po·ta·to leek and ri·cot·ta pas·ty

pas·ty not past·y

I try to plan our week's meals. I also try to stick to the plan. Most of the time I do because it does make things easier, but sometimes the planned meal is exactly what we don't feel like eating. Last night was a case in point. I had thought that a nice Sunday night meal would be a salad followed by a pudding - a proper pudding with custard, you know. But come mid Sunday afternoon as the weather was getting cold all we wanted was something comforting, perhaps with pastry. Definitely with pastry.

We have got quite good lately at whipping up pies when we should have been having something more like a salad. But the beauty of things like this pasty is that the filling can be improvised with what you have on hand and pastry can always be made when you need it - of course there is flour and butter in the house!

Potato, Leek and Ricotta Pasty
Serves 4

Pastry
100g unsalted butter, cold
200g plain flour
A good pinch of salt
Ice cold water

Filling
500g potatoes, any type, peeled and cut into bite size chunks
3 large leeks
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
Olive oil
150g cheese, any type, but cheddar is good, grated
250g Perfect Italiano Original Ricotta
Nutmeg, freshly grated
Salt and pepper

To Finish
A beaten egg

First make your pastry by sifting the flour and salt into a bowl, grating the butter into the bowl and mixing it into the flour then adding enough ice cold water to make a dough. Wrap the dough and put into the fridge to rest while you make the filling.

Put the potatoes into cold water with a dash of salt, bring to the boil and cook until well done. Drain (saving the water for making bread) and leave to cool in a big bowl.

While the potatoes are cooking trim the leeks and slice into fairly thin rings and wash well. Melt the butter and a dash of olive oil in a heavy pan with a lid then add the leeks and cook over a medium low heat until very soft and starting to colour. Add to the bowl of potatoes.

Preheat your oven to 190°C.

Mix the grated cheese, Perfect Italiano Original Ricotta, nutmeg, and generous salt and pepper into the potato and leek.

Roll the pastry out to a large rectangle and heap the filling down the middle long ways. brush the edges with a wee bit of water then bring the edges to the top along the filling and press well the seal then fold over and crimp prettily. Place on a metal baking sheet lined with baking paper and brush with the beaten egg. Place in preheated oven and bake for 40 minutes or until looking lovely and golden.

Cut into slices to serve. Enjoy!

And if you did still want that salad you can always have it along side . . .

lorne sau·sage

Roll on sausage has been our Christmas morning tradition for many years now. Eaten while we all open our stockings, it is the best kind of breakfast to nibble on while your hands are busy pulling off paper and sipping Champagne. The only changes we are going to make this year is to eat the roll on sausage with wheat beer as well as Champagne, but more importantly perhaps, we have made the lorne sausage ourselves.

Lorne sausage is a Scottish speciality. Instead of the sausage mixture being encased in sausage skins like sausage links, lorne sausage is a square, sliced sausage that fits perfectly in a morning roll or between two slices of bread. The sausage meat is made and then packed into a cling-film lined loaf tin and chilled in the freezer until it is set, but not frozen, then unmolded and sliced. The mixture itself is fairly spicy ; spicy with pepper, nutmeg and a bit of ground coriander. I always think it slightly strange that a traditional Scottish food should be spicy, but like a good peppery haggis, lorne sausage is indeed fairly spicy. HP sauce is the perfect accompaniment with the sweetness of the sauce going so well with the spiciness of the lorne sausage.

G is Scottish, and we really like this tradition that brings some his heritage to this, the other, side of the world at Christmas.

Lorne Sausage
makes 14 good slices

2kg of meat, half pork and half beef, with 20% fat, either from fatty pork belly or pork back fat, minced
1 1/2 cups fine bread crumbs, I used matzo meal
1 cup oatmeal
1 t ground white pepper
1 t ground black pepper
2 t freshly grated nutmeg
3 t ground coriander
3 t salt
1 cup of water

Mix everything together thoroughly. Fry a little of the mixture to check the seasoning.
Pack firmly into a plastic lined loaf tin, and chill in the freezer until it is set, but not frozen, about 45 minutes.
Carefully remove from the loaf tin and slice into 1-1.5cm slices.
If you want to freeze for later, perhaps Christmas morning, lay the slices on a plastic lines baking tray and freeze, bagging up once frozen.
To cook the lorne sausage, allow to thaw if frozen, then fry in a little oil or BBQ!
Serve in a soft roll for roll on sausage or between two slices of soft white bread for piece with sausage! Adding some HP sauce to complement the spiciness of the lorne sausage for a perfect breakfast.

Check Morsels and Musings for other Festive Food Fair fare.

roast pork

Crackling crackling and I am the only one except Nico the dog who will eat it!  Luck!

We received a share in a pig on Friday and I have been looking forward roasting my part of the leg since it arrived!  We ordered the pork from www.longbushpork.co.nz which is local and rather well looked after.  I also asked the butcher for the fat to render (glorious lard coming up!), the snout for Nico the dog and all the other parts I could imagine!  Hams, sausages and gammon are arriving next week . . . I can't wait for the black bean soup made from the gammon-cooked-in-coca-cola-stock!

My piece of leg to roast weighed in at 2.1kg so I used the H-F-W formula of 20 minutes sizzle, plus 25 minutes per 500g and a half hour rest to calculate this schedule for our Sunday Roast :

The day before make rub by mashing together olive oil, bay leaves, garlic and salt and pepper and apply to pork and leave uncovered in fridge to ensure nice dry skin, leading to crackly crackling.
8am take pork out of fridge to come to room temperature
8.30am turn oven on to preheat to 220°C
9.25am put pork in oven
9.45am turn oven down to 160°C and cook pork for 1 3/4 hours. Peel and cut potatoes into egg size chunks, par boil for 8 minutes in salted water, drain and shake in pan to fluff then put on a plate to cool.  Peel parsnips  and cut into large chunks, toss in an oven dish with olive oil, maple syrup, salt and pepper then dot with butter.  Peel Brussels sprouts and put in steamer pan with some water. Peel and slice apples and put in a pan with a splash of water on a medium heat to turn into sauce.
10.45am Put a pan with some of the pork fat from the joint into heat for the potatoes.
11am put potatoes and parsnips in oven, stir and fluff apples.
11.30am take pork out to rest on a plate, remove crackling to a baking sheet and cover meat with a metal bowl.  Turn oven up to 200°C.  Turn over potatoes and stir parsnips.  Drain fat from roasting pan and make gravy by deglazing with some kind of alcohol and adding water and seasoning to suit.
11.45am Turn water on under Brussels sprouts, and put crackling in oven to reheat.
12noon have lunch!

ku·ma·ra and chick·pea frit·ters

Mmmm, crispy, cheesey vegetable goodness!

Last night we had baked kumara with steak and an awesome brussel sprout and cavalo nero dish as recommended specified by our friend Rachel.  However since I had decided to bake all the kumara in our possession so we could have them later there were three left.  I knew this wouldn't be a problem!  So tonight, with nothing much else left in the fridge we conjured up some fritters!  Hooray!  Past pie, nothing is better than a fritter.

Kumara and chickpea frittersserves 3
Left over baked kumara, perhaps 3
1/4 cup grated parmesan, plus the same agin for coating
1 tablespoon flour
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
1 400g can drained chickpeas
sal and pepper
olive oil
Preheat the oven to 180°c.
Squish all the ingredients together, bar the olive oil.  Form into patty shapes and roll in the coating parmesan.  Bake for 30 minutes sprinkled with olive oil.  Serve with your favourite sauce!

Oven Roasted Vegetable Curry

Who needs crushed beetils when you have beetroot?

 Happy New Year!  

For an auspicious start to 2011 try a vegetable curry : easy, healthy, fast and delicious.  All good resolutions.  I saw a recipe ages ago for a roasted vegetable curry (Sorry, I know not where) and made it with the idea in mind but not the recipe in sight.  Isn't that the best way?  I remembered the recipe because I thought it such a good idea to roast the vegetables to concentrate the flavours then add the sauce, so I took it further and continued to cook the sauce and finish the dish in the oven.  So easy, so good.

Oven Roasted Vegetable Curry
Serves at least 4 - depending on the vegetable volume

A selection of vegetables, cleaned, trimmed and cut into generous bite size pieces, approximately 1 cup per person, including :
Beetroot - very important for the colour!
Potato
Kumara
Courgettes
Carrots
Pumpkin
Aubergine
Capsicum
Onions
Cauliflower
Broccoli

Oil
Ground cumin, 1 Teaspoon
Ground coriander, 1 Teaspoon
Ground turmeric, 1/2 Teaspoon
Ground fenugreek, 1/2 Teaspoon
1 fresh hot red chilli, chopped
Garlic, 4 crushed cloves
Fresh Ginger, grated to give a tablespoon of pulp
A Cassia stick

400g jar tomato passata
165mL can coconut milk

Coriander leaves for serving
Plain boiled rice for serving

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Toss the harder vegetables (beetroot, potato, kumara, onions, carrots, pumpkin etc) in the oil and spices in a large roasting dish and roast for 20 minutes.
Add any softer vegetables (courgette, aubergine, cauliflower, broccoli etc), mixing well, and roast for another 20 minutes.
Toss all the vegetables again and cook for longer if they are not soft and caramelising at the edges. If the vegetables are soft and caramelising at the edges then stir in the tomato passata and coconut milk and cook until the sauce is simmering, slightly reduced and gorgeous - not long! Season to taste and serve on the rice with the coriander leaves on top.

Waldorf Salad

Waldorf Salad was created by the maître d’ of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City in the closing decades of the Nineteenth Century. First made with only apples, celery and mayonnaise, walnuts were added later but are now very much a traditional part of this easy salad.

"Waldorf Salad" was also the title of an episode of Fawlty Towers in which Basil Fawlty was unable to serve a guest his requested Waldorf Salad.
"I think we're just out of Waldorfs."
Basil says, then asks :
"What is a Waldorf anyway, a walnut that's gone off?".

So make sure you get lovely fresh New Zealand walnuts.

I like to mix half yogurt and half mayonnaise to make the dressing. Not so much for health reasons but rather to reduce the cloying-ness of a mayonnaise only dressing. Try half yogurt and half mayonnaise for coleslaw too. Also, I like to use white pepper as it looks nicer!

The ingredients are celery, apples, grapes or raisins and walnuts, with a yogurt-mayonnaise dressing, all served on lettuce. Apples are not strictly in season at the moment, but there are still nice ones to be found. A nice variation can be made with celeriac and pears, a Waldorf Remoulade if you will, and finely sliced fennel can be a nice addition when you have some.

Waldorf Salad

Serves 2

2 Tablespoons yogurt

2 Tablespoons mayonnaise
A squeeze of lemon
Salt
White pepper
1 Apple, chopped

½ Cup celery, finely sliced

¼ Cup raisins or ½ Cup grapes

½ Cup walnuts, chopped

Lettuce leaves

Mix the yogurt, mayonnaise, lemon and salt and pepper together for the dressing then stir through the salad ingredients. Serve the Waldorf Salad on top of some pretty lettuce leaves.

waf·fles

Dimples!

I have been wanting a waffle maker for quite a while now, and I finally gave in. I thought (correctly!) that M, our one year old daughter would love them. And, surprisingly, waffles are a quick, easy and social breakfast for a Sunday morning. Social providing there is a plug near your dining room table.

Our plan of attack is to preheat the waffle iron in the kitchen while making the batter then moving the now hot waffle iron to the dining room once M is safely strapped into her high chair. Then open, pour, shut, cook, remove, cool and hand to M to feed herself while we repeat and indulge ourselves. Not such a long delay and since everything is happening at the table no distracting of a small child is even necessary!

I also have streamlined the batter preparation because I only have one set of beaters for my electric whisk ; we all know the order beating the egg whites and the rest of the batter has to done before folding together.

Waffles
Makes about 5, enough for 2 adults, 1 child plus some left over to freeze and reheat in the toaster for a quick snack.

1/4 cup of butter, melted
A scant cup of standard flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
a pinch of salt
2 small egg yolks
A scant cup of buttermilk
2 egg whites

Melt the butter, but only just, then leave to cool. Separate the eggs and put the yolks in a big bowl and add the the flour, baking powder and salt. With the clean beaters, beat the egg whites until stiff then with the same beaters mix the egg yolk and flour mixture adding the melted butter. Fold a third of the egg whites into the batter then gently fold in the rest. For best results use a metal spoon, but no one seems to particularly notice if I use the spatula!
Pour about 1/2 cup at a time into a preheated waffle iron. You will need to work out how hot your waffle iron should be but I set ours to about 10 o'clock, if you know what I mean!
I don't grease our waffle iron, but it is a new non stick version, so if yours is in need of greasing melt a little more butter in the first step then brush the iron lightly as required.
Serve with maple syrup. And enjoy your Sunday morning!