Persimmon pudding

Tonight I was having dinner brought to me by friends - all I was responsible for was dessert. The glowing orange persimmons at the greengrocer reminded me that I have Fran's brilliant recipe for persimmon pudding, so I made that. You put together three separate mixtures, then combine them.

Fran's persimmon pudding
Heat oven to 180C.
Make
1 cup persimmon puree (peel, cut up, removing seedy part, and puree in blender or processor - my persimmons were a little too firm, so I added a couple of slightly squishy feijoas)
and add
1 tsp baking soda.

In a large bowl, mix:
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt
and add
1 tsp baking soda.

In a small bowl, mix:
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla.

Add puree and egg mixture alternately to dry ingredients, mixing well, then add:
1 tbsp melted butter
1/2 cup currants or raisins
1/2 cup nuts - macadamia or pecan or walnut
(I used raisins and walnuts - I had a big bowl of those from Fran's tree at Waikanae.)

Line light square baking tin with baking paper, or use individual ramekins.
Pour in mixture and cook at 180C for 15 minutes.
Dust with a mix of caster sugar and cinnamon.
Bake another 15 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
Leave to cool until warm, before serving with cream or custard, and if you like, some slices of lightly poached persimmon on the side.


This pudding has a beautiful rich warm colour and tastes faintly mysterious - if you don't tell people what it's made of, they're unlikely to guess. A delicious early winter special.

Buying dinner

This post is a little late - it's been a busy week. As I was going to be occupied on the evening of my birthday (see Elsewoman), I arranged to have my French friend Diane to dinner on Wednesday. But I knew I wouldn't have much time to cook, as I had some work due, and my neighbour Frances had invited us for drinks before dinner. A trip to Moore Wilson was clearly called for. Here's what I bought.

Fresh prawn cutlets, to cook with pasta for a main course (Frances's nibbles would do nicely for a starter).

I fried them quickly in butter, took them out and reduced some vermouth, added lime and lemon juice, put the prawns back and cooked them gently a little longer, stirred in a bit of chilli jam and some fresh coriander, finished the sauce off with fresh cream, and added a little more finely chopped coriander and black pepper just before serving.

Vermouth - Noilly Prat cost only slightly more than Martini, and I love using it with seafood - as well as a gorgeous green broccoflower, four different kinds of pears and a new tin of smoked paprika. The slice of goat's cheese came from Gamboni's, our brilliant Karori deli - we had a tiny bit for the obligatory French cheese course, after a salad of the very last of my garden lettuce (I know I should have planted some more while it was so warm this month, but I didn't).

For dessert we had Arobake rhubarb tart, then peppermint tea with the little biscuits Diane brought.

Since then (see Elsewoman!) I've done little else but eat, as kind friends treated me for my birthday (they know me all too well, obviously). This can't go on (she said feebly, reaching for the last chocolate). Well, only till Monday. Then I will live on nothing but salads and scraps and water for a while.

Bone with a hole - osso buco

The first time I went overseas with Harvey was to Sydney, in 1981. I'd never been to Australia, and was a bit overwhelmed by the food. Harvey wanted to go to an Italian restaurant he'd been to before. I can't remember its name, but it seemed very authentic - too much so for me. It was large and noisy and had a vast, multipage Italian menu that completely baffled me, partly because I could barely read its curly brown type in the dim light.
         Harvey knew exactly what he wanted - mussels, followed by saltimbocca. I wasn't impressed by the idea of mussels, because I thought they'd be like the giant New Zealand ones, and I wasn't sure what saltimbocca was. So I chose two things I'd often heard of, but never had - minestrone and osso buco.
          I didn't enjoy my foolish combination of two very hearty, meaty dishes, and the bones in the osso buco were embarrassingly difficult to deal with. Meanwhile Harvey tied on a huge white bib and feasted on a big bowl of tiny black mussels cooked in white wine, completely different from the ones I'd had back home, followed by a delicate, delicious-looking combination of veal, ham and sage that lived up to its lovely name of jump-in-the-mouth.
           I've made minestrone many times since, but never osso buco. Then before Christmas I found a neat package of the right cut of veal in Moore Wilson (remarkably cheap at $6.95), and bought it to freeze and make later for Harvey - I knew he'd enjoy it, and the Claudia Roden recipe (the modern version, with tomatoes - the older one didn't use them, it was more like a veal blanquette) looked remarkably simple.
          Of course, I never got the chance to make it for him. But this week, with visitors due, I decided it was time to have a go.

Osso buco alla milanese
(from The Food of Italy, Claudia Roden)

4 thick slices of shin of veal, each cut with a piece of marrow bone in the middle
flour for dusting
50g butter, or less (I did use this much, but removed some later, it's a lot)
125 ml dry white wine
225g tomatoes, peeled and chopped (or a good quality can of crushed tomatoes)
meat stock or water
salt and pepper

For the gremolata:
4 tbsp finely chopped Italian flat-leaved parsley
1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest
1 small clove garlic, crushed
1 large anchovy, finely chopped

- Coat pieces of meat with flour and brown in butter on both sides. Add tomatoes and stock or water to cover, then season.
- Cook very gently with lid on for 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn't stick, until meat is so tender it comes away from the bone. (I used the slow cooker for this stage.) Add stock or water to keep meat covered at first, but sauce should be thick by the end.
- Make gremolata: mix parsley, lemon zest, garlic and anchovy, place a little on each piece of meat and cook a few minutes longer.
- Serve with risotto alla milanese or plain white rice.

The flavour and texture is beautifully smooth and rich without being too heavy, and the sharp gremolata offsets it perfectly. Buon appetito.

A Right Royal Nosh-up

 

Sadly, the invitation arrived too late. But in any case, I was already
booked for a Royal Wedding Dinner with friends.

According to a former royal chef's glossy cookbook, Eating Royally (I am not making this up), Buckingham palace menus are always written in French, and ours was no exception.

The sausages (tasty traditional pork, of course, from the local butcher) were arranged around the mash to make a lovely crown shape, topped with pea jewels and escorted by cabbage with peas, roast veges and onion gravy. Propped up behind is the welcoming picture on the back of the menu cards, standing in for our distant hosts. (I'm sure they would have preferred our sausages to chocolate biscuit cake.)

Dessert was a proper English trifle, with the right (generous) amount of sherry, decorated with the happy couple's crests surrounded by chocolate sprinkle hearts.

By the time we'd worked our way through all this, interrupted by occasional dashes to the telly to see well-known guests arriving at the Abbey (including Princess Eugenie and her hat, described by Rosemary McLeod as resembling an ancient contraceptive device - the Really Good Stuff was about to start.
(PS - Our eagle-eyed hostess has pointed out that the one in pink with that hat was Beatrice, Eugenie was the one in blue brocade.)

We oohed and aahed as the bride appeared, gasped as the ring got stuck (I suppose it Isn't Done for the bride to try it on first, but I admired how well the groom coped with this unforeseen crisis), and then welcomed the clever way our hostess filled the awkward gap before the Balcony Appearance with the promised friandises. And what magnificent little morsels they were.

To accompany them we had, naturally, the Queen's favourite tipple - a cup of tea. Just like us, and most of the guests, the teapot was properly dressed for the occasion.

After the second kiss, toasted with a glass of Deutz (proudly New Zealand, but also a better-sounding match for the German-descended Windsors than anything French), we called it a night - and a very good night it was too.

Wild duck time

The duck shooting season begins on 1 May. For some time I've had three dead ducks in my freezer. Harvey's brother Bruce is a very good shot, and each year brings down more ducks than they can cope with. So I was the lucky recipient of these.
         I've tried various ways of cooking wild duck. The slow cooker method works the best, but it can only cope with one duck at a time, so it's no good for more than two people, given that wild ducks don't have nearly as much flesh on them as domestic ducks.
         So I had another scout around the net and came up with a brilliant recipe by none other than Steve Logan and Al Brown of Logan Brown fame. What's more, it required precisely three ducks. I organised a dinner and planned my campaign.

Oh dear - I had this whole post written and saved and then Blogger went awol, wouldn't let me in, and when I finally got back most of it had gone. Now it's 10.30 pm and I haven't the energy to rewrite it all! Have a look at the recipe here. I made duck stock with the carcasses and roasting pan veges instead of chicken stock, used considerably less stock than they say so as not to drown it (maybe they had bigger ducks), and less flour to thicken, and served it with potato and parsnip puree instead of pasta. The consensus: it was magnificent - and even better next day. Hard to photograph, though - here's the best I could do. And now I'm going to bed.

       

Biscuits for Anzac Day

On Saturday morning I decided I wanted to do some baking - a rare event. What could I make with what was on hand? Harvey often used to have porridge, so I made sure there was a constant supply of rolled oats. Our old kitchen had open shelves, and I kept what we used most often in nice-looking tins, preferably ones that matched the contents. (They were hopeless for storing biscuits and crackers, but fine for everything else.)

When I found this great tin in a long-gone gift shop in Willis St, I was really pleased - not only was it perfect for the rolled oats, but tigers were Harvey's favourite animal.

I never eat porridge, and I hate wasting things. So of course the perfect thing to make, especially at this time of year, was - Anzac biscuits.  And yet again I turned to Lois Daish, whose Listener column showed how much effort she put into getting her recipe right. I'd used it before (a long time ago!). Only this time I did it properly and weighed everything out. She points out that "the quantity of golden syrup is thr trickiest variable", so you should make sure you measure out exactly three tablespoons, "with no syrup overflowing or clinging to the spoon".

Anzac biscuits (from A Good Year, 2005)
170g caster sugar
130g flour
100g rolled oats
60g dessicated coconut
100g butter
3 tablespoons golden syrup
1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
4 tablespoons boiling water

- Preheat oven to 160C (on fanbake if you have it) and line two baking trays with baking paper.
- Put sugar, flour, oats a nd coconut into a large bowl and mix well.
- Put butter and golden syrup in a small pot over gentle heat until melted.
- Put baking soda in a cup and pour the boiling water over it. Stir until dissolved and add to melted butter and syrup.
- Pour this hot fluffy mixture into the dry ingredients and stir very thoroughly.
- Use your hand to form the slightly crumbly mixture into a mass. Form balls about the size of a small walnut and place onto the lined trays, leaving enough room for spreading. Press each ball lightly with a fork and put in the oven. (A friend told me to dip the fork in water first so it doesn't stick to the biscuits.)
- After 5 minutes, open the oven and you'll see that the biscuits have flattened and puffed up. Give each tray a gentle bang to deflate the biscuits - you may need to do this again after another minute or two. (Actually, mine didn't seem to puff up, but I did make them too big and I think I was a bit light on the flour, they really spread out.)
- Total baking time about 10 minutes."When ready", says Lois, "the biscuits will be a light chestnut brown and will still feel slightly soft when pressed."
- Take out of the oven, leave to cool for a minute or two, then transfer to a rack to harden and cool. (I just carefully lift off the whole sheet of baking paper and put that on the rack with the biscuits still on it.)
- Store in an airtight container.

They're thinnish, and a bit too big, but I like them like that. I've been proudly producing them for friends and eating one a day with my coffee. And sometimes another one with my afternoon tea. And  now and then one for dessert, with fruit. So there aren't going to be any left for Anzac Day.

Back at the table

When I was in Auckland, a strong-minded friend who lives on her own for most of the week advised me to reclaim my dining table. The thing is, unless we had visitors, I hardly ever used the table in this house before Harvey died, except for dinner. The light isn't good enough to read the paper, so I took to sitting in an armchair near the window for breakfast, and often for lunch as well. Harvey sat at the table if he was having porridge, but otherwise his pattern was much the same as mine - a plate on his lap.

             Still, I knew she was right - the table is definitely the best place to eat dinner. So I've now made myself use it again. I'd rather sit at the side than the end, with the table stretching out rather forlornly in front of me, but if I do that I can't see the TV, and as I wrote over on Elsewoman, I need it on for company while I'm eating - it's too quiet otherwise. So this is the best I can do. Notice how I've carefully filled the table up.

And here's the delicious fish stew my friend served me for dinner at her place - she's a brilliant cook. It's a Lois Daish recipe, "Summer Fish Bowl", from her 2005 book A Good Year.

Summer Fish Bowl ( serves 2-3)
Sauce
1/2 c olive oil
1 large red or brown onion, finely diced
1 large carrot, finely diced
1 celery rib, finely diced
1 small fennel bulb, finely diced
1-2 cloves garlice, peeled and finely sliced
1/2 c white wine - suavignon blanc or a dry riesling
6-8 low acid tomatoes, chopped
salt and pepper
pinch saffron stamens
pinch cayenne pepper
fresh thyme leaves
1 and 1/2 cups fish stock, chicken stock or water with a splash of fish sauce
chopped fresh parsley

Warm oil in heavy pot, and gently fry onion, carrot, celery and fennel for several minutes, then add garlic. Fry briefly again and pour on the wine. Allow to bubble up for 1-2 minutes.. Add tomatoes, seasoning and thyme leaves. Cook for a few minutes then add liquid and simmer for 20 minutes until everything is tender. Check seasonings. Gently reheat 10 minutes before the fish is ready.

Fish
500g fresh fish, cut into large pieces (we had bluenose)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Carefully remove any bones. Place in rimmed roasting pan, brush with olive oil and season. Preheat grill. Slide fish under grill and cook for 3-5 minutes, depending on thickness, until fish is barely opaque right through.  Transfer fish into heated shallow bowls. Pour any juices from pan into pot of sauce.

Check seasonings in hot sauce, add parsley and ladle over the fish. Serve with steamed white rice, potatoes or bread.