dicky & debbie.com

I have a new presure cooker and am always on the outlook for new and interesting recipes like this one found here.

2 lbs chuck, cut into bite-size cubes
5-6 garlic cloves, crushed or minced
1 Tbsp red pepper flake
2 Tbsp Kosher salt

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1-2 c. white wine and/or stock
1 tsp allspice
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp cumin
1 cinnamon stick

Toss the meat, garlic, pepper flake and salt in a large bowl, combine well and let rest in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. The meat will turn a brilliant shade of red.

Sauté the onions and garlic in the bottom of the pressure cooker until golden. Add the tomato paste and cook another minute or so, then add the wine and spices. Add the meat, close up the pressure cooker and cook on high heat for 20 minutes. Allow pressure to drop normally; rapid-releasing pressure will toughen meat. When pressure has fully released, open the cooker. Skim off fat that has risen to the top. Bring remaining sauce back to the boil if you want to thicken or reduce it.

According to the cookbook, molha is traditionally served with boiled potatoes. We served it over buttered noodles and some roasted romanesco, and that was very nice indeed.

Thank god for google.  I put into the search field Banoffee Cheesecake best and came back with a link and it was a link to a heavenly recipe.  Originally by Silvana di Franco it is rich and satisfying without being sickly.

This is the link to the original recipe which I have replicated here.

Banoffee Cheesecake

*Crust:
85 gm [1/3 cup] butter – melted
200 gm gingernut biscuits – crushed

*Filling:
750 gm mascarpone (or cream cheese)
3 large eggs
2 Tbsp cornflour
140 gm [heaping 2/3 cup] golden caster sugar
finely grated zest of lemon
1 tsp vanilla

*Toffee Sauce:
50 gm butter
100 gm [1/2 cup + 1 Tbsp] light muscovado sugar
142 ml [1/3 cup + 1/4 cup] double/heavy cream

*Toppings:
2 medium bananas – sliced thickly
fresh lemon juice
284 ml [1 cup + 2 Tbsp] whipping or double cream

• Preheat oven to 350F/180C/gas mark 4.
• For the crust:
  1. Mix melted butter with the biscuit crumbs and press the mixture evenly into the bottom of a 23cm springform pan (preferably non-stick).
  2. Chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.
• For the filling:
  1. Beat all the ingredients in a bowl with an electric mixer until well combined.
  2. Pour into the cake pan set on a baking sheet making sure to level off the top.
  3. Bake for 50 minutes until golden brown.
  4. The top will be a little wobbly but it will set as it cools. Turn the oven off and leave the oven door open leaving the cheesecake to cool completely inside.
• For the toffee sauce:
  1. Melt the butter gently with the double cream and sugar in a saucepan while continously stirring until the sugar dissolves. Let it gently boil briefly.
• For the topping:
  1. Whip the whipping cream to soft peaks.
  2. Squeeze some lemon juice onto the sliced bananas.
• To assemble:
  1. Put the whipped cream on the cooled cheesecake in a swirling fashion.
  2. Wedge the banana slices in the cream.
  3. Drizzle a little toffee sauce on top and also serve on the side.

This is a great recipe for a dough which can be kept in the freezer. Just slice off what you need and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden at 180 degC.

Ingredients

225g butter
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
3 1/2 cups of flour

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Sift in dry ingredients. Mix well.

Roll into sausages and wrap in glad wrap. Chill and slice.

Bake at 180 degC until golden about 10-15 minutes.

Dough will late in the fridge for 2 weeks, or freeze dough to make it last longer.

These are a great lunch box filler.  They are nearly fat free, freeze well and are really tasty.  I found them on the recipezaar website here.

Ingredients

It has taken me years to get this recipe out of Margaret my neighbour.
She grows the most amazingly tart organic blackberries in her back
yard. She only gets maybe 10 kilos of berries and she makes the most
fantastic sponges. She very kindly gifted me with a kilo of
blackberries but more importantly she finally handed over the recipe to
go with it.

This is her recipe as she gave it to me:

Beat till creamy
9 tablespoon sugar
9 tablespoon butter

Beat in 1 at a time
3 small eggs or 2 large eggs

Beat well (5 minutes)
Add 1 cup self-raising flour with
1 tablespon milk.
(Add more flour if you think you need it.)

Place on top of hot cooked fruit. Bake at 190 degC for about 40 minutes or thereabouts.

I love winter for the food.  All the soups and stews, those rich meals laced with starchy accompianiments and thick gravys are just blissful.

This soup can be as thick or as thin as you like.  I actually like this quite thin but the missus likes it so thick it can nearly be cut with a knife.  Each to their own, I suppose.

When looking for a ham hock, make sure you dont get a smoked hock or a bacon hock.  They just dont work with this recipe.

Ingredients

1 ham hock
500 grams split peas
4-5 medium carrots, fienly diced
4 onions finely diced
200 grams of frozen peas, not minted

Method.

In a 6 litre stock pot, cover the hock in cold water, at least 3 litres,  add the lentils and bring to a simmer for about two hours, stirring every now and then to stop sticking.

Remove the the hock from the broth and remove the skin and any large chunks of visible fat. Chop the remaining meat into small dice and return to the stock along with the carrots and onions.  Simmer for another hour or until everything is cooked.  Add the frozen peas and remove from the heat, serving with crusty bread.

It seems like a long, long time since I have had a good cooking session, something that was complicated in its parts but combines to make a simple dish that is full of flavour.  Today I indulged myself in just that and at the end I am tired but excited and brimming with anticipation.  Onto the menu:

Roasted Rack of Lamb with pistachio pesto and bacon

served with broccoli in a pistachio pesto cheese sauce, root vegetable mash and sauted cabbage.

For dessert:

Roasted Plums with maple and balsamic drizzle and Chocolate and Water Mousse.

For the Rack of Lamb with Pistachio Pesto and Bacon

2 racks of lamb
2/3 of a cup of shelled rosted pistachio
1 tablespoon finely chopped thyme
2 tablespoons finely chopped rosemary
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
8 slices of streaky bacon

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Remove any silverskin from the lamb racks, season with salt and pepper and reserve.
In a mortar and pestle (or a mini  food processor bowl) crush the pistachios to a very rough paste.  Add in the herbs and few drizzles of olive oil.  Keep pounding until it starts to come together and the texture is a lot smoother.  Slather the pesto on the meaty part of the lamb racks, then lay over the streaky bacon.  I like to reserve a few pieces to wrap around to hold the bacon in place.
Roast for about 40 minutes or until medium rear.  Let rest 7 minutes before carving.I par cook the broccoli and the drain, placing in a ceramic baking dish in a single layer.  Make a cheese sauce as per norman but add a table spoon of the pistachio pesto and pour over the top.  Bake along side the lamb for about 20 minutes or until golden and bubbly.
Root vegetable mash is the simplest thing in the world to make.  Simple dice enough carrots, parsnip, potato and swede in small chunks the same size to serve everybody.  Bring to a boil and simmer until cooked.  Mash roughly with plenty of salt and pepper to season and a good few knobs of butter.

Roasted Plums and Chocolate and Water Mousse

Roasted plums are easy.  2 plums per person, halved and stoned.  Drizzle over maple syrup and some balsamic glaze of you have it.  Roast for around 30-40 minutes until softened.

Chocolate and Hot Water Mousse..
This is tricky and the main secret is to whisk as hard as you can for a long time.
Prepare and ice bath.  Pleasty of ice in your largest bowl, top with water and good dose of salt.  Place a smaller glass bowl inside.

Ina small saucepan, add cold water and grated chocolate  in the ratio of 1 to 1.3, or for every 100 grams of water (100 mls) 130 grams of 65% or more grated chocolate.  Apply the heat and begin whisking rapidly until the chocolate is melted and fully incorporated.

Remove from the heat and pour into the inner bowl of your water bath and begin whisking again rapidly.  As the mixture cools, the water molecules become emulsified with the fat and eventually solidify into a light moose that has no cream andwhen you try it, just dissappears in your mouth.  In this dish the key is the chocolate so the better the chocolate, the better the mousse.

These have to be an all time favourite biscuit.  Generally I am a take it or leave it kind of biscuit eater but these I wil l always take.  Debbie whipped up the above batch using a recipe from the Ladies, A Plate cookbook which has become my culinary nemesis.  If she keeps churning out these wonderful masterpieces then I will know its my baking skills and not the recipes at fault.

She did report that this was a very wet dough and suggested rolling out on parchement paper and removing the excess rather than trying to transfer.

Ingredients

For the biscuits

225g butter
225g brown sugar
1 egg
250g flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons mixed spice
2 teaspoons cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
raspberry jam to glue together

For the Icing

20 red glace cherries (optional)
240g icing sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
red food colouring
raspberry jelly crystals

Method

Cream the softened butter and sugar until very pale, beat in the eggs, add the sifted dry ingredients and combine to form a smooth dough.  Chill for a couple of hours or overnight, covered.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. and line two baking sheets with baking paper.

Divide the dough in half and return half to the fridge.  Knead the remaining half until it is malleable.

Flour the bench lightly, flour the rolling pin and roll the mixture out thinly.  Aim for about 3mm thick.

Cut the dough into circles about 5cm in diameter and set out on trays about 2cm apart.  Bake about 10-12 minutes rotating the trays halfway through cooking.  They should be firm on top, slightly brown underneath and small cooked.  Repeat for the remaining dough.

Pair up the biscuits and glue together with the raspberry jam.  Make a smooth icing with the icing sugar, lemon juice and little hot water.  Colour with the food colouring.

Makes about 40

We have tried many variations on this formula and one of the better ones is this one which I found on the  Serious Eats blog.  the batter is enough for a 9 x 9 or 22cm square tin.  The dish also relied on the quality of the sausages as they are the bulk of the dish.  Great with mashed potato and lots of gravy.

Ingredients

For the batter:
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
2 eggs
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
400 grams cumberland sausage

For the gravy:

1 tablespoon butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons flour
1 cup beef stock
Worcestershiresauce to taste
Salt and pepper

Method
For the batter:

Preheat oven to 220°C.

While oven is heating prepared batter.  Whisk together the flour, eggs, milk and salt until smooth.  Let stand for about 10 minutes or so.

Cut the sausages into individual links and brown without cooking in the oil over a medium-high heat.  If need be pierce the sausages to stop then splitting.

Dump the sausages and the fat into the preheated dish and top with the batter.  Put into oven.  Bake for 40 minutes, checking the colour in the last 10 minutes so that it does not burn.

For the gravy:
Heat butter over medium heat in a medium saucepan.  Add onion and saute until  golden and almost lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

Add flour.  Stir in, cooking the flour and distributing well for about a minute.

Whisk in the beef stock and let come to a simmer and slowly thicken.  Simmer for a few minutes to get rid of the floury taste.  Add a few dashes of the Worchetershire sauce, salt and pepper to taste.

Serve the onion gravy alongside the the toad in the hole.

This is a real rib sticker of a soup.  It is dense, hearty and filling.  Look out for bacon or ham hocks at the supermarket or butchers and keep in the freezer. Dont use a pork hock which is an altogether different cut.  At a pinch you could use bacon bones.

Ingredients
1 bacon or pork hock
1 packet of split peas
3 liters of water
2-3 medium carrots, medium diced
3 medium onions, diced
pepper to taste

Method

Cover the hock and the peas with the water and simmer until the peas have dissolved and the meat is starting to fall off the hock.  Remove from the heat.

Remove the hocks and allow to cool enough to handle.  Remove the skin and and excess fat and discard.  Dice the meat up and return to the stockpot with the peas.

Add the onions and carrots and simmer until they are softened.  Add the pepper to taste.

This soup tastes much better when allowed to cool until it become stodgy and then reheated for service.