Month: February 2008

Instant Chocolate Mousse

I don’t think anyone would be surprised to know there has been a significant amount of comfort eating going on around here, what with recent events and all.

I made this because I was craving something of this texture, knew the boys would love it and it seemed relatively straight-forward. It’s also a Nigella recipe so was bound to work. Bless her. The texture is sublime and the marshmallowy chocolate flavour is instantly comforting. The boys adored it.

I’m not normally one for recipes that cut corners, but the good thing about this – apart from having chocolate mousse in next to no time – is that there are no raw eggs, so the old, the pregnant and the young can eat it with gay abandon.

Instant Chocolate Mousse
From Nigella Express

  • 150g mini marshmallows (I used normal size)
  • 50g soft butter
  • 250g good dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces (this is critical. Don’t use Nestle buttons, it will taste like balls)
  • 60ml hot water from a recently boiled kettle
  • 1 x 284ml tub double cream (ours come in 300ml so I used that)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  1. Combine the marshmallows, chocolate and water in a heavy based saucepan and place over a low heat – just go gently here as you don’t want to burn the chocolate while the marshmallows melt
  2. Give it a stir every so often
  3. Meanwhile, whip the cream with the vanilla until thick
  4. Fold the cream into the cooling chocolate mix until you have a smooth cohesive mixture
  5. Pour into four glasses or ramekins (I did 5 martini glasses – use four and you’re getting a big serve) and chill for as long as you can stand it.

Roast pork

I’ve conquered my pork cooking fears. Well, at least the roasting part. Next, chops.
I grew up in a house where the only pork product ever consumed was bacon and even that was boiled before being fried to get rid of the salt.
Dear GOD it’s a miracle I’m still alive.

Anyway, because I didn’t grow up with pork, my cooking with it has always been hesitant. Combine that with appalling pork products available to us – pork that in a marketing executive fit of stupidity involved trying to pitch it as a healthy meat so breeders bred out the fat and therefore the flavour – and my experience has always left me wanting.

But as artisan breeders start getting rare tasty breeds back into our butchers and onto our dining room tables, my willingness to try and incorporate this tasty meat into our diet is having pretty good success.

Then, the other day, I roasted a piece of boned pork shoulder and Oh.My.GOD it was good.

Roasted boned shoulder of pork

  • 1.4 kg piece of boned shoulder, skin scored and piece tied thanks to the butcher
  • salt
  • stock
  • wine
  1. Preheat oven to 220C
  2. Rub salt all over the meat
  3. Place on a rack in a baking tray and cook at 220 for 30 minutes to get the crackling underway
  4. Drop temperature back to 180C
  5. Pour a cup of stock into the baking tray and a cup of (white) wine in as well
  6. Leave it alone to cook for a further hour
  7. Pull out of the oven, cut the string, cut the crackling from the roast and if necessary, crank the oven back up to high and put it back in to finish it off
  8. Cover the meat and let it rest

I served it with some roasted potatoes, pumpkin and sweet potato, peas, brussel sprouts and gravy.

Gravy

  1. Drain off any excess fat from the baking tray and place over a low-medium flame on your stove top
  2. Scatter over a heaped tablespoon of plain flour and cook off for a minute or two or three – scrape it around and work in some of the crunchy bits off the baking tray
  3. Have a kettle of boiling water on hand
  4. Add some water, stirring furiously as you go to work out any lumps and keep adding until you have a good runny liquid
  5. Cook over the flame until it thickens.
  6. Cooking the roast with the stock and wine in the bottom makes this gravy extra tasty.

The boys had left over roast beef and gravy sandwiches the next day for school.

Jelly Cakes

With Oscar’s 10th birthday next Monday, these will be making an appearance on Sunday at the family barbecue to celebrate this landmark event.

Jelly cakes are the best. So much fun to make (I actually cope with the mess with these and let the boys do the jelly and coconutting) and they are just tasty little pop in the mouth bundles of goodness that can not do anything except put things right in the world.

The cakes need to be made in those shallow little cupcake tins – like a Madeleine tin I guess but without the ridges and round. Now I’ve typed that I’m thinking you could easily use a Madeleine tin. Anyway, go crazy with different coloured jelly if you must but either way, get yourself and your kids in the kitchen and make these little rays of sunshine and think of my beautiful special little guy.

Jelly Cakes
From Kylie Kwong’s tv program

  • 125g butter
  • 1/2 cup caster sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 1/2 cups SR flour
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  1. Preheat oven to 180C
  2. Cream butter with sugar
  3. Add egg
  4. Fold in flour, milk and vanilla
  5. Spoon into greased patty-pan tins
  6. Bake for 10 minutes
  • 1 cup boiling water
  • 1 packet jelly crystals
  • 3/4 cup cold water
  • 2 1/2 cups dessicated coconut
  1. Make the jelly in a shallow rectangular tray with sides and chill for 2-2.5hours
  2. When the cakes are cooled and the jelly is sort of half set, roll cakes in the jelly, then in the coconut, which you’ve got in another tray with sides.

Yum
Yum
Yum

Mooching

For once in my life I don’t feel like talking very much.
All talked out.

I think I might go hang out at Hey Mum for a while and just post recipes as some sort of cathartic process.