Tandoori salmon on basmati rice with watermelon and fetta salad

 

This is a beautiful meal – colourful to the eyes, tastebuds and the nose. The tandoori flavour is offset wonderfully by the refreshing coolness of the watermelon salad, and the mingled aromas of the tandoori and the coriander-infused basmati rice are mouth-watering. Best of all, this is a stress-free meal to put together when you’re having guests to dinner. It doesn’t take long to prepare, and most of the legwork can be done ahead of time, leaving you free to socialise when company arrives. I coat the salmon in the tandoori mixture and prepare the salad beforehand and keep them in the fridge, so all I need to do once the guests arrive is put the salmon straight into the oven, toss the salad and prepare the rice (which only takes 90 seconds in the microwave).

Tandoori salmon

Ingredients

4 fresh salmon fillets

300 g Greek yoghurt

6 Tbs tandoori paste

Method

1. Preheat oven to 220°C and line a roasting pan with baking paper
2. Skin salmon fillets (see instructions and photos at the bottom of this post)
3. Combine yoghurt and tandoori paste in a bowl, then generously cover both side of the salmon fillets with the mixture
4. Lay salmon fillets in the roasting pan and place in oven for 15-20 minutes (until cooked to your liking)

Basmati rice

Ingredients

1 family size pack (450 g ) Sun Rice microwaveable basmati rice

3 Tbs snipped coriander

1½ Tbs lemon juice

  

Method

1. Microwave basmati rice according to directions 
2. Toss quickly with coriander and lemon juice. Serve while hot.

Watermelon and fetta salad

Ingredients

1 red onion, diced

2 Tbs chopped mint

2 cucumbers, seeded and thinly sliced

½ large watermelon, cut into large cubes

200 g fetta, cubed or crumbled

1 Tbs lemon juice

Method

1. Combine ingredients in a bowl, top with the lemon juice and toss together.

Tips

• If you’ve got plenty of time on your hands, you can make the basmati rice from scratch on your stovetop, but I prefer to use the microwaveable variety because I serve this meal when I’m time-poor or simply don’t want to have to worry. You can place a few saffron threads in the saucepan with the rice to give it a beautiful yellow hue.
• The salmon could instead be cooked in less than 10 minutes in a pan on the stovetop, but because the salmon fillets I buy are so thick, I find the oven is the best option, because the salmon can cook all the way through.
• How to skin salmon fillets: with a large butcher’s knife, make a deep incision into the thick end of the fillet (nearly to the skin), then turn the knife until it’s at less than a 45° angle with your bench top, and carefully saw along the length of the fillet, using the meat you cut at the thick end of the fillet as a handle. Discard skin. 

make a deep incision near the thick end of the fillet

carefully saw along the length of the fillet

Chocolate-coated snakes

I hadn't even thought of this idea until I saw some chocolate-coated snakes for sale in the cafe at work. I quickly bought some (purely for educational purposes, of course) and decided to re-create them at home. I must say, my snakes taste better to me - probably because I used my favourite chocolate.
I thought I should share the "recipe" with you (if you can call it that) in the chocolatey spirit of Easter.

Ingredients
300 g of your favourite chocolate
350 g pack of snakes

Method 

1. Chop chocolate into small pieces and place in a heat-proof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Keep on medium heat until chocolate is melted, stir until smooth and remove from heat
2. Wait for chocolate to cool slightly (just a couple of minutes), then dip each snake in the chocolate
3. Place chocolate-coated snakes on a sheet of baking paper to set
4. Refrigerate once completely set.

the unsuspecting victims

preparing the torture chamber

Tips

•   When melting chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, be careful not to burn yourself on steam escaping from between the bowl and the saucepan - especially when you're stirring the chocolate. You can actually buy double-boilers to use for this exact kind of thing, but I haven't bothered yet.
• I found that waiting for the chocolate to cool slightly before dipping the snakes into it meant that everything was less messy, and the chocolate didn't spread out too much on the baking paper while the chocolate was still setting
• Don't like snakes? Chocolate-coat your favourite lolly instead. I would love to see some photos. Next I'm going to try chocolate-coating some of Darrel Lea's soft eating liquorice... Those will be some massive chocolate bullets! 

Choc-dipped Anzac biscuits

Mmmm… Easter is only a week away! And as you Australians would have noticed, this year’s Anzac Day falls on the same weekend – resulting in five days off work for most of us. I decided to celebrate the occasion with Anzac bikkies… dipped in chocolate.

Ingredients

75 g rolled oats

120 g self-raising flour

90 g caster sugar
90 g brown sugar

50 g shredded (or desiccated) coconut

100 g unsalted butter (chopped)

1½ Tbs golden syrup

1½ Tbs boiling water

1 tsp bi-carbonate of soda

250 g chocolate (chopped)

2½ tsp olive oil

Method

1.       Preheat oven to 150°C and line baking trays with baking paper

2.       Roughly combine oats, flour, sugars and coconut in a bowl

3.       Melt butter with the golden syrup and water in a saucepan over medium heat

4.       Remove from heat and whisk in the bi-carbonate of soda

5.       Pour the syrup mixture over the dry ingredients and mix together with a wooden spoon

6.       Form tablespoonsful of mixture into balls and place on the baking trays 4 cm apart

7.       Bake for 12 minutes, then cool on trays for approximately five minutes (to enable biscuits to harden) before transferring to racks to cool completely

8.       Place chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until melted, then stir chocolate until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in oil.

9.       Dip each biscuit into the chocolate mixture, then leave to set on wire racks or cold plates covered with baking paper.

Makes 30

Tips

• Anzac biscuits spread much more than normal biscuits during cooking, so take care to use only a tablespoonful of mixture for each biscuit and place them the full 4 cm apart on the trays.
  
  

  

  
  

  

Red velvet mini cupcakes

Co-workers seem to be the perfect guinea pigs when you're trying out new recipes (who doesn't get those 3 p.m. snack cravings when they're cooped up in an office?), but sometimes, especially in the industry I work in, they're too worried about their diet to indulge. I have an excellent solution: mini cupcakes!
This week I converted my favourite cupcake recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook to suit mini cupcakes, and it was a success with my workmates.
For those of you not yet familiar with it, red velvet cake has a mild chocolatey flavour (thanks to a bit of cocoa powder), and is topped off with lashings of cream cheese frosting. Yum! And red food colouring gives the cake a distictive blood-red hue, which looks absolutely divine against the white frosting.
When you convert a normal cupcake recipe to suit mini cupcakes, you must lower the temperature of the oven as well as shorten the cooking time. Think about it: mini cupcakes are about one quarter the size of regular ones, and there's nothing worse than a dried-out cupcake. I baked these babies at 160°C for about 12 minutes. I'd recommend checking on them at 10 minutes by doing the skewer test: if a skewer poked into the cupcake comes out clean, you're done.

Red velvet mini cupcakes (recipe adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook)

Ingredients
60 g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
150 g caster sugar
1 egg
10 g cocoa powder
20 ml red food colouring
½ tsp vanilla extract
120 ml buttermilk
150 g plain flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1½ tsp white wine vinegar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C and place cupcake cases in cupcake trays.
2. Beat butter and the sugar on medium speed in an electric mixer until light, fluffy and well combined. Crank up the mixer to high speed, slowly add the egg and beat until everything is well incorporated.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the cocoa powder, red food colouring and vanilla extract with a teaspoon to create a thick, dark paste. Add to the butter mixture and mix thoroughly.
4. Turn the mixer down to slow speed and slowly pour in half the buttermilk. Beat until well mixed, then add half the flour, and beat until everything is well incorporated. Repeat this process until all the buttermilk and flour have been added.
5. Turn the mixer back up to high speed and beat until mixture is smooth. Turn the mixer down to low speed and add the salt, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. Beat until well mixed, then turn up the speed again and beat for a couple more minutes.
6. Fill the cupcake cases to halfway (or slightly more, but not much more!) and bake in the preheated oven for about 12 minutes. The sponge should bounce back when touched. Leave cupcakes in trays to cool slightly before turning out onto a cooling rack. Cool cupcakes completely before frosting.

Makes 36 mini cupcakes.

Cream cheese frosting (recipe adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook)

Ingredients
300 g icing sugar, sifted
50 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
125 g cream cheese, cold

Method

1. Beat the icing sugar and butter together in an electric mixer on medium-slow speed until well combined.
2. Add the cream cheese in one go and beat until it is completely incorporated. Turn the mixer up to medium-high speed. Continue beating until the frosting is light and fluffy (at least 5 minutes). Do not overbeat, as it can quickly become runny.

Tips

• It's best to have your butter at room temperature if you intend to cream it, like in this recipe.
• The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook recommends Dr Oetker Red Food Colouring, but I use any old red food colouring. Like me, you may find you don't need to use 20 ml of colouring. I add a few drops of water to the paste instead to get it to a nice consistency.
• Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula a few times during the cupcake-making process to ensure ingredients (especially the coloured paste) are well mixed in.
• I use mini-muffin trays and mini-muffin cases.
• If you fill the cases much more than halfway, they will overflow, and you'll end up with mushroom-shaped cupcakes. Trust me - I've done it. Bigger is not necessarily more beautiful!

Perfect scones

Food goes out of date eventually, but there are some foods that will never go out of  fashion.
Here's how to make those classic tall, fluffy scones your grandma used to make, but with none of the fuss of rubbing in butter or 'cutting' the mixture with a knife. Quick and easy to make, there's no way you can muck up these lemonade scones. And don't worry, they will taste exactly the same as Grandma's - despite the lemonade!

Ingredients
3 cups self raising flour
1 cup thickened cream
1 cup lemonade

Method

1. Preheat oven to 230°C and line a baking tray with baking paper.
2. Combine ingredients in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon.
3. Turn out the mixture onto a lightly-floured bench-top and knead very lightly, just to cover it with flour.
4. With a rolling pin, roll out mixture to 2 cm thickness and cut out scones with a circular cookie cutter.
5. Place the scones closely together on the baking tray and bake for 12 minutes.
6. Cool slightly on a cooling rack, then cover it with a tea towel to keep the scones warm if desired.
7. Serve with jam and whipped cream

Makes approximately 16 scones

Before

After

Tips

• Flour the rolling pin to prevent the mixture from sticking to it. I have a 'non-stick' silicon rolling pin, and still flour it. You can also flour the cutting edge of the cookie cutter, making it easier to remove the scones from the cutter without spoiling their shape.
• Packing the scones tightly together on the baking tray helps them rise upward nicely during cooking.
• There is no need to baste the top of the scones with milk. These scones brown up nicely without milk.
• You can mix in some grated cheese or chopped dates at Step 2 for some extra flavour.
• Be inventive and serve with Nutella or other toppings. My dad even loves scones with peanut butter!

The inaugural post

Here it is: the obligatory first post. "Yay, I've started my blog! I swear I'm going to post, like, at least three times a day! For the rest of my life! It's going to be, like, the best, best blog EVER..."

Not really. But I'm sure there are plenty of other like-minded wannabe-chefs out there who will enjoy my however-sporadically-posted recipes, tips and tales of kitchen misfortune.

Although I'm primarily a baker and dessert-maker, hopefully blogging will encourage me to branch out and become more confident with preparing savoury dishes and main meals. If so, my husband will be eternally grateful. And so will my waistline.

Bon appétit!