A bastardised pumpkin recipe

My first was an accident, a mishap, the result of unintentional volunteer seed spreading through unprotected contact. A certain somebody had thoughtfully deposited half of a mouldy supermarket pumpkin into the compost heap which, much to my annoyance, somehow lodged itself onto the prongs of my garden fork every time I turned the heap. After much cursing, It eventually disintegrated and I spread the compost around the base of my chilli plants as mulch. At this very moment, I had become the unwitting propagator of pumpkins.

The Chinese lady next door told me that pumpkins are ready to harvest once the white splotches turn a yellow, creamy colour. My dad the self-proclaimed 'expert' confirmed this but failed to mention that pumpkins require a few weeks to cure before eating. So excited about picking pumpkins was I, that I cracked one open immediately and made a big batch of soup that tasted like total ASS.

I thought I'd done something terribly wrong. Maybe pumpkins and chillies are not fitting companion plants and are instead, bitter instigators. Maybe pumpkins DETEST being watered with seaweed emulsion. I was full of self-doubt and loathing and distasteful pumpkin. I wept silently while the pile of pumpkins slowly grew.

A friend of mine offered me a copy of Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi after inadvertently ordering one too many online. When I chanced upon the recipe for 'Crusted pumpkin wedges with soured cream', the pumpkins too received a second chance, lest I be left with a mouldy collection as a permanent reminder of inadvertent mistakes. 


Parmesan-crusted pumpkin wedges with yoghurt
a recipe adapted and completely bastardised from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi

750 g pumpkin (skin on)
40 g Parmesan, finely grated
30 g white breadcrumbs
25 g unsalted butter, melted
26 g black Tuscan kale leaves, roughly chopped
7 g garlic, finely grated
3 g thyme leaves
1 1/2 g black pepper, coarsely ground
2 g salt
1 g ground cumin
1 g ground nutmeg
50 g olive oil

Cut the pumpkin into wedges 2cm thick.
Toss with olive oil to coat and arrange onto a tray lined with baking paper.
Bake for 20 minutes at 180ºC.
Toss all of the remaining ingredients together and press firmly onto the sliced pumpkin.
Return to oven for an additional 30 minutes until the pumpkin is cooked through and crust is golden.
Serve with a zesty natural or European style yoghurt.

Hooray For Spring!

Spring has well and truly sprung and before the official commencement of summer it's best that we take full advantage of all the glories that the season has to offer us right now. Buckets of rain and loads of sunshine mean that domestic herds have finally stopped chewing on old winter hay and moved onto the new lush Spring growth that's creeping up the hillsides. With a sharper flavour and lower fat content than bovine milk, goat's milk carries strong aromas of grass and flora. I don't need much more convincing and as the saying goes, 'There's no better time than the present!'

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This is quite a simple recipe but a good one all the same. Tangy berries and biscuity base are matched with all things dairy for a sumptuous Spring treat. Fresh goat's curd is mellowed with rich cream, offset by the sharpness of fruit and ice cream with just a hint of honey.

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Raspberry Ice Cream

210 g milk
35 g honey
3 g salt
5 egg yolks
40 g castor sugar
210 g cream
70 g raspberries

Scald milk, honey and salt in a medium saucepan.

Whisk eggs and sugar in a large bowl until creamed.

Temper eggs with milk by pouring milk in slowly and whisking continuously.

Cook in a large bowl over a baine-marie until it reaches the nappe stage (84ºC), stirring continuously with a large spatula.

Strain, add cream and raspberries.

Refrigerate until cold then churn in an ice cream machine.

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Tart Pastry

280 g flour
70 g castor sugar
4 g salt
140 g unsalted butter, chopped
115 g cream
1 egg white

In a large bowl rub together the flour, sugar, salt and butter.

Stir through the cream and knead until it comes together.

Shape into a flattened circle, wrap and refrigerate until cold.

Roll out the dough to 2.5 - 3mm thickness.
Trim to fit a 20cm diameter fluted tart pan.
Pierce base with a small sharp knife and freeze until completely set.
Blind bake at 180ºC for 10 - 15 mins.
Remove weights, rotate pan and continue baking until golden.
Lightly beat egg white and brush to coat the inside of the tart pastry.
Return to the oven for 1 minute until dry then remove to a rack to cool.

Goat's Curd Filling

200 g goat's curd
100 g cream
2 eggs
55 g castor sugar
2 g salt
1 lemon, finely zested
30 g lemon juice

Whisk all ingredients together and pour into the cool tart pastry.
Bake at 150ºC for 25 minutes or until just set.
Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack before slicing.
Serve with a scoop of ice cream and a generous scattering of fresh berries.

Porky Pig Pasta

I've been so behind with my blog this month that I just don't know where to start. I've missed a few Culinarty: Original Recipe Round-ups and it's starting to make me feel guilty. In real time my plate of spaghetti would be covered in fluffy green mould considering how many weeks ago I actually cooked it.
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Gee.. I'm not even sure what to call this. I'll be totally original here and name it porky pig pasta.
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The breadcrumbs I used were el cheapo tipo de Coles. Looking through the ingredients list I was a little confused after seeing fish. An email to Coles quickly cleared that up.

Thank you for your email regarding the Coles Bread crumbs and the ingredients.

Our Quality Control Department have advised that we add tuna to increase the Omega 3 content in bread.

We trust this information has been of assistance to you. Feedback from our customers is important information that assists us to maintain our high standards.

Anyway, moving on to the recipe for..
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Totally Original Porky Pig Pasta

100 g spaghetti no.3
5 g dried porcini mushroom slices
100 g boiling water
5 g veg oil
42 g smoked speck, rind removed and diced
20 g unsalted butter
3 g garlic, sliced
10 g breadcrumbs
3 g lemon juice
4 g Parmesan, grated

Rinse porcini slices in cold water and drain.
Place in a small bowl and pour over boiling water. Allow to soak for 20 minutes. Drain, reserving liquid.
Cook spaghetti in a large pot of salted water.
Heat oil over medium heat.
Saute smoked speck for a minute.
Add porcini mushrooms and cook until speck is beginning to crisp.
Add 10 g of butter, garlic and breadcrumbs and continue cooking until breadcrumbs are crisp.
Remove all ingredients and deglaze pan with reserved porcini liquid.
Add lemon juice, remaining butter and cooked pasta.
Toss until butter has melted then toss through breadcrumbs and grated Parmesan.

They're Going Like Hotcakes!

noun 1. hotcake - pancakes, flapjacks and griddlecakes; a type of flatbread prepared from a sweet batter that is cooked on a hot griddle or in a frying pan. They exist in several variations in many different local cuisines. Most pancakes are quick breads, although some are also made using a yeast-raised or fermented batter.

I walk past Bill Granger's self-titled cafe in Surry Hills every day. It's always bustling with hip young locals dressed to the nines, hoping to satisfy their mid-morning caffeine cravings, to fill up on luscious cream-laden scrambled eggs or perhaps snack on a slice of cake of the day. The coffee can be a downright disappointment sometimes depending on who serves you but there is one thing that shines like a beacon of light, which may very well have brought this gaily dressed self-taught cook into the spotlight along with a plateful of scrambled eggs. For 'The Bread Mania' event, Bill Granger's ricotta hotcakes done instead with a smoother substitute - cottage cheese, and drizzled with rosemary red currant jam.
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Rosemary Red Currant Jam

100 g red currants
65 g castor sugar
8 rosemary leaves
20 g water

Combine everything in a small pot and simmer over low heat until thickened.

Cottage Cheese Hotcakes

160 g cottage cheese
2 g sea salt
95 g milk
2 eggs, separated
65 g flour
2 g baking powder
30 g unsalted butter, soft

Whisk cottage cheese, salt, milk and egg yolks in a bowl.
Sift flour and baking powder into the cottage cheese.
Fold until just combined.
Whisk egg whites until stiff and fold into batter.
Brush a little butter into a heated pan and drop 2 Tbsp batter into the centre.
Cook over low-medium heat for a minute or two until golden then flip and repeat.
Keep hotcakes warm in the oven or under some foil until you finish.
Serve with rosemary red currant jam, a dollop of cottage cheese and a scant dusting of icing sugar.

Real Food

".. Cauliflowers are cauliflowers only during the warm months.
Winter-hardy cauliflowers are more likely to be a type of broccoli,
rated as tougher than true cauliflowers .."
Bob Flowerdew, The Gourmet Gardener

Summer seems to be a bit of a puzzle this year. With raging bushfires one day and torrential flooding the next, a little comfort food in this surprisingly damp weather would doubtless not go astray. Cauliflower and cheese, a bite of pepper and dash of mustard just for perks. A thick and creamy soup that drinks like a warm embrace. One that wraps itself around you tightly and says "I'm never letting go". Does anyone else find that line too cheesy? Never fear, cauliflower and cheese go together like old friends. Take for instance the British dish - cauliflower cheese. I don't think it needs any more elaboration than that.
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Cauliflower is cheap this time of year and it helps the hip pocket to be 'Eating with the Seasons', especially in times such as these when one in five workers fear losing their job and the hospitality industry sits on the brink of turmoil. I have to say, I find it a little hypocritical that Suze Orman came out of the closet only to tell people to stop eating out (har har!). Moving on, cheddar cheese is choice for melting. I chopped up 30 g of cheddar to the consistency of fine breadcrumbs, sprinkled it into four 6 cm circles on some non-stick baking paper on a heavy steel baking sheet, gave them a good crack of black pepper and popped them in the oven for roughly 8 minutes at 180ºC. I removed them when they had coloured up nicely and become firm and crisp to the touch and served them with the soup, alongside a few good, thick slices of toasted soy and linseed bread from Sonoma. If it's to your taste, you could add a dash of Tabasco or Worcestershire and a small pot of mustard or horseradish cream to slather onto your bread before dipping.

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Cauliflower Soup

15 g unsalted butter
100 g (1 small) brown onion, finely chopped
8 g (4 cloves) garlic, minced
5 g maldon sea salt
200 g (1 small head) cauliflower, florets only
10 g hot English mustard
320 g milk
8 g fish sauce
40 g cheddar cheese, grated

Melt the butter in a small saucepan and toss in the onion, garlic and salt.

Saute over medium heat for about 5 minutes then add everything but for the cheese.

Cover and let it barely simmer for 40 minutes then add the cheese, a few cracks of black pepper or cumin and wizz it all up in a blender.

Serve hot with thickly sliced and toasted bread for mopping up the bowl with.

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Mmm.. CAKE!

I came across a product last week whilst browsing through the dairy section at Woolworths. It's called Jalna BioDynamic yoghurt and it's a lovely, light and slightly tangy organically produced whole milk yoghurt. I recently flicked through a friend's book called Decadence: Desserts by Philip Johnson which is a wonderful collection of dessert recipes ranging from the traditional steamed lemon pudding and sachertorte to blood orange & almond cakes and mandarin jelly tart. All recipes appear in metric as standard which I absolutely adore.

With biodynamic yoghurt in one hand and scrawled recipe for crustless cheesecake in the other, I thought I'd try making a gluten-free biodynamic yoghurt cheesecake with a combination of quinoa flour and potato starch, matching the nutiness of quinoa with a sprinkling of black sesame seed nougatine. It turned out beautifully light and tender and oh so satisfying. It is a bashfully simple cheesecake recipe to share with family and friends of Culinarty: ORR!

BioDynamic Yoghurt Cheesecake

500 g BioDynamic Jalna yoghurt
225 g mascarpone
125 castor sugar
20 g pure icing sugar
6 g vanilla extract
2 g salt
2 whole eggs (55 g each)
4 yolks (74 g)
30 g quinoa flour
10 g potato starch

Butter and sugar an 8" springform tin.

Line with 2 sheets of foil to prevent any leakage and place in a large roasting tray.

Whisk together yoghurt, mascarpone, sugars, vanilla and salt in a large bowl.

Whisk in eggs one at a time until well combined.

Combine quinoa flour and potato starch in a small bowl.

Mix in a few tablespoons of yoghurt mix to form a smooth paste then add together.

Whisk to combine thoroughly.

Pour batter into tin and pour enough boiling water into the roasting tray to fill halfway.

Bake at 180ºC for 40 minutes, turning halfway.

Remove foil and allow to cool in oven.

Refrigerate overnight before serving.

Katy Perry Eat Your Heart Out

Cherries are coming into season now. The heady floral scent of ripe organic cherries entices me to take a handful home. I always equate cherries with summer. As a child, I would sit at the kitchen table in checkered shorts and singlet, watching my mother prepare dinner for us in the sweltering heat. All the while, deliciously cold black cherries would be disappearing between my lips with nothing but the pits and stems as proof.

To assist with the birthday celebrations of My Diverse Kitchen I've made cherry cakes, an adaptation of fairy cakes from 'Kylie Kwong Recipes & Stories'. I substituted part of the butter content for cream cheese, added a touch of rose water to enhance the perfume and lowered the cooking temperature for some super simple, super scumptious party food!

Cherry Cheese Cupcakes

400 g small black cherries
150 g unsalted butter, soft
110 g cream cheese, soft
190 g castor sugar
2 eggs
340 g self-raising flour
250 g milk
5 g vanilla extract
1 g rose water

Pit cherries, leaving about 25 intact.
Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar until pale.
Add eggs one at a time then alternate adding remaining dry and wet ingredients.
Spoon a tsp of batter into the bottom of 25 cupcake patties.
Place 3 pitted cherries on top, 3/4 Tbsp of batter then a whole cherry in the centre of each.
Bake at 180ºC for 17 minutes.

A Little Flaky.. Pastry That Is!

It seems to me that every successful and thriving restaurant I have worked at so far caters for private canape functions. I've made pies, sushi, spring rolls, chocolate truffles, an assortment of tartlets, spoonfuls of pearl ceviche, teeny tiny wagyu crostinis with truffle aioli and microherbs - each placed exactly parallel to its neighbour, and now i can add mini crispy fish wontons to my repertoire.

2 coffees, 6 and a half hours, 10 trays and 500 mini fish wontons later I swore never again. It takes such an incredible amount of willpower to stay focused on each deliberate fold and turn that what normally seems easy and fun in small doses becomes an exasperating and mind-numbing job.

I began the day by sorting through 8 kilos of Flathead, pin-boning, dicing, drying, and all the while running in and out of the cool room to keep everything as cold as possible. Then I had to turn all the diced up fish into a giant wonton mix with finely chopped ginger, coriander roots and shallots. By the end of it I though I was going to snap. I was starving, my eyes were watering and my apron pockets were filled with crusty lumps of flour. All I wanted was some normal comfort food.

I had planned to make apple pie on my day off. Of course, that didn't quite happen and to shake things up a little with my favourite traditional home bake, I added a few small tweaks here and there. Apple seems to be a convenient vehicle to use when wanting to convey other flavours. Last week I dabbled with candied chillies and chilli caramel so I thought to follow suit with chilli sugar.

With savoury dishes, chilli is often found balanced with the presence of dairy, whether it be yoghurt, milk or cream. I began with the idea of a pie but it soon transformed into small bite-sized tarts as I quickly tired of the idea of struggling with a fancy pie lid on top of it all. Eventually, and after much internal conflict, I decided upon chilli apple tarts with basil mascarpone, drizzled with a little chilli caramel.

According to a bounty of hot versus cold infusion experiments by Alice Medrich "Each sample was good in the hot infusion, but spectacular in the cold. Cold cream coaxed forth the high notes and the floral flavors; hot cream produced more earthy vegetal notes.. once the infused materials (leaves, petals, etc.) were spent and discarded, the infused cream could then, if necessary, be heated (to make ganache, for example) without damaging its exquisite flavor." so of course for my first submission to Art You Eat I just had to attempt the cold-infusion method, combining milk and basil which I later used to make a pastry cream.

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Flaky Pastry

455 g flour
300 g unsalted butter
2 heaped Tbsp icing sugar
5 g salt
150 ml water, chilled

Sift together the flour, sugar, salt and spread onto the work bench in a rectangular fashion.

Chop or grate butter and spread over the top.

Cut with pastry knife until lumpy.

Make a well in the centre and add chilled water.

Mix gently with a fork from the centre outwards until it becomes a shaggy mass.

Roll and turn 3 or 4 times.

Wrap tightly and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Roll to fit tart shells and freeze until firm.

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Apple Pie Mix

4 cooking apples
1 lemon, zest and juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp apple glaze
3 Tbsp castor sugar
50 g unsalted butter

Peel, core and roughly chop apples.

Toss in lemon juice, drain and place in a pot.

Add remaining ingredients and cook, stirring until lightly caramelised.

Set aside to cool.

Stir through chilli sugar to taste.

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Chilli Sugar

1 Tbsp dried chilli flakes
3 Tbsp castor sugar

Combine in a mortar and pestle and grind until it becomes a powder.

Sift and discard seeds.

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Basil Mascarpone

200 g milk
1 C. packed basil leaves
1 Tbsp icing sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tsp cornflour
5 g salt
25 g unsalted butter
150 g mascarpone
1 egg white

Tear up basil leaves and submerse in milk.

Refrigerate for half an hour, stirring every now and again.

Cream yolks, sugar, salt and cornflour in a medium bowl.

Strain milk into yolk mix, discarding basil.

Whisk all to combine and pour into a small pot.

Bring to a simmer to thicken, stirring continuously with a spatula.

Remove from heat and stir in butter.

Refrigerate until cool then combine with mascarpone and egg white until smooth.

Half fill frozen pastry cases with apple mix and bake at 200ºC for 25-30 mins or until crisp.

Cover apples with paper if they begin to darken.

Fill to the top with basil mascarpone and bake for additional 3-5 minutes.

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Tastes Better Cold

Citrus are typically winter fruit. That's right all you 'Eating with the Seasons' readers - it's winter here! So it may have technically ended a few days ago but it darn well still feels like it! If not for a small handful of cherry blossoms colouring my street, I doubt I would have noticed the change in season. With the end of high quality citrus looming, a tin of coconut milk in the pantry and a cake recipe I jotted down on a scrap piece of paper 6 months ago from god only knows where, I thought I'd take the opportunity to be a little crafty.

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I thought about coconut cake. My mind began to wander off onto other very much unsavoury things so I did a quick search on cakes - coconut layer cake, traditional coconut cake, coconut cake from the Midwest, coconut cake layered with lemon curd, coconut cake smothered in buttercream and dessicated coconut..

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I gave up on my search for inspiration. You know, I've always had a slight fear of making cheesecake, ever since my InterContinental Hotel trainee days where I once found myself up to my armpits in cream cheese, desperately trying to scrape the bottom of a humongous Hobart mixer with a tiny little pastry card that seemed ridiculously minuscule for the task at hand. Admittedly, I don't have the patience to watch anything that takes longer than half an hour in my crappy home oven that tends to burn everything near the fan.

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Sitting in the shower, I finally decided on a deconstructed sort of cheesecake. I'd make little muffin-sized coconut cakes with erm.. ahh.. hmmm.. crushed cookie cream cheese and blood orange curd! This mysterious cake recipe includes milk or buttermilk which I planned to substitute with my tin of thick coconut milk.

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Well, as my fortune usually goes, when I went shopping at 11:40pm after work, the only citrus I was presented with were 'Murcott' mandarins (the giant sort) but no matter. Ginger Snap cookies were on sale so I grabbed a box (ginger and citrus seem to go together well so why not?) along with a bagful of fresh ginger roots.

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Candied Ginger

250 g ginger, peeled
500 g castor sugar
500 ml water

Slice ginger roots into matchstick-sized pieces.

Combine all ingredients in a small pot and bring to the boil.

Once it becomes syrupy, reduce to a simmer and continue cooking until all ginger pieces are translucent.

Be warned: the whole process may take upwards of an hour.

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Murcott Mandarin Curd

600 ml Murcott mandarin juice
4 egg yolks
2 Tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp cornflour
pinch of salt
50 g unsalted butter

Boil mandarin juice in a small pot until reduced by half.

Combine yolks, sugar, cornflour and salt in a bowl and whisk together.

Slowly pour hot mandarin juice into the egg mix, whisking continuously.

Pour into the pot and bring to the simmer, stirring continuously with a spatula.

When thickened, remove from heat and add butter.

Whisk until combined and refrigerate until cold.

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Crushed Cookie 'Cheesecake'

250 g cream cheese, soft
150 g unsalted butter, soft
100 g icing sugar
3 Tbsp ginger snap cookies, crushed
1 tsp butterscotch schnapps
pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients in a mixer and leave at room temperature until ready to use.

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Mystery Coconut Cake

100 g ginger snap cookies, finely crushed
250 g SR flour
1 tsp salt
300 g castor sugar
120 g unsalted butter, soft + extra
for brushing
2 Murcott mandarins, zest
4 egg whites
400 ml coconut milk

Preheat oven to 170ºC, spray and line a tray with non-stick baking paper.

Brush 8 heatproof aluminium/ stainless steel rings with soft butter and coat with crushed cookies.

Sift flour into a large bowl.

Cream butter, sugar and zest with an electric mixer.

Add egg whites one by one, mixing thoroughly.

Stir in coconut milk then fold in flour.

Pour into rings and bake for 25 mins or until cooked through.

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You Drive Me Crazy.. Oops I Did It Again

I've resigned, and it's about time too. This job has been slowly driving me ever so close to teetering on the proverbial brink of insanity. Every single day consists of the same routine. I get up at half past 7, shower, run to the station, ride the train into the city, work from 10 in the morning until 11 at night, go home, sleep and get up again. 5 days a week, sometimes 6. The people I work with.. God don't even get me started! I don't work my ass off so those lazy bums can go out for smoke breaks every 20 minutes. I refuse to respect chefs regardless of skill (or in this case lack thereof) if they cannot give others the same respect and I certainly will not share my recipes with a boss who has never ever bothered to say a simple thank you for all the extra work that we've put in for him.

The season is upon us and it is worse than ever. I tried to deep-fry my chewing gum the other day. I'm wishing now that it was someone's face. Honestly though, I don't know why. It's absolutely riveting when the restaurant is only at half capacity on a Friday night, sport or no sport on telly.

When you think about it, everything can be thrown in the deep-fryer one way or another. The quantity of hot oil in which items are submerged in completely envelops all surfaces to the same degree and provides the most even form of cooking. Of course, depending on what you would consider to be a successful result, the thermostat would have to be adjusted accordingly.

Thinly sliced crisps are best at 140ºC to dehydrate and crispen without fear of burning. Hand cut chips need to be cooked twice to be completely cooked through before being made crunchy with the former being achieved at 150ºC. The latter, along with most other things from the humble fish finger to fancy fried eggs are best done at 180ºC - hot enough so that the oil will not be absorbed into the food but not so high that it will begin to burn.

This is a simple yet incredibly easy recipe for something which seems to have become a 'signature' of sorts. It was one of the dishes featured in the Gourmet Traveller review back in January of this year and despite good quality zucchini flowers being harder to find this time of year, it still has its place on the menu. For the uninitiated, female zucchini flowers are bigger, more beautiful, with less wastage and are easier to clean. Male flowers are a little smaller, have no bulbous stems like their female counterparts but are generally cheaper. When eating flowers, all stigmas, sepals and filaments should be first removed.

Tempura Batter

60 g cornflour
40 g flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
105 ml carbonated water

Combine all dry ingredients together in a bowl.

Add a little water at a time, stirring to prevent lumps from forming.

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Goats Cheese Mousse

100 g Sainte Maure
100 g Meredith Organic Chevre
50 g Valdeon

Remove hard rinds and combine all cheeses until soft.

To assemble, place soft cheese mix into a piping bag and fill zucchini flowers. Give each flower a gentle twist to prevent the cheese from escaping. Dip flowers one by one into the tempura batter and immerse in fryer at 180ºC. Remove when crisp and serve drizzled with organic orange blossom honey.

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Spring Break: Asparagus Gone Wild!

Late last week we received a special shipment of wild asparagus from our 'not-to-be-named' truffle supplier. He'd managed to source it from somewhere outside of Australia and turned it over to us for roughly $100/kg. For wonderfully fresh and herbaceous young shoots that are available for only one month of the year, the going rate isn't really too much to ask.

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Chonz decided that he wanted a dish centred on simplicity which would allow the quality of the produce to shine so for two days we ran with what we had in the bag - asparagus, eggs and cheese.

All up we used five components to create this dish. Wild asparagus, morcilla (locally made Spanish blood sausage), champagne beurre blanc, a poached duck egg and a little grated Manchego (imported from La Mancha, Spain) over the top. The simplicity of ingredients and the quality resonates from the very first taste until the last. You'll see.

The champagne buerre blanc is the most time consuming so we'll start with that. You'll need to melt a small knob of butter and sweat off 2 finely chopped eschallots with a pinch of salt, a bay leaf and a few cracks of white pepper (so as not to be left with dirty flecks in the final sauce). Pour in 50 ml of champagne vinegar, 250 ml of champagne and reduce at a simmer until you are left with about 25 ml of liquid. Remove from the heat, discard the bay leaf and add 200 g of chopped butter a little at a time, whisking continuously until emulsified. You can stabilise it at this point by adding a small splash of cream, totally optional. Adjust seasoning if necessary.

Have a small pot full of salted water ready to poach your egg in and another with enough seasoned chicken stock to blanch the asparagus in with a few knobs of butter thrown in. Working quickly now, slice the morcilla into thick rounds and pan fry them in a little oil over medium-high heat. With a little swirl, slip the duck egg into gently simmering water and immerse all the asparagus in the chicken stock until soft.

To assemble, pour a little champagne beurre blanc onto the plate. Pile the slices of morcilla onto one side and the drained asparagus onto the other. Carefully lift your poached egg into the centre and grate a generous amount of Manchego over the top.

When you first attack the egg, the semi-cooked yolk will ooze out and combine with the now melting Manchego to create a lusciously cheesy sauce. As if in an out-of-body experience, you will begin a quick attempt to drink up every inch of this gooey goodness with what little is left on your plate.

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Do you see now?

Feeling Blue..

We've got a great new cheese on the menu. It's replacing the previous Valdeón - an intense and biting blue cheese made in Posada de Valdeón from a combination of cow and goat's milk, wrapped in sycamore maple leaves and aged in caves along the Cantabrian sea.

From today we'll be using another blue called Onetik which is made from sheep's milk, aged for a minimum of 3 months and is slightly firmer, sweeter and creamier on the palate. It originates from the French side of the Pyrenees Mountains in Basque Country, otherwise known in Spain as País Vasco.

Smoked Salmon Blinis with Dill Mascarpone

Blinis

300 g plain flour
400 ml milk
15 g dry yeast
3 egg yolks
3 egg whites
seasoning

Combine milk, yolks and yeast and allow to sit at room temperature for 10 mins.
Whisk into flour, season with sea salt and cracked white pepper and prove for 1 hour.
Whisk whites to stiff peaks and gently fold into mix.
Pipe rounds 2.5cm in diameter into a non-stick pan over medium-low heat.
Turn when golden, approx. 30-60 seconds each side.

Dill Mascarpone

100 g mascarpone
5 sprigs dill

Pick dill and finely chop.
Combine with mascarpone adding a little hot water at a time to achieve a smooth consistency.

500 g/1 side smoked salmon
50 g salmon roe
2 sprigs dill for garnish

With a sharp knife slice salmon horizontally to 1mm thickness.
Lay out a slice of salmon and cut into 8cm x 2cm pieces.



To make salmon roses take an 8 x 2 x 0.1 piece and cut off the top right corner and fold down over itself.
Roll with the square end in the middle and tuck the tapered end in over the top.
Repeat until you have the same quantity of salmon roses to blinis.

Assembly

Place blinis onto a large plate in rows.
Pipe a small amount of dill mascarpone in the middle of each one and then follow with salmon roses.
Place 1/4 tsp of salmon roe in the middle of each rose then garnish with dill.

Red Wine & Winter Fruit Trifle

Red Wine Poached Pear

6 corella pears
750 ml bottle Cab Sav
500 g caster sugar
2 cloves
1 star anise
1 cinnamon quill
4 cardamom pods
1 lemon, zest and juice

Place all liquids, spices and sugar into a saucepan and bring to the boil.
Peel, halve and core the pears.
Place pears into boiling liquid and reduce to a simmer.
Cover with cartouche and cook for 20 minutes or until tender.
Allow to cool in liquid.

Rhubarb

1 b. rhubarb, trimmed and washed
500 g caster sugar

Cut rhubard into 1 cm lengths and place in a bowl with the sugar.
Mix together and allow to macerate over night.
Remove rhubarb from liquid into separate bowl.
Place small amount of liquid into heavy based saucepan and bring to boil and add rhubarb.
Simmer gently until rhubarb is tender and allow to cool.
Repeat until all rhubarb has been cooked.

Vanilla Mascarpone

500 g mascarpone
1 vanilla pod, split and scraped
200 ml pouring cream

Whisk cream to firm peaks.
Place mascarpone in a bowl, add the vanilla seeds and slowly fold in the pouring cream.
Refrigerate until needed.

Hazelnut Praline

500 g hazelnuts, roasted and peeled
500 g caster sugar
250 ml water
20 g liquid glucose

Place sugar and water into heavy based saucepan and bring to boil.
Scatter hazelnuts onto a tray lined with non-stick baking paper.
Cook until sugar begins to caramelize then reduce heat and continue cooking until the caramel is a dark golden colour.
Pour caramel over hazelnuts and allow to cool.
Break into small pieces and place in food processor and crush to form a powder.

Hazelnut Meringue

100 g egg white
100 g caster sugar
100 g icing sugar
15 g cornflour
100 g hazelnut meal

Whisk egg whites to soft peaks then slowly add the caster sugar, whisking continuously to form a glossy meringue.
Sift the icing sugar and cornflour together and fold into the meringue.
Fold through hazelnut meal.
Pipe small peaked drops onto a tray lined with baking paper and bake at 50 degrees for 1 hour.
Place on wire rack to cool and store in an airtight container.

Assembly

Slice 2 pear halves and place neatly in the bottom of a glass at least 1 cm high.
Sprinkle on a layer of praline at least ½ cm high.
Pipe in a layer of the mascarpone cream 1 cm high.
Add layer of rhubarb 1 cm high.
To finish drop on tiny meringues and dust with icing sugar.