Lady Lunchalot

I received a bolt of inspiration from Kitchen Hand yesterday when a comment that mentioned Sachertorte was left on my post about Apricot and Brandy Jam. I’d come across a recipe for Sachertorte a few months ago in the November 06 issue of Gourmet Traveller. It looked amazing - like a very glamorous, grownup kind of chocolate cake - so I decided to make it as dessert for our Australia Day barbecue.

This is fairly complex to make, as far as cakes go. There are a few steps, so it’s certainly not a bung-it-all-in-the-mixer-and-hope-for-the-best kind of a cake.

I started by melting about 150g of good quality dark chocolate over a saucepan filled with water. While this was happening I creamed a heart-stopping amount of butter (which I am too embarrassed to even mention here) with a third of a cup of caster sugar. The melted chocolate and butter/sugar are then mixed together with TEN egg yolks. No, that’s not a typo, there are 10 eggs in this recipe. Dix. Dieci. Diez. Zehn.

This is not a cake for those with cholesterol problems.

Once you’ve mixed the yolks with the chocolate mix, whip the egg whites with the rest of the sugar until stiff peaks form, and then gently fold together with the chocolate mixture. Put in two springform pans and bake for about 40 minutes.

When cooled, spread the top of one cake with apricot and brandy jam and make a jam sandwich by placing the other cake on top. Make a chocolate ganache with the cream and the rest of the chocolate and ooze over the top of the cake and smooth over the sides.

Eat a large slice, with enthusiasm, as illustrated by our little friend below. He did it just right - the evidence is all over his shirt.

The scent of mango has been haunting my kitchen. I bought a couple of exquisite mangos from the Fruiteria in Yarraville. They smelled so tropical and summery, I couldn’t bring myself to put them in the fridge, so I left them in a bowl by the kitchen door and let the scent waft through the house for a day or so.

When I got home from work last night I knew that I either had to eat them or cook them quickly, as they would have been past their prime within the next day or so. They were so lovely, I couldn’t bear to see them vanish (even if it was down my throat) so I decided to preserve them a little longer in a chutney.

Ingredients

• Two very ripe, large mangoes, chopped
• 3 large apples, peeled and chopped
• Half a cup of vinegar
• A couple of cinnamon sticks
• Juice from half a lemon
• Half a red capsicum
• 1.5 cups of sugar
• Some sultanas
• A healthy-sized knob of fresh ginger, grated
• Nutmeg, cinnamon, curry powder, galangal, salt, coriander seeds to taste. (Go easy on the curry powder)

Mix everything except the spices and lemon juice in a pot and simmer for about 20 minutes until the fruit is mushy. Mix in spices. Pour into sterilised jars and seal. Process in a hot water bath for 15 minutes.

I’ve been feeling guilty that everyone at work keeps bringing in their empty jars for me and it’s been a while since I reciprocated with some jam, so I picked up a kilo of apricots on the way home from work tonight.

There’s something so soothing about making a few jars of jam. It’s such an old-fashioned ritual that takes no time at all. Tonight I managed to make a few jars of apricot and brandy jam in about 40 minutes while I pottered around in the kitchen.

Ingredients

• 1kg of apricots. Don’t choose ones that are too ripe - you want some hard ones as they have a good amount of pectin
• 1kg of sugar
• Juice from half a lemon
• A couple of generous slugs of brandy
• A vanilla bean
• A cup of water

Halve the apricots and remove the stones. Put the apricots in a big pot with the water and lemon juice. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes until the apricots are mushy. Keep stirring - otherwise the apricots will catch on the bottom and burn and your jam will be dark brown, not apricot-coloured.

While this is happening, take as many stones as you have jars. Wrap the stones in a tea towel and crack them gently with a hammer. Throw away the shells and keep the kernel - the part that looks like an almond. Put them in a bowl with the brandy and set aside.

Once the apricots are ready, add the sugar and opened vanilla bean (scrape out the seeds and put it all in the pot) and bring it all to a rolling boil. Let it go for about 15-20 minutes until you get a set. Then add in the brandy and kernels.

Pour into sterilised jars and seal, with one kernel going into each jar. The apricot kernel lends an almond tang to the jam which goes very well with the vanilla. Believe it or not, the almond flavour actually comes from cyanide, which is often found in stone fruit pits, so don’t get tempted to sit down and eat a few kilos of kernels!

I’ve been on a bit of a mango binge lately, which isn’t unusual for me at Christmas time. For those of you in the northern hemisphere it might seem a little strange, but for me Christmas is all about mango juice dripping off my chin, bowls of gleaming cherries like shiny tree decorations, plums, apricots, peaches and an endless supply of seafood.

Mmmm…

So I decided to make a mango mousse for our New Year’s Eve barbecue. Mango mousse is the ultimate summer dessert. It’s just a mix of pureed mangoes, whipped cream, sugar, egg white and gelatine. Mix it together (being careful to fold the egg whites and whipped cream in - you want to keep those tiny air bubbles intact), pour it into a big bowl and let it set in the fridge for a few hours.

However I messed up my gelatine estimate and my mousse didn’t set, so we had a kind of mango custard instead (if you change the name no one will ever know it didn’t actually work!). As per usual, I’d catered for an army, so there was a huge tub of leftover mousse in the fridge the next morning. The logical place to put it was in the ice cream maker that Za and Thomas gave O and I for a wedding present - thanks guys! I’ve just had a bowl, and I’ve got about a litre of it in the freezer. Leftover mango mousse makes the BEST mango ice cream ever.

I’ve always wanted to make mayonnaise, but my lazy streak had always got the better of me. Deliciously decadent handmade mayo takes A LOT of beating to get right, and if your arm isn’t up to it your mayo will curdle before you can say Fatty Boombah.

I was thinking of mayo as I made a salad for our new years barbecue last night, and I had a bit of time up my sleeve and realised that there is a KitchenAid mixer taking pride of place in our kitchen now, so I don’t need to exhaust my biceps in the quest for the perfect mayonnaise anymore.

I started with three egg yolks, a pinch of salt and a couple of cloves of crushed garlic, and then gradually added in about 300ml of olive oil over the course of about 20 minutes. The KitchenAid did all the work really, I just had to make sure that the egg yolk and olive oil emulsified properly without curdling so I added the oil in very small amounts. Patience, when cooking, is definitely a virtue, and the kitchen is pretty much the only place in which I have the patience of a saint!

The mixture gradually became paler and whiter as it emulsified. Once all the oil was mixed in and accepted by the egg yolks I added some sugar and finely chopped parsley.

The results were drizzled all over my salad, and I still have leftovers in the fridge for sandwiches. Yum!

Mankind has seen the Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Cultural Revolution, the Sexual Revolution and the Digital Revolution. Each of which has had a profound impact on humankind. And each of which pales in comparison to the revolution that has taken place in our kitchen in the past few weeks. I have come to refer to it as “The KitchenAid Revolution”.

Not only did Jeremy and Quim fly all the way from Barcelona to see O and I get married a few weeks ago, but they also gave us a killer wedding present.

A KitchenAid Mixer.

I have been building a long term fetish interest in this appliance for the past six months, even going so far as to carry a KitchenAid brochure around with me in my handbag so I could drool over the pictures read about these fascinating appliances.

The boys from Barcelona surprised me at the hairdresser the day before the wedding, turning up with a bottle of champagne, some brie and crackers, and a beautiful brand spanking new, shiny red KitchenAid mixer.

Wow.

I managed to take it for a spin on Saturday, whipping up a quick sponge cake (with the Berry Berry Black Cherry Jam I’d made the night before). I moved through the gears slowly at first, watching the beater slide effortlessly through the batter like Ian Thorpe winning an Olympic final, or a Ferrari snaking along the clifftops of the Cote d’Azur.

Then I got cheeky, slipping on the whipping attachment and sliding it up from second gear into third, my pulse racing as I pulled the lever into fourth.

By now my the motor was really revving, the whip circling relentlessly through the batter over and over and over. No sponge cake of mine has ever had that much air!

Biting my lip, I slipped it into fifth to see what this baby could really do.

My heart was racing as I watched the batter thicken and stiffen before my eyes. Ribbons of mixture lay on the surface for a split second before the beater came around again to submerge it as another ribbon would appear in its wake.

Holding my breath, I pulled the lever back to neutral and the KitchenAid lulled into silence, the only trace of the revving machinery that had been roaring only a moment before was my throbbing pulse and sweaty palm resting on the machine’s warm red neck.

Needless to say, it was pretty hot stuff. And my morning’s kitchen shenanigans resulted in the perfect sponge cake for the girl’s lunch that afternoon!

Then today, I found myself home alone again, and could hear the KitchenAid beckoning me from the kitchen bench. I decided to test the dough function and make a bready-pizzary-sausage-shaped creation that I’d been imagining for ages.

I started with a fairly basic bread dough (flour, yeast, water) and added a healthy splash of olive oil. The KitchenAid was a maestro with the dough hook, and I couldn’t help thinking how much hard work it would have been to knead the dough by hand. I let it rise in the bowl for a couple of hours (the kitchen was nice and warm because I was also making lasagne), knocked it back and kneaded again for a couple of minutes. Then I rolled it out to a big rectangle and added some salami, provolone, anchovies, whole roast garlic cloves, fresh basil leaves, a few hard boiled eggs and a smear of tomato paste in a big red stripe down the middle of the dough sheet.

Next I rolled it up into a long sausage, shaped it in a circle and popped the roll into my biggest springform pan to rise near the warm oven for another couple of hours. When it was ready I baked it in the oven with my lasagnes for about 30 minutes.

The bread was perfect - definitely the best bread I have ever made with a fine loose crumb and a crunchy crust.

The KitchenAid has certainly lived up to its reputation. My kitchen will never be the same again.

Many thanks to the Barcelona Boys! Muchos gracias!

I think I am possessed.

Lately I just haven’t been able to get chocolate cake out of my mind. I recently read an article about The Cake Lady. She describes her sure-fire recipe for career success; bring a cake to the office every Monday morning. This woman has baked 50 cakes for her colleagues over the past year. She’s got to be one of the most popular staff members around.

So with less than four weeks until my wedding and a size ten wedding dress at stake, I’m determined to resist the temptation of baking a cake a week. But ever since I read that damn article I’ve been hallucinating about bundts, mud cakes, flourless cakes, black forest cakes, devil’s food cakes, layer cakes and sachertortes.

My head is spinning worse than Linda Blair’s.

So I got home from work last night and went to my cookbook library to see what my exorcists (Nigella and Stephanie) had to say on the subject. I decided to go with Nigella’s Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake recipe from Feast, one of my favourite recipe books. It looked fairly simple, and it was getting late so I wasn’t up for anything too complicated. Besides, I had a tub of sour cream in the fridge that had nearly expired, and what better way to use it than in a chocolate indulgence.

The cake itself was fairly straightforward; sift flour, bicarb, baking powder, sugar and cocoa. Mix in two eggs, a sinful amount of butter, and a few tablespoons of sour cream. Bake until skewer comes out clean. No rocket science here.

It’s the icing on this cake that is really, well, the icing on the cake. Melt chocolate and another artery-clogging wodge of butter. Mix with more sour cream and icing sugar. Spread all over the cold cake in thick concrete-trowel slathers.

Then decorate. Because I was feeling delicate I chose the undisputed queen of all dessert fruits, the strawberry. There is really no competition when it comes to a cake crowned with fresh strawberries.

By now visions of Disney’s dancing hippos were swimming in my head like warning beacons.

I confess, I ate a slice for breakfast this morning. I know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but I couldn’t help it. So I took the rest of the cake in to work with me to share with my colleagues, gain some brownie points and save my hips from a major blowout. Ok, it was also to appease my guilt. After all, there’s no fun in sinning alone.

The exorcism worked. The itch has been scratched. I’ve eaten two teensy little slices and thankfully I am no longer daydreaming of ganache or bathtubs filled with chocolate frosting.

So now that the devil horns have been replaced with my halo again, I am thinking I might just climb back on the wagon and lightly steam some veggies for dinner. After all, the size ten wedding dress is only three and a half weeks away.

I’d never cooked with rhubarb before. Probably because it wasn’t part of my mum’s repertoire, so having not grown up eating it I’d always treated those slender ruby stems with a degree of suspicion.

But O has told me on many occasions how how his nanna used to grow rhubarb at the back of her old house and how much he loved her rhubarb desserts, so the other night I decided to take a walk on the wild side and play with some rhubarb.

This sunburned celery strikes me as a mysterious ingredient. Parts of it - namely, the leaves - are even poisonous, and should be removed straight away. I felt like I was preparing fugu, that Japanese puffer fish dish which brave diners across the world indulge in when they want to place their lives in the hands of their chef.

Like the gender bending tomato, rhubarb is the true drag queen of the veggie patch. It looks so much like a vegetable but walks, talks and tastes like a fruit.
With the leaves removed and disposed off in the compost bin (is that even safe? How poisonous are we talking here?) I chopped up my rhubarb stalks ready for two dishes. Dish 1: Rhubarb crumble. Dish two: Vanilla Rhubarb Jam.

Rhubarb Crumble
The crumble was easy. Just chop up the rhubarb into small pieces, season with cinnamon and a few spices, sprinkle with sugar, top with a crumble topping (mix rolled oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter and a bit of flour) and bake until crunchy, gooey and delicious.

Vanilla Rhubarb Jam
The jam was a little more challenging.

I was inspired by a recipe I found at Cook (Almost) Anything At Least Once. I made some changes to the original recipe as I was a little worried about the set of the jam, not knowing how much pectin rhubarb contained. So to boost the pectin levels just in case, I tossed in half a punnet of underripe strawberries that I picked up in the supermarket (sadly, the price of strawberries has gone back up now, so my strawberry binge is drawing to a close).

I also peeled a few apples and chopped those up to give the jam a little body. This was about a kilo of fruit altogether, so I mixed it with a kilo of caster sugar and a big long sliced vanilla bean split down the middle.

I looooooooove cooking with vanilla beans. I get so happy when I am served a dessert and see those telltale darkly sweet perfumed specks. I just know it’s going to taste good.

Anyway, the jam cooked on low for about an hour. I was having trouble getting a set and was bracing myself for a few litres of fruity syrup, when I finally got to a set. (To test whether your jam has set, place a small saucer in the freezer until cold, then place a blob of jam on the saucer. Push it with your finger - if it wrinkles and looks “jammy”, it’s done. If it stays runny like icecream topping, it’s not ready yet.)

I’ve been collecting jars for a while now, and had a few different ones on hand, sterilised and ready to go. I wear white cotton gloves from the supermarket when I am dealing with hot jars for preserving so I don’t burn my fingers. It makes the whole thing sooo much easier.

The next morning O and I enjoyed some fresh croissants with home made rhubarb jam! I did have brave ambitions of making some croissants, but that will have to wait until another weekend.

This jam would also be great served in a jam tart. The tartness of the rhubarb (excuse the pun) is a great foil against the vanilla. This jam would be perfect for a grown-up version of that childhood favourite!

Ok, I’ve been feeling pretty tarty lately. And there’s no better time to feel a bit tarty than spring when the strawberries are plentiful, ridiculously perfect and unbelievably cheap.

Don’t you just love it when one of your favourite foods is in season?!

O bought a lamb back from Horsham on Friday. Not, not a cute fluffy Mary-had-a-little-lamb, but a chopped up lamb ready for the freezer. It was kind of a new one for me because I’ve never had that much meat in my kitchen at one time. He paid $75 for the whole lamb (about 20kg) cut up and ready to be frozen, which is a bit of a bargain considering that you’d pay $20 for just a single leg of lamb.

Anyway, he gave one of the legs away, but the other leg was ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS! There was no way we could eat that on our own, and it was so huge it would have taken an eternity to defrost if I had frozen it. So there was only one thing we could possibly do. Lamb roast for Sunday lunch with eight friends.

With so many bellies to feed, I could feel the culinary juices starting to flow. I’d planned to do the roast on the rotisserie in my beautiful Ilve, but it was too heavy and the spit wouldn’t turn, so instead I studded it with rosemary, garlic and preserved lemon, basted it in olive oil and lemon juice, and roasted it straight on the oven rack. Carve it up and present it on a platter sprinkled with preserved lemon and rosemary. Deelish!

Dessert needed to be tended to as well. I’d bought four punnets of strawberries on Friday, intending to make some strawberry jam at some point over the weekend. The strawberry jam never materialised, so I thought I’d test my patisserie skills and make a strawberry tart and a strawberry pavlova.

The shortcrust pastry for the tart was basically flour and butter rubbed together with a bit of water, and chilled before blind baking in a quiche dish. While it was baking I made a custard for the filling and halved the strawberries for the topping.

Next came the pav. Ever since I was a kid I have always LOVED pavlova. My dad used to take us to the races at Randwick when we were kids and I remember they had the tallest, fluffiest, crunchiest, crispiest pavlovas imaginable. I’ve always wondered how they got them that tall. Today was the day I was going to build my very own sky-scraping tower o’ pav.

It was your standard meringue - egg whites, caster sugar, a dash of vinegar and vanilla essence, and a litle cornflour for some added structure. I also added a few drops of rosewater to give it that fresh flowery springtime flavour. (I am always a little heavy-handed with the rosewater, and this time was no different.) I piled it high and baked it, turning off the oven and leaving the pav in there to crisp up after the roast was finished and the oven had been nice and hot for a few hours.

Topped with cream and strawberries, this is a dessert that really can’t be beat, and the meringue is so light and fluffy it’s perfect after a heavy meal like roast lamb. It wasn’t as high as the pavlovas in the member’s dining room at Randwick during the 80s, but it was up there. Next time I’ll try and add on a few extra levels and a penthouse by baking it in a springform pan.

Strawberry tart filling

This is a custardy filling that you can use for any kind of fruit tart. If you want to tone down the eggyness (which I think is delicious) fold in some whipped cream. This is not really the kind of dish I should be eating 5 weeks before my wedding (dress fitting this Thursday - ergh!) but I’ve been so good lately I couldn’t resist.

The first step is to half fill your sink with cold water in case you need to plunge the saucepan in there if things are getting too hot and out of hand and you need to cool it quickly. Make sure you have some dishes or something on hand to wash afterwards so you can reuse the water instead of wasting it. (For international readers, Australia is in the midst of its worse drought in 100 years, so water is a very precious resource here. We can’t afford to waste a drop.)

In a largish bowl, beat 6 egg yolks with 2/3 cup caster sugar and a healthy tablespoon of cornflour. Over the stove heat half a litre of milk, a generous blob of cream and a vanilla bean split in half until it just starts to boil. The second it starts boiling, remove from the heat and mix it in with the egg mixture until it’s fairly smooth and creamy. You have to be really quick about this - you don’t want the heat of the milk to start cooking the egg before it’s mixed.

Pour the lot into the saucepan (through a strainer to remove the vanilla bean) and stir constantly over a medium heat until it’s thick and just about to boil. Pour into a bowl and put into the fridge to cool. You might want to put a piece of foil or cling wrap over the top of the custard to stop any yucky custard skin from forming as it cools.

One of the few advantages of living in my original condition unrenovated post-war house in Melbourne is the fifty year old lemon tree in my back yard. This grand old dame has been presiding over the veggie patch, hills hoist and the asbestos shed since the early 1950s, and the complete lack of landscaping and renovation has ensured that she has remained untouched.

I truly love this tree. Season after season she delivers me an endless supply of fresh lemons. There are waaaaay more lemons on this tree than I could ever cook, so I generally end up putting boxes of lemons out in front of my house for my neighbours to take.

So this weekend I ended up with about 20kgs of lemons in my kitchen and ten friends due to arrive for lunch on Sunday, so the theme for lunch was a no-brainer.

I started out making lemon butter (otherwise known as lemon curd). It’s really easy and absolutely delicious. Mix eggs, butter and sugar with lemon juice and zest in a bain marie for about twenty minutes until it thickens enough to coat the back of the wooden spoon. Great with any dessert.

I had some poppy seeds that had been kicking around my spice box for a while, so I also made a good old-fashioned nanna-inspired lemon and poppy seed cake. Mix eggs, butter, buttermilk, SR flour, sugar, lemon juice and zest with a generous handful of poppy seeds. Stick in a loaf tin, sprinkle with castor sugar and bake until the top has risen and cracked like a Californian geological fault. Eat warm thick slices straight from the oven and send any remainders away with guests while being mindful of the size of your waist in impending wedding photos.

Next came the chicken. Two chickens with whole lemons and fresh herbs in the cavity, and thick arcs of lemon rind and parsley tucked under the skin and over the breasts. Stick on the rotisserie for an hour or so, basting occasionally with lemon juice and olive oil. Mmmm…

Then there was the Nigella-inspired piece de resistance: The Pavlova Identity Crisis Cake. Line two springform pans with about 4cms of sponge batter (eggs, SR flour, sugar, buttermilk) and then top with an indecently thick cloud of meringue. Bake both pans for about 35 minutes on a low heat (I use both elements for the first 20 minutes then switch to the bottom element to ensure the sponge is cooked). When cooled, smother one of the cakes in generous swathes of lemon butter and cream, and then top with the other cake. Ensure you are excessive with the lemon butter so that it oozes seductively out the side of the cake making your guests drool in anticipation…

There were a couple of non-lemony items too. Pork spare ribs marinated in home made marmalade and ginger. Steaks marinated in Guiness (the perfect tenderiser) and assorted spices. And sausages of course. We enjoyed a barbecue without the actual barbecue (O and I haven’t got one yet) so instead I cooked all the meat on the griddle plate of my beloved Ilve and even succeeded in setting off the smoke alarm!