Donna Hay Masterchef Masterclass

I haven't been watching much of the Masterchef series on TV, but I was very happy that I switched on just in time to see Donna Hay making this Classic Baked Cheesecake on Friday night.

I have just had a weekend away with family, this would have been the perfect cheesecake to have taken along.

I have highlighted Donna's top tips in red.



Classic Baked Cheesecake

Ingredients

Base
• 
1/3 cup ground almonds (almond meal)

• ¾ cup plain flour

• ¼ cup caster sugar
• 
90g chilled butter, chopped



Filling

• 330g cream cheese, softened
• 
500g fresh ricotta
• 
4 eggs

• 1 1/3 cups caster sugar
• 
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind

• ¼ cup lemon juice
• 
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1½ tablespoons cornflour

• 1½ tablespoons water


• strawberries and raspberries, to decorate

Method

1. Preheat oven to 150°C.


2. To make the base, place the ground almonds, flour, sugar and butter into a bowl. Rub mixture with your fingertips until it forms coarse crumbs.


3. Line the base of a 20cm spring form tin with non-stick baking paper. (Flip the base of your spring form tin, upside down and then line with baking paper - for better presentation ) Place the base mixture in the tin and press gently with fingers until even and then smooth out with the back of a spoon. Bake for 15 minutes or until light golden, set aside.


4. To make the filling, place the cream cheese, ricotta, eggs, sugar, lemon rind, juice and vanilla in a food processor. Combine the cornflour and water until smooth and add to the cheese mixture. Process the mixture until smooth.


5. Grease the sides of the cake tin with a little melted butter and then pour the filling over the base. Tap lightly to remove any air bubbles. Bake for 1 hour. Turn the oven off and stand the cake in the oven for 1 hour, leaving the door closed. Refrigerate until cold and serve with fresh berries.

Donna used a very luscious looking fresh ricotta, it may be worth trying to find some to make this cheesecake.

When life gives you lemons......

What would you make?

Lemons from Grandma's lemon tree. I'm thinking:

• lemon tart
• lemon delicious
• lemon meringue pie
• lemon sago pudding
• lemon curd
• preserved moroccan lemons
• lemon pound cake
• lemon barley water
• lemonade

Any other suggestions. I love to hear from you.

Coq au Reisling

Coq au Reisling (pronounced cauk oh rees'ling)
I absolutely adore this recipe, for obvious reasons. It's full of butter and cream and homely frenchness.

This recipe came from a fantastic cookbook on Alsatian cooking that I borrowed from the library years ago. For the 3 weeks that I had the book I cooked only from it. It was like a taking french holiday. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the book. To make Coq a la biere, substitute lager for wine in this recipe. I have never cooked Coq a la beire, but its just another option to try.

The leftovers make a great base for a yummy cream of chicken soup.

Coq au Reisling

serves 4-6

• 1 chicken (cut into serving pieces) or 1.5 kilo chicken pieces
• 4 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 eschallots (finely diced)
• 300 ml reisling
• 300 ml chicken stock
• 250 grams mushrooms (sliced)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 lemon (juiced)
• 6 tablespoon heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon parsley (finely chopped)

In a heavy based casserole, melt 2 tablespoons butter and the oil. Fry the chicken pieces until brown and set aside. Add the eschallots and gently saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the wine and chicken stock and return the chicken pieces to the casserole dish. Season to taste. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 - 40 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. In a fry pan, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and saute the mushrooms until cooked. Season to taste. Put the chicken and mushrooms into a serving dish and keep warm. Increase the heat on the wine and stock mixture, and continue to cook until the liquid is reduced to one cup. Stir in the lemon juice and cream and heat through. Pour the sauce over the chicken and mushrooms and sprinkle with the chopped parsley. Serve immediately with buttered noodles.

Buttered noodles

serves 4-6

• 1 x 250 gram packet fettuccine or pappardelle
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• salt to taste

Cook the noodles until al dente. Drain and tip into a warm serving bowl. Add the butter and salt and toss well until the butter is melted. Do not use salt if your butter is salted. I usually use unsalted butter.

I like to serve this with either steamed asparagus or green beans.

Guacamole

I don't know why, but I have just started to make this old favourite again recently. I think I took it to every party I went to during the 90's. When my son was about 3 years old he saw 'guacamole' being made on Play School. We had all of the ingredients in the fridge and made it that afternoon. He loved it and from that day on, when avocados were in season, the avocado dip I usually made was: avocado, tomato and philadelphia cheese. Play School's guacamole. Only this year for his birthday, did I decide it was time for some grown up guacamole and pulled out this recipe. It is loved just as much, has way more flavour and does not need philly cheese.

The avocados are cheap and plentiful in the area were we live right now. I am reminded, as I am every season of the 3 beautiful mature avocado trees that were in the back yard of our last home. Oh how I wish I could have packed them up and moved them with me.





Guacamole

makes 1 1/2 cups

make from march to august

• 3 avocados (roughly chopped)
• 1/2 red onion (finely diced)
• 1 tomato (finely diced)
• 2 limes (juiced)
• 1 1/2 teas. tabasco sauce
• ground pepper
• extra virgin olive oil (if needed)
• coriander leaves (roughly chopped)

In a large bowl mash all of the ingredients together except the oil and coriander. Add olive oil if the mixture is too dry, if not, do not use at all. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with the coriander.

My recipe index

You may be wondering: why are there so many recipes in the side bar recipe index when this is only a new blog and you can find only six recipes on this blog?

I have linked to recipes on my other blog 'monkeemoomoo'. This is really just to make my life easier. I am constantly losing recipes, especially ones that are written on scrap paper or have been torn from magazines. I often find them months later stuffed inside another cookbook.

This should work better for me.

While we are on the subject of the recipes on this blog, if you cook a recipe, I would love to hear your feedback, more importantly if you cook a recipe and you find a mistake, please let me know. It is time consuming writing out recipes and mistakes can happen. A simple thing like 1 tablespoon instead of 1 teaspoon written in a recipe could possibly mean disaster. This I know from first hand experience, my own mistake, lead me to completely wreck a dish that could only be thrown out.

I would like this to be an interactive blog, after all two heads are better than one, three heads are better than two........

Le creuset love

(image is from here)

I thought that I would let you know that I basically cook with 3 pots in my house. If one of my recipes says, casserole dish, stockpot, or heavy based pan, this is what I'm using.

When I lived in London in my early twenties, I was house sitting a very nice apartment in Kensington. Even though the kitchen was smaller than my current ensuite bathroom, it did have gas and it did have a le creuset pot, one of the originals in bright orange (flame). I was instantly smitten - my life had been changed forever.

A great present giving arrangement came out of living so far from home. Everyone sent me money for birthdays and Christmases. I clearly remember walking in to Selfridges and excitedly purchasing my very first le creuset pot in azure blue. For a budget traveller, this was a strange purchase perhaps, with that money I could have flown to Turkey for a week. But no, I knew I really needed that pot.

That pot came home with me when I returned to Australia, and I bought another one with my first pay cheque here. Years later one of my blue pots came to an untimely demise. It was heart wrenching. All I need to say about the matter is: Do not try and make marmalade when you have a colicky newborn in the house. And if you do try jam making during a time like this, learn from your mistakes and DON'T DO IT AGAIN three weeks later. Fruit and sugar boiling away on the stovetop need constant attention, as do newborn babies.

Lucky for me, birthday money came to the rescue again and instead of purchasing a designer handbag, a knee length leather jacket or going on a weekend getaway. I bought myself two more le creuset pots in 'grown up' cream (dune). I have the 24 cm, 26cm and 28cm. Almost everyday, two out of these three pots are on the draining rack on the sink. There are two there now as I write. They are overworked and maybe a little taken for granted. They do their job so well, I couldn't live with out them.

Do you have a favourite cookware item you can't live without?

Red cabbage and sausages

I thought I would share my recipes for the bratwurst with apples and braised red cabbage that I cooked last week. I have made both of these recipes many times before.

I'm always looking for different ways to make sausages exciting. Everyone is happy, when I tell the kids that there are sausages for dinner.



Bratwurst with apples
serves 4

• 750 grams bratwurst
• 250 grams apples (peeled, cored and sliced)
• 2 tables. butter
• 2 tables. sugar
• 2 tables. raisins

Grill the sausages and keep warm. In a large frypan melt the butter and gently cook the apples, covered, for 15 minutes until soft. Add the sugar and raisins and cook for a few minutes. Lay the cooked sausages over the apple and cover with a lid. Simmer for 10 minutes. Serve immediately.



This braised red cabbage recipe was on the Christmas menu that I cooked for my first cold Christmas in London. Every time I cook it I am reminded of our cosy flat on that day. The apartment was decorated with colours of the season: a poinsettia sat on a side table, red parrot tulips spilled from a vase on the mantle piece, red candles lit the room, fresh holly decorated the hors d'oeuvres platters, mistletoe hung in the doorway and best of all, the room was scented by a Norwegian spruce, yes, a real Christmas tree. The day was filled with many friends far from home and lots of delicious Christmas food. Joy, laughter and merriment, as it should be. There was lots of red wine, champagne and mulled wine and an incident with a tea towel catching fire on the gas hob, but that is a whole other story. (too much wine I think...shhhh)

The original recipe came from a December issue of UK Country Living, but I think I have probably played around with it a bit.

Braised red cabbage
 
serves 4

• 1/2 red cabbage (shredded)
• 3 tables. olive oil
• 1 large onion (diced)
• 1 1/2 tables. red wine vinegar
• 1 large or 2 small green apples (peeled and sliced)
• 50 grams brown sugar
• 3/4 teas. cinnamon
• 3/4 teas. ground cloves
• 2 tables. red wine
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper
• 2 tables. red current jelly (optional)

Heat the oil in a large pan and saute the onions until soft. Add the cabbage and cook gently for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until wilted. Add the vinegar and raise the heat to reduce the liquid. Once reduced, add the remaining ingredients and simmer for 2 hours.