Apple cider and fennel roasted pork shoulder

I’m wondering what we did with our pork before it was cooked at a snails pace – long and luxuriously before being pulled into a great big tasty shredded mess of slow cooked goodness. The great thing about this recipe is you can’t get it wrong, just the sort of sentiments we need heading into Christmas and the requirements of putting food on the table. You do need time on your side though as it requires a solid 6 hours in the oven and a few hours before this to dry out (although you can skip this step). You could even put it on the night before and cook it overnight at about 140C if you are the sort who loves a solid bit of pre planning.

My only tip is to ensure you use an apple cider with a good balance of sweetness and acidity. You want it to add to the flavours at play rather than take all the attention like a bully in a schoolyard.

Ingredients

2.5kg pork shoulder, bone in

2 tbsp fennel seeds

2 tsp coriander seeds

2 tsp mustard seeds

2 tbsp brown sugar

Pinch sea salt flakes

600ml cheeky rascal apple cider

600ml chicken stock

4 apples, halved, cored

6 garlic cloves, unpeeled, bruised

Apple slaw

2 green apples, slices on a mandolin

Bunch mint leaves, coarsely torn

2 Fennel bulbs, sliced on a mandolin

1 red onion, sliced on a mandolin

Juice of 1 lemon

Method

Dry-roast the fennel, coriander and mustard seeds in a frying pan over medium heat until fragrant. Crush in a mortar and pestle. Combine with the brown sugar and salt and massage into the pork skin. Refrigerate, uncovered, for the flavours to develop – at least 4 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 200C. Place pork on a rack over a roasting pan, add half the  apple cider and half the stock in base and roast until pork starts to colour (30 minutes). Reduce heat to 150C and roast until tender, adding extra cider and stock as required (up to 6 hours). Add the apples and garlic, carefully stir to combine and continue to roast for 30 minutes or until meat is very tender. Set the pork aside to rest, reserve the apples and strain the juices into a saucepan. Place saucepan over medium heat and reduce for 20 minutes or until a thick sauce consistency. To make the apple slaw, combine all ingredients in a large bowl and toss gently to combine. Prepare just before serving for maximum freshness. Slice/shred/pull the pork and serve with pan juices and roasted apples.

Flourless chocolate and butterscotch bites

Despite the weird weather, we are meant to be heading into party season – that time of year where soirees abound and food is given the recognition it yearns for during other times of the year. Christmas dinner and holiday themed food is a major affair, bringing with it the sort of preparation it takes to raise a small child – fruit puddings made months in advance and hams, turkeys and proteins ordered from gleeful butchers the country over. For some reason, every year people fear a global shortage of ham. I don’t think there has been one since the depression but there they are in October ordering big for fear of a celebration sans ham.  I adore the frenzy, and I love that food goes bite-sized. Miniature delights are the perfect way to eat. The ones you don’t like can be artfully spat into a napkin or swallowed whole; while the ones you love, you can have six of as long as you stand in a direct line to the source of catering and spend the rest of the event hovering nearby. These chocolate and butterscotch bites are exactly that – decadent tastes to be enjoyed more than once. The use of almond meal also prolongs their life – they taste just as good a few days in if kept in the fridge as they do straight from the oven.

Ingredients

200g butter

300g dark couveture chocolate

4 eggs

100g brown sugar

100g almond meal

1 tsp baking powder, sifted

100g butterscotch chips *

icing sugar for dusting

Method

Preheat the oven to 160C.

Melt dark chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water, set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer beat the eggs and sugar on high until thick and creamy. Stir the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture. Gently stir through the almond meal, baking powder and butterscotch chips until just incorporated.

Spoon into greased mini muffin tins or tins of your choice. Bake for approximately 20 minutes – the middle should still be ever so slightly soft like a brownie. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar just before serving.

Butterscotch chips can be purchased online at http://www.usafoods.com.au or some specialty confectionary stores.

Berries with meringue,vanilla yoghurt and musk syrup

This is my new favourite dessert. Meringue, musk, yoghurt and berries –my ultimate food flavour pyramid would be built on these food groups. Musk might seem like a strange childlike choice but it is heaven mixed with fresh summer berries and meringue, and besides there is nothing like adding a Willy Wonka-esque element to dessert. 

While you can serve this with ice cream or cream, the flavours are a little mouth cloying – the slight sourness and lightness of the yoghurt really does make the fruit and musk syrup zing.  Make sure you compile the dessert just before serving – it tastes its best when just combined.

Serves 6

Ingredients

Meringue

4 eggwhites

250g caster sugar

½ tsp white wine vinegar

½ tsp cream of tartar

Musk syrup

100g frozen raspberries and strawberries

100g caster sugar

70g Lifesaver musk lollies

To serve

1 tsp vanilla bean extract

¾ cup good quality yoghurt

Icing sugar to dust

125g fresh raspberries

125g fresh strawberries, hulled

125g fresh blueberries

Method

Preheat oven to 140C.

Add the eggwhites and caster sugar to a food processor and beat on medium-high for ten minutes. Add the white wine vinegar and cream of tartar and continue to beat for a further 5- 10 minutes or until the sugar has dissolved and you have firm peaks.

Line a baking tray with baking paper. Turn out the meringue mixture and using the back of the spoon flatten out until about 5cm thick, but smear at will – this doesn’t have to be precise – the more adulations and peaks the more pretty the meringue in my book.

For the musk syrup add the musk lollies, frozen fruit, caster sugar and 200ml water in a saucepan. Place over low heat and cook for 15 minutes or until sugar and musk lollies have completely dissolved. Set aside to cool. Blitz quickly in a food processor and strain through a fine sieve. Set aside.

Break the meringue into medium-sized pieces. Place in a serving bowl.

Combine the yoghurt and vanilla in a small bowl then pour over the meringue.  Add the berries, dust with icing sugar then spoon over the musk syrup to taste.

Chimichurri Lobster Rolls with Salt & Vinegar Crisps

Have I reached burger fatigue? Not yet and I dare say there will always, always be a place in my heart for an expertly cooked wagyu cheeseburger and a hefty side of pickles (here’s looking at you Rockpool Bar & Grill). But increasingly, maybe it’s the flirtation with the warmer weather, I am looking to mix up my middles – and the good old lobster roll is definitely a worthy contender. It partners as perfectly with beer as it does champagne and the use of lobster makes it a little bit summer sun and a little bit schmaancy. The richness of the meat is also a perfect partner for the salty, tangy spicy kick of chimichurri and salt and vinegar which I’ve incorporated here as much for interest as taste.   And between you and me, I think it tastes pretty damn good.

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

Chimichurri

½ cup red wine vinegar

Sea salt to taste

3 garlic cloves, peeled

1 green shallot, finely chopped

2 jalepeno chilli chopped

1 large bunch coriander, leaves and stems, cleaned

1 bunch flat leaf parsley, leaves picked

1/3 cup dill, leaves picked

¾ cup olive oil

Rolls

400g freshly picked cooked lobster meat

1 celery stalk, finely chopped

2 tbsp lemon juice

3 heaped tbsp garlic aioli or kewpie mayonnaise

Salt and pepper to season

6-8 brioche buns or hamburger buns

Salt and vinegar chips

Method

Combine all chimichurri ingredients, except for the olive oil, in a blender and blitz to combine. Slowly, add the olive oil until well incorporated and the mixture has begun to emulsify. If you want a thicker, chunkier chimichurri, add less olive oil. Set aside until ready to serve.

Mix the lobster, celery, lemon juice and garlic aioli in a medium bowl; season with salt and pepper and add more aioli, if desired. Fill the rolls with lobster mixture and salt and vinegar chips and top with a heaped spoon of chimichurri.

  

I'm back....really I am

Hello. I am back. Good lordy what an epic few months it has been. The manuscript is in, the house is (partially) renovated and life can (highly unlikely) return to some level of normalcy.

Book 2 is due out next year with Murdoch Books and I cannot wait to see it take life. It is a completely different beast to Kitchen Coquette. A new challenge. Ever since the research trip to Paris late last year, I have been working with some absolutely amazing, pinch yourself amazing, chefs from cities across the world on this book. In between working with them on developing recipes, researching and madly writing, the book has been a serious logistical challenge - coordinating chefs at the best of times is hard work, but add differences in time zones, their work hours and then interviewing, interviewing and interviewing more than 50 chefs.... I  have had my work cut out for me. But I am so proud of the book, of the hard work and cannot wait to show some little snippets here and there as it continues to progress.

I plan on being the consistent blogger I once was and fill you in over the next few weeks on a thousand and one foodie things that have been going on. But for now, anyone living in Sydney knows it is unbearably hot - nearly 40C today so this recipe for Kiwi fruit Caprioska ice cream bars should be a fitting antidote for beating the heat.

Trina

Kiwi fruit caprioska and vanilla bean ice cream bars

One of the best things about summer. Ice cream. Loads of the stuff. And lets not judge – ice cream and all her friends – sorbets, frozen yoghurt, ices, granitas, that chewy mastic middle eastern feast…the list of heat easing delights is endless. This fruit and ice cream bar recipe is a humble, cocktail inspired nod to the Weiss bar – that creamy fruity combo that helps the undecided like me conquer the best of the fruit and creamy frozen world.

The key is making sure you really cover the kiwifruit layer before popping into the freezer to prevent it from becoming icy.

Ingredients

2 cups kiwi fruit, peeled and chopped

2 tbsp sugar

Juice of 1 lime

1/4 cup vodka

1 litre of good quality vanilla bean ice cream

Method

Line the base of a freezer proof loaf pan with glad wrap and set aside, ensuring there is some overhang of wrap for easy moving. Add the kiwi fruit, sugar, lime-juice and vodka to a food processor. Blitz to combine. Pour the kiwi mix into the lined pan and cover with overhanging ends of wrap. Place in the freezer to harden for 1 hour. Remove and pour over the softened vanilla ice cream. Cover and return to the freezer for at least 3 hours or until set. Remove from the freezer, turn out onto a chopping board and slice into bars before serving.