A new signature dish? Flourless chocolate cake

I'll outline the background to this particular recipe when I fill you in on the latest dinner party club menu... however, having decided that I was on dessert, I turned to a recipe that I have gazed at many many times, but wondered if I would really like.  It is a cross between a chocolate cake and a baked cheesecake from one of Julie Le Clerc's books, and was met with resounding acclaim and requests that I had better blog it IMMEDIATELY!

The other good thing about this recipe is that it is just so easy to make - I had spent the day racing round, fitting in brunch with our cousins from Westport and squeezing in some gardening, and I had never tried the recipe before (potential recipe for disaster).  But no, get all the ingredients out, turn on the oven and off you go...

Flourless chocolate cake
Serves 12

Preheat the oven to 150C (fanbake).  Grease a 22cm springform cake tin and line the base and sides with baking paper.

Vanilla cream
250g cream cheese, softened to room temperature (DON'T for a MOMENT think about using "lite" or reduced fat cream cheese)
2/3 C sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp Heilala vanilla paste

Beat together the cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add egg and vanilla and beat for another minute until it is combined.  Set aside.

Chocolate batter
150g butter, roughly chopped
300g quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), roughly chopped

Place in a medium size bowl and gently melt together.  This can be done over a small pan of simmering water (which I did) - just make sure that the water is not touching the bowl. Alternatively, zap in the microwave in 30 second bursts. Once it is mostly melted, take the bowl off the pot of water and leave to cool on the bench, stirring from time to time. You want it to be warm, but not scalding hot when you add to the eggs.

3 large eggs
1/3 C sugar
1 tbsp espresso coffee
pinch salt

Place these ingredients in a bowl and whisk together for at least 5 minutes, until they are thick and pale.  Gradually add the slightly cooled chocolate mixture, while continuing to whisk, until combined.

Pour about half the chocolate batter into the prepared pan. Then alternate dollops of the vanilla cream and the chocolate batter across the pan.  Use a medium palette knife to roughly swirl the two together and get a marbled pattern. Give the bowl a gentle shake so that the top of the cake is even, and place in the middle of the oven.

Cook for 45-50 minutes. The top should be slightly crusty, and a skewer inserted into the cake should be a little sticky, but not runny.  I preferred the cake still slightly warm - it keeps overnight in the fridge, but I would warm slightly before serving.

This leads me to another essential kitchen item, the perfect basket for transporting food.  When I bought this, I really didn't know how vital it would be - but if you find a sturdy basket that will fit your most popular baking dishes, just buy it!

The miracle of grandparents: WBC restaurant review

These school holidays, my wonderful parents were wondering if the girls would, perhaps, like to fly down and stay with them for a week?  No one in our household needed to be asked twice – the girls were very excited about being Unaccompanied Minors, and we were quite keen to explore what a week without children could be like.  In a week bookended by southerly storms (and delayed flights) at one end and earthquakes at the other, the answer for us was *busy* (and we missed our girls, but they had a ball with their Granny and Papa)!

However, we were determined to get to the newest restaurant in town – WBC.  WBC is in the building of the former Wholesale Boot Company, and the food is, I’m happy to advise, melt-in-the-mouth delicious.

We arrived at the rather nondescript doorway on a cool winter evening, to see candles lighting the stairs.  On arrival upstairs, we were warmly greeted and taken to a table.  As with most restaurants in Wellington, they don’t take dinner bookings – on our wintry Wednesday evening, we arrived in time to get the last table at 7pm.  The room is long, with lovely large windows along one side and tables arranged the length of the room.  There is a bar that seats six (enough space to dine at the bar), with views into the kitchen where all the action is taking place.

The menu has a range of offerings and there are also lots of daily specials listed on brown butcher's paper as you come up the stairs.  There are starters and small dishes, mains and larger plates to share, along with veges and salads.  This creates options for creating a meal of the plates that you want and not being constrained by any expectation that you’ll follow a straight line though the menu.

The wine list covers the bases, with generally one option for each variety offered, including a mix of New Zealand and international wines.  All wines are available by the glass, giving the option of wine matching to each dish, if you wish.  There is a wide selection of spirits visible behind the bar, and I suspect that if it wasn’t a mid-week evening, we would have explored some cocktails to get us started.

The MOTH started his meal with a selection of oysters, which he was very happy with.  I opted for a small plate special of barbequed blue cod wings, with roasted red pepper and capers – these were delicious.  They had just the right amount of smoky flavour, balanced by the sweetness of the peppers and the salty tang of the capers.  The small plate provided enough for me to be happy enough to share one wing with the MOTH.

For our main, we took the chef’s recommendation of a special plate to share – groper steak.  Without a doubt, the best groper I have ever had – perfectly seared on the bone, lightly flavoured and melt-in-the-mouth delicious.  The flavour of the groper was the main event, enhanced but not overwhelmed by its light and buttery juices.  The groper came with two sides.  The first was a green salad with seaweed – simple, but surprisingly tasty, with the slightly salty seaweed and a good balance for the fish.  The second side was fresh peas, with tender green broad beans and garlic – perfectly complementing the fish and the salad.  We had also ordered hand cut chips – which rounded out the main course perfectly.

After a small pause to chat, we turned our attention to the dessert menu.  Predictably, I opted for the crème brulée, with poached rhubarb.  The crème brulée was perfect, and its little side dish of perfectly pink rhubarb was described by the MOTH as “like eating an orchid” – fragrant, lightly spiced and cooked to perfection.  In a departure from normal procedure (the MOTH is not a regular dessert eater), the MOTH chose banana doughnuts… and I have to say (as I don’t care for doughnuts), that these were a revelation – light and fluffy, with a delicious chocolate sauce.  I know what the girls would have had for dessert, if they’d been with us.

 
Overall, a lovely evening – attentive service, an interesting menu, wonderful food and delightful company.    Thanks WBC and the grandparents.

A cheeky little number

This blog comes to you courtesy of the tectonic plates that pass beneath Cook Strait, between the North and South Islands of New Zealand.  They’ve been releasing a bit of friction via earthquakes, or “shakes”, as we refer to them, in an attempt to minimise their potential for ripping apart lives and buildings.  The 6.5 magnitude shake yesterday means that we can’t return to work until buildings have been checked and cleared.  Happily, the damage appears to be largely cosmetic, so we have not needed to spend the day cleaning up, but can approach the “to do” list…

A couple of weeks’ ago, I went to the friendly neighbourhood butcher, intending to buy some oxtail.  We were heading to Tora on the Wairarapa Coast with a couple of other families, and Friday night dinner was our responsibility.  But, there was only one oxtail available – not nearly enough for the hungry crew – so I found myself at home with beef cheeks.

Now if you find yourself in possession of beef cheeks, you’ll see immediately that they are layered with the toughest, most fibrous, white connective tissues you have ever seen.  Ignore these.  Really.  Just pretend you never saw them.  But remember that you’ll be cooking them for around 5 hours, so plan ahead!

Beef cheeks braised in red wine

Makes enough to feed 6-8

2kg beef cheeks, chopped in large chunks – depending on how they arrive, this may be in half or in quarters, but no smaller than the palm of your hand

Marinade

6-8 cloves garlic
2 tbsp juniper berries
Sea salt
Pepper
Fresh bay leaves (4-5)
Fresh rosemary, leaves stripped from the stalks
Olive oil
Red wine
Rind of 2 oranges, peeled with no white pith

In a mortar and pestle, pound together the garlic, juniper berries, salt and pepper.  Add the bay leaves and rosemary and give them a few thumps to bruise them and release their aroma.  Add about ½ cup of red wine, the juice of one of the oranges and a few good glugs of olive oil (¼  cup?).  Add the beef cheeks and leave to marinade for a day or two in the fridge.

For cooking

Olive oil
2 large onions, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
2 large carrots, finely chopped
A bottle of red wine (you may not need all of it!)
1 litre beef stock
Juice of 1-2 oranges
Redcurrent/quince jelly
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 150 C.

Drain the beef (keeping the marinade, herbs and peel).  Brown in batches in oil and transfer to a large casserole dish.  Deglaze the pan with about ½ a bottle of red wine, scraping up any browned pieces of beef and bubble vigorously for 5 minutes.  Pour over the beef.

In a clean pan, add more olive oil and soften the onion.  Add the carrots and celery and gently cook until softened, then add about 2 C of beef stock, the orange juice, the reserved marinade and 2 tbsp of fruit jelly.  Pour over the beef.  Pop into the oven and cook for 3 hours (this is not the total cooking time, but you can safely ignore them for 3 hours).

At this stage, you can take them out and freeze them, or leave them in the fridge if you are preparing them a few days in advance.  If you do this, let them come up to room temperature, then cook in the oven for 30 mins, until they are nicely warmed.

Check the beef cheeks, give them a good stir and add more wine and stock, in roughly equal quantities, so that the juices just cover the beef.  The beef will still be quite tough at this stage.  Cook for another hour, then check again, taste the juices and adjust for seasonings.  Add more stock and/or wine if necessary.  After another hour check again – when ready, the beef will be meltingly tender – it will sit happily while vegetables are prepared.

I have to confess that I completely forgot to photograph the finished product, these photos are of my mother's version of beef cheeks provided midway through the series of shakes that we've been having - slightly different recipe, but just as melt-in-the-mouth good!

 

Tax avoidance

So this is what tax avoidance looks like in our house…

Just so that the Inland Revenue Department doesn’t have cause for concern, this is only avoidance of the task of actually doing the tax return, not avoiding the tax in a criminal kind of a way!

Actually, this post could also be titled “Antiquing” because that’s what happened on Friday – Mrs Urban Gardener and I took to the road and headed to some of those small towns with junk shops that have a whole lot of junk and a small supply of treasure.  A previous trip ended up with a coach horn being one of my finds… seen here with a couple of other acquisitions. 

The coach horn is perfect for calling the children home when they are rampaging through the neighbourhood (they will probably grow to hate this).

But, I digress.  On Friday, I found the perfect gem iron.

For those of you who haven’t met a gem iron, the perfect gem iron is a heavy cast iron mould for making ginger gems in.  Ginger gems seem to be a particularly New Zealand treat… so I lined up a selection of recipes and made several batches (while avoiding doing the filing that needs to be completed before I can get started on the aforementioned tax).  Consumer opinion agreed that Ellen’s Gems won – Ellen was the female half of the married couple who worked on my parents’ farm when I was growing up, so here is her recipe.

Ellen’s Ginger Gems

Makes about 12 (the number of gems in a gem iron)

1 C flour

1 tsp ginger
½ tsp mixed spice
20g butter
½ C golden syrup
¼ C sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp baking soda
½ C milk
Crystallised ginger, finely sliced (optional)

Heat the oven to 200 C and put the gem iron in to heat up (this is essential).

Sift together the flour, ginger and mixed spice.  Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.  Melt together the butter and golden syrup and add the sugar.

Pour the syrup mix into the dry ingredients, give a stir, add the lightly beaten egg, give another stir, and add the milk.  Mix to combine (it may be a little lumpy).

Grease the hot gem iron with butter (I use a pastry brush for this), and fill the gem irons to around 2/3 full (the mix will start to caramelise around the edges).  You can gently place some finely sliced crystallised ginger on top for extra ginger-ness.  Then into the oven for 10 minutes.  Turn out and eat while still warm.  Then do your tax.

Delicious delicious onions

How on earth did we end up nearly at the end of May??!  The combination of my first ever half marathon (yes, completed and all in one piece, happy with my time too, thankyouverymuch), my first embroidery project and a rather massive deadline in the day job have all conspired against leisurely time at the keyboard.  I have been cooking though – it has just been the everyday food that the family loves rather than experiments in great food for the blog.

BUT… I did chance upon the secret that I never knew for creating genuinely magnificently delicious onions.  I’m not sure where (misplaced my brain as well as those early weeks in May and all of April), but I’m sure it’s not copyrighted – it’s so damn simple – and I never knew it!

I’ve always caramelised onions with a mix of salt and sugar added, and some wine and much tending to avoid catching and burning (and probably cooking far too fast).  This is infinitely better, but does require a large, heavy bottomed saucepan and a little bit of forward planning.

Caramelised onion

Serves however many you need it for – if you are making Pissaladière, you’d aim for 6-8 onions for 8 people, if you are adding it to a pie of other ingredients or having as part of pick’n’mix pasta, then 1-3 onions might do you

Onions – red or white

For each onion*:

• 1 tbsp olive oil (but if you’ve got more than 3, I’d cut it back to ½ tbsp. each, and if you’ve got more than 8, just make sure the base of the pan is well covered… it’s not a science!)
• 1 tbsp hot water
• Salt

*So 3 onions would require 3 tbsp olive oil and 3 tbsp hot water, etc.

Heat the oil, add the onion, a good pinch or two of salt and the water.  The salt seems to be necessary for really bringing out the sweetness of the onions. Cover with a tight fitting lid and turn to the lowest setting.  Cook for an hour, stir occasionally to check they are not catching and that everything is cooking nicely (especially if you’re doing lots).  If all the water has disappeared, add some more – just remember that you’ll want to keep cooking the onions until they are meltingly soft, sweet and delicious, and all the liquid has disappeared.

Taste them and adjust for your final recipe… a dash of sherry vinegar if you want some sharpness, some seedy mustard to go on a platter with hard cheeses and gherkins, some fish stock and capers to go with fish…

Seriously delicious.  Definitely food that tastes great!

Summer Berry Tart

I made this lovely tart in early summer, when we had the first wave of raspberries at their peak – it is one of my favourite combinations – berries, lemony custard, and pastry to deliver it to your plate.  It would also work well with fresh autumn berries. 

This pudding also lends itself to all manner of shortcuts if cooking from scratch is not your thing… sweet shortcrust pastry from the freezer, a mix of custard and lemon curd, and there’s a lovely dessert that simply needs some compilation! 

 

Just remember before starting that you need to allow enough time to make the pastry, rest it, get it into the tart tin, rest it, cook it and cool it  (around 3 hours all up)… and then another couple of hours to chill the custard in the tart.

Berry Tart with Lemon Custard

Serves 8 people, approximately 27cm tart

Sweet Pastry

For best results, make this the day before and rest overnight in the fridge – if you can’t do this, make sure it rests in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before rolling out.  You can also experiment with ginger or cinnamon to add some spice to the pastry.

170g butter, just softened (not melted)

85g sugar
1 small egg, lightly beaten with a fork
1/8 tsp vanilla paste (or a few drops vanilla essence)
Zest of a lemon
260g plain flour

Using a wooden spoon, cream together the butter and sugar, then add the egg, vanilla and lemon zest.  Now add the flour and gently mix just enough to combine – it will start to stick together and come away from the sides of the bowl.  It really is important not to overmix as it will become oily and difficult to work with later.  Scoop out straight on to plastic wrap and pop into the fridge to rest.

Once rested, remove from the plastic wrap, squeeze gently to make sure it is combined (again not too much – you don’t want it to warm up), gently shape into a circle and roll out on a floured bench to about 3mm thick.  Line a loose-bottomed tart tin and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Pre-heat the oven to 180C (not fan bake).  Line the tart base with foil and fill with baking blind beads/rice etc.  Bake for 10 mins, then remove the foil and baking blind beads/rice, and bake for a further 10 mins, or until the pastry is dry, crisp and golden brown.  Remove from the oven (leave in the tart tin) and cool.

Lemony Custard

2 tbsp lemon zest (make sure there is no white pith, as this will make it taste bitter)
1 C lemon juice
1 C caster sugar
2 tsp cornflour
2 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
140g butter, chopped into smallish squares
3 tbsp olive oil (not your average mass produced one – try a rich fruity boutique grower)

Whisk together all ingredients except the butter and olive oil in a medium sized, heavy based saucepan.  Bring to the boil, whisking constantly. Boil for 2 minutes (or a bit less), whisking constantly, until it thickens up – you must keep whisking to avoid scrambled eggs, and you don’t have to rapidly boil – just enough to keep bubbling and cook the flour so that it thickens up.  Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter and olive oil until combined.  Allow to cool for 10 minutes, giving the occasional stir, and then pour into the pastry case and refrigerate til firm (I would allow 2 hours for this stage).

Fruit topping

Around 3-6 punnets of summer berries (personally, I don’t think you can have too much fruit).  My version involved strawberries, blueberries and raspberries.

If time allows, slice the strawberries in half and soak overnight in a good slosh of raspberry liqueur with a sprinkling of castor sugar.  Before serving, spoon the strawberries over the tart (gently press them into the custard) and then pile the blueberries and raspberries on top.  Drizzle the juice from the sozzled strawberries over everything and serve.

If you come to ours for a barbeque…

… it’s highly likely that you’ll be on the receiving end of a butterflied leg of lamb.  This dish has so many reasons for recommending – it’s easy, healthy, tasty and any leftovers are great.  An added bonus for me is that the MOTH does all the cooking – and he is the master of the perfectly cooked butterflied leg of lamb.

These days, you can often buy a pre-butterflied leg of lamb at the supermarket (or ask your friendly neighbourhood butcher to take to a lamb leg for you).  However, boning out a leg of lamb is actually really easy if you have a good sharp knife – so get your butcher (or anyone who confesses to knowing how to do this) to show you how. 

Butterflied lamb barbeque

Serves 4 or more – depending on the size of the leg and whether it is part of a broader selection of BBQ dishes

1.3kg leg of lamb (bone in) – served four plus leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch

Bone out the leg.  Slice into the largest part of the leg so that it opens out to a fairly uniform thickness.  Or put your pre-butterflied leg into a non-reactive dish for marinating.

Basic marinade for lamb

2-5 cloves garlic
Olive oil
1 lemon
Handful of fresh thyme (or rosemary)
Salt and pepper

Finely chop the garlic or pound in a mortar and pestle with some sea salt.  Squeeze the lemon (you can also add finely grated lemon rind for extra lemony flavour – but make sure you only use the really yellow outer rind and not the bitter white pith). 

At this point, I sprinkle over a few good pinches of sea salt, a good grind of black pepper, the thyme (sprigs removed if I can be bothered, but they burn/fall off when barbequed, so no need to fuss), a few glugs of olive oil and then rub in the garlic and lemon juice.  It’s all a bit messy, but it means that the flavours of the marinade ingredients get up close and personal with the lamb, which is the whole point of the marinade.  At this point, you can leave the lamb in the fridge for up to 24 hours, turning occasionally, if you remember.

You can easily adjust your marinade to provide any number of different flavours – add crushed anchovies for a real depth of flavour (believe me, no-one will pick that the flavour is anchovies), smoked paprika for a more Spanish flavour, Moroccan spices, chilli… my only rule is to steer away from sugary ingredients (sweet chilli, honey, maple syrup, etc), as they will tend to burn before the lamb is cooked.

At least 30 minutes (preferably 1 hour) before cooking, get the lamb out of the fridge and allow to come up to room temperature – cooking from cold is too much of a shock for the lamb and will give you a tougher end result.  Heat the barbeque.

As an aside, we have a very basic gas BBQ – no fancy lid and 12 dials on the front.  Every BBQ is different and every day is different (in Wellington, the breeze varies from gale to hurricane, so cooking time always has to be adjusted).  So I can’t give you a definitive answer to how long to cook your lamb.  Put the lamb on the BBQ skin side down.  For the smallish leg that I’ve shown you here, about 12 minutes/side, with a roasting dish placed over the lamb for the second side did the trick (on a relatively calm day).  Generally speaking, you wouldn’t need longer than 15 minutes/side unless the weather is really against you.  With a lid and a good day, you may only need 10 minutes/side.  Remember to only ever turn your lamb once.

The MOTH keeps a close eye on things and will use his technical finger prod technique to judge when it is done to perfection – he is committed to delivering perfect lamb and has been honing these skills over the years.  He can now size up the depth of the lamb, the weather and the BBQ and deliver perfect results pretty much every time.

Don’t forget to rest the lamb.  This is utterly essential – take it off the BBQ, place it on a dish, loosely cover with foil (letting any steam escape) and pop a folded tea towel on top.  At least 15 minutes of resting and the lamb will relax, the cooking will be complete, and you’ll have tender pink lamb ready to slice for everyone.

Redcurrant jelly is our family’s traditional accompaniment.

 

We ate outside and the Crepescule rose looked lovely under the sun umbrella.

 

A taste of summer

Summer is fully upon us, here in Wellington, with the forecast for 10 straight days of sunshine!  Back from a holiday filled to the brim with beaches, caves, bush and sunshine – and not forgetting a good supply of friends – it’s time to turn some photos into blog recipes. 

Peaches and raspberries are two of my favourite tastes of summer… so what better than combining them with a touch of vanilla?  Last week I tried this out on two lots of unsuspecting friends to universal approval.

Baked Peaches with Vanilla and Raspberries

Serves 4

4 large peaches, peeled and cut into quarters or halves, stone removed

1 vanilla pod, split lengthwise or ½ tsp Heilala vanilla paste
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp raspberry liqueur (Crème de Framboise)
2 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup fresh raspberries

The peaches should be ripe, but on the firm side.  Once peeled, place into a baking dish that will fit them in a snug single layer and toss with the lemon juice and sugar.  At this stage, you can pop them into the fridge until 30 minutes before you are ready to cook them.

Preheat the oven to around 200 degrees, and melt the butter.  Gently toss together with the peaches and raspberry liqueur.  At this stage, I try to arrange them cut side up, and then pop into the oven for 10 minutes, then turn and baste with the juices, and cook for another 10 minutes.  They should still keep their shape – if they are very ripe, you may need to drop the cooking time by a few minutes each side.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle the raspberries over the top.  Spoon into dishes, using up ALL the juices and serve with vanilla icecream.