Yoghurt Orange Tarts

Jamie Oliver has a lot to answer for... All of a sudden my bf is using cook books and wanting to try things he sees on tele. This is good. JO might not be everyone's cup of tea but he's certainly making being a decent cook a challenge that macho men are accepting. My fella is however not a macho man. But he cooks now. And this is good.


We were watching JO's 30 Minute Meals on tele and I saw him make some stupidly easy custard tarts. I quite like these tarts, so I thought that I would give them a go, and I ended up making them for my Tapas for Life fundraiser, since Jamie made them look so easy. Let me tell you, they are SO easy and a crowd pleaser. 

I came across a small hurdle though, in that when I went to make them, I realised I was a noob and had no cream or creme fraiche (as the recipe calls for). Hm. A quick look in my fridge and I have low fat Greek yoghurt. I can't be arsed going to the shops and neither can S, so I decided to just use it. Great choice - they were awesome.


Here's what I did... This recipe makes 6 (I tripled it though, and made quite a few!)


Ingredients
1 sheet puff pastry
ground cinnamon
125g Greek yoghurt (approx 1 cup)
2 eggs (I had 42g eggs, really small)
1 tsp vanilla paste/extract
3 tblsp sugar plus extra for sprinkling
4 tbsp sugar (for the caramel)
1 orange (zest and juice)


Preheat oven to 200C.


Method 
1) Take your puff pastry sheet and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar, then roll it up.

See those layers of cinnamony, sugary goodness? Yum.

2) Cut the roll into 6 pieces (about an inch each), and then pop each piece into a muffin tray, layered side up. You then use your thumb to squish the pastry down, and then stretch it out and up the sides to make a little cup. 


3) Pop the tray into the oven (bottom shelf) and leave them for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.


4) In a bowl, combine well the yoghurt, zest of the orange, sugar, vanilla and eggs.


5) Using a dessert spoon, pour a little of the yoghurt mix into the little pastry cups. These aren't meant to be big - the pastry will have shrunk down a little, so you shouldn't need more than a spoonful of mixture per cup.


6) Put the cups back in the oven for 8 minutes.


7) Add 4 tbsp of sugar to a pan with the juice of the orange and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and keep an eye on it, it will start to turn golden brown after a few minutes. When its a golden brown colour turn the heat off - by this stage your tarts aren't far off being done, so the caramel won't go hard.


8) Once you've taken the tarts out of the oven, spoon the caramel over each tart. Make it as neat or rustic as you like.

My oven is much hotter at the back than the front, I discovered. 

Naked tarts.

These are delicious tarts. They aren't that pretty, they're "rustic" little things, but still great! They aren't too sweet, they taste a little like ricotta cake. The orange really comes through, however I couldn't really get much of the cinnamon - next time I'll add more! Once the caramel has set, it kinda bleeds a little all over the top of the custard - this is good, as it covered up the shoddy caramel job I did! It doesn't stay hard for long though. These are best eaten the day after making them, the flavours come together and work themselves out. They're great straight out of the oven, but better if eaten cold, later on. I can imagine this being awesome with orange blossom water too.


This is also my entry to the Sweet Adventures Blog Hop! The theme this month is Layers upon Layers - and puff pastry is layers! As well as the way the bases are made, layering the cinnamon through the pastry... It fits the bill!

Flavoured Sugar Syrup

For Christmas, my little sister asked for cocktail booze - berry flavoured liqueur, amaretto etc. She loves making cocktails and works in a bar that makes pretty good mixes, so that's ended up being a bit of a hobby for her.


S and I went halves in buying her some cocktail goods - some French raspberry liqueur, and some flavoured sugar syrups. When you look at cocktail recipes, many of them call for sugar, or simple syrup. Its pretty much equal parts sugar and water boiled down to make a syrup you can use to quickly sweeten cocktails without having to deal with sugar having to be dissolved. The added bonus is that you can flavour them so you can add more complex flavours into your drink.

Flavoured sugar syrup (L-R); Peach, Strawberry and Orange

I made my sister 3 flavours, strawberry, orange and peach. They're ludicrously easy to make, and look gorgeous as a gift! All you  have to do is make sure you  have air tight bottles that have been sterilised (either put through a hot cycle on your dishwasher, or washed in hot soapy water and left to dry WITHOUT you touching the cap or the rim!), and a fine sieve.


My bottles (I got them from a home brewing shop for about $3AUD each) were quite small and held about 250ml each so I used about double that amount of water, and free poured a healthy amount of sugar in that looked like about half to me - you can obviously be a lot more accurate! This is the first step to any sugar syrup, must be done before you add any fruit to the pan - you'll see how I made each flavour below.

Peach
I used all the peaches we had in the house as they were looking a bit worse for wear and I didn't really want to eat them - so I used about 5 of them! Put them whole in the pan making sure they were mostly submerged. If they're not just pop in every now and again to move them around in the water. I used a fork to smoosh them up  to extract as much flavour as I could.


Strawberry
I topped a big punnet of strawberries that were on special and put them whole into the water. You'll notice after a while the strawberries will lose their colour. Once this has happened, take them out and continue to reduce the syrup until you're happy with the amount. 


Orange
I zested 2 oranges and then juiced them, and added it to the water. This was then boiled down until it was reduced by about half.

Once the water was reduced, I strained all the the mixes through a sieve a few times. Peach and strawberries need to be sieved a couple of times whereas orange you can get away with just doing it once. Use your judgement, some fruits are denser and fleshier than others at different times of the year, but you don't want seeds or pulp in your syrup! I added some of the orange zest to the bottle to keep the flavour going and it looks pretty as well!


Pour the syrup into a jug and then into your bottles - if you're lucky enough to have a funnel (I didn't!) use that - but sterilise it first! You have sterilised bottles you don't want your funnel from the back of the cupboard contaminating the bottle tops! 

Its important that you store these in the fridge - as they do contain alot of fruit and sugar. The plain version can be kept any old place, but fruity ones, in the fridge! You can see there is some seperation in the peach syrup - just make sure you give it a good shake before you use it!


These can also be used to give greek yoghurt an edge when serving it with cakes or on your museli in the morning, or added to soda water to make your own cordial. How delicious would it be to drizzle some orange syrup over a chocolate cake fresh from the oven? The sky is the limit with these sweet compact flavour bombs!


I'd love to know what else you can use these for aside from cocktails!

Chocolate orange xmas cake truffles

Here in Australia, we have a hot xmas - its often 30C plus, everyone is outside playing cricket or volleyball, having a swim, or sat inside drinking in the air conditioning. We have a really different xmas from our friends in the northern hemisphere, but we still have similar food to the English when we celebrate the 25th December. We often have turkey, everyone has a ham... dessert is often a christmas pud, with custard, cream or ice cream, most of the time we have the choice of all 3! But it is pretty heavy, its really not a summer dessert. So Ive decided to take this popular flavour, that so many associate with christmas, and change it up a little bit that we still have xmas cake, but you just take a mouthful rather than a bowlful!

I took a regular 700g supermarket xmas cake, added melted chocolate, cointreau orange zest and then let it sit for an hour while I cooked dinner. I rolled them into balls, topped them with white chocolate and some chopped glace cherries. Put them in the fridge and let them set.

How cute are they!? Once they set they're great to give as gifts, or to put out when you have friends over during the xmas season. They last for aaages too, freeze em, seal em up in the fridge for times when you need to bust out the treats! This is a great recipe to get kids involved with, as they love the chocolate drizzling, cherry decorating and of course, a spoonful of melted chocolate for them!

Recipe

1 x 700g christmas cake

1 x block of dark chocolate (as dark and good a quality as you can find/afford)

Cointreau to taste (or use a bit of orange juice if you want to omit the booze)

Zest of an orange 

Half a block of white chocolate

Glace cherries

Method

1) Melt the dark chocolate - I use a bain marie type setup, of simmering water with a metal/glass bowl on top. You can melt it in the microwave as well - whatever works for you!

2) Crumble up the christmas cake - and have a taste! These cakes often taste different, so make sure you have a bit of a test so you can judge how much of everything to add later! 

3) Add the cointreau, I think I added 3 or 4 good sploshes, the orange zest and the chocolate then give it a good old mix! Make sure its all incorporated, and leave it for a while for the flavours to meld and make friends!

4) Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper, and start to roll out little teaspoon sized balls of the mixture, until youve run out. Pop the balls in the fridge, while you melt the white chocolate, and finely chop the cherries. How finely you chop them is up to you and your level of attention to detail! The cherries are meant to be like holly, so how you decide to chop them is up to you! Putting the balls in the fridge means that when you drizzle the white choc on, it sets a little bit and so doesnt run off the balls as quickly (taking the cherries with it!). If youre somewhere cold, I wouldnt worry about it, but in my warm summer kitchen it helped!

Drizzle the truffles with white chocolate and decorate with glace cherries! Pop them back in the fridge to set and then pop them in containers to store! Or just eat them!

This is also my entry to We Should Cocoa, whereby each month an ingredient is chosen by either Choclette or Chele from Chocolate Teapot, for the bloggers participating to pair with chocolate. The december challenge is orange! I cant just make ONE chocolate orange recipe... Its my bfs fave sweet combo, and Ive already made chocolate orange ice cream which was AMAZING!! Ive also made Nigellas chocolate orange loaf, which was really nice... Can you tell choc orange is a favourite in our house!?

Hyderabadi Minced Lamb with Orange - Madhur Jaffrey, The Ultimate Curry Bible

With some mince and oranges to use up, this recipe by Madhur Jaffrey from the Ultimate Curry Bible was the one I chose for dinner the other night. She wrote that its not like anything shes ever tasted before, and shes right! An unusual but tasty curry with that comfort element of saucy mince meant this was a dinner I would make again!

Ingredients:

1 large orange
1 tsp ground turmeric 
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp corn or peanut oil
2 medium onions, peeled & sliced into fine half rings
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground coriander 
4 cloves garlic, peeled & crushed
2 tbsp fresh ginger, peeled & finely grated
4 tbsp natural yoghurt
900g minced lamb
0.5 tsp ground turmeric
0.5 tsp cayenne pepper
250 ml fresh orange juice
1.5 tsp salt
1-3 fresh hot green chillies, sliced into very fine rounds
30 g fresh coriander leaves, finely chopped
30 g fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
1 tsp garam masala

Peel off the orange rind, making sure to leave the white pith behind. Cut the rind into very fine 1-inch long julienne strips.

  

Combine the turmeric and salt with 1.5 litres of water in a pan and bring to the boil. Pour half into a measuring jug and reserve. Add the rind to the boiling liquid in the pan and boil rapidly for 1 minute. Empty the pan through a sieve and set over the sink. Pour the reserved turmeric water back into the pan and bring back to the boil. Put the rind back into the pan and boil again for a minute, then again strain through the sieve set over the sink. Rinse the rind under cold running water and set aside. 

Pour the oil into a large non-stick lidded pan set over a medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, stir in the onions and fry for 6-7 minutes or until reddish-brown.

Add the cumin and coriander and stir for 30 seconds. 

 Add the ginger and garlic. Stir and fry for a minute. 

Add the yoghurt, a tablespoon at a time, and stir it in, making sure it absorbed before adding more. 

Put in the meat, turmeric and cayenne pepper. Stir and cook for about 5 minutes, breaking up all the lumps in the meat. Add the orange juice, orange rind and salt. Stir and bring to a simmer. 

Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer gently for 40 minutes. Add the chillies, coriander, mint and garam masala. Stir to mix. Cover and continue to cook gently for a further 10 minutes.

I served this curry up with some home made flatbreads that you can find on this post, and some coriander from the garden for S. I hate the stuff, just the smell makes me whinge. S served his own up which is why its a ridiculous portion (he always does this with curry and regrets it).

This curry was pretty different, as you can certainly taste the orange and its not something youre used to tasting in your curries. S and I both enjoyed it, and would make it again if we had spare oranges laying around (which we often do...). It would be awesome wrapped up in some parathas with kachumber salad (in fact if I make it again I would much prefer it done this way!) or put into some sort of samosa. Its not too difficult to make, you just have to make sure you have everything prepared and ready to go at the start to make it as stress free as possible!

Its a different use of mince and oranges thats for sure!

chicken wings from heaven!

Chicken Wings With Orange Tomato Glaze - Apples for Jam (Tessa Kiros)

Ingredients

12 Chicken Wings

110 g (3 1/4 oz) Light Brown Sugar

375 ml (13 Fl oz/1 1/2 cups) Fresh Orange Juice

185 ml (6 Fl oz/3/4 cup) Tomato Passata (Pureed Tomatoes)

1 Tbsp Soy Sauce

1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

Method

Preheat the oven to 160˚C (315˚F/Gas 2-3). Put the sugar, orange juice, passata, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce in a pan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Spread the chicken wings in a baking dish just large enough to fit them in a single layer and pour the sauce over the top. Bake for 2-2 1/2 hours, basting and turning the pieces over every now and then, until the chicken is crispy and sticky and the sauce is a thick glaze. Serve warm, or even at room temperature.

YUM!

easy, you pprob have the ingredients in the cupboard already... next time im going to leave out a bit of the sugar and add some orange zest to give it a bit more zing! we added some purple tiger chillies (little baby ones that pack a punch) whole, fresh from the garden, but with the tops cut off and punctured, it let some heat out into the sauce, which was perfect for me, and bf ate the chillies whole (and cried a little bit lol). Had no passata, used whole canned tomatoes (without the juice) just blitzed...

I served it with thinly sliced roast potato chips (that Steve made - delish) and broccoli - would be awesome with a crunchy salad or coleslaw with a zingy dressing to cut thru the sweetness/richness of the sticky marinade... will be making this again, the meat falls off the bones... make it!!

btw I didnt manage to get to get a photo of it... because we just ate them without thinking about it! Ill try to do better next time :D