S is for Scallops

After a weekend of eating sausage rolls, BBQ's and leftovers, it was high time to try something a bit more fancy. Even though this dish looks and tastes amazing, it's actually very easy to put together and doesn't require too many ingredients.

I love seafood, particularly scallops, but don't tend to eat them very often due to cost. Every so often it's nice to spash out and have something you really enjoy.

This dish was inspired by something similar that I ate years ago at Bottega, a Melbourne Italian restaurant. Here it was served as an entree with only three or four scallops, but I wanted to do it as a main course. I don't remember exactly how it was served, but I know that the sweetness of the scallops, the saltiness of the prosciutto and the creamy cauliflower puree were a match made in heaven! This is my version. I've added the rocket for a bit of greenery, but you could leave that off if you wanted to.

I don't like the roe on my scallops, so I've cut them off, but if you like the texture and flavour, you're more than welcome to leave it on. The cauliflower puree can be made in advance and then reheated just before serving. The scallops you want to cook just before serving so they don't turn rubbery. You want the pan hot enough that the edges are golden and caramelised, but the inside is barely cooked.

This dish is perfect to make when you want to impress someone or for a special occasion. It's also a great dinner party dish that doesn't require too much preparation, or time in the kitchen, when your guests have arrived and you'd prefer to be drinking!

Scallops With Cauliflower Puree and Prosciutto

20 scallops, roe removed and cleaned
1/4 cauliflower, washed and coarsely chopped
1 Tbs butter
2 Tbs milk
Salt and pepper to taste
6 thin slices of prosciutto
Olive oil and butter for frying
Rocket dressed with lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil to serve


Prepare the scallops by removing the roe and any of the obvious adductor muscle and cleaning any grit. Pat dry on absorbant paper, season and set aside.
Boil the cauliflower in water until soft. Puree in a food processor with the butter, milk and season to taste. Keep warm.
Dress rocket in a bowl with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil.
Dry fry prosciutto on both sides in a fry pan until crispy. Alternatively you could bake it in the oven until crispy.
When ready to eat, heat oil and a knob of butter in a frypan on medium heat. When sizzling, add seasoned scallops and cook until golden on one side. Carefully turn and cook for another 30 seconds or so until the other side is golden.

To serve, smear the cauliflower puree on the plate and decoratively place the scallops around and over it. Tear the crispy prosciutto into pieces and place on top of each scallop. Finish with a handful of the dressed rocket on top.

And to drink...

My husband would tell you that I'm not much of a Chardonnay fan, but I'm trying to change this and be a bit more adventurous with my drinking habits. I have bad memories of cheap Chardonnays that are over oaked and taste just like licking a tree trunk! Obviously better quality wine is not like that, but I just can't get over my ingrained memories.

Unwooded Chardonnay tends to be a lot more approachable and much fresher. This is the style I'd much prefer to drink. This 'Virgin Chardonnay' by one of our favourite wineries, Trevor Jones, now taken over by Kellermeister, was perfect. Being a half bottle, it was just enough for a generous glass each. It was still lively and fruity with enough acidity to cut through the richness of the scallops and the creaminess of the cauliflower. It's a shame it was only a half bottle, because it went down way too easily! Probably a good thing though.

Trevor Jones Virgin Chardonnay

Footy and Sausage Rolls

Being Grand Final day in Melbourne tomorrow, nothing is better to eat than pies and sausage rolls. I didn't have the energy to make a batch of pies this year, but did manage to whip up some sausage rolls to have during the game.

Sometimes sausage rolls can be a bit stodgy and heavy, so I like to play around with flavours and fillings and not use breadcrumbs, which just tend to make them really dense.

Today I decided to do something different and try turkey and apple. Turkey is a lovely lean meat, but can tend to dry out if you don't put something moist with it. Grated apple and a little onion give moisture to the meat, but also some sweetness. A final seasoning with salt and pepper and some fresh oregano, and there you have it. Easy footy sausage rolls. Served with good old tomato sauce or sweet chilli, they will go down a treat with a couple of beers on game day!

If you have the time and inclination, by all means make your own pastry. But for something quick and easy to throw together, then just use frozen puff pastry sheets.

Turkey and Apple Sausage Rolls

3 sheets of puff pastry, thawed
500g turkey mince
1 apple, cored and grated
1/4 red onion, finely chopped
A handful of fresh oregano, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients, except pastry. Season to taste.
Cut pastry sheets in half, then into 5 strips, to get 10 pieces of pastry. If you like them larger, cut to your desired size.

Put a good few teaspoonfuls of filling on each piece of pastry.
Brush a small amount of milk on the edge of pastry and roll up, like a sausage roll!
Place on a baking tray and brush with extra milk to help with browning.
Bake in the oven until pastry is golden, approx 15 to 20 mins.
Enjoy hot with tomato or sweet chilli sauce.

Cold Weather Calls For Chicken Tagine

So much for that touch of early Spring weather! Today Melbourne was back into the grips of an icey blast and straight back to winter. As much as I don't like the cold, it's another chance to cook up a nice warming casserole.

Not wanting anything too heavy, I thought a chicken tagine would be perfect. Slow cooked until the meat falls off the bone, full of beautiful flavours to nourish your soul.

The orignial recipe for this dish was actually from The Age Saturday magazine, Good Weekend. I think it was a Neil Perry recipe. I've modified it a bit as it was meant to use duck, but I could only get frozen whole ducks when I went looking and didn't really fancy jointing the bird myself.

I think it would taste lovely with duck too, as you'd have the extra richness from the meat, but chicken worked fabulously. I used marylands and cut them into two pieces each, but you could equally use skinless, boneless pieces to make the eating a bit easier. Cooking on the bone gives so much more flavour, but it is messier.

The chermoula that you marinate everything in was easy to make and had such a beautiful flavour that it would go well as a marinade for any sort of meat. It would probably go with prawns or a firm fleshed fish too.

I served the tagine with Israeli couscous, which are the large balls of semolina. You could use regular couscous or even rice, but I love the texture of the Israeli variety. Instead of cooking the almonds in the tagine, you could even lightly toast them and sprinkle on top with the fresh herbs when serving.

I know it's a big call, but I think this was one of the best tagines I have ever eaten. Let me know if you agree!

Chicken, Olive and Date Tagine

For the chermoula: 

1 red onion
4 cloves of garlic
1 cup coriander leaves and stalks, washed
2 cups parsley leaves and stalks, washed
1 tsp salt
1 Tbs ground cumin
1 Tbs ground coriander
1 Tbs ground chilli
1 Tbs ground turmeric
2 tsp sweet paprika
100ml extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1 lemon

Roughly chop the onion, garlic, coriander and parsley and combine in a food processor with salt and spices.
Process until combined and then slowly pour in oil and lemon juice. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure everything is mixed together.
You should have a thick, aromatic paste. Add a little more oil if needed.

For the Tagine:

3 chicken marylands
Chermoula as per above recipe
1 red onion, sliced into 8 wedges
2 carrots, cut into 4cm chunks
1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into 4cm chunks
A large handful of green beans
A handful of blanched almonds
2 Tbs honey
juice of 1 lemon
8 fresh dates, pitted
A handful of large green olives, pitted
Fresh coriander and parsley for serving
Couscous or rice for serving

Preheat oven to 160 degrees.
Chop chicken marylands in half to have a drumstick and thigh.
In a large bowl, combine chicken, onion, carrot, sweet potato, almonds and chermoula. Allow to sit for at least an hour to marinate.
In a tagine or large oven proof saucepan, heat a drizzle of oil and add the chicken mixture and marinade. Half cover with water and add honey and lemon juice.
Cover with the lid and bring to a gentle simmer, then transfer to the oven.
Bake for about an hour, then turn the chicken pieces to make sure they are cooking evenly.
Add the olives and dates and return to the oven for another 30 mins. By this stage the chicken should be falling off the bone and the dates should almost have dissolved into the sauce.
About 20 mins before you want to serve, add the beans and remove the lid to evaporate some of the liquid, if it's looking a bit too watery.
Cook the couscous or rice by your preferred method.
Serve the tagine over the couscous, sprinkled with extra chopped parsley and coriander.

And to drink.....

A beautiful dish with the amazing flavours of coriander, lemon and chilli and the sweetness of the dates and honey needs a wine with plenty of body, but also acidity. We had a couple of bottles of this 2004 Mount Pleasant 'Elizabeth' semillon in the cellar, and it was a great choice.

Served chilled, but not too cold, there was enough fruit flavour to match perfectly with the chicken. Being an aged wine, there was also a bit of butteriness. It went down way to easily!

Salads and sun!

I love that time in spring when the weather starts to warm up and you can move away from eating all those heavy winter dishes. Don't get me wrong, I love a slow cooked casserole and rich pudding, but it is nice to have lighter flavours, which don't leave you just wanting to have a snooze on the couch.

Melbourne has recently turned on the weather, and my thoughts have turned to stuffing vegetables with tasty combinations of mince and fresh herbs. Lots of herbs and lemon juice sing spring and summer to me.

This week I was inspired by one of my favourite foodie blogs, Delicieux. Jen always makes the most amazing looking food and her photos are fantastic. Her recent post for Moroccan Chickpea Salad started me thinking about all the possibilities with this great legume.

I had some haloumi left over from the blood orange and chicken salad, so thought I'd use that too, along with some middle eastern flavours. An abundance of mint and parsley in the garden, a lemon tree heavy with fruit and some spices in the cupboard, and I was set.

Now that the salad was organised, I needed something light, but tasty to go with it. I love the flavour of roasted capsicum and thought that the sweetness of the capsicum would work perfectly with a meaty stuffing, again with middle eastern flavours. 

We are lucky enough to live in an area with loads of middle eastern grocers and butchers, so finding the right ingredients is never hard. We eat a lot of goat, and this was the perfect choice to go with the capsicum.

I pre-browned the goat mince with the spices, onion and garlic, so it was sure to be cooked when the capsicums were roasted. I also pre-roasted the capsicums for 10 minutes to start softening them and releasing their juices.  You could have everything prepared the day before, or in the morning, so the final roasting is quick and easy.

Depending on the size of your capsicums, it's likely that you'll have some of the filling left over. Not at all a bad thing. For a simple and easy lunch, heat the left over meat and eat san choy bau style, wrapped up in crisp lettuce leaves. Another option is to make quesadillas by putting some of the filling and grated cheese between two tortillas and frying it up in a dry pan to crisp the outside and melt the cheese. I went with this option for the kids dinner and they devoured it in no time!

Chickpea, Sumac and Haloumi salad

1 400g tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/4 small red onion, finely diced
1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped
1/2 cup mint, finely chopped
2 tsp sumac (or to your liking)
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil (I used the lemon infused from Cobram Estate)
1 Tbs verjuice
Salt and pepper
100g haloumi, sliced into 1/2cm slices
Olive oil for frying

Combine all the ingredients, except haloumi, in a bowl.
Adjust the seasoning or sumac to your taste. Allow to sit for an hour, if you can, for the flavours to infuse.
When ready to eat, heat a fry pan on moderate heat with a thin layer of olive oil. Fry the haloumi slices until browned, then flip and brown the other side.
Gently toss the hot haloumi into the salad and serve.

Goat Stuffed Roasted Capsicums

2 red capsicums
1/2 a red onion, finely diced
2 cloves of garlic, finely diced
500g goat mince (or lamb if you prefer)
1/2 cup fresh coriander, chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
juice of half a lemon
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
Cut capsicums in half and scoop out the seeds and membrane. Place them on an oven tray sprayed with oil spray and roast for 10 to 15 minutes, until they are just starting to soften, but not fall apart.
While the capsicums are roasting, prepare the filling.
Heat a drizzle of oil in a fry pan and cook mince until just starting to brown, breaking up the big pieces with a wooden spoon. Drain the fat off and set aside.
In the same pan, cook onion and garlic until starting to soften. Add the browned mince, ground cumin and coriander, chilli flakes, salt and pepper to taste.
When combined and you are happy with the flavours, take the pan off the heat and add the fresh coriander and lemon juice.
Take the capsicums out of the oven and fill with the mince mixture. Put left overs in the fridge for tomorrows lunch!
Return tray to the oven for another 20 mins or until the filling is cooked and the capsicum is nicely roasted and softened.

Serve with the chickpea salad.

Chickpea salad with goat roasted capsicum

The Perfect Drop

Even though this was a nice light dish, it still had pretty strong flavours with all those middle eastern spices and the sweetness of the goat and roasted capsicum. We love a nice big red in this house, so a Barossa Shiraz from one of our favourite wineries, Kellermeister, was perfect. This big red, the Dry Grown Barossa Shiraz, was actually under the Trevor Jones label but they went their separate ways a few years ago.It was full of berry and plummy flavours with a good amount of tannin. 

We recently went to the Kellermeister annual tasting in Melbourne and stocked up on some of their amazing premium red wines. They do also make wonderful white wines and a very quaffable rose, which are perfect for summer. It's well worth checking out the wines that these guys make. They are a talented bunch!

Trevor Jones Dry Grown Barossa Shiraz

Blood Oranges Part 2

 I love having fruit with chicken, particularly oranges or mango. In summer, I think we live on variations of warm chicken salad with mango.

Tonight I wanted to use some more of the beautiful blood oranges I had, and figured that chicken was the perfect match. I like my salads to have plenty of flavour and be nice and filling, especially when it's not the middle of summer and you still want a relatively hearty meal.

In my mind, nothing works better than pan fried chicken, sweet juicy orange, salty fried haloumi, toasted pinenuts, rocket and roasted sweet potato. That's exactly what we had! And it was delicious, even if I do say so myself :-)

This salad was very quick and easy to put together and doesn't really require any ability in the kitchen. If you can use an oven and a fry pan, then you can master this.

Make sure you don't over cook the chicken, because you still want it to be nice and juicy. The haloumi though, is best when it's nice and charred and golden.

Chicken, Blood Orange and Haloumi Salad

2 chicken breasts, sliced into tenderloin sized pieces
1 blood orange, segmented, juice reserved for dressing
100g haloumi cheese, sliced into 1/2cm slices
1 sweet potato, peeled, halved lengthways and sliced into 1cm pieces
A handful of toasted pine nuts
A few handfuls of mixed rocket and baby spinach (or mixed lettuce)
Olive oil, salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
Prepare sweet potato and mix with salt, pepper and oil to lightly coat and roast for 20 mins or so until cooked to your liking. Set aside to cool.
While the oven is on, place pinenuts in a small oven proof tin and toast until golden brown. Keep an eye on them as they can burn very easily.
Segment orange by cutting off the rind and pith with a sharp knife and then removing each segment into a bowl. Reserve the juices in the same bowl with the fruit, squeezing as much out as you can.
Heat a fry pan with oil on medium heat and when hot, add the chicken in a single layer and season with salt and pepper. Fry on one side until golden, then turn to cook the other side. Make sure the chicken is cooked all the way through, but not overcooked and dry.
In a separate pan, heat a thin layer of oil until hot and fry the haloumi slices until golden and gooey. Flip with a spatula and cook the other side.
While the chicken and cheese are cooking, mix the sweet potato with the orange, rocket and pinenuts and drizzle with the reserved juice and a little olive oil to make a dressing.
Pile the salad on to dinner plates and artfully arrange the chicken and haloumi over the top.

Bon appetit!


A nice meal wouldn't be complete in my book without a glass of wine to go with it. We have no shortage of wine in this household, so there are plenty of drinking options to go with dinner. I'm also lucky enough that my brother in law's family have a vineyard on the Mornington Peninsula, called Five Walls, so local wine is often prominent on the table. Tonight we matched our chicken salad with a Pinot Noir. Normally I wouldn't have a red with chicken, but to go with the sweet acidity of the orange, the salty goodness of the cheese and the charred sweet potato, it was perfect. Lots of red berry and plummy flavours washed it all down a treat!

Blood Orange Season. Yay!

I love when blood orange season comes around for that short time at the beginning of spring. Normally I'm not much of an orange eater, because they're just too messy to take to work, but I love to cook with them. Blood oranges have that beautiful sunset hue and an added tartness, which goes well in sweet and savoury dishes. You can pretty much substitute blood orange for normal orange in any recipe, but might need to adjust the sugar content of sweet dishes to your taste.

Today I thought I'd have a play with both sweet and savoury, but you'll have to wait until tonight for the savoury part. I need to cook it for dinner first!

Lemon curd is a favourite in our house and I love it on hot toast or crumpets, in a lemon meringue pie or mini tarts. Why not make a blood orange version instead! I had to adjust the recipe a bit, reducing the sugar and upping the orange juice, but it turned out pretty well. I'm now stocked with blood orange curd to last, oh, two days! 

Now, this recipe isn't a traditional curd with loads of butter and eggs, it's a bit of a cheats version because it uses cornflour to thicken. Less butter and sugar though, so I guess that's a good thing.

Easy Blood Orange Curd

1/2 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup cornflour
1 cup blood orange juice
3/4 cup water
50g butter, cut into cubes
2 egg yolks
Finely grated rind of 2 blood oranges

Combine sugar and cornflour in a saucepan with water and juice and stir until smooth.
Heat until it boils and thickens, stirring with a whisk constantly.
Remove from the heat and quickly whisk in butter, rind and egg yolk.
Beat until the butter has melted and it is smooth and thick.
Pour into sterilised jars and keep in the fridge.

Easy and very tasty. Guess what I'll be having for breakfast tomorrow?

Super easy banana bread

On a cold, wet Melbourne day, what's better than the smell of something delicious baking in the oven. With a few bananas in the fruit bowl that had seen better days, banana bread was the only option for afternoon tea!

I like my banana bread to be a bit dense, but not too cakey. It needs to be able to be eaten fresh out of the oven with lashings of butter or thickly sliced and toasted with ricotta and honey. Delish!

This version has so many variations, that its great. It's super easy too. Today I added some coconut to the mixture, but you could add nuts, choc chips, fresh or frozen berries, whatever takes your fancy. One word of warning though - it won't last long!

EASY  BANANA  BREAD

2 medium bananas
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup SR flour (wholemeal or white)
pinch salt
cinnamon sugar
1/4 -1/2 cup chopped nuts, coconut, choc chips or berries

Preheat oven to 180 degrees and grease and base line a small loaf tin.
Mash banana with golden syrup and sugar and combine well.
Stir in lightly beaten egg, then sifted flour and pinch of salt.
Gently stir in extras until just combined.
Pour into tin and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
Back for about 30 mins or until cooked.
Turn on to a rack to cool, or eat straight from the oven.

Now to sit down with a cup of tea and relax :-)