After a dash to the fish co-op one afternoon we produced this delicious dinner of a Barbecued Snapper served with Spicy Mango and Avocado Salsa and accompanied it with the best friend of white fleshed fish - potatoes - simply steamed and tossed in butter. It was spectacularly simple and delicious ….
Inspired by my favourite, old, French cookbook, I prepared this mussel dish. It is very simple to make, the quality of the result relying upon the use of the very best produce you can lay your hands on. And aren’t we fortunate in Australia to have such ingredients to indulge our appetites and fantasies? ….
This is a recipe for XO Sauce with a difference. It is gluten-free, of course, which is the first difference. The next is that XO sauces usually include dried scallops and seafood but we use readily available bacon and mushroom to create the savoury complexity expected in an XO sauce ….
Versions of moussaka have been made in the Levant and the Balkans, in Egypt and Turkey and Greece for who knows how long. Proof of its popularity. But do we need another one? Well, this Mushroom and Lentil Moussaka has no gluten. It has no meat. It has no potato. The eggplant is grilled not fried ….
Deliciously succulent pasta tubes filled with aubergine, ricotta, spinach, parmesan and smoked Fior di Latte, topped and bottomed with home made tomato sauce ….. salivating yet? This week’s recipe is a home-cook’s dream as it can be prepared well ahead of time and gently reheated to serve topped with fresh basil leaves. It can be made in very large quantities for parties and freezes well ....
There’s a casual little Japanese eatery not far from us that we used to drop into quite often, where we’d invariably order, along with other favourites, the Nasu Dengaku, miso-glazed eggplant. This is a Japanese classic, a very common dish in Japan. Fortunately for me, the version our local makes is Gluten-free Miso-glazed Eggplant, which is really delicious – so delicious I decided I had to try to replicate it at home ….
This has to be the easiest biscuit you could ever hope to make – even if it did take half a dozen batches to get the recipe just right. (You can never have too many to try!) But while whipping up a batch is simplicity itself, that isn’t the main attraction. The drawcard is the ginger – so if you don’t love ginger stop reading now ….
During our peak social isolation earlier in the year, we were having a drink with friends via Zoom and lamenting the lack of sharing meals together. I enthusiastically and a little rashly offered to make dinner for, and it deliver to, our friends so we could share it via Zoom.
I had a lamb shoulder in the freezer and, wanting to keep out of shops and Coronavirus’s way, I decided to use only what was in the house. Then Spicy Lamb and Vegetable Pies popped into mind.
I basically sliced and diced bits and pieces of anything and everything I had in the vegetable crisper, added some delicious Sri Lankan curry powder I had roasted and ground a few weeks before, placed the lamb shoulder on top and whacked it in the oven for three or four hours.
I did have some cream cheese in the fridge (I sound very well stocked) and so I used our Revenge Gluten-free Cream Cheese Pastry recipe. It’s a deliciously rich pastry and made the perfect tops for the pies.
But pies aren’t the only vehicle for using our lamb filling. Try shredding the lamb instead of cubing it and you’ll have a delicious sauce for gluten-free pasta. Or serve it over runny polenta for a warming and hearty winter dish. Top it with creamy mashed potato for a good old Shepherd’s Pie and any left overs could be mixed with some lovely homemade stock to make a quick and nutritious soup.
Happy cooking and sharing!
Rosie
Serves 8
Start this dish the day before to allow for refrigeration.
Pastry
1.5 quantities Revenge Gluten-free Cream Cheese Pastry
Place the pastry in the fridge until ready to roll out. It will keep in the fridge for a few days if you prefer to make it ahead.
Filling
1 brown onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 leek, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
2 carrots, cut into 2.5cm chunks
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
2 large zucchini, finely chopped
2 long red chillies, one seeded, both finely chopped
¼ bunch cavolo nero, spines removed, finely chopped
5 very ripe tomatoes, chopped
3 teaspoons Sri Lankan meat curry powder (see below) (or any good quality curry powder)
1.5 kg lamb shoulder (bone in)
Salt to taste
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper or to taste
1 cup frozen peas
1 egg, whisked
Preheat oven to 130°C. Have at the ready a baking dish, preferably with a tightly fitting cover, deep enough to accommodate the vegetables and the lamb shoulder.
Combine the vegetables, tomatoes and curry powder (reserving the peas) over the base of the baking dish. Place the lamb shoulder on top.
Place a piece of baking paper directly on top of the meat then cover either with a tightly fitting lid or foil and bake for 3-4 hours or until the meat is falling off the bone, turning the lamb shoulder once during the cooking period.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little.
Remove the lamb shoulder to a plate. Strain the vegetables, without pressing down on them, reserving both the vegetables and the juices separately. Place the juices in the fridge to allow the fat to rise to the top and solidify.
Remove the lamb meat from the bone and cut into 2 cm chunks, discarding any very fatty or sinewy bits.
Combine with the vegetables, add the peas, season to taste and refrigerate until very cold.
To Assemble
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Remove and discard the solidified layer of fat which will have formed on top of the reserved, refrigerated juices. Place the juices in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer until reduced by half. Allow to cool. Combine the juices with the lamb and vegetable mix. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.
Fill 8 x 350ml capacity, individual, oven-proof pie dishes with the lamb mixture.
In between two pieces of baking paper roll out the pastry to ½ cm thick, sprinkling the pastry with gluten-free flour if necessary. Cut out 8 shapes 1cm larger that the tops of the pie dishes. Return to the fridge from time to time if the pastry becomes too soft to work with. Any left over pastry can be frozen for a future use.
Using a small biscuit cutter, cut an air hole from the centre of each pastry shape. Brush the underneath side of each pastry shape with the whisked egg and place on top of the pie dishes, pressing down lightly around the rim. Squeeze the overhanging pastry in between your thumb and index finger to create a seal and an attractive edge.
Brush with beaten egg and bake for 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown and the filling is hot.
Serve immediately with accompaniments of your choice.
2 dried red chillies
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1.5 teaspoons fenugreek seeds
1 clove
1 cm piece cinnamon stick
1.5 cm piece pandanus leaf (optional)
1.5 cm piece lemongrass, bruised with the back of a knife
1 sprig fresh curry leaves
¼ teaspoon black mustard seeds
Pinch turmeric
Place all ingredients except the turmeric in a heavy-based frying pan and dry roast over a low heat for 7-10 minutes or until fragrant. Remove from the heat, stir in the turmeric and cool.
Using a spice grinder or mortar and pestle, grind the spices until a fine powder forms. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dark place, for up to 1 year.
Once upon a time home cooks across Australia did little to the humble cauliflower other than boiling the florets or occasionally smothering them in gluggy mornay sauce. Understandably, the cauliflower went out of culinary fashion for a while. But recent years have seen a resurgence in popularity as we have learned how to make them tastier and more interesting (due in no small part to the seductive recipes of Yotam Ottolenghi and his love of the blond brassica) ….
A Donburi (meaning ‘bowl’ in Japanese) is a big bowl containing rice topped traditionally with fish, chicken or meat and vegetables simmered in stock. It makes for a hearty meal. In my version I do stick to the big bowl containing rice part of the tradition, and I do top it with fish, chicken or meat and vegetables, I just don’t simmer them in stock, preferring to grill ….
A classic roast has always been a great way to feed a lot of people, but why not try Roasted Barramundi instead the usual lamb or beef. We had our regular gang of ten for a birthday dinner recently and the idea, rather than sweating over a hot stove, was to let the oven do the work. (Okay, confession time, minimal last-minute fuss was the real agenda.) ….
There are many versions of these Cevapi or Cevapcici - Skinless Sausages made throughout the Balkan countries although, since my only connection to these culinary traditions comes from the long-gone waitressing days, there’s no particular claim to authenticity here. What this recipe does promise, though, is very tasty meat, lots of flavour and super-simple preparation ….
Looking in the cupboard one day for ‘Divine Dinner Inspiration’- as you do - I came across a big packet of yellow lentils, moong dhal. Fortunately, there was also a can of coconut milk to be had and putting them together in this dish of Creamy Lentils with Corn was, if not exactly inspired, the logical outcome ….
Finding an excellent gluten-free Hot Crossed Bun can be almost as daunting as the thought of producing a batch at home so this Easter we’re baking Hot Crossed Muffins instead. They make a very easy alternative with all the spicy flavour and dried fruit plumpness of a traditional Hot Crossed Bun, without all the fuss ....
