Successes, scraps and lost felafels

When, like me, you cook a lot, not everything falls into the 'spectacular success' category of recipes that you know you'll be making over and over again. Quite the opposite really, which is why it's pretty exciting when I do come across those rare combinations of ingredients and technique that demand instant addition to the never-to-be-lost-scraps-of-paper collection which regularly gets shuffled between my desk, kitchen, and lounge room table (and sometimes gets lost...if I can find the fresh pea felafel recipe I made a few months ago out of a magazine published around the same time, but that I can't for the life of me remember the title of or where I put it, I will actually skip to the kitchen to make it again, and you will all be hearing about it).

Today's recipe was not destined to be of the spectacular variety, but it certainly wasn't bad and with a bit of work might even make it a little further up the ranks, so I thought I would share it anyway. It's another contender marked off the list in my endless quest for the perfect muesli slice, and although it doesn't fit my picky criteria on account of being a bit too cakey, I did quite like it in a fudgy, squishy, oaty kind of way. The one thing I would definitely keep in mind if I make it again (and I may) would be to reduce the sugar as it was quite sweet. I used my own Toasted Nut Crunch Muesli (which I would certainly encourage you to make, and not only for purposes of this recipe!) which does have brown sugar in it already, so I guess if you wanted to use an untoasted/unsweetened muesli perhaps you could get away with using the full amount of sugar.

The bare bones of the oat cake base for this come from a recipe out of Jo Seagar's The Cook School Recipes, for White Chocolate Caramel Oat Cake (obviously minus the white chocolate and caramel - God knows what possessed me to set to work with the least appealing-sounding food of the three on that list, given the choice!). I picked up Jo's book in New Zealand last year, and while I'd suggest she's probably not that well known to the rest of the world, she is known throughout New Zealand, and reasonably well in Australia, for her cookery school Seagars and her down-to-earth approach to delicious country-style food. I have long been an admirer and am really enjoying cooking from the book - particularly the sweet options, which are the sort of things your Nanna might make if she were a hip, modern Nanna (like mine, I am lucky to say).

Back to the cake, though. It's ridiculously easy - you just throw everything in a bowl, stir it around until it's mixed, squash it into a tin and you're away! And let's face it, if it's not the absolute best recipe you've ever made, it'll be far from the worst, full of faux-goodness from the muesli, and give you something to work towards for the next time you make it. They can't all be winners, can they?

Muesli Slice

makes 16 large-ish squares, or more if you decide to cut them smaller

1 and 1/2 cups wholemeal plain flour

3/4 cup white plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda (baking soda)

2 and 1/4 cups toasted muesli

As mentioned above, I used my homemade muesli for this, although you could use whatever you like, even untoasted if you are prepared for the end result to be a bit less nutty and toasty tasting. The one thing I would advise is that if your muesli doesn't contain much fruit or nuts, add some extra into it or your slice will be pretty boring.

1/3 cup dessicated coconut

1 and 1/4 cups dark brown sugar

I would definitely reduce this to a cup, or maybe even 3/4 cup to make things less sweet, unless your muesli is unsweetened or you have a real sweet tooth.

2 large (59g) eggs, lightly beaten

250g unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a 20cm square cake tin or baking tray (I like to line up the sides of the tin to make it easier to get the slice out after baking).

Put all your ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix thoroughly until combined. Pour the mix into your tin and smooth the surface.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the slice is just cooked in the centre and a skewer tests clean. Don't overbake it - a dry, firm slice is not what you're aiming for here, more like a soft-ish cake. Allow to cool in the tin before cutting into slices or squares (I put the whole thing in the fridge overnight, which made it much easier and cleaner to cut).

Chickpeas and Spinach

This is not a dish that will win awards for its attractive presentation. In fact, as you can probably see by today's photo, I found it hard to present this little number in any way even beginning to resemble how good it actually tastes. That, and the fact that I made it to take to lunch at a friend's house meant I was trying to speedily point my camera at it while figuring out how to get it into the car and across the city while it remained hot and in the bowl (result: still hot but showing definite signs of 'car spillage' by the time it reached its destination. I don't think anyone minded).

With this recipe, for once, I followed every instruction and almost every ingredient to the letter. You see, this is not just any chickpea and spinach dish I vaguely threw together from a magazine - this, my friends, is the chickpeas and spinach from the MoVida cookbook I purchased after we ate this very dish in the restaurant.

It was almost two years ago that we visited friends in Melbourne and took them to MoVida for dinner as a thankyou for letting us stay with them. It was fabulous, and we have since been back with the same friends for another go round with the excellent food and attentive, friendly service. And although I bought the book the first time we went, and there are a lot of things in it I've wanted to make, this recipe is the standout. Odd, I know, but it's one of those dishes you just have to eat to understand. Odder still is the fact that it's taken me this long to make it, given that it's been discussed many a time in our house and with our Melbournite friends since we tried it. Put it down to fear, maybe, that my version would fall short of the restaurant's, or that it wouldn't be as good without the atmosphere of MoVida to eat it in.

Happily, I can report that my fear was unfounded on both counts and the recipe I detail below is almost word for word the one printed in the cookbook, as I really don't see anything that could be changed to make it better. There's a bit of forward planning involved to soak and cook your chickpeas, and to make the bread 'picada' which thickens and flavours everything, but it really is worth it, and you can use leftovers of both the chickpeas and the picada to make other dishes (sounds weird, but I stirred some picada through a chicken, pumpkin and ricotta mixture I made as lasagne filling and it thickened up the mix perfectly as well as adding a little extra something to the flavour).

So, now that all the talk of 'blogging the chickpeas and spinach' has finally come to fruition I am glad to be able to share it here and I sincerely hope you'll give it a go.

Chickpeas & Spinach Slowly Cooked with Spices and Sherry Vinegar
from MoVida - Spanish Culinary Adventures
by Frank Camorra and Richard Cornish

Serves around 6 as a side-dish, or 3-4 as a light dinner with some crusty bread

Following is Frank Camorra's introduction to the recipe from the book, which I have included as it has a lovely story attached and will hopefully give you yet one more reason to make it!

"I learned this dish from my Aunty Pepa in Andalusia. My mum has always made this rich spinach dish, but I suppose I didn't value her cooking until I went back to live in Spain and watched Aunty Pepa pound the cooked chickpeas and add some bread picada to thicken the cooking juices. This recipe is packed full of flavour and always makes me feel good after I have eaten it. Sometimes Aunty Pepa added salt cod or poached eggs to the bubbling sauce at the last minute. At MoVida we do a simpler version, which is one of our most popular dishes. We serve hundreds of portions per week, going through tens of kilos of chickpeas and scores of boxes of spinach".

20g/1tbs butter

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

600g (1lb 5oz) spinach leaves, washed and large stems picked off

300g (10 and 1/2 oz) cooked chickpeas (instructions below)
Please, please soak and cook your own chickpeas for this - tinned are fine for a lot of things, but here you will notice the difference.

400ml chickpea cooking liquid (reserve when you drain the chickpeas at the end of cooking)

125g (4 and 1/2 oz) bread picada (recipe below)

1 1/2 tsp Spanish sweet paprika (not the smoked paprika)

1tsp ground cumin
This was one of my two changes - I used a touch more cumin as I love it.

2tbs sherry vinegar
My other change, as I had no sherry vinegar, was to use a lovely pear vinegar that I buy from Margaret River's Berry Farm.

Melt the butter in a large, deep pan over medium heat. Gently saute the garlic for one minute then add the spinach. Using a pair of tongs, carefully turn the spinach over and over as it cooks until it has wilted down to about half of its original volume. This should take about two minutes.

Increase the pan heat to high, then add the chickpeas and the chickpea cooking liquid. Using the back of a spoon, crush some of the chickpeas into the spinach to bring out the earthy flavour.

After five to ten minutes, mix in the bread picada, letting it soak up the liquid in the pan. Add the paprika, cumin and a generous pinch of salt and mix well.

Reduce the heat to low and cook for five minutes, then add the sherry vinegar and cook for another five minutes, allowing the sauce to thicken to a creamy consistency. Sprinkle with sea salt flakes and serve hot.


How to cook chickpeas:

Again I defer to Mr Camorra, whose detail on cooking one of my favourite pulses has definitely taught me a thing or two. I was previously unaware that chickpeas are particularly sensitive to sudden temperature changes when cooking. This means you should never drop your soaked chickpeas into boiling water to cook them, rather put them in warm water and slowly bring up to the boil, which will avoid them getting tough and chalky. Simple and
brilliant advice.

Dried chickpeas will generally just over double their weight when cooked. I generally do about half a kilo (just under a pound) of dried chickpeas when I am cooking them - although this will give you far more than you need for the above recipe and the picada, they keep for several days in the fridge and can be thrown into all sorts of dishes or blended with tahini, garlic and lemon juice for delicious hommus. To cook, soak 1 part chickpeas to 3 parts warm water overnight (you don't need to put them in the fridge, just cover and stand on your benchtop). Drain and place the chickpeas into a large pan filled with fresh warm water. Bring them to the boil and add a cup of cold water to slow them down at this point. Return to the boil and cook until the chickpeas are tender but not mushy (this will depend on how old your dried chickpeas were - expect anywhere between 40 minutes and an hour and a half). Remove the pan from the heat and let stand until it reaches room temperature. Drain and reserve the cooking liquid (it can be used much as any vegetable stock would be, although remember it won't be salty at all). Store both the chickpeas and the cooking liquid, covered, in the fridge for up to a few days.


Bread Picada
from MoVida - Spanish Culinary Adventures
by Frank Camorra and Richard Cornish

80ml (2 and 1/2 fl oz) extra virgin olive oil

4 cloves garlic, unpeeled

4 slices 2-day-old firm crusty bread

110g (3 snd 3/4 oz) cooked chickpeas (instructions above)

2-3 tbs cooking liquid from chickpeas

sea salt

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and gently fry the garlic in its skins for 30 seconds. Add the bread slices and season with salt while in the pan. Fry the bread for around two minutes each side, or until golden. Remove the bread and the garlic from the pan and drain on paper towel. Allow to cool a little, then break the bread into 5cm (2 inch) pieces. Peel the garlic and discard the skins.

Pound the garlic a little using a mortar and pestle (or pulse in a food processor), then add the bread, piece by piece. Pound or blend until it forms medium to large sized breadcrumbs, about 2-5mm (1/16-1/4 inch).

Add a few of the chickpeas, the chickpea cooking liquid and some salt to taste. Mix until the chickpeas begin to break up.

Continue adding the rest of the chickpeas, feeling free to add a little more cooking liquid, and making sure you don't overblend the mix. It should remain fairly coarse - the consistency of a rough-looking mashed potato or stuffing for a chicken.

Bread picada will keep, sealed in an airtight container, in the fridge for a few days.

Easter prettiness

I love holiday-themed foods. Being inspired by things I find online, in magazines and in my beloved cookbooks always encourages me to push my own creative boundaries and try my hand at seasonal goodies to be shared with friends and family.

A staple of my gift-giving (and my entrepeneurial pursuits!) for as long as I can remember has been decorated gingerbread cookies - rarely does a holiday or special occasion go by that I don't produce at least a couple of batches of these spicy cookies, sometimes decorated with rolled fondant, but most often iced with a royal icing which allows me to change the texture according to whether I want 'floodwork' pieces (such as the ones above) or delicately piped scrolls, swirls, letters or patterns. I also adore the lemony tang of this icing against the warmth of the deep spiciness in the cookies.

Given that my new freelance career has, for the moment, left me with a little more time than in previous years, this year I'll be selling some of these gorgeous gingerbread treats to supplement my income and stimulate the creative juices. And as I'll be offering them for sale to the family and friends I also give gifts to, I think it's only fair that I find something different to make as gifts for those people, don't you? So below are a few little inspirations I'm hoping to try my hand at in the next couple of weeks before Easter rolls around:

• Sugar-sanded marshmallow bunnies over at the Martha Stewart site.
• Hot cross buns - there are heaps of recipes online, mostly the basic dough is the same, just vary the dried fruits according to your taste. I'll be leaving out the citrus peel but including some dried apricots and maybe some figs, too.
• The very naughty but very nice-looking Chocolate Caramel Tart from a back issue of my Delicious magazine collection.
• Another Delicious recipe, the aptly but perhaps strangely-named Easter Salad, which I'll probably serve as a side dish to some kind of barbecued fish. Not so much a gift, unless you count it a gift to be invited to someone's house for dinner (I certainly do!).
• And while we're on the fish idea, perhaps this Fish with Caper Butter Sauce might be nice too...

What will you be making or serving this Easter?

The poor zucchini

I love zucchini (and its little brother, the courgette), but I feel that this humble vegetable suffers from a bit of an image problem. Quietly sitting on the greengrocer's shelves, it sometimes gets overlooked in favour of other, more visually commanding fresh produce (artichokes, beetroots and unusually-shaped pumpkins come to mind as examples). Not in my kitchen, though. I sometimes wonder if I actually overuse zucchini in my cooking, such is its appeal and versatility.

See, the thing is, it's just so agreeable. It's cheap; the flavour is mild and very 'clean'; and the texture is such that it will pick up almost any flavour you choose to throw at it (sweet things included). Also, it's one of those vegetables which lends itself to being eaten raw or cooked.

In the hope of expanding your zucchini-eating horizons, I'm not going to give a single recipe today, more a collection of little ideas which you can incorporate into a wide range of meals. In any given week, I might include 'the zucc' in the following dishes (and more):

Cut into rough chunks and tossed in a touch of olive oil, salt, pepper and perhaps chilli flakes, and roasted alongside a chicken or joint of red meat until melting and browned.

Grated into a bowl, stirred up with other veg (maybe carrots, onions and parsnip), a little flour, egg and some crumbled feta cheese to make fritters.

Sliced roughly into a pan with crispy-fried pancetta, mushrooms, garlic, chilli and a bit of white wine to make a fantastic 5-minute pasta 'sauce' (well, not so much a sauce as a collection of tasty bits to mix through your pasta, but the wine and pancetta fat will give you just enough of a slick to coat everything nicely).

Sliced lengthways, grilled on a barbecue plate and dressed while warm with lemon juice, olive oil, lots of black pepper and the merest hint of sliced garlic - this will keep for days in the fridge and is great warm or cold with just about anything.

Shaved into thin strips and tossed through a salad of leafy greens, bacon, carrot shavings and toasted nuts, with a light vinaigrette dressing.

And, not really last or least, but to finish this particular post on a sweet note, turned into a cake in much the same way as you would with carrots. If you'd like to give it a go, there's a lovely recipe here (I'm not a fan of the raisins/sultanas in it, so I substitute chopped dried apricots and/or dates, which works like a charm).

What's your favourite way to cook or eat zucchini?

Happy 2010 (a few days late)

Usually, the coming of a new year doesn't bring about any big or noticeable changes, apart from requiring me to switch to my new 'Foodies Diary' and remember the right year when I'm writing the date. The finishing of 2009 and starting of 2010, though, is a different story altogether.

2009 was for the most part a year of certainty and solidity. It was the year I got married, and where things both at home and at work were challenging but focussed. Skip the calendar forward, and here we are in a whole new decade. For me, 2010 means a lot more uncertainty and possible 'wobbles' than last year brought - hopefully not at home where newly-married life is going along swimmingly, but definitely on the career front. There is excitement though, mixed in with that uncertainty. Quite a lot of it, in fact. For in a few short weeks, I will be leaving the day job which comfortably pays my bills to venture into self employment as a freelance writer/food stylist/developer.

And herein lies that exhilarating and frightening mix which a new future brings. Will it work? Who knows - I've done my research (and my networking), and things all point in the right direction, but the only way to really know is to try.

So in the interest of countering all that instability, today I'm going to share one of the most certain and comforting recipes I know. The recipe has changed and evolved over the years, but it's the first recipe I can remember making without Mum's help, and it always makes me think of my childhood self standing at the bench with a bowl and a wooden spoon. The feeling of quiet achievement and satisfaction in the kitchen has been with me ever since I managed to weigh, mix and bake this all on my own, so here's hoping it will give you the same pleasure.

Chocolate Cake

makes one 22cm round cake

This cake is not rocket science, and there are really no fancy tricks involved in making it. It is, however, my go-to recipe for chocolate cake as it's incredibly reliable, keeps well for days, and can be just as easily dressed up as a birthday (or even a wedding) cake as it can be sliced and served simply for afternoon tea.

The most important thing for getting that really deep chocolatey richness, I find, is to use a very good quality Dutch-process cocoa powder (in this recipe it's even more important than the quality of your chocolate in giving a good result). My cocoas of choice are either Valhrona or DeZaan.

250g unsalted butter, softened and cut into cubes

150g dark chocolate

I generally use a decent 70% chocolate, however in the past when I've had to make vast quantities of this cake I've kept costs down by using dark cooking chocolate, and it still comes out ok

200g white caster sugar

100g brown sugar

250ml strong black coffee

instant is fine, but by all means use plunger/machine coffee if you have it

100g plain white flour

100g self-rasing white flour

50g almond meal

just use an extra 50g plain flour if you don't have almond meal - the finished cake will be slightly less fudgy but delicious all the same

50g cocoa

2 large (59g) free range eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat your oven to 170C. Grease and line a 22cm round cake tin.

Put the butter, chocolate, sugars and coffee into a medium saucepan and heat gently until the butter and chocolate are melted. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.

While the butter mixture is cooling, sift the flours, almond meal and cocoa into a medium bowl and mix to combine.

Whisk the eggs into the cooled butter mixture, then stir in the flour mixture until combined and fairly smooth (don't overmix it or your cake will be tough).

Pour the batter into your prepared tin and bake for 35-45 minutes or until the cake tests clean with a skewer. Cool cake in tin for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

You can either dust the cake with icing sugar for serving, or make a simple icing by beating 150g butter with 50g cocoa, 300g icing sugar and enough warmed milk to give a spreadable consistency.

This cake will keep well for up to a week in the fridge if sealed in an airtight container, and in fact tastes best if you can leave it for a day or two before eating. Just bring it out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature before serving.

Luscious Leftovers

Last Saturday night, we had a Christmas party.

I made dinner. A LOT of dinner (those of you who know me well will understand that very rarely do I make a little bit of dinner, so this is hardly news). And, well, a few less people turned up than expected, so there we were on Sunday faced with an entire fridge full of leftovers.

You name it, it was sitting in my fridge or somewhere on my kitchen bench (except the mince pies - they were in the bedroom, under the air conditioner, nice and cool and, I suppose, at the ready for a little midnight snack or a bedtime reading accompaniment). Turkey breast stuffed with pork, apple and sage; an (almost) full leg ham, baked in Guinness and glazed with cardamom and ginger; prawns; scallops; lovely snapper with leeks, carrots and white wine; the best potato and bacon salad; florentine slice; chocolates; tiny chocolate-dipped gelato cones and the aforementioned mince pies.

But what I want to talk about today are the vegetables. Not usually the star of the leftovers parade, the sad-looking mound of charred barbecued vegetables in the fridge could easily have been passed by in favour of the shiny glazed ham or creamy potato salad.

But then, on Sunday afternoon, I saw Jamie Oliver's Family Christmas special. I love Jamie. Yes, he has his detractors and is known to some in the UK as a bit of a crusading pain in the ass who should be put back in his box, but I am and always have been smitten and inspired by his approach. Anyway, Jamie's mentor and friend Gennaro was on screen, mushing up leftover roasted vegetables to smear on bruschetta, and I knew instantly what I was having for my leftovers dinner. It was perfect - there were a few slices of stale ciabatta loaf on the bench, and those unpretty but delicious vegetables, barbecued the day before with olive oil, garlic, rice vinegar and chilli. And to top it off, a spoonful of mayonnaise brightened with herbs and a bit more chilli.

The result was so good that next time I may have to barbecue my veg just to make this dish - it was the perfect Sunday-night-on-the-couch dinner.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas day yesterday, and that your leftovers inspire you to create something special.

Leftover Mixed Vegetable Bruschetta

enough for a light meal for 2

4 slices stale ciabatta loaf

1 clove garlic, halved

the best olive oil you have

2-3 cups mixed leftover vegetables, chopped as roughly or finely as you like and seasoned with salt and pepper to taste

You can use whichever combination you have - my bruschetta had Spanish onion, leeks, asparagus, yellow baby squash, zucchini, aubergine and roasted capsicum, and as you can see from the photo, I chopped everything quite finely. And although I have used barbecued/chargrilled vegetables for this, you could also use leftover roasted vegetables, or make it using fresh vegetables instead.

A couple of spoonfuls of good, whole-egg mayonnaise

I added some rice wine vinegar, chopped chilli, sage and parsley to my mayonnaise, but plain would be fine, or you could substitute sour cream.

Parsley to garnish

Toast your bread. When it's done and still hot, rub one side of each slice with the cut garlic clove, then drizzle a bit of olive oil over each slice of bread.

Pile as much of your veg mix as you dare onto each slice of bread, top with a dollop of mayo and scatter some parsley over the top.

All about the chocolate

Several months ago, I made some truly delicious little treats for a party. We were giving take-home boxes of goodies to our guests and these delights formed part of the offering.



Everyone loved them, and a few guests requested the recipe. And then, when I went to dig up the scrap of paper I had the recipe written on, it was gone. Gone somewhere into the depths of my home office, and certainly not where I swear I had left it (among the many other 'recipe paper scraps' and clippings, obviously - where else would I put it?).



So the other day I was cleaning out a few bits and pieces from said home office, where the towers of books, papers and random miscellany had become, lets say, mountainous, and lo and behold, there it was. Quietly sitting atop a file of old accounts and business paperwork, and very definitely NOT with the countless other food-related clippings I hoard like gold dust for the distant-future time when I will collate, file and organize every recipe I own.



Nonetheless, I think this little gem was just waiting for the right time to show itself again, and with Christmas baking requirements entirely upon us, these Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Bites might just be the thing you've been needing to add to the season's repertoire. They are simple (providing you have a food processor and a stand-mixer), rich and present beautifully in little beribboned boxes, either alone or as part of a holiday baked goods selection.



Oh, and now that I've put the recipe up here, I need not worry about losing it again, and nor will you!

Dark Chocolate and Hazelnut Bites

makes a few dozen, depending how large you roll them

I would like to credit this recipe to someone, but I cannot remember where the original came from, only that before I adapted it, it contained almonds rather than hazelnuts, and rum instead of Frangelico. I am sure that either way will work just as beautifully.

240g dark chocolate, chopped

As the title of the post suggests, it really is all about the chocolate - you will very much taste the chocolate in the finished cookies, so make sure you use something that you really enjoy eating. I went with a Barry Venezuelan 72% couverture.

50g unsalted butter

45ml Frangelico or other hazelnut flavoured liqueur

2 large (59g) eggs, at room temperature

1/3 cup golden caster sugar

you could use normal caster sugar at a pinch

1 heaped cup hazelnuts, toasted

Best way to do this is pop them single-layer on a tray in a 180C oven for 8-10 minutes until fragrant, then wrap them in a tea towel and rub most of the skins off while they're still warm. You can use pre-roasted nuts however they won't give as fresh a taste to the finished cookies.

1/2 cup plain white flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

white caster sugar and icing sugar for coating the cookies

Mine needed somewhere between half a cup and a cup of each sugar.

Melt the chocolate, butter and Frangelico together in a metal or glass bowl rested over a saucepan of simmering water (don't let any water or steam get into the chocolate mix or it will seize and you'll need to start again).

In a stand mixer, beat the eggs and sugar together until they are very pale and thick (around 5 minutes on medium speed). Slowly mix in the melted chocolate mixture.

In a food processor, blend the nuts until ground finely but not a paste. Tip the nuts into a large mixing bowl and stir in the flour, baking powder and salt.

Stir the nut mixture into the chocolate/egg mixture until well combined, then cover and chill the mix for a couple of hours or until firm (I leave mine overnight and it doesn't hurt the mix at all).

When you're ready to bake, line a couple of flat baking trays or cookie sheets with baking paper and preheat the oven to 170C. Fill a bowl with white caster sugar for rolling the cookies in.

Roll heaped teaspoons of mixture into balls, then roll each ball in the sugar before placing on the trays, leaving 2-3cm between each cookie.

Bake for 12-15 minutes - the cookies are done when they are set at the edges but still a little bit soft at the centre (don't overbake them or you'll have dry, crumbly cookies instead of chocolatey, tender ones).

Let the cookies cool slightly on the trays before filling another bowl with the icing sugar and rolling each warm cookie in it to coat generously. Over a number of days (if they last that long!), the icing sugar coating may start to look a bit 'greasy' - if this bothers you, just re-roll the cookies in some more icing sugar before you serve them.

These will keep, sealed up somewhere cool (but not the fridge), for a couple of weeks easily.

The Chook Challenge

Are you afraid to roast?


Being a cook, I am always surprised when people tell me they are scared of roasting a chicken. To me, a gorgeous plump bird (free range, please) is one of the easiest roasting cuts to master, and almost looks after itself in the oven. Plus, while you can do a lot of different things with red meat and pork roasts, I find that a chicken will lend itself to the greatest number of cuisine types with generosity and happiness.


That said, though, I have eaten enough badly cooked chickens in my life to know that there are a few simple rules which people often neglect to follow, and which will ensure that your meat is cooked through without being dry, and that the skin of your bird goes a beautiful burnished brown in the process.


So here are my tried and true methods, with a few variations and comments about the way I like to do things.


Number One.

Buy a happy chicken and give it some love. By this I mean spend the extra money to get a free range bird (or even organic if you're feeling really flush). Generally speaking, a free range chicken will be cheaper, or at least comparable, in price to a beef, lamb or pork roast, and buying well means you've won half the battle already. The love refers to how you deal with your bird after you bring it home, which we'll go into detail about below, but essentially means that if you pay just a little attention to your seasoning and preparation you will reap the rewards in eating it later.


Number Two.

Prepare your bird and your kitchen. Turn the oven on to 180C and let it come up to temperature before you put anything into it. Pat the inside cavity and all over the outside skin of your chicken with a paper towel to ensure it's clean and dry. Get a roasting tray and either set a roasting rack in the tray to put your chicken onto, or roughly cut up a couple of onions and carrots into large pieces, strew them in the bottom of the tin and sit the chicken on top of these. The rack and the vegies serve the same purpose, which is to lift the chicken off the bottom of the tray and let the heat circulate all around it.


Number Three.

Season your bird well. If you're in a rush, feeling uninspired or just want a bit of plain unadulterated chicken, this means sprinkling generous amounts of salt and pepper all over the bird (and the inside cavity), throwing a couple of bits of lemon into the cavity, and rubbing the lot with olive oil. That's fine, and will give you a perfectly delicious roast chicken. If, though, you are prepared to take things just a bit further, why not pop a few extra flavouring bits under the skin? Choices are endless, but I will often put a few nice pieces of unsalted butter in between the breast meat and the skin (cut the butter into 'sticks' and insert it when it's cold - it will look funny with the big chunks under the skin but is much easier than when the butter's soft and still cooks beautifully), which both flavours and keeps the breast meat wonderfully tender. Or you could slice a cacciatore or chorizo sausage; mush up fresh pork sausage (take it out of the skins); use halved dried apricots; or just get a big handful of mixed herbs. To insert any or all of these things under the skin of your chicken, gently poke your finger around between the skin and the breast meat on top of the cavity, which will loosen it and give you a little pocket. You want to get your finger as far under the skin as possible, but without tearing it. Then just carefully put your chosen flavourings into the pocket and using your hands on top of the skin now, work them down and around over the breast meat as far as you can.
At this point, you need to know the total weight of your chicken so you can work out how long to cook it (times are below). If you've minimally seasoned the bird you won't need to add any weight allowance for your seasonings, but if, for instance, you've put a lot of sausagemeat or something else dense under the skin, or lemons in the cavity, you should add the weight of this to the weight of your chicken to get a total.


Number Four.

Time to get things cooking. If you've put seasonings under the skin, leave the chicken sitting upright (breast facing upwards). If, however, you don't have anything under the skin, you can start your roast off with the bird turned upside down, which will help the juices stay in the breast meat and prevent it drying out too much. With the upside-down method, you'll need to remove the chicken from the oven about 30-40 minutes before it's done, and carefully turn it over, trying not to tear the skin. It's not glamorous, but I have been known to perform this task wearing a big, thick pair of rubber gloves - it gives you a manouverability which tongs will never achieve, and you still need to be quick to avoid burning yourself but it's certainly better than trying to turn the bird with bare hands!
Put your well-loved bird into the preheated oven. Somewhere in the middle of the oven is best, this stops things getting over-browned on either the top or bottom of the roast.
Now, if you want to roast a lot of chickens in future, here's what you need to learn and remember about timing, provided that your 180C oven is actually running at the correct temperature: 20 minutes for every half-kilo, PLUS another 20 minutes in total. That's it, and has never failed for me yet. My only exception is if I were roasting a very small chicken (under 1.2kg), I'd give it the 20 minutes per half-kilo and only another 10 minutes in total. And remember the weight discussion from point 3? That goes for stuffing too (which is a whole other post to be dealt with separately) - if you've stuck a great big handful of goodness inside your bird it needs to be calculated as part of the cooking weight! No food poisoning here, people.


Number Five.

Wait.
Have a glass of wine (or three), and enjoy the 'proper kitchen' smells coming out of your oven.
You could roast some vegies with your chicken if you like (again, something for another post), or just pop a green salad and a loaf of good ciabatta bread on the table in readiness.
When things are done, or you think they should be, take the roast out of the oven and put a skewer into the meat between the breast and thigh meat. Pull it out, and if the juices that run out are clear, you're done. If they're pinky-coloured, put your roast back into the oven for another 10 minutes and check it again.
And, I know you've been doing this for the past hour or two, but here it is again: wait. Ideally, you want to give the chicken about 15 minutes sitting in a warm place (on top of the still-hot oven is good), covered in foil, before you start carving it. This allows all the fibres of the meat to relax a bit and will give you much more tender chicken.


Number Six.

Serve your bird.
If you want nice, thin slices of white meat you can carefully carve them off each breast with a very sharp knife. I tend to be a bit less elegant, though, and cut down either side of the breastbone and along the ribs to remove each breast entirely before cutting it into chunky slices. Then pull each drumstick and thigh away from the carcass and separate them if you wish. Remove the wings and then pull the remaining meat from the carcass (for us this is usually what we do after dinner when the chicken has cooled, and these little bits of meat are eaten in sandwiches later).


And you're done! All I can say to finish things up is that it might take a couple of goes to feel comfortable with adapting your roast to try different seasonings, but once you've nailed the basic method you can do almost anything flavouring-wise.


The challenge is on...let me know your favourite things to flavour a roast chicken with.

How to make (and lose) a booking at Australia's best restaurant

I had intended for this post to be an exciting and detailed food review, but as you will read, things don't always work out as planned despite our best intentions...

Below is a copy of a recently-sent letter to the 'Food Detective' column at The Australian newspaper. Although I am under no illusions that the Food Detective will respond to (or perhaps even read) what follows, I feel all the better for having aired my issues and sent them out to the world! **current update 12/12/09 - the Food Detective has indeed read my letter and responded to say that she will be forwarding it on to Tetsuya Wakuda, as she feels he would be very disappointed to hear of our experience! I will update again if I receive any further response...


Dear Food Detective

Following is a story of how one can make (and lose) a booking at one of Australia’s premiere restaurants. Lest you think I am writing to have a whinge about my personal experience, let’s clear this up at the beginning – I certainly am. I would, however, much appreciate if you’d take the time to read on (it’s a little long), as it seems there is a statement to be made about how a well-regarded restaurant treats its clientele based on reputation and the ability to fill tables.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

Mr Restaurant-Goer (henceforth to be known as Mr RG for ease of writing) and myself reside in Perth. Perth is small and does not offer such a vast array of dining options as many cities, so when we travel Mr RG and I enjoy seeking out interesting places to eat.

A little while ago, Mr RG and I decided to get married. We would have a destination wedding in New Zealand – a great plan ensuring lots of nice holiday time and the chance to dine out at several fantastic restaurants. ‘Where shall we go?’ we asked one another. Saffron in NZ’s Arrowtown was a given, along with Martin Bosley’s in Wellington. ‘And’, we thought, ‘how about we go home via Sydney so we can finally eat at Tetsuya’s? We’ve always wanted to go, and it’s months away so we should be sure of getting a table’.

So, in February this year, I made a booking at Tetsuya’s for the end of October. Downloaded, filled out and faxed back the booking request form as per their protocol, and received a phone call from a very nice female staff member the next day to confirm that yes, we did have a reservation for three people as requested (planning, as we were, to take a Sydney-based foodie friend who wanted to pick up the bill as a wedding gift).

And that’s where things started to go wrong, although we didn’t realise it at the time.

Early on the morning of our booking, we flew into Sydney from New Zealand, and I switched on my phone. Said phone does not have international roaming so had been switched off for a couple of weeks, and I expected to find some messages and missed calls to attend to. What I did not expect, however, was a curt SMS, sent the previous afternoon, to inform us that our table at Tetsuya’s had been cancelled.

The horror! ‘Must be a mistake’, we thought, and promptly called the restaurant. ‘No mistake’, Mr RG was informed – apparently we had neglected to be available to confirm our booking the afternoon before and our table had now been given away.

Now, we are not ‘fancy restaurant virgins’. We understand that busy and in-demand restaurants need to confirm their bookings in order to avoid empty tables, and have no problem with this process. Perhaps we were naïve to expect that a restaurant of Tetsuya’s calibre would confirm our booking only on the day of reservation, and had we known they would need confirmation a day or two prior, would have given Mr RG’s phone number rather than mine so they could contact us while we were overseas.

But here’s the problem – nobody from Tetsuya’s, at any point, advised us of this procedure, so it seemed we had come to Sydney specifically to eat at a place which now would not recognize our booking.

Thus ensued not one, but two, lengthy phone calls between Mr RG and the Tetsuya’s booking manager, wherein Mr RG explained our position and the fact that, being as we had only come to Sydney to dine with them, we certainly would have adhered to their confirmation policy had we known about it. Why, he asked, would we have booked a table a full nine months prior, and arranged flights and a hotel to match our booking, only to not bother being available to confirm?

Sadly, we didn’t feel that the response we got to this argument was in any way helpful. Instead of a genuine apology or some accountability taken for not having explained their booking policies, Mr RG received the statement that ALL booking staff at Tetsuya’s inform ALL customers of these policies when a booking is made, both verbally and via email, that it was unthinkable that a staff member would not have done this, and it was unfortunately not their problem if we had provided incorrect contact details or not taken any notice of this information. Additionally, Mr RG was told that when confirming tables, staff will make every effort to reach the customer numerous times by both phone and email before cancelling a table.

We move on to the next point: there was a single missed phone call and voicemail on my phone when we arrived in Sydney, made the day before, approximately one hour prior to the SMS which told us of the table’s cancellation. No extra phone calls, no emails (which I do check and which would certainly have avoided the whole sorry mess in the first place). In fact, I have never received a single email from the restaurant, despite the original staff member I spoke with way back in February checking all of my contact details.

Impasse. Both sides maintained their stance, with Tetsuya’s only concession being that they could squeeze us in for lunch that day (it was now 11:30am, we were flight-dirty, had no hotel room to check into, bags everywhere and the third member of our dining party at work), or they would try to find us another restaurant to go to that evening. Alternatively, we may be able to come on a weeknight the following week (when we would have left Sydney to go home). We declined all offers on the grounds that they were very poor substitutes for our original booking.

So what becomes of the desire to eat somewhere after an experience such as this? For our money, we’ll be going elsewhere for dinner next time we are in Sydney. No matter the reputation of a restaurant (and we don’t doubt that all the good stories of Tetsuya’s are true, it’s why we wanted to go), poor handling and lack of accountability when an error is made - even a seemingly small one involving lack of information given to a customer – can have a significant impact. For us, it meant a good deal of planning and money to travel to Sydney was effectively wasted. And the better the restaurant’s reputation, the worse the impact when something does go wrong.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, we did go somewhere else for dinner (even managed to organize it for ourselves, aren’t we clever?). We tried Bodega in Surry Hills. It was fantastic.

Kind regards,

Mrs Restaurant-Goer

Stories of muesli

The foods we make and eat are the end products of personal stories. Ok, so last Wednesday's toasted ham and cheese sandwiches might just tell the story of a long day at work and an empty pantry when you got home, but that's a story all the same (and one with which I'm sure most of you will identify).

Today's story, though, for me, has a unique personal history which will forever make it special in my mind. And the minds and tastebuds of those who came along for the ride in ways big and small.

I've been making my own muesli for what seems like forever. I always liked the idea of it as a breakfast food, but found the commercial ones bland or too sugary. When I was a teenager I tried making my own, and it was great. Easy, relatively cheap and SO much better than anything I could buy. So I kept making it, adapting and improving the recipes, and over time my family and a few friends also benefited from my semi-regular cereal production.

Then I started my own business, making healthy home-delivered family meals for people who liked to eat well, but often didn't have time to do it themselves. The mueslis seemed to fit with my other offerings so I added them as occasional menu items. Then regular items, and eventually things evolved so that the muesli became the core of my business rather than just an add-on (don't be fooled though, the few lines above in no way detail the massive efforts of a few key people in getting the business to that point!!).

Anyway, in July last year, after 4 years of trading, I quietly closed the doors to my first ever business. And while it was sad for me, I think in some ways it was more sad for the people around me, the ones who cheered me on for all that time only to see it not 'work out'. You see, from the outside, I guess it looks like that, but I learned a lot in my time that no amount of watching someone else's business could have taught, and on reflection I really don't feel unsuccessful about the whole thing. My experience landed me a great job when I closed up, and it gave me a real understanding of the joys and the pitfalls of small business should I ever be crazy enough to attempt it again. And besides, I've still got that muesli.

Unfortunately for my nearest and dearest, they don't have that muesli anymore, at least not on tap like they were used to. Wistful, slightly guilt-inducing comments have been made, and their muesli stocks now rely on my occasional baking frenzies to keep them in supply.

So in tribute to the the great support I've received, and a little bit in hope that at least some of those loyal followers will attempt to make it themselves, below is the recipe for my bestseller - Toasted Nut Crunch. And if you aren't already one of my muesli addicts, try it. It's got a great story.

Toasted Nut Crunch Muesli
makes about 3-3.5kg
(yes, it's a lot but your friends and family will thank you for the lovely gift, and it doesn't really take any longer to make than a small amount)

This is the only one of my muesli recipes which calls for a brown sugar mix when baking (all the rest are lightly toasted with honey). You could use 200-300g good liquid honey instead of the sugar mix and it will still be great, but you won't get that same deep, toasty crunch which is the reason its followers love it so much.

1.3kg rolled oats

(not instant oats)

300g rolled barley

(I have occasionally used rolled spelt which is just as good, but harder to find)

150g flaked coconut 'chips'

150g pumpkin seeds/pepitas

15g ground cinnamon

10g ground mixed spice

140g whole raw almonds

140g raw Brazil nuts, chopped into large chunks

(you want almond-sized chunks, so each nut can be chopped into 3-4 pieces. Doing this by hand is tiresome but gives the best result)

300g sultanas

140g dried cranberries

140g dried apple, chopped into sultana-sized pieces

500g dark brown sugar

250ml boiling water

60ml canola or vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 180C and have 2 or 3 large roasting trays ready to go.

In a very large bowl, mix the oats, barley, coconut chips, pepitas, spices and nuts. The easiest way is to get in there with your hands and give everything a good turn to combine.

Mix your dried fruits in another bowl and set aside.

In a third bowl, mix the brown sugar, water and oil.

Put your cereal/nut mixture into the roasting trays - don't overfill them as you'll be doing a lot of mixing while they cook, and they also take much longer to toast the deeper the trays are filled. It's best to half-fill them and do more batches if you have to.

Evenly distribute the brown sugar mix among your trays and give everything a really good mix to ensure all the bits are coated with the sugar. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from the oven and mix thoroughly, scraping the bottom of the tray to make sure any stuck bits are loosened (I can't stress enough the importance of stirring really well while you cook the muesli - the better you mix it, the more even and toasty the final product will be. So don't get lazy!).

Return the trays to the oven and bake for another 15 minutes before mixing again. Repeat this process 2-3 times until all the moisture has steamed out and your muesli is loose and 'dry' - what you're looking for is an even brown colour with all the grains and nuts separate and free-flowing (no stickiness, this means it's not quite done). The total time the muesli needs in the oven will depend on your tray dimensions and how deep you've filled them, and could be anything between 30 and 60 minutes. Don't worry if it doesn't seem really crunchy yet as it will harden up while it cools.

Tip all your cooked muesli back into the large bowl and mix in the fruit, then let the muesli cool before packing into airtight containers or bags.

The Aftermath

Once again, it's been a while. My sincerest apologies to those of you who keep asking when the next well-overdue post is coming! Whilst my intentions are good, there have been some major life upheavals to contend with over the past couple of months which have prevented regular blogging. Things look set to return pretty well to normal over the next few weeks, albeit a new kind of normal courtesy of my new job. Aah, life.

Anyway, this new kind of normal will hopefully include a lot more blogging and a course on how to properly use my camera, so that you all can see the true beauty of some of my kitchen experiments!

And as for today's kitchen experiment, well, it didn't go too badly indeed, as you can see by the photo above. Unfortunately for you, I neglected to take pictures of the 'before' scene so you'll just have to make do with the recipe and trust me that it's good. Real good.

And just for Nic and Sal's benefit: I see no harm at all in adding to this some figs lightly poached in a sugar syrup with a slug of port or dessert wine - go all out!

Warm Almond Cake with Lemon Curd Icecream

adapted from recipe in 'Cocina Nueva - the new Spanish kitchen', by Jane Lawson

Cake:

200g unsalted butter, softened

1tsp vanilla extract or paste

2tsp finely grated lemon zest

310g icing sugar

4 eggs, separated

125ml milk

400g ground almonds (always better if you can grind them yourself but the bought pre-ground ones are fine)

Preheat oven to 160C, and line and grease a 23cm round springform tin.

Beat the butter, vanilla, zest and 250g of the icing sugar in an electric mixer until pale and creamy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the milk and ground almonds and mix to combine.

Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt and the remaining icing sugar until firm peaks form. Fold a large spoonful of this through the almond cake batter to combine, then carefully fold through the rest. Spoon gently into the tin and smooth the top.

Bake for about 30 minutes, then cover the top of the tin with foil and bake for a further 20-30 minutes or until a skewer tests clean in the centre of the cake. Your finished cake will be quite dark on the outside but should be gorgeously moist and a bit squidgy in the centre. Cool slightly in the tin, then turn out and serve warm, with the lemon curd icecream on the side.

Lemon Curd Icecream

This is ridiculously easy providing you have some decent lemon curd (lucky me having made a huge amount of it last week with all the lemons falling off Mum's tree!). If there are no lemons, or you're feeling time-poor, by all means buy your curd - just don't skimp on the quality, as you will taste it in the finished product. And, obviously, make this a day ahead of baking your cake.

600ml thick cream, chilled

about 350-400ml good lemon curd, chilled

Mix the lemon curd and cream together (adjust the amount of curd to taste - you want something a bit sweeter than you're after as the coldness of the icecream will dull the sugar a bit).

If you have an icecream maker, put the mixture in and churn according to your machine's instructions. Otherwise, pour the mixture into a shallow tray, cover and freeze for a few hours until icy around the edges. Working quickly, transfer to the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until smooth. Return to the tray and refreeze. Repeat this step three times, then transfer the mixture to an airtight container covered with a piece of baking paper and a lid.

Good adaptations

I, like many fellow cooks, have a bit of a penchant for adapting recipes to suit my mood, or, perhaps more often, what's in my pantry. In a way it's what cooking's all about - taking various ideas, methods and ingredients and combining them in your personal style to create your own recipes.

Having the confidence to cook this way is truly one of the great joys of the kitchen for me. I can remember just starting to cook as a child, and following every recipe with great concentration, and an emphasis on getting each ingredient and step exactly as its author described. Then, over time, I became a bit more confident and liberal with my food, such that I now know (most of the time, anyway!) what I can substitute or change about a recipe which will make it suit me better.

It's worth adding, however, that this doesn't always work, even if you are experienced - some things don't take kindly to being played with (bread and a lot of baked goods, for example, and confectionery), and others just don't quite turn out the way you'd hoped. I have, needless to say, had some spectacular failures as well as amazing successes!

The two recipes that follow today, though, are great examples of recipe adaptation: the first, a Nigel Slater-inspired meatballs dish; and the second a gorgeous yoghurt cake made a bit special with the use of leftover poached quinces and caramel sauce to turn in into a fabulously sticky upside-down cake.

As promised in a recent post, I've given Nigel Slater's Appetite a bit of a workout and thought I'd share my version of the meatballs recipe from the book. Mr Slater calls for pork mince as the basis for these little delights, and while I only had beef, I thought they were worth a try...good thinking me! Perhaps a little garlicky for my liking, but that could be easily rectified next time, and my scepticism about there not being any breadcrumbs in the mixture proved to be unfounded. The adapted recipe is below.

As for the cake, I've used this recipe for yoghurt cake a few times and it's worked like a dream in every incarnation, including just the plain version with lemon syrup (which is how it appears in Sweet Food, a little Murdoch Books creation from the Chunky Food series). This time, I had some wine-poached quinces in the fridge, along with a little dribble of caramel sauce, so used these to line the base of my tin and poured the cake batter over the top. Bake, turn out, and voila! A sticky Caramel-Quince Upside Down Cake. This kept Chris and I going for dessert (and, I admit, breakfast on a couple of occasions) for about 5 days. And happily it was almost as good on that last day as it was straight out of the oven. No small feat for a cake, and I suspect it had a lot to do with the moistness that the yoghurt adds.

Do try them, either as I've written, or add your own twist and see what you can come up with. As for me, I think my next yoghurt cake will be split and filled with lemon curd; and the meatballs will be made with pork mince and maybe a little ricotta cheese...happy cooking.

Midweek Meatballs

(adapted from the 'really juicy, spicy meatballs' in Appetite, by Nigel Slater)

I loosely based my recipe on the European version described in the book, using the following:

a decent handful of pancetta, sliced into lardons

500g beef mince

2 cloves garlic, crushed

zest of 1 lemon

2 small red chillies, finely chopped

a good pinch of freeze-dried oregano (MUCH better than normal dried herbs, try them if you can find them at your local gourmet store!)

salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients together, trying not to overmix. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes to firm the mixture slightly, then roll into small meatballs (about a tablespoon of mixture for each one is good).

Heat a little olive oil in a frypan over medium heat and brown the meatballs on all sides, then turn heat to low and finish cooking through.

Serve your meatballs hot, with any of the following:

• dropped into a chilli-spiced chicken broth with a few soba noodles and some Asian greens
• briefly tossed with a jar of tomato-based pasta sauce and perched atop a mound of spaghetti
• with mash and steamed vegies
• with tiny pasta shapes or rice (try deglazing your meatballs pan with a touch of white wine and throwing the pasta/rice around in this reduced mixture to coat & flavour), parmesan cheese and steamed broccolini - as per today's photo

Caramel-Quince Upside Down Cake

(adapted from the Yoghurt Cake with Syrup from Murdoch Books' Sweet Food)

8-10 pieces poached quince, drained of any syrup

200ml pre-bought caramel sauce, or you could make it yourself if you're feeling industrious (NOT that nasty fake caramel ice cream topping, please!)

185g softened unsalted butter

250g caster sugar

5 eggs, separated

250g plain Greek-style yoghurt

2tsp grated lemon zest

1/2tsp vanilla extract

280g plain flour

2tsp baking powder

1/2tsp bicarbonate soda

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a 24cm round springform tin.

Spread the caramel over the base of your lined tin, then top with the quince pieces, arranging in neat circles so they present nicely when you turn out your finished cake. Set aside.

Beat butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add egg yolks gradually, beating well to incorporate. Stir in the yoghurt, zest and vanilla. Fold in the flour, baking powder and bicarb.

Whisk egg whites until stiff, then fold into the cake mixture. Spoon carefully into the prepared tin, being careful not to move the quinces too much, and bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer tests clean. Cool in the tin for 15-20 minutes, then turn out onto a serving plate so any sauce/juice runs down the sides of the cake.

Serve warm or at room temperature with double cream.

Bright and white

Sometimes, when life appears to be throwing a lot at us, the idea of big, complex food can be a bit much. By big and complex I refer to things which, although fabulous in their own right at other times, might just require more of ourselves than we are able to give in terms of cooking time and eating appreciation - think prep-intensive long-cooked casseroles; many-ingredient marinades and sauces; and fiddly, fancy Asian-style buffets with innumerable different dishes on the table at once. All good, but not what my body craves on a fragile day.

At these times, it's comfort that I seek, and even in my fairly broad culinary scope, comfort food more often than not entails white food. Fluffy mashed potato; saucy and gooey macaroni cheese (something which really deserves an entire future post of its own); eggy spaghetti carbonara; molten-cheese toasted sandwiches; and the above creamy leek and potato soup. Noticed the recurring carbohydrate theme yet?

So although I'm the first to admit that eating like this all the time is not where you want to be heading diet-wise (or cooking-wise if you like a challenge), the occasional day or two of white food can certainly have a calming and restorative effect on your emotional health. And that, really, is something precious.

Leek and Potato Soup

enough for around 4 decent servings

1 medium white onion, halved and thinly sliced

1 large or two small leeks, white parts only, sliced

2 cloves garlic, smashed

5 medium-large potatoes (I used Nadines, but most general-purpose/tending to floury potatoes will do), peeled and diced into about 6 chunks each

1 litre chicken stock (not too salty please, you can always season further at the end of cooking!)

enough cream to make you feel indulgent, not so much that you feel queasy

salt, pepper, parsley

Add a splash of olive oil to a large saucepan over medium-low heat and gently sweat your onion, leek and garlic without colouring until soft (if you find it's catching on the bottom, add the tiniest splash of water to give a bit more steam).

Add the chopped potatoes and increase the heat to medium. Add your stock and bring gently to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the potatoes can be squashed with the back of a spoon. Remove from heat and leave to cool a bit.

Blend your soup (I use a hand held stick blender for convenience, but batches in the food processor would also work), adding a touch of water or milk to thin it if necessary. Adjust seasoning to taste, then gently, over low heat, stir in the cream to reach your desired richness (I have, at health-conscious times, made this without any dairy additions and it's been just fine).

Serve in deep bowls with cracked pepper and a scattering of parsley, and maybe some extra-buttery garlic bread if you feel the need.

Will keep covered in the fridge for about 4 days (I find it best on the second day but can't usually wait that long to eat my first bowl!).

Brownies...with Oreos?

I did promise in my last post to enlighten you regarding some purchases I made in Melbourne... Books for Cooks is the sort of store any cookbook lover wishes was right around the corner, particularly if you're a complete junkie like me. So, knowing that they're not just around the corner, it was with remarkable restraint that I left the store with only 4 new titles after a happy hour or so browsing the shelves (I will add here, however, that the restraint I speak of had far more to do with flight baggage limits and budget constraints than good sense).

As the picture demonstrates, my current cooking trend of 'all things chocolate' dominated on the day, although the Nigel Slater and Hugh F-W additions also made it in on the basis that I've had my eye on both books for some time...if you've never read/cooked with a book from either of these UK-based masters, well, where have you been? Both men are brilliant writers and dedicated foodies, and place strong emphasis on the origins and quality of what we eat - issues which are governing more and more of the foods I choose to buy and cook with.

I've gotten off track, though...Nigel and Hugh's books will almost certainly be featured in future posts (when I've had more time to go through them in detail), but today's recipe comes from one of my other 'newies', Lisa Yockelson's Chocolate Chocolate.

I'd like to state for the record that the purchase of this book did cause me some angst due to its 'American-ness'. Now before any US readers get all offended by my statement, let me clarify - I certainly don't dislike Americans or their books as a blanket rule, but being so far away geographically can have its problems when using US published recipes. Not so much because of the different measurement systems (there are charts to help with that if you're unsure), more because a lot of commonly used US-brand-name ingredients are unavailable here, and it's not always straightforward to substitute something if you don't know what the specified ingredient is similar to. And herein lay my problem with Yockelson's book; there are pages (and pages and pages) of meticulously compiled charts and lists at the beginning of the book detailing chocolate-based ingredients, their sale weights and characteristics, but unfortunately most of the ingredients aren't available in Australia (excepting some of the major European brands). You see my dilemma.

Having made my complaint, though, I read on and decided that this was still a book worth owning. The recipes are detailed and there are A LOT of them, covering just about any chocolate-themed baked good you can think of; most recipes have a photo; and when it comes down to it, it's just chocolate - pick a good quality version that you know you like, and it's more than likely to be a reasonable substitute. Oh, and the layout and design, though a bit flowery and flouncy, really suits the writing style and content (sounds simple but so often I come across a cookbook where this is really not the case, so it's worth mentioning the good ones).

So, the recipe.

On close inspection, there were several things I wanted to make, but these Rocky Road Mud Bars won out on the basis of pantry supplies and Chris' insistence that they were the best looking in the picture. And, apart from the Oreo crumb layer on the bottom, which could really be left out altogether next time (it didn't add much in terms of flavour/texture in my opinion, although I'll admit I've never been an Oreos fan), they really are pretty good. And I followed Yockelson's recommendation of chopping up extra nuts, chocolate and marshmallows and scattering these over the top of the mixture about 5 minutes before the end of baking. Definitely a worthy addition.

Rocky Road Mud Bars

from Chocolate Chocolate (Lisa Yockelson)

Chocolate Cookie Layer:

1 stick (125g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to tepid

1 1/2 cups plus 3 tablespoons (way too hard to figure out, I just used one packet) chocolate sandwich cookie crumbs (such as crumbs made from Oreo Cookies)

Mud Brownie Batter:

1 1/4 cups bleached cake flour (plain white flour did the trick for me)

1/4 cup unsweetened alkalised cocoa powder (PLEASE use something good, my preferred brand is Barry Cocoa, but anything reasonable and Dutch will do)

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used 60% buttons, roughly chopped)

2 sticks (250g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to tepid

6 ounces (180g) unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled to tepid (again, 60% buttons)

5 large eggs

2 cups caster sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract (I used paste)

1 cup chopped walnuts (pecans)

1/3 cup miniature marshmallows

Preheat oven t0 325F (about 160C). Grease and line a 10x10inch pan (mine was about 26 x 22cm and made a pretty deep brownie).

Mix the cookie layer: pour the melted butter into the pan. Sprinkle the chocolate cookie crumbs evenly over the melted butter. Press down on the crumbs with the underside of an offset spatula so the crumbs absorb the butter. Bake the cookie layer for 4 minutes, then let stand on a cooling rack for 10 minutes.

Mix the batter: Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl toss the chocolate chips with 1/2 tsp of the sifted mixture (this will help prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the finished brownies).

Whisk the melted butter and melted chocolate in a medium-sized bowl until smooth. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs for 1 minute to blend, add the sugar and whisk for a further minute or until just incorporated. Blend in the melted butter/chocolate mixture, mixing thoroughly. Blend in the vanilla. Sift the flour mixture over and slowly stir in. Blend in the chocolate chips, walnuts and marshmallows.

Spoon the batter in large dollops onto the cookie crumb layer. Carefully spread the batter over the cookie layer using a flexible spatula.

Bake, cool, refrigerate and cut the sweet: Bake for 40 minutes or until set (don't overbake it, whatever you do - you want it still a bit gooey in the centre when tested with a skewer). Cool completely in the pan. Refrigerate for 1 hour, or until firm enough to cut neatly. With a small sharp knife, cut into quarters, then each quarter into 6 bars. Store in an airtight tin.

Bake and serve within 3 days (although we ate the last of them 6-7 days after baking and they were still ok).

Eating Melbourne

Somehow, somewhere along the line, I got the impression that Melbourne was over-rated and less than great. Maybe it was the 8 or so hours Chris and I spent there a couple of years ago for the purpose of a business meeting and - ostensibly - a bit of sightseeing. The same 8 hours wherein the fair city put on a fine show of its famed bad weather and we got on the homeward flight cold, wet and having seen nothing much except a rain-swept St Kilda and the inside of a peak-hour city tram.

Okay, I admit it. I was hasty in making judgment, and, it now seems, horribly unfair. Melbourne, despite its strange weather patterns (which were again on display this time around), is lovely. And, more importantly to my mind, a food mecca not to be underestimated.

Coming from Perth, which is deemed a 'small and isolated city' (but which is also a great place to call home, make no mistake), I'm always fascinated by the larger cities' ability to offer such a varied and thriving food culture. The sheer number of little boutique-style cafes and shops in these places would simply not be sustainable here due to our lesser population. Hence my excitement at eating my way through such places - the biggest downfall being the number of meals one can realistically cram into a single day, which severely limits my capacity to try everything!

The Tour

Apart from much general discovery, Chris and I spent a relatively fine Saturday morning in the CBD on a dedicated 'Foodies Walking Tour', led by the lovely and exceptionally knowledgeable Allan Campion. Not only is Allan an expert on his foodie information (partly due, I'm sure, to the research he undertakes to co-author the Foodies Guide to Melbourne each year), he also offers many 'hidden extras' about the history of particular businesses and locations as you go along. And although my inclination was to give you a blow-by-blow account of every place we visited on the tour, and what we ate, I think it might be best to tantalise just enough that you might go on the tour yourself, rather than experience it through your computer! So, in no particular order of importance, highlights were:

• A visit to Maxims Bakery in Chinatown (cnr Little Bourke and Russell St's). Tiny, typically Asian and full to the brim with pastry delights. We tasted the interesting melon cake (which Allan rightly said was probably not something most 'Westerners' would choose, but was great to try) and the egg tarts during the tour, and were compelled to return a couple of days later for a gluttonous feast of curry beef buns, coconut buns, bbq pork puffs and curry puffs. I can happily say everything was great (and it's cheap enough that you can try A LOT of things withough blowing the budget, although the same probably can't be said about your waistline after you do this).
  


• A stop at the iconic Grossi Florentino restaurant for a sneak peek at their upstairs Mural Room (complete with brief history of the business from Allan), followed by salt cod fritters and a glass of wine in the downstairs bar. We didn't have time to go back for a meal during our stay, but it will certainly be on the list for next time. A place that serves up handmade pasta with guanciale (pig's cheek, and no, I didn't know what it was until we asked!), cavolo nero and olives is a place I want to eat at...
  


• Chocolates and a chat with the chocolatier at Koko Black. There are several stores around Melbourne, and if you live there but haven't visited one before then I would suggest it's high time you did. Classic high-class chocolatey goodness. Nothing else to say.
  


• A wander past Quists Coffee, Melbourne's first commercial coffee roasters. They were unfortunately closed the day of our tour, however we went back to try their coffee and were not disappointed. I might add here that appearances can be deceiving - apart from their prominently-situated coffee machine (which is truly a thing of beauty), Quists doesn't look like much from the outside. One tiny macchiato, however, will convince you otherwise.
  

There were many other fascinating discoveries made during Allan's tour which Chris and I referred back to over the course of our visit, and I sincerely hope that whether you think you are a 'tour person' or not (I have to say that it's not usually my first inclination to go on a tacky guided tour of a city when I go somewhere new), you'll give it a try if you get the chance. It was well worth the time and cost, and something any food-oriented soul should enjoy.

The Restaurant

Oh, what a joy it is to go to a restaurant you've heard so much about and find that not only does it live up to your expectations, it actually exceeds them. On several occasions I've visited much-touted venues only to be let down by one thing or another and gone home a bit perplexed as to the deservedness of their reputations (the most recent that springs to mind is Sydney's Pier, where the service didn't quite match up to the setting/food/prices despite it's long-standing good name).

MoVida, in Melbourne's CBD, impressed on all counts. So much so, in fact, that I almost cry when I think about how far I must travel to visit again. The tapas style of eating is one which appeals a lot, due to its emphasis on eating many different things throughout the meal. Great for those of us who can never decide what to have, although at MoVida I wanted to try almost everything on the menu, which left another problem entirely: be a total glutton and try everything that looks good, or make a concerted effort to choose only the 'best' of the menu??

Ultimately, our party of four went with the recommendation of our fantastic waitress and chose around 3 tapas each, then 5 racion (mid-sized plates) to share. Although we probably could have gotten through another 1-2 dishes between us, our restraint was later rewarded with the ability to fit in dessert - it's always a plus when you don't leave knowing you've eaten so much that you won't be able to sleep that night!

I'd like to be able to tell you that everything we consumed has a matching photograph so you can actually see what was ordered, but, well, we were far too busy devouring it to worry about pictures! And to be honest, any photographs I could have taken would probably only detract from the deliciousness...a crumbed and fried ball of goodness might be about the best thing one can eat, but lets face it, there aren't many ways to make it beautiful on camera. So you'll just have to trust me. And if you really want to see it, their quirky website has a few funny little pics that will whet the appetite.

Highlights: the diminutive Croqueta, crunchy and golden on the outside, silky and mushroomy within; Vieira, jamon y espuma (baked scallop on the half-shell with jamon and potato foam), the potato foam giving a little nod to the molecular gastronomy groupies; the Gambas con pancetta (pastry-wrapped prawns with pork belly and chickpea shoots), possibly my favourite EVER prawn dish; and, surprisingly, an unassuming and simple little number of Espinacas con garbanzos (sauteed spinach with chickpeas and spices), which defied all expectation and was one of the best dishes of the night. The current menu lists these gorgeous treats and more.

Go there. Go there now. Although you will want to book a table - it's not a huge restaurant and reservations need to be made well in advance (it took us 5 weeks 'thinking ahead time' to get our Sunday night booking). And if you don't live in Melbourne, like us, you'd better start thinking about planning a trip. It's that good.

A couple of other things

Try a cheap and cheerful vegetarian lunch at the Trippy Taco if you're near Collingwood, and churros with an array of different dipping chocolates at Chocolateria San Churro (several locations, we patronised the Brunswick St store in Fitzroy more than once). Gills Diner in the city is also good for a casual dinner (despite a rather unfortunate brand of service from our less-than-friendly waitress - all other reports have been favourable, and the food was great).

Still to come in the next post: my newly-acquired cookbooks from a little shopping expedition during our trip, with a recipe full of chocolatey ooziness to delight one and all.