Sublime Onion Tartlets

This recipe is from my book Savour, it is really easy and the result is guaranteed to make your dinner guests go WOW! All you need is ordinary brown onions (one per person for a main or just half per person for a starter). Peel the onions and boil whole for about 10 minutes (or until half cooked but not too soft) then cut in half horizontally. For every two onions melt about 50g of salted butter in a pan and add 2 to 4 tsp of brown sugar (it depends on your taste). Put the onions, cut side down, into the pan and them place them into individual ramekins (still cut side down. Add the remaining butter. Cover each onion with a disk of flaky puff pastry (your own or bought, I used Paneton) and press down well until you get a 'bowler hat' shape around your onion. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 20 minutes, or until the pastry is golden. Reverse over a serving plate (or individual plates, they will pop out easily). Serve hot, they are deliciously buttery and fragrant, they can be topped at the table with Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena Extravecchio, or with grated Parmigiano, or freshly ground black pepper… or just by themselves! Sorry about the 'orange' photo below, but the time we had dinner it was dark!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

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How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum) Before I start I would like to say that I don't have a sugar thermometer, essential if you are really into confectionery, and that I didn't use much sugar for these Turkish delights. Many recipes use much more sugar, and it is not that I wanted to make a low sugar treat here (it is still pretty sweet), it is just that making it at home really makes me realize how much sugar there is already in my diet, and if I can have something with a little less... well, why not! This method is 'home friendly' i.e. these can be made at home with very little effort and equipment, and the recipe comes from my book Sweet As... where I also have the recipe for lavender and orange blossom Turkish Delights. Ingredients 1 l water 300 g sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 g cornflour 1 tbsp frozen raspberries 1 tbsp rose water icing sugar (very little) and cornflour (lots) to dust. In a pot put hal...

Silver beet Paneer, a variation of Palak Paneer

The other day I showed you my curry made with borage , ‘invented’ because I have tons of it in the garden! The other green-leaf crop that does well in Auckland is silver beet. My old plants (from last year!) got so tall that I started collecting only the little leaves from the stalks, and they look like spinach. One of my favourite Indian dishes is Palak Paneer (or Panir), spinach with panir cottage cheese, and this variation is made using my silver beet. I washed (many times!) the small silver beet leaves, and then I steamed them and drain them. In a heavy pot I heated 2 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) and sautéed for 30 seconds: 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/2 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp turmeric 1/3 tsp ground chili then I added 2 roughly chopped shallots and, after 3 minutes, a good pinch of salt and the cooked silver beet. I cooked everything on low for about 20 minutes (you may need to add just a little water if the silver beet is too dry) and then finely pureed the content ...

Crema Bruciata, or Crème brûlée, with nectarines, plums and cherries

The original recipes comes from my book Sweet As... , my own recipe which doesn't require steam baking in the oven and includes nectarine slices. Plum slices and cherries were also added here, and the result was delicious! In Italy we also call this crema bruciata , but crème brûlée is most commonly used now as it sounds sophisticated :-). To make the crème you will need one egg yolk for each 100ml of cream and 1 tbsp of sugar, for this recipes I used 5 egg yolks (thus 500ml cream and 5 tbsp of sugar) and I filled 8 ramekins, plus I had a little left to fill three miniature ones. Of course if you don't put any fruit on the bottom you will need more crème. It is up to you how much fruit you put in, generally I just line the bottom of the ramekins with 4-5 think slices, this time I think I overdid it (thus the leftover crème) sicne stone fruit season is not long in NZ, and I wanted to use more fruit than crème! Don't use watery fruit and remo...

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