Caramel, Macadamia & Coconut Slice

You can see the burntish bits!

I made this very-bad-for-you slice for morning tea at work this week. It’s from the April 2013 issue of Super Food Ideas.

Speaking of magazines, Australian Good Taste, the Woolworths-affiliated food magazine, is ceasing publication shortly – they announced this on Facebook but with no actual reason, so I’m not sure if it’s a financial-based decision or what. It is a great magazine, that I have been buying each month for about 10 years – but I don’t think it’s the “best” – too many of what I call “human interest” stories. I just like my food magazines to have lots of recipes, and I don’t mind advertising at all, as long as the ads also feature a recipe using their product. Gadget reviews are okay by me too, but I can’t stand “meal planners”, letters to the editor, stories about farmers growing their produce, and monthly shopping lists etc. No one ever makes every single meal or recipe in a month, from one magazine – apart from not liking them all (or their kids not eating them all), if they’re that stumped for ideas of what to cook and need it spelled out for every day of the month, they are probably not the type who would buy a food mag in the first place. Just my 2 cents worth anyway…..

So, back to the slice…..once I’ve got it in my head to make a specific recipe NOW, I do not like to be thwarted – but I could not find caramel bits, nor are Scalliwag biscuits anywhere to be seen around here. For those of you not in the know, Scalliwags are the politically correct version of what we all grew up with as Golliwog biscuits! Despite the name change, they are not easy to find, not here in Perth anyway. They are fairly plain biscuits, a bit like Teddy Bears, so I figured I could use any plain biscuit and settled on Malt-o-Milk. For the caramel bits I used choc bits.

The slice was very easy to make, but I overcooked it a tad as my overly-hot oven has a mind of its own sometimes, and the edges came out quite browned. When I took the slice out of the fridge the next morning, to cut up, it was SO heavy – felt like a brick! I thought, uh-oh, this is going to be as hard a rock and break people’s teeth! I even cut off the harder brown edge bits and threw them away, worrying about it. In fact it was great and received lots of praise (although I think my fellow co-workers will eat anything sweet and are quite often just being polite, to make sure I keep making stuff haha).

Caramel, Macadamia & Coconut Slice

250 gm pkt chocolate Scalliwag biscuits (OR whatever plain sweet biscuits you like)

125 gms butter, melted

395 gm can sweetened condensed milk

2 cups desiccated coconut

100 gms macadamia halves

250 gm pkt caramel bits (OR use choc bits)

Line a 20cm x 30cm lamington/slice pan.

In a food processor, process biscuits until they are fine crumbs. Add melted butter and mix well. Press mixture into base of pan. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 160C (140C fan forced).

Combine condensed milk, coconut, macadamias and caramel bits in a large bowl. Spoon over prepared base and spread evenly with the back of a spoon, pressing down to level slightly.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until top is golden and just firm. Cool in pan. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until set.

Cut into squares to serve.

Makes 24 pieces.

Happy Fooding!

Healthy Little Goodies

These balls are adapted from a recipe in a food magazine from a couple of years ago – I adjusted the quantities to suit what I had in the cupboard and how fussed I could be on the day. These are great for a sweet but reasonably healthy snack – perfect for lunch boxes or after school munchies. Certainly they all disappeared at work!

Apricot Energy Balls

200 gms dried apricots (the soft kind)

120 gms walnuts OR macadamias (or a mixture of both)

2 tbsp tahini

1 tbsp honey

1/4 cup sesame seeds

Place all ingredients in food processor and blend until finely chopped and sticky (add a little extra honey if necessary)

Using clean, damp hands, roll mixture into 3cm balls. Place on a dish lined with baking paper, and refrigerate for half an hour until firm.

Makes 18-20

Mixture can be doubled easily, and if you like you can roll the balls in either extra sesame seeds, coconut or cocoa.

Happy Healthy Snack Fooding!

King Prawns As Made By The Experts (Not Me!)

http://www.notquitenigella.com

At work I have to do half an hour of “shelving” in the afternoon, on each week day that I work, and we have a rotating roster each month of which type of item it is our turn to shelve, ie Junior Fiction, Audio Books etc. At the moment I am responsible for Non-Fiction 000-500 (very dreary- computers, religion, self-help etc.), but if I finish my bit and still have time I help out with whatever there is most of waiting to be shelved. I particularly like to pick out the 641’s – the cookbooks – because then I can have a nice browse whilst putting them in order on the shelves!

Last week, I came across the Doyles restaurant seafood cookbook. Doyles is a famous Sydney based restaurant chain, begun at Watson’s Bay on Sydney Harbour in 1885, and still run by the same (Doyle) family. I rarely go to Sydney, but when I do I make a point of going to Doyles for lunch.

I’ve been there several times over the last 20 years, and it’s a fabulous eating experience – crazily busy, totally overpriced (check out the menu, gulp), because they are so famous they can charge what they like, and you have to book weeks in advance if you want to sit outside on the beachfront. But, the atmosphere’s amazing (helped by the wine??? maybe) and the food excellent – the seafood is always so fresh it’s just about leaping out of the fishing boat on to your table! Plus, it’s great with kids as they can play on the sand in front of you quite happily, keeping them from getting bored and hence making a more pleasant outing for you as a parent.

The cookbook reminded me of the most delicious king prawns you can imagine – stuffed and crumbed, with a kind of fruity, herby, macadamia stuffing mixture. I’ve had this as an entree and I knew that the website used to have a lot of their recipes on it, so I went looking for this prawn one, but they seem to have removed actual recipes and now only offer advice on general seafood preparation, plus a “recipe of the day”.

I went back to the cookbook at work, and sure enough, here is the recipe. Actually, it looks like a lot of effort for something so small, and I’m not sure I could do it without the stuffing/crumbs all falling off when being cooked – they come out very big, at the restaurant. But if you can be bothered with it, these are uber-awesome to eat.

I’ve written the recipe exactly as stated, so the quantities are a bit uncertain, and I’ve never seen spinach in tins????  I’d have thought fresh or frozen would work just as well.

I’m thinking maybe I’ll just go back there some time and eat the real thing……with a seafood platter to follow, copious amounts of wine to wash it all down, and a water taxi to get me back across the harbour…..sounds good???

John Doyle’s Stuffed King Prawns With A Rich Sauce

24 large green (raw) king prawns

beer batter (I don’t have the recipe for this so use whatever beer batter you like)

oil for frying

Filling:

6 slices thick bacon, rind removed

1 medium-sized tin spinach

1 onion

butter

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 large egg, beaten

parsley

breadcrumbs

pinch salt

1/2 cup sultanas, soaked in wine and drained

Fruity Curry Sauce:

1 small jar fruit chutney (size ??)

1 tbsp curry powder

6 fine green onions (scallions), chopped

1 small jar mayonnaise (size ???)

1 egg white, beaten

Butterfly and devein the prawns, and remove the heads. Put aside.

Finely chop bacon, and drain the spinach. Chop onion and saute in butter with garlic. Mix all filling ingredients together, using enough breadcrumbs to bind.

Fill the cut section of the prawns with the mixture, press the sides together and put aside in the fridge for a while to firm.

Prepare the sauce by blending all ingredients together carefully, adding the egg white last. Serve in a large bowl or individual dishes.

When ready to cook, dip the stuffed prawns carefully into beer batter, and fry for 5 minutes in oil a deep pan.

Serve with the fruity curry sauce.

Serves 6.

You can buy the cookbook in their merchandise area, but as I write this it is out of stock. There are a heap of other fabulous seafood recipes in the book, tried and true favourites from this fantastic Sydney icon.

Happy Fooding!

(More information & article about the above photo can be found at www.notquitenigella.com)

Not Quite a Sweet Success..

An almost-flop on the weekend….I recently borrowed the new “4 Ingredients: Christmas” cookbook from my library (which is also my casual job workplace – it is huge fun getting to see all the new release books coming across my path – I have enough books reserved to last me ’til the end of my days!). There are loads of simple, festive recipes in this book, a continuation of the 4 Ingredients series of books.

I decided to try the Rocky Road Bon Bons, only cut into squares rather than long rectangles wrapped in cellophane, for a bbq we went to. WELL, it didn’t quite turn out like it was supposed to – I had some milk cooking chocolate leftover from something else, so decided to use that. Not sure if it was a bit “old” or what, but it refused to melt properly in the microwave, and started to do that cooked/curdled thing that chocolate has a tendency to do if you’re not careful. It wouldn’t melt to a smooth liquid, so I threw in the other ingredients and hoped for the best – but it then wouldn’t mix together like it should……in desperation I added a 100g block of Lindt dark chocolate, put aside for my favourite chilli recipe (don’t think I’ve shared that with you yet) and a bit of butter, and threw the whole lot back in the microwave. I cooked it on Medium until the new lot of chocolate had melted; however, this meant of course that the marshmallows and turkish delight had also melted!

So what I ended up with was a sort of fudge/slice “thing”. Same flavours as the original, but the only lumpy bits were the macadamias. Also it was a bit skinny, so I should have used a smaller sized tin than the more lumpy version called for, to make it higher.

Oh well. Very rich tasting and chocolatey, so no problems with the flavours, but next time I will use fresher chocolate……

Here is the original, Christmas recipe anyway…..

Rocky Road Bon Bons

250 gms chocolate (dark, milk or white)

100 gms macadamia nuts, roughly chopped

1 cup marshmallows, cut in half

150 gms Turkish delight, roughly chopped

Break chocolate into pieces and melt in a microwave safe dish on Medium-High heat, stirring every 30 seconds. Allow to cool slightly before adding remaining ingredients. Mix until well combined. Line a 9cm x 13cm loaf tin with baking paper, pour the mixture into it, neaten edges and refrigerate until set.

Remove and cut into 8 rectangular slices. Cut in half again and wrap each in clear cellophane. These make a beautiful handmade Christmas gift tied at each end with a pretty ribbon.

Happy Fooding!