frangipane and lemon tart

The new DH mag finally came in the post. Actually, I think I should have been pleasantly surprised at the speed that it got here. But anyway, what matters is that it is now here and I had loads of fun looking through it. The new issue 52, is all about entertaining, now that sounds like it will be packed with healthy stuff. NOT! On the front cover are chocolate-layered espresso jellies, talk about decadent. And I so want to take a crack at making them.

There is a section in this isse on short crust pastry and a whole spreadsheet with different tarts. My first reaction was, “I am going to have to make that chocolate ganache tart.” To which my husband screwed up his nose and said. “Yuck!” So that idea was out the window. I love frangipanis, they are my absolute favourite flower, so when I saw frangipane and lemon tart I thought, brilliant! I just looked up the word frangipane and it is an almond flavoured cream or paste but the reason that it so resembles the word frangipani is because the perfume of the frangipani flower was said to have been used to flavour the almond cream. Go figure. So there is a connection after all. How cool, dictionaries are a wonder.

Frangipane and Lemon tart was such an amazingly easy thing to make and is so gorgeous so sink ones teeth into. My husband and I were discussing the flavour and because I hadn’t used frangipani blossoms to add to the almond paste it really is quite mild, almost something that you can’t quite put your finger on, but definitely worth another bite. The short crust pastry, which of course you have to make, is divine, so buttery, so crispy, so delicious!

The How to Cook Short Crust Pastry section starts on page 54 of DH mag issue 52. Although it takes a little while to make, taking it in and out of the fridge and oven the basic principle is quite simple. Using a food processor makes the whole progression a cinch. Pop the butter, flour, icing sugar, of which I didn’t have any so I just used raw sugar, egg yolks and iced water into the lovely mixing machine, let it do its thing and whala.

It now goes into the fridge to let it firm up a bit, roll it out and pop it into your tart tin. I actually had to refrigerate it again after I rolled it out and before I baked it simply because it is soo incredibly hot here, the pastry was just going too mushy. I didn’t have one of those tart tins either, so I used my quiche dish and it worked like a charm. Now comes the part I never quite understood. One has to bake the pastry case, which is filled with weights for about half the baking time and then the weights come off for the rest of it. I was always under the false impression that the weights were to keep the pastry from bubbling. This might be the case for some pastry’s however with this particular one, the blind baking, as it is called actually helps the crust to cook nice and crisp. Don’t ask me how, I have no idea.

Now your pastry case is done and on to the filling.

Turn to page 58 and you will find the frangipane and lemon tart recipe. Now I made a bit of a mistake with this one. It calls for lemon rind to get popped into the pastry but of course I didn’t read all the instructions first and got a bit carried away so I had baked my pastry case before realising that I hadn’t put any lemon rind into it. Instead I added the lemon rind to the frangipane and it tasted just fine to me.

Butter, sugar, egg, egg yolk, almond meal, flour are mixed up together to form the frangipane paste. This is then placed inside the pastry case and flaked almonds are sprinkled on top. I used slivered almonds. Then it all goes into the oven again, simply divine.

Now my one problem with using all those egg yolks was all of a sudden I had 4 egg whites just hanging around. What does one do with egg whites? Well I won’t go into details but I tried to make yet another DH creation from a past issue, mini chocolate sponges with coffee meringue icing. Total disaster! I don’t know what I did wrong but nothing turned out right. My sponge was a flat pancake with a stack of eggs congealed on the bottom and my gorgeous coffee meringue icing was a blow your socks off, frothy mess. Ah well, such is life.

sweet potato and chickpea soup

Sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes are everywhere! This is a country brimming with sweet potatoes. And you know, when you’re in a place that has an abundance of something, how you never really get around to enjoying the full experience of being totally immersed in that something, until you leave and look back and go, “Wow, what an opportunity wasted!” So, in light of this truth I have decided that I will not waste being in a country where sweet potato is so readily available. I really love sweet potato, I grew up on the stuff, I missed the stuff when I was back in Australia, where it is so incredibly expensive and now I will eat it and relish the experience.

Well, maybe that was a little over the top but I am sure you know exactly what I mean. I grew up in Indonesia and the amount of times we’d go out to this gorgeous Indonesian restaurant, with amazing food and my friends would scour the menu for hamburgers. Hello!!

So, know that you know what I am neurotic about, lets talk about this mouth-watering soup. Found in DH mag issue 51, page 115 with a gorgeous photo, this soup is simple, speedy and splendiferous. I am hoping that my new issue of DH mag is coming on the plane this afternoon, on the mail/vegie run. I was hoping for it last week, but alas it did not arrive, so I’ll not hold my breath but will wait in cautious anticipation.

Anyway back to the soup. What you will need is: sweet potatoes, of course, garlic cloves, I didn’t have any of these, I used crushed garlic instead and it seemed to work just fine; onions, ground cumin and olive oil, which, of course I used canola oil. Mix all these ingredients together. Oh, by the way the sweet potato does need to be peeled and chopped. Plonk it all on an oven tray and into the oven until cooked. Than in a large saucepan add chicken stock, water and chickpeas along with your baked sweet potato, whiz it all up until it is smooth, put it back on the stove (try not to get eaten by gecko’s while typing on the computer) add some more chickpeas and serve with yoghurt and coriander.

So there you have it. So easy, so fast, so scrumptious, and I even have my own photo to put with the post, though not, of course as beautiful as the one in the mag.

crunchy herbed fish and potatoes

I love finding new fish recipes. We have the most amazing barramundi here and it is so great finding recipes that compliment the fish. Barramundi is a great fish as it doesn’t really have that strong fishy smell or taste. It is also nice and firm, which makes it easy to cook with.

We get our barramundi flown in from a fish factory down south. The fillets can be enormous. Last time we got a box, they forgot to individually wrap the fillets and let me tell you a ten-kilogram box of barramundi fillets isn’t what you want arriving in one big chunk. One Saturday we defrosted it just enough for us to pull the fillets apart, all on the kitchen bench. It’s a good thing barramundi isn’t too smelly!

The recipe is incredibly simple and tasty; my husband loved it and said that I could make it again! I served it with a nice green salad. You can find the recipe is on page 70 of Donna Hay magazine, issue 51.

Here is what you need: potatoes sliced thinly, I didn’t have potatoes, so I used sweet potatoes instead; olive oil, lemon thyme leaves, salt and pepper. No fresh lemon and thyme leaves available unfortunately but I used dried thyme and it tasted fantastic. So you toss all those together and put it on a baking tray and into the oven. When the potatoes are a bit golden you place the fish on top. Next you combine fresh breadcrumbs, garlic and parsley, I used dried parsley for this as well. Crumble it all over the fish and put it back into the oven until the fish is cooked.

Now just a quick note on the cooking. I found that you really need to make sure the potatoes are done pretty well before you pop the fish on top, the fish causes the potatoes that are directly underneath it not to cook as fast as the rest of them. I ended up with some still quite crunchy potatoes, which wasn’t ideal.