Cookbook 23: 1000 Best-Ever Recipes from AWW

So the Australian Women’s Weekly, 1000 Best-Ever Recipes from AWW was on sale at some point for significantly less than the RRP, and I bought a copy of it.  Because despite the casual sexism (yes they have a section titled “just like mum made”), the recipes are triple tested and generally fairly easy for follow.  If you were only going to have one cookbook in your kitchen, this should definitely be on your short-list for consideration.  It has a wide range of recipes, so much so that I struggled to decide on what to make for this meal.  The recipes range from “super healthy”, through to spicy, sweet, traditional, “asian neighbours”, etc, and has a detailed glossary and conversion chart.  My one main criticism of this book is because they’ve squeezed

In the end I decided to make a relatively easy 3 course recipe, starting with soup (chowder), two main dishes, one of which was vegetarian, and a dessert.

Corn Chowder

Ingredients:

• 40g butter
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 medium leek, trimmed, sliced thinly
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 2 trimmed celery stalks, chopped finely
• 800g desiree potatoes, peeled, chopped coarsely
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups water
• 2 cups frozen corn kernels
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Method:

1. Melt butter in a large saucepan; cook garlic and leek, stirring, until leek softens.  Add wine; cook, stirring, until liquid reduces by half.  Add celery, potato, stock and the water; bring to the boil.  Reduce heat; simmer, covered, until potato is just tender.  Cool 10 minutes.
2. Blend or process 3 cups of the soup, in batches, until smooth.  Return blended soup to remaining unprocessed soup; add corn and cream.  Bring to the boil.  Reduce heat; simmer, stirring, until corn is just tender.  Remove from heat; stir in parsley.

Notes on this recipe:

• This was quite tasty, but was missing something (apart from the parsley I forgot to add).  I added some salt and pepper and that improved the dish. I’d also consider adding a drop or two of Tabasco, or even some mixed, dried herbs at the stage of adding the liquid.
• The left-overs were pureed further by my sister, who said that released even more flavour.

Free-form Caramelised Leek Tarts

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 medium brown onions, sliced thinly
• 2 medium leeks, trimmed, sliced thinly
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
• 2 cups ricotta cheese
• 1/3 cup coarsely grated parmesan cheese
• 1 egg, separated
• 4 sheets ready-rolled shortcrust pastry

Method:

1. heat oil in a large frying pan, cook onion and leek, stirring, about 15 minutes or until mixture starts to caramelise.  Stir in thyme, cool.
2. Meanwhile, combine ricotta, parmesan and egg yolk in a small bowl.Preheat oven to
3. Preheat oven to 200C (180C fan-forced).  Oil two oven trays; line with baking paper.
4. Using a 20cm plate as a guide, cut 1 round from each pastry sheet; place two rounds on each tray.  Divide the ricotta mixture among the rounds, leaving 4cm border around edges.
5. Divide leek mixture over rounds.  Turn border of each tart up around filling; brush upturned edges with egg white.
6. Bake tarts about 35 minutes or until pastry is browned lightly.

Notes on this recipe:

• This recipe really missed having a photo.  Without my sister’s help I don’t know what I would have done with the folding the edges of the pastry up bit.  The lovely decoration and neatly folded up edges in the picture above are courtesy of her.
• Also, these are tasty!

Lamu Chicken

Ingredients:

• 20g butter
• 4 large brown onions, sliced thinly
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• 12 chicken drumsticks
• 2 cups basmati rice
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups water
• 2 limes, cut into wedges

Spice Paste

• 2 ancho chillies
• 3 cloves of garlic, quartered
• 2cm piece of fresh ginger, quartered
• 1 small green chilli, sliced thinly
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon cardamom seeds
• 4 whole cloves

Method:

1. Make spice paste
2. Melt butter in large deep saucepan; cook onion, stirring, until soft.  Add vinegar and sugar; cook, stirring, about 10 minutes or until onion is caramelised. Transfer to medium bowl, cover to keep warm.
3. Heat half of the oil in same pan; cook chicken, in batches, until browned all over.
4. Heat remaining oil in sam pan; cook spice paste, stirring, until fragrant.  Add rice and half of the caramelised onion, stir to coat in spice mixture.
5. Return chicken to pan with cinnamon, stock and the water; bring to the boil.  Reduce heat, simmer, covered tightly, about 30 minutes or until rice is tender and chicken is cooked through.  Discard cinnamon sticks.
6. Divide chicken and rice among plates, top with warmed remaining caramelised onion and limes.

Spice paste:

Place ancho chillies in a small bowl, cover with warm water.  Stand 20 minutes; drain.  Discard stems and liquid.  Using mortar and pestle, crush ancho chillies with remaining ingredients until mixture forms a thick paste.

Notes on recipe:

• Having the spice paste ingredients and method for making it at the end of the ingredients and general cooking instructions was a big odd – though consistent with the rest of the books.  If I were doing this, I’d put the spice paste details at the beginning of the recipe and the method.
• I didn’t have any ancho chillies, so used regular dried red chillies, and the supermarket was sold out of small Thai chillies, so we used a regular chilli (which also happened to be red).  The dish was still nicely spicy and didn’t suffer in any way.

Lemon Delicious Pudding

Ingredients:

• 125g butter, melted
• 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
• 1 1/2 cups caster sugar
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1/2 cup self-raising flour
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 1 1/3 cups milk

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C (160C fan forced).  Grease six 1-cup ovenproof dishes
2. Combine butter, rind, sugar and yolks in a large bowl.  Stir in sifted flour, then juice.  Gradually stir in milk; mixture should be smooth and runny.
3. Beat egg whites in small bowl with electric mixer until soft peaks form; fold into lemon mixture, in two batches.
4. Place ovenproof dishes in large baking dish; divide lemon mixture among dishes.  Add enough boiling water to baking dish to come halfway up sides of ovenproof dishes.  Bake, uncovered, about 45 minutes.

Notes on this recipe:

• So very very tasty and really easy to put together.  Now that I know my ramekins are 1 cup deep, I might have to make more of these types of things.