 For the first recipe of Winter 2024 I wanted to make a soup. Something versatile that most of us could produce with a quick pantry raid.
And so we give you Tuscan Bean & Barley Soup. It's my spin on a classic White Bean Soup & involves a variety of dried beans and some pearled barley. It's a versatile recipe with wiggle room to incorporate the beans and grains you have on hand in whatever ratio you fancy. The only caveat would be to stick to beans that hold their shape when cooked and don’t get too mushy. The reason this recipe works is because even though different beans and grains I use need different cooking times, the ones that cook the quickest don’t dissolve into the soup by the time the slower cooking pulses are done. This is such a gloriously comforting soup. We look forward to you trying it out - let us know how it goes!
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 There's quite a chasm between the sudden hankering for cake and baking one. A chasm consisting of finding a recipe, checking you have ingredients to hand, deciphering the recipe and summoning the motivation to tackle the various techniques and steps (my mum says that for her the most dreaded sentence in any recipe is ‘cream the butter and sugar’ to which she always answers “no. I will not be doing that” before slamming the cookbook shut.) Too often you might find yourself making do with nibbling on some cooking chocolate instead.
What if I told you that you could make a delicious cake without much bother? 15 minutes hands on at most. No creaming butter and sugar. A cake whose recipe is essentially distilled down to 2 steps. A cake that is so forgiving that if you undercook it, you're left with blissfully rich and gooey fondant in the centre of the cake. And if you overcook it, the middle stays miraculously decadent while the outside develops a delicious crunch. Still on the fence? Look at my photo of the cake. See all those pretty hazelnuts and toffee shards? That's not because I'm fancy, it's because the entire middle of my cake collapsed 25 mins into baking, leaving a solid rim around the perimeter. My cake resembled a crater volcano. This could've been caused by several things. However, it was still delicious, and it didn't look or taste like a mistake at all! In a nutshell it's this: separate egg whites and yolks. Mix the yolks with all the other ingredients, then whip the egg whites and fold it into the cake batter before baking for about 40 mins. Try it. It will become a family favourite, I guarantee.  “I miss my mother’s rajma” one of our regular customers lamented a while back while scooping kidney beans into a bag. We nodded sagely for a second then dropped the pretence that we knew what he was talking about. We realised there was a very good chance that he was talking about a delicious dish made by his Northern Indian mum, and that if we played our cards right he might share the recipe with us.
“Rajma” he said dreamily. “It’s a curry made with kidney beans . But it’s so much more than that. It can’t be explained. You just have to taste it”. He didn’t know his mother’s exact recipe but he pointed us in the right direction. Suzanne was on the case, and by the end of the week had produced a pot of Rajma. Not wanting to be left out, I made it the following day and we had a rajma-off. Suzanne won! How to explain rajma… it’s rich, bright, creamy sauce is reminiscent of butter chicken, and the kidney beans give it a comforting, velvety texture. It’s delicious, and we couldn’t wait to share it with you.  Confession time: I don't think I've ever managed to leave a country town or weekend market without buying a jar of preserve. Chutney, mustard, jam, I am powerless to resist.
The undisputed Australian champion of all jarred preserves has to be lemon curd, aka lemon butter. And as it's peak lemon season right now, I need no further excuse to make a batch of curd myself. I'm sharing my trusty old reliable recipe that I've been using for lemon and passionfruit butter for decades. Its exact provenance is lost but I can tell you it's a combination of recipes from the CWA, my time in the Ritz Carlton pastry kitchen, and personal tweaks I've made over the years.  Bánh xèo (translation: Sizzling Pancakes) are crispy, golden, thin-as-can-be savoury pancakes filled with a selection of umami-loaded prawns, tender poached chicken, crunchy sprouts, salad greens and fragrant herbs, then served with the classic Vietnamese dipping sauce, nước chấm.
Read that description to yourself again, then take a moment to absorb the words and all the promises they hold. Good, huh? And yet it still doesn't come close to describing the flavour experience this simple recipe delivers. This dish is all at once lively, sharp, crunchy, fresh, spicy, cooling, sweet, comforting and satisfying. When someone tries it for the first time, their reactions range from exclamations of “OMG. Why didn't I know about these and why isn't everyone everywhere eating them all the time?!” through to quietly weeping in joy and wonder. There are several elements to this dish and at first glance you might think it's too much work. And while it's not a 20 minute mid-week meal, it's actually not so much effort. The trick is this: if you're going to make it, make a lot. This recipe makes about 12 pancakes, which is great for 3-4 people. For 2 people, it's even better because the batter keeps for up to 5 days in the fridge. While you will want to use up the prawn filling on the first day, it takes 5 minutes to make a different filling when you go in for round two a day or two later. About the batter ingredients: Flour: traditionally these pancakes are made using rice flour only. I added wheat flour after reading up on different Bánh xèo techniques, because the consensus is that adding wheat flour makes for a more robust pancake, less prone to tearing. The crispiness comes from it being mostly rice flour. Egg: I add an egg to my batter, again in the interest of increased robustness. You don't have to. Many don't. But you'll need to be delicate with your flipping skills. Resting: Some Bánh xèo recipes instruct you to rest the batter for 3 hours or even overnight. I went rogue and didn't do this. I found that the 45 mins of resting I gave it between mixing the batter and preparing my fillings was sufficient. The next day I made more pancakes with the leftover batter, and I didn't see any marked difference. Mung beans: note that I don't include mung beans in my recipe. They're a traditional filling in a lot of Bánh xèo recipes. I'd like to tell you that I omit them due to a strong or informed opinion, but honestly it's just that I can't be bothered. The dish is perfect as is, and why boil mung beans on top of the other fillings that need to be prepared if you don't have to? My stovetop is busy enough. Let's get cooking! |
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