Cooking Club 17th August 2011

 

To have with coffee I made White Chocolate and Raspberry Friands, http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/13545/raspberry+white+chocolate+friands   which were simple to make and delicious. I served them with a raspberry coulis made by boiling sugar, frozen raspberries and sugar, with a little lemon juice to taste, until syrupy. The mixture is then strained to get a nice smooth syrup.

All the dishes we made today were from Masterchef. For a starter we tried Oysters and Lemon, http://www.masterchef.com.au/oysters-and-lemon-and-truffle-marshmallow.htm. This starter is an interesting take on a "pasta" made from apple gel with a creamy seafood filling. We used crab meat instead of oysters as I am not overly keen on raw oysters. To make the apple gel you need a product called gellan which I purchased on the net from The Melbourne Food Ingredient Depot (www.mfcd.net/depot). If there is ever an ingredient you can't find try this company; they stock a lot of the ingredients used on Masterchef and even have a section just for Masterchef ingredients. Gellan is what I would describe as a very strong gelatine and it sets in seconds. The gel is made by boiling apple juice (use a nice clear one) and gellan. You then pour a 1mm layer into flat bottom trays. Once it sets you cut it into rounds.

For the filling you make a mayonnaise from egg yolk, caper water (just the water from a jar of capers), dijon mustard, pink sea salt and grape seed oil. The quantities in this recipe make a huge amount so make sure you cut it down. Unfortunately our mayonnaise separated and although we still used a bit for flavour we needed to add in a small amount of store bought mayonnaise to bind the filling. The filling is made by chopping carrot, celeriac and eschallots into 2mm cubes (a knife cut known as brunoise). The vegetables are then blanched in boiling wtaer for 10 seconds to soften them slightly and tone down the flavour of the onion. They are then refreshed in iced water to stop them over cooking. The vegetables are combined with chopped chervil, chives, parsley and capers, lemon juice, crab meat and mayonnaise. To serve you place a small amount of the filling on a gel circle and fold over to seal. We had a lot of trouble making them seal well and also found if the gel was too thick it tended to tear. The end result looked nice but was messy to eat and the flavour was not as good as we hoped. I had some of the left over filling in lettuce leaf cups for dinner and really enjoyed it so personally I wouldn't bother with the gel rounds. I also think if the mayonnaise had worked the flavour may have been better.

For main we made "Not Another Spring Chicken", http://www.masterchef.com.au/not-just-another-spring-chicken.htm This was a simple but delicious recipe that I would definitely make again. The recipe suggested using Marylands and breasts on the bone, with skin on, but we just used the breasts on the bone. To cook you pat the skin dry and sprinkle with salt, lemon zest and thyme. You then drizzle with olive oil and cook in the oven for about 45 minutes.The recipe ingredients say "the juice and zest of 1 lemon" but never tell you when to add the juice so we just left it out. The chicken had a fantastic flavour and would be nice served on its own with just vegetables.

To serve the salad you mix the chicken with some baby cos leaves which have been brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and cooked on a smoking hot griddle pan until charred. The lettuce didn't taste very nice on its own but worked well when combined with the other components of the dish. The chicken and lettuce are drizzled with the pan juices and then topped with a grape salad. To make the grape salad you combine sliced grapes, red onion, parsley leaves, chives and chopped roasted almonds with a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, dijon mustard and salt.
This really was a lovely dish and would be great for a simple lunch time party.

For dessert we made Goats Curd and Vanilla Bean Cheesecake with Poached Cumquats, Spiced Pumpkin Ice Cream and Mandarin Curd, http://www.masterchef.com.au/goats-curd-and-vanilla-bean-cheesecake-with-poached-cumquats--spiced-pumpkin-ice-cream-and-mandarin-curd.htm There was 9 different components to this dish so it did take a bit of work however most can be done in advance so it would be suitable for a dinner party.

The cheesecake was made by first making a sabayon which is a light frothy custard like Italian dessert. To make the sabayon you whisk egg yolks, Muscat (we used sweet sherry), vanilla bean seeds and sugar over a saucepan of simmering water. It is important that the sabayon does not get too hot or it will become grainy so remove from heat if you think it is getting too hot. Next you mix in cream cheese, goats curd and sour cream. These should be lightly beaten first to make them easier to mix in.The next step is to make a meringue from egg whites and sugar. You then dissolve gelatine sheets in warm lime juice and add this to the cheese mixture before folding in the meringue and putting in the fridge to set.
To poach the cumquats you leave them whole and cook them for 8-10 minutes in a mixture of maple syrup, vincotto, juniper berries, cloves, cinnamon stick, star anise and grated nutmeg. They should end up plump and juicy.
For the pumpkin ice cream you grate the pumpkin and cook in butter until soft. You then simmer milk and cream with cinnamon stick and grated nutmeg to infuse it with the spice flavours. Add a little of the spiced milk to the pumpkin and puree until smooth. Next you whisk sugar and egg yolks and add some of the spiced milk. This custard mixture is cooked until it thickly coats the back of a spoon. Once the custard is thick you whisk it over an ice bath to cool, combine it with the pumpkin puree and place in an ice cream machine to freeze. Once it is frozen place the ice cream in the freezer. Our custard was not as smooth as it could have been and consequently the ice cream was also not as smooth as it could have been.
The madarin curd was made from egg, egg yolks, castor sugar, mandarin rind, white balsalmic vinegar and butter and was absolutely delicious.
The shortbread crumble was a simple shortbread dough made from plain flour, butter, icing sugar and sea salt and it was sprinkled with pepitas (dried pumpkin seeds) before cooking. We should have cooked ours a bit longer than we did as the centre was still quite doughy and we could only use the edges to make our crumble. We used a small food processor to blend the crisp edges into crumbs.
The shattered filo was made by layering filo and melted butter and then cooking it between two oven trays until crisp and golden. The sheets were then broken into pieces to resemble autumn leaves.
The candied vanilla was made by slicing the vanilla bean (once seeds removed) very finely and cooking it in a mixture of sugar and water until soft. The vanilla was then removed and sprinkled with castor sugar and left to dry.
The fennel fronds were dipped in beaten egg white and dusted with castor sugar then left to dry.
To serve this dessert you place a couple of spoonfuls of the cheesecake on a plate and spread it or smash it slightly. The crumble is placed in piles near the cheescake to resemble the base. The ice cream is scooped in the middle and the mandarin curd piped in nice little piles (ours was a bit runny and didn't pipe very well).  The cumquats are sprinkled around the plate and drizzled with some of the poaching syrup. The filo, vanilla and fennel fronds are then used to decorate the dish.
This recipe did not use the dried pancetta that they used on the Masterchef show but we added it. We just cooked the pancetta in the oven until crisp.
This dish had very mixed reviews from the four of us. Some loved the goats curd cheesecake, some found the goats curd flavour too strong. Some loved the pancetta, some found it too salty. We all agreed that the cumquats were very sour and quite unpleasant to eat with the rind on. They added great colour to the plate but needed to be cooked differently to make them more palatable. The poaching syrup and mandarin curd were delicious and next time I would put more of these two things on the plate. Some loved the pumpkin ice cream and some were unsure. The filo added nice texture. The shortbread crumble was lovely. The fennel fronds did not dry out in the time we had and some pieces were a bit limp but they still looked pretty. The vanilla was nice. Overall I would say this dish was a success but depending on who you ask you may leave certain components off the plate.
Once again a fun day and nice to try new flavours and techniques.