Cooking with DKG: Episode 742

I have so many thoughts swirling around, ready to pop out as a blog post, but no time to coherently master them into submission. So you'll need to put up with a quick recipe instead, because god knows there aren't enough recipes swirling about the cyber world.

This isn't anything ground breaking just a combination of some of my favourite flavours and the result of reading a dozen recipes featuring the words Smoked Salmon and Ricotta.

Quick Salmon, Ricotta and Tomato Pasta

500g pasta
200g Smoked Salmon
1 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved or whole (as you like)
2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
Zest of 1 lemon
1 Tablespoon olive oil + extra for serving
1Tablespoon butter (homemade in the Thermomix is nice - ha ha)
2-3 Tablespoons Ricotta
2-3 Tablespoons Sour Cream
Handful of parsley
Salt and Pepper

Cook pasta. Drain.
Return pot to low heat.
Add olive oil and butter and garlic. Cook for a minute or two, stirring.
Add tomatoes, zest. Cook for a minute, stirring once or twice.
Add smoked salmon, ricotta, sour cream, parsley. Stir until ricotta and sour cream have combined to a smooth sauce.
Add cooked pasta, salt, pepper, extra olive oil to taste. Heat through briefly while stirring.
Serve.

* This quantity gave us dinner for four plus enough for lunch for Big Jay. Probably we could have squeezed out two lunches if we weren't such greedy little piglets last night.

I love these flavours. The lemon zest really gives it a boost. It's a warmer months style of pasta for when you're sick of spag bol (I rarely get sick of it but...). Will said he wanted to eat it every night which is a pretty good endorsement.

Obviously you can add whatever you have in the fridge: frozen peas, rocket, baby spinach, capers, make it with sliced chicken or proscuitto instead of salmon. We had it with funky little pasta shapes I bought at Costco which look a little like shark eggs or alien pods but I think it would work with any type of pasta at all.

Enjoy!

Cyber Dinner Party at Chez DKG

Since I'm suffering from total writers' block and don't want to be bothering you with my anti Climate Change bollocks, anti Labor government rants (enough of that on FB) I thought I'd write about my other favourite subject right now: food.

So here are the two recipes I'd make if you were popping over for a quick Sunday night dinner. Strangely these were the two things I did actually make today; the former for our dinner, the later to bring to playgroup.

Pasta with Chorizo Seafood Tomato Sauce

500g packet of curly fettucine (or pasta of choice)
Big dash of olive oil
500g green medium prawns, peeled and deveined
400g firm fish fillets (I used red snapper), cut into 3cm cubes
2 chorizo sausages medium diced
1 clove garlic finely chopped
6-8 tomatoes peeled and chopped or 2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes or combination of both
1 large mushroom or 4-6 button mushrooms finely sliced
Dash of GOOD balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs
3/4 cup vegetable stock or water
Zest of 1 small lemon

Cook pasta and set aside.
In a large pot (I use pasta pot) heat oil and add garlic and chorizo. Cook on low-medium heat for a couple of minutes. Turn up heat to medium and keep stirring. Add mushrooms.
Cook until chorizo is becoming crispy and mushrooms have cooked down. Be careful that garlic doesn't burn.
Add tomato, stock, vinegar, herbs and cook for 10 minutes or so, until the sauce thickens and tomato cooks down.
Add prawns and fish, mix through the sauce and simmer for about 5 minutes. Be careful not to overcook.
Once prawns turn pink and curl it's ready. Mix the lemon zest through sauce. Then the cooked pasta. Keep on the heat for a minute or two.
Serve with a sprinkle of parsley or coriander.

Chocolate Orange Tart

1 quantity Almond Shortcrust Pastry (I use the Thermomix - doh! - recipe)
125g Philly Cream Cheese, softened
300ml Thickened Cream
120g Chocolate (I used good quality dark chocolate)
2 Tablespoon Caster Sugar
2 large Free Range Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla essence
Zest of 1 Orange
Optional: Pear Jam or Marmalade

Roll out pastry and line an oiled tart tin (20-22cm).
Place baking paper on the pastry and fill with baking beads (??) for blind baking.
Bake at 200deg for 10 minutes. Remove beads and paper. Bake for a further 10 minutes.
Turn oven down to 170 deg.
While the pastry is baking make filling.
Melt Chocolate in the microwave - in 30 second bursts at 80% power.
When chocolate is melted whisk through sugar until smooth.
Add soft cream cheese and whisk until smooth.
Add cream, eggs, zest and vanilla and whisk until smooth.
At this point I spread the pear jam in a thin layer over the base of the tart, then pour in the chocolate mixture. If you're not using the jam just pour in the filling.
Don't over fill. You need a couple of millimeters of visible crust at the edge.
Bake for about 25-35 minutes. You want it to be set but not dry or cracked, it should still look a little wobbly in the centre. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, then chill.
If I have leftover filling I bake in oiled patty tins or muffin tins. It's yummy.

There you go. I hope you enjoyed dinner.

If you give these recipes a whirl let me know how they turn out. The tart is a bit fiddly but I love the Jaffa flavours. The pasta is a real winner, those flavours really zing along.

Bon appetit.

MasterSook

I am borrowing the title of this blog entry from my sister (hope that's OK, JB).

Have you ever seen such a big bunch of whiney little girls as the contestants on this season of MasterChef? Boo hoo, this is for my grandmother. Boo hoo, I've let down my team mates. Stop blubbering and cook.

Having said that, let me say this. GO, ALVIN! You cute little gay scientific officer, you!

Furthermore, this morning I won Julie Goodwin's cookbook in a Fountain Sauce competition. So it's all MasterChef, all the time, around here.

But I actually have something sensible to say about cooking following on from that rambling about all things MC.

Strangely, considering that Big (not so much now) Jay and I have been on a Leptin Green Coffee 800 based loosing weight frenzy these past six weeks or so, I have also been on a bit of a cooking frenzy this week. Because these recipes have come out so well I thought I might share them with you, loyal reader, just in case you're looking for something new to spruce up your winter menu.

1) Chocolate and Almond Brownies

I found these on the Taste.com.au website when I was trying to use up some sour cream I didn't want to throw out. I love brownies but have never found a really good recipe that has excited me.

These are good. The sour cream makes them moist, even after a couple of days. The almonds add a nutty crunch contrast which I love. I don't put in as much sugar as they suggest, I only put in about 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup. I also use maple syrup instead of golden syrup. I have also added and/or substituted other types of chocolate including half dark cooking chocolate/half Mars bars (I had a couple of fun size laying about in the back of the fridge). The brownies always turn out just right.

2) 12 hour slow cooked lamb

I found a version of this recipe in a Gourmet Traveller which found it's way into my hands recently (great magazine, I've asked for a subscription for Mother's Day). I didn't use the spice mix in the original recipe because I didn't have the necessary ingredients and I didn't want a middle eastern flavour.

My version involves making a paste of an onion, some garlic (I used quite a lot, maybe 8 or 10 bits), lemon zest and juice and olive oil. I rubbed this paste all over a 2.5 kg leg of lamb and covered in plastic wrap and then foil and left in the fridge for 36 hours (I would probably leave for at least 24 hours). I then took it out of the fridge for an hour and put in the oven at 110 degrees for 10.5 hours (I know, I got impatient at the end). The lamb was absolutely beautiful, not quite fall off the bone, but very moist and tender and wonderful. Next time I might turn up the heat to 120 degrees or just find a little more patience and leave it in there for the full 12 hours.

3) Lamb, lentil and vegetable soup

This recipe is a variation on one I made a lot last winter (mainly because I wound up with a great deal of frozen, left over roast beef and lamb... long story). This recent version involved the left over slow roasted lamb, as above. I trimmed all the meat from the bone and placed in the slow cooker with 6 cups of stock (4 cups chicken, 2 cups vegetable - just what I had available, use what you have). Also a large tin of chopped tomatoes and a cup of dried green lentils (brown or red lentils or barely would work just as well). I diced up a whole lot of onion, garlic and celery and a small sweet potato (because I like them) and fried them gently in some olive oil to caramlise and add some flavour. I then tipped them into the slow cooked with the other ingredients. I would suggest seasoning to your own taste, I tend to cook a little bland because that's how the children like it and because Big Jay pours on salt and pepper onto everything before tasting a mouthful.

I left all this on for about 6 hours on low and then turned it up to high for about 1 1/2 hours at the end. You could probably just cook it on high for about 4 hours for a very similar result.

Hearty and delicious. A big pot lasts for a few days, including work lunches for me. The kids love it. When we have it for dinner I make some croutons out whatever bread or rolls we have laying about.

4) Spicy-ish Pumpkin Soup

This year I've been back shopping at Flemington Markets and the beautiful fresh produce always inspires me. Two weeks ago I bought a gorgeous medium sized Jap pumpkin for $2. After peeling and seeding I got 3.5 kg of pumpkin flesh from it. I put all that in the slow cooked with two chopped up onions, some garlic, ginger (I think it was the young ginger I bought which added an extra zing) and one bit of lemongrass, as well as two teaspoons of korma curry paste and one tin of Carnation Light Evaporated Milk, Coconut Flavour. This cooked for about 6 hours on the low setting. I then left it too cool for about an hour before putting it through the blender in batches (my hand held blender thingy has some awful fungal infection which should lead me to buy a new one but I can't bring myself to do so yet as this one is quite new and barely used, shame!).

Anyway, the result was a beautiful pumpkin soup with so much flavour - Big Jay and I just love it. However, it is just a little too spicy for the kids (next time I will omit the lemongrass and most of the ginger). The freezer is full of soup right now which gives me a satisfying feeling, knowing there is a quick meal only a microwave zap away.

OK, enough domestic goddess bollocks for one day.

We're off to the Swannies... and tomorrow is Will's 11th birthday and a soccer party.

The pressure cooker and I continue our love affair. It's a wonderful thing.

Last week I made this gorgeous pork braise. So easy and delicious:

Brown 1kg of pork neck (or similar meat) which has been diced into 2 cm cubes. Take out of pan and cook some diced onion, carrot, celery and mushrooms with some garlic in the pan until starting to soften and get a little caramelisation happening. Stir through a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste and cook for a minute or two. Add back the pork with some chopped zucchini, tin of tomatoes, stock powder (I like to use Vegeta), a dash of water, seasoning. Put pressure cooker lid on and bring to low pressure over high heat. Stabilise and cook for 35 minutes. I served with pasta but it would be just as nice with rice or just in a bowl with a bit of crusy bread.

Then last night I made a mild lamb curry. Again easy and delicious:

Put 1kg of diced lamb in the pan with a tin of tomatoes, a large sweet potato diced into 2cm cubes, a diced onion, a couple of cloves crushed garlic, cup of water, a teaspoon each of garam marsala, ground cumin, ground corriander, tumeric, paprika, a few splashes of soy sauce, a tablespoon of honey. Put pressure cooker lid on and bring to los pressure over high heat. Stabilise and cook for 25-30 minutes. Serve with yummy basmati rice. [The seasonings and "heat" can obviously be adjusted - I tend to make these things very much on the mild side because both my kids scream blue murder if anything is even vaguely "spicy".]

Just call me Nigella.