jansson’s temptation

My very lovely and utterly delightful friend Val went off to university a year before me. A year later I moved to the same university town and spent a lot of time hanging out at her flat.

Val, who remember is lovely and delightful, wasn’t particularly accomplished at cooking. Her favourite meal, which was also her only meal, was mock waitbait patties. Real whitebait patties are a kiwi delicacy. Mock whitebait patties substitute grated potatoes. It’s nice, but not the same at all.

The flat, like most New Zealand university share houses, had a weekly cooking and cleaning roster. Val made mock whitebait patties every week.

So I thought of her and her disgruntled housemates, who weren’t overly fond of mock whitebait patties after the first month, when I discovered this reciepe.

Jansson was a Swede and a religious fanatic.

Pause to picture that. Do the accent. Okay, now let’s move on.

The legend goes that this dish was so delish that Jansson renounced his vow to give up earthly pleasures.

So this is what we had for dinner last night, with some little veal tbones and steamed green beans.

Ingredients

50g tin oritiz anchovies
4 medium potatoes (good all rounders will do)
2 large onions
200ml cream
200ml milk
pepper
1 slice day old bread, blitzed to crumbs

Measure the oil from the anchovies into a fry pan – you’ll need about 2 tbpns. If there isn’t enough then top it up with olive oil. On a low heat cook the onions until soft, but not brown. If you’ve got an anchovy phobic husband like me then chop the anchovies and add them with the onions – this cooks them down and they disappear into the onions. If you’ve got anchovy fans dining then add them later.

Grate the potatoes or use a mandolin to make julienne (looks better, more fun). Mix in the onions, anchovies and pepper and fill an oiled baking dish.

Pour over the cream and milk, top with breadcrumbs and drizzle with olive oil

Bake at 180 celcious for an hour until golden, bubbling.

Serve with another earthly pleasure like a very sinful, silky pinot noir.

apple and oat muffins

Who knows what my child eats in a day at daycare? I should know, I should read the menu posted next to the kitchen, but most days, err… every day, I forget. He knows where the biscuit tin is at home and one of his very few words is bissss, pointing to the pantry and the tin. So I’ve made these apple and oat muffins, which are a much healthier alternative to bissss …

150g plain white flour
1 tablespoon baking power
1 tsp mixed spice
100g brown suger
175g porridge oats
3 small apples
handfull of sultanas (optional)
2 medium eggs
125 ml milk
125 ml apple juice (I didn’t have any so used water)
1/4 cup sunflower oil (any low flavour vege oil will do)

Sift flour, baking powder and mixed spice into a bowl. Mix in oats and brown sugar. Chop apples finely – about 1/2cm cubes leaving the skin on – and mix into dry ingredients. Mix eggs, milk, juice and oil together and pour into a well in the middle of your dry ingredients. Mix lightly – don’t overmix.

Spoon into greased muffin tins. I used paper cases – so much easier than greasing tins. Bake in a 200 celcius oven for 20 minutes until risen, golden and firm to touch. Leave in the tin 5 minutes and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

fresh peach souffle

I just about fell over when these came out of the oven. There’s something about souffle that just sounds so hard. Incredibly, amazingly hard. In fact these turned out to be incredibly simple. However, when instructions for souffle say serve immediately they mean immediately.

By the time hubby and I did the victory dance, took the photo, changed the angle and the lighting, took the photo again, did the dance again, and sat down to eat the rise was on the decline.

Ingredients

2 ripe peaches – skin and blitz
3 egg whites
3 tablespoons caster sugar

Beat the egg whites and sugar until firm but not dry. If you go too long the souffle will sag fast. Fold in the peach puree and place (yes, place) in two lightly greesed and sugared souffle dishes (I used ramekins). Here’s the trick of the century – flatten the top then run your finger around the edge of the dish – this encourages the souffle to rise evenly because it doesn’t have to pull away from the edge.

Bake 15-20 minutes. Do the dance. Serve immediately with some great vanilla icecream with a little leftover peach puree poured over.

Drink with something light, sweet and fizzy. I love the new style Moscato’s that are around, especially McGuigan’s Discover Moscato and Wirra Wirra Mrs Wrigley’s Moscato, which is a lovely pink, low alcohol girly guzzler.