Recipes

Squidgy Chocolate Torte

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment
Chocolate cake with pomegranate seeds
Mmmm, chocolate

As I write this we are STILL eating Easter leftovers. My Saturday afternoon panic (“OMG, will we have enough food?!”) was totally unnecessary and my family well and truly pulled out the stops.

After the beef salad, my other main contribution was this chocolate torte from a BBC Easy Cook magazine dated November 2014. I bought this at Manchester airport before a flight home – my purchasing decision driven by the fact that it was the cheapest of the food magazines available (which is pathetic as English magazines are generally embarrassingly cheap) and it had James Martin on the cover.

For the past 18 or so months, it’s sat by the side of the bed and been flicked through but never used. This recipe is illustrated by said chocolate torte liberally scattered with pomegranate seeds. As my parents’ tree is going nuts, and everyone in my family likes chocolate (particularly my dad and uncle who are the most vocal about it) I figured it would be a winner.

You can find the recipe on the BBC website where it seems it was first printed in BBC’s Good Food magazine 12 months before being reused in Easy Cook!

On account of not having any light muscovado sugar to hand, I subbed in dark brown sugar but for the remaining ingredients I did as I was told. However, some of the timings in the recipe were a bit off. Beating the eggs & sugar (in a stand mixer, no less) took longer than the 5-8 minutes suggested. The cooking time was similarly optimistic and I had the cake in the oven for an hour. That may be because my spring form tin is slightly smaller than 23cm – its diameter is not marked and I’m not sufficiently bothered to find a tape measure!

There was plenty of topping so any helpers who like to lick out bowls are well served with this recipe. And being light on flour, it keeps excellently.

It’s not the quickest cake to make (beating, beating, beating) but this is definitely a cake that will be made again.

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Squidgy Chocolate Torte

Ingredients

  • 225g unsalted butter
  • 250g dark chocolate
  • 5 large eggs
  • 225g light muscovado sugar - I used half and half caster sugar & dark brown sugar
  • 85g ground almonds
  • 50g plain flour
    • ganache
  • 150mL cream
  • 100g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
  • 1 tbsp icing sugar, sifted
  • pomegranate seeds to decorate

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan). Grease a 23cm springform tin and line the base.
  2. Melt butter and chocolate. I always do this in the microwave on 30 second bursts, but you can also use a bain-marie - it will just take a bit longer!
  3. Crumble the sugars to remove any lumps (particularly important if you are using dark brown sugar) and then add to the bowl of a stand mixer along with the 5 eggs. Beat until thick, mousse-like, pale and doubled in volume. This takes a long time but once the sugar and eggs are combined you can up the speed a bit.
  4. Gently pour the melted butter and chocolate down the side of the bowl and fold in. Do this thoroughly - until the mixture is even in colour - it takes a while and it will feel like it is never going to happen but it will eventually!
  5. Sift over the almonds, flour and a ¼ tsp salt and fold in.
  6. Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake until done. The original recipe says 30-35 mins but this wasn't enough for me - I needed an hour - although I do suspect my cake tin is slightly smaller than 23cm. The cake will rise and the top will be set. As this is squidgy, a skewer inserted in the cake will come out slightly moist with some crumbs attached.
  7. Cool the cake in its tin on a rake (it may sink and/or crack).
  8. To make the ganache, bring the cream to the boil on the stove and pour over the roughly chopped chocolate and icing sugar (always make sure to sift this). Leave for 5 minutes and then stir until all the chocolate is melted. Leave to cool and thicken (I ended up putting this in the fridge) before spreading over the cake.
  9. Sprinkle with pomegranate seeds and serve with cream.
https://eatingadelaide.com/squidgy-chocolate-torte/

 

 

Beef Salad with Horseradish

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment
Beef Salad
Beef salad with horseradish dressing

Beef and horseradish is one of my favourite things. However, it’s not something I’d associate with salad. More with a massive roasted joint of meat, lots of crispy, beautifully rendered and seasoned fat served with lots of roast vege and maybe even Yorkshire puddings.

Weather-wise, we’re not quite into roasted meat territory here. But this salad is a great way of enjoying beef and horseradish even if you’re cooking on the BBQ. It doesn’t need to be served hot – we had this as part of our Easter feast and the meat was cooked in advance and left to rest. The salad (bar the avocado) was prepped in advance, as was the dressing. This meant when it came to serving, all I had to do was cut the meat and the avocado and we were good to go.

I daresay this is pretty healthy but it’s also delicious and easy. I recommend cutting the onion and cucumber using a mandolin – otherwise slice as finely as possible. You might want to hold off chopping the cherry tomatoes until the last minute too.

This recipe is based on one I found on Taste. I’ve made changes to suit the household’s preferences.

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Beef Salad with Horseradish

Ingredients

  • 600-800g beef - we use rump or sirloin
  • ¼ cup sour cream
  • horseradish to taste
  • lime juice
  • 1 bag of mixed salad leaves
  • ¼ continental cucumber, finely sliced
  • ½ red onion, finely sliced
  • ½ punnet of cherry tomatoes
  • 1 avocado

Instructions

  1. Get the steak out of the fridge around half an hour before cooking. Heat your favourite steak cooking pan with fat of choice (we use olive oil, my parents swear by a mix of olive oil and butter). Season the steak well and cook in the hot pan until done to your liking. Don't over crowd the pan - if you've got closer to 800g of steak you'll need to do at least 2 batches.
  2. Set the steak aside to rest (covered with tin foil).
  3. To make the dressing, mix the sour cream, horseradish and lime juice. This is a thick dressing - not a pourable one - so you don't have to add loads of lime juice.
  4. To create the salad, in a large bowl toss the leaves, onion and cucumber. Spread evenly over a large serving platter. Before serving add the sliced avocado and the quartered cherry tomatoes.
  5. Finely slice the beef and add this to the top of the salad. Dot the dressing over and serve immediately.
  6. Pass the dressing separately so people can add more if they wish.
https://eatingadelaide.com/beef-salad-horseradish/

Longview Vineyard: Piece Project

- Alex Prichard 2 Comments

20160124_151355Disclaimer: I was a guest of Longview at Crush

Every January the Adelaide Hills hosts the Crush festival. It’s held across a weekend and there are a variety of ticketed and non ticketed events.

The Adelaide Hills is, geographically, a pretty big region and it’s best to get a handle on that and the distances involved before committing yourself to a manic schedule.

Now we have Master 5 in tow we’ve found that finding ONE family friendly venue and making that our only stop is definitely the way to go. Last year we really enjoyed Pony in the Vines at Tomich and we would have done that again had I note received an invitation to Longview.

Longview is at Macclesfield – closer to home for us but well out of the way of the area with the densest concentration of wineries.

Longview’s Crush USP is that it hosts the Piece Project. The Piece is Longview’s flagship Shiraz and the Piece Project pits four street artists against one another in a competition to create the wine’s label. Punters get to watch the artists in action and there was also a display of winning art works from previous years.

It was a perfect day for it – clear blue skies but not too hot. When we arrived (about an hour into things) the car park area was busy but not out of control. 

One thing that was a bit disappointing was that, as we wandered up to the main area, we were stopped and asked if we had any drinks with us. With small child in tow OF COURSE we had his drink bottle with us and we were told to take that back to the car. While I absolutely appreciate that they don’t want people bringing their own wine, beer or even soft drinks (all of which were available to purchase), the water thing might have been a touch heavy handed!

There was plenty of shade to be had – a huge marquee was set with casual tables but it was pretty noisy with the DJ so we found ourselves a quieter spot under a big gum tree. The cellar door was operating, along with some outside bars, and there was no wait for drinks. We started with glasses of the Wagtail Brut before deciding it was time to check out the food.

pulled pork burger
pulled pork burger


The food was ‘low and slow’ BBQ style but what really impressed me was that the kitchen area was set up to deal with large numbers of people quickly. Even though there was a reasonable queue, I was in the line for a very short amount of time. I thought that the approach of offering smaller portions of food (for less money) was excellent.

At too many festivals, you find yourself parting with in excess of $10 for a not overly generous plate of food, only to find yourself a bit peckish at the next venue and going through the whole rigmarole again. At Longview, most of the dishes were around $4-5. We tried a hot dog and a pulled pork burger. There was also macaroni cheese and a larger (and more expensive) brisket option. The hot dog was just a hot dog but the pulled pork got the thumbs up.

Longview’s one of a handful of Adelaide Hills wineries making Grüner Veltliner so I tried that while Andy tried the Shiraz Cabernet. Of course, a day out a festival is not a time for serious wine tasting but these things always make me realise how I should try just a bit harder to become super familiar with the wines on my doorstep*.

After a couple of hours, and a boysenberry ice cream for Master 5, it was time for us to head home. We appear to have perfected our approach to Crush and we had another enjoyable day out. Children will love watching the street artists work and there is plenty of space to spread out and enjoy your food and wine.

You don’t have to wait til next January to enjoy a day out at Longview. The cellar door is open 11-5 daily and if you plan and book in advance, you can head down for Sunday tapas year round.

Longview Vineyard
Pound Road
Macclesfield SA 5153