On our recent trip to Billy Kwong, Kylie Kwong’s restaurant (story to come soon), we ordered a starter which was simple but delicious. The eggs were crispy at the bottom with a river of creamy egg yolk meandering across the plate. Was that too lyrical? Perhaps – but I was bowled over by the beautiful texture. Little did I realise how simple it actually was. When I looked up some recipes on her website, I realised that it could be done with about 4 ingredients plus oil and seasoning and finished in under 10 minutes. Please excuse the lack of “in progress” photos – quite honestly it was over before it even began!

I’ve spoken often about my fear of deep frying, yet I overcame it for this dish as it’s that good and simple. I had a surplus of eggs and some crunchy fresh birds eye chilis and fresh spring onions so it was an easy choice. And provided your rice is already cooked you can have a simple dinner for two on the table within 10 minutes (with most of the time spent waiting for the oil to heat up and whilst it’s doing so you can chop up the chilis and spring onions).

I couldn’t find Biodynamic eggs anywhere so I used free range eggs instead. Of course using birds eye chilis will mean that it is super hot so of course you could use less or you can use the larger chilis which are milder. I served these with the cooling cucumber pickles I made earlier that week and some fresh rice noodles which were cooked for 2-3 minutes in the microwave and then drizzled with soy and hoi sin sauce so I can say with absolute confidence that dinner was ready within claimed 10 minutes. I know the inevitable question for fellow deep frying phobics is “Will this work with just pan frying the eggs?” and I have to say that it does work well although the eggs aren’t quite as crispy on the bottom (although they still are crispy) but that is the only concession. The only thing I can suggest though is that you try this dish, either deep fried or shallow fried. It will soon work its way into your week day cooking repertoire.

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I remember my first dinner party clearly. I was younger, obviously, and at university and it was while my parents went away. I didn’t have a big alcohol filled party but instead had a dinner party where I invited 7 of my nearest and dearest over for a 3 course meal. I had no idea how to have a dinner party really, and my mistake was making a risotto. I couldn’t sit down and enjoy the company of my guests – instead I was the one chained to the stove stirring the rice and adding ladleful after ladleful of stock. I hated being stuck in the kitchen while everyone was having a good time – and worse still I had chained myself to the stove so I had no-one to blame but myself.

I was talking to a friend about this and she told me some clear and easy instructions for a baked risotto where you simply put everything in an oven proof baker and bake it for 40 minutes. The ratio is this: 1.5 cups of arborio rice to 4.5 cups of stock. That’s it and you can make all sorts of variations and whatever flavour that you usually like. No pfaffing about and stirring or standing there checking to see whether the rice has absorbed the liquid (about the culinary equivalent of watching paint dry). This is set and forget. Ever since then I’ve made it loads of times, with different flavours. Today I was making a three cheese version, only because I had some cheese that needed to have been used.

I used the Small Cow Fettice Feta that I bought from the Easter Show although once I saw how cute the little imprint was, I almost didn’t want to use it. I also used some reggiano and tallegio although you could really use whatever cheeses that you have. There is one condition though and that is that you don’t leave it to sit for too long. As you can see I did as the phone rang and I started another one of my usual long phone calls and it got a little dryer than I would have liked. Eat it straight away and you will be rewarded.

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Arguing whether Pavlova is an Australian or New Zealand invention is a moot point. Because instead of arguing the point as well as arguing about Phar Lap and Russell Crowe who both were indisputably born in New Zealand, you could instead be sinking your fork into this lusciously gorgeous dessert made of sweet, crunchy meringue with a gooey centre and billows of whipped cream and fruit. So whilst others argue the point, I’ll be the one in the corner eyes rolling back and toes curled at the textural sensation of the dish.

I have eaten and made many pavlovas in my life but it was only this year that I tried a brown sugar pavlova at the Mumu Grill Take it Slow dinner. I even asked Chef Mumu if he would give out the recipe to no avail. So I went online and serendipitously discovered that the Greedy Gourmand had already done one just last month, based on the recipe from Gourmet Traveller.

I usually use vanilla bean paste as I find it’s the best way to get the authentic true vanilla bean flavour without dealing with scraping beans but this time I used a whole vanilla bean as I knew I could scrape the bean of the seeds and then simmer the whole bean in the syrup. I thought that instead of sliced banana, I wanted to make it with bananas flambé, a favourite dessert of ours. If you felt like it, you could certainly omit the vanilla & rum syrup as the bananas flambé have a delicious syrup. The only reason why I made the vanilla & rum syrup was that I had decided to do a banana flambé after the syrup was made.

Bananas flambé

In order to get the gooey inner I cooked the individual pavlovas for 40-45 minutes as I didn’t want it entirely dried out. I wanted the goo – hell I needed the goo. You know that heavenly moment when you crack the outer layer to reveal the voluptuously soft, slightly sticky toothsome inner not unlike a marshmallow. No arguing about that.

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