Caramelized Mango, Bananas or Pineapple

Intro

This is a Bill Granger recipe that works really well for mango and pineapple to. I have 3 of his cook books now - he is the only chef whose books I covet and must own. I love that everything I have cooked of his has turned out perfectly. 

Recipe 

Peel and slice fruit: 3 bananas or 2 mangos or half a fresh pineapple. 

Melt below ingredients together in a heavy frypan until it forms a caramel and darkens:

• 60g butter
• 90g brown or demerara sugar
• half teaspoon vanilla essence
• 2 tablespoons water

Add the fruit an toss through for a few minutes until well coated. Yummy with crepes for breakfast.

Crepes

Intro 

Take note bambini: crepes are completely different to pikelets and you cannot use the same batter recipe and just make it thinner. It took me ages to learn that lesson and I share it with you now. The secret to crepes is all in the technique and patience with the batter. I got this recipe from a Julie Biuso book back in the 80s. Its good for sweet or savoury fillings. I love it with caramelised mango, bananas or pineapple. 

Recipe

• 115g flour
• pinch of salt
• 1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk
• 300ml of milk plus a bit more (maybe)
• 1 tablespoon melted butter

Sift the four and salt in a bowl, make a well in the middle and tip the eggs in. With a whisk start stirring gently drawing the flour in from the edges - at the same time start adding the milk in a thin stream keeping the mixture a thick cream consistency. Continue adding all the milk and the melted butter. Whisk well then set aside for at least 30 minutes. This does something to the starch particles and is important. You may need to add a bit more milk as it does thicken on standing. 
Heat a heavy based pan and lightly oil the pan with a papertowel. Once the oil starts to smoke pour in about a quarter cup of batter and quickly swirl it around tipping the excess batter back into the bowl. It should form bubbles quite quickly. loosen the edges with a palette knife then flip the crepe over for half a minute or so. Tip it out onto a rack and keep making crepes. They are pretty fast to cook and if I make a double quantity of this I interleave the hot ones with the ones cooked earlier to keep them warm.

Parmigiana di Melanzane

Baked eggplant with Mozzarella

Intro

One Christmas Day my mate Dave rang me from some Balkan hell-hole, Pristina I think, and I started crying over some bloke who'd stood me up the night before (turns out his Mother had been rushed to hospital with a heart attack). Anyway one thing led to another and Dave, who was quite distressed that I was crying, suggested that what I needed was a nice week in Naples and why didn't I pop over and he'd meet me there. Lack of money was no problem - he would pay. 

So 8 days later I found myself in Rome, exploring on foot, feasting my eyes and soul on the glorious churches and galleries. I truly didn't have much money at all and I used to squirrel away a spare bread roll from the Youth Hostel breakfast buffet to get me through the day. On the last day I had to choose between visiting the Colosseum or buying a slice of pizza for tea. The Colosseum won - of course. 

That evening I hopped on a train to Naples, I'd bought the ticket when I'd arrived, and made my way to the prearranged 'hotel', a particularly seedy one with very dodgy stains on the wallpaper, run by a a pair of old ladies with hairy legs and men's socks. And then I got an email from Dave; he was stuck in Kosovo, snowed in and didn't know when he would be able to get over..... so I went for a walk. And you know what, sometimes the universe just provides because I found a large note in the gutter and had enough money for the few days until Dave managed to hitch a ride over with the Italian army. 

Dave is a kindred soul; we both love food and drink and it was a glorious week in Naples. I ordered this dish in a little trattoria across the street from our 'hotel' and it was breathtakingly, heartbreakingly, divine. 

PS I foolishly entered into an agreement that in exchange for the trip of a lifetime to Naples, which cost Dave an enormous amount of money because we both had a very good time and we drank a lot of laphroaig, I would provide him with a lifetime of wine.....

Recipe

• 1 kg aubergine (eggplant)
• salt
• oil for frying
• 300g mozzarella, thinly sliced
• quarter cup fresh basil leaves
• Italian tomato pasta sauce

Slice the aubergine into 1cm rounds. Sprinkle both sides with salt and place on a rack or sloping plate or sieve so the juices drains away. Leave for 1 - 2 hours (I often miss this step if I'm in a rush and it doesn't seem to matter much). Drain and pat dry. Shallow fry the slices on both sides in smoking hot oil until golden brown - don't crowd the pan. Drain on paper towels. Spread a layer of tomato sauce in the bottom of a small gratin dish, put a layer of aubergine slices in next, then a layer of mozzarella and a few basil leaves, then sauce and keep layering again until ingredients are used, finishing with a few basil leaves. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees (200 celcius) and serve hot with crusty bread to sop up the juices.

Italian Tomato Pasta Sauce

Intro

Don't buy bottled pasta sauce ever again. Just don't do it. It takes about 15 minutes to make this simply gorgeous sauce - and it works just fine with plain tinned tomatoes. Don't be tempted to buy flavoured tomatoes or to dress this up with too many extra flavours or ingredients - its big enough on its own. 

Recipe

• 1 kg ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped or 3 x 425g cans chopped Roma tomatoes,
• 4 - 6 plump cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
• freshly ground black pepper
• salt
• quarter cup of olive oil
• fresh basil leaves

Heat the garlic in the oil at a low sizzle until its just starting to colour. Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper then simmer for 15 - 30 minutes until you have a nice thickish sauce consistency. Tear some basil leaves in at the end. I use this for Cannelloni which the kids love and for one of my all time favourites, Parmigiana di Melanzane.

Old Fashioned Lemon Drink

Intro

Diane Edyvane's old fashioned lemon drink is world famous in Levin after she served it up at our annual volunteers morning tea party. Everyone in Horowhenua (except me) grows lemons and Diane and Fred are no exception - acres of citrus including limes, several varieties of lemon, grapefruit etc. Sometimes she uses a few limes as well as lemon in this cordial - just for a change. This is another old family recipe - not my families - but Diane remembers her Mother making this, as did hers - often with tartaric acid and epsom salts as well as the citric acid. 

Recipe

• 6 lemons (8 or 9 if small)
• 1.5 kg sugar (1.3 kg)
• 50 g citric acid
• boiling water

Peel the rind off two lemons. Place peel plus 2 cups of sugar in food processor and process until well ground. Squeeze the juice from the six lemons and mix juice with lemon sugar, the remaining sugar and the citric acid. Add boiling water making total volume up to 3 litres and stir to dissolve. Cool and store. Serve diluted with water about 1 part cordial to 5 or 6 parts water depending on taste.

Caramel Anzac Slice

Intro

This is, without doubt, the very best of my recipes for slices. It has all my favourite flavours: coconut, caramel and rolled oats. These are reminiscent of Anzac biscuits - a great Kiwi classic (yes - I will give recipes for these too).

Recipe

Base

Cream together

• 200g butter
• 150g sugar

Add

• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Press mixture into a greased swiss roll tin. Cook 10 minutes at 175 degrees celcius.

Filling

Melt together

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 25g butter
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup

Pour over the partially cooked base then add the topping..

Topping

• 70g butter rubbed into
• 1 cup rolled oats (organic oats are worth it - truly)
• half cup coconut
• quarter cup flour
• quarter cup brown sugar

Sprinkle over the topping and bake for 20 minutes at 180 degrees celcius.

Shortbread

Intro

When I have been poor, especially at Christmas time when the bambini expect things like Christmas presents and a Christmas meal, I have given gifts of food. One year I made Cashew Fudge packed into Christmas tins, another year Chocolate Truffles packed into small timber boxes which the kids dad made me out of pine offcuts which I washed green with watered down paint. Another year I made shortbread which I wrapped in cellophane and tied with red and gold ribbons. Tomato Relish, Tomato Sauce and Lemon Honey and also good gifts which people liked receiving.

Recipe

Cream together until white and fluffy

• 1 pound (454g) of butter
• 250g icing sugar

Sift together then fold in to the butter mixture in 2 or 3 batches:

• 400g flour
• 100g rice flour
• 110g cornflour

Form into 2 logs, wrap in glad wrap, greaseproof or tinfoil and refrigerate until firm.

Slice into 1/4 - 1/2 inch thick slices, put onto a greased baking sheet and mark tops with a fork making 3 rows of evenly spaced prong marks. Sometimes I use a wooden scottish shortbread mould with thistle marks.

Bake slowly at about 140-150 degrees celcius for at least 30 minutes, maybe 45 - maybe longer. They do not want to be coloured at all and are best when quite dry.