Family feast
Marinated olives
Makes 2 cups. Serve the oil with bread – a delicious dip!
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- Place the olives, oil, rosemary, thyme, chilies, lemon peel, garlic and fennel in a large saucepan and warm over low heat.
- Transfer to a bowl and marinate overnight at room temperature.
- Remove olives from the oil with a slotted spoon and discard the herbs, reserving the oil. Add the extra thyme to the olives before serving.
Easy Artichoke Pizzas
Serves 10 - 12 When you are catering for a crowd, a little ‘cheating’ is perfectly acceptable! Onions can be prepared a day ahead.
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- Heat oil in pan, add onions, cook, stirring, until soft. Drain on absorbent paper.
- Spread pizza bases with tomato paste, top with cheddar cheese, onions, capsicums, artichokes, olives, basil, extra cheddar cheese and parmesan cheese.
- Bake in a hot oven about 20 minutes or until bases are crisp and tops are lightly browned.
- Cut into wedges to serve.
- Cut lamb into thin strips. Pound strips lightly to flatten, cut into 4 cm lengths. Thread strips onto 30 small skewers, about 13 cm long. Place kebabs in a shallow dish; pour over combined oil, juice, garlic, herbs, pepper and mustard. Cover and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.
- Drain lamb and reserve marinade. Heat extra oil in a large pan, add kebabs in batches, cook over high heat until lamb is browned and just tender; remove kebabs from pan. Add reserved marinade to pan and bring to the boil. Pour over kebabs – serve warm or cold.
- Decorate platter with sliced chilli, capsicums cherry tomatoes.
- Preheat the oven to 200° and line a baking tray.
- Roll out the pastry and use a cookie cutter (approx. 10cm in diameter) to cut six circles out of the pastry. Lay them on the baking tray.
- Crack the egg into a small bowl and lightly beat with a fork, then use a pastry brush to glaze the top of the pastry circles with egg.
- Cut six more circles of pastry and lay them on top of the first set. This will make sure that the pastries rise up nicely when they cook.
- Spoon a little crème fraiche on to each pastry round.
- Drain the tinned tomatoes, roughly chop and add them on top of crème fraiche.
- Roughly chop the mozzarella and add that too, being careful to leave a 1-2cm wide clear margin around the edges of the pastry.
- Brush the edges with a little egg, and carefully lay a circle on top, press down the edges to seal the pie. For a decorative touch, do this with the prongs of a fork to help seal it really well.
- Glaze the top of the pies with egg and set in the oven to bake for 25-30 mins or until golden brown.
- Best served straight from the oven - warn your guests the mixture inside will be piping hot!
Smoked Ham with Pomegranate Molasses, Black Pepper and Mustard Glaze
Don’t reserve a ham for once a year – it’s the ideal family feast centrepiece. Pomegranate molasses is the key to this recipe. It adds a sweet tart flavour rather than the sweet glazes often found on Christmas hams. Serve the meat with Dijon mustard, cornichons and extra glaze as condiments for a nice rustic presentation. This recipe will serve 6 – 8. For a larger crowd, you will need a whole ham as part of your buffet.
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- Let ham come to room temperature 1 hour before cooking. Preheat oven to 160°C.
- Make the glaze: Combine pomegranate molasses, 1/4 cup mustard, whiskey, pepper, allspice and salt in a bowl and mix to blend well.
- Place ham, fat side up, in a foil lined roasting pan. Score fat in a cross-hatch pattern at 1-2" intervals without incising the meat.
- Generously baste the ham with the glaze. Bake in oven, basting occasionally, until internal temperature of the ham is around 50°C. (about 5 minutes per kilo or to be sure, use a meat thermometer). The ham should be deep golden brown and crusty at this time. If not, increase heat to 230°C. and continue to bake for a few minutes, while keeping an eye on the ham so it doesn't burn.
- Remove from oven and transfer to cutting board. Let rest 20 minutes before carving.
- Transfer remaining basting sauce to a small saucepan and simmer briefly, brushing down the sides, to heat through and burn off alcohol.
- Slice ham and serve with Dijon mustard, cornichons and basting sauce as condiments on the side.
Baked Lemon and Raspberry Tart
Serves 12. Easy and delicious. If you want to save time, use a commercially prepared sweet pie crust for this recipe. Sweet Pastry
Filling
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- To make pastry: place flour, butter and icing sugar in a food processor and process until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the water and egg yolk and process until mixture forms a dough. Mould into a flat shape, wrap in plastic film and chill for 30 minutes. (This recipe makes about twice as much dough as needed – freeze the remainder for another time).
- Roll the pastry into a 3mm thickness. Line a 24cm fluted flan tin. Chill pastry case for 30 minutes in the freezer. Press a sheet of foil or baking paper over the pastry and into the corners. Fill the foil with flour, rice or pastry weights and bake in a preheated 180°C oven for 15 minutes. Remove the foil and rice and continue cooking until the pastry is light brown.
- To make the filling: combine the eggs, sugar and grated lemon rind, add the juice and cream (don’t beat the mixture too much), then strain.
- Place the baked pastry shell on a baking tray in the oven and scatter the raspberries over. Carefully fill with the lemon mixture. Bake at 180°C for about 20 minutes or until the filling is still slightly runny in the centre. Remove from oven.