sunshine and soup

It's been an unexpectedly roller coaster-ish kind of week. There was an impromptu lunch at the pub with a glass of bubbly to toast a landmark moment in Australian politics, a last minute dinner with an old friend visiting from interstate and emergency coffee and popcorn making for a friend and her family going through a tough time. The winter solstice had encouraged me to hibernate while the Significant Eater was away but the universe seemed to have other ideas.

The weather has been bone chillingly damp and on Thursday I wasn't sure what excited me more, a new Prime Minister who reflects my demographic or the fact the sun shone long enough to get two loads of washing dried on the line.

Today the light returned, briefly. I donned my sunnies and checked out the Farmers' Market at the Showgrounds. A bit sparse at this time of year but between the two organic stores I managed to stock up on some extra fruit and vegetables. The cavalo nero looked stunning and was robust enough to survive a morning in the car while I wandered around the North Melbourne market full of lovely handmade goods. I loved the venue, the Lithuanian Club in Errol Street, so was pleased to have an excuse to explore some of the spaces in the building.

Home again, I was determined to do a little cooking before I ran out of steam. I got the rhubarb simmering on the stove and had another tweak at the cordial recipe (this time rhubarb, lemon and rose water) and a go at Jeroxie's nettle and mushroom soup. We've managed to weed the nettles in the garden to a manageable patch this year and I'm determined to trim back the tops to use while they are still young and tender. I've added freshly ground nutmeg and lashings of pepper and the soup smells wonderful. Can't wait for dinnertime.






Hope you got some time to play in the sun today too.

rhubarb cordial and sweet nostalgia

The cooler months are a time of nostalgia for me. Perhaps it is an affinity with the weather – the colder, damper and windier it is, the more I am at home. It’s also the season for familiar fruits – feijoa, kiwi, tamarillo and rhubarb, all of which can stab me with a bitter/sweet shard of homesickness.

Like many of us who are comfortable in the kitchen, it carries a daily reminder of the culinary traditions shared by my mother. Even if for me some of these skills are now redundant – through observation and careful assistance my mum taught me how to cream butter and sugar for a cake and to use the eggs from the pantry, not the cold ones in the fridge, for baking. As a carnivorous child I learnt how to brown cubes of beef for a casserole and the art of gravy making.

Decades on and in a different country, when I stew rhubarb (the only fruit that was ever plentiful in our shady garden) I cut the stalks into thick slices with my mother’s hands. I toss the sugar in carelessly, adding sweetness as required, remembering to only moisten with a little water and keep an eagle eye on the pot while it simmers on a low heat.

Though my mother is still able bodied, she no longer stews fruit. It’s years since she cooked and the poorly stocked kitchen under my father’s reign fills me with waves of grief each time I visit. This was once the heart of the home, now the drawers and cupboards are alarming spartan. It is the room of the house I feel her absence most. Despite that fact mum still bustles in, she might eye the kettle but is unable to reliably make a cup of coffee now.

Lately I’ve found myself honouring her memory by reading the books she used enjoy and keeping some of her kitchen traditions alive, albeit on another continent. I know I can’t blow the dementia from her brain or bring back the woman who raised me but I find these rituals comforting. For now she still has a dry sense of humour and can come up with the odd gem. She knows who I am but our baking days are over.

Despite the nostalgia, these small acts are more homage than slavish re-enactments. Last week I bought the fattest bunch of rhubarb and deviated from her simple recipe. The idea was to not only have stewed fruit for my morning cereal but also make a stab at rhubarb cordial.

My sister set the train in motion by mentioning she’d found a new mineral water in Queenstown, one scented with the tang of rhubarb. After last summer’s jag of cordial making this was an idea I couldn’t resist. The usual Googling yielded odd mentions but scanty, often imprecise, recipes.

Of course my own efforts are equally as vague. It’s a work in progress. Playing by ear without a set of scales or measuring cups in sight. As I use these digital pages as a cook’s journal, these are my thoughts for creating such a pink-alicious concoction.



Rhubarb cordial – a work in progress

Clean your rhubarb, then top and tail the stalks.
Chop into thick chunks.
Place the fruit in a pot and add enough cold water to come up to about half the level of the chopped rhubarb.
Sweeten the fruit with sugar, as desired (you’ll add more later when making the syrup, the first round of sugar is to make the fruit edible without it being cloyingly sweet).
Toss in a cinnamon stick.
Bring the pot to a gentle simmer, half cover with a lid and set it on the lowest heat.
Check the pot every 5 minutes and stir.
Despite the firmness of the raw stalks, rhubarb cooks quite fast. It can go from thick chunks to pulpy very quickly – maybe 10-15 minutes depending on the size of the pot, the density of the fruit and degree of heat.
I like my stewed rhubarb to have some pulp and some defined but soft chunks. Once it is at your desired consistency, strain the contents of the pot over a large bowl.
Leave for a good hour or so.

If I was only making only cordial, with no desire to eat the fruit, I’d line the sieve with muslin and squeeze the pulp before discarding. But that seems like an utter waste to me. After about an hour of draining the pulp still retains enough moisture to eat but has yielded a fair amount of gloriously pink juice.

Measure the juice and place in a pan on low heat. Add 1/3 of the quantity (eg: if 2 cups of juice, add 2/3 cup of sugar). How much sugar you actually need will depend on how sweet you made the stewed fruit. If you had a heavy hand the first time around, start with a ratio of 1 part sugar to 4 parts juice and add more if required. Allow the sugar to melt into the juice to make a light syrup. Off the heat add a tablespoon or two of lemon juice to taste.

Pour a dash or a big slurp of cordial in a glass and serve with sparkling mineral water or soda.

Next batch – I’m adding rosewater.


You might also like the taste of:
Stewed rhubarb with roses
Lemon cordial
Rose petal cordial

making stuff is fun!

'Tis the season to be jolly, so they say. I reckon you don't need an excuse to have fun in the kitchen and make stuff.

For a change I'm remembering to keep some of the bounty for myself. The batches are small, no massive all day assembly line productions, just exploring some new (and old) recipes and making sure there's a spare or two to share.

It began sedately in November with preserved lemons, spiced prunes (organic Australian prunes bathed in cointreau and spices) and homemade vanilla essence.

This weekend I stepped up the challenge, playing with some ideas that I've had for a while. Here are a couple of recipes to add to the collection.

Lemon cordial

Equal quantities of fresh lemon juice and sugar syrup (sugar syrup = equal quantities of sugar and water, bought to a simmer til the sugar melts).

Yes, it is as simple as that! A touch of citric acid will extend the shelf life, you only need 1/2 tsp per 500 mls of cordial.

Update: Cindy was spot on wither her comment - a dash of rose water really lifts this cordial and all subsequent batches have had a generous capful of rose water.

Serve with chilled mineral water (and a dash of clear spirits if you desire).


Vegan chocolate Truffles

2 parts good quality, dairy-free dark chocolate
1 part coconut cream
a dash of your favourite liqueur (optional)

cocoa powder for dusting

Roughly chop your chocolate then blitz in a food processor until granular (I borrowed this method from Delia Smith who uses the description "granular like sugar"). I then measured my ground chocolate to determine how much coconut cream I needed. I used 2 cups of ground chocolate and 1 cup of coconut cream. Heat your coconut cream til it starts to bubbles. It's quite thick so it tends to boil like a Rotorua mud pool - fortunately it doesn't smell like that. Pour half of the hot coconut cream into the chocolate that you have returned to the food processor and blitz. Add the rest of the hot coconut cream and give it another blast. The resulting ganache is glossy and inviting. I've read a good tip, if the mixture splits just add some cold coconut cream.

You can leave the mixture as is or fortify it with your favourite booze. I used about 3 tablespoons of my spiced cointreau that the prunes had been marinating in - as the cardamons, cinnamon and cloves combined with the orange flavour of the liqueur was delightfully festive. It's best to add a small amount, mix, taste and add more as needed rather than pour the lot in at once.

Pour the ganache into a tray or tub to firm up in the fridge or the freezer. It only needs an hour or two in the latter. Once it is firm but not too hard to roll get ready for the fun.

Remove your rings, scrub your hands, have a bowl of ice water and an old hand towel ready. If your hands are warm dunk them into the chilled water and then dry them. Use a spoon or a melon-baller to scoop up a small amount of the firm ganache and roll into a ball. Set aside. Repeat the process, dunking your hands to cool them off as need be.

Once you've finished rolling your balls, place some cocoa powder in a bowl or cup and using two forks to handle them, drop the balls in the cocoa and toss 'til they are covered. Place on a rack so any excess cocoa can fall off. I must admit my balls were far from perfectly shaped but after a dunk in cocoa they didn't look so bad. Keep the truffles cool and consume within a week.

The truffles are rich and luscious, with that melt in the mouth feel that makes you crave more.


Enjoy the season!