big shells with artichokes and arugula

Pasta names are the best. Conchiglie are shells, every type from the teeny tiny ones that can just cup a pea, up to the giant ones that can be stuffed full of some exciting filling and baked with oozy, bubbly cheesy sauce. And the giant ones look just like the conch shells they are named after If you hold a giant conchiglie to your ear you don’t hear the ocean though, you hear that scene from Lady and the Tramp when they slurp up the spaghetti noodle until they kiss.  

I have been thinking about doing a baked pasta shell dish along these lines for ages, actually since I bought the first Smitten Kitchen cookbook. And while Deb Perelman is an undisputed genius, her stance on putting cheese in the shells is hard for me to get on board with. Why would anyone want to limit the cheesiness of baked pasta?

The shells don't have to be all cheese, I put some vegetables in there too. There is cheese in the sauce and cheese on top. To balance all this cheese I have pumped up the vegetables, with a generous helping of arugula and artichokes and some grape tomatoes tucked in the spaces between the shells.

adapted from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

shells & filling:

• around 20 extra large conchiglie shells
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 can artichokes, drained and roughly chopped
• 3 cups arugula, roughly chopped
• ½ cup chicken broth
• ½ cup ricotta
• ⅓ cup grated parmesan
• ⅓ cup grated romano cheese
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbs lemon juice
• salt and pepper
•  

In well-salted boiling water and cook shells until just tender. Lay cooked shells out in a baking dish drizzled with olive oil.

Combine all remaining ingredients and spoon into the shells.

sauce:

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup ricotta
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tbs very finely chopped preserved lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• black pepper

Melt butter in a medium sized pan over medium heat. Add flour and whisk until smoothly combined. Add the milk a little at a time, stirring well after each addition. When all the milk is incorporated add the garlic and bring to a boil, whisking constantly. When the mixture begins to thicken, reduce heat and simmer for a couple more minutes. Add ricotta, lemon, salt and pepper.

assembly:

• 1 pint grape tomatoes
• ½ cup parmesan & romano cheese
• parsley, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Tuck tomatoes into the spots between the shells. Pour sauce over the shells, giving them some little pokes to distribute the sauce well. Sprinkle cheese over everything and bake, covered with tinfoil for about 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake 15-20 minutes longer, or until cheese is golden and bubbling. Sprinkle with parsley. Serve right away.

malt ball snack cake

Sometimes you need a casual little one-layer cake, no messing around. And you might as well fold a load of smashed up candy in there, swoop some light and fluffy milk chocolate frosting and some rainbow sprinkles. It's only slightly childish to fill a cake with candy, and totally worth it; the smashed malt balls will create melty puddles of chocolate-toffee-ish goodness inside cake as it bakes. 

This cake recipe makes twice as much as you need. You can just freeze half this batter for later, it never hurts to have frozen cake batter around for an emergency. Or if you want to go big, you could make all the cake batter and make two layers. Just double the frosting. This would be a fantastic birthday cake for children or childish adults. 

vanilla malt cake:

adapted from smitten kitchen

• 2 cups plus 1 tablespoon cake flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp table salt
• 3 tbs malt powder (optional but recommended!)
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk soured with a splash of lemon juice)
• ⅔ cup slightly smashed malt balls, like Maltesers or Whoppers

Heat oven to 350°F. Line the bottom of a 6" cake pan with parchment paper.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Cream butter and sugar together in a stand mixer until fluffy and light in colour. Add vanilla and eggs and beat to combine. Scrape the sides of the bowl and beat again until well incorporated.

On the lowest speed, mix in buttermilk. Add flour mixture in three additions; a little hand mixing with a spatula to incorporate before turning on the mixer will help prevent flour exploding everywhere. Scrape down bowl well.

Pour about 1/2 of the batter into the prepared pan. Bake 25-30 minutes, or until cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Set cakes on a rack until completely cool and run a knife around the edge so they come out of the pan cleanly. Reserve half the batter for another use, it freezes very well in an airtight container.

milk chocolate frosting:

adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

• 4 ounces milk chocolate chopped (or chips)
• ¼ cup + 2 tbs whipping cream
• 2 tsp golden syrup or corn syrup
• ¼ cup + 2 tbs butter, room temperature

Combine cream and golden syrup in a small saucepan, heat on medium until simmering. Pour over chocolate in the bowl of a stand mixer and stir until all chocolate is melted. Set aside until the bowl no longer feels warm at all.

Using the whisk attachment mix in butter on medium-high speed until very light and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl to make sure everything is incorporated well.

Generously slather the cake in chocolate frosting in big fluffy, pillowy swoops. Sprinkle with rainbow sprinkles all over.

herby parmesan salad dressing

I first made this salad dressing sort of by accident. I was on holiday, and not in my own kitchen and I didn't quite have the ingredients I wanted on hand. I wanted to make a creamy-herby dressing but I realized at the last minute that I didn't have any yogurt or tahini or anything else to use for a thick, creamy dressing.

So I made the herby part of the salad dressing and rummaged around in the fridge to see what else I could add to it for a bit of richness. I almost didn’t add the parmesan, because I wasn’t sure I would like it with the cilantro. But I threw it in there, and it worked really well. Kind of pesto-ish but thinner and lighter and brighter. I would urge even the cilantro-averse to include a little bit here. It’s pretty mild and really rounds everything out.

parmesan herb salad dressing:

• ½ cup olive oil

• ¼ cup red wine vinegar

• 3 tbs lemon juice

• 2 cups parsley

• ½ cup cilantro

• 3 cloves peeled garlic

• large pinch chili flakes

• ⅓ cup grated parmesan

• generous salt and pepper

Blend everything together in a food processor until well combined. Serve over a big green salad, with a few shavings of extra parmesan if you really want to send it over the top.

Truffled potato gratin

There is a lot of snarky talk about truffle oil.  Eyebrows raise and noses wrinkle when it is revealed that truffle oil isn't always made from real truffles. Well Girl Scout cookies aren't made from real Girl Scouts, but that doesn't seem to put anyone off. I am particularly suspect of people who are quite happy to eat truffle oil until they learn that the oil may have some synthetic flavourings in it, as described in an NY Times story about nasty artificial truffle oil:

"I happily used truffle oil for several years (even, embarrassingly, recommending it in a cookbook), until finally a friend cornered me at a farmers’ market to explain what I had should have known all along. I glumly pulled all my truffle oil from the restaurant shelves and traded it to a restaurant down the street for some local olive oil."

The oil tasted fine until the truth was revealed! If it tasted good for all those years, maybe it doesn't actually matter if it's entirely real truffles? Maybe it just tastes good? I actually think that truffle oil still tastes fine, even though I know that it might not only be flavoured with 100% pure truffles. It's strong and easy to over-do, so a light touch is required. But sometimes it tastes really fantastic, especially with lots of fat and starch. Like in this creamy, rich potato gratin, with a crispy Gruyere top. 

truffled potato gratin: 

• 6 large starchy potatoes, thinly sliced, no need to peel them

• 1 1/2 cup whipping cream

• 2/3 cup whole milk

• 1/2 cup chicken stock

• 2 tsp white truffle oil

• 3 tbs butter

• salt and pepper

• 4 garlic cloves, sliced very thin

• 1 cup grated Gruyere cheese

Heat oven to 350 F. Heat cream, milk and stock until just simmering. Remove from heat and add truffle oil. Lay out potato slices in a 9x13 pan, dabbing with dots of butter and sprinkling over garlic slices as you go. 

Pour the cream mixture over potatoes. Season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle cheese on top. Bake for about 1 hr, or until cream is thick and bubbly and cheese is golden brown. 

caramel swirl brownies

These are really fudgey, gooey brownies. If you are a cakey brownie person (why though? Cakey brownies are obviously inferior.) these are not for you. These brownies really foxed me at first; the original recipe called for a 9" x 13" pan and I just couldn't get them to bake properly at that size. When the condensed milk was perfectly bubbly and golden brown on top, the brownies in the middle of the pan were still oozingly raw.

I solved the problem by halving the recipe and using an 8" x 8", without skimping at all on the condensed milk. This did the trick and I got soft, gooey, just-set brownies with a frankly shocking amount of  swirly puddles of condensed milk through the bars and a crispy-crackly caramelized top. 

They are crazy rich. I urge you to keep the flaky salt on top, even to go a little more heavy-handed with the salt than you might be thinking. The salt is going to balance the sweetness beautifully, and really make that condensed milk caramel sing. They are best served cut into tiny bite-sized pieces, and any leftovers freeze really well. If you should have any leftovers...

caramel swirl brownies: 

adapted from Fine Cooking

• 3/4 cup butter

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

• 1/2 cup + 2 tbs cups cocoa powder

• 3 oz. semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped

• 1 cup + 2 tbs granulated sugar

• 2 tbs brown sugar

• 1 tsp salt

• 3 large eggs, cold

• 2 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

• 1 tsp espresso powder (optional)

• 1 tin condensed milk

• big pinch flaky sea salt

In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. When the butter is melted, remove from heat and stir in chocolate. Let the heat from the butter melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally until fully melted and  incorporated. 

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip eggs, sugars, vanilla and espresso powder on a medium-high speed. Whip until very fluffy and pale yellow, around 8 minutes. While the eggs whip, whisk together flour and coco in a medium bowl, making sure there are no clumps. 

Once egg mixture is very fluffy, reduce speed to low and pour in the chocolate-butter mixture 

Pour about 2/3 of the condensed milk over the top of the batter, and swirl around with a toothpick. Bake for about 10-15 minutes, until the top is starting to caramelize and bubble. Pour over the remaining milk and sprinkle with a big pinch of flaky salt. Saving some milk to add later helps make sure that you get a chewy caramelly top and it doesn't all sink into the batter.

Continue to bake for about 10-15 minutes, until all the caramel is bubbly and caramel brown. 

Let cool completely and  cut into small squares. 

fish in tomatoes & olives

This is an easy, one pot dish. It does take a while to cook the tomato sauce, so it's excellent for a Sunday afternoon when you want to put dinner on and curl up with a book. We are having a big windstorm in Victoria and things are thumping and bumping around outside. It is a rather blustery day. Exactly the sort of day when you should slowly cook something on the stove that will fill your house with the best garlicky-tomato smell while you hide out under a blanket and listen to the wind rattle the windows.

The tomato sauce cooks for about an hour and once it's thick and rich, pop in the fish and cook for a few more minutes. Serve with some crusty bread to scoop up all that sauce. 

fish with tomatoes and olives: 

• 1 whole bulb garlic, cloves peeled and smashed
• 1 shallot, thinly sliced
• 3-4 anchovy fillets
• salt and pepper
• large pinch of crushed chili flakes
• 2 tbs vegetable oil
• 1 finely chopped fresh jalapeno
• 2 pounds tomatoes: any combination of tomatoes fresh, canned or frozen will work well
• 2-3 sweet red peppers
• 1 cup mixed olives and capers
• 3 tbs lemon juice
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp cumin
• 2 fillets of thin white fish, I used snapper

In a large frying pan on medium heat, sauté garlic and shallot in vegetable oil, stirring occasionally until they soften and begin to brown. Add anchovies, salt, pepper, chili flakes and jalapeno. Cook for 3-4 minutes and add tomatoes, sweet peppers and olives. Reduce heat to medium-low and ook until the peppers and tomatoes are broken down and form a thick sauce, about 40 minutes to 1 hr. Add lemon juice, paprika and cumin and stir to combine. 

Preheat the oven to 400°. Lay fish on top of the tomato sauce. Spoon a little sauce over the fish and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven until the fish is flaky and no longer translucent. Serve with some crusty bread. 

Happy windsday Piglette.