Wasabi mashed potatoes.

Wasabi mashed potatoes.

Serves: 4
Preparation time: 5 minutes.
Cooking Time: 15 - 20 minutes.
Ingredients:
6 Potatoes. Cleaned, peeled and cut into quarters.
1 teaspoon of Wasabi powder. Or ½ a teaspoon of Wasabi paste.
25gms of Butter.
Milk.
Salt and Pepper.


Preparation and Cooking:
Place the potato pieces in a pot and cover with water.
Place the pot on a high heat and bring to the boil.
Reduce the heat to a simmer. (light bubbles) and allow to simmer for 10 minutes. Test to see if the potatoes are ready by pricking with a folk. Potatoes are ready when the folk can piece the surface with very little resistance.
Remove the potatoes from the heat and drain off the water.
Add the butter and the Wasabi to the potatoes and mash or whiz with a blender.
Slowly add milk until you have a thick creamy mixture.
Salt and pepper to taste and stir.

Ready to serve.

Stuffed Mushrooms.

Stuffed Mushrooms.

Serves: 3
Preparation time: 15 minutes.
Cooking Time: 10 -12 Minutes.

Ingredients:
6 large white button mushrooms.
2 heaped tablespoons of Butter.
Light soy sauce.
I white Onion. Finely Diced.
I slice of bread grated into crumbs. (Sour Dough or Rye Bread is best)
½ a cup of shaved Parmesan Cheese.
2 tablespoons of Olive Oil.
Salt and pepper.

Preparation: Mixture/Filling:
Remove the stalks from the mushrooms and finely chop them.
Add the chopped mushroom stalks, chopped onion, Parmesan Cheese and bread into a bowl and mix well. Salt and pepper to taste.
Cooking:
Pour the olive oil into a frying pan and place on a low heat.
Place the mix into the frying pan and stir the mix until the cheese has melted. Remove from heat and allow to rest and cool.

Preparation: Mushroom cups:
Pour a couple of drops of light soy into the mushroom cups.
Fill the mushrooms with the mixture so that the mixture is slightly domed on top.

Cooking:
Clean the pan and add the butter and place the pan back onto a low heat to melt the butter.
Place the Stuffed mushrooms in the pan and scoop up the melted butter over the mushrooms. Place a lid over the pan and occasionally repeat the pouring of butter over the mushrooms to keep them moist whilst cooking. Move the mushrooms around in the pan occasionally to prevent burning the base of the mushroom.

French Green Lentils and Dutch Carrots

French Green Lentils and Dutch Carrots

Preparation time: 5 minutes.
Cooking time 25 – 30 minutes.

2 carrots peeled and diced. I prefer to use Dutch Carrots but I didn’t have any this time.
1 onion cut into quarters.
1 cup of French Green lentils.
2 Cloves of garlic roughly chopped.
2 Vegetable stock cubes (any flavour stock cubes will be ok)

Sprinkle the lentils in to a baking dish.
Scatter the carrots and the garlic over the top.
Pour the stock into the dish.
Cover with foil.

Place in a preheated oven. 180deg.

Check and stir every 10 minutes. (If drying out add a little more liquid)

Buttered Parsnip Sauce.

Buttered Parsnip Sauce.

Preparation time: 5 minutes.
Cooking Time: 30 – 40 minutes. (or a little less.)

Ingredients
100 grams of butter.
1 Small Parsnip. Cleaned, peeled and chopped.
Milk.

Preparation and Cooking:
Place the parsnip pieces into a small pot or sauce jug and cover with water.
Place on a medium heat and bring to the boil.
Reduce heat to a simmer (light bubbles) and cook for 20 minutes. (The parsnip must be as soft as possible without falling apart.)
Remove from heat and drain.
Add the butter to the parsnip and whiz until mix is a puree.
Slowly add milk and continue to whiz until you have a thick yet runny sauce.

Char fried sea salted asparagus.

Char fried sea salted asparagus.

Preparation time: 2 minutes.
Cooking Time: 3 - 4 minutes.
Ingredients
Asparagus spears. (as many as you would like)
1 table spoon of sea salt or rock salt.
1 tablespoon of olive oil.

Preparation:
Blanch the asparagus spears by dipping them into hot water. Remove immediately and place on towel to dry.

Cooking:
Bring a heavy frypan to a high heat. Add the olive oil.
Add the asparagus spears and move them around to ensure they get a good coating of the oil.
Add the sea salt/rock salt.
Turn once or twice until the asparagus has a charred colour to it.
Remove from pan and serve.

Sha' Dan’s Rabbit with French Green Lentils

Sha' Dan’s Rabbit with French Green Lentils and Dutch Carrots. Stuffed Mushrooms, Char Fried Asparagus and a Buttered Parsnip Sauce.

Serves: 4 to 6
Preparation time: 15 – 20 minutes.
Cooking Time: 4 Hours.
Ingredients
I Rabbit.
1 cup of plain flour.
½ a cup of olive oil.
2 vegetable stock cubes.
½ a cup of brown or raw sugar.
1 litre of Tomato puree.
2 tablespoons tomato paste.
2 cloves of chopped garlic.
1 vanilla bean. Sliced open and spread open.
½ a teaspoon of chilli flakes.
500 ml of red wine.
1 teaspoon of Tabasco Sauce.
2 large sprigs of Rosemary.
2 tablespoons of Honey or Maple syrup.
2 tablespoons of Light Soy Sauce.
2 onions chopped into quarters.

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C.
Pour the olive oil into a large deep backing dish. And place in the oven.
Coat the bunny rabbit with the plain flour.
Remove the baking dish from the oven and place the rabbit in the pan. Return the pan to the oven for about 7 – 10 minutes. Remover the pan and turn the rabbit over and return the pan to the oven for a further 7 – 10 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven and take the rabbit out of the pan and rest on a plate.

Dissolve the stock cubes in about 100 -200 ml of boiling water.
Pore the tomato puree into the pan followed by the red wine and add the brown sugar, the tomato paste, the chopped garlic the vanilla bean, the chilli flakes, the Tabasco Sauce, the Honey, the Light Soy Sauce and the dissolved stock.
Return the pan to the oven for 10 minutes.
Remove the pan and carefully lay the rabbit into the mixture.
Place the Rosemary sprigs and chopped onions around the rabbit.

Cover the pan with foil and return to the oven.

Every 30 minutes remove the pan and carefully turn the rabbit over in the mixture.

Serve with:
Wasabi mashed potatoes
French lentils and carrots
Stuffed Mushrooms
Char fried sea salted asparagus
And Buttered Parsnip Sauce

Chocolate and Coffee meringue pie

PASTRY ingredients
1 2/3 cups plain flour
125g butter
1/3 cup caster sugar
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons cold water

FILLING ingredients
1/3 cup caster sugar
¼ cup cocoa powder, sifted
¼ cup cornflour, sifted
1 cup milk
2/3 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 shot of expesso coffee
4 egg yolks

MERINGUE ingredients
5 egg whites
pinch of cream of tartar
¾ cup sugar
whipped cream, to serve

method
TO MAKE PASTRY
Using an electric mixer/beater, combine flour, butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre and add egg yolk, lemon juice and water. Mix to a dough, cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Roll out between the sheets of baking paper to line a deep 20cm flan tin. Place a sheet of greaseproof paper over pastry case, weighing it down with rice.

Bake at 180°C for 10 minutes; remove paper and rice, then bake for a further 5 minutes to lightly colour the pastry.

TO MAKE FILLING
Whisk together all ingredients for Filling. Pour into a saucepan and gently heat until mixture thickens and comes to the boil. Allow to cool slightly then, fill pastry case with chocolate mixture.

TO MAKE MERINGUE
Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks from. Gradually add sugar; beat until sugar dissolves and meringue is smooth and firm.

Spoon meringue over filling. Bake for 15 minutes or until gold in colour and slightly crisp.

Serve warm with whipped cream or Vanilla Ice ice cream.

Pumpkin and Red Yam sweet soup with vanilla and thickened cream.

Pumpkin and Red Yam sweet soup with vanilla and thickened cream.


First off, to pick a pumpkin for this soup you need one with a bit of texture. A woody, fibrous pumpkin. Jap and Blues are a good choice. Yams are also known as sweet potatoes. There are many varieties of these from around the world but the red or orange ones work best as it keep with the colour of the pumpkin.

Shopping list: This list will make enough soup for 6 people. You can freeze left overs for a couple or months and/or it will keep in the refrigerator for a couple of days.
• Pumpkin about a kilo
• I large red yam
• Olive oil
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 1 teaspoon of pepper
• A ½ teaspoon of sweet paprika
• ½ a teaspoon of cumin
• A teaspoon of ground cinnamon or a couple of cinnamon sticks.
• 1 good sized vanilla bean.
• About a dozen chilli flakes (who measures or counts)
• 500 ml of stock. I use a porcini stock but you can use beef or chicken if you like. Fresh stock is best but if you don’t want the hassle 2 cubes or a couple of teaspoons of powder will be ok.


Preparation:
• Cut the shell away from the pumpkin and then cut it into smallish pieces.
• Peel the yam and slice it into pieces about 10 mil thick.
• Measure out your salt. Pepper, paprika and cumin then put it into a bowl. (leave the cinnamon and chilli flacks to one side for the moment)
• Pre heat oven to 180 – 200 degrees C
• Lightly oil a couple of roasting dishes with the olive oil
• Lay the pumpkin in one of the trays and the yam into the other. You can use one tray but the pieces need to have a little area around them so that they will roast properly.
• Sprinkle the spices over the vegetables (don’t over do it. You can always add more in later but you can’t take it back out …so lightly sprinkle the vegetables only)


Cooking:
• Place the dishes with the pumpkin and the yam in the oven (move the pieces around every 5 – 10 minutes to make sure they don’t stick.
• Cook for around 30 -40 minutes. Check regularly to see if the flesh has gone soft all the way through.
• Once the pumpkin and the yams are soft, turn off the oven. You can leave them in the oven to save space or you can take them out and leave then sit in the dishes whilst you get the stock ready.
• Bring your stock to the boil.
• Add the pumpkin and yams including the oil to the stock.
• Turn the heat down to low.
• Use a blender or mixed to puree the mixture.
• Add the chilli and the cinnamon and stir.
• If the mixture is too dense add a little more water to make sure it runny.
• Cut the vanilla bean down the centre to ensure the seeds can flow out. Peel the edges back to further assist and put the whole been in the mixture.
• Allow to simmer for a further 30 minutes and reduce until the soup is thick like a paste. Taste occasionally and add more spices gradually if more flavour is required to suit your personal taste.
• Remove the Vanilla bean and cinnamon stick (if you used one).

Serving.
Let the soup cool a little. Pour into bowls and swirl a little thickened cream into the soup. (Run the cream down the slowly down the back of a serving spoon to assist in keeping the cream on the surface.) Place a couple of sprigs of parsley in the centre and your ready to enjoy.

I hope you like this recipe: Your feed back will be appreciated.

Prawn Risoni: by Sha’ Dan (aka Daniel Gratton)

These ingredients will serve two people. Prep time 10 minutes. Once prepped it will take around 15- 20 minutes to cook.

This recipe is a reduction cooking method. Risoni is the same as Risotto but is a pasta. This dish can be done exactly the same way if you choose to use Abborio rice instead of Risoni.

Ingredience:
½ a kilo of fresh green prawns.
1ear of corn.
1 – 2 cloves of garlic.
1 lemon.
About a dozen chilli flakes. (who counts)
2 small or 1 large brown onions.
1 glass of white wine.
1 tablespoon of ginger.
2 vegetable stock cubes.
Olive oil.
Salt and Pepper.
About 15 - 20 sugar peas (if no sugar peas you can substitute for snow peas)
Sweet Chilli Sauce.
2 Spring onions.

To make the stock:
Shell the prawn and put the heads and shell in a pot.
Fill the pot with water. Just enough water to cover the shells.
Put on the stove and bring to the boil.
Add the two vegetable stock cubes.
Reduce heat to allow the water to simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Strain the shells and stock and bring the liquid back to the boil.
Turn off the heat.
The Stock is now ready.

Preparing the Risoni.
While your stock is simmering.
Cut the kernels off the corn cob.
Measure out 3 cups of risoni.
De-string the sugar peas and chop into large-ish size pieces.
Roughly chop the garlic cloves.
Grate or finely chop the ginger.
Peel and roughly chop up the onions.
Take around 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon of zest from the lemon.
Cut the lemon in half and juice the lemon.


Put sufficient Olive Oil into a saucepan to cover the base.
Put on a hot heat. Add the onion and stir until they are translucent.
Add the chilli flakes.
As soon as the oil is hot add the 3 cups of risoni and stir/fold into the oil and make sure it coats the risoni. The risoni will be a little translucent when ready. (approx 1 ½ to 2 minutes)
Slowly add the stock so that it just covers the risoni.
Reduce the heat to medium.
Add the corn kernels whilst stirring constantly.
Add the ginger, the lemon zest and the lemon juice.
Allow the mixture to regain some heat.
Add the glass of white wine. And continue to stir. (if the risoni is not covered with stock, add more stock so that is just covers the surface of the risoni.)
Reduce the heat to low or a little above and continue to stir ensuring the mixture does not stick.
After about 10 -12 minutes taste the risoni. If it is almost soft but still has a little nut crunchiness to it, it is time to cook the the prawns and blanch the sugar peas.
Boil a kettle/jug.
Place a frying pan onto a high heat and add a little olive oil.
Add the chopped garlic.
When the oil is hot add the prawns to the pan. (don’t for get to stir the risoni as often as you can. If the risoni is sticking add more stock or hot water a little at a time. Just enough to make sure it does not stick to the saucepan.) (Reduce the heat to help prevent sticking).

Have the sugar peas in a bowl.
Add the hot water to them once you turn the prawns over.

When the prawns are cooked remove from heat.
Scoop the crispy garlic out of the pan and place on some paper towelling to remove access oil.
Drain the sugar peas and add them to the risoni and stir them through the mixture.

Spoon the risoni into bowls.
Add the prawns over the top.
Sprinkle the crispy Garlic over the prawns.
Garnish with a very slight drizzle of sweet chilli sauce and chopped spring onion.