The Full Monte.....Carlo that is!

While our Kiwi neighbours may dispute the origin, it could have been the lamington or the pavlova to celebrate Australia Day but my favourite is a biscuit that dates back to 1926, the Monte Carlo. You can buy them in the packet with the parrot on the label but homemade is so much better. Two crisp, buttery, honey and coconut flavoured biscuits sandwiched together with a dollop of vanilla butter cream and raspberry jam. Served with a cup of piping hot tea the day doesn't get much better.

Reading the recipe, a hand me down from my partner's great Auntie Rose, there are two problems. I have no honey and no brown sugar. Substitution is necessary. I found a pack of organic panela (evaporated cane juice) hiding behind the dried chillies and a bottle of date syrup kept for squeezing over winter porridge. Add flour (self raising and plain), butter, eggs, vanilla, rosewater, icing sugar, dessicated coconut, berry jam, milk and we're good to go.

As I left the pantry with arms full I knocked a packet of spice mix on the floor. 'Fragrant sweet spices with rose petals', a Herbie's Spices mix. A luscious crush of coriander, cassia, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, poppy seeds, cloves, cardamon and rose petals. This was pure serendipity. The label said, 'an exotic sweet blend to enhance cakes, biscuits, friands and meringues'. I can only think the Kitchen God was giving me a nudge today. In a country made up from a crazy, diverse bunch of people from all corners of the world this sweet blend could represent the ultimate example of culinary and cultural harmony.

Life can always do with a little extra spice and given that I made the berry jam with a hint of rosewater this year this mix of culinary cultures just might work.

Hence we have Monte Carlos with a modern twist for Australia Day. Would Auntie Rose recognise it? I'd like to think that as a great kitchen alchemist herself she'd roll up her sleeves and embrace the change.

Happy Australia Day.

Monte Carlo Biscuits

185 gms butter
190 gms self raising flour, sifted
100 gms plain flour, sifted
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
90 gms brown sugar or panela
2 tablespoons date syrup or honey
30 gms dessicated coconut
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon fragrant spice mix with rose petals (optional)
raspberry or plum jam

Filling
60 gms softened, unsalted butter
100 gms icing sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3 drops rosewater
2 teaspoons milk

Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add date syrup/honey and cream again until light and well blended. Add egg and vanilla and beat well. Add flour, coconut  and spice if using and mix well. Shape generous teaspoons of mixture into ovals, place on a well greased baking tray and press with the back of a fork.

Bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees C) for 10 to 15 minutes. They should be golden brown. Remove and place on a rack to cool.

To make filling cream butter and icing sugar till light and pale. Add vanilla and  rose water to milk and gradually add to mixture, beat until well combined.

When biscuits are cool pair them together. Place a teaspoon of  butter cream filling and a small teaspoon of jam in the centre of one half the biscuits and gently place remaining halves on top pressing gently.
The panela adds a little crispy, toffee crunch to the biscuit and the touch of spice is perfect. This recipe made 20 monte carlos on Thursday. There were none left by Saturday afternoon. No cook could ask for more!

Reinventing Junket

Someone should rename junket. It gets bad press.  It has a reputation as nursery food and is generally thought to be a bland, milky substance served to the sick and digestively infirm. Searching through the pantry for what to use up this week I came across a packet of junket tablets. I think these were an impulse buy in the supermarket a year or so ago when I got all nostalgic.

I like junket. Done right it's delicious. When the weather is hot and you don't feel much like eating, an icy cold, milky junket with the right flavours can be a fine thing. You only need a small serve of this soft, silky curd which could be a likened to a very light panna cotta. Effortless to eat and easy on the stomach. Essentially junket is rennet and sets milk into curd, the first stage of cheese production. The curds and whey of Little Miss Muffet fame.

On the shelf next to the junket was a packet of Chai which I buy at the market from the girls from realchai. Hmmm... junket and chai. I've made chai icecream so  it could work. Little Miss Muffet goes to India? I was prepared to give it a go.

After infusing the chai with milk and a little brown sugar I let it cool, added a few drops of rose water and the junket. A quick stir, set and chill. Too easy.

The flavour was light, sweet, spicy, aromatic and utterly, utterly delicious. Served in antique, demitasse cups, it's a new slant on summer afternoon tea. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

Aromatic Chai Curd

4 tbsp chai mix.
500 mls fresh full cream milk
2 tbsp (generous) light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon rosewater or to your taste.
2 junket tablets
1 tbsp cold water

Serves: 4  (half cup servings)

Get your serving cups or ramekins out before you begin.  Junket sets quickly so once added to the milk you need to pour it into the serving cups straight away.

Combine chai, milk and sugar in a saucepan and heat gently. Stir as you go to help chai infuse. Do not let mixture boil. As edges start to barely simmer remove immediately from heat and leave to infuse for 30 minutes stirring occasionally to prevent skin setting on milk.

After thirty minutes strain through a fine sieve or muslin and squeeze chai mixture to extract liquid and flavour.

Check temperature. It needs to be at 37 degrees C (blood heat). Heat gently if needed to reach desired temperature.

Add rosewater followed by the junket tablets which have been crushed in the cold water. Give a quick stir and pour into serving cups without delay. Leave to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes and then refrigerate for at least two to three hours, but overnight is better.

Serve chilled

PS. If you don't want to use junket tablets which contain animal rennet you could make this with vegetarian rennet which available from cheese making suppliers. You'll need to follow the manufacturers instructions regarding amounts. Alternatively you could try setting with agar agar. It won't have the same texture but it won't contain animal products.

The soul of a carrot

What's the collective noun for carrots?  A bunch? A bunny? A crunch? A warren? In our house this week I think it's simply a bounty as this aptly describes the abundance of  the carrot patch. Beautiful orange carrots that are finally growing straight after years of working the soil to get very last rotten little rock and impediment to a straight root out of the way. They are not perfect, but they are pretty darn close and the taste is like nothing you buy in the supermarket. One of nature's superfoods they are full of polyphenols and carotenoids, but you don't actually need to know this to know they are good for you.

In his book 'In Defence of Food', Michael Pollan says you 'don't have to fathom a carrots complexity in order to reap it's benefits' [sic] and that 'we don't really know what is going on deep in the soul of a carrot' that makes just so delicious. 

What I do know is that eating carrots straight from the vegetable garden is just plain good for you. The sweet, crisp taste of a freshly harvested carrot falls into the category of food as medicine. Deep down in your own soul you just know it's doing you good.

The problem with all this bounty is the need to eat carrots...every day....twice a day at least. Some can be stored of course, but they are at their best straight out of the ground. That this abundance arrives at the time I have vowed to eat out the pantry just adds to the challenge. Never mind we are nothing if not creative.

This recipe was inspired by Stephanie Alexander's kohlrabi, carrot and cucumber salad with mint and peanuts from her book, 'Kitchen Garden Companion'. This is one of my 'go to' books for ideas to use up veg garden produce.

Carrot, celeriac and cucumber salad

2 to 3 medium carrots
1  large cucumber
1/2 a small celeriac root
2 teaspoons sea salt
2 tbsp each thinly sliced coriander and mint
1 red chilli, halved, de-seed and slice finely
2 tbsp chopped dry roasted peanuts or cashews

Dressing

1 tsp panela (evaporated cane sugar) or palm sugar
1 tbsp brown rice vinegar
1 tbsp lime juice and 2 tbsp orange juice
1/3 tsp of yuzu paste* (about the size of a pea)
1 teaspoon good quality sesame oil
A pinch of freshly ground white pepper

Serves 4 as a side or 2 for a generous and healthy lunch

Wash vegetables and peel cucumber and celeriac. Make long thin ribbons of the carrot, cucumber and celeriac using a vegetable peeler. Place in a bowl, add salt and gently toss to coat. Leave for 30 minutes. Place in a salad spinner and spin out as much liquid as you can.

Tip vegetable ribbons back into a clean bowl.

Whisk dressing ingredients together and taste. Adjust seasonings and add sufficient dressing to vegetable ribbons to coat, but not drown. Add sliced chilli, mint and coriander. Toss gently to combine.

Mound vegetable ribbons on a platter, sprinkle the chopped peanuts over the top.

Serve straight away.

*Yuzu is a type of citrus originating in China. The paste is widely available in Asian supermarkets and has a unique citrus flavour which is reminiscent of grapefruit and mandarin. Beware it's a bit addictive, especially with duck!

The year of the six inch cake

In her cookbook 'Miette. Recipes from San Francisco's most charming pastry shop', Meg Ray says a six inch cake is an elegant sufficiency. She explains that in her shop the largest size cake they make is only six inches. Her principle being 'less is more, small is better, balance is everything'. This got me thinking about portion size. Where did we start to get the idea that bigger is better when it comes to food? In general we eat with our eyes and so consume what's put in front of us rather than what we actually want or enjoy.

These days when I go to a coffee shop and ask for cake, more often than not I am served a piece that will require serious bike time to try and counter the impact on my hips! My hips really don't need any extra impact thanks. Often this Everest sized piece of cake comes with cream and ice cream. Why both? Why even one? Many cakes don't need it. Sometimes I wonder if it's there to help you slide the last few mouthfuls down more easily. Even if I share this piece of cake with a friend we both feel as if we've performed an Herculean task consuming it and vow as we finish that we'll not be eating dinner tonight! This is a lie but it makes us feel better at the time.

Don't get me wrong I like cake, I like it a lot, and there will be times when you need to make a bigger cake to feed a crowd, but I'm with Meg Ray. What I want is an 'elegant sufficiency', something that will let me balance my desire to be healthy while enjoying my life and not ending up as a heart attack statistic. I want proportion and beauty in equal measure. Good quality ingredients, put together with passion, in a size that is designed for real people.

When I was a kid my Mum used to bake a beautiful apple cake. It was only ever made in a seven inch cake tin.  Cut into eight it fed six of us happily for dessert, often with some left over, and graced many an afternoon tea table and special celebration.  Now we'd look at a seven inch tin and think it was small. After a serving I never felt I hadn't had enough or that I was robbed of an experience because of the portion size. It was delicious and full of intense apple and lemon flavours with a beautiful crisp, cake like crust and,  if I remember correctly, went well with a small scoop of real vanilla ice cream. All in proportion. Balance and harmony.

Hence in line with my resolution this year to get some balance back in my pantry and freezer I have decided that this is the year of the six inch cake.  Less is more, small can be better and balance is everything.

To celebrate this decision (and to needing to spend less time on the bike perhaps) I share my Mum's recipe, but I warn you it is an intuitive cake. Give it a go and you won't be disappointed. Oh, and it works perfectly in a six or seven inch tin.

Mum's Apple Cake.

Filling

550gm granny smith apples or any good cooking apple.
1 teaspoon of grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of butter

Peel and core apples, quarter and slice. Place in pot with butter, sugar and lemon rind. Add a little water if required and cook. When cooked drain off any liquid. This apple mix needs to be dryish. Leave to cool a little. If you like you can also add a little cinnamon to the apple. I prefer the lemon on its own.

Pastry

60gms/2 tablespoons butter
40gms/2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Self raising flour.

Preheat oven to 320 degrees F/160 degrees C.

Grease and flour a six inch tin and line base with baking paper.

Cream butter and sugar. I generally whisk this by hand in a bowl. Add vanilla and egg and whisk till it is well combined and light. Work in sufficient SR flour to make a workable dough. You are looking for a texture somewhere between cake and pastry. You want a smooth dough that doesn't stick to your fingers but is easy to work.

Roll out a little over half the dough and place in tin so it covers the base and come up the sides about four to five centimetres. Place the warm, drained apple in the pastry. You may not need all the apple as you don't want to fill higher than the pastry.  Roll out the remaining pastry a little larger than the tin and place it on top of the apple, tucking in the edges, as if you were putting it to bed.

Bake slowly in oven on the middle shelf till nicely tinted. About 30 minutes. Remove from oven and stand in tin for 10 to 15 minutes. Turn onto a rack and invert right side up to cool.

Ice with lemon or passionfruit icing and serve with or without cream/ice cream.

Cucumbers and cricket.

New year here means test cricket. While the men of the house spent Monday at the SCG watching India and Australia stoush it out, I dealt with the really serious business of  summer. The vege garden and what to do with all it produces.

This week cucumbers are my nemesis. These sneaky little critters hide among the raspy leaves and before you know it you have ten cucumbers sitting on the bench waiting to be used.

Samuel Johnson is supposed to have said that 'a cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.'  Undeterred by this scurrilous maligning of the cucumber I went in search of something cooling and soothing for the hottest day of the year and came up with Chilled cucumber and borage soup from Signe Johansen's book Scandilicious.

Taking about 15 minutes to make, followed by a really solid chill in the fridge, this soup is perfect for a summer day. Not only did it use produce from the garden, frozen stock from the freezer and my own addition of a handful of left over snowpeas from the fridge, but also the deceptively hairy leaves and incredible blue flowers of the borage plant from the herb garden. These leaves really did add a 'cucumbery' coolness and depth of flavour to this soup that was surprising. Trust me, I applied a before and after test to see if there was any difference.

This is my version based closely on Signe Johansen's delicious recipe.

Chilled cucumber & borage soup

1 small white onion finely chopped
I tsp rice bran oil or other non flavoured oil
3 or 4 Lebanese cucumbers, halved and seeded
1/2 cup of  trimmed sugar snap peas or snowpeas
300mls fresh well flavoured chicken stock (homemade or bought)
1 cup young, small borage leaves  from the tops of the stalks(the bigger leaves are too hairy and prickly so avoid these)
white pepper
yoghurt and borage flowers to garnish

Cook onion in oil till translucent.
Put onion, cucumber, stock, borage leaves, peas in food processor or blender and process till smooth. Add salt (if needed) and white pepper to taste.
Refrigerate for several hours and serve in chilled bowls with yoghurt and borage flowers to decorate.


Borage has long been associated with happiness and raising the spirits. It was apparently fed to crusaders and gladiators prior to battles and competitions. Perhaps then it should be on the menu for Sachin Tendulkar aiming for his hundred 100th, or is it Micheal Clarke's secret weapon? It certainly made for a happy ending  to the day at our house.