Celeb Best Blog

I've been feeling decidedly Italian this week. On the drive home from Melbourne, MOTH & I were reminiscing about the best food we've eaten together over the years. One stand out was a wedding anniversary celebration at the wonderful Gennaro's (R.I.P.) at Parkside. Gennaro presented us with Roast Capretto (Baby Goat) lovingly prepared by his Mamma the sous chef. It was one of those moments in life that you want time to stand still & never move on. I've managed to find a recipe that looks mighty good from chef Scott Conant - Moist Roasted Baby Goat (Capretto) with Peas, Fingerling Potatoes and Shallots here.

As Greek Orthodox Easter co-incides with the Christian calendar this year, goat has been plentiful in the market this week. So it's on the menu here at The Hedge this Easter weekend. I have the time & the enthusiasm - what a luxury.

So Buona Pasqua to you all dear Hedgies. It's the Easter break, so go enjoy.

Image: Not On The High Street

MOTH took great pleasure last night in reminding me that it's my turn to do Valentine's Day dinner this year - oh joy. I asked him if he had any special culinary requests & was surprised when he said 'Chocolate Mills.....dark, rich, bitter chocolate.' As neither of us are great chocolate eaters, it seems that a year of the Biggest Loser diet regime has left him feeling deprived. Here's what I'm mulling over for the big splurge on Monday evening.

LITTLE LAMINGTONS

Ingredients
125gm. softened butter, chopped
165gm. (3/4 cup) caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
185gm. (1 1/4 cups) plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup milk
250gm. (1 3/4 cups) shredded coconut

For the icing
40gm. soft butter
500gm. (3 1/4 cups) icing sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
50gm. Dutch cocoa
20mls. Cognac
140mls. boiling water

Method
Preheat oven to 190C.
Using an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and vanilla until light and creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Stir in combined sifted flour and baking powder alternating with milk and stir until smooth. Spoon mixture into a greased and lined square 23cm cake tin and bake for 25-30 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Stand in tin for 10 minutes before turning out on a wire rack to cool. Wrap in plastic wrap and store for 1 day.

For the icing
Combine all ingredients with 140mls. boiling water and mix until smooth.
Cut cake into teeny-tiny 3cm. squares and dip each one into the icing using a wooden skewer, then roll in the coconut.
Place lamingtons on a wire rack for 1-2 hours or until dry. Then pop them into small confectionary papers.
Made cute & tiny they are sublime as after-dinner treats. Stored in an airtight container at room temperature they are OK for a couple of days, but honestly, why would you want to! Makes about 40.

Image & recipe: Cuisine

MOTH bought a huge whole Ocean Trout on the weekend, & with his normal surgical precision style, filleted it out giving me 12 big plump scrumptious cutlets. Wanting to do something a little different with them last night, I gave this recipe from a very old issue of NZ House & Garden a whirl & it was a Winner! 5 Millie & MOTH stars.

SPAGHETTI FRITTATA WITH OCEAN TROUT SALAD

250g. dry spaghetti pasta
Olive Oil
2 French shallots, finely diced (not Spring Onions)
2 cloved garlic, minced
5 large eggs
1 cup freshly grated parmesan
salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste
Salad:
2 cups baby spinach leaves
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, roughly torn
1 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved
1 medium red capsicum (Bell Pepper) julienned into strips
1 spring onion, finely sliced
2 pieces pf Ocean Trout poached or lightly pan fried, broken into chunky pieces (I'm sure you could substitute Atlantic Salmon for the Trout)
For the dressing:
really good quality olive oil & a splash of balsamic vinegar

• Cook pasta to directions, refresh under running cold water & set aside.
• Heat olive oil in large, heavy non-stick frying pan & quickly cook down French shallots & garlic on medium until just soft.
• Beat eggs lightly in a really large bowl. Add cool spaghetti, shallot & garlic mix & parmesan & mix well. Season to taste.
• Throw some olive oil in the frying pan & pour in the spaghetti mixture. Cook over a medium heat until the base is crispy golden, about 5-6 minutes.
• Grab a white serving platter, loosen the frittata around the edges with a spatula, get your MOTH or similar to flip the frittata onto the platter. Cheer when the whole thing comes out intact!
• Chuck some more olive oil into the frying pan, heat up & carefully slide the frittata back into the pan to cook the other side until it's golden & crispy too. Remove from heat & do the whole sliding the thing back onto the serving platter & cheer again if successful!
• Combine salad ingredients, whisk the olive oil & balsamic together, drizzle over salad & toss well.
• Serve the salad piled on top of the frittata & then cut into wedges to serve.
• Yummo!

Image: NZ H&G

Kneeling down, cleaning out the fire in the Sitting Room again this morning, lugging in the wood & resetting & lighting it, I had an overwhelming feeling that I'M OVER WINTER!!! I want to wear only one layer of clothing, chuck out the boots in favour of bare feet & eat light, summery food. And what I really want more than anything is icecream. I don't have a flash icecream maker, instead I just follow on from my Mum, who made delicious icecream each Summer in metal trays. She would lift them out of the freezer after a few hours, their yummy contents sitting happily in their glistening containers, with just a hint of ice starting to form on the sides. I remember standing in the kitchen, excitedly hopping around from one foot to the other, while Mum scooped the icecream into little square wafer icecream cups. These days Mum's creations are best described as Semifreddo, which literally means 'semi-cold.'

Gourmet Traveller magazine says about Semifreddo 'While ice-cream uses many of the same ingredients as semifreddo – egg yolks, sugar, cream – the technique for making it is different. For ice-cream, you make a crème anglaise, or custard, by creaming the yolks and sugar, then combining them with hot cream (and milk). This is cooked slowly, gently and with constant stirring until it thickens; the mixture is then cooled and frozen in an ice-cream machine.'

'In contrast, semifreddo doesn't require churning & consists of a sabayon and a roughly equal quantity of whisked cream. Its mousse-like texture means it doesn’t freeze as solidly as ice-cream. Semifreddo is typically presented as a frozen terrine, but it can just as easily be scooped as you would serve ice-cream.'

Here's their basic Semifreddo recipe.
Serves 10
Cooking Time/Prep Time 30 mins, cook 35 mins (plus freezing)
Ingredients
9 egg yolks
250gm caster sugar
Scraped seeds of 1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla paste
600mls. thickened cream
250gm crème fraîche
Method
1. Line a 2 litre-capacity mould with plastic wrap or baking paper.
2. Whisk yolks, sugar, vanilla seeds and 1 tbsp water in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until mixture is tripled in volume, thick and pale and holds a ribbon (4-5 minutes).
3. Transfer to an electric mixer and whisk until cooled to room temperature (2-3 minutes).
4. Meanwhile, whisk cream and crème fraîche in a bowl until soft peaks form.
5. Carefully fold into egg mixture.
6. Spoon into container, cover, freeze until firm (6 hours-overnight). Makes about 2 litres.

Once the sabayon is cooled, then the fun part can begin. Add your desired flavourings, these could be chocolate and hazelnut, or you could fold though some puréed fruit, or some spices.

While Mum's recipe was invariably vanilla, here's a few slightly more sophisicated ideas to whip you into a heavenly Semifreddo frenzy!

Turkish Delight Semifreddo with Fresh Strawberries & Raspeberries

Effie's Kourabiedes (Greek Walnut Shortbreads)

250 gm. unsalted butter - softened to room temperature.
110 gm. (2/3 cup) icing (powdered) sugar, sifted (plus extra for dusting).
1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
1 egg yolk.
300 gm. (2 cups) plain (all purpose) flour, sifted with 1/2 teaspoon baking powder.
100 gm. walnuts, finely chopped.
1 tablespoon orange flower water (available from the Indian Grocer's).

1. Using an electric mixer, beat butter until pale and creamy, then add icing sugar, vanilla and egg yolk and beat until well combined. Fold in combined sifted flour and baking powder, then add chopped walnuts and stir to combine.

2. Roll half the mixture into small balls (approx.1 tablespoon) & the other half roll into 5cm. lengths to form into crescents. Place a mixture of the crescents & balls onto baking paper-lined oven trays and bake at 160C. for 12-15 mins. or until just starting to colour.

3.Transfer shortbreads to wire racks and, while still warm, sprinkle with orange flower water and dust with icing sugar, then leave to cool. When completely cool, dust generously with icing sugar. Walnut shortbreads will keep in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Image 1: Flickr 2. Gourmet Traveller

I do enjoy it when I find love in the most surprising places! Firstly I found it in Luca Guadagnino's movie Io Sono L'Amore (I Am Love). Not love at first sight mind you, rather a slow, simmering realization on the way home that I did love this film. At one stage I could have sworn the ghost of Luchino Visconti was in the cinema giving his tacit approval of this style of movie-making!

Good news from the dodgy bathroom of The Hedge this morning. MOTH hopped onto the scales for the first time in about 10 weeks & happy days, he's 11kgs. (24lbs.) lighter! It looks like the No Fat Ever Again Diet is actually working, so I'm delighted. To be truthful it's been a pain to do, researching no fat recipes, thinking in advance about evening meals, trying to maintain interesting & tasty food, locking up his beer supply etc. etc. However, he did say the other night that he hasn't missed the 'good' stuff as much as he thought he would. Although he did roll his eyes the other night when I introduced him to the 'wonderful' world of quinoa as a side dish!

He wandered off & had some fasting bloods taken early this morning, as I'm desperate to know if all this has achieved some lowering of his explosive Serum Cholesterol levels. He would like to be able to abdicate from his current position as record holder at the Medical Clinic. So we'll continue on our way down the Biggest Loser path & see what eventuates.

And as an aside, while keeping him company on this odyssey I've inadvertently lost 6kgs. (13lbs.) so it's not all bad!
Image: Working For Health

MOTH & I have a combined love of Asian food. Our poor old wok is on its last legs, & we've been talking about replacing it. It was a cheap & cheerful job from the Market, but over the years it has produced some fantastic nosh. I would love to hear any recommendations along the wok line, what works for you, what doesn't....there are so many choices available my head's spinning! Oh & if you're reading this Son #3 in Melbourne, are you still ordering your famous ' Lemon Chicken thanks, but hold the Lemon' at your local Chinese takeaway!!

Image of the late Danny Kaye's amazing kitchen: Architectural Digest

I mentioned last week about having to dig deep into my Creative Cooking 'file' in an attempt to get MOTH's cholesterol under record-breaking levels. Some of you were interested & so here's a few things I did for him over the Easter weekend. Please remember though that Gourmet Traveller will not be hiring me anytime soon for my cooking & food styling/photography skills!!

Good Friday dinner was a platter of smoked salmon with low-fat buckwheat blinis & yoghurt herb dressing. Followed by a plate of roasted vegies with low-fat ricotta.

Blinis
3/4 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup low fat milk
1 egg yolk
3 egg whites

Whisk the egg whites until they are fluffy & set aside. Combine the flour & baking powder in a mixing bowl, add the milk & egg yolk & mix thoroughly. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the flour mixture until it forms a smooth batter. Spray a non-stick skillet with a little olive oil spray & heat. Drop tablespoons of the batter into the skillet, cook until small bubbles appear on the surface, flip & cook for a couple more minutes until golden.

Yoghurt Dressing
1/2 cup low-fat natural yoghurt
generous squeeze of lemon or lime juice
good pinch of good flaky salt ( I love the Murray River Pink flakes)
1/2 fresh herbs finely chopped (I used dill & mint)

Combine the 1st 3 ingredients & then fold through the herbies at the last minute.

Roasted Vegies with Ricotta
500gm. medium size Swiss brown mushies

3 Roma tomatoes halved

4 cloves of garlic peeled

good slurp of balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup breadcrumbs (I used a mixture of fresh wholemeal grain bread & panko crumbs)

a couple of teaspoons of fresh thyme leaves finely chopped

flaky salt & ground black pepper

200g. low-fat ricotta drained well

peppery rocket leaves

Spray a non-stick oven tray with a little olive oil & throw the mushies & tomatoes onto it, making sure to spread them out so they aren't overlapping each other. Chuck the garlic cloves over the vegies. Give them all a spray with the olive oil & evenly sprinkle over the balsamic vinegar. Mix the breadcrumbs & thyme together & scatter evenly over the vegies. Add the salt & pepper & then crumble/pinch the ricotta all over the vegies. Bake in an oven at about 170-180oC. for about 30 mins, or until the vegies are tender & the toppings are golden brown. Serve on a bed of rocket leaves. (You can use other vegies such as zucchini & carrot batons, pumpkin chunks, baby squash halved etc.)

Be Gone Bad Cholesterol Soop de Loop
1 brown onion diced
4 cloves garlic crushed
3 sticks celery diced
2 carrots diced
250g. beans cut into 4cm. lengths
2 zucchini diced
150g. Swiss brown mushies sliced
3 large stalks of fresh rosemary
1 can chopped tomatoes
1.5 litres low fat chicken stock (I used the recipe from one of the Heart Foundation cookbooks)
2 dried bay leaves
1 cup pearl barley washed thoroughly under running water
good handful of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley & shredded fresh basil

Spray the bottom of a deep stockpot with a little olive oil, add onion, garlic, celery & carrots & cook until soft. Add the rosemary & tomatoes & cook for another couple of mins. Add the chicken stock & bay leaves & bring to the boil. Add the pearl barley & reduce the heat. Cover & simmer for 1.5 hrs. Then add the beans, zucchinis & mushies & cook for another 30mins. Remove the rosemary stalks & bay leaves & serve with a good sprinkling of the fresh herbies.