Recipe: Citrus Tart

The great thing about this tart is that your don't have to bake it blind. You can make the base several hours or a day ahead if you like - but cover it in the fridge so it doesn't dry out.

Mix 125g butter, 1 cup flour and 1/2 icing sugar in a food processor. With floured hands, press the dough into a 21 cm loose bottom flan tin. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (it bakes best from cold).

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius. Place 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup lemon juice, rind of 2 lemons, 2 tablespoons custard powder and 3 eggs into the food processor and mix. Pour into the chilled base. Bake for 25 minutes until the pastry is crisp and the filling set. Dust with icing sugar.

Fascinating Food Facts

* You can walk on custard. Custard is a non-Newtonian fluid. When thickened with starch, custard's physical properties change from those of liquid to those of a solid depending on the amount of pressure applied to it, so much so that a person is able to walk across a swimming pool full of custard.

* "Aioli (garlic mayonnaise) epitomises the heat, the power, and the joy of the Provençal sun, but it has another virtue - it drives away flies."
Frédéric Mistral








Care of the BBC Food newsletter.

Dinner Party Menu

These two recipes helped me throw a successful dinner party a few weeks back. I also served crackers, brie, cammembert and rosemary & garlic chips as an entree, and espresso truffles with coffee.

The Mains: Cannelloni by Food in a Minute

Ingredients
1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp minced garlic
250 g Wattie's Frozen Chopped Spinach, defrosted and drained
250g container Tararua Cottage Cheese with Tomato and Basil
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup grated parmesan or tasty cheddar cheese
420g can Wattie's Condensed Tomato Soup with Diced Tomatoes
1/3-1/2 cup water
125 g packet dried cannelloni tubes
1/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs

Method
1. Heat a dash of oil in a frying pan and cook the onion and garlic until soft. Stir in the prepared Wattie's Chopped Spinach and set aside to cool.

2. Stir in the Tararua Cottage Cheese with Tomato and Basil, tomato paste and half the grated cheese. Season with pepper.

3. Combine the Wattie's Condensed Tomato Soup with Diced Tomatoes and water. Pour half into the base of a lasagne-style dish.

4. Fill the cannelloni shells with the cottage cheese filling and place the cannelloni on top of the soup. Pour over the remaining tomato soup mixture to cover. Mix the remaining Parmesan cheese with the fresh breadcrumbs and sprinkle over the soup.

5. Bake at 190°C for 25-30 minutes until the cannelloni is tender. This amount serves about 4. I doubled it and gave each person 3 tubes.



The Dessert: Banana Butterscotch Pudding by Bill Grainger

125 g (1 cup) plain (all-purpose) flour
a pinch of salt
120 g (1/2 cup) caster (superfine) sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 banana, mashed
200ml milk
85 g (3 oz) unsalted butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
vanilla ice cream to serve
Topping
140g (3/4 cup) soft brown sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup
250 ml (1 cup) boiling water

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F/Gas 4). Sift the flour, salt, sugar, baking and powder into a bowl. Add the banana milk, butter, egg and vanilla extract and whisk together until well combined. Pour into a greased 2.5 L baking dish.

To make the topping, place the brown sugar, golden syrup and water in a small pot and bring to a boil. Pour the boiling mixture carefully over the pudding, then bake for 30 - 40 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Apparently it serves 4 but I quite happily dished up 7 servings.

Recipe: Pizza bases

Here are two recipes: one for if you're in a hurry and one if you have time to do things properly. With both of these, I find that the recipe makes too much for one pizza - so either freeze half or just do half the quantities. My favourite part is always kneading the dough. It's almost therapeutic. Seeing the dough rise is fun too.

1. From Alison Holst's "Dollars and Sense Cookbook"
This makes 6-8 individual pizzas, or one large 25-35cm base - apparently.

Measure 1 1/4 cups warm water and 2 Tbsp sugar into a mixing bowl or food processor bowl. Stir or process to dissolve (double-check that the water is lukewarm), and add 1 Tbsp dried yeast granules. Mix or process briefly again, and leave to stand for at least 5 minutes until the yeast starts to bubble.

Combine 2 Tbsp oil, 1 cup self-raising flour, 2 cups plain flour and 1 tsp salt in a large mixing bowl. Stir in the bubbling yeast mixture and mix well. Add a little extra flour, if necessary, to make a dough that is firm enough to turn out and knead on a floured board. Knead until smooth and satiny, then cut dough into 6-8 pieces for individual pizzas or one large round. If making individual pizzas, roll each portion of dough out to form a 15-18 cm circle and place on well-oiled baking trays. Leave to stand for a few minutes while you prepare the toppings you want, then bake at 220 degrees celsius for 10-15 minutes until the dough is golden brown around the edges and lightly browned underneath.

2. The recipe from the good old Edmonds cookbook
Serves 6

Put 1 Tbsp active yeast, 1/2 tsp sugar and 1 cups tepid water in a small bowl. Set aside for 15 minutes or until frothy. Sift 1 tsp salt and 3 cups plain flour into another bowl. Add 1 Tbsp oil and yeast mixture. Mix well.

Turn dough out onto lightly floured board and knead until smooth and elastic. Light oil bowl. Return dough to bowl. Cover with teatowel and set in warm place until double in size. Punch dough down in the centre then lightly knead again. Press into lightly oiled 25cm pizza pan. Spread with toppings and cook at 220 degrees celsius for 15 minutes or until well risen and golden.

Musical sandwich hits the market

Tired of the same old lunch at your office desk? Help is at hand. A supermarket is launching the ultimate life-enhancing snack -- the musical sandwich.

In a trial certain to be welcomed by the estimated one million Britons who eat their lunch at their desks each day, Tesco will use technology similar to that used in singing greetings cards to sell musical sandwiches.

Opening the top of the sandwich box will activate a tiny sound module that plays a selection of music. This season's offering will be a medley of Christmas tunes including Jingle Bells, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

Tesco Spokesman Jonathan Church said the potential of the melodic munch was enormous.

"It's designed to provide busy office workers with relaxing music to make eating lunch at their desks more enjoyable than ever before," he said, adding that the concept could be easily adapted for Easter, Valentine's Day or Mother's Day.

While it's not certain how your true love would react to being given a tuneful tuna lunch on February 14, Church said the idea could also be used in conjunction with record companies to launch songs by new artists clamouring for the kudos.

The first offering will have no such ambitions, and will consist of a turkey and cranberry sauce sandwich with pork and cranberry stuffing. The new musical sandwiches will go on sale this week.

But further out, flavour/song combinations under consideration include Prawn To Be Wild, Let It Brie and that old Julio Iglesias favourite, Fillings, Tesco said.

- REUTERS

Recipe: Champion Cheese Muffins (Alison Holst)

These muffins are yummy, easy to make, and becuase of the cheese in them, you add no butter to the mixture. Apparently it makes 12 medium sized muffins - I ended up with 10.

Put 2 cups (200g) grated tasty cheese, 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour*, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 Tbsp sugar and a pinch of cayenne pepper into a large bowl. Mix lightly with your fingers to combine.

In a small container beat 1 egg and 1 cup milk until evenly combined. Pour all the liquid onto the dry ingredients, then fold the two mixtures together, taking care not to overmix.

Spoon the mixture into 12 medium muffin pans, which have been buttered or sprayed with non-stick spray.

Optional toppings: Sprinkle with a little extra cheese and paprika or chilli powder.

Bake at 210 degrees celcius for about 12 minutes, until the muffins spring back when pressed in the middle and are golden brown.

*If you don't have self-raising flour, you can just use ordinary flour and 1 1/2 tsp baking powder.

Recipe: Chocolate Caramel Square

This is absolutely delicious. One of those treats you shouldn't make too often because you know you'll want to eat more of it than you should.

Cream 4 oz/125 g butter and 4 oz/125 g sugar. Add 1 egg, then 1 1/2 cups of flour, 2 tablespoons of custard powder, and 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Divide the shortcake in two. Press half into a biscuit baking tin.

For the filling, melt together 3 oz butter, 1/2 tin condensed milk, 2 tablespoons of golden syrup, and 1/4 cup of sugar. Pour over the base. Sprinkle with small bits of the remaining shortcake mixture.

Bake at 180 degrees celsius for 20-30 minutes. Once baked, make chocolate icing* and spread over the square. Cut into servings once set. Yum!

* Mix 2 teaspoons margarine/butter, 2 dessertspoons cocoa powder, a little boiling water and enough icing sugar to make a smooth consistency.

Recipe: Pavlova

Ah, the quintessential Kiwi dessert. Mandatory at Christmas, but perfect for a treat at any time of the year. Here's how you do it:

Beat 4 eggs whites until soft peaks form. I recommend doing this with an electric hand beater, if you want to use your arm afterwards. Gradually add one cup of sugar, beating until dissolved (about eight minutes). Fold in one tablespoon of cornflour into the meringue with one teaspoon of lemon juice or vinegar. The finished pavlova is firm and shiny.

Put greased paper on a large flat tray and make the pavlova as high as the required amount of marshmallow (some people prefer a flat crispy pavlova - but I like my marshmallow!). Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, then turn off. Leave to cool with the pavlova inside (middle of oven). It should take at least an hour for the oven to cool down, and when it has you have the perfect pavlova!

The most popular toppings are cream and strawberries or kiwifruit, or passionfruit.

Check out these links

For intellectual stimulation: Arts and Letters Daily

For something to eat: E-cook

For something to read: Book Club

For somewhere to walk: New Zealand Tramper

And for a little light relief: Spank the Monkey

Restaurant Review: Orbit

We went to this restaurant for the occasion of my father's birthday. It is part of the Sky City complex, and located on a revolving floor just below the observatory deck of the Sky Tower. My husband and I were expecting it to be hideously expensive (to catch those tourist dollars) and somewhat pretentious. You know, huge plates, small servings and no extras. I must say we were pleasantly surprised.

The first thing about the restaurant is that they operate two sessions: from 5:30 and 7:30. We had only been able to get into the 5:30 session, but upon reflection decided this would be nice as we would get to see the sun set over the city. It was indeed an enjoyable experience to have one revolution around the city in daylight, and a second with all of the lights twinkling.

Although we did ask for some time to peruse the wine list, we didn't dally over choosing our main courses. After all, we were on a schedule. We were somewhat surprised by how long it took the waiting staff to ask for our orders. The wait for dinner was neatly concealed by the presentation of bread rolls and butter. On to the meals themselves. I was pleased to see a special section on the menu dedicated to duck, and I opted for the "Trio", which included a small selection of each. In order of yumminess (saving the best till last), the selections were a spring roll, filled pasta shells, and a roasted breast on mango salsa. I enjoyed the variety immensely, and everything was well cooked. I also partook of some of the side dishes we had ordered for the table - some broccolini, sauteed potatoes and a few fries - which were all quite good. The rest of my companions, predictably, ordered the steak, which was well received by all (except that my sister's portion was a bit tiny compared to the others, and my mother's steak a bit too rare).

When the staff delivered the dessert menus, we were already at our deadline of 7:30. But no-one seemed to want to rush us, and we noticed that several other tables were continuing on undisturbed as the next round of guests arrived. The men at our table ordered a selection of icecreams with a nutty caramel topping, and the ladies (myself included) a tower of berries in pastry, on a white chocolate slab, which was in turn on a slice of lemon cake. The whole thing was doused in a lemoncello sauce, and was accompanied by a dark chocolate wand. I have to say it was a lovely mix of flavours. I found the pastry tower a bit bland and passed it over to Dad, but otherwise the dessert was a lovely finish to the meal.

So in conclusion, I would recommend Orbit for an occasional treat. The prices, though high as we expected, were helped along a bit in our minds by the complementary bread rolls, free ride up the tower, and discounted parking. The staff were helpful and attentive (once we had ordered our meal). The food itself was generally of a very high standard. And the views over our lovely city were priceless.

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