Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Here’s an expensive and indulgent last minute gift to make for Christmas.

It’s a twist on our Spiced Nuts recipe, and it’s proven very popular this festive season. It’s made with Australian macadamias, which are not cheap – a 2kg bag from Southern Cross Supplies costs $50…

If you’re fortunate enough to be growing your own like Linda, then this is a perfect way to use them.  Or, if cost is an issue, this recipe works brilliantly with mixed nuts, or unblanched almonds (which were just $10 a kilo at Southern Cross Supplies).

I used Billington’s Molasses Sugar, a discovery from earlier in the year. It’s quite different to the Muscovado sugars offered by the same company, and imparts a deep, rich flavour to the maccies…

• 500g whole macadamia nuts, or any other assortment of mixed nuts
• 1 egg white
• 25g (about 2 US tablespoons) Billington’s Molasses Sugar (or dark brown sugar)
• 2 teaspoons Maldon salt flakes
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin
• ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
• ½ teaspoon Kashmiri chilli powder

Note: This isn’t an overly precise recipe and you could use whatever you have on hand, although I have found the above combination of spices particularly appealing.

1. Preheat oven to 160C/325F with fan. Line a large baking tray with a sheet of parchment paper.

2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the egg white until foamy, then whisk in all the other ingredients except the nuts.  Add the nuts, and stir well to coat completely in the spice mix. I use clean hands to do this, breaking up the lumps of sticky sugar as I go.

3. Tip the nuts onto the lined tray and spread them out into a single layer.  Bake for 15 minutes, then remove the tray from the oven and stir the nuts to unstick them from the paper and break up any clumps.  Don’t burn yourself!

4. Return the tray to the oven for another 5 – 7 minutes, until golden brown.  Allow the nuts to cool on the tray, during which time they’ll harden up and go crunchy.  If you like, you could sprinkle over extra salt at this point.  Once the nuts are completely cool, store in an airtight container for up to three weeks.

I’ve packaged the nuts in small sealed bags and added them to our Christmas mini-hampers.  Easy, expensive and very special!

Pete and I have been together so long that his family has become my family too – I’ve known them since his youngest siblings were just ten years old (they’re now nearly forty).

They’ve all been here this weekend (with the exception of his youngest brother Greg), and we’ve been feasting. This morning, their cousin Emma and her family joined us for brunch, and in an hour or so, our friends Kevin and Carol will be dropping by.  It’s a busy, joyous time of the year, which we’re enjoying enormously after a couple of long, hard months.

I haven’t been online very much, but wanted to pop in quickly to say hi, and to share with you some of the glorious food we’ve been eating…

As I mentioned in my last post, we glazed a large leg of ham.  This year we just melted a jar of Pete’s quince jelly with a few tablespoons of dark brown sugar to form the glaze.  The fat was scored and studded with cloves, and then half the glaze was painted on. The leg was baked on a rack over a pan of water at 240C with fan for 20 minutes, then removed from the oven and coated with the remaining glaze, before returning to bake for a further 20 minutes at 200C with fan.

My brother-in-law Ray declared it to be the best ham he’d ever tasted…

On Saturday morning, Penny, Ray and I took an early morning trip to the Sydney Fish Market.  We came home with Pacific oysters, scallops on their shells, calamari rings, prawns, Moreton Bay bugs and rainbow trout.

The trout was baked in foil bags, the calamari was crumbed and deep fried, and the scallops were topped with a little garlic chive butter, then cooked on a hot griddle for five minutes until tender…

I was up early this morning to finish baking these ciabatta loaves – I’d mixed up the dough last night and left it on the kitchen bench, so all I had to do this morning was to shape the loaves and bake them…

I made a zucchini slice, using our Lebanese zucchinis, leg ham, eggs, onion and King Island cheese. It’s a really easy recipe to have on hand for this busy time of year, and it never fails to please…

Penny and I assembled this blackberry crown together…

Each ball of dough was filled with Pete’s rhubarb and blackberry jam…

I must fly – have to bake some kifli before Kevin and Carol arrive.

Lots of love. xx