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By admin, January 23, 2010

Perfect pastry for the tropics © Clare Richards 2009 - 2010

Pastry can easily be a very ordinary thing. Too hard, too soft, too stodgy, too thick when cooked; the dough too sticky and wet when mixed, or too liable to melt on you when rolled out. Add to that the very different cooking conditions of tropical climates, with long periods of the year with consistent heat and humidity, and it becomes even more difficult.

So I’ve been trialling and researching, and have come up with a recipe that is dead easy to prepare, works consistently, works on a hot or humid day, and produces a pastry that can be rolled thin, that melts in your mouth, and yet holds firm when filled and when cut.

It’s so good that you’ll have to wait until my cookbook Tropical Cuisine: Cooking in Clare’s Kitchen comes out mid 2010 to get the recipe. For now, here’s a photo of a durian tart I made with the perfect pastry for the tropics.

© Clare Richards 2009 – 2010

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By admin, January 9, 2010

Crystals mixed drink © Clare Richards 2009

We are on the last night of mum’s visit, which has been two weeks of joy.  Sharing cooking, preparation, food, as well as many a swim and a wander.  Tonight we had a very simple meal of breadfruit chips, rump steak cooked on the BBQ and served with homemade BBQ sauce, and freshly peeled pommelo.  During dinner we indulged in a Davidson Plum rose from Sue Pyke’s bush fruit wine products at Sunset Ridge, and merrily consumed most of the bottle.

Dinner was preceded by one of my mixed drink recipe tests, and if I may say so, I think this is one of the best I’ve done so far.  The finger limes were from Sue Pyke’s farm; the kaffir lime leaves that composed the syrup were from my bush and that of my friend Norma; the vodka is newly released by Mt Uncle Distillery; and the lime liqueur is from Wild Mountain Cellars (23 Eacham Rd Yungaburra, ph. 07 4095 3000, email: enquiries@wildmountain.com.au).  Try this recipe if you have access to all of these ingredients, and if you don’t, belt off to your local native plant or independent nursery and buy yourself a kaffir lime and a finger lime tree, because this recipe is worth the nurturing of their green selves.  Crystals is pure, cool, effervescent summer in a glass:

Crystals

4 – 5 chunks ice

30ml Wild Mountain Rolling Thunder (lime liqueur)

15ml Anjea vodka by Mt Uncle Distillery

1 tsp Kaffir lime syrup (see following recipe)

1 tsp pink/red fingerlime bubbles

soda water to top up

Place ice into glass, add Rolling Thunder lime liqueur, Anjea vodka and Kaffir lime syrup, and stir to combine. Add fingerlime bubbles.  Top up with soda water, gently stir again, and serve. Best served in an old fashioned shallow and wide champagne glass.

kaffir lime syrup

10 kaffir lime leaves, torn along their edges

500g sugar

500ml water

sterile 1 litre jar

Place the sugar and water into a saucepan and heat until the sugar is dissolved.  Add kaffir lime leaves and continue to cook at a moderate simmer for 1 – 2 minutes or until you start to smell the fragrance of the leaves, regularly dunking the leaves under the liquid as they simmer.  Turn off heat, leave syrup to cool, then remove kaffir lime leaves into a jar, pour syrup over, seal lid tightly and store in fridge.  This syrup will improve over the coming days and weeks.

© Clare Richards 2009