gnocchi with blue cheese and fennel sauce

I had to try a few different recipes to get this right, and ended up just sort of improvising. I LOVED the way this turned out. I served it with a fennel and blue cheese sauce which was so rich and creamy, and a great complementary flavour to the soft, potatoey dough.

You will need:

2 x potatoes (small - medium size)

1.5 cups plain white flour (approximately)

1 organic free range egg

Salt and Pepper

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

What to do:

Peel your potatoes and slice them into 2cm x 2cm cubes. Put in a pot of simmering water and cook until really, really soft. I cooked mine for about 25 minutes.

Strain through a colander. Put in a large bowl and mash until completely lump free, and nice and fluffy.

Beat the egg in a small bowl and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Pour the egg into the middle of the potato and stir quickly. Add the flour, a few tablespoons at a time, and keep stirring.

You want the dough to form a solid consistency. It will always be a little sticky, so don't expect it to get elastic like pizza or bread dough, but it should hold together and be malleable. Once you have achieved this, sprinkle some flour onto cling film, wrap the dough up tightly and refrigerate for 15 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, make your sauce. Some people like really simple sauces with gnocchi, such as sage butter or parmesan and garlic all'olio, but hey, for me, any excuse to add cream, cheese and garlic. Mmm. I fried off garlic, onion and fennel until translucent but not browned, then deglazed the pan with 1/2 glass of dry white wine. Turn the heat really low and simmer for 10 minutes, then add 1/2 cup cream and some blue cheese. Stir thoroughly. Season. Leave on the lowest heat possible until ready to serve.

Once your dough has rested in the fridge, chop it into quarters or thirds. Roll each section into a long snake, about 1.5 cm wide. Use a knife to slice it at 1.5cm length notches and transfer to a floured plate.

Bring a large saucepan to the boil and add the gnocchi in batches (don't over crowd the pan). The gnocchi need only a minute or two. Once they float to the top, they are good to go! Add to your sauce and garnish with strong parmesan cheese or vintage cheddar. Delicious!

Will I make this again? Absolutely. Cheap, cheerful, and bloody delicious. It tasted really, really great. Sure, it's comfort food but it's fresh and special. Next time I'll probably get adventurous and add some different cheeses and herbs to the gnocchi - like some finely chopped sage and perhaps a goats cheese. Delicious.

cooking challenge week sixteen: home made gnocchi

This week's cooking challenge is something I've been wanting to make for a long time. Really Great Gnocchi. I rarely order this dish in restaurants because it's so simple, and yet, at the same time, I absolutely love it. Go figure. The few times I've attempted it in the past, my meal has ended up a gluggy mess. Urgh. So perhaps it's actually a deceptively simple dish?

The entree was also a challenge, in that my pastry for tarts and pies just never works. I either get it too crumbly or too buttery, and get so frightened by the prospect of another pastry failure that I just buy factory made. No longer, friends! I think I've finally hit on a recipe that's allowed me to master the art of pastry! It was a sweet pastry dough recipe from a Donna Hay magazine, so I just took out the sugar and vanilla and added salt, pepper and nutmeg, and it was good. We started with a tart of sundried tomato, caramelized onion and goats cheese, served with balsamic reduction and caramelized onions.

I served the lovely little gnocchi dumplings with a creamy fennel and blue cheese sauce. Oh. My. Goodness. So nice. I'm salivating just looking at the pictures. Would have been great with a few capers for some more "zing" but the blue cheese I had to hand - a Gorgonzola Dolce - has a mean kick to it so this worked well.

Make this, make this, make this!

cheesymite scrolls

Australian food might just be a mish mash of international cuisine - you could say we take the best from every country of the world and put our own stamp on it - but there is one thing we are arguably all patriotic fans of. Vegemite. Ok, now Vegemite happens to be owned by an American company, but it is undeniably Aussie. Our parents grew up with, we grew up with it, our kids will grow up with it. My mum tells me stories of being a kid in Brisbane in the 60s and having vegemite soup - hot milk with a spoon of vegemite! Shudder.

A new-ish spin on this old favourite is the Cheesymite Scroll. These rolls of soft white pastry dough, filled with lashings of vegemite and creamy cheddar cheese are a delicious treat. My newly discovered love for all things bread-esque inspired me to try making these. I hope you enjoy.

You will need:

650g white bread flour

7g dried yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 tablespoon salt

450mL warm water (approximately)

Vegemite

Cheddar cheese

What to do:

Put the bread, yeast, sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl and stir to combine. Add1/2 the warm water and stir to combine. Slowly trickle the remaining water, stirring constantly, until you get a dough that holds together well. You might need less or more than the specified water - I tend to go by feel.

Once you have a dough that holds together, knead it on a lightly floured surface for around 5 minutes, until you get an elastic consistency. Transfer it back to the deep mixing bowl and leave, covered, for around 1 - 2 hours. The dough should have doubled in size.

Punch the air out of the dough and briefly knead once more. Roll the dough into a long snake and chop it into 10 evenly sized pieces. Use a rolling pin to flatten this dough into a long, flat strip, approximately 5cm high. Use one hand to stretch the dough out as you roll.

Spread the vegemite over the dough strips, leaving 1cm clean at each end. I found it easiest to use my fingers for this job so as not to tear the dough.

Grate the cheese into a bowl and sprinkle this liberally over the vegemite.

Use some water and wet either end of the strips of dough. Tightly roll the bread to form scrolls, being careful not to spill too much cheese. Once you get to the end, press the wet lip of dough tightly against the side of the scroll to hold it in place.

Preheat the oven to 220'c. Line your scrolls up in a baking dish and leave to rise for a further 20 minutes. Transfer to a middle tray in the oven and bake for 20 - 25 minutes. When you remove them, the scrolls should make a hollow sound when tapped on the base, and the cheese should be golden and melted.

I hope these make you the happiest little vegemites possible!

cooking challenge week fifteen: gravad lax

Like salty foods? Refreshing and flavoursome? This is the definition of all those things. Texturally gravad lax is not dissimilar to smoked salmon, and the flavours really exceeded my expectations.

It's important to note that various health bodies recommend that you freeze the salmon prior to curing it, as raw fish can carry various parasites, but the consensus in all the recipes I read during my research is that this will make the finished product watery. I think it's a personal choice. I am quite relaxed with these things: I figure if it was good enough for Norse fishermen in the middle ages, it's good enough for me.

The recipe I used was for the two of us (though again, technically, it would easily serve four. We are piggies, remember.) You can scale up the quantities as required, but probably would recommend that you don't scale them down too much further.

Allow 3 days to properly cure. Apparently it will then store for up to 2 weeks in the fridge, but I think - eat it as soon as possible, it's really too good to save!

You will need:

Side of Salmon, skin on. Buy this as fresh as you possibly can - sashimi grade. I got a piece about 15cm long, thoroughly deboned.

100g sea salt

80g caster sugar

1 cup loosely packed dill, finely chopped

2 tablespoons vodka (optional)

1 tablespoon white pepper, freshly milled

1 lemon

What to do:

Slice the salmon in half so you have two equally sized portions.

Slice the lemon into thin rings and place half of them on the base of a dish big enough to fit the salmon into. This will need to go in the fridge so choose your dish wisely ;)

Mix the sugar, salt, vodka and half the dill. Lay one piece of salmon in the dish, on top of the lemons, with the skin down. Layer the salt mixture over the salmon with your fingers, rub it in well. Sprinkle the pepper and add some more fresh dill.

Lay the other salmon fillet on top, skin side up (So you effectively have a salmon sandwich, with the skin visible on top and bottom). Sprinkle any leftover salt mix and dill on top, and the remaining lemon slices. Cover well with cling film and put in the fridge, with a weight on top. I used a bottle of wine!

The salmon will water A LOT (if it's fresh) and so approximately every eight hours, I took the salmon out of its dish, strained off the liquid and flipped the salmon so the top is now on the bottom. Some recipes say this is overkill - but I loved the excuse to touch, smell and admire my salmon!! It gets quite hard, as well, which I wasn't prepared for, but found oddly reassuring. Here was proof that my cure was a success!

To serve, rub off the salt mixture, or dampen your fingers and wipe it off carefully. Slice horizontally as thinly as possible (watch the fingers) and serve with the traditional mustard and dill sauce (Whisk 2 tbl spoons dijon mustard, 1 organic free range egg yolk, 1 tbl spoon caster sugar in a large bowl, then trickle in 150mL vegetable oil whisking constantly to make an emulsified sauce. Add 4 tablespoons finely chopped dill and combine.)

I am going to start grading my cooking challenges on one simple criteria: "Was it worth it?" You know, given the hassle and expense and stress, would I make these meals again. With gravadlax, the answer is a resounding YES, YES, YES! It's a really impressive looking dish, and is rare and uncommon, and packs a real flavour punch. The idea of being able to do everything but the slicing well in advance is great for dinner parties (and even the slicing could, I suppose, be done ahead of time..?).

I also served it as part of our breakfast, delicious!

Happy Easter to you and yours. dd.x

happy easter bunnies

The weather in London this weekend is grey and overcast, but inside our flat the mood is bright, festive and foodtastic.

For this week's challenge, I wanted to do something that was traditional Easter fare, and something completely different for me. I did a load of research, and finally settled on Gravadlax. This is a traditional Scandinavian dish dating back to at least the middle ages, when Norsemen would bury salmon in holes in the sand, cover them with salt and leave them to cure. According to my friend Wiki, the term Gravadlax literally translates to "salmon dug into the ground".

It seems to be a food eaten traditionally at Easter, though presumably it's also enjoyed all year round. I know we'll be having it more regularly! The thing I love about it is the anticipation. It's a pretty easy recipe, to be honest, but the trick is in leaving it for three days. I flipped it faithfully every 8 hours, which despite some dispute seemed to be the general consensus, and kept wanting to try it.

I served the gravadlax two ways - just on its own with hovmästarsås (I read somewhere that this translates to Head Waiter sauce because traditionally the head waiter would mix the sauce in front of you, at your table). I also served it as part of our Easter Sunday brunch - with soft poached eggs, home made white bread and the mustard sauce. I also served some bircher muesli, fruit and hot cross buns.

After the gravadlax, I served a lamb roast, another traditional Easter dish, with all the trimmings.

For dessert, I made a bread and butter pudding out of hot cross buns, and gave it an orange chocolate twist in honour of Easter's chocolatey reputation.

hot cross buns

It's not too late to make your own beautiful, fresh, spiced hot cross buns. And believe me, these are so, so, so much nicer than the plastic wrapped ones you pick up at the supermarket.

You will need:

1 x 7g sachet of dried yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons warm water

100ml warm milk

450g strong white flour

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 egg, beaten

100g mixed peel (I used currants, cranberries, apricot and blueberries)

1 teaspoon salt

What to do:

Mix the yeast, tepid water and sugar together in a coffee mug and cover with glad wrap. Leave for a few minutes until the yeast mixture has bubbled to twice its original volume. Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl then add the salt, spices, sugar and fruit peel.

Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeast mixture, the warm milk and the beaten egg. Stir with a wooden spoon until a dough forms.

Sprinkle some flour onto your bench and knead the dough. You want it to get to the point where it is smooth and elastic. You should be able to push your finger into the dough and have it bounce back almost immediately. This will take between 5 - 10 minutes. If your dough is too sticky, slowly incorporate a little more flour, a tablespoon at a time.

Return the dough to your mixing bowl and cover with a tea towel or cling film. Leave to rise for an hour, or until it has doubled in size.

Remove from the bowl and knead again until the dough has returned to its original size. Roll it into a long, thick log. Slice evenly in 12 portions. Roll into balls and place on a pre-greased oven tray. Preheat the oven to 220'c. Leave to rise for a half hour. Once they've risen, make crosses on top.

You can score a cross in the top, if you'd like. This is a traditional way of making hot cross buns. To make a flour cross, as I did, make a flour paste: Mix flour and water until you get a thick paste. Pour it into a piping bag with a thin nozzle and stripe crosses over the top of the buns. Don't have a piping bag? Never fear! I didn't have a thin enough nozzle, but you can use thick carboard, wrapped and then taped to create your own piping bag.

Bake for 20 minutes. Combine 4 tablespoons of boiling water with 5 tablespoons caster sugar and stir until sugar has dissolved. Spoon over the hot hot hot buns and use your fingers to massage the sugar mix all over. Yum yum.

the stage is set

Easter is another one of those holiday weekends that I absolutely love. I've spent the day stocking up on treats, sweets and delicious foods. I went to the Borough Markets first thing in the morning. It's a fantastic food market near London Bridge that has stood on its current site for over 250 years. There's a range of chocolates, cheeses, poultry, fish, regional specialties and fruits and veg, as well as home made products like jam and baked goods. The only thing the store holders have in common is a passion for food quality and local ingredients.

I picked up only those things too good to resist (particularly cheese, glorious cheese) and then came back to the little shops in my neighbourhood. I am really lucky to live in a little village on the outskirts of London. Our high street boasts a cheese shop, a fantastic fish monger, a butchery, a bakery, and a top notch fruit and veg shop which is always brimming with organic, seasonal produce.

There are so many benefits to shopping this way rather than in a supermarket, but one of the biggest advantages for me is the advice you can get from the store holders. Because they tend to be passionate about their particular trade, they have loads of knowledge and have always been really happy to help. This has been particularly useful at the butchery. "Hi. I'm a recovering vegetarian. What meats are good to roast?" And my florist is am.az.ing.

Once back at home base, I baked up a storm. Hot cross buns, Easter cookies and various other things... We will be indulging in an Easta Feasta all weekend. Stay tuned for pics!

dd.x

cooking challenge week fourteen: yasai katsu curry

Katsu curry is a relatively new tradition in Japan, but is very popular. It's a Japanese take on an American/Indian curry sauce. The difference is that it is, bizarrely enough, sweetened with apple and banana, while the spice comes from Indian madras curry powder. So strange but really nice.

You will need:

For the curry sauce:

2 ripe bananas, sliced

1 small onion
3 cloves garlic

3 cox apples, peeled and diced

1 tablespoon ketchup

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon ground turmeric

2 tablespoons madras (hot) curry powder

2 tablespoons butter

4 cups water

2 cups vegie/chicken stock

3 tablespoons cornflour

For the vegetables:

1 egg

1/2 cup flour

1 cup PANKO breadcrumbs

Oil for deep frying

Vegetables

What to do:

In a large saucepan, melt the butter and fry off the finely diced onion, garlic, apple and banana. Stir constantly for two minutes, until softened. Add 3 cups of water, the ketchup, honey, turmeric and curry powder. Stir well. Simmer for ten minutes then add stock. Stir 3 tablespoons of cornflour into the remaining cup of water. Add this to the curry and simmer for 30 minutes until thickened and reduced.

Strain through a colander to remove solids and return to the saucepan. Continue to simmer and thicken until ready to serve.

For the vegetables:

Slice eggplant and sweet potato into 1cm thick rounds. Dip them in flour, then egg wash, then PANKO breadcrumbs. Deep fry. Once they float to the top, they are ready (the PANKO breadcrumbs will darken once you remove them from the oil).

Serve with steamed rice and some green salad (I used Japanese pickled cabbage and cucumber).

easy peasy japanesey

A good friend of mine has just come back from a trip to Japan, and her photos were seriously amazing. So beautiful - what a country! She hit a snag though in ordering food. With a scant ten words of Japanese under her belt, garnered in grade ten LOTE classes, meal times were quite an adventure. Some slippery eel and other unrecognisable foods were consumed.

When I was vegan, Japanese was one of my favourite food types, as it's pretty easy to keep it meat and dairy free. Tonight's menu was a tribute to some of my favourite meals from that cuisine.

The challenge - a yasai katsu curry - is arguably most popular in the UK because of wagamamas. This restaurant chain specialises in Asian food - a menu that is a hybrid of thai, chinese, japanese, malaysian and indonesian, all served in an homogenised and westernised environment - fast, quick, clean and cheap, and very tasty. Their katsu curry is one of the most popular meals.

I love that Japanese meals often involve a lot of different dishes, served in dainty portions, so you get maximum flavour without feeling like you're going to burst at the end of the evening.

In this vein, we started with a selection of sushi - some cucumber maki as well as tempura prawn maki with wasabi and soya sauce.

Following this, we had some Japanese crumbed prawns.

After this, it was Nasu Misoyaki, one of my favourite meals ever. Imagine a soft roasted aubergine, sliced once cooked and topped with mild miso paste, soya sauce, sugar and vinegar, served with Japanese pickled vegetables. Absolutely delicious. Served soft, with cripsy skin, and steaming.
The katsu curry was absolutely delicious. It's quite a modern Japanese dish - a Japanese imitation of an Indian American curry that hits the mark beautifully. The curry is served with rice and crumbed chicken or vegetables. Seriously yumtastic.
Japanese cuisine isn't huge on dessert (shocking, I know), so I sort of improvised. I made a green tea, champagne and apple jelly, served with chocolate sauce. This is the first time I have ever made jelly from scratch. I used more gelatine than I probably needed, so it sure was firm. And really a nice combination of flavours. Anything with a chocolate is a winner for me though!

home made pasta, mark 2

I made the pasta again tonight, with a few modifications, and it was great!

This time, I used all white flour, and only three eggs. Knead the pasta until it's springy and soft. Wrap in glad wrap and set aside for a half hour. When you push a finger into the dough it should bounce back to its original shape immediately.

Roll the dough really flat. I chopped the dough into long strands of varying widths- from 0.5cm to 3 cm. Then, I put them in boiling salted water for a couple of minutes.

I served them with creamy mushroom sauce and fresh organic spinach. This is definitely worth the effort, and is just in a different league to store bough pasta.