Dairy Free Delight - Hazelnut Milk Gelato with Roasted Figs and Ginger

Fig season is so frustratingly short, and my supply that was plentiful last year was decidedly less so this year. They’re one of those fruits that I absolutely love – but there’s no way I’d pay $2 each for them. So unless I scam some from a friend with a tree, I go without. Begrudgingly. This year I only really got to make 2 fig dishes – the Brie Cheesecake (Briesecake?!?) and this one. Fig and ginger is a great pairing. Sweet, sticky figs paired with the hot bite of crystalised ginger is a match made in taste bud heaven. As a fancy appetiser, a fig half with a dollop of goat’s cheese, a few slices of crystalised ginger and a little prosciutto is so amazing. Or the same ingredients as a salad with some peppery rocket and maybe some toasted hazelnuts? Fabulous!

I decided to make this as an ice cream because of a competition. It was to win a kick-arse blender, because my one is a little sad and I really want a commercial grade one, without you know, paying for one. You had to answer what dish you would first make with your blender. And my answer was macadamia milk ice cream with fig and ginger. I’m not sure where the idea came from, other than the fact that you need a blender to make nut milks. And to make it more interesting, I turned it into ice cream. And to make it more exciting, I added fig and ginger. I didn’t win the blender, but I did win because I dreamed up an awesome ice cream. I swapped to hazelnuts because macadamias were more expensive at the time, and I’m quite a big fan of hazelnuts. Use the leftover hazelnut pulp to make protein balls, or dry out and use as a meal in baking.

 

Hazelnut Milk Gelato with Roasted Figs and Ginger

(makes about 1L)
1 cup raw hazelnuts

4 cups water (1L)
6 egg yolks
200g caster sugar
8 small figs, halved
Honey
50g crystallised ginger, roughly chopped

Soak the hazelnuts for 4 hours (or overnight) in the water. Blend well, then strain through cheesecloth or a clean chux to separate the ‘milk’ from the pulp.

Bring the hazelnut milk to a simmer over medium heat in a saucepan (do not boil, or it will separate). In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until pale and thickened, at least 2 minutes. Pour the hazelnut milk into the egg mix in a thin stream, whisking as you go. When completely combined, pour back into the saucepan and cook, stirring for around 5 minutes, or until it thickens and coats the back of the spoon. Strain into a clean bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until completely cold.

Brush each fig half with a little honey on the cut side and pop on a tray in a 160C oven, roasting until softened and caramelly. Remove and allow to completely cool.

Churn according to your ice cream maker's instructions, then freeze in an airtight container for a further 2-4 hours to firm up

Ugly but Delicious - Corn, Almond and Roast Garlic Stuffed Silverbeet (Chard)

This recipe was inspired by two other recipes that are on my blog. It’s a combination of the Cuban Chicken and Corn Pie (remember the one with the awesome crust made from corn?) and my Stuffed Silverbeet Rolls. I was really craving the Cuban Pie in particular, but I just couldn’t be bothered with getting out food processors and whatnot that is required to make the pie. Given I had a lovely bunch of fresh silverbeet from the markets, I decided to use those flavours and make stuffed silverbeet rolls instead.

To roast the garlic cloves, put a whole head of garlic into the oven on a baking tray while the oven is pre-heating. After 15 minutes or so (for me, it’s ready by the time it is required to be added), the garlic will be squishy and the cloves will easily slide out of their skins. Doing this really sweetens the garlic and completely takes away the harshness that garlic can sometimes have. Then use half the cloves for this dish, and save the other half for another dish.

Photos prove this isn't the prettiest meal - but it sure was delicious!

 

Corn, Almond and Roast Garlic Stuffed Silverbeet (Chard)

3 cups corn kernels

1 brown onion
6 cloves roast garlic
½ tsp salt
6 caperberries, sliced
2 eggs
1 cup almond meal
1 bunch silverbeet, ribs removed
¾ cup water
1 tbsp lime juice
3 tbsp Monty’s Muscat
 

Heat the oven to 170C

Dice the onion, and fry in a splash of olive oil and the salt over medium heat until translucent. Add the corn kernels and cook for 10 minutes, stirring here and there, until just barely starting to brown. Remove from the heat. In a mortar and pestle, crush the roast garlic cloves into a paste. Stir through the corn mixture, then add the almond meal and lightly beaten eggs and capeberries, making sure the mixture is completely combined.

Take each silverbeet leaf and add a few tablespoons of mixture to the top of the leaf. Fold the ‘leg parts’ together to make it a solid sheet, roll the edges in, and the whole thing down lengthwise, like you are rolling a spring roll, or burrito. Place seam side down in a casserole dish. Continue until all of the leaves and filling is used up.

Mix the water with the lime juice and Muscat, pour over the completed rolls. Cover loosely with foil and place in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes, then gently turn over the rolls. Leave the foil off and bake for a further 10 minutes.

 
Remove the rolls and reduce the liquid in a pan (I save on dishes just by using the first pan) until it’s syrupy and pour over the top

Starting the Year off Right - Bourbon Molasses Braised Duck

I have mentioned before that Lance has been experimenting a lot with smoking. Meat. He gets some funny looks when he tells people he’s really into smoking. He built a tray holder and bought a rotisserie and turned one of our garden sheds into a smoker. Last time he did a great big smoke, we had around 50 sausages, half a kilo of bacon, 6 chorizo links, a roast pork and a whole chicken. We now have a few piles of various woods drying out, ready for him to experiment with, things like macadamia and plum. As well as the traditional hickory blocks that we buy from the store. As an offshoot from that, he’s started experimenting more with roasting meats on the rotisserie in the BBQ. Or “rotisserating” them, as he likes to say.

This style of cooking is most suited to things with an outer layer of fat, so when it rotates, that layer of fat gets crunchy and delicious, whilst the interior meat is protected and stays gloriously moist. Even if you slightly overcook a roast, it stays moist inside. Lamb and pork legs and whole chickens have all had the rotisserated treatment to great effect. He’ll often throw some hickory and mesquite chips in to add an extra flavour boost. He did a whole baby pig for my sister-in-law's 30th!

This passion and experimentation has led him to the idea of rotisserating a whole beef fillet which is almost entirely devoid of fat, so he wants to encase it in a layer of duck fat and see how that changes the flavour profile and generate moistness in a roast that is notorious for drying out. He figures if duck fat roasted potatoes are the holy grail or roast potatoes, then surely the same will be true for duck fat roasted beef. Which led to a Sunday afternoon of kitchen prep side-by-side. Me making baked bean casserole and banana bread for the week ahead. Him skinning a duck. Yep. He skinned a whole duck. Which meant I needed to find a way to cook a skinless, fatless duck.

Obviously that rules out roasting it. The general consensus of all my cookbooks is that you can cook duck breasts quickly and to medium, and that duck legs you slow cook into confit style dishes and the rest of the duck is pretty useless for anything but stock. There isn’t a great deal of meat on ducks beyond the breasts and legs. My Peruvian cookbook had largely tomato based dishes, which didn’t really jump out at me. A Mexican cookbook had some slightly more inspired spice-based dishes. My Treme cookbook had slow roasted duck with bourbon molasses sauce and sweet potato fries. Bingo! I used the same base flavours, but changed the dish to suit my skinless duck. Opting to section it, brown it, then braise it.

To make life easier, you can get an already segmented duck and either pull the skin off yourself which will be a lot easier than skinning it whole. Or, you can still brown each piece leaving the skin and fat on, but you’ll need to brown it for longer on the skin side, and removed the majority of the fat from the pan before adding the liquids.

This resulting dish is rich and sweet and sticky and moreish just all kinds of perfect. I deep-fried some sage leaves in duck fat for garnish, and instead of making fries, I made a sweet potato mash with orange and cinnamon that complimented the sweetness just so. Although that as a dish by itself makes a fantastic side. I lazily made it in the microwave and it takes less than 10 minutes. Couldn’t be simpler!

And as a side note, molasses can be hard to find, but I really suggest you seek it out. The flavour profile is so much richer than any other sweetener you would try using as a substitute and it really makes the dish. In the end, I found it in a Woolworths, but I had gone to the Nanna Shop, a Coles and an IGA before I found some.

Bourbon Molasses Braised Duck

(adapted from the Treme Cookbook)

1 duck, approx. 2.2 kg, sectioned into about 8 pieces and skinned

2 tbsp reserved duck fat (from skinning the duck)
1 brown onion, sliced into half moons
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 shallots, diced
8 large sage leaves, plus 1 tbsp chopped sage leaves
1 tbsp thyme leaves
2 tsp black pepper
1 cup chicken stock
½ cup molasses, divided in two
½ cup bourbon, divided in two
¾ cup apple cider vinegar (plus a splash)
330mL bottle apple cider
Salt and pepper

Place the duck fat in a large lidded pan (I used my tagine) and bring up to a medium high heat. When the majority of the fat has rendered out, remove the little bits that remain and discard. Carefully drop the whole sage leaves into the hot oil, they will sizzle and crisp up in about 30 seconds. Remove to paper towel and set aside.

Season the duck pieces with salt and pepper and in batches, brown on each side in the duck fat. Around 3-5 minutes per side should do it. Set aside on a plate.

Add the onion to the pan and cook until golden, stirring here and there so it doesn’t catch too much. Around 10 minutes. Add a splash of apple cider vinegar to deglaze the pan if necessary, then add the shallots and garlic cloves. Cook until translucent, around 3 minutes.

Add the sage, thyme, pepper, chicken stock, ¼ cup of molasses, ¼ cup of bourbon, apple cider vinegar and apple cider to the pan. Stir well to combine, then add the duck pieces back into braising liquid. Cover and cook for 30 minutes, turn the duck over, re-cover and cook for a further 20-30 minutes or until the meat is falling off the bone.

When cooked, remove the duck from the pan and add the remaining ¼ cup of molasses and ¼ cup bourbon and leave simmering with the lid off to reduce.

Shred the duck meat from off the bone, discarding the bones.

When the sauce is a thick, syrupy consistency, check for seasoning, then stir the duck back through the sauce.

Serve with Orange Cinnamon Sweet Potato Smash and crispy fried sage leaves

Inauthentic Deliciousness- Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry

When Lance and I were dating, he took me to an Indian restaurant in Vic Park. Both of us particularly liked the Mango Chicken Curry at our local Indian takeaway, and so it was one of the dishes we ordered that night. It was served up in one of those beautiful copper bowls, which was sat on a plate. I accidentally knocked the plate and threw Mango Chicken Curry all over me. ALL over me. Lance just shook his head and laughed. “I can’t take you anywhere!”

That story isn’t hugely relevant to this recipe, but I wasn’t too sure how to start this post and that story came to me. I guess it’s because the Mango Curry is a sweet, fruity and mild curry, and this is too. Lance isn’t a huge fan of banana (unless it is in a chocolate peanut butter smoothie), but he still really enjoyed the fruitiness it added to this curry. The secret is to use ripe, but still ‘hard’ bananas. You don’t want them to break down too much, or be too sweet. The rest of the flavours are just normal curry spices. I don’t know a great deal about cooking curries, I only know I enjoy eating them. So it’s in no way traditional, but it is incredibly flavoursome.

So, if you’re clumsy like I am, and you can’t be taken anywhere, at least you can still have a good curry

Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry

2 tsp salt
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp pepper
1 tsp coriander seeds, ground
1 tsp cumin seeds, ground
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 brown onion, diced
thumbsize piece ginger, peeled and finely grated
1/2 butternut pumpkin, 2 cm dice
1 chicken breast, chopped into 2cm chunks
1 red capsicum, 1cm dice
1 tin coconut cream
2 firm but ripe bananas, peeled and cut into 2cm chunks
to serve
black rice
cashews
chopped coriander leaves
 Heat a large pot to medium heat and place the dry spices in. Cook until nice and fragrant – around 1-2 minutes. Add a good splash of olive oil, then the onion, garlic and ginger, stirring well to coat in the spices. Cook for 10 minutes until the onion is translucent.

Add the chicken pieces and stir to brown, 5 minutes. Add in the capsicum and pumpkin, the coconut cream and rinse the can out with water (about 3/4 of the tin), adding that to the pot as well. Stir well, then put the lid on and simmer 15-20 minutes until the pumpkin is almost cooked through. 

Add the banana pieces in for the last 10 minutes of cooking so they heat through, but don’t completely break down.

Check for seasoning, then serve with black rice and cashews and coriander leaves, if desired

Coming into Spring - Roast Strawberry and Broccoli Warm Rice Salad

Remember my roast strawberry salsa? That was good, you should try that. But when it comes down to it, it’s the roasting of the strawberries that really make it. Roast strawberries are good. Really good. It intensifies the flavours and sweetness in a way that suits both sweet and savoury dishes. This is another dish that uses roast strawberries to great effect paired with roast broccoli and garlic to create an amazing warm salad. Just add a protein and it’s a complete meal.

It’s a simple dish, which can come together in the time it takes for the rice to cook. Pop the rice on, chuck the strawberries and broccoli in the oven while you toast the nuts and seeds and by the time that’s done, so is the salad. I used red rice for becuse I like the colour and texture of it here, but your favourite grain would work. Quinoa would be a nice nutty alternative, or buckwheat.

I was feeling particularly decadent, so I grated some dark chocolate over the top. It’s next level stuff that’s not at all necessary but so good! Some goat’s cheese crumbled over the top would be another good add on.

Roast Strawberry and Broccoli Warm Rice Salad

1/2 cup red rice
1 cup water

1 head broccoli, cut into florets
250g punnet strawberries, hulled
2 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
¼ cup pepitas
½ cup hazelnuts
1 tbsp capers
½ tbsp. mustard seeds
½ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 180C

Rinse the red rice and place in a glass bowl. Cover with 1 cup of water and microwave for 22 minutes or cook til al debnte using your preferred method.

In a large casserole dish, combine the broccoli, strawberries, olive oil, salt and garlic. Toss to mix well, then put in the oven and roast for 15 minutes or until strawberries are soft and broccoli starts to colour.

Meanwhile, heat a pan over medium heat and toss in the pepitas and mustard seeds. When both start popping (around 2 minutes), remove from the pan and set aside. Toast the hazelnuts in the same manner, tossing to toast each side. Approximately 5 minutes. Remove and set aside. When cool, chop roughly.

When the broccoli is ready, stir through the nuts, seeds, rice and capers.

Finely grate some dark chocolate over the top

 Serve! I served here with pork steaks seasoned with some of the rub from my lamb ragu recipe