1 year ago today: Christmas 2010

Smoked salmon & dill roulades 

makes 32
(from Delicious Magazine, Dec 2010/Jan 2011)

1 cup (150g) plain flour
1 1/4 cups (310ml) milk
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons finely chopped dill, plus extra sprigs to garnish
20g unsalted butter, chopped into 8 pieces
250g fresh ricotta
300g smoked salmon slices
1/3 cup (65g) ocean trout or smoked salmon roe

Sift plain flour and 1 teaspoon salt into a bowl. Add milk and eggs, then stir until smooth. Pour through a sieve placed over a large jug, then sitr in 1 tablespoon chopped dill.

Heat a large pan over a medium-low heat; add a piece of butter and milk until frothy. Pour in 1/4 cup butter, tilting the pan to create a thin crepe. Cook for 20 second or until almost set. Flip and cook for a further 15-20 seconds, then invert onto a plate. Repeat until you have 8 crepes.

Stir remaining dill into the ricotta with plenty of pepper and a little salt. Spread a heaped tablespoon of ricotta mixture evenly over each crepe. Cover with a layer of salmon and roll up tightly. Cut each roll in half, then slice in half on the diagonal so 1 end is slanted an dth eother is cut straight across to give 4 peices per roll. 

Stand the roulades up on a platter and top with a little roe and a dill sprig.

 

Seafood paella 

For the seafood paella we used the base paella recipe from our Yabby paella, and substituted yabbies for beautiful local sand crabs, prawns and mussels.

  

  

Crumbly cake 
(from Gourmet Traveller, The Italian Cookbook, 2010)

40g blanced whole almonds
250g (1 2/3 cups) plain flour
200g fine polenta
200g caster sugar
125g softened butter, plus extra for greasing
125ml (1/2 cup) vegetable oil
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind
icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 180*c. Spread almonds on a tray and roast until golden (7-8 minutes), cool, then finely chop and set aside.

Combine flour, polenta, almonds and sugar in a large bowl. Rub in butter with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Sitr in oil, then add combined eggs, vanilla and lemon rind and stir until well combined.

Pour cake batter into a 26cm-springform pan, greased and lined. Smooth top and bake until top is golden and an inserted cake tester withdraws clean (35-40 minutes). Stand cake in pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Serve cake dusted with icing sugar. Cake will keep in an airtight container for 1 week.
 

When we - horror - ran out of champagne on Christmas Day we thought we'd give some white wine a blitz in the new Soda Stream...