3 new dishes

This week I’ve got not one, not two, but, as the title suggests….. three new dishes for you…. I know! Aren’t you lucky things

I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t cook all of these dishes in the past week, but over the past few…I’ve only just gotten around to writing them up and posting them now.

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

The first dish I’m going to share is a tomato, cheese and thyme tart. I’m particularly proud of this tart because I made pastry…from scratch…for the first time….and it turned out ok!

The Ingredients **

For the tart filling:

13 cherry tomatoes, cut in half

2 tbsp olive oil

3 eggs, lightly beaten

2/3 C grated vintage cheddar

2 tsp dried thyme leaves

For the cheese pastry:

1 1/3 C wholemeal plain flour, sifted

100g (0.22lb) of cold butter, finely chopped

1/3 C grated vintage cheddar

1/4 tsp paprika

1 egg, lightly beaten

1-2 tbsp iced water

** recipe adapted from Australian Good Food magazine, March 2012 edition.

Pre-cooked pastry

The Method

Make the pastry first, so it can rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Place the sifted flour and butter into a food processor and process until mixture is in small breadcrumbs. Add in the cheese and paprika and pulse to combine. Add in the eggs and iced water, enough to make the mixture form a soft dough.

Place the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth. Divide the dough into two portions and shape each into a dish. Wrap with plastic and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 190C (374F). Line a tray with baking paper and place the cut tomatoes (cut-side down), onto the trays and drizzle with oil. Season with S&P. Bake for 10 minutes and remove from the oven.

After the dough has been in the fridge for 30 minutes, remove and roll out on a lightly floured surface until it is large enough to line a tart tin, approximate diameter 20cm. Trim the edges. Blind bake pastry by putting some baking paper and filling with baking weights (I used rice). Bake for 10 minutes, remove the paper and rice and bake for a further 5 minutes, until golden. Allow to cool slightly.

Combine the other eggs and cheese in a bowl. Spread over the cheese pastry. Arrange the tomatoes over the cheese mixture and sprinkle with the thyme.

Bake for approximately 25 minutes, until a golden brown.

Jamaican Jerk Pork

Serves 2. Based on a Barbecued Jerk Chicken recipe in The Around the World Cookbook: Over 350 authentic recipes from the world’s best-loved cuisines.

2 pork steaks

1 tsp ground allspice

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

2 tsp demerara sugar

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1/2 small onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp chopped spring onion

1 tbsp vinegar

2 tbsp oil

1 tbsp lime juice

1 hot chilli pepper, chopped

S&P

The Method

Combine all of the dry ingredients in a mortar and pestle (yay!! I was so excited to unpack our mortar and pestle, I had to use it…all the time!). Add in the other ingredients and pound until like a thick, chunky paste.

Rub the paste all over the pork. Would be best left overnight in the fridge to marinade…we did not do this.

We cooked our pork steaks on our skillet (once again, we were so excited to see our skillet again! It’s had quite a work out in the past couple of weeks!) and served with a garden salad.

Chocolate raspberry balls

This was my contribution to the Christmas lunch…I got off very lightly this year as I had just moved the weekend before Christmas and my mum and sister took pity on me – hehe! These chocolate balls were delicious and gone in a matter of minutes! And, even though I did make them for Christmas, I see no reason why you couldn’t make them at any other time of year

The recipe was shared by a work colleague who had made and brought some in to the office the week before Christmas. I adapted to my own liking, as follows:

The ingredients

250g packet of plain sweet biscuits (I used Arnott’s milk coffee)

180g block of dark chocolate, broken into pieces

395g can of light condensed milk

1 C desiccated coconut

150g jube raspberries (you could use glace cherries, cherry ripe or any other lollies you liked really)

The method

Line a tray with baking paper (or alfoil paper….I had to improvise)

Process the biscuits until fine and transfer to a bowl.

Melt the chocolate gently in a glass bowl over a saucepan of boiling water. Stir constantly until melted and smooth.

Chop the raspberries up into tiny pieces.

Add the chocolate, condensed milk, 1/2C coconut and raspberries to the bowl of biscuits and combine.

Using damp hands, roll the mixture into about inch-sized diameter balls.

Sprinkle a try with the other half of the coconut. Roll the balls in the coconut to decorate.