meish dot org: life, unfolding

Method:
Roughly chop walnuts, dates and apple. Shove in big bowl. Add spices. mix in with fingertips. Stick together with honey until the consistency of mortar. Add spices. Add sugar to taste. Chill.

Roll into golf-ball sized balls. Serve with crackers/matzoh (slightly more traditional) or cream/vanilla icecream (er, not traditional in the slightest).

Method:
Chop chicken into bite-sized pieces and place in bowl. Add juice and grated zest of lime, 4-5 cloves of crushed garlic, a sprinkle of chilli powder and/or paprika (for red-ness), half a handfull of chopped parsley (if desired, for green-ness) and a slosh of olive oil. Stir to combine. Cover bowl in cling-film and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes.

After marinating, stir-fry chicken for 8-10 minutes, or until cooked. In the last 2-3 minutes of frying, cook pasta in plenty of salted/oiled/boiling water. Cover base of a large serving dish in double cream, add a dessertspoon of pesto and stir to combine. When pasta is finished, drain and transfer to the dish. Toss pasta in cream/pesto mix. Stir cooked chicken into pasta. Serve with salad, crusty bread and chardonnay to appreciative family/friends (and the chef, of course).

Praline:

Method:
Make the praline first (as it’s fiddly, potentially life threatening and needs to be ready before you start on the icecream).

Put the hazelnuts in a metal dish in a 220degC oven for a few minutes – keep watching them or else they’ll burn baby burn, like a disco inferno.

Remove from oven and peel the skins off (they’ll be hot and you’ll probably burn your fingers but hey, it’s worth it – alternatively, put into a plastic bag and rustle around to shake them off). Return the peeled nuts to the oven to colour them to a golden brown.

Put the sugar and water together in a saucepan and boil on a medium heat until a pale gold colour (shake the syrup around in the pan a bit as it cooks).

When you have a uniformly light caramel colour, add the whole roasted hazelnuts and simmer over a low heat until the caramel darkens slightly. Turn the mixture out onto a lightly greased tray and leave to cool (or speed it up by putting the tray into the fridge). When ready, roughly pulse half the praline in food processor (into small chunks) then do the other half to a powder – if you don’t have a blender, place the mixture between two sheets of cling film within two teatowels and bash seven shades out of it with a rolling pin.

Separate the eggs, placing the yolks and the sugar in a large bowl. Whisk until pale yellow. In another bowl, whisk the egg whites and the pinch of salt into stiff peaks. In a third bowl, whip the cream into soft peaks. Fold the egg whites, whipped cream and praline into the yolk/sugar mixture. Transfer into a container and freeze.

Allow to thaw until semi-soft before serving, and serve with fresh berries (blueberries and strawberries work well – you could also marinate them in Cointreau (an afterthought we came up with today – you’d have thought we’d had enough alcohol, but noooo …)) [from Jamie Oliver's recipe for semifreddo].

[recipe write-up by the lovely Dave]

Method:
Lightly cook the spinach (steam), then mix in with eggs, crumbled feta (smallish chunks, but not crumbs), chopped onions and seasoning.

Cover with puff pastry, brush with milk (if you can be bothered), poke decorative holes in the top and then bake in medium-hot oven for about half an hour, until the pie is firm. Serve hot in big chunks.

Method:
Mix up all ingredients in a shallow dish.

Rub the chicken fillets with rock salt and paprika. Marinade in mixture for an hour.

Bake in oven on medium heat for 30-40 minutes, turning frequently and re-basting until cooked through, but still juicy. About 2/3 of the way through, whack up the heat, pour on some olive oil and sprinkle with paprika.

Serve with crusty bread, good for dunking in lemony-garlic sauce.

Method:
Whisk together the egg yolks, lime juice, and a dash of salt and pepper together in a large bowl for a minute or so. Add the oil in small amounts (teaspoon to tablespoon at a time), beating vigourously until the oil is half gone, then pour the remaining oil into the emulsion in a steady stream (find a friend!), whisking constantly. Add the chopped dill and give the whole thing another minute or so of whisking, then chill before serving with salmon.

Method:
With the olive oil, grease the shiny side of 30cmx30cm squares of strong aluminium foil (two fillets per square). Place the fillets in the middle of the foil, side by side, then splash over a tablespoon or two of lime juice and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Gather up the top and bottom edges of the foil so they meet in the middle, then fold down the edges (like you would the top of a paper bag. Then fold in the other edges similarly, so a nice compact parcel is formed. Repeat for the other fillets (if you’re cooking a lot). Hold the packets upside down and give them a bit of a squeeze to make sure they don’t leak. If they do, rewrap them. Place the fillets in the top drawer of the dishwasher and run the machine through a normal cycle. They’ll be all done in 50 minutes or less!