Recipes - Nomify: Items for your Nomming

Parsnip and Ginger Soup

2013-05-06T11:34:56Z

A wonderfully warming wintery soup with a bit of kick. Highly excellent with some crusty bread and an open fire. From Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall’s very ace River Cottage Veg Every Day.

1tbsp olive oil
15g butter
1 large onion finely chopped
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
5cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
¼ tsp ground cardamon
¼ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
500g parsnips peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
800ml vegetable stock
200ml milk
salt and pepper
cream or yoghurt (just a little bit for finishing)
flaked almonds or pumpkin seeds

Heat the oil and butter over a medium heat in a large saucepan. Add the onion and saute for about 10 minutes until soft and translucent.

Add the garlic, ginger and spices and stir for a couple of minutes.

Add the parsnips and stir until well coated with the spices. Then add the vegetable stock and season. Simmer until the parsnips are very soft – about 15 mins.

While you allow the soup to cool slightly, toast the almond flakes (or pumpkin seeds) for a garnish. Puree until smooth then return to the pan, add the milk and adjust the seasoning.

Serve with a trickle of cream or yoghurt and the toasted almonds.

Jack and Pickle Cheese Biscuits

2013-05-06T09:57:36Z

This is adapted from the Tartine recipe for Cheddar Cheese Crackers, altered to amp up their American-ness for a Thanksgiving dinner. I wanted to use Jack for its orange colour, so if you can’t get Jack, substitute something red and cheddar-like in consistency.

105 gm plain, all-purpose flour
225 gm Monterey Jack, grated
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper, ground
55 gm unsalted butter at room temperature
40 gms cornichons
30 gms walnuts

Combine the walnuts and cornichons in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped, but not mushy.

In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, or in a bowl with a wooden spoon, combine butter and cheese until well mixed. If your cornichons came in brine, you could add a tiny amount at the end of this mixing, to impart a more pickley flavour.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, cayenne, pepper and salt, and then add it to the butter and cheese.

Lastly, add the chopped walnuts and cornichons and mix slowly until everything is combined into a stiff dough.

At this point, you can either flatten the dough into a disc and wrap it in clingfilm, or roll it into a log about 2.5cm in diameter, and store in the fridge for an hour or so, until firm but still manipulable.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees and line a baking tray or two with baking parchment.

You can either slice the log into ~5mm rounds, or roll out the disc to 5mm and cut it into 2.5cm squares, or, if you’re like me, use a cookie-cutter to cut larger discs.

Spread the biscuits on the baking sheets a few centimetres apart and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until golden, and then allow them to cool on wire racks.

Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

2013-03-28T10:11:38Z

I’ve been experimenting with sourdough bread recently (mainly using the Tartine Bread Book method), so I wanted to try making sourdough HCBs for Easter. My recipe is very heavily based on this one, with a couple of small adjustments, and the results have been fantastic – thanks, SourDom!

You need an existing, active sourdough starter for this recipe.

Fruit

100 gms mixed, candied peel
100 gms currants
50 gms raisins
1 cup of hot, strong, black tea
2 tablespoons rye whiskey / bourbon / Scotch / whatever

Starter

25 gms active starter
340 gms warm milk
250 gms strong white flour

Dough

200g strong white flour
50g wholemeal flour
7g salt
75g brown sugar
½ tsp allspice
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp nutmeg
1tsp cinnamon
75g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

Crosses

5 gms olive oil
25 gms water
25 gms flour

Suger syrup

25 gms caster sugar
25 gms water

You need to start this recipe 24 hours before you want to eat the buns.

Phase 1 – early morning

Mix the dried fruit with the tea and whiskey and leave to steep for ~12 hours. At the same time, make your bun starter by combining your active sourdough starter with the warm milk and flour. Mix them thoroughly so no dry bits remain, and leave to stand, covered with a tea towel for ~12 hours, or until the mixture is puffy. If you’ve made sourdough before, you’ll recognise the signs of a starter being ready to pass the ‘float test’ – which is to say that teaspoon of it dropped into a bowl of room-temperature water would float.

Phase 2 – early evening

Drain the liquid from the fruit and then mix the dough: combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl and then rub the butter into the mix, until you’ve got a breadcrumb-like consistency and there are no lumps of butter to be seen. Add the starter and the drained fruit and knead briefly in the bowl to mix – the dough will be wet and sticky, and it can help to oil or wet your hands before you do this.

Leave the dough to rest in the bowl for 10-15 minutes and then knead again.

Then, over the course of 3-4 hours, you have to fold the dough every hour – this video shows the basic technique, although because this dough is wetter and more fragile due to the fruit, mine didn’t really look or behave like this. The key is just to stretch it out as far as you can and fold it gently back over itself.

Phase 3 – late evening

When the dough has proved, you need to shape it. If you haven’t shaped buns before, this video helped me, although again, my dough wasn’t quite this well-behaved, and the stickiness does make it fairly difficult to handle. I needed to keep the bench well-oiled.

Divide the dough into 12 equal-sized lumps, shape each lump into buns, and place the buns a couple of centimetres apart on a baking tray lined with parchment. Cover with a tea-towel and leave in the fridge overnight.

Phase 4 – the next morning

Baking! Heat the oven to 200C and remove the buns from the fridge.

Make the cross mixture and get it into the piping bag.

Brush the buns with milk, and then pipe the crosses on (it’s easiest to pipe one long stripe across each row and then down each column, rather than crossing each bun individually).

Bake the buns for 25 minutes, turning the tray around halfway through if you oven is uneven, as mine is. While the buns are baking, make the sugar syrup by combining the sugar and water and simmering on the stove for a few minutes.

Finally, pull the buns out of the oven – they should be nicely browned but not black – and glaze them with the sugar syrup. Obviously it’s up to you as to whether you share these with friends and colleagues, but I wouldn’t. Make sure you have some posh French butter on hand to melt into them.

Mexican Wedding Cookies

2013-03-17T16:49:11Z

My mum got the recipe for these from one of her students. They’re stupidly easy to make, and outrageously moreish. I am high on sugar right now.

½ cup icing sugar, sifted
250gms unsalted butter, softened
1 tbsp vanilla essence
2 cups flour
¾ cup of roughly chopped hazelnuts
Icing sugar for rolling

Heat the oven to 180C and line two baking sheets with parchment.

Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla essence for several minutes, until light and pale and fluffy.

Reduce the speed of the mixer and slowly add the flour; once it’s combined, add the hazelnuts.

Roll the mixture into small balls (around half the size of a golf-ball) and place a few centimetres apart on the baking trays.

Bake for 20 minutes, switching the trays around halfway through to bake evenly, and remove from the oven when they’re a pale golden colour.

Allow to cool before rolling them in the remaining icing sugar.

Don’t eat them all at once.

Zucchini Pasta with Almonds and Lemon

2012-03-15T09:04:25Z

Extremely quick and easy, and uses stuff that we tend to have on hand all the time – and best of all, it’s very summery and fresh-tasting.

Short pasta (fusilli or farfalle would work nicely; this dish also suits wholemeal pasta) for 2
Olive or grapeseed oil for cooking
1-2 cloves of garlic
2 zucchini, halved lengthways and then sliced thinly
A little bit of harissa, or some fresh chilli
zest and juice of one nice lemon
¼ cup slivered almonds, or chopped raw almonds (flaked almonds probably wouldn’t work so well)
sea salt and black pepper
Nice olive oil for finishing

Put the pasta on to cook according to the packet directions.

Meanwhile, heat the cooking oil over medium heat, and then cook the garlic gently for a minute or so – don’t let it burn or crisp though, because it will make everything bitter.

Add the harissa and the zucchini and cook for about five minutes, or until the zucchini has softened and gone a bit golden or light brown in places. Flavour. Mmm.

Add the almonds and cook for a further couple of minutes – you don’t want to take the bite out of the almonds, but they should soften a little bit.

Finally, drain the cooked pasta and add it to the zucchini, along with the lemon juice, zest, a good slug of nice olive oil, and some salt and pepper to taste. Mix it all together.

Nomify.

Serves 2.

Awesome Granola Recipe

2012-03-12T13:01:40Z

You may have heard of my new incarnation as a woman obsessed with grains, and making granola. Here is the evidence.

280 grams rolled grains (oat, spelt, wheat, rye, quinoa, rice, barley… or a mix thereof)
170 grams (about 1 ½ cups) nuts and seeds, roughly chopped (a mix of almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, walnuts, pecans, macadamias, cashews, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds…)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, olive oil, coconut oil…)
6 tablespoons liquid sweetener (honey, maple syrup, golden syrup… or a mix thereof;)
1 to 2 teaspoons ground spices (a mix of warm spices such as cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom)
5 tablespoons ground flaxseeds, soaked in 5 tablespoons water for 15 minutes (optional)
1 teaspoon salt flakes
1 tablespoon genuine vanilla extract

Optional: – 30 grams unsweetened dried coconut – 30 grams oat or wheat bran – 60 grams chocolate pieces – 120 grams dried fruit, roughly chopped if in large pieces (raisins, cranberries, prunes, dates, figs, blueberries, cherries, bananas, mangoes, apples… or a mix thereof)

This granola recipe is my version (not very different!) of this Chocolate and Zucchini recipe.

Place all the ingredients (except the optional dried fruits or chocolate) in a medium mixing bowl, and stir until combined. There are a few options for ingredients but just as a guide, I prefer Maple Syrup to Golden Syrup. I tend to use sultanas and dried apples for fruit (habit more than anything else I think). I always add coconut. I have added chocolate but it made the granola too sweet for my taste. I do add the ground flaxseeds soaked in water as I find it helps create that crunchy lumpy granola texture. (Iz also good for the ladies.)

Spread on the prepared baking sheet and place in the middle of the oven. Set the oven on 150°C and bake the granola, checking and stirring every 10 minutes, until the mixture is browned to your liking — it won’t get crisp at this stage. This takes about 30 minutes total, starting from a cold oven. If you’ve used Golden Syrup rather than Maple Syrup you’ll find it cooks more quickly and might need a bit less time.

Let the granola cool on the baking sheet — it will crisp up as it cools — and stir in the optional dried fruits or chocolate once cooled. Transfer to an airtight container and keep at cool room temperature for up to a month or so.

Awesome Muesli Recipe

2012-03-12T12:45:38Z

Make your own muesli! Make it now! Muesli is the new black.

*750g oats

*125 g raw cashews

*125 g flaked almonds

*125 g pepitas

*50g sesame seeds

*40g linseeds

*a bit under a half cup of oil

*a bit under a half cup of leatherwood honey

*100g shaved coconut

This muesli is a modification of a muesli recipe that Virginia’s mother Helen at The Islington Hotel in Hobart. It’s really delicious. Not too oaty, and not too sweet.

Put mix in a shallow baking trays (leave room to add coconut towards the end of baking)

In a pot mix oil and leatherwood honey, bring to boil and mix thoroughly through mixture.

Bake in oven for approx 25 mins AT 170C. Stir every five minutes or so or the mixture will burn. Add coconut between trays in the last 5 minutes of cooking (it will burn if you add it at the beginning).

Beer can BBQ roast chicken

2012-02-12T11:33:02Z

This makes a ludicrously moist and tasty chook with the added bonus of novelty chicken positioning.

1 tbsp raw sugar
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp smoked (or plain) paprika
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh garlic
just over 1 tbsp dried onion flakes
1 tspn ground coriander
1 tspn ground cumin
1 tspn mustard powder
freshly ground pepper
olive oil spray
1 large whole chicken
1 can of beer (a standard size will do, but you can use a big one if you want)

You do need a BBQ with a lid for this one – the chook needs to stand up inside it.

Preheat a covered BBQ.

Combine the sugar, salt, paprika, garlic, onion flakes, spices and ground pepper with a little oil spray. Then rub the mixture all over the chicken.

Pour out half the beer and place the chicken on top of the can (pushing the can into the cavity).

Generously spray with oil and carefully place the chicken with the can upright on the BBQ. Close the lid and gently cook (turn the gas right down) for about 1-1¼ hours, spraying now and again with oil.

To check if ready, pierce the thighs with a fork – juices should run clear.

Easy (and tasty) as.

Cauliflower and cheesy frittata

2012-02-12T11:21:10Z

This is an Ottolenghi recipe. Straightforward, but amazingly tatsy.

1 cauliflower, cut into large florets
6 eggs
4 tbsp crème fraîche
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp sweet smoked paprika
3 tbsp chives, finely chopped
150g smoked scamorza (mozarella), grated (include the skin for extra flavour)
50g mature cheddar, grated
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp olive oil

Ottolenghi recommends using smoked scamorza – smoked mozarella (which you can get at La Lateria in Melbounre), but I made it with normal mozarella and it was excellent.

In a large saucepan of boiling, salted water, simmer the cauliflower until semi-soft, then drain and dry.

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5.

Break the eggs into a large bowl, add the crème fraîche, mustard and paprika, and stir to combine – make sure the eggs and crème fraîche are well blended. Stir in the chives and three-quarters of the cheese. Season generously.

In a large, oven-proof frying pan, heat the olive oil and fry the cauliflower until golden brown on one side – about five minutes.

Pour in the egg mixture and, using a fork, spread out the cauliflower evenly in the pan. Cook on moderate heat for about five minutes, scatter the remaining cheese on top and carefully transfer the pan to the oven.

Cook for 10-12 minutes longer, or until set.

Remove from the heat, cut into wedges and eat immediately with a peppery green salad.

Serves 4 folks

Cypriot Freekeh Salad

2011-06-20T10:11:08Z

This is a modified version of a salad by the same name that I’ve had a couple of times at Hellenic Republic. It’s ace.

For the salad:

1 cup freekeh
½ cup puy lentils
1 bunch coriander, chopped
½ bunch parsley, chopped
½ red onion, finely diced
½ cup currants
2 tbsp pumpkin seeds, toasted
2 tbsp pinenuts, toasted

For the dressing:

Juice of ½ lemon
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp honey
1 tsp ground cumin (best if you toast the seeds and grind them yourself)
Salt + pepper

Cook the freekeh and the lentils separately – making sure they retain some bite – then drain and allow to cool and dry a little. Freekeh needs to be simmered with a lid on for about 20-25 minutes, and puy lentils take more like 18-20 minutes (ymmv).

Mix the freekeh and lentils with the other salad ingredients, and then combine the dressing ingredients.

Dress the salad and season to taste.

This would be fantastic with slow-roasted lamb shoulder, or some smoky eggplant, or other delicious items.

Pulled pork sammiches

2011-05-16T07:11:27Z

Pulled pork is a barbecue staple in the US, but it usually requires a smoker or a slow cooker. This recipe for oven-baked pulled pork takes about 5 minutes of preparation, but produces melt-in-your-mouth appley-porky deliciousness.

1 pork shoulder, about 1.5kg
1/3 cup brown sugar (darker is better)
2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp ground coriander seeds
1 tsp mustard powder
any other spices you feel like adding
2 cups apple juice
fluffy white bread or rolls

Mix the dry ingredients together and rub them into the pork. Let it sit for a while, preferably overnight.

Preheat the oven to about 150℃.

Pour the apple juice into a roasting pan, and add the liquid that will have come out of the pork. If it’s a particularly big pan, add some extra juice or water, as you don’t want it to dry out completely.

Put the pork on a rack so that it sits clear of the liquid. Cover it with alfoil to keep the apple steam in.

Roast the pork until it’s tender. For a full shoulder, this will take maybe 5 hours. A 300g cut took under 2 hours.

Take the foil off and let it cook for another half an hour, to brown up the outside of the pork, and to reduce the liquid in the pan — you want an appley gravy.

Using two forks, shred the pork. Pour the pan juices on and mix them through.

Assemble your sammiches and serve hot, cold, or reheated the next day.

Chicken with lime and coconut

2011-03-28T18:33:24Z

This is very tasty and very easy to put together. A Delia recipe, it’s become a staple at our house and rarely fails to please. It’s very fresh and is one of those dinners that feels Good For You.

2 skinless chicken breasts
grated zest and juice of 1 large lime
150ml tinned coconut milk
1 dessertspoon olive oil
1 green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 dessertspoon Thai fish sauce
1 big handful of fresh coriander leaves (you can’t really have too much)
4 spring onions, cut into 3cm shreds, including the green parts

Chop the chicken into bite-sized pieces and put them in a bowl with the lime juice and zest. Stir well, cover and leave it to marinate for an hour.

Get some jasmine rice (or some other sort of fragrant rice) on to cook.

When you’re 10 minutes away from eating time, you can start the actual cooking part.

Heat the oil in a wok or pan (keep the heat high so the chicken cooks quickly). Bung in the chicken and stir-fry for 3-4 minutes, until they’re getting a bit of colour.

Next, add the chilli and stir-fry for another minute, then add the coconut milk, fish sauce and half the coriander and spring onions.

Cook for another 1-2 minutes, then serve with the rice, with the remaining spring onion and coriander heaped on top.

OM NOM NOM

Tomato and Clove Soup

2011-03-18T17:57:38Z

This is basically the first thing I learnt to cook when I left home, and I still make it several times every winter – it’s tomato soup, but not as you know it.

Two big-arse cans of whole, peeled tomatoes (800gms each)
12 cloves
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 stick of celery
1 carrot
¼ cup flour
olive oil
couple of pinches of dried oregano
1 litre of beef (or fake beef) stock

Finely chop the garlic, onion, carrot and celery, and then fry the mixture in a few good slugs of olive oil until it’s all nice and soft, but not brown.

Add the flour and stir and cook for a minute or so until it’s thick and pastey (this helps thicken the soup), and then add the tomatoes and stock and cloves and oregano, and stir to make sure the paste isn’t sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Simmer for an hour or so with the lid on, so that flavour all develops – it’ll smell richly of cloves – and then use a wooden spoon or potato masher to break the tomatoes up into more digestible chunks. Don’t puree it under any circumstances – nothing worse than pureed clove-bits.

Great for taking in a thermos to the footy.

Orecchietti with Cauliflower and Broccoli

2011-02-24T12:25:41Z

I’m a big fan of cauliflower on pasta – this one is made a bit perkier and fresher by the addition of chili and broccoli.

220 g each broccoli & cauliflower florets
500 g cooked orecchiette
50 ml olive oil
3 cloves garlic chopped finely
6 anchovy fillets (you could replace with capers for a vegetarian version)
salt & pepper
¼ cup grated parmigiano
¼ cup chopped parsley
¼ cup basil torn
1 birdseye chilli, chopped

Bring a saucepan of water to the boil, add broccoli and cauliflower and simmer for seven minutes, then drain and set aside.

Heat oil, garlic and anchovies in large pan and cook over medium heat until anchovies have melted and garlic is golden, then add vegetables and cook for four minutes.

Season and stir orecchiette through the sauce.

Add parmigiano, parsley, basil and chili. Stir and server and eat too much.

Marinated Chicken Wings

2011-02-24T12:04:59Z

These wings are perfect watching-the-footy food. Sticky and delicious.

2 tablespoons vegatable oil
2 tablespoons soy
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
¼ cup of honey
1 clove garlic, crushed
¼ teaspoon 5 spice power
1/3 teaspoon salt

Mix marinade with chicken wings and bake for 45 minutes in moderate oven in a flat dish, turning a couple of times.

Fattoush

2011-02-24T10:37:46Z

I’m suffering from extreme misery relating to the premature end of Summer. This salad makes everything alright, temporarily. It has much crunchy goodness.

2 small pitta breads
3 fat spring onions halved and sliced
1 cucumber, peeled, quartered lengthwise and chopped
3 tomatoes, diced
Bunch flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Bunch mint
1 clove garlic, minced
6-8 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
Maldon salt
Half a teaspoon sumac

Break pitta breads open and toast in oven for about 5 minutes until crisp.

Combine spring onions, cucumber, tomatoes, parsley and mint and add minced garlic.

Break the pitta breads into pieces over the salad bowl and drop them in, reserving a few for the top.

Toss the salad and dress with oil and lemon juice; add salt. Sprinkle with sumac and extra pitta bread.

Mum's glaze for ham

2010-12-22T23:34:13Z

I saw a whole ham glazed in this shizzle disappear in front of my very eyes in under four hours the other night, no shit.

1 big-arse ham
A bunch of cloves

For the glaze

250 gms soft brown sugar
1 cup apple cider
1 cup pineapple juice

First up, peel the skin off the ham. Don’t peel off the fat though, because it’s tasty when you’ve sizzled it. Then, cook the ham fat-side up in a large baking dish for about 30 minutes at 220 (or a lower temperature if it’s fan-forced, I guess?)

While it’s cooking, combine the glaze ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat until the sugar melts, then set aside.

Pull the ham out, and score the fat into a diamond pattern. Stud each diamond with a clove, then pour the glaze over the top.

Chuck it back in the oven for a further 20 minutes, basting every 5-10 minutes or so.

Ham hock and lentil soup

2010-03-16T12:59:44Z

Great use of a leftover ham-bone, or you can buy a ham-hock from lots of butchers or market stalls. Very hearty and warming.

1 ham hock, skin more or less removed, or ham-bone
1 cup of puy lentils
1 carrot
1-2 stalks of celery
1 garlic clove
1 bay leaf
2.5 litres vegetable stock
Olive oil, salt, pepper

Fry celery, garlic and carrot in olive oil until soft, and then chuck in the ham bone and bayleaf, and the stock. Simmer for 1.5 hours, and then add the lentils, which should take about 20-25 minutes to cook.

Pull the ham off the bone and shred into the soup, then serve with crusty bread.

Pro tip: The leftovers are great, but the lentils can absorb lots of water and leave you with a pretty gluggy and solid mass. You can let it down with hot water or more stock and it'll be fine.

Pro tip: If you allow the soup to cool completely before you add the lentils, you can skim off a lot of the fat and make it a slightly less rich soup.

Shallot, potato and goat's cheese tatin

2010-03-14T10:10:22Z

I find that the hardest thing about having people around for dinner (particularly on special occasions) is thinking of what to cook, and more so when it’s my mother I’m cooking for – on her 60th birthday no less. And so it was that I found myself casting around for entree options late on Friday night, when finally I stumbled on Yotan Ottolenghi’s recipe for a savoury tarte tatin. Ottolenghi’s receipe is for two individual 10cm tarts in their own tins, but because I was cooking for nine people, I took a leap and assembled them in muffin tins – a decision I was panicking about until they turned out perfectly. What follows is my adjusted recipe, which is for 10 little tarts. I’m going to try this with apple tarte tatin sometime soon.

20 tiny potatoes – 2 for each tarte
20 french shallots, each peeled divided on their natural breaks into two little gems
200gms goat’s cheese – I used a soft chevre, but I think it would work with any type of cheese
A few springs of thyme
50gms butter
200gms caster suger
4 or 5 sheets of puff pastry

Equipment

Two muffin tins with at least 10 large holes between them – the holes need to be at least 8-9cm at the base
An oven tray larger than the largest muffin tin for turning the tarts out onto

Oil the muffin trays and set them aside.

Boil the potatoes in salty water for 25 minutes, or until they're tender but not crumbly. Fish them out of the water and set them aside to cool. Once they're cool, cut a bit off each end of each potato, and then cut them in half down the middle (so that you end up with lumps that will stand up on their own).

Simmer the shallots in the potato water for 10 minutes, then drain.

Then the caramel: Ottolenghi's recipe says to heat the butter and sugar over a high flame, stirring constantly, until a semi-dark caramel forms. I wasn't totally sure what a 'semi-dark caramel' should look like, so I ended up with something between milk and dark chocolate in colour, and it was fine. It took about ten minutes to come together.

Divide the caramel between the muffin tins and allow the caramel to spread over the bases of each hole, and then sprinkle a few leaves of thyme on top.

Arrange four potato halves on top of each caramel base, and nestle a couple of shallots in amongst them and grind some salt and pepper over the top, then place slices of goat's cheese on top of each tart.

Finally, cut discs of puff pastry that are 2cm wider than your tarts and place over the top, tucking the edges down around the tart contents.

At this point, you can refrigerate the tarts until you're ready to cook them, although as with all things it's worth getting them out of the fridge half an hour before they go in the oven.

To cook, put them in a preheated 200 degree oven for 15 minutes, and leave in for a further 5-8 minutes at 180. They should be ready when the puff pastry is all puffy and golden on top.

The last step is to turn them out, which is trickier than it would be with individual tarts - you need to place your oven tray upside down over the muffin tins and then perform a deft and quick flip, holding the two tightly together as you do so. Then gently lift the muffin tin off, leaving the tarts behind.

Serve with a green salad.

Best caprese salad

2010-02-22T13:19:47Z

My reward for helping mum with some computing tasks on the weekend was a plate of her caprese salad, accompanied by some crusty bread, olives and a few slices of Istra prosciutto. Since buffalo mozzarella is like smack to my fellow Nomists at the moment, I’ve put together some tips for the perfect caprese.

Two large balls of buffalo mozzarella
A dozen absolutely perfect juicy mini-truss tomatoes
3 ripe ripe ripe sweet larger tomatoes (dark-coloured ones for style points)
A handful of basil straight from the garden
Top-shelf extra virgin olive oil
Too many salt flakes
Warmed bread for mopping up with

Alongside THE BEST tomatoes you can find, the key to this salad is oil and salt, and lots of it - never vinegar, since the acidity of the tomatoes is the perfect foil for the velvety oil, and vinegar just stomps all over it (plus it stains the beautiful white mozzarella). So:

Halve the mini tomatoes and slice the other tomatoes and the mozzarella thickly. Arrange on a plate in whichever visually pleasing manner you desire.

Sprinkle lavishly with salt flakes. Now's not the time to worry about your arteries, people: this is special salad, and the salt makes everything so perky. Then, drizzle with olive oil - mum fairly hosed the plate with the stuff. Throw your basil leaves (tear or chop the larger ones) on top and allow to stand for several minutes so that the oil soaks into the tomatoes a bit.

Serve with bread, which you can use to mop up the ample juice left over once you've scoffed the salad.