Category Archives: Cooking and Recipes


Pork Belly with Szechuan salt and pepper and a Scanpan Roasting Pan road test

I always think of Iron Chef Chen Kenichi when I read or hear about Szechuan Cuisine (and why is it always replayed in my mind in that Iron Chef dubbed American accent?). For those who haven’t heard of it before, Szechuan Cuisine is a spicy style of Chinese cooking originating from the Sichuan province in China.

Szechuan peppercorns

One of the most common ingredients is the Szechuan peppercorn, a pinky brown peppercorn with a distinct lemony flavour to it. I bought a packet of them after the amazing Iron Chef dinner we attended and promptly lost them in the jumble that is my spice drawer. It was only when I found a recipe combining them with one of my favourite foods, Pork Belly that I was propelled into action to go in and retrieve them.

This was also a good time to Road Test the Scanpan baking dish that I got from the people at Kitchenware Direct to test. At last count I have 5 baking dishes, all in various states of abuse. Most of the abuse was inflicted by cooking roasts, those deliciously good meals that pay no mercy to your baking dish. So I was happy to road-test a good quality non-stick baking dish having thrown out many a cheaper non stick baking dish before.

This recipe was adapted from www.cuisine.com.au, and it was the first recipe I’ve tried from there and whilst it’s very good, the cooking time given was way off. It called for the 800g pork belly to be cooked at 200c for 1 hour. Had I done that, I would’ve ended up with a charred mess. What it needs is 10 minutes at 200c and then a turn down to 170c for another 40 minutes.

But when you do slice it up and eat it, all is forgiven, the pungent aroma of ginger, garlic, vinegar and soy combining to produce a mouth watering marinade permeating amongst the many layers of soft fat and tender meat. Sprinkling the meat with the Szechuan Salt and Pepper only serves to heighten the flavour of this dish with the lemony Szechuan pepper.

Baked on goo-not pretty

As for the Scanpan, there was a hideous crust of goo on it after it was baked but I’m very happy to report that no elbow grease was required to remove it. In fact after soaking for a minute it lifted right off. So this one’s a keeper…

Spotlessly clean after a little roast abuse

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27 comments | November 13, 2008 - 7:00 am | Not Quite Nigella

Winnie the Pooh Hunny Cheesecake Cupcakes

I can only imagine my Mother shuddering and reaching for her red pen to correct my typo in the title. So Mummy Dearest, you’ll have to forgive me for sticking true to the story and making some Winne the Pooh Hunny Cheesecake Cupcakes.

I could have made a regular honey flavoured cupcake but I felt like something a little more rich and creamy. I decided to do a variation on the pumpkin cheesecake that I made the week previously so that the colour was true to Pooh but the sweetening was done through honey instead of sugar. The choice for a cheesecake cupcake was also due to a loathing of stale or expired food (it’s a response I think to my parents having sauces in their fridge from 1984). I had 3/4 of a packet of biscuits left from the Pumpkin cheesecake as well as some Pumpkin and neither myself or husband eat biscuits much so it seemed fitting to use these up as soon as possible before staleness set in.

Winnie the Pooh was extremely hard to do, his body was fine, but his face with the upturned nose required several attempts. Indeed I had a range of different Winnie heads, some resembling pigs or dogs before I finally settled on the real Winnie. And I know, Winnie is not that orange but I was a little too eager with the red colouring and ran out of fondant. I also know that Winnie wears a red shirt but I couldn’t muster up the energy to do a red shirt on top of his body given the struggle I had with his head I talked myself into figuring the Winnie must have had some naked moments every now and then.

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19 comments | November 11, 2008 - 7:00 am | Not Quite Nigella

Heavenly Pumpkin cheesecake

Please, please don’t roll your eyes. I know cheesecake isn’t the most exciting or novel dessert, certainly not as exciting as a macaron or a Zumbo creation but allow me to plead my case. The first time I tried this was at my recent Halloween party where my guest Queen Viv, a fantastic cook, brought this cheesecake over. We were stuffed to the gills with all sorts of “horrific” foods yet someone piped up that there was a cheesecake in the kitchen and that they wanted to try a slice (ok that was me). And a few of us were cut small slender slices of this pale orange hued cheesecake and sank our teeth (or in the case of some, fangs) into this delicate and airily light cheesecake.

Soon after hearing our moans and requests for seconds, suddenly everyone else was getting a slice and enjoying it thoroughly. There was a hint of cinnamon and a touch of lemon to the pumpkin flavoured cheesecake which was not too pumpkiny but just right.

It is from Nigella’s Feast, a book that I have fallen in love with all over again after disliking it for years as the first 7 items I tried from there were either average or a disaster. The only issue with this recipe is that it makes a little too much filling for the crust even with my modification (her original recipe calls for 750g of cream cheese!). Nigella says to push the crumbs onto the base of a 19cms diameter springform tin but I found that that way, the base was incredibly thick so I pushed the crumbs up to the side. You could either do the same as I did and then bake the remaining into cupcakes (I had an extra packet of biscuits so I just made more of the base) or bake it in a ramekin for a pot of pudding. Or you could bake it in a 23cms diameter springform and just press the crumbs into the base and that way you won’t have any leftover. It all depends what you want and have in the cupboard really.

I cooked mine for the requisite time but found that was too long, I think after 1 hour 20 minutes check it to see whether it’s done and you will get the correctly hued cheesecake shade. Don’t let the water bath turn you off but if you just can’t deal with it, you don’t need to. Queen Viv’s plate was too large to fit into a baking tray so she baked it as it was and it was perfectly light. And with the cheesecake itself, this light, dreamy confection, do I rest my case Your Honour.

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27 comments | November 9, 2008 - 7:00 am | Not Quite Nigella

Apple and Maple Tartlets

You’ll have to forgive the way these look. I tried to do something cutesy to it using an Apple shaped pastry cutter for the top but I think something got lost in the translation and they didn’t quite look as Apple-y as I would have liked. Were you here in my kitchen I could’ve stifled any snickering with one of these pies and that would have silenced any criticism. This recipe below uses the Cindy Crawford Saveur magazine pie crust adapted a little and the filling was a mix of thing that I thought would go well with apple, nothing earth shattering there with the usual suspects: nutmeg, cinnamon and maple syrup.

I made these to take on a picnic, and they were a resounding hit. Even my husband who eschews pastry was smitten with these. The apple filling has a nice, thick consistency (unlike the runny Strawberry pie) and the pie crust is divinely crumbly and delicious with an almost shortbready crumble to it. Of course you could make one large pie using the same amount of crust but you may want to use more apples and you don’t need to cut them as small. They do shrink down to about 1/2 the uncooked volume so keep that in mind. And don’t forget the vent the top. If you prefer your pie filling runnier, you could reduce the amount of cornflour, as it was my husband described the texture as like the apple in a McDonald’s Apple Pie at which I was first horrified to hear but upon reflection agreed, and Apple Pies are one of the things that I will eat there.

You could serve these as they are for a picnic or with some whipped maple cream (combine 1/2 cup of whipped cream with 2 tablespoons of maple syrup) for afternoon tea. Whatever you do, try one shortly after it’s been out of the oven, once it has cooled a little. It’s absolutely delicious then and that’s when the pastry is at its best.

I’ve added some changes in brackets to a couple of the ingredients in order to make it vegan friendly as this is my entry for Libby’s The Allergic Kid Thanks for “Nothing” Thanksgiving Roundup! :)

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17 comments | November 7, 2008 - 7:00 am | Not Quite Nigella

Caramelised Pineapple with Honey & Wattleseed Yogurt and Gingernut Biscuits

A little interjection if you will: if you were interested in seeing some photos from my Hallowe’en party on Friday evening, I’ve uploaded a selection in the story here. Hope you all had a fantastic Hallowe’en! Back to the subject at hand…

I didn’t eat fresh pineapple for years. Literally about 20 years. I was put off the acidity and resultant lip puckering and would only eat tinned pineapple. Until I went to Thailand and ate some Thai pineapple which was gorgeously juicy and sweet and not a bit acidic and now whenever I see baby Bethonga pineapples here I always buy them as they are the closest breed we have to a Thai pineapple. But when my parents gave me a pineapple (yes giving fruit as a gift is normal in our family), I knew that it would be too acidic but I had something up my sleeve, a recipe from Jared Ingersoll from Danks Street Depot fame that caramelises the pineapple after baking it for 2 hours.

My friend Lou gave me the other half of this dessert, the Hastings Valley Honey and Wattleseed yogurt. Speckled like Vanilla, the honey and wattleseed (the edible seeds of the Australian Acacia tree) yogurt is true to flavour and gives the sweetened pineapple a slight tartness as well as a voluptuous creaminess. She and her husband first tried these when they went to the Hunter Valley and were happy to see these in her local IGA supermarket.

Caramelising the pineapple with a blowtorch

I even got to use the blowtorch, not one of those things I usually like using as I am scared and too clumsy really to use an open flame. I waited until my husband came home to supervise me (I am seriously clumsy and require supervision) and caramelised every single piece to order. The baking kept all of the juices inside and they spilled out into our waiting mouths sweetened by the caramelising. It was bliss and one worth every single blistering juicy minute.

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16 comments | November 3, 2008 - 7:00 am | Not Quite Nigella