Paua with Tarragon & Lemon Butter and a Nod to Al Brown

Again we are enjoying the bounty of our local beach. With low tides and virtually no wave swell the boys had been out snorkeling around the rocks just off our Bay and diving for Paua. They didn’t get huge amounts, but one is enough for two people and you want to leave some to the sea so we have it in the future too. I had never cooked Paua, but I had been told it needed to be tenderized and cooked very briefly otherwise it would be like eating elastic bands. Google is every chef’s friend and I found Al Brown’s recipe, his posh version of shellfish & chips. For those who don’t know Al Brown he is one of New Zealands favourite chef’s and I am a frequent dinner at his restaurant The Depot.

The recipe below is for two people using one Paua.  I have added shaved fennel and rocket to make it more of a warm salad with the pan fried potatoes but I didn’t use garlic of parsley.

Below are a few more photos from our West Coast beach which turned on it’s spectacular waves this weekend.

Ingredients

1 large Paua, removed from shell

2 cups of small potatoes, pre boiled but still firm

Olive oil for frying

Handful of fresh tarragon leaves, roughly chopped

2 Tbsp butter, softened

1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced

2 handfuls of rocket salad leaves

Salt & cracked pepper

Method

Arrange the fennel and rocket leaves on two plates

To tenderize the Paua, beat it with a tenderizer tool or a rolling pin as I did. I also cut away the muscle that attaches it to the shell and the tough frilly edges edges.

Slice the Paua ‘wafer thin’, as thin as you can possible slice it.

Mix the chopped tarragon into the butter and put it aside.

Cut the pre cooked potatoes to the size in the picture.

Put a few 3 tablespoons of olive oil into  cast iron frying pan over a high heat. Season with salt. Once it is hot add potatoes and fry on at least two sides till golden brown.

Remove the potatoes from the pan and put aside.

Place the frying pan back on the high heat and allow the pan to get really hot before you cook the Paua.

Because I only had one Paua I cooked it all in one batch but if you have more Paua meat then do the next  stage in batches and do not over crowd the pan.

Add a teaspoon of olive oil to coat the frying pan base then add the Paua slices. You want to only sear the Paua on eat side for 30 seconds. Remove from the pan onto a plate.

Turn the heat off and add the potatoes back to the pan, add the butter and everything will sizzle. Cook for barely a minute to heat butter through. Add the Paua to the pan too.

Spoon out the potatoes & Paua slices and arrange over the top of the rocket & fennel on each plate.

Spoon or pour the remainder of tarragon butter over the salads, season with cracked pepper.

Pacific Inspired Smoked Fish Pate and Living Like a King

I really do have a royal life here in Muriwai, New Zealand. We have just enjoyed a long weekend for Auckland Anniversary Day, the sun shone every minute, the Wild West Coast behaved itself and put on a special small clean glassy surf and the boys had success fishing right of our coast. It’s not often you get to launch a boat straight off our beach, as you will have seen in previous pics I have posted of the wild waves but this weekend was exception. Snapper, Kahawai and Tuna where all on the menu and we enjoyed it as sashimi, BBQ grilled and hubby even turned on some fancy pants Portugese dish…. I’ve got competition you know! The pate recipe here is made from smoking the fish heads, there is a lot of meat left if you fillet fish and we don’t waste a bit here you know. Our friend across the road smokes the fish in his top of the range flashy smoker, well actually it not flashy it’s our old electric oven which he converted into an outdoor smoker. The warmer draw at the bottom of the oven is where the fire and wood smoke goes and the oven racks are what the fish lay on to be smoked. It’s called Kiwi ingenuity, such resourceful people the Kiwis, I love them.

Here’s the recipe in rough quantities, play around with the flavours if you make it as it will depend on the fish you have smoked and how much! I have used coconut powder in the recipe which you should be able to buy from and Indian or Asian grocer.

Ingredients

100g smoked fish, approx (mine was a mix of tuna & kahawai)

Large handful coriander leaves, finely chopped

1-2 chilies, finely chopped

1 small lime, juice and zest

1 spring onion, finely chopped

50 ml coconut milk

1 Tbsp coconut powder (if you can’t get it dont’ worry but add a little more coconut milk, pate will be a little softer and less coco-nutty)

Salt & pepper, to season

Method

Add all the ingredients except for the salt and pepper into a bowl and mash them together with a fork to form a rough pate (no need to use a food processor).

Season with salt & pepper then chill in the fridge.

Serve with crackers or bread. Enjoy!

Pineapple, Coconut, Mint Ice Pops & Life’s a Beach

It doesn’t matter how many years I’ve living in Muriwai, I’m still in awe of it’s beauty with it’s black sands, crashing sea and moody colours. Most people will run to the beach on a sunny warm day but I love it best when the skies are overcast making the thundering waves look all that more menacing. Eight foot waves where tubing in, I looked longingly at them and the daring riders rocketing down the wave face. But I confess they are far to big for this surfer. When the wave height drops in a day or two I will be out their with the rest of them, nodding when they say it’s been an awesome surf week, omitting the fact that I was watching not surfing earlier in the week ;o). So I ran for my camera and caught a few waves on film instead. It’s it such a beautiful place?

It was still a balmy warm day, perfect for the ice pops I had stashed in the freezer for such an occasion and I was thirsty and exhausted just watching all the action out to sea. Just a simple treat of fresh pineapple, mint leaves and coconut milk all whizzed together and poured into your favourite ice pop container. I’m submitting this to our monthly Sweet NZ mingle which is being hosted by Arfi of HomeMades. If you pop over you will be sure to find a lot more sugary delights to tickle your taste buds.

Ingredients

1 Small pineapple (peeled, cored and chopped, 200ml coconut milk, handful of fresh mint leaves

Method

Whiz all ingredients together in a food processor or blender then pour into ice pop containers and freeze overnight.

 

Sweet Corn, Pea & Halloumi Herb Fritters

A nice easy brunch recipe that is quick to put together if you always have corn in the cupboard or peas in the freezer like we do. The key to this recipe is to use lots of herbs, so where I note a large handful I mean LARGE, not a few leaves. Think Jamie Oliver, wildly tearing heads of herbs off their stalks and using the lot, no point saving the rest for a rainy day, chances are they will wilt away in the fridge. Unless of course you have your own garden supply, mine has dwindled with our new resident hens who have got into my herb garden and made it into a dust bath. The fencing will go up this weekend to keep them out and new herbs will be planted. Speaking of our hens, when we adopted them one of the hens, Beryl, had a baby chick which we were excited about the prospect of more eggs once it grew up. Well the chick has become a teenage, it’s a bit like the ugly duckling story because our cute baby chick is starting to resemble a Pea Hen (hopefully not Peacock) and not a egg laying chicken! They say hens will adopt any eggs or chicks if they are broody and it appears that is what Beryl has done. Below is a picture of ‘Pea’ very timid and hiding under our deck.

Makes approx 16 small fritters
Ingredients
4 large free range eggs (or 5 small)
200g garden peas (frozen is fine)
400g tin of creamed corn
Large handful of fresh parsley, mint and coriander, finely chopped
Zest of 1 lemon
2 Tbsp plain flour
200g halloumi, diced small
Salt & Pepper to season
Vegetable oil for frying
Method
In a large bowl whisk together the eggs.
Add the frozen peas (they will defrost quickly), tinned corn, herbs & lemon zest to the whisked eggs.
Sift the flour over the vegetable & herb mix in the bowl and stir through until combined.
Add the diced Halloumi and stir through again. We add the halloumi last so it doesn’t break up.
Season with salt & pepper, the mixture should be fairly thick at this stage, if not add another tablespoon of flour..
In a large frying pan over a medium heat add  2 tablespoons of vegetable oil.
Spoon a tablespoon of mixture into the pan to make each fritter, add another three making sure fritters have enough space to flip them over.
Cook fritter for approximately 2 minutes until golden brown then flip over with a spatula.
Cook second side for the same length of time.
Remove fritters from the pan and place on a tray covered with kitchen roll to soak an excess fat.
Add a little more oil to the frying pan and cook more fritters, repeat process till all mixture is cooked.

Fig & Brownie Truffle Birthday Slice

Do most food bloggers make their own birthday cake? I think they probably do. Here is mine, it’s a slice this year rather than a cake but I had something I wanted to try out and what better than to try it out on my birthday. You see, I had these amazing chocolates at Christmas which were figs stuffed with a chocolate truffle filling then the whole fig dipped in more chocolate. I couldn’t get enough of them and did think of making my own but shapely mini figs are not easy to find and it would be a bit fiddly to do. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t have something similar did it? My mind started wandering along how to convert all the ingredients into a cake. A layer of brownie as a stable base, next a layer of silky ganache combined with blended seed popping figs and finally a thin layer of ganache to give it a smooth finish.

It came out exactly how I envisioned it! So here it is, my Fig & Brownie Truffle Slice. It’s very rich but not too sweet because of the 70% cocoa chocolate. It’s a cake to share for sure and holds well in the fridge, you just need to let it come to room temperature before you eat it. Day four and we are still eating the slice, tasting as good as day one, so I would say it will keep for a week in the fridge in an airtight container.

Brownie Base – Ingredients

120g butter
100g 70% cocoa chocolate
3 Tbsp cocoa powder
3 free range eggs
180g castor sugar
150g plain flour

Method

Preheat oven to 180C

Grease & line a 20cm square cake tin.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan then remove from the heat

Add the chocolate pieces and stir until the chocolate has melted.

Add the the cocoa powder and whisk until smooth.

Add in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the sugar and  flour to a smooth batter.

Pour the cake batter into the lined tin and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Fig Truffle Centre Layer – Ingredients
150g 70% cocoa chocolate
100ml single or whipping cream
250g dried figs
Method
Heat the cream in a small pan then remove from the heat.

Add the chocolate and stir till melted .

Put the figs (remove stalk if there is any) in a food processor and blitz till finely chopped.

Add the cream and chocolate to the figs in processor and blend together.

Spread the warm fig mixture over the warm brownie, there is no need to let cake cool at this stage.

Chocolate Ganache Top Layer – Ingredients
50g 70% cocoa chocolate
40ml single or whipping cream
Method
Heat the cream in a small pan then remove from the heat.

Add the chocolate to the hot cream and stir till melted. Pour the Ganache over cooled fig layer of cake.

Place in the fridge to cool until you want to serve the cake.

Breakfast of Tomato Kasundi, Aubergine & Poached Eggs

We received a huge box of fruit and veg for Christmas from one of Hubby’s clients, most of which we managed to eat except for the tomatoes. The only reason we didn’t get through all the tomatoes was because I had been gifted extra tomatoes by a friend a few days early. Kasundi was the solution before the fruit went past it’s best. Kasundi is an Indian tomato relish/chutney which is fragrant and spicy but you can moderate the heat if you make your own. I prefer a spicy hot kasundi and can eat it with anything and as you can see I have no problem with spicy food for breakfast either, they say it kick starts the metabolism.

There are tons of tomato kasundi recipes on the internet, I’m not ‘reinventing the wheel’ here so I will just direct you to the one I used from Taste.com.au  with a few tweaks. Here they used tinned tomatoes whereas I used 6 large fresh beef tomatoes which would have been the equivalent of 800g tinned. I didn’t cook my tomatoes for the length of time stated in their recipe either, I only cooked it for 40 minutes. By this time most of the liquid had evaporated. Tinned have a lot more liquid hence needing a longer cooking time. I divided the kasundi between 3 x 200g sterilised jars. You can use it straight away or keep it for ages in the sealed jars. You can use kasundi as a relish on burgers, as a chutney with papadums and I think it would also go really well with grilled or BBQ fish.

So once you have your kasundi you can start creating new dishes…..

To make the breakfast dish, I cut a rather large aubergine/egg plant into 8 wedges lengthways. Added 2 tablespoons of olive oil to a large frying pan and fried the aubergine over a medium heat on both sides until brown. Approx 3 minutes a side. Then add 1/3 of the kasundi ( 1 jar) to the frying pan, lowered the heat and simmered for 15 minutes. Poach some eggs to go with it. This will serve 2-3 people as a main dish. Serve the poached eggs on top of the kasundi and add some fresh coriander. Enjoy the spicy kick for breakfast!

Little & Friday’s Chocolate Cherry Cake & New Residents

Happy New Year Everyone!

I have a little obsession for Little & Friday cakes, fortunately I don’t venture close to their cafes often otherwise I may look as round as this chocolate cake. For those of you who live in Auckland you may have already visited one of their little cake shops and experienced their baking delights. They’re what I call ‘real’ cakes, they are cakes with substance, traditional in texture but modern in appearance.

I have not listed the recipe as I have not bought the book yet, although it is on my wish list. National Radio have the recipe here, permission given to publish by the owner. The recipe came out exactly how I had experienced them at Little & Friday, although I did use cherries instead of raspberries.

We have new residents at our house, Beryl, Thelma and Nerys. They are three adopted hens which had been abandoned and we happily gave them a new home…. well actually a very elaborate coop and free range of the garden. They were all a little scruffy and dirty when they arrived and we were told they weren’t laying eggs but we have big hearts and decided even if they don’t lay we would look after them. A good bath, yes we bathed them! A good diet and they are now laying and they donated the eggs for my chocolate cake.

If you come from Northern England you might recognise their name? They come from the cast and actors of a TV series called the Liver Birds which was set in Liverpool, my beautiful home town. The Liver Birds are also an iconic emblem that represents the city of Liverpool, dating back to the 1300s. Two statues can aslo be see towering above the port on the Royal Liver Buildings.

A Pacific Wedding Cake

This little cake is going on a flight today with friends who are attending their son’s wedding. A short flight thankfully to the Great Barrier Island which lies just off the East coast of Auckland (20 mins by plane maybe, I have only been by boat). It’s a beach wedding and the request was for something ‘untraditional’ to match the mood and venue.  Looking at the weather forecast for the next few days it will be Pacific sunny days too.

The cake has a chocolate fudge base and lemon yoghurt top, no recipe today sorry just a pic. As I started to place the flower motifs onto the cake I thought..OMG, it’s going to look awful, nothing like the picture they showed me but once all together I think it looks pretty good. It’s a gift from the parents of the groom and the wedding couple haven’t seen it yet, I hope they like it.

Christmas Mince Pie Pops

As we hurtle towards Christmas I feel like a spectator on the sideline watching everyone in a frenzy of shopping, pre Christmas gatherings, work functions etc. I would normally take part, I love Christmas with it’s trees and decorations, carols, yummy treats and families coming together. This year has been different, I don’t seem to be able to muster the enthusiasm but instead just find myself bobbing along with the flow of things. It’s been an exhausting year, endless travel with quite a stressful and busy job. Making far too many people redundant as the business down sizes only to have my own employment in the balance next year. Keeping positive, perhaps the universe is telling me it’s time for a fresh start, time to do something else? So instead of revving up I find myself slowing down, putting my feet up, taking time out for a lazy surf and chilling at the beach. The Christmas menu hasn’t even been thought of but it will happen…no worries as we say here. Hardly a Christmas treat has graced my ovens let alone my blog (except for the 47 Christmas cakes I have baked and sold but that’s part of a business). As we prepare to kiss 2012 behind and relish new beginnings in 2013 I leave you with a small treat, Christmas Mince Pie Pops.

I first saw pie pops over at Linda’s beautiful blog Call Me Cupcake, only then to find I am so behind and they are common knowledge in other countries. They even have pie pop makers, oh my goodness which rock have I been hiding under! So here is my version of pie pops, filled with a sweet Christmas fruit mince and chocolate. You can use your favourite Christmas pie filling or try mine. My shortcrust pastry has a little more butter in it than the regular half fat to flour. A tip from a French chef I worked with. It guarantees a short crust but if you have ‘hot’ hands’ I recommend you use a food processor for the crumb rather than the old fashioned way. It’ll keep the butter from melting.

So hows your year been and what are you hoping for next year?

Wishing you all a wonderful festive season where ever you are and however you celebrate and I will see you back in 2013!

This is also my submission to our monthly Sweet New Zealand challenge which is hosted this month by Lydia over at Lydia Bakes where you will find a lot more Kiwi sweet treats.

Ingredients – makes 12

300g sweet shortcrust pastry (recipe here)

200g sweet mince pie filling (recipe here)

12 pop sticks (bake proof not plastic)

Method

Pre heat oven to 180C

Roll pastry out to 1/2 cm thick

Using a cookie cutter approx 8cm diametre, cut out 24 pastry rings. Re-roll any bits and pieces to make more circles.

In half the circles cut out a star shape (or whatever mini cutter shape you have) for the lid of the pie.

Take the other half of the circles and place a teaspoon of mincemeat in the centre.

Wet the outer ring with a little water so the base and lid will stick together.

Lay the pop stick half way across the pie and fruit and press slightly into the pastry.

Place the lid on top of the pie and press the edges together, particularly around the pop stick so it will hold when baked.

Place on a 2 non stick trays and bale for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

Remove from tray when cooled. If any pie filling oozes out onto the tray loosen pie pop from tray before it cools so it doesn’t stick.

Christmas Pudding Cake Pops

I’ve had cake pops on my ‘to do list’ for a while and finally got the opportunity when visiting a friend down in New Plymouth the other week. She has two daughters who were keen to help make them and even more importantly eat them. It’s a fun activity to do with kids, fairly easy but a bit fiddly. For those younger than 8 years you will need to assist with the moulding of the cake balls and inserting the sticks into the cake pops gently so not to break the already moulded cake. The dipping and decorating is the easy bit and I would suggest letting them have ‘free reign’ on how they want them to look and not worry too much about the perfect looking pop for your blog!

The girls did an amazing job, we made a few Christmas pudding style pops and then the creativity started. Sprinkles, cachous and mini fondant shape Christmas tree, gingerbread men and stars where more popular as their creativity flowed.

You can use any cake as the base, bought or homemade even gluten free but I would suggest you use a heavier cake similar to Madeira. We used 70% chocolate but milk chocolate would work just as well if that is preferred. There are many images of cake pops on the internet so if you are looking for decorating ideas just Google ‘cake pops’.

 

Ingredients – Cake Pop

Makes approx 12

200g Madeira or Chocolate Cake

160g dark or milk chocolate (I used 70%)

50ml single cream

Ingredients – Decoration

250g dark or milk chocolate

50g white chocolate

Sprinkles, cachous or fondant flowers to decorate

Method

Crumble the cake into fine crumbs.

Melt the cream and dark chocolate together in a microwave, using short 30 second bursts. Stir in between each heat and continue process till melted. Stir into the cake crumbs.

To form the cake balls, take enough cake mixture to a ping pong sized ball. Roll gently in your hands to create a smooth surface and place on a large plate. If it doesn’t come together in a ball you may need to add more melted chocolate.

Place cake balls in the fridge to set (approx 20 minutes).

Melt the dark chocolate from the ingredients list. Dip the end of a lolly stick into the melted chocolate and gently poke half way into the cake ball with a twisting movement.

Place them back on the plate and into the fridge to set again for a few minutes.

Dip the cake pops one at a time into the melted chocolate, letting any excess chocolate drip off.

Stand the cake pops in a mug or a piece of polystyrene making sure they don’t tough each other and allow to set. If you set them in the fridge the chocolate will go dull but depending on your weather or patience you may have no choice but to use the fridge to set the chocolate

Melt the white chocolate in a microwave with the same method as the dark chocolate.

Spoon a teaspoon of white chocolate onto the top of each cake pop, tipping the cake pop back and forth so the white chocolate runs down the sides.

Decorate with sprinkles, cachous or fondant holly or flowers.

If you ‘google’ cake pops on the internet you will find lots more ideas of how to decorate them.

Have fun!