FoodieChat

Last year for my birthday I was given (upon request ) the Ripailles French cookbook. It’s more of an anthology, filled with beautiful recipes divided into chapters such as meat, eggs, sugar, and with every classic French dish that we Aussies would know, and more.  So I tested one of my favourites. I’m not sure if it’s French, but it was yum! The lemon meringue pie.  It said it would take 30 minutes prep, and 30 minutes cooking, and I took around 30 minutes more than that.  3 processes.  The first - the pie crust. It’s richer due to the addition of almond meal. I just ground my own in the food processor.  However, I found that it needed extra water and an extra egg yolk as my mix was too dry and crumbly to mix.  Key trick is to chill the pie crust in the freezer first, and prick it with a fork too.

At the time it was chilling, I made the lemon curd. It didn’t make any difference to substitute half the butter for margarine. but you do need the full 3 lemons. It seems like alot but it’s not.  I had to add over 4 times the amount of cornflour though, to thicken it to spreading consistency.

As I chilled the curd in the fridge and let the tart case cool, I whipped the egg whites. I used a round tip nozzle to pipe it onto the pie.

So here’s the final product out of the oven.

So it’s a bit uneven coloured because of my grill. I’m sure if I had a blowtorch though it would have been fine.

Next time I might add more butter into the pastry as it was a bit hard, but overall, quite okay for a first attempt.  but there’s hundreds more recipes to try as well from that book! It’s an essential for your technical cooking collection as well as just to turn through with a cup of chocolat chaud!

OK so Masterchef has finished, all this free time now without TV to watch- what better to do than to test out the recipes! First up, the Aria chocolate tart.  I didn’t bother with the macarons, the sorbet or the chocolate glacage slick, but the tart seemed appealing enough.  So.. as you can see, my first attempt wasn’t exactly Masterchef quality, but it was ssooooo nice.  I made the mistake of lifting it off the tray before it had set, so I disturbed the top setting. And also you can see where I patched up the pastry which actually was quite crumbly. You do need to flour the board well to roll.

Definitely key tips are to let the pastry rest in the tin. And also, I halved the dough recipe and made one third of the filling recipe, which was enough for one tart and three mini tarts.  Cut with a heated knife to get a good edge.  Delicious strawberries! The recipe is found here: http://www.masterchef.com.au/aria-chocolate-tart.htm

Every year for the Sydney Festival, I like to try one of the Fast Festival Feasts where you get a main course and a glass of wine for $25.  This year, Wildfire, at the Overseas Passenger Terminal was the choice; where we had kingfish, with one scallop tortellini and romesco sauce. Great sauce, but sadly I think the fish had seen better days and was ready before our 6pm arrival.  Nevermind, we moved onto dessert.  A very interesting looking dessert menu, we decided upon the doughnut box, and the nougatine souffle, both $18.  The donut box was in fact 6 mini donut holes, which come with 3 test tubes and pipettes of sauce - raspberry, white chocolate, and chocolate, which you squeeze and inject into the donuts!  The donuts are covered in sugar and cinnamon and set in a pretty box with a shot glass of caramel and chocolate mousse.  Not too sweet which was good.

The souffle was the chef’s choice and was a good balance of light and airy whilst actually having a bit of substance - usually I find souffles like eating a cloud of nothing.  It came with a chocolate crackle type thing on top of an ice cream segment; and the same shot glass with a chocolate cigar in it. (more…)

A brilliant way to use excess carrots, these mini bit sized cupcakes will be a perfect addition to a high tea party or to surprise supper guests or even as part of a petit four! Good for the cholesterol conscious as it uses oil not butter.

 To make the icing just mix sugar, margarine and milk until almost sti ff but still mixable. Then pipe stars on top.

Here’s the recipe:  http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/carrot-cake-mini-cupcakes?autonomy_kw=carrot%20cupcake&rsc=header_9

For you homer simpsons out there who love donuts and maybe have a bit of resemblance to his figure as a result (hehehe), this is a great alternative. These donuts are not fried, but they are baked instead.  The sugar and cinnamon sticks to the outside by brushing melted butter (or low fat margarine) on the outside.  The only problem (which you may not see as a problem) is that you have to eat them straight out of the oven, they’re not good when they’re cold/leftover.  The recipe is in the August issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller Magazine, but they used an apple filling instead.