Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

A little mid-week lightheartedness…

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Small Man and I have been reminiscing about our favourite Sesame Street clips.

Actually, it all came about because my youngest son, who is currently fascinated with the study of linguistics (sigh), was busy telling me about the velarization of the letter “L”. This led to a kitchen rendition of the classic Bert and Ernie “La la la” song…

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…which segued into my all time favourite, James Taylor singing Jellyman Kelly (Big Boy and I used to sing this as loud as we could)…

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My sons adored Sesame Street growing up, and being a Muppet fan from way back, I was always more than happy to watch it with them. Do you have a favourite Sesame Street moment?

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Like so many of my recipes, this one grew out of a need to use up surplus ingredients.

I had egg whites leftover from the Spritz Cookies, hazelnut meal buried in the back fridge, and a bag of frozen sour cherries. Here’s what I ended up with…

• 100g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 4 large (59g) free range egg whites
• 45g plain (AP) flour
• 140g icing sugar mixture (confectioner’s sugar)
• 85g hazelnut meal
• 100g frozen sour cherries, pitted, defrosted on a plate and halved
• 50g dark chocolate callets (I used Callebaut 811, 54% cacao)

1. Preheat the oven to 190C or 175C with fan.  Sit six sturdy cupcake liners on a tray and spray the insides of them lightly with oil.  Alternatively, use a friand pan or muffin pan.

2. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and icing sugar, then whisk in the hazelnut meal. It’s important to sift the icing sugar, or you’ll end up with hard lumps in the finished friands.

3. In a separate mixing bowl and using a hand whisk, beat the egg whites for about a minute until they’re frothy, but not stiff.

4. Quickly but gently fold in the dry ingredients, then add the cooled melted butter.  Stir until just combined.

5. Add the defrosted and halved cherries and chocolate and stir very gently into the batter.

6. Spoon the mixture evenly into the six paper liners and bake for 25 – 30 minutes, rotating the tray once during the baking time.  The finished friands will be well risen and  golden brown in colour.

The coarsely ground hazelnut meal added a delicious nuttiness to these, and the sour cherries and dark chocolate ensured that they weren’t overly sweet. Pete loved them!

If you don’t have hazelnut meal or sour cherries, you might like to try one of our previous friand recipes (the first link has photos of the process and a recipe for microwave custard to use up any leftover egg yolks):

Raspberry and Chocolate Friands

Peach Friands

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Is there any better way to start a weekend than by spending time with friends?

Yesterday afternoon, Tania, Pete and I had arranged to go to Costco, and our darling friend Carol came with us.  I also needed supplies from Harkola and the Turkish deli and, as we expected to buy quite a few items, we took two cars.

Our first port of call was Harkola in Auburn…

I convinced Carol to pick up a couple of ma’moul moulds for her chocolate tempering experiments…

As always, the shelves were laden with grains, flours and pulses, and the deli counter filled with dried fruit and nuts…

My purchases included nuts, za’atar, moghrabieh, dried fruit, fine semolina and rolled spelt. The moghrabieh which retails for $11 in a local gourmet deli is available at Harkola for under $4…

Harkola Food Worldwide
3 – 7 Highgate Street
Auburn   NSW  2144
02 9737 8883
http://www.harkola.com

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Arzum Market is a short drive from Harkola and my source for Turkish herbal teas. It’s run by the nicest pair of gentlemanly brothers…

…and stocks all things Turkish…

I picked up apple, mint and linden, and camomile teas, but they were out of stock of my favourite fennel tea…

The baklava looked amazing, but sadly, Small Man is allergic to pistachios…

Arzum Market
61 Rawson St  
Auburn NSW 2144
02 9649 9327

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As Tania and I hadn’t eaten lunch by this stage, we walked a few doors down to the Buket Cake Shop and bought a mince filled pide. Like Arzum, Buket is run by the most gracious baker, who heated our pide until crispy in the oven rather than in the microwave. T and I scoffed it in the car on the way to Costco…

Buket Cake Shop
67 Rawson St  
Auburn NSW 2144
02 9643 2135

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It was obvious that Christmas had arrived at Costco, with these gorgeous glass ornaments on sale for under $2 each ($25 for set of 14)…

The trick to shopping successfully at Costco is to avoid the aisles of processed foods and concentrate instead on the great value raw ingredients and high end products. If you’re a Swarovski collector, the prices here would be hard to beat…

I was surprised to see Riedel glassware on sale – it wasn’t there last time we visited…

Abalone usually costs a fortune, but Costco have large Australian grown ones for under $50/kg.  Still too rich for my blood, as I’m the only one in the house who will eat them, but I know most of my extended family would adore these…

With Christmas approaching, there were a myriad of toys on offer…

Costco Lidcombe
17 – 21 Parramatta Road
Lidcombe  NSW  2141
02 8756 4600

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It really was the best way to spend a free Friday afternoon!

And to round the day off perfectly, in a display of sisterhood and solidarity, Carol took her ma’moul moulds home and made these fabulous dark chocolates (honestly, she is such a star!)…

…and I bought a two kilo bag of certified sustainable locally grown mussels (for just $10)…

…and made Tania’s green curry mussels!

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My earliest memory of the word gleaning comes from the Bible story of Ruth and Boaz. In the tale, Ruth had permission to glean in Boaz’s fields – that is, to follow behind the harvesters and collect any fallen grain the pickers had left behind.

According to the dictionary, to glean also means “to collect or gather anything little by little or slowly“.

Whenever we go into our garden to find ingredients for dinner, we’re gleaning. It’s rare for us to harvest an entire crop in one go – instead, we wander about, picking a few leaves off the rainbow chard, or a handful of beans from the plant climbing up the fence. It’s a process which ensures that whatever we’re eating is as fresh as possible.

When we first started our garden, I had visions of big harvests and shelves of preserves storing our surplus crops. It never eventuated into that. With the limited time we’ve had to work in the garden of late, there’s usually only a few beds producing at any one time. We’re far more inclined to forage (that’s the other word) on a daily basis and plan our meals around whatever we can find.  Any excess gets fed to the chickens or the worms, or left to go to seed, ensuring the next crop of self-sown vegetables.

Late this afternoon, we brought in a large perennial leek, some rainbow chard, a few beans and a small mutant broccoflower head. All the veg were washed and chopped, then stir-fried with a couple of cloves of garlic, a splash of oyster sauce and a little sesame oil. It was a tasty accompaniment to the soy sauce chicken and rice we were having as our main meal…

Each garden is different, and not everyone has the luxury of walking out the back door and into theirs. I’m curious to know, if you do grow your own fruit and vegetables – are you a harvester, or a gleaner? Do you bring in all of a single crop at the one time, then store it for later consumption, or pick what you need on a daily basis?

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We’re recipe testing for Christmas, which is why there’s been a flurry of cookies in our kitchen of late!

Speculaas are always popular here – they’re spicy, crisp and an ideal dunking biscuit. However, we’ve never been able to turn out pretty moulded ones like the traditional versions.

When I read Sawsan’s blog post on making moulded bread, it suddenly dawned on me that I could use my kaak and ma’moul moulds to shape the dough.  In particular, her suggestion to line the plastic moulds with cling film proved to be a lifesaver!

I started by reworking our recipe and substituting half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) in place of the baking powder. Part of the problem in the past has been that the dough rose too much on baking, causing loss of definition.  I also rejigged the flour to butter ratio to make a stiffer dough, and mixed it all together in our large food processor.

• 450g (3 cups) plain (AP) flour
• pinch of fine sea salt
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), sifted
• 225g (8oz) brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1½ teaspoons ground nutmeg
• ¼ – ½ teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground anise seed
• 200g (7oz) unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
• 2 large (59g) free range eggs
• flaked almonds

Note: I have a strong, large food processor – you might need to halve quantities if yours is smaller.

1. In a large food processor, blitz together the flour, salt, sifted bicarb, sugar and all the spices. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

2. In a small bowl, beat the eggs together, then add to the mixture and pulse until the mixture starts to forms into a ball.

3. Turn the stiff dough into a bowl and mix any remaining dry bits in by hand. Refrigerate until cold, preferably overnight.

4. Divide the dough into quarters and use one portion at a time, keeping the remainder chilled until needed. Lay a sheet of cling film over the mould.  Preheat the oven to 175C (350F) or 160C (320F) with fan, and line two trays with parchment paper.

5. Roll a small ball of dough and flatten it onto the mould with your hand…

6. Scatter a few flaked almonds over the top and gently press them in…

7. Using the cling film, lift the cookie off the mould and invert it onto a parchment lined tray.  Using round cutters, trim the cookie into an even shape…

8. Alternatively, line a ma’moul mould with cling film and push the dough into the holes…

9. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes until brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack and then store in an airtight container.

I found that the moulds with the deepest markings left the clearest designs on the finished cookies…

The almonds on the back add a traditional touch…

I’m really very pleased with how these turned out! They’ll definitely make the Christmas baking list, along with the Spritz cookies and a few of the slice and bake rolls. Sawsan, thanks for the inspiration!

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