Rum and raisin biscuits

Rum and Raisin biscuit

One of the best things about getting back from holidays is being back in my kitchen. I’ve just been on a 10 day sojourn in the South Island and, sad to say I missed cooking! Not that I didn’t have fantastic food down south – I did – I’ll write more on that later.

So now I am home again, I’ve spent a great day in the kitchen cooking food that will last the week. This included a coleslaw, a Provencal daube or stew, Pea and Ham soup and these delicious biscuits. If we don’t eat them all tonight then they should provide some lovely treats for the week.

Homemade biscuits are a rare and special treat for the time-poor. These rum and raisin biscuits will fill your home with that delicious – out of the oven smell – yet they are simple and quick to make! And even better, because they are made in a single pot there is little to clean up.

The only bad thing – is that they really are so good, its hard not to eat the lot in one sitting! Vive la glutton!

125g butter
125g sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp milk
1 1/2 tbsp rum (or 1 tsp rum essence and 1 tbsp water)
1 cup raisins
1 1/2 flour
1tsp baking powder

Heat the oven to 170 C. Grease a baking tray with butter or line it with baking paper.

Heat butter, sugar, golden syrup and milk in a pot until the sugar has dissolved. Take off the heat and add the rum and raisins and stir. Then mix in the flour and baking powder.

Put dessertspoons of the mixture on the tray and bake at 170 C for 10-12 minutes.

Then try resiting! These biscuits epitomise moreish!

 

Cheese scones – Ministry of Food style.

Scones are the ultimate fast food. You just mix them together and put into the oven. And as the weather gets colder, the more I hanked after a hot, buttery scone. This is the best, and the easiest cheese scone recipe I know.

The recipe comes from a cafe in Wellington – Ministry of Food. It’s close to our Parliament buildings and I got addicted to these scones when I was working near by. Thanks to Cuisine for publishing it.

Though this is a quick and easy recipe there is a trick to a great scone. So here are here are my tips, collected from my mum and many friends over the years.

Tips for scones

1 Heat the oven – it must be hot
2. Preheat the tray – put it in when you turn the oven on.
3. Add all the milk at once – it should be a wet rather than a try mixture
4. Mix quickly by making slicing actions with a knife, just enough to bind together. Don’t over mix.
5. Touch as little as possible and get it into the oven asap after mixing the milk in.

Cheese Scones

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch cayenne pepper (optional)
2 cups grated tasty cheese
1 cup full-cream milk

Preheat oven to 220º C. Put tray in to heat.
Sift flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and cayenne pepper into a bowl. Mix in cheese. Make a well in the centre.

Check you have a clear bench with flour on it, the oven is fully heated. You want the scones to go into the oven as soon as possible.

Add the milk, mix quickly with a knife. Turn out onto a floured bench and quickly shape into a 3 cm thick rectangle. Cut into 8 and put onto your floured, hot tray. Bake for 15-20 minutes. You’ll smell them as they get ready.

Delicious! If you don’t eat them all they freeze well. To reheat put them into an oven for about 5 minutes.

 

Brown Rice, Hazelnut and Herb Salad

What do brown rice and cardboard have in common? A lot, or so I thought until I tried this rice salad. I’m now a brown rice convert.

Nutty and full of body, the brown rice in this salad is a flavourful star-ingredient rather than just the bland, chorus-line filler of most rice salads.

It’s a bit of a fiddly recipe with several steps, but you can make the dressing, cook the rice, and roast and chop up the hazelnuts ahead of time. This just leaves chopping up the herbs and throwing it together at the last moment. It’s a spectacular addition to a barbecue, and teamed up with some nice sausages, a plain green salad and some good bread makes a stylish dinner.

This is the kind of recipe which justifies subscribing to Cuisine magazine – it really is the best foodie mag I have ever read. I repeat it here so I make sure I don’t lose it – ever! I reckon the key to this recipe it the proportions and technique. I suspect I will improvise over time – trying more Italian, Indian or Moroccan flavours rather than the Thai/ Asian of this recipe. I haven’t yet as I am still enamored with the recipe just as it is.

Brown Rice, Hazelnut and Herb Salad with Lime Dressing

1 cup brown rice
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
1 cup hazelnuts
4 spring onions, finely sliced
1 cup fresh mint leaves
1 cup Thai basil (I just use ordinary basil)
1 cup coriander
2 teaspoons sesame oil
Lime Dressing
1 tablespoon palm sugar, chopped
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Japanese or golden soy sauce
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 kaffir lime leaves, central stem removed and finely shredded (I just zest the limes and use this instead)

Make the dressing first

Heat the palm sugar and vinegar in saucepan, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Cool and add the rest of the ingredients.

Cook the rice. I boil the brown rice in ample water for 25 minutes then drain. Let it cool 5 minutes. Put into the service bowl, add the dressing and let cool.

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Bake the hazelnuts on a tray for 12 minutes, stirring once. Place the hazelnuts in a clean tea towel and rub them to loosen the skins, blow away the loosened skins. I find I need to give some an extra hand. You won’t get them all, but try to remove as much as possible. Coarsely chop.

Just before serving, toss the rice, hazelnuts, spring oinions, mint, basil, coriander and sesame oil together.

Serves 4-6.

 

Coleslaw that keeps for ages

This coleslaw is great to have in the fridge and keeps for ages. It was gifted to me by my great friend Carey. I love going to Carey’s, you never leave hungry! She always manages to pull a little something out of the fridge for visitors.

Carey often has this salad in a container in the fridge. It gets nicer over time so it’s an easy midweek vegie. I make it in weekend and eat it throughout the week.

It doesn’t have any mayonaisse in it, so if you want a change, or there is someone who refers fuller fat coleslaw, I just add it into the portion. I never seem to have celery seeds, but have used celery salt instead, about 2-3 teaspoons and leave out the ordinary salt.

Carey’s coleslaw

Dressing

1/4 cup white vinegar

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

1 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon tumeric

1 teaspoon celery seeds

Boil together and cool. Pour over cabbage, oinion and carrot.

 

Pork and fennel sausage spaghetti

I love Italian pork and fennel sausages. Long and skinny – they are deliciously tasty. There’s two places locally making these delicious of sausages – Island Bay Butcher and the Mediterranean Food Warehouse. You want to cater at least 3 each of these tasty little morsels – cause I tell you they are gorgeous.

But the other day I only had four and wanted to feed four people. I remembered a recipe my mate Kate learnt off the grandfather at the Med food warehouse. It’s quick to put together and makes them go a bit further. Plus it’s classy enough to serve for a casual dinner or a week night tea.

If you can’t get these sausages you could use plain pork sausages and add a few fennel or caraway seeds. I used flat leaf parsley but you could use rocket or baby spinach.

4 – 6 pork and fennel sausages

3 cloves of garlic – finely chopped

1/2 cup of white wine

Spagetti for 4

lemon – zest* and juice

Olive oil

Parmesan – grate a handful

A handful of flat leaf parsley – destemmed (or rocket or baby spinach)

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Put a pot of water for the spagetti on to boil.

Heat a tablespoon or so of oil in a fry pan. Slice open the end of the sausages and squeeze out the filling into the hot oil. Make little blobs about the size of the end of your finger. Don’t worry about getting them perfect – rough ones are fine.

While they’re cooking put the spagetti on.

Once the sausage is nicely browned put it into a serving bowl. Put the greens on top. When the spagetti is cooked reserve about a cup of the water, drain and add to the serving bowl. The spagetti will help wilt the greens.

Pour off some of the fat left in the pan and gently fry your garlic. Don’t brown it – just cook it through. Add the white wine and cook it off. Add about half cup of the pasta water and cook down, it’ll help thicken the sauce a bit.

Pour the sauce over the spagetti, greens and sausage add the lemon zest, juice and then the parmesan and toss. Check the seasoning and serve.

*Zesting the lemon

In recipes like this I don’t use a grater to zest.Cut the lemon in half and with it cut side down, hold the knife close to the skin and gently slice off pieces of the zest. You only want the yellow stuff, avoid the white pith. Once you peeled off most of the zest, chop into into small strips.