brown – a piece of foil may be required on top if it browns too quickly.

Remove from the water bath VERY CAREFULLY and allow to cool to room temperature. Invert onto a serving plate and refrigerate until cold.

To serve: cut thick slices from the loaf. Cut circles from the slices, using a fluted pastry cutter. Place the cakes onto individual plates, top with tiny confit tomatoes and tiny olives, a sprig of basil and a few drops of basil oil on the side.

Tomatoes & Olives:

Preheat the oven to 150C . Place a handful of tiny/or normal sized cherry tomatoes and a handful of olives onto an oven tray lined with baking paper. Sprinkle with sea salt, a teaspoon sugar and fine slices of garlic from one clove. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove and cool.

Basil Oil:

A quick way to flavour herb oil is to blanch a handful of fresh basil or other herbs, leaves only, then whizz them in an electric food chopper with a little oil. Strain the liquid into a jug and use as directed. Discard any remaining oil after use.

Note: Do not attempt to serve these little cakes hot. The loaf needs to be cold or very cool for sharp, clean cutting. A zap in the microwave might be a good idea if you prefer a little warmth.

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.

berry timbale with passionfruit coulis

This is lovely fresh dessert, easy to make with an impressive result. The following recipe makes 6 x 125ml (half cup) capacity dariole moulds. I use Queen's (chocolate) Writing Fudge to seal in the coulis. You could, if you are proficient at making a paper piping bag, with a very fine nozzle, melt down a small chocolate bar instead. Cold plates are essential for serving.

Ingredients:

125g fresh raspberries

250g fresh blueberries

Orange Jelly ingredients:

300ml orange juice (strained) - zest reserved to candy

100ml clear apple juice

6 gelatin leaves or 1 tablespoon edible gelatin powder slacked in 100ml water (sets 400ml liquid, including the 100ml used to slacken)

20ml Grand Marnier liquor

50g sugar

Method:

Soften the gelatin leaves in cold water and squeeze out excess or slacken powder in water as above.

Place everything in a small saucepan except the Grand Marnier, boil for 1 minute.

Remove from heat, add Grand Marnier and set aside to cool.

Fill the Dariole moulds to the top with layers of berries and pour over the jelly. Place in fridge until set, cover with cling film, setting time is several hours or overnight if preferred.

Passionfruit Coulis:

4 medium size passionfruit

1 orange, juiced (zest reserved to candy)

40g icing sugar

25ml water (extra may be needed later for thinning purposes)

Method:

Boil for 2-3 minutes and strain. Add a drop more water if the coulis is too thick. Set aside in a squeezy bottle or small jug

Candid Orange Zest:

Blanch zested peel in boiling water from cold water starts and refresh in cold water. Repeat three times. This takes away the bitterness while softening the zest at the same time.

Method &Ingredients:

Place zest in a small saucepan with 1 tablespoon sugar, 30ml water, 1 tablespoon liquid glucose. Cook for 3 minutes until transparent. Strain and set aside.

Note: the zested peel of a lime could be added for colour

To Serve:

Draw a nice design of your choice with the writing fudge, fill in the centre with the coulis. Upturn the dariole moulds (briefly run the bottom of each one under a very hot tap to release). Place the candid peel on top of the moulds and dust a little sieved icing sugar.

Note: the peel is not visible in the photograph, sorry!

figs with goat's cheese & prosciutto

'As fresh as a sailor home from the sea' was an advertising slogan for fresh eggs at a local garage where we grew up. Even as a youngster I wondered just how fresh a sailor might be having been at sea for any length of time!

Despite my suspicions of freshness those words still ring in my head and they certainly did and do conjure up a salty sea breeze, wind in my hair, sand between my toes and the wild, rugged, beautiful, remote coastline that we call home. So, the slogan worked!

Today's post is nothing to do with eggs instead it's all about figs especially if consumed straight from the tree; when they certainly are 'as fresh as a sailor home from the sea'.

Figs are divine, delectable and delicious and a lovely way to serve them is to simply make two incisions across the top, squeeze them just a little to plump up the flesh, place a spoonful of fresh goats cheese into each cavity, wrap a slice of prosciutto around the bottom of each one, drizzle a little honey and lime juice over the top, and finally a grinding or two of cracked black pepper finishes the dish. Serve immediately.

Some ingredients are just meant to be together and the above is no exception. First, we eat with our eyes, then there's the moment of taste when the brain tells us this is a marriage made in heaven!

words on wine!

Anyone living in Australia will soon tell you that we are experiencing the wettest summer in living memory and anyone who grows grapes in Australia (like we do) will soon tell you what this wet summer has meant to their harvest. For us, personally, we lost them all.

Grape farming like any other farming has its challenges but despite the frustration of this year's non harvest we have had many great years and produced many great wines. No matter the weather we all still love to grow, harvest, produce and drink great wine and for the cooks amongst us it plays an integral and important role in the craft we all love so much.

So, on a positive note I thought you might like to read a few words on the topic of wine from the cookery writer, Anne Willan - published in 1989.

The photographs were taken at our own harvest last year at Broke Road Vineyard.

“Wine can mellow to a remarkable richness when it is simmered in sauces, braises and stews. To avoid a raw taste, it must always be thoroughly reduced during cooking, red wine by half and white wine by even more. First, the alcohol evaporates, then the wine concentrates so the finished dish is rich and mellow. This evaporation may be an integral part of the cooking process, as in the long cooking of a casserole or the simmering of a brown sauce. At other times the wine is reduced on its own, as when red wine is used to deglaze pan juices for a steak.

The quality of the wine used will be reflected in the result. It would not, however, make sense to sacrifice rare or expensive wine in the cooking pan. One quality which will not survive cooking is the sparkle of champagne or similar wines, although a little of the sparkle may survive in uncooked dishes such as champagne sorbet.

The role of fortified wines is different to the above. They are typically added at the end of a cooking process, and the alcohol in them, which will not have been boiled off, remains potent. In fact their use may be a case of 'wine in cooked dishes' rather than 'wine in cookery'. A spoonful of sherry added to a soup just before it is served is not subjected to cooking, although it certainly has its effect on the soup. The Italian fortified wine Marsala is sometimes the best choice for deglazing pan juices.

Wines are also added as an ingredient to marinades. The effect of the wine is then produced before cooking but the effect of the cooking on this use of wine together with the other marinade elements is not significant to the finished dish”.

My own most used use of wine in cookery is for deglazing the pan, usually with a fortified wine or verjuice, green grapes harvested just before veraison (the stage at which the colour turns, generally two months before harvest) - this wine is especially good for chicken or fish. I also love to make herb and wine infusions for lamb, chicken, veal, rabbit, beef and pork – they provide multiple uses as poaching liquids, stocks, marinades and sauces.  The list of recipes and methods for the use of wine in cookery is endless as is the subject. Meanwhile, ENJOY!