All Hands on Deck

Well, this was a mammoth dinner for a Wednesday night. It pays to read ahead of your recipe, especially for the bits that say refrigerate for one hour, or cook for one hour then refrigerate for another hour. However, I must say that this was a corker of a dinner and I am glad I persisted. Tonight we had Lamb cutlets with lemon pignoli crust, served with potato galette and Lemon souffle crepes with sauce suzette. When telling friends what I was cooking for dinner 100% asked, "What is Pignoli". Well to this day I don't know but it was delish.

I started out cooking the sauce suzette. Blanch lemon and orange rind 3 times in boiling water and rinsing in cold water. Set aside. Place 1/2 cup lemon and 3 cup orange in saucepan and let reduce for 45 minutes on medium heat to 1 1/4 cups. Add 1/2 tsp dissolved cornflour and whisk in. Whisk in 1/4 cup caster sugar and 1 1/2 tbs grand marnier. Add zest. till thickened.

Next I started on the potato galette. Heat up sliced potato in saucepan with 300ml thickened cream and 300ml milk and one small clove garlic. simmer till just tender. Transfer to oven proof dish, top ith parmessan cheese and bake for one hour. Let cool then place in fridge for a further hour. I cheated and only had it in the oven for 30 minutes. let the cream set a bit the cut out with food moulds or cookie cutter desired amout of galette. reheat in oven before serving.

Following the potato I made up the batter for the crepes - normal crepe mixture plus add in 2 tsp of dark rum and 2 tsp of grand marnier. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Up next was the pignoli crust for the lamb cutlets. place1/4 cup each of Italian parsley and basil leaves into a food processor along with 2 1/2 tbs of pine nuts. Whizz these ingredients together till combined and chopped. Then add 60 gr chilled butter, 1/4 breadcrumbs1 small garlic clove, and 1/4 preserved lemon wedge. Pulse until smooth. Transfer herbed butter to plastic wrap and roll into a short 3 cm round roll. Chill for 1 hour. Again I cheated and threw it into the freezer for a bit then down into the fridge. After chilling the herbed butter time to cook the lamb. I cooked mine on a grill pan for a couple of minutes each side. Then place sliced butter onto the top of cutlets and placed under the griller for another couple of minutes till crusty. Serve up and plate with the galette.

The souffle of the crepes came with the help of Rose. while she made the crepes I had time to whisk 3 egg whites with lemon into stiff firm peaks, and whisk 3 egg yolks with 1/3 cup of caster sugar till thick and creamy. Then combined and folded together whites and yolks. Working together we folded crepes into quarters and filled top with the souffle mix and baked in 200 oven for 5 minutes. Yes the souffle rose up!! Serve with a reappearance of Heston's ice cream from a few weeks ago and with the sauce suzette and you are on another winner.

If it wasn't for the time factor I would be giving this a 5/5 wooden spoons. However after some discussion about whether it needed a Jus, (Rose was for, I was against) I am going to give the Lamb with pignoli crust a 4/5 wooden spoons.

The crepes with souffle and suzette sauce were a winner with me, I will def be doing these again sometime. 4/5 wooden spoons

Anyone for some Orange

This past Wednesday night I took inspiration from a request from Rose to cook "that pork with the chilli oranges dish". Our main course was Spanish Pork with Orange and Poppyseed salad, and dessert was Caramelised Oranges with Chocolate Ice-cream.

It always pays to read the recipe ahead of time just in case you need to do something important like marinade for more than a few hours. Lets just say a little quick thinking let me get the marinade happening throughout the day. For the Spanish Pork, you need to marinate for 24 hours. Mine marinated for 9 hours and still tasted great. For the marinade throw 1tsp cumin, 1tbs of smoked paprika, zest and juice on 1 orange, 1/2 cup of tomato sauce, 1/3 cup of maple syrup into a large ziplock bag with 2 pork fillets, and refrigerate. For the orange and poppyseed salad, zest one orange and peel and slice the flesh place into a bowl with 1 de-seeded lebanese cucumber 1/2 cup of coriander and 2 finely sliced chillies. In a separate bowl put 1/3 cup white wine vinegar (i used white balsamic, just as good) 1/2 cup olive oil, 2 tbs caster sugar and 2 tbs of poppyseeds. Whisk ingredients till combined.

Cook the pork on chargrill or BBQ 5-6 minutes each side until cooked or blackened. To dish up place salad on plate and top with sliced pork and drizzle with dressing. This dish was yet another successful main course.

Dessert on the other hand - not quite as successful. I have trouble with some of my desserts, especially ones that involve caramel. First off, take the zest off 3 oranges and blanch 3 times in boiling water. peel and remove the pith from said three oranges and slice, removing any seeds. Place in the bowl with zest. Boil up caster sugar and water till golden and pour over the oranges and let cool. This is where I fail to understand any caramel recipe as mine always turns to toffee.

To serve place into dish and top with a delicious scoop of chocolate Ice-cream. Tonight I cheated and used bought choc ice cream. Colin James Gelato, very nice indeed and to make it better he uses local produce from Maleny. I'm going to give my dessert a thumbs up but gee i wish i could do caramel.

Tonight's scores: Spanish Pork with orange and poppyseed salad 5/5 Tongs

Dessert: Caramelised oranges and choc ice-cream 2.5/5 Tongs

Chicken Pot Pie and Baklava Cigars

Our apologies for the lack of a post for last week, family commitments intervened with our Wednesday night dinners. On tonight's menu I chose to cook leek and chicken pot pie for mains and Baklava Cigars for dessert. From the outset I have to say both of these dishes worked really well and tasted great.

The Chicken pot pie was a basic chook pot pie recipe but with a little twist that I had not experienced before. Lemon. With normal core ingredients of chicken thighs, bacon, leek, chicken stock and sour cream. Add some lemon juice and a little rind and some puff pastry for the lid. I served tonight's pot pie in individual ramekins which was just the right amount for a serving.

Dessert was from Valli Little and her Faking It Recipe book. Baklava Cigars. This is a very easy dessert to make. Grab a couple of filo sheets and butter them up sprinkle some roasted unsalted nuts over the top of the sheet and roll it up into a tight cigar shape. Bake these on 200 deg for 6-8 minutes until they are golden brown. Once baked allow to cool while sitting in some yummo syrup. To make the syrup put 200g of honey with 200g of caster sugar, 300ml of water and the juice and rind of 2 oranges into a saucepan. Allow to boil for 7 minutes or until syrupy. Serve with some ice-cream.

Both of these dishes were very easy to make and an ideal Wednesday night dinner when you are stuffed from work. It may sound like a busy dinner to make but with a little effort very easy.

Bon Appetite (gee i hope that is how you spell it)

My score for tonight's effort is 5/5 Ramekins for the Chicken pot pie

and for the Baklava Cigars 5/5 Filo Sheets (LOL)

Something old and something new

This is my first jaunt in our Wednesday night meals for 2012, and I thought that I would start with an old favourite for mains and something new for dessert.

To kick off I made red wine lamb racks with mint pesto gnocchi and slow roasted tomatoes. A fairly simple dish, but a dish that has great memories associated with it. (It is all about the story we are told on Masterchef). The lamb and mint pesto gnocchi was a dish that I ate at Rose's 30th birthday dinner. As I was eating the meal I was thinking of the flavours of the meal and thought it should be easy to replicate. Also this dish had foundations even before the delish dish from "The Dish". Way back in my Townsville years living as a bachelor a dear friend took me under her wing and thought I needed some lessons in cooking. MB's first dish she "taught" me was a lamb rack with asparagus and eggplant. Many thanks MB. Don't forget it is all about the stories.

In case you are wondering about the Mint Pesto - Lots of Mint, a handful of toasted pine nuts, 2 cloves of garlic, a good whollup of olive oil, and some parmessan cheese.

The something new of our meal was dessert. Heston Blumenthal's Vanilla and Cinnamon Ice cream from his Heston Blumenthal At Home. Heston says," The starting point for this recipe was a scientific paper on a phenomenon called 'odour adaptation', which is when the brain stops us smelling something even though the odour is still there. This process helps us detect whether an aroma is getting stronger or not and saves us from sensory overload."

"take 2 squeezy bottles that are big enough to produce a good whooomph of air when you squeeze them, and place 2 vanilla pods in one and bash two cinnamon sticks and place them in the other. Eat a spoonful of the ice-cream, then take a sniff of the vanilla bottle. Now eat another spoonful of ice-cream - you'll find it only has a cinnamon flavour. And if you eat the ice-cream after sniffing the cinnamon bottle , it will seem to be pure vanilla." This experiment works with 85% of people.

6 vanilla pods, 360g whole milk, 200g raw caster sugar, 35g skim milk powder, 840g whipping cream, 2 whole esspresso beans, 1 large cinnamon stick bashed. Extra vanilla pods and cinnamon sticks for the squeezy bottles.

1. Milk, vanilla pods scraped, inot saucepan, add sugar and milk powder over medium heat stirring until milk powder has dissolved.

2. Add cream and esspresso beans and cinnamon stick, bring to boil. Remove from heat and remove to container. Allow to cool in fridge for 2 hours it infuse.

3. Strain mixture through fine sieve.

4. Put mixture into ice-cream machine as per instructions of machine.

5. Decant ice-cream into sealable container and place in freezer till needed.

6. Enjoy.

Apparently Rose and I are in the 15% that this experiment does not work with, or there was not enough flavour in the cinnamon stick that I used. Maybe I should have put an extra cinnamon stick. Even though it didnt work with us, the ice-cream was unbelievablely smooth and creamy and it was delicious.

My ratings for the meal:

Lamb and Gnocchi - 5/5 wooden spoons

Cinnamon and Vanilla Ice-cream - 4/5 Wooden Spoons (cause the experiment didn't work with us)