Have a jar or two of Candied Quinces in your larder, some whipped cream or ice cream and you’ll have a delicious dessert on the table in an instant. Or use them, as we’ve done, in our Quince and Almond Cream Cake, or our Candied Quince and Ricotta Cake. Try replacing the rhubarb with Candied Quinces in our Rhubarb, Orange and Almond Tart ….
I make a lovely honey mousse – yes, I know I shouldn’t be saying it myself – but it has a really luscious but melting texture..
n the lead-up to a wedding in the family, (catering for a completely gluten-free reception for 40 people, but more of that later) my husband came home with some shopping, beaming, because he’d managed to score 14 punnets of beautiful strawberries for $7.50...
I’m very lucky to live near the Sydney fish markets. I try to time my shopping to avoid the weekend rush and the madness of the carpark, but in the middle of Chinese New Year...
Ceviche is a traditional Latin American fish dish and is full of tongue tingling aromatics such as lime and coriander. We’ve tweaked the regular recipe to include ginger and preserved lemon, but our Snapper Ceviche on Corn Chips is only gently spiced, so as to not overpower the subtle flavour of the snapper ….
We have not often discussed pasta on our gluten-free website. And that is because until a few years ago edible gluten-free pasta of any shape, size or description was non-existent. But, Halleluja! Good quality gluten-free pasta can now be found in supermarkets around the country and and it’s probably high time to suggest some healthy and imaginative sauces to go with it ….
The three of us love a grand dessert, a big statement at the end of a good meal, as evidenced by the desserts in our SWEET REVENGE cookbook. But sometimes something simpler is called for. Our Gluten-Free Cardamom Crisps and Gluten-Free Almond Crisps are just the thing ….
The recipe for these delicious morsels, called Eugenies, is from Annie Smithers, the chef and owner of du Fermier in Victoria. She explains that when she was an apprentice chef travelling in France she ate at Michel Guerard’s restaurant, Les Pres d’Eugenie where she first sampled these orange and chocolate treats ….
If you don’t mind chopping the odd onion in a good cause, this Caramelised Onion and Gruyere Tart recipe is an exceptionally handy one to have in your repertoire, not just because it fits right in as an entrée, light lunch, late supper, or even picnic fare.
Better still, it’s a fabulously flexible affair.
For a start you can use your own favourite pastry or follow the recipe for our Gluten-free Cream Cheese Pastry.
For a vegetarian version, just leave out the speck or bacon.
No crème fraiche on hand? Fresh cream will do just as well.
Or you have cheddar in the fridge but no gruyere? Cheddar is good.
Go on, give it a go ….. no excuse now.
Rosie
CARAMELISED ONION AND GRUYERE TART
Serves 4-6
½ quantity Gluten-Free Cream Cheese Pastry
White rice flour for dusting
60 ml extra virgin olive oil
30 gm unsalted butter
100 speck or bacon, cubed
800 gm brown onions, peeled and finely sliced
Pinch dried chilli flakes, or to taste
1 tablespoon good quality balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons thyme leaves, chopped, plus extra sprigs for garnish
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon honey
60 gm Gruyere cheese, grated
2 large eggs
200 gm crème fraiche
Salt and pepper
Roll out pastry in between two sheets of baking paper, dusting with a little white rice flour, if necessary. Line a 28cm loose-bottomed flan tin with pastry. Allow to firm up in the fridge for half an hour before blind baking. See here for blind baking instructions.
In a large frying pan, heat the olive oil and butter over a medium heat. Add the onions and speck or bacon and cook over a low heat, stirring often, until very well cooked and a rich, golden colour.
Add the balsamic vinegar and thyme, turn up the heat and cook, stirring constantly until evaporated 1-2 minutes. Add the honey and stir well. Turn off the heat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Allow to cool.
Preheat oven to 200°C.
Spread the onion mixture evenly over the base of the blind baked tart case. Sprinkle half the grated Gruyere cheese over. Whisk the egg and crème fraiche until well combined and season with salt and pepper. Pour over the onion mixture. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top.
Place the filled tart in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the crème fraiche mixture is just set.
Garnish with sprigs of thyme and serve with a crisp green salad.
My friends, Cino, Silvano and Maria-Rosa will be furious. They are fiercely purist in a very Italian way. A salsa isn’t a salsa unless it’s made with tomato. A pesto isn’t a pesto unless it’s made with basil, pinenuts and parmigiana Reggiano. And don’t even think of putting black sesame seeds into your biscotti ….
Fresh ricotta is a fabulous ingredient to have on hand when you’re baking cakes – we have various old favourites, including our much-loved Ricotta Souffle Cake, on The Coeliac’s Revenge website. But ricotta can be just as good when you’re after something savoury - as these Ricotta Cakes with Peas and Mint will attest …
While we all have our favourite foods – the ones we tend to polish off with a little too much gusto – variety is good too, particularly as far as nutrition goes. These days, for instance, it’s not too hard to find a passable loaf of gluten-free bread. But one of the great benefits of home cooking is that we can make ourselves all sorts of things we can’t go out and buy ….
This dish of Roasted Spatchcock with Braised Fennel is a warming and satisfying meal that can be prepared easily in advance. You might prefer a roasted chicken to the spatchcock, or to barbecue the birds. Either way, massaging the flesh with the spice paste sets you up for simple cooking with ample flavour ….
On our recent trip to Jordan we found a cornucopia of fabulous sweet treats on just about every street corner, but alas, those dainty, nutty, syrupy delights almost exclusively contained gluten. While we may never master a gluten-free filo pastry to make all the wonderful variations of baklava that looked so inviting, we have perfected a gluten-free Barazek ….
As Caren has mentioned, she and I were lucky enough to travel throughout exotic Jordan earlier this year and of course, were on a mission to try all the fabulous local delicacies. We have already shared a couple of blogs featuring some of the myriad of mezze dishes offered with every generously proportioned meal in Jordan and I would like to share a very typical main course ….
