hot silverbeet cheesecake

This is one of the most delicious recipes ever. I’m not exaggerating.

The concept is a bit strange, but if you consider it’s almost like a quiche it suddenly doesn’t seem that weird at all.

The recipe follows the basic sweet cheesecake idea, but uses fetta cheese and silverbeet to flavour it rather than fruit or chocolate. It’s also served hot rather than cold.

Usually I cook the cheesecake in a springform cake tin, but last time I baked the mixture in muffin trays to create individual serves. This was perfect for the occasion: a brunch buffet where we also served
khabeesa (Omani semolina porridge),
breakfast crumbles and
asparagus & gruyere tart

For this cheesecake recipe, I choose to use silverbeet (Swiss chard) since it’s quite strong in flavour and can compete with the cream cheese and feta, although spinach would be an obvious substitute.

As I said the outcome is similar to a quiche, but so much better because it takes on a rich, sour creaminess from the cream cheese.

After making this I have been inspired to try other variations and am coming up with a recipe for a hot dessert cheesecake too.


Silverbeet Cheesecake
Anna’s adaptation of a recipe from the Australian Women’s Weekly ‘Great Vegetarian Food’. Makes about 16 small cakes or a large cake to feed 6 as a main.
Ingredients:
Base
1 cup (100g) finely crushed cheese biscuit crumbs
60g butter
Filling
600g silverbeet (Swiss chard)
1 medium brown onion, finely chopped
1 large garlic clove, crushed
250g cream cheese
250g sour cream
250g feta
4 eggs
¼ cup grated parmigiano or pecorino cheese
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 160’C.
2. To make base, melt butter and mix well with biscuit crumbs. Press mixture firmly into a 20cm springform cake tin and refrigerate 30 minutes.
3. Steam silverbeet until limp. Squeeze out excess water. Chop coarsely.
4. Sauté onion and garlic in a frying pan until soft, being careful not to brown.
5. In a food processor, blend silverbeet, onion, garlic and feta until smooth. Add cream cheese and blend until smooth. Repeat with sour cream and then eggs.
6. Place cake tin on oven tray (it may leak a little during cooking) and pour filling over biscuit base. Bake for 1 hour or until set and top has browned.
7. Remove from oven and sprinkle parmigiano over the top.
8. Sit cake 10 minutes before serving still warm.
Note: Can be made the day ahead and stored, covered, in fridge. Reheat, covered with foil, for approx. 20-30 minutes.

Since I have already covered the nutritional properties of silverbeet when I posted my silverbeet and feta pie recipe, I won't wax lyrical again.

What I will say again is that I love baby spinach in salads, but I prefer silverbeet in cooked form. I feel like I can actually taste the mineral richness and all those vitamins doing me good.

If you do decide to give this cheesecake a try, let me know how you like the flavour!

Weekend Herb Blogging is being hosted by Kalyn herself so visit the Kitchen for the round-up.

Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes weekend herb blogging whb main course cheesecake silverbeet buffet recipes cheesecake recipes quiche recipes cake recipes

nepalese meatball curry

After my friend, Ben, spent some time living with a Nepalese family in Kathmandu, he told me about the food he ate there. He explained that he'd eaten dal for breakfast, lunch and dinner and it had seemed so flavoursome and nourishing while he was living in Nepal, but when he came home to Sydney the same recipe tasted dull.

Was it his tastebuds that changed, the ingredients or was it the romanticism of Nepal?

So when I saw this delicious looking tomato based Nepalese curry, flavoured heavily with coriander (roots and all), I wanted to try it.

I adored the coriander laden sauce and it reminded me of curries I have bought at Indian restaurants. In fact, this was the first time my homemade curry matched something I have bought from experts.

I thought the flavours were delicious, but if you’re not keen on coriander I dare say this dish is not for you.

Nepalese Meatball Curry

Recipe from “The Australian Women’s Weekly New Curries”. Serves 4.
 
Ingredients:
Curry
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium white onion (150g), chopped finely
1 clove garlic, crushed
3cm piece fresh ginger (15g), grated
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped coriander roots and stems
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground fenugreek
1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
800g canned crushed tomatoes
1 cup (250ml) beef stock
¼ cup lemon juice
Meatballs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 small white onion (80g), chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, crushed
5cm piece fresh ginger (25g), grated
750g lamb mince
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 fresh long red chilli, chopped finely
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
¼ cup fresh coriander, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons stale breadcrumbs

Method:
1. Make curry. Heat oil in large saucepan. Cook onion, garlic and ginger, stirring until onion softens.
2. Add coriander mixture and spices and stir until fragrant.
3. Add (undrained) tomatoes and stock. Simmer, covered, for 1 hour.
4. Meanwhile make meatballs. Heat half the oil in a large frying pan and cook onion, garlic and ginger, stirring until onion softens. Cool 10 minutes.
5. In a large bowl combine mince, whole egg, egg yolk, chilli, spices, coriander, breadcrumbs and onion mixture. Roll level tablespoons of the mixture into balls.
6. Heat remaining oil in the same pan and cook meatballs (in batches) until browned all over.
7. Add meatballs to curry sauce and cook, uncovered, for around 20 minutes or until meatballs are cooked through.
8. Remove curry from the heat and stir lemon juice into curry. Serve with rice.


Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes meatballs lamb curry coriander cilantro lamb recipes curry recipes nepalese recipes nepalese nepalese food

indonesian egg sambal

I must confess I didn’t cook this. I bought the cookbook, picked out the recipe but Jonas did the hard yakka.

This Indonesian recipe is based on a traditional sambal and uses galangal.

Galangal is part of the ginger family and is considered a herb since its rhizome (root) is used in cooking throughout Asia. There are four kinds of galangal, each with their own level of potency, but overall the flavour is similar to ginger but more pungent and spicier.

Sambal Goreng Telor
Recipe from “The Australian Women’s Weekly New Curries”. Serves 6.
Ingredients:
4 fresh long red chillies, chopped coarsely
4 medium brown onions (600g), chopped coarsely
4 cloves garlic, quartered
4cm piece fresh galangal (20g), chopped coarsely
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons ground coriander
32 fresh curry leaves
1 tablespoon kecap asin
10 medium tomatoes (1.5kg), peeled
½ cup (140g) tomato paste
1½ cups (375ml) vegetable stock
12 hard boiled eggs
Method:
1. Blend or process chilli, onion, garlic and galangal until smooth.
2. Heat oil in large saucepan and cook chilli mixture with coriander, curry leaves and kecap asin, stirring, for 5 minutes or until fragrant.
3. Stir tomato, tomato paste and stock into mixture. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
4. Add eggs, cover and simmer until sambal is heated through.

Serve with steamed rice and fresh green vegetables.

This is my contribution to this week's Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Nandita at Saffron Trail. Please visit her blog to see the round-up of all the recipes from this weekend.


Tag: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes weekend herb blogging whb main curry indonesian recipes indonesian food indonesian indonesia sambal telor goreng sambal goreng telor eggs egg chilli tomato vegetarian vegetarian food vegetarian cuisine vegetarian recipes

opium bliss: orange & poppy seed cake

There’s an urban legend that if you eat poppy seeds the day before you do a drug test your results will show positive for opiates.

Unlike most urban legends, this one is true.

The American TV show, MythBusters, proved that eating poppy seeds can show false-positive results on a variety of different drug testing kits. During these trials, after eating a whole poppy seed cake a man tested positive just 30 minutes later. Another ate three poppy seed bagels and was positive 2hrs afterwards. They remained positive for another 18hrs!

The reason for this is that the poppy seeds we use for cooking are the dried seeds of the Papaver somniferum, also known as the Opium Poppy. Although opiates are made from the unripe pods of this particular poppy, the seeds also contain minute traces.

No wonder my orange and poppy seed cake tastes so damn good! I always feel so ecstatic after eating a few pieces :)

Jonas has perfected this cake as well and it’s one of our favourites. It is very moist, extremely moreish and served with a dollop of double cream is absolutely wonderful in spring, summer, autumn or winter!

Orange & Poppy Seed Cake
Recipe from The Australian Women’s Weekly Cooking Classic Cakes. Serves 16.
Ingredients:
Cake
1/3 cup (50g) poppy seeds
¼ cup (60ml) milk
185g softened butter
1 tablespoon finely grated orange rind
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
3 eggs
1½ cups (225g) self raising flour
½ cup (75g) plain flour
½ cup (60g) almond meal
½ cup (125ml) orange juice
Syrup
1 cup caster sugar
1 cup (250ml) orange juice
Method:
1. Position oven shelves and reheat oven to 180’C. Grease deep 22cm round cake tin. Line base and sides with baking paper.
2. Combine poppy seeds and milk in a small bowl. Stand 20 mins.
3. With electric beaters, beat butter, orange rind and sugar in a small bowl until light and fluffy. 4. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until just combined.
5. Transfer mixture to large bowl. Using wooden spoon, stir in flours, almond meal, juice and poppy seed mixture.
6. Spread into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour.
7. Meanwhile, to make suryip combine orange jucie and sugar in a saucepan over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered without stirring, for 2 minutes. Pour into heatproof jug.
8. Stand cake 5 minutes then turn onto wire rack over oven tray, top side up. Pour hot syrup over cake. Return any syrup from drip tray to jour and repour over cake.
Variation: orange can be substituted with any citrus fruit. Almond and vanilla essence can replace citrus.
Note: Cake can be kept in an airtight container, with or without syrup, for up to 2 days.

Poppies probably came from the Mediterranean and although their use by humans predates written history, there are images found in Sumerian objects from 4000 BCE and records show the Egyptians were crushing them for cooking oil in 1500 BCE.

Opium poppies were already known in Ancient Greece and it was the Greeks that named them thus. In ancient times opium was used for asthma, poor eye sight and digestive ills. In South Asia and the Middle East, poppy seeds are considered highly nutritious, especially for pregnant women.

Opium had become so important and influential in many societies that China and the British Empire went head to head in the mid-1800s in the Opium Wars and a variety of Western books would never have originated without its influence, for instance L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Poppy seeds are kidney shaped, a beautiful blue-grey-black colour and have a very nutty flavour. They can be used in breads, muffins, cakes and also added to salads and vegetables.

Poppy seed is produced all over the world, with the most notable production coming from the Netherlands, Australia and Turkey. Dutch poppy seeds are considered the highest quality.

Poppy flowers have around 6 petals and come in a huge variety of colours. According to Wikipedia, these are the various poppy genera:
- Meconopsis (Himalayan poppy, Welsh poppy and relatives)
- Papaver (Iceland poppy, Oriental poppy, Opium poppy, corn poppy and about 120 other species)
- Romneya (Matilija poppy and relatives)
- Eschscholzia (California poppy and relatives)

Unfortunately the beautiful ornamental qualities of the poppies are irrelevant to drug authorities. In most countries any part of the opium poppy, other than the seeds, are deemed illegal to obtain and cultivation of the seeds is highly regulated. Allegedly, in Singapore even poppy seeds are banned due to the negligible opiate content. Singaporeans – is this true?

According to Wikipedia, the myth that Opium Poppies can be grown from the edible seeds is also true and if you wanted to be a really naughty you could grown your own Opium Poppies from the pack you bought at the grocery store. Soon you’ll have pretty pink flowers and green pods with significant amounts of opium.

The poppy used by Americans, Canadians and Australians to commemorate fallen soldiers is not the same poppy that gives us morphine and seeds. The remembrance poppy is the red corn poppy or Papaver rhoeas.

The host for this Weekend Herb Blogging is Sher from What Did You Eat? If you feel like reading about recipes for other herbs, please check out Sher's round-up.

References & photo sources:
http://www.mccormick.com/content.cfm?id=8228
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poppy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Poppy
http://www.apinchof.com/poppy1036.html
http://www.poppiesshop.com


Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes weekend herb blogging whb cake dessert orange poppy poppy seed poppy seeds

italian veal roll w basil

Weekend Herb Blogging provides an excuse to cook delicious meals using fresh and unique herbs and vegetables. It also provides an opportunity to use common ingredients in new and exciting ways.

Take this Australian Women’s Weekly recipe which pairs basil with a stuffed veal roast. It is a great dish for summer buffets or picnics because it can be made up to two days beforehand and is eaten cold.

The only variation I made to this recipe was to increase the garlic from one clove to three, because you can never have too much garlic.

Also, I increased the number of salami slices. You’ll probably only use around 12 slices but it’s better to have more as a backup. You can use any leftovers in a sandwich anyway.

Italian Veal Roll w Basil
Australian Women’s Weekly recipe. Serves 4 as main or 8 with buffet.
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
250g pork and veal mince
½ cup grated parmigiano
¼ cup basil, chopped
¾ stale breadcrumbs (45g)
16 slices spicy salami
¼ cup sun dried tomatoes, drained (35g)
1kg veal shoulder, boned
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180'C.

2. Heat oil in pan, add onion and garlic and cook until onion is soft. Cool.
3. Combine onion, mince, parmigiano, basil and breadcrumbs in medium bowl.
4. On a sheet of baking paper, arrange salami to form a 17cm by 21cm rectangle, overlapping the edges of the salami.
5. Spread the mince mixture evenly over the salami.
6. Place the sun dried tomatoes in a line along the centre of the mixture.
7. Roll up salami using paper as a guide.
8. Trim excess fat from veal. Pound veal with mallet until even thickness.
9. Place salami roll on veal, wrap veal around to enclose salami and secure with string every 3cms.
10. Place on a baking dish and bake in oven for approximately 1¼ hours or until cooked through.
11. Cover and refrigerate for several hours. When cold, cut into slices and serve.

make a roll

bake until cooked through

allow to cool, then refrigerate

carve into slices and serve

Basil is a very versatile herb. From the Lamiaceae (Labiatae) mint family, it is an annual herb in cooler climates and a perennial in warm, tropical climates.

It adapts well to many different cuisines, but I think it's most at home in Mediterranean and South-East Asian food. Of course each cuisine uses different kinds of basil, but that’s half the fun.

There are over 40 varieties of basil ranging in size, flavour and foliage and flower colour. In English speaking countries, the most commonly known and grown is Ocimum basilicum “sweet basil” which has a slightly aniseed, peppery flavour. Asian basils are said to have more of a clove-like flavour, which I have experienced to be true.

It is believed that basil originated in tropical Asia (probably India), where is has been cultivated for around 5,000 years. According to one website, in India the herb is linked to the gods Krishna and Vishnu and a leaf placed on the chest of the deceased is said to be a token to gain them entry to heaven.

From the Bible, apparently Salome hid John the Baptist’s severed head in a pot of basil!

The English word for basil came from the Greek βασιλευς (basileus), meaning “king”, and according to Wikipedia it is believed to have grown above the spot where St. Constantine and Helen discovered the Holy Cross.

Basil is used all over the world in many different cuisines. Googling it I came up with a variety of ways to use it such as deep fried basil leaves with chicken (Taiwan); fresh shredded basil in soups (China); pistou (France); and as an addition to Vietnam’s staple meal pho.

In Italy it can be blended with pinenuts to make a pesto, torn over tomato and mozzarella in a caprese salad or for a sweet option it is paired excellently with strawberries, sugar and a little balsamic vinegar.

One type of basil I have never had the fortune to try is kemangi “'Lemon basil' has a strong lemony smell and flavour, very different from those of other varieties. It is widely used in Indonesia, where it is called kemangi and served raw, together with raw cabbage, green beans, and cucumber, as an accompaniment to fried fish or duck.”

Some basil seeds even swell and take on a jelly-like form which is used in drinks in Asia. I have tried these drinks before and, although I would consider myself an adventurous eater with a very tolerant palate, I found them to taste just like dirt. Yuck! Not for me.

In medicine basil has been used for almost every ailment you can imagine, but most commonly in the West for indigestion, wounds and bruises, flatulence and water retention. In Asia it was also used for indigestion as well as ear aches, inflammation, bad breath and kidney problems.

Take a moment to check out more Weekend Herb Blogging from around the world, hosted by Kalyn at Kalyn’s Kitchen.