Lemony Curd Castles

I’m a lazy cook

But I love eating

Puddings

Not always chocolate

Sweet tangy lemony puds are next in line as far as my-puddings-worth-making go. My mum is a whizz at Lemon Delicious, though I prefer her Lemon Meringue Pie. And now we’re talking meringues your bum will never look back with this Heavenly Lemon Curd, Meringue & Whippy Cream Combo, first introduced to me by my friend Michelle**.

This pud just keeps on keeping on. Especially when you make a double mixture of:

Lemon Curd   

recipe adapted from ‘little &Friday cookbook’

250 grams butter

2 cups caster sugar

Juice and zest of 8 fine home grown Hawke's Bay lemons

6 large home raised eggs

Grab a metal bowl and put all ingredients in it, except the happy eggs, and place over a pot of simmering water. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

Remove from heat. In another bowl beat up those lovely eggs with an electric beater then add to the first mixture and put it back over the simmering pot. On low. And stir. The mixture will get frothy and you might think - where is my creamy curd going to turn up?

Then all of a sudden your potion thickens and looks like this. 

 

 I decanted mine straight into 5 of the 500 jars I’m hoarding for such an occasion, screwed the lids on tight and left them to cool. According to l&f this mixture will live in the fridge for 3 weeks. They strained their curd but I like the extra zing and chewiness from the zest so left it in.

Meringues

 Now I am a kiwi, but not a pavlova maker. My first attempt at these little egg-white/caster sugar delights resulted in marshmallow THINGS that would have made excellent self adhesive bra fillers. With 5 jars of lemony curd begging to be consumed (I don't like it on toast or brioche, but you might) I tried another recipe. From ye old faithful Edmonds Cookbook. Then I doubled it and beat it up my way.

4 large egg whites (I used the yolks in whitebait fritters)

1 cup of caster sugar

Beat egg-whites until stiff with an electric beater, unless you're in training for the pub arm wrestling comp. Add half the sugar and beat some more. Then mix in remaining sugar. And beat again. By now your meringues will look as silky as one of my mum's silk nighties .

Put soup-spoon-sized-dollops onto a greased tray and cook – this is the important part – at 100 degrees celsius for 1 hour. Turn off oven and leave, with door shut (if it’s not 9pm and you're waiting for your pudding) for another hour.

Finally whip some fresh cream and assemble. Aka Eton Mess. Meringue Sandwich. Curd Castle. You choose. NB. Many meringue-s were consumed in the styling of these pics. If necessary, these babies will live happily in an airtight tin for as long as you can manage.

pps. **Aforementioned fabulous cook, all round good sort and proprietor of 'Vudu Cafe' x 2 in Queenstown, Michelle Freeman, often gives jars of Lemon Curd as Christmas presents. This pud tastes extra divine eaten directly from the fridge on Boxing Day with a silver spoon.

Bon Apetite

(Regency china courtesy of Nana's kitchen)

Red Pear, Rocket, Hazelnut & Blue Cheese Salad

We had a bumper crop of red pears this summer, despite drought sucking the moisture out of the whole country and without watering our trees a jot.  A couple of branches, so burgeoned with dark pink orbs, snapped at the trunk. A bit of self-pruning that made the crop easier to pick.  Long ago this tree lost its name-tag but my best guess is that my red pears are of the William Bon Cretian family, commonly known for its yellow green variety.

Box after exotic box was filled. In the end we resorted to climbing into the uppermost branches and shaking the laden limbs to dislodge the fruit we couldn’t reach by ladder. We shared our red bounty among friends and wasps, but nevertheless still possess a load of pears perfectly ripened in the cool of our garage.

I used to bottle pears, felt it was my wifely duty, but they never got eaten. A seven year old vintage still sits, dusty and aged a dull green under the stairs. So this autumn I’ve been munching my way through our crop raw.

Pear cut up over homemade muesli and coconut yoghurt is sublime. Sliced pear between thin wafers of fresh parmesan goes very well with a glass of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc while sitting in front of the fire. Sliced pears with apricot jam glaze on flaky pastry makes the perfect tart. But for the piece de resistance of pear-ly delights I’ve devised a rocket, red pear, blue cheese & hazelnut salad with pomegranate molasses dressing.

Despite having snow on the ground my greenhouse greens are still alive. Currently I have Bok Choy and an abundance of rocket. Kale is coming on and I will share my sister’s kale salad recipe when it does. Several caulis and broccoli plants look leafy and caterpillar free, however if they manage to bear fruit as we rapidly approach the shortest day in the southern hemisphere, 21^st June, I’ll be amazed.

Another bumper crop this autumn was produced by our hazelnut trees, hence its addition to my salad. Over a period of three weeks during April I became Squirrel Nutkin, groveling under the trees filling baskets with nuts. These I then left to dry and can on occasion persuade my children or husband to crack. To say they are hard nuts to crack is an understatement. But with all home grown produce they are worth the effort on taste alone. Once shelled and toasting in the oven you could easily imagine you have just walked into a Nutella factory. And if anyone wants a homemade Nutella recipe all I do is: grind roasted nuts into a crunchy paste in a whizz, add top quality cocoa, caster sugar and there you have it. 

Red Pear, Rocket & Hazelnut Salad with Pomegranate Dressing

So last night while my freshly cracked and roasted nuts were cooling I:

Placed rocket leaves on a plate

Add thinly sliced red pear

Crumbled on some Danish blue (any dry-ish blue cheese would do)

Roughly chopped my hazelnuts and scattered them on top

Drizzled over some Pomegranate Molasses dressing.

For the dressing:

In a small jar add a good dollop of oil (I used extra virgin olive)

1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard

a splash of pomegranate Molasses

a splash of white balsamic

grind of pepper

spec of salt

Put on lid and give it a good shake and adjust to taste.

Pomegranate Molasses, (which btw comes in a bottle, is a strange dark brown colour and is made in Lebanon), has an interesting fruity sweet sour taste. If your dressing is too sweet add more vinegar.

This salad is perfect by itself for lunch. I served it with a small piece of fillet steak for dinner to satisfy my carnivore husband but could easily have gone without the red flesh.

Our local deli makes a Pomegranate Molasses and brown sugar glaze for its Christmas hams. I may try it in a couple of years, but I’m still getting over the raising of Bogus and Beans. Even though I love eating the fruits of my garden and farm labours.

Salads should never be boring and one of the best I’ve eaten this year was at a weekend in the Marlborough Sounds, thanks to the garden foraging skills of the Maunga Kereru bio dynamic gardeners.  This spring I plan to enhance my veg patch with some of the greens mentioned. Plantain and Comfrey at least. Thankfully I have all winter to read seed catalogues and decide whether I can coax them to grow down here in the chilly deep south. 

50 Shaves of Ham

Last night I ate the first ham steak I’d had since, well, like, forever. Foodies may be appalled, but my recipe is a sure fire Boxing Day winner: hack off thick, hand sized hunk of ham, pan fry in butter with a pineapple ring (from a can) until golden, serve with leftover salad. Delicious.

Why was I tucking into ham-delights a week before Christmas? Leftovers from a festive dinner hosted last Saturday. Problem is, we go away on Friday, only two days left to finish Bogus.

‘This ham is amazing,’ claimed one diner.

‘We raised it,’ I replied. Said diner looked alarmed. So I didn’t go into the fact the swine in front of him had had a short but happy life often dining on: overripe pineapples, persimmon and pawpaw from the fruit shop and day old jumbo muffins and wraps from the famous Vudu café.  

‘Did it have a name?’

‘He was called Bogus.’

‘Eww,’ said the diner again.

If Christmas ham munchers prefer their ham shrink wrapped, I’m fine with that, as long as the porkers weren’t raised in pens. We’ve raised 6 weaner pigs of exotic breeding over the years. To date I’ve enjoyed the fruits of my slop-hauling-labours. Succulent roasts mid-winter, nestled on beds of thyme, mustard, apple and cider (which reduces to an amazing jam-like condiment). Crispy pork belly crackling that pops in your mouth. But raising Bogus and Beans almost did this pig farmer in.

I collected them as weaners from Stu, a Gore farmer. We met at the Municipal Pools car park, Alexandra, 11am, April 2011. A wool-pack tied with binder twine, squirmed and squealed on the back of Stu’s pickup.

‘I hope they’re going to fit,’ he said, standing tall in his navy blue overalls.

‘So do I,’ I said, re-positioning the hay lined dog kennel on its side in my stationwagon.

Stu undid the sack, reached in and pulled the first not-so-little porker out by its rear trotters. ‘Guide the head and front legs in,’ he instructed. Ger-plop down went the first piggie. Stu grabbed the second and we repeated the procedure. They were cute. Berkshires. Black, with gingery bits.

I handed over my cheque for $160 then high tailed it back to Queenstown. They were blasting at the Nevis Bluff with waits of an hour; I didn’t want a boil-up kicking off in my boot.

            ‘We’re not going to eat them,’ I told husband, when we unloaded them. ‘Best Pig in show,’ I declared, staring into Bogus’s one ginger eye. ‘I’ll train them.’

‘Yeah right.’

Husband was right, of course. The initial crushed-barley and warm milk feeding period is fun. Then before you can say, pork crackling the little blighters have turned themselves and their home into, well… a pig sty.

The May rain came. I donned gumboots and an old ski jacket and hauled slops. Bogus always stood waiting in the trough on his hind legs screeching, then he’d drop down often sending putrid gloop face-wards, next he’d press a trotter into each concrete corner, obstructing his brother while he hoovered the tastiest morsels. Beans trotted back and forth, outsized and waited for the muddied remains. You always get a fatty and a skinny with pig pairs. Fatty for ham and bacon; skinny for chops and roasts.  Bogus’s appetite dictated his destiny.

Whoever said pigs are clean was definitely confused. They tend to use one corner of their pen for a toilet, but Bogus and Beans didn’t bother. They could multitask in fact: drink water and wee at the same time. The ground froze in June, they kept warm lying tummy to tummy, snout to snout inside hay cocoons in their A-frame; munched through kilos of veg and leftovers and got bigger and bigger. I did not admire their growing hams, as advised by Little River Cottage Pig Farmers dvd, I tended to porcine bedding and dietary requirements and longed for spring. All the while Bogus stared at me for MORE, with his piggy ginga eye.

When I collected the boys in plastic wrapped bits from the Omakau Abattoir, the back of my car sunk on its axles. 118kg of frozen pig.

A year later, we have a bag of chops and two pickled hocks in the freezer, as well as Bogus’s last leg. Someone needs to publish, ‘50 Shaves of Ham – a recipe book’, I thought at 7.05pm. I was stuck for another ham-meal idea. I ate the kids leftover broccoli salad then made the perfect ham sandwich: soft white bread spread generously with butter and a smear of Dijon, stuffed with several slices of freshly carved ham.

It seems whatever way your ham gets to the table; even feint hearted diners come back for seconds.

Merry Xmas ham lovers!