Sugar et al, Author at Sugar et al

Pumpkin and Sun-Dried Tomato Pizza with Basil and Feta

1|12|2014

Love happens in the most unlikeliest of places. It happened to me in Melbourne. On a bus. We had stopped by at a quaint little town for tea on our way to Philip Island and I was so engrossed in taking pictures that I did not realize that our 30 minute tea break was getting over and it was time to get back up on the bus. I looked around and noticed there weren’t that many options for take-away. One of the cafes nearby, had a few sweet things on offer but no-one was game except me. I urged my husband to get hold of some sandwiches while I got the kids seated on the bus. Hubby came back at the nick of time holding two small and two big brown paper bags. I did not have breakfast that morning so I was ready to eat anything. He handed over mini pies to the kids and I thought a large one was coming for me.

‘Pumpkin Foccacia’ he said handing over one of them. I was so sure that I had heard him wrong. Our tour guide had taken over the speakers on the bus and was describing the next destination. If you are with me for a while, you know I am not a fan of pumpkin. I may have started to eat it and enjoy it it small quantities but not in my sandwiches and wraps. I looked inside the bag and there it was. ‘No way’ I exclaimed.
‘They said it is the most popular item on their menu’ he replied. I wasn’t happy but I was hungry so I bit into it. I could taste basil pesto and feta, two of my favourite things. I started to enjoy it. The pumpkin was mild and a perfect contrast to the crunchy foccacia, salty feta and aromatic pesto. I loved the flavour combination. It was like a burst of freshness in the mouth. Something so unexpected for me. It also looked amazing with the bright orange, green and white.

When I got home, I wanted to give the flavours another try. Instead of a foccacia I used the dough to make a pizza. Instead of pesto, I added fresh basil leaves and sun-dried tomatoes. I thought I managed to create a similar flavour effect, yet I would recommend using Pesto for a bolder taste and the ideal balance. If you are making this recipe, go with a strong herb pesto like basil or mint. You may use home-made or store bought. Dollop spoonfuls over the pizza base before you layer the pumpkin. The pumpkin is more like the filler component here and a great base to pair the rest of the ingredients. This would make a nice meat-free alternative for vegetarians as well.

Pumpkin and Sun-Dried Tomato Pizza with Basil and Feta
Serves 4

Pizza Dough (makes two 12 inch pizzas)
3 cups Plain Flour
2 tsp/7g/1 sachet dried yeast
1/2 tsp castor sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups warm water
1 tbsp olive oil
Olive oil, for brushing
Semolina or Polenta, to dust

Pizza Topping
1/2 cup pizza/pasta sauce
150 g butternut pumpkin, peeled, de-seeded and thinly sliced
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 cup feta, crumbled
salt and pepper, for seasoning
Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling
a handful of fresh basil leaves
a handful of rocket & baby spinach leaves, for garnish

Make the dough: Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the warm water and olive oil. Mix together and use your hands to bring it to a soft dough. Knead it on a floured surface to make it smooth and pliable. Return it to the mixing bowl that has been brushed with oil. Add the dough and turn to coat.
Cover with a damp tea towel. Set aside in a warm place for 30 minutes or until dough doubles in size. Punch down dough with your fist. Remove the dough from the bowl and knead it gently for a minute. Halve the dough (for one 12 inch pizza) and roll it out to the desired portion and thickness.

Make the pizza :Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. Dust pizza tray with semolina or polenta. Place the rolled out dough onto the prepared tray. Spread a thick layer of pizza/pasta sauce around the base of the pizza. Top with thinly sliced pumpkin, sun-dried tomatoes and feta. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 10 minutes or until base is crisp. Remove the pizza from the oven, top with leafy green (basil, rocket and spinach). Serve with an extra drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and cracked pepper.

Ferrero Rocher Ice Cream Cheesecake

27|11|2014

The best of both worlds! A Ferrero Rocher Cheesecake and ice cream combined together to make a delicious frozen treat.

At work, we often had training sessions on personality development, leadership, team building and such things. I remember one of the mentors talking about the importance of ‘being at the right place at the right time. People who are able to do that are deemed smarter and successful. It always made me wonder what the right time was..who knows! I would say it has a bit to do with luck and a lot of persistence.
Ferrero Rocher chocolates (which happen to be the most favourite chocolate of mine) were the first things to go on sale at my local supermarket this year. I wouldn’t like to think of myself a person who keeps tabs on sales…in fact quite the oppsosite, but Ferrero Rochers at half price is a pretty big deal. I noticed it in the mailers and made a mental note to be there. By the time I went there, they were gone. Every single one of them. I checked with the store manager and he smiled. ‘They were gone in a couple of hours’. He told me they would be put up on the shelves again at the end of the week. This time I made sure I was there at the start of business. I waited for a few minutes since they told me that the new stocks hadn’t arrived. Finally I came back ,without the Ferrero Rochers of course. So I guess I was not at the right place at the right time. Or maybe at the wrong time at the right place. But here’s the twist to the story.

The same evening we attended a birthday party. There were two celebrations going on at the same time, one of them for a little girl. My boys came back with return gifts in pretty paper bags. When I opened them, what do I see! Yes, two boxes of Ferrero Rochers. Some things are just destined. Like this cake. Our weather totally demands it and the festivities call for it.

As much as I love cheesecakes and you see them often on the blog, I don’t enjoy the waiting time to photograph them. Which is mostly the next day to make sure they are are nicely set and hold up shape outside while I shoot them. This one being a ice cream blended cheesecake, took about 4 hours to set and the edges/sides were neat when I removed it from the spring-form pan. So you could make this even at the spur of the moment and you could have a gorgeous cake to serve after dinner. The cake has a chocolate cookie crust, a layer of ice-cream cheesecake filled with chopped Ferrero Rochers, a drizzle of chocolate sauce and more Ferrero Rocher Chocolates on top. It is really simple to make with no fancy equipment or technique. The taste is like a vanilla cheesecake with crunchy bits of chocolate and hazelnut in each bite. So good!

Though I did cut into the cheesecake the same day, I though it was better if you keep it longer in the freezer. Make sure to take it out 10 minutes before you serve it. The best thing is that the cake will keep for months in the freezer so it makes for a fantastic make-ahead dessert. When I had posted my Ferrero Rocher Mousse Cake a few months ago, I had smashed the chocolates in a zip-lock bag. This time I figured out, it was better to chop them up with a sharp knife. It makes it easier to handle the chocolates. You may use use store bought chocolate sauce to drizzle on top. I always have home made sauce in my fridge so I used that.

Ferrero Rocher Ice Cream Cheesecake
Makes a 19 cm round cake

200 g chocolate cookies
70 g unsalted butter
8-10 Ferrero Rocher chocolates, roughly chopped
400 g cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
500 ml vanilla ice-cream, slightly softened (I used store bought)
1/2 cup dark chocolate sauce (recipe below), to drizzle
8-10 Ferrero Rocher Chocolates, to decorate

For the dark chocolate sauce
100g dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup pouring/single cream
2 tablespoons brown sugar

Line the base of a 19 cm round Spring-form pan with baking paper.
Place the cookies in a food processor. Process until fine crumbs. Add melted butter and mix to combine. Alternatively, you could crush the biscuits with a rolling pin inside a zip-lock bag. Using your fingertips, press biscuit mixture over base of prepared pan. Place in the freezer for 30 minutes or until firm.

Beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl (with a mixer or a whisk) until well blended. Add the ice cream and mix well. Gently fold in the chopped chocolates. Pour over the prepared crust. Freeze for 4 hours or until firm. Remove from freezer 10 minutes before serving. When ready to serve, drizzle with chocolate sauce, top with remaining Ferrero Rocher chocolates and drizzle with more sauce.

To make Dark Chocolate Sauce: Combine chocolate, cream and sugar in a saucepan over a low heat. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool. To store, pour into a cup/jar, cover and store in the refrigerator till needed. Warm up before using.

Orange, Honey, Rosemary and Chia Seed Friands/Financiers

24|11|2014

After a lovely little vacation in Melbourne, I am back to the precious confines of my home. Though to be honest, I did not miss cooking and baking, I was very excited at the sight of my kitchen when I came back. Melbourne is a colourful city. That was one of the first things that caught my eyes. The buildings can exist in any colour you dream of. Amongst the grey, brown walls or the striking blue waterbodies all over the city, there would be a yellow wall somewhere, red staircase, an orange coloured bridge…some blue boats floating around. It makes a lovely sight. My camera has been working overtime in the last few days..the birthday pictures of my twins, then Melbourne and the beautiful Victorian countryside. So much to share but I guess I will stick to food photos here. You can see my travel photos on Instagram.

So before I left for Melbourne, I made a birthday cake for my twins and we had an advance celebration at home. It was a big cake and we were happy to come back to it after a vacation of plentiful eating outside. It made a delicious dinner for me last night when I barely had the zeal to put a meal together. I also had these friands in my freezer that made a happy breakfast for all of us. My regular readers would know my love for friands…the lovechild of egg whites and almond meal, both of which I am totally obsessed with. I added some more love to it in the form of orange, honey, rosemary and chia seeds. It sounds like a lot of things happening in these friands but really, you can taste each one of those flavours. They are a treat.

The rosemary leaves add a subtle depth and paired with orange and honey, they elevates the sweet citrus notes to a different level. The chia seeds were a last minute addition because I was introduced to them recently and have been looking for ways to add them to recipes. They provide a crunch to these gorgeous little afternoon tea treats. The great thing about the recipe is that it is totally flexible. Use any nut meal, substitute orange with lemon or lime, use golden syrup or maple syrup instead of honey, poppy seeds in place of chia seed. There is so much you can do to it to make it your own. As you can see, I baked the friands in my mini bundt cake pan which was almost forgotten for a year. Friands can be baked in any shape and size so you can use muffin pans, friand molds or ramekins.

Here are a few photos of the birthday cake. It was a double chocolate cake with a swiss meringue buttercream.

Orange, Honey, Rosemary and Chia Seed Friands/Financiers
Makes 10

1 cup almond meal (ground almonds)
1 1/3 cups icing sugar, sifted
3/4 cup plain flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon baking powder, sifted
5 eggwhites
125g butter, melted
1/4 cup honey
Finely grated Zest of 1 large orange
1 tbsp rosemary leaves (fresh or dried), finely chopped
1 tbsp chia seeds

Orange Syrup
Juice of 1 orange
1 tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Lightly grease a 12- capacity muffin pan or mini bundt cake pan. Place the almond meal, icing sugar, flour, baking powder, eggwhites, butter, honey , orange zest, rosemary and chia seeds in a bowl and whisk until combined. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 20–25 minutes or until the friands are golden and cooked through. Remove from oven and release friands immediately. Drizzle with orange syrup .Cool on a wire racK.

To make the syrup : Place the orange juice and honey together in a small saucepan over low heat. Remove as soon as it comes to a boil and blends together.

Lamb Rogan Josh Pot Pie

17|11|2014

When I was growing up, the definition of good, delicious food at home was as simple as finger-licking food. Food that is so irresistible that you wipe your plates clean with the last piece of flatbread and lick the last of the dish off your fingertips. This theory cannot be truer for a bowl of good Indian curry. The right consistency, the perfect blend of spices, the rich flavours and also very essentially the aroma that fills the home were the standards that were to be met to be for the humble curry to appeal to palates that were used to eating curries all the time. I made my first Lamb Rogan Josh in my early teens after falling in love with it while watching a cooking show. Alas! No fingers were licked. The gravy had dried out and all that were left were the lamb pieces. They were delicious so I wasn’t discouraged.

Rogan Josh is an aromatic lamb dish that is slow cooked with chillies and spices till the flavours blend into a magnificent curry and the lamb is tender and succulent. The dish is a signature from the Kashmir region of India and what makes it unique, flavours aside is the gorgeous red colour that comes from the usage of chillies that are grown locally in that region. Since the chillies are not accessible to a lot of people, (even those living in other parts of India) people like to use the Kashmiri Chilli powder that is quite easily available in India and in Indian stores abroad. Otherwise, it is best to make a fine paste of dried red chillies which you could find in most supermarkets. This is my chosen way of cooking the dish.
Like any classic recipe, the Lamb Rogan Josh has many different variations today. I have simplified my version over the years for the sake of convenience but also taking care not to compromise much on the flavours.
Talking of comfort food, as much as I love my curries I also have a thing for pies. Living in Australia, you cannot overlook the pies. They are everywhere and they are smashing! The idea of a pot pie however is what delights me the most. A simple puff pastry cover and you have wonderful textures in your food. I love the fact that you can get creative with your fillings and there is so much room for variety. Then why not an Indian inspired hearty, spicy lamb filling that makes your taste-buds go crazy with deliciousness.

This recipe as I mentioned is a simplified one. The original dish is quite rich and spicy. I cook mine in a pressure cooker so it is quite fast but you could cook it in a saucepan as well. If I am serving this for guests I tend to go easy with the oil and spices but if it is for a weekend dinner at home I am careful about the quantities. Once the Rogan Josh is ready, all we do is pour it into a deep dish, cover with puff pastry and bake till brown and crispy. The filling can be made ahead in time and stored in the refrigerator or freezer.

Lamb Rogan Josh Pot Pie
Serves 4

2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 bay leaves
3 green cardamom pods
4-5 cloves
1 stick cinnamon
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 red onions, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 inch ginger, grated
1/2 cup diced canned tomatoes
3 dried red chillies (processed to a paste with 2 tbsp of water
400 g boneless cubed lamb (preferable from the shoulder)
salt, to season
11/2 cups water
1 sheet puff pastry (store bought)
1 egg, lightly beaten

Heat oil in a large thick bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add the bay leaves, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, fennel seeds and cook till they splutter (about 1 minute). Add the onion, garlic and ginger and cook till onion is soft and translucent.

Add the diced tomatoes and red chilli paste and cook till blended. Turn the heat onto high and add the lamb cubes Sear the lamb cubes evenly on all sides, stirring constantly. Season with salt. Pour in the water and mix. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 40-45 minutes or until meat is tender. Keep adding water if the gravy appears to dry out.

Once meat is cooked through and gravy has thickened up, remove from heat. Cool slightly and pour into a deep dish.

Preheat oven to 220 degrees C (200 degrees for fan-forced). Cup pastry into a large round, an inch larger than the circumference of the pie dish. Place on top of lamb mixture, scrunching edges of pastry around the dish. Brush with a little egg. Bake for 10-15 mins, until puffed and golden. Serve immediately.