Series Two - Episode Two recipes
Broad Beans and Peas with Mint and Feta
This is a fresh tasting salad, ideal for the outdoors to eat with crusty French bread.
Ingredients:
175g frozen broad beans
A small bag of frozen minted green peas
Handful cubed feta cheese
Fresh finely chopped chilli
Large handful roughly chopped mint
1-2 tbsp olive oil
Ground black pepper
Method:
Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Add the broad
beans, allow the water to come back to the boil, remove with a
slotted spoon to a colander and refresh under cold water.
When cool, slip off the dull greenish grey skins to reveal the
limey green beans inside and place these in a bowl.
Quickly blanch minted green peas, cool, then process with the broad
beans to a rough lime-green puree.
Tip this into a bowl, add a handful of cubed feta cheese, fresh
finely chopped chilli to taste, a large handful of roughly chopped
mint leave, a tablespoon or two or olive oil and lots of freshly
ground black pepper. Taste and season accordingly if
required.
Chicken, Grape and Almond Salad with Lemon
and Chive Mayonnaise
Ingredients:
2 egg yolks
1 clove of garlic, optional
1/2 tbsp mild mustard
1 tbsp lemon juice
Rind of 1 lemon
1 cup grape seed oil (you can use canola oil)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Method:
Place egg yolks, garlic, mustard, salt and pepper, lemon rind and juice in food processor and process together.
With food processor running, very slowly drizzle the oil through the feed tube. Gradually the yolks will combine with the oil to form a thick, rich buttery mayonnaise. If by any chance your mayonnaise curdles, start again by creaming an additional egg yolk very well and slowly dripping in the curdled egg yolk, oil mixture with a teaspoon by hand until you are certain the oil has started to combine with the yolk base. Remember you are trying to combine two fats together, i.e. egg yolks and oil and they do not normally like each other..... that's why the oil must be combined with the egg yolk mixture very slowly initially until you are certain that an emulsion has formed and the mixture has not curdled.
Once you've made your mayonnaise taste for seasoning, adding
extra lemon juice if necessary. Sometimes I thin my
mayonnaise with a little boiling water or else I fold in a couple
of tablespoons of plain yoghurt.
Also I add a tablespoon or two of finely snipped chives, or chopped
parsley
This mayonnaise will keep in the fridge for about 1 week
There are now some very acceptable commercial brands of mayonnaise on the market if you do not want to make your own mayo
Taste for flavour and add herbs and perhaps a little lemon juice
or sour cream to enhance the flavour
Galettes with Roasted Onion, Feta and Black
Olives
Ingredients:
6 prebaked pastry galettes about 7-8 cm in diameter
Half quantity red roasted onions - see recipe below
About 18 stoned black olives
9 cherry tomatoes
100g Feta cheese
2 tbsp pesto
Method:
Place baked galettes on baking sheet.
Top with roasted onions, garnish with black olives halved cherry
tomatoes and thinly sliced Feta cheese.
Heat through until Feta just begins to melt, remove from oven, top
with a small spoonful of Pesto and serve with a salad greens.
Roasted Red Onions
Substitute white onions if red aren't available
Ingredients:
5 medium red or white onions, peeled
4-5tbps castor sugar
NZ sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
200ml balsamic vinegar
50ml extra virgin olive oil
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C. Slice the onions, about 3mm thick, and spread out on a baking tray. Sprinkle with the sugar and a generous pinch each of salt and pepper. Pour over the balsamic vinegar and olive oil and mix together lightly with your hands. Roast in the oven for 30 minutes or so, turning and basting halfway through cooking.
Graham's Bacon & Egg Pie
Ingredients:
2 Cups Flour
Pinch of Salt
Dessert-spoon Lemon Juice
4 oz Butter
2 oz Lard
Bacon
Eggs (as many as you
need)
Cheese
Pepper
Salt
Method:
1. Sift flour and make well in centre, add salt and
lemon juice.
2. Chop butter and lard into small pieces.
3. Add water to the flour till able to roll out with
rolling pin.
4. Chill for an hour and then roll out pastry and place
in greased tin.
5. Sprinkle grated cheese in bottom and add rashes of
bacon.
6. Add whole eggs to pie and break yolks with
fork.
7. Add more bacon pieces and salt on top.
8. Add pastry top and glaze with egg or milk.
9. Prick holes in top and pre heat oven as high as it
can go on fan bake.
10. Place pie in oven and turn down to 200C and cook for 20-30
mins
Notes:
You can add chives, spring onions and parsley if wanted to.
Whiskey Roll
This recipe can be made with several types of biscuits, eg: Super Wines, Girl Guides, Dutch Cinnamon or my favourites Chocolate Chip. When using Chocolate Chip another 5 plain biscuits must be added.
Ingredients:
2 Pkts Chocolate Chip biscuits
1 Cup Icing Sugar
5 Plain biscuits
4 oz butter
1
Egg
1/2 Cup Whiskey
Method:
1. Crush the both types of biscuits in food processor and set
aside.
2. Cream the butter and icing sugar together.
3. Add the egg and the whiskey.
4. Then add the biscuit crumbs.
5. Grease 2 pieces of tin foil and shape a log into each.
6. Put into the fridge for at least 24 hours or leave until
needed.
7. Before serving melt enough chocolate in the microwave (add a
good blob of butter to the chocolate chips) to generously cover the
logs. Put back into the fridge for a few minutes and then cut
into slices about 1/2" thick.
Notes:
This log is wonderful served with strawberries and sticky wine or
just keep it in the fridge and have a nibble every time you open
the door.
Richard's Picnic Menu
Baba Ganoush
This is a popular dip that is as easy and fun to make as it is
to buy. This is worth knocking out, as it is amazingly good when it
is just made, and you can't buy that.
Ingredients
2 small to medium sized eggplants
6 cloves garlic
2 lemons
1/4 cup tahini
1/4 cup plain unsweetened yoghurt
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste.
Method
Cut eggplants in half lengthwise.
Poke holes in flesh, stuff holes with slivers of all but one clove
of the garlic and dribble with 2 Tbl of the olive oil and
lightly salt.
Roast in a 180-degree oven for 20 or 30 mins until the eggplants
are soft and lightly browned.
When cool, put into a food processor with the remaining
ingredients
Pulse until it reaches a coarse, but homogenous texture.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Frittata
The version of bacon and egg pie that feeds everyone including
vegetarians and gluten free people.
Ingredients
2 med red onions, chopped
2 carrots, diced
2 leeks, diced
1 Red pepper
2 spring onions
2/3 cup cooked peas
2 cups diced, cooked potato
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup crumbled fetta
6-8 eggs (size dependant)
1/4cup oil
Herbs of your choice, mine being 1 Tbl chopped fresh thyme.
Salt and pepper
Method
Heat half the oil in a large pan and cook the onion, carrots, leeks
and red pepper.
Cook until softened.
Add the cooked peas and diced, cooked potatoes, cheeses, herb (if
you choose to)
Gently stir in the eggs one by one.
Season with salt and pepper
Thoroughly Heat an ovenproof dish in a 180 oven.
When the dish is very hot, quickly and carefully tip in remaining
oil and tilt so that the oil runs over all the inside surfaces,
then (quickly)
Tip in the well seasoned egg, vegetable, cheese mixture and return
to the oven
180 for 25 - 40 minutes depending on the dimensions of your dish.
Wide and shallow..less time, deeper longer.
You can tell when the frittata has puffed up in a dome right to the
centre and is firm to the touch.
(remember that in this Frittata I used MY selection of
vegetables. Go on, express yourself, feel free to choose your
preferred vegetables!)
Biscuit Sampler
One of the memorable features of the family summer holidays of my childhood is the biscuit sampler tin; two layers of fancy biscuits that provoked excitement and anxiety in equal measure. All those chocolate-coated biscuits, the pink wafer biscuits, the swiss creams; but would the parents, grandparents and sister in the queue ahead of me take the last of those? Would I be left with the plain biscuits that had to be eaten before the lower layer was unveiled? Such possibility for biscuit pleasure laced with so much possibility for disappointment. They're not in tins anymore, but the biscuits are still masterpieces of the manufactured baking.
Ingredients
1 sampler box biscuits.
Method
Open packagaing.
Eat with manners.
