Celebrate summer with Annabel’s Pear, Walnut and Haloumi Salad

A perfect way to welcome in summer is with Annabel Langbein’s recipe for Pear, Walnut and Haloumi salad. The unique flavours in this salad come from the lemon-soaked sweet pears and the salty haloumi cheese – luxury on a plate!

Ingredients
4 tablespoons of neutral oil (I used Canola)
1 cup walnuts
2 ripe pears (I used Taylors Gold pears)
Juice of ½ lemon
250g haloumi, thinly sliced
6 handfuls of salad leaves (the recipe calls for watercress but I used standard mesculin)
Salt and ground black pepper to serve

Method

Heat three of the four tablespoons of oil in a pan and fry the walnuts for 2 – 3 minutes until lightly browned. Set aside on some kitchen towel. Keep the oil to dress the salad.  

Core and cut the pears into 6-8 wedges. Place in a mixing bowl and toss gently with the lemon juice and place into the fridge until you are ready to plate up.  

Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan and fry the haloumi slices until they are golden brown on both sides. Set aside on some kitchen towel. Now you are ready to plate up!  

Place salad leaves in a large mixing bowl and toss with the walnut oil. Add the pears and the juice and put onto plates. Then place the haloumi onto each plate and sprinkle with the walnuts. I put the salt and black pepper on the table for people to serve themselves.

New Zealand Green Lipped Mussels in a White Wine and Garlic Sauce

Live Green-Lipped Mussels are available year round in New Zealand supermarkets – they are both delicious and really affordable. A great starter for any occasion is Green-Lipped mussels smothered in a delicious garlic white wine sauce.

Ingredients

12 Green-Lipped Mussels
6 cloves of garlic

475ml white wine
1 small onion
1 tablespoon butter
200ml cream

Salt and black pepper (to season)

Method

Scrub mussels well under running cold water and remove ‘beards’ by pulling firmly towards the mussel’s hinge. If any of the mussels have opened, tap them and if they close, they are alright, if not - discard immediately.

In a large saucepan that can hold the mussels, fry onion and garlic in butter then add the salt and white wine and bring to the boil. Drop in mussels, place the lid on the pot and steam the mussels until they open. Discard any of the mussels that do not open.

Remove the pot from the heat, add the cream, black pepper and serve immediately. This dish needs a spoon and lots of fresh, crusty bread to mop up the sauce.

Oh-so-easy Scallop and Chorizo Fettuccini

This tasty dish is so easy to make as it has very few ingredients; relying on the chorizo, garlic and scallops to give it a distinctive Spanish flavour. This is a variation on a Nigella Lawson recipe which uses even fewer ingredients (just scallops, chorizo, lemon and parsley). You need to eat this dish immediately so get your pasta cooked before you start.

Ingredients

500g scallops
3 spicy chorizo sausages (approx 15cm each)
½ cup white wine
Cayenne pepper (if you want extra heat!)
Garlic
Oil
Sprinkle of salt
½ cup cream

 

 

Method

Heat a little oil over high heat and cook chopped chorizo sausage for 2-minutes. Set aside the sausage and toss in the scallops. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne, and cook and stir about 3 minutes until lightly browned. Set aside.

Add the garlic and the wine to the pan and bring to the boil. Return the chorizo and scallops to the pan and add a little salt and the cream. Remove from heat and serve immediately over the cooked Fettuccini.

Chicken livers peri peri

This gorgeous starter takes me back to hot, humid evenings in Richards Bay, South Africa where we used to eat at this dish at a quaint little portuguese restaurant called Maritinos. For this recipe which smacks of Portugal and Mozambique I used:

1 tsp butter
500g chicken livers (fat trimmed off and cut into 1cm pieces)
1 onion
1 tsp garlic
2 finely chopped red chilli
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander
2 tbs tomato paste
1 tin chopped tomatoes
Splash of worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh crusty bread to serve.

Fry onion, chilli and garlic in butter. Add cumin and coriander and cook for a minute or so before adding chicken livers. Once livers are cooked add a splash of worcestershire sauce, tin of tomatoes and tomato paste. Simmer for a good 15 - 20 minutes before adding salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately with fresh bread.

Caitlyn-Jane's 4th Birthday cake

The brief was clear: I want a mermaid cake.

Our baby was thrilled with the outcome despite being all thumbs when it comes to baking!

Winter Indulgence

This meal is not for the faint-hearted. It is rich and luxurious - perfect for a wintery evening.

Baked camembert cheese with honey, walnuts and dried fig
Toast walnuts and cut up dried fig  - set aside. Take a wheel of camembert cheese and bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes. While still hot, drizzle with runny honey and garnish with the figs and walnuts. Serve immediately with very thin crackers - I used wafer biscuits which made it less heavy (you cannot use the word light!)

Garlic & Herb Roast Lamb with roast potatoes, snap peas and butternut corn rounds.
We used Martha Stewart's recipe for the lamb which can be found at the link below with some variations. Firstly we did not leave it for eight - 24 hours - only for about four. Secondly, we baked it for four hours at 140 degrees. This  resulted in the most tender, soft, fragrant meat.
The snap peas were boiled for 2 minutes and then transferred to a hot pan with balsamic vinegar and mint for another 2 minutes (if that).
Our friends, Roelof and Amelia provided the butternut and corn rounds. Watch this space as Roelof will be cooking Paella next week!
http://www.marthastewart.com/316446/roast-leg-of-lamb-with-garlic-and-herbs



The Most Chocolate Pudding
Caitlyn and I made these chocolate pots earlier on in the day. We doubled up the ingredients on the following recipe.
http://www.countryliving.com/recipefinder/most-chocolate-pudding
We followed the instructions exactly - so we can vouch for this recipe - it works perfectly!
It is very rich and not the ideal choice after all the cheese and lamb but it is still a scrumptious dessert for chocaholics.

Note my beautiful new table linen and place mats were gifts from Tara-Lynn and Caitlyn-Jane

Camellia's Lamb Rogan Josh

 While Caitlyn and I were off at the movies watching Beauty and the Beast, John was cooking up a storm. His version of Camellia Panjabi's Lamb Rogan Josh was just beautiful. Lamb is my favourite curry meat albeit a bit fatty. Boiling the meat before cooking really solved that without compromising the flavour (ginger also helps). 

This is a really fragrant curry as it uses many spices which John purchased from Spice Invasion, Royal Oak. 

Lamb Rogan Josh

From Camellia Panjabi’s “50 Great Curries of India”

Serves Four

700g lamb, diced

4 cloves garlic, chopped

Salt

2 teaspoons chilli powder

1 teaspoon paprika

100ml yoghurt

250g shallots (I used onions)

Oil

4 cloves

2 black cardamoms

4 green cardamoms

2 bay leaves

1 blade of mace

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground fennel seed

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric

Boil the lamb (and any bones) with the garlic and some salt in 2 pints of water for 20 minutes. Remove the meat and set aside, reserve the cooking water.

Fry the onions until lightly browned. Add the cloves, cardamom, bay leaves and the mace and fry for one minute. Add the coriander, fennel, ginger, turmeric, chilli powder and paprika with two tablespoons of water and stir continuously for two minutes.

Add the meat, cook for five minutes. Lower the heat, add the yoghurt and cook for another five minutes.

Add salt and the reserved cooking water (topped up with tap water if necessary to make 800ml). Cook until tender, remove the blade of mace and the cardamoms if you can find then - they are unpleasant if you bite into them).