Kiwisizzler

Morroccan-Style Braised Lamb Leg

2 Tbsp olive oil

3 Tbsp pomegranate molasses

Juice of ½ a lemon

1 Tbsp paprika

½ tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander seeds

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp fine sea salt

3 cloves finely crushed garlic

1 lamb leg on the bone – approximately 2kg

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 carrot – roughly chopped

1 onion – roughly chopped

2 sticks celery – roughly chopped

2 bay leaves

1 cup red wine

1 cup beef stock

1. Mix the first ten ingredients together.
2. Stab the lamb leg repeatedly on both sides with a sharp knife.
3. Rub the lamb liberally all over with the marinade.
4. Cover and leave to marinate overnight.
5. Heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
6. Pop the marinated lamb into the oven and cook for fifteen minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 140 degrees Celsius.
7. In a frypan, sauté the vegetables in the vegetable oil until nice and golden.
8. Add the red wine and stock to deglaze.
9. Pour the vegetables, wine, stock and bayleaves into the oven tray with the lamb, cover with foil and braise in the oven at 140 degrees Celsius for 3 hours or until meltingly tender.
10. Rest the lamb in a warm spot in the kitchen for 30 minutes to allow the meat to relax before serving.
11. Strain the cooking liquor and bring to the boil. Reduce until it is nice and sticky and super tasty!
    

    Braised Lamb, Aubergine Tagine, Steamed Corn, Tomberries

    Tagine of Aubergine & Sweet Potato with Orange

    2 Tbsp olive oil

    1 tsp coriander seeds – whole

    2 onions – roughly chopped

    1 tsp paprika

    ½ tsp finely ground black pepper

    ½ tsp tumeric

    ½ tsp ground ginger

    ¼ tsp chilli powder

    ½ tsp salt

    2 aubergines – large diced

    2 sweet potatoes – peeled and large diced

    400g chopped tomatoes

    ½ cup water

    2 strips of orange peel – 2cm wide x 4cm long

    1. Heat the olive oil over a low heat in your tagine or large saucepan.
    2. Add the coriander seeds and gently fry until they start to ‘pop’.
    3. Add the onions and sweat until soft.
    4. Add the spices and salt and fry for 30 seconds to release their flavours.
    5. Add the aubergines, sweet potato, tomatoes, water and orange peel.
    6. Bring to a gentle simmer, cover and cook gently for 1 ½ hours.
    7. Taste and adjust seasoning with a little salt.
    8. Garnish with freshly chopped mint.

Potato Roesti with Hot-Smoked Salmon & Wild Mushroom Relish

Rare Beef, Salsa Verde, Ciabatta Toast

The Dining Room

Thai Asparagus & Feta Risotto

Beautiful Ceiling!

Smoked Mackerel & Sour Cream Mousse and Basil Crisp

Baby Asparagus Wrapped in Prosciutto Crudo with Saffron Mayonnaise

Pickled Wild Mushrooms, Quail Egg, Watercress Caviar

My team and I recently catered a VIP canape function for our CEO at the Queen Mother’s former residence. What an amazing opportunity! The building is as pristine as if she had departed us only yesterday. It is full of amazing artwork, wall and ceiling decorations and paintings and is kept beautifully.

Our spec was that the canapes were for VIPS including the grandson of Winston Churchill and that they had to be perfect. Needless to say, they went down to a fantastic response and we loved every minute of it.

This recipe is delicious! It is packed with the flavours of fresh dates, bananas and spice and is superb blanketed in a bit of orange custard.

350g Medjool dates – stone removed and roughly chopped

2tsp baking soda

300ml water

300ml bananas

250g sugar

250g butter

4 eggs

350g self raising flour

Vanilla essence

1. Put dates, water & baking soda in a pan, boil.

2. Puree bananas, add to dates, cool.

3. Cream sugar & butter.

4. Beat in eggs slowly & add vanilla.

5. Fold in flour.

6. Add date & bananas. Mix well.

7. Drop into ring or muffin tin (rub with butter & dust with sugar first).

8. Cook for 15-20 mins @ 180c.

For the custard, make your usual packet mix or creme anglaise and add some orange zest to the milk to infuse.

Here’s a delicious combination that is well worth the extra preparation time and effort. Perfect for a chilly autumn evening.

Make a batch of braised oxtail. I would suggest discarding the vegetables at the end of cooking, keeping only the meat stripped from the bones. Prepare some fresh salsify. Once peeled, thinly slice on an angle, blanch (to pre-cook) in boiling water and refresh immediately in very cold water. Put aside until ready to use.

Finely chop some shallots. Heat a little oil and add the shallots. Gently sweat without colour over a low heat. Add your rice and saute gently for a minute or so until it becomes slightly translucent. Add some white wine to just cover the rice and stir gently until just dissolved.

Add some chicken stock to cover, stir over a low heat until absorbed.

Add your salsify and some more chicken stock and cook until absorbed. Keep adding stock until the rice is al dente (firm to the bite) but cooked.

Add some chopped chives, salt, pepper, a knob of butter and some freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Heat your oxtail in a little of the oxtail cooking liquor.

Serve the risotto topped with the oxtail and garnished with some fresh morels mushrooms (or replace with porcinis or chestnut mushrooms) sauteed in a little butter and moistened with a little of the oxtail braising liquor. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

For more information and recipes for risotto click here.

Scored yourself a bit of beef? Here’s what to do with one of my favourite cuts – the tail.

Get your butcher to cut the tail into segments, if it’s not already.

Cut up some carrots, onion, leek and celery nice and chunky. This is called mirepoix.

Get together some thyme, bayleaves and parsley stalks. Tie them in a bunch with some string. This is your bouquet garni.

Heat a pan nice and hot. Add a touch of oil and then the oxtail.  Seal the oxtail in small batches until nicely coloured. Put the oxtail into a deep roasting dish.
Once the oxtail is sealed, toss the mirepoix in the pan, ensuring a nice golden colour. Add the vegetables to the oxtail.
Deglaze the pan with a bit of red wine and add that wine to the roasting dish along with the bouquet garni and  a little beef stock. Cover the tray with tin foil.
Place the roasting tray in the oven at 160°C for around 2 1/2 hours, or until the meat falls off the bone.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool. As the meat cools it will absorb the cooking liquor, keeping it nice and moist. Once cool, strain the liquor and reduce to a nice sticky consistency. The juices will contain a massive amount of natural gelatine. Strip the meat from the bones and add to the liquor along with the vegetables. Season to taste and serve with creamy mashed potatoes or even as a risotto. LUSH!

This recipe is fantastic as a starter or even as the main event for a relaxed lunch with friends. Perfect with a fresh rocket and parmigiano reggiano salad, drizzled with aged balsamic and extra virgin olive oil.

For the Red Onion Marmalade:

2 Tbsp olive oil

600g red onion – sliced 3mm thick

2 bay leaves

125g demerara sugar (or better still – dark muscavado)

100ml balsamic vinegar

100ml port

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan over a low heat.
2. Add the onions and bay leaves. Sweat over a low heat, stirring regularly until soft and starting to sweeten. This should take at least 20 minutes.
3. Add the sugar and cook until any liquid is evaporated, around 40 minutes. Stir regularly. You should have only 25% of the original volume of onions at this point.
4. Add the balsamic vinegar, increase the heat and reduce until nice and sticky. Stir regularly.
5. Add the port and reduce until nice and sticky. Stir regularly.
6. Allow to cool until you are ready to use the marmalade.

For the Tart:

350g short pastry

Flour for dusting

Blind-baking beans (I use rice)

Red onion marmalade

100g blue cheese (I used a delicious British cheese called ‘Blacksticks Blue’)

2 large eggs

150ml single cream

Salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 165C.
2. Roll out the pastry on a well-floured bench.
3. Roll the floured pastry around the rolling pin and unroll onto a lightly greased flan tin.
4. Give the pastry lots of slack as it will have stretched during rolling. Make sure the pastry is pressed into the corners of the flan tin.
5. Trim the edges of the pastry but leave around 1cm of excess around the edges. This can be trimmed after cooking.
6. Cover the pastry base with cling film and rice or baking beans. Blind bake the pastry for around 10 minutes, remove the beans or rice and return to the oven for a further 10 minutes until base is set and lightly golden.
7. Cover the base of the pastry with onion marmalade – you may not need all of it. Keep the rest to serve with your favourite pate.
8. Dot the cheese randomly over the onions.
9. Mix the eggs and cream and season with salt and pepper.
10. Pour the egg mix over the onion and cheese.
11. Bake for around 20 minutes or until egg is set and golden.
12. Allow to rest for at least 15 minutes before serving.

The origins of this simple Sicilian staple take us back to around 1000A.D, when the Kalbids ruled Sicily as a Shia Muslim dynasty. At this time Sicily was an important island economically, being the gateway to Europe for Northern Africa, and it was during this period that the muslims introduced lemons, Seville oranges and sugar cane.

Resembling an orange, both in colour and shape, arancine or arancini are distinctly Sicilian. Arancia is Italian for orange with arancici being Italian for little orange. There are other versions such as the supli from Rome which is also made from rice with a filling of mozzarella and tomato sauce and then crumbed and fried. In some parts of Sicily arancine are often cone-shaped.

To keep it simple, we make a slightly undercooked risotto and put a tasty filling in the centre. After that we crumb it and deep-fry. The filling can be practically anything you want. The classics include flavours such as ragu (bolognaise sauce to us plebs), mozzarella and basil or even sauteed wild mushrooms.

1 medium onion or 2 shallots – finely diced

2 Tablespoons olive oil

250g Arborio, carnaroli or vialone nano rice

250ml white wine

350ml chicken or vegetable stock

40g freshly grated parmesan cheeseSalt and pepper to taste

75g ham – shredded

100g buffalo mozzarella – chopped

10g fresh basil – shredded

2 Cups flour

2 eggs

200ml milk

250g breadcrumbs

1. Heat the oil in a wide-bottom pan over a low heat.
2. Add the diced onion and sweat gently without colour, stirring regularly, for around 5 minutes or until onions are soft and starting to sweeten.
3. Add the rice and sauté gently for 1 minute.
4. Add the wine and stir until absorbed.
5. Add the stock and continue stirring over a low until absorbed.
6. Remove from the heat and add the parmesan cheese.
7. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
8. Leave to cool.
9. Mix the ham, mozzarella and basil.
10. Flatten the cooled rice in the palm of one hand.
11. Put 1 tablespoon of the filling in the centre of the rice and form the rice around the filling. Mould the rice into nice ball.
12. Mix the egg and milk.
13. Roll the rice in the flour, then dip into the egg mix, then roll in the breadcrumbs.
14. Deep-fry in hot oil (around 180°C) until nice and golden. Test the core temperature by inserting a sharp knife. If the arancine is not hot to the core, finish in a hot oven.

Here’s a great recipe for using rhubarb. If you don’t have rhubarb then try using plums, summer stone fruit or even apple will work fine. The recipe may look like a big deal but each step is simple and the result is well worth the effort!

For the pastry:

250g flour

1g salt

150g butter

1 eggs – beaten

60g caster sugar

1. Sieve flour and salt together.

2. Rub in butter to give a granular texture.

3. Make a bay in centre, add the eggs and sugar and mix the ingredients into a light, smooth paste.

For the tart:

400g rhubarb

100g caster sugar

1 recipe sweet shortcrust pastry (or 350g if pre-made)

1 whole egg & 2 yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 Tablespoon flour

300ml cream

1. Cut the rhubarb into 1 inch pieces. Put in a pan over a low heat with half of the sugar. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat.
2. Roll out the pastry and line a fluted tart or flan tin, preferably with a removable bottom.
3. Blind-bake the tart base in the oven at 175C for around 15 minutes, remove baking beans and return to oven for a further 5 minutes.
4. Mix the remaining sugar with the eggs, vanilla and flour. Add the cream and the juice from the rhubarb.
5. Lay the rhubarb on the bottom of the pastry and pour the custard mix over the top.
6. Return the tart to the oven and increase the temperature to 190C.
7. Cook the tart for around 15-20 minutes, until the top of the custard is set. Top with the topping and return to the oven for a further 10-15 minutes, until the topping is golden and the custard is fully set.
8. Chill in the fridge until ready to eat.

For the topping:

50g melted butter

50g demerara sugar

50g rolled oats

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

1. Mix all the ingredients together.

The tagine vessel

Lucky us – we were given for Christmas a fantastic tagine, the traditional cooking dish from Morocco. Since we have such cold weather lately, I can’t think of a more warming dish than lamb tagine with dates, apricots and a bit of roast vegetable couscous on the side.

Tagines can be cooked on the stove-top or in the oven although if your tagine is ceramic and you are using gas burners it is recommended that you use a metal tray underneath to prevent it from cracking. If you have one of the modern tagines with a cast iron base you will be able to seal your meat at higher temperatures than with a ceramic tagine. The cone-shaped lid of the tagine is designed to collect the condensation produced during cooking which then runs back into the stew, keeping it nice and moist.

The ideal cuts of meat for tagines include lamb neck, shank or shoulder as well as chicken thighs and other inexpensive cuts. Ideal seasoning ingredients include apricots, dates, quince, apple, plums and more. Vegetable tagines can also be made successfully and can include aubergines, peppers, okra and pretty much anything else.

Sealing the meat

Tagine goes well with a side of freshly-made couscous. Simply toss some couscous with lemon juice and olive oil in a bowl, add enough boiling stock (I used lamb but chicken or vegetable is great) to cover and cover the bowl with clingfilm for ten minutes or so until the couscous is nice and plump. Fluff up the couscous with a fork and add some fresh mint, coriander and a little parsley. If you have some leftover roasted vegetables or some dried apricots and almonds, these will top it off to perfection!

Lamb Tagine

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

½ teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

1 tablespoon paprika

¾ tablespoon ground ginger

½ tablespoon tumeric

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

600g shoulder of lamb, trimmed and cut into chunks

1 ½ medium onions – grated

2 tablespoons rapeseed or argan oil (Moroccan oil from the argan tree – find in specialist shops)

2 cloves garlic, crushed

200ml tomato juice

400g tinned chopped tomatoes

60g dried apricots cut in ½

30g dates – cut in ½

30g sultanas or raisins

50g flaked almonds

½ tsp saffron stamens, soaked in cold water

200ml lamb or beef stock

½ tablespoon clear honey

½ tablespoon pomegranate molasses (optional)

1 tablespoon coriander – roughly chopped

1 tablespoon flat-leaf parsley – roughly chopped

1. Place cayenne, pepper, paprika, ginger, tumeric and cinnamon into a small bowl and mix to combine. Place the lamb into a large bowl and toss together with ½ the spice mix. Cover and leave overnight in the fridge.
2. Heat the oil in a large saucepan or tagine dish – I used a cast iron tagine pan but this recipe works very well in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add the grated onion and remaining spice mix and cook over a gentle heat for 10 minutes so that the onions are soft but not coloured. Add the crushed garlic for the final 3 minutes.
3. Add the lamb to the pan and cook until coloured on all sides. De-glaze the pan with half of the tomato juice. Scrape the yummy flavours off the bottom with a wooden spoon or spatula.
4. Add the remaining tomato juice, chopped tomatoes, apricots, dates, sultanas, almonds, saffron, stock, honey and pomegranate molasses. Bring to the boil, cover with a fitting lid and cook over a low heat for 2-2 ½ hours or until the meat is meltingly tender. Taste and season with a little salt if desired.
5. Serve the lamb in a tagine dish or large serving dish and sprinkle over the chopped herbs.

The finished product!

Whenever I go back to New Zealand one of the first things I do is buy a pie. Not Mrs Macs or even a BP Zip pie. It has to be a pie from the local baker, where mum’s and workmen indulge in an everyday treat.

With Kiwis consuming an average fifteen pies per year (I make every effort to cram my quota into the 3 weeks I’m in NZ!) we know a good pie. In London you are more likely to eat a Cornish pastie than a meat pie as us Kiwis and Aussies know them but we are lucky to have some antipodean alternatives being Jumbucks in Shepherd’s Bush and Square Pie. One of the classic London dishes is ‘pie, mash and liquor’ (along with ‘jellied eels’) but it can be a bit hit and miss – I’ve had a few really good ones and one particularly terrible one from a ‘traditional’ pie shop in the East End.

Fear not, humble expat (and those back home). My mates in London enjoy a good pie, so here’s my recipe.

Enjoy!

This recipe will make as many pies as you like dependant, of course, on your mould. If you use a shallow muffin tin you will get heaps of mini pies, great for parties. You may be lucky enough to have some proper pie moulds – you should get at least 6. I used tin takeaway containers from my local catering supply store since they didn’t have real tins and I got 5 big ones from this recipe. You can also store them in the freezer in these containers. It may look a little daunting but it’s pretty easy – make the filling (a day in advance is a good idea) then make the pie. Sweet as!

Mince and Cheese Pies

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

2 medium onions

200g carrot

2 sticks celery

1 kg minced meat – beef, lamb, venison…your choice

2 bayleaves

1½ Tbsp tomato paste

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

500ml beef or lamb stock

1 cup frozen peas

2 Tbsp plain flour

Salt and pepper

Some yummy cheese

500g short pastry

500g puff pastry

1 egg and a dash of milk for the eggwash

1. Dice the onions, carrot and celery.
2. Heat the oil in a heavy-based pot.
3. Add the onions, carrot and celery and sauté over a medium-high heat until lightly golden.
4. Add the mince and break up with a wooden spoon. Stir until browned and broken up nice and small.
5. Add the bayleaves, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce and stock.
6. Mix well, reduce heat to a gentle simmer and cook for around one hour or so, stirring regularly until tender.
7. Add the peas and sprinkle the flour over the top of the sauce, mixing well.
8. Continue cooking a further 10 minutes until thickened.
9. Taste and season with the salt and pepper.
10. To assemble the pie, make sure the filling has cooled to room temperature.
11. Lightly grease your moulds.
12. Roll out your short pastry on a floured surface (after sprinkling with a bit more flour so the rolling pin doesn’t stick) and cut out slightly larger than your moulds, so you can line the interior right up the sides.
13. Put your filling in but don’t fill it completely. You need space for the cheese!
14. Top with a slice of cheese (Monteray Jack is nice, or maybe a bit of Port Salut).
15. Roll out the puff pastry the same way as the short pastry and cut out to fit the top of your pie.
16. Brush the edges of your top with eggwash and place egg-down over the pie.
17. Seal the edges with a fork dipped in flour (so it doesn’t stick) and trim with a knife.
18. Brush the pie top with eggwash, poke a few hole in the top with a knife to let the steam out when they cook.
19. Cook at 180 degrees celsius for around 20-40 minutes, depending on the size.
20. Eat.