To vaguely paraphrase The Arctic Monkeys we are going from the rubble to The Ritz. I’ve lately dabbled in some trashy food but the next two posts are going to be pure class. Hello Limoni di Amalfi Cotti Al Forno! You can tell this one is high-end because it has a name in a foreign language. Unless you are Italian. Then they are plain old Amalfi baked lemons.
I am going to confess straight up that my lemons are not Amalfi lemons. They are good old down home straight from the ‘burbs East Keilor lemons via the tree in my backyard! You can probably expect a lot of lemon recipes in the coming weeks!
We have just now entered LOCKDOWN SIX so it seemed like a good time to transport myself somewhere else! The Amalfi coast seemed like not a bad option! This is a Jamie Oliver recipe so you can expect fresh vibrant flavours and Limoni di Amalfi Cotti al Forno delivered! These little morsels were delightful and totally took me to a little open-air trattoria by the coast on a warm sunny day.
I think these would also be great placed on a bbq and as soon as it is warm enough to eat outside here, I will be putting that to the test!
You could play around with the flavours in the OG recipe too – add some olives or garlic, swap out the basil for dill or parsley, use sun-dried instead of fresh tomatoes., add some little marinated mushrooms…but speaking of the recipe, here it is!
You can use the leftover lemon flesh in anything where you would normally use lemons – I made a hot lemon and honey drink with mine.
These were so delicious and brought some much-needed summer sunshine and Italian sophistication into a dreary lockdown winter day!
a) A minor character in the Stanley Kubrik classic Doctor Strangelove,
b) A new character in the game Clue / Cluedo. ” It was General Satisfaction in the billiard room. With the Candlestick” or,
c) A Victorian nursery pudding with the most awesome name ever?
General Satisfaction
I made this to take to my family on Christmas day and let me tell you…general satisfaction became major happiness as people tucked in. And who would not be happy with this mix of lemony berries, topped with sponge finger biscuits liberally soaked in limoncello, topped with a lovely lemony custard and then baked with a meringue topping?
Yep. It’s like you’ve died and gone to heaven….
One of the side effects of the Paleo diet is that I seem to have become hyper-sensitive to sugar. The first version I made of this was so sweet I actually couldn’t eat it, Someone else in the house had no such qualms. He’s lying in a diabetic coma as we speak.
My first introduction to General Satisfaction came from recipe came from Tamasin Day-Lewis’ Supper for A Song . There is also this version online:
I “unsweetened” this by swapping out the jam for a slightly more tart lemon curd and adding some fresh (frozen) berries into the base mix. I also added some limoncello to the custard mix. Just because…name me one thing that isn’t made better by a liberal splash o’ booze. And you know, it is the season….
It was still pretty sweet though.
This is at it’s best straight out of the oven with the custard runny and the meringue all crispy. However the last few pieces were also pretty good at room temperature a few days later as part of an afternoon tea.
General Satisfaction
And if you make this, true to it’s name, I promise you will not be disappointed!!!
I am also interested to know what are most kookiest food names you have come across? General Satisfaction must be right up there but I would love to know yours!!!
Wishing you and yours not only general satisfaction but super happy fun times for 2015. May it also be the year you learn to stop worrying…
Pour the milk into a small, heavy saucepan. Add the vanilla seeds, empty pod and cornflour mix.
Bring to the boil, stirring then drop the heat and simmer, still stirring for a coupe of minutes. Remove from the heat.
Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl then whisk in a tablespoonful of the milk mixture. Repeat three times then pout the combined egg and milk mixture into the warmed milk.
Set the pan back over low heat, and whisk until the custard thickens and is perfectly smooth. Don’t let it boil. Remove from the heat, and whisk in 2 tablespoon of the sugar and half of the limoncello. Set aside to cool.
For The Lemon Berry Sauce
Mix the lemon curd with 1 tbsp of just boiled water until runny and pour into the base of a medium baking dish.
Scatter the berries over the curd then press them down with a potato masher to flatten them down a bit and get their juices running.
Lay the savoiardi on top of the curd and berry mix and sprinkle with the remaining limoncello.
Poor the cooled custard over the biscuits, straining if it is lumpy.
For The Meringue
Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then whisk in the remaining sugar, little by little until you have a firm shiny meringue.
Spoon the meringue over the custard.
Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 20 minutes until the meringue is pale golden and crisp when you tap it.
Notes
Adding a little bit of the milk to the egg, prevents the egg from cooking.
Over the next week or so election fever will hit many of us like a less lethal but possibly more pervasive version of the ‘rona. After all, the fate of many will ride on the outcome of this highly important and contentious race. I am, of course talking about our local Moonee Valley council elections! And yes, of course, there is another far more important election happening shortly. But today, we are keeping it local and going exotic with a recipe for the Lord Mayor’s Mango Chutney!
The recipe comes from the June 1991 issue of Vogue Entertaining Australia. It features in an article called “Banquet by The Billabong” which is all about posh dining outside
What that glamourous description doesn’t tell you is that the calls of the river life probably include crocodiles that will kill you quicker than you can blink and mosquitos carrying dengue fever, Ross River virus and Murray Valley Encephalitis . Then there’s the venomous snakes and the poisonous spiders and the drop bears. And the occasional serial killer to boot. That rustle of linen could well be the noose around your neck and the chink of silver the knife about to slit your throat!.
Come on, it’s Hallowe’en! if we’re not going to get dark at this time of year when are we????
Something a lot less Wolf Creeky is this recipe for Mango Chutney which comes from Alex Fong Lim who was Lord Mayor of Darwin from 1984-1990. This is a fabulous recipe too. I don’t like a lot of commercial mango chutneys because I find them too sweet. This however, has the perfect blend of sweet and spice and heat. And it is so pretty as well! The chunks of mango become almost translucent as they cook so they look like gorgeous bright jewels. This is the perfect accompaniment to a curry – the picture directly below had it paired beautifully with Nick Sharma’s Chicken Biryani Tagine and the one below that has it matched up with a Sri Lankan chicken curry badun.
Lord Mayor’s Chutney – The Recipe
You can, of course, adjust the amount of chilli to suit your taste. I only used 500g of mango and 2 birdseye chillies in my chutney. I also used fresh grated ginger and sultanas because I can’t abide raisins. Most importantly for those of you who cannot get ripe or under-ripe mangoes, or it is not mango season even if you can, I used a packet of chopped frozen mango for my chutney and I was very happy with the results!
I’m not entirely sure about what the other duties of a Lord Mayor are. I guess they are boss of the council? But if the quality of this recipe is anything to go by, then maybe part of their job description needs to be that they all have to share a recipe with their constituents!
Happy Caramel Custard Day everyone! Yes indeed there is a day for every sort of food imaginable and October 3rd is Caramel Custard Day! I am celebrating with a Moroccan twist on the classic French dish with an Orange and Cinnamon Creme Caramel.
No one in my family, except me, is a great lover of sweet things. As a result, I didn’t have too many desserts growing up. The one thing we did have and which my mum cooked to PERFECTION was a creme caramel. So, I know what a good creme caramel looks and tastes like. The caramel needs to be a nanosecond away from bitterness, the custard smooth and silky, the top a shiny mirror glaze and the almost ombre effect of the darker caramel soaked custard at the top and the paler pure custard at the bottom.
My problem is, I have, up until now been absolutely terrible at making it myself! I tried to make a creme caramel recipe from Cantina THREE times. Twice the caramel went all crystally. Another time there was no sauce only a hard set toffee that was stuck to the bottom of each of the serving dishes!
Not so with this recipe which came from Lousie Frank’s Winter which is a fabulous book. I’ve made many great dishes from it and, as it was a Tasty Reads selection will no doubt pop up here again!
The Recipe
This version of a creme caramel was lovely. The cinnamon came through quite strongly, the orange not so much. When I make this again, I will sprinkle some orange zest over the top of the completed desserts to really ramp up the taste of the orange. You could, of course, leave one or both of them out completely if you are not a lover of orange or cinnamon and this would still be a damn fine Creme caramel.
So on October 3rd what do we say to Caramel Custards? We say…
I don’t think I have mentioned this before but I absolutely hate cooked carrots. I don’t mind them chopped up really small in a Bolognese or Shepherd’s Pie but to this day, if I go to my mum’s for a family dinner I get raw carrots on my plate instead of cooked. This hatred of cooked carrots meant that I did not eat carrot cake until well into my thirties and even then, my first taste was by stealth!
I clearly remember my first taste of carrot cake. It was someone’s birthday at work and I was too busy to attend the celebration but one of my friends brought me back a piece of cake. Still concentrating on what I was doing, I took a bite.
“OMG…this is delicious!!!! What on earth is this?”
My friend looked rather non-plussed. “It’s carrot cake…”
“This is carrot cake?”
“Yes”
“Is there any more?”
Since then I have been making carrot cake on the reg so I was a little surprised when I mentioned that I was going to blog my “Classic” carrot cake recipe and the fussiest eat in the world said
“I don’t think you can call it classic”.
“Why not?”
“Well….it has pineapple in it…It’s delicious. But it’s not classic carrot cake”
“Carrot cake has pineapple in it”.
“No other carrot cake I ever ate had pineapple in it”
“It’s based on a recipe by Tina Turner”
“That doesn’t make it a classic”
Well, I beg to differ. I think that absolutely makes it a classic. And you can argue with me all you want. Try arguing with her!
She will kick your ass all the way to Nutbush City Limits! Anyway, I changed the name so it homaged Tina a bit more!
The Recipes
As mentioned my recipe for carrot cake is based on a recipe by Tina Turner from the book “Cool Cooking” by Roberta Ashley. I have adapted it in minor ways:
My version uses butter not margarine
I leave out the currants
I add some rum. Pineapple and rum is a great flavour combination and the rum works really nicely with the brown sugar and cinnamon too! Plus, now more than ever, what isn’t better with a little bit of booze!
I prefer cream cheese icing rather than the cream suggested by Tina
The OG Tina Version
Here are the original recipe and the front and back covers of the book it comes from.
A delicious cake, based on a recipe by Tina Turner. This cake is easy to make and keeps beautifully! This will last for a week if kept in the fridge – if you don’t eat it all first!
