Caroline Eden’s red, hot and cool strawberries
The tiny pea-sized strawberries that grow in the Kure Mountains close to Safranbolu in Turkey are so much more flavourful than the plastic-looking strawberries 10 times their size that supermarkets favour. They reminded me of an unusual strawberry pudding we’d enjoyed in summertime Istanbul. It was simple, thick yogurt with a chilli strawberry compote on top – sweet, hot and cool.
Serves 4
dried árbol chilli or similar 1
strawberries 200g, rinsed, hulled and chopped into 1-2cm pieces
caster sugar 50g
lemon juice a squeeze (optional)
thick yogurt 150g
cream cheese 150g
mint leaves to decorate
First, cut open the chilli, taking off the stem and discarding the seeds. Toast the chilli, opened flat out, in a hot, dry pan until the nutty aroma is released, then place the chilli in a mortar and crush it with a pestle.
Next, place the hulled strawberries in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add the chilli to the strawberries, leaving out any larger uncrushed pieces, along with the sugar, and stir to combine. Heat the mixture over a fairly high heat until the sugar melts and starts to bubble. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally and keeping an eye on it – be ready to remove the mixture sooner if the strawberries start collapsing. You want the strawberries to roughly keep their shape. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. If it’s too sweet, add a little squeeze of lemon to counter excessive sweetness.
While the strawberries are cooking, whisk together the yogurt and cream cheese in a mixing bowl until smooth. Then cover the bowl and place in the fridge to chill.
When the strawberries are cool and you’re ready to serve, fill 4 tumblers or small bowls with the yogurt mixture and spoon over the chilli-strawberries. Top with some whole mint leaves.
From Black Sea by Caroline Eden (Quadrille, £25)
Nigella Lawson’s instant chocolate mousse
Normally, you need to make chocolate mousse a good few hours, or better still a day, before you want to eat it, so that the egg yolk sets and the whisked whites permeate everything with air bubbles. Forget that: here we have no yolks, no whites, no whisking, no waiting.
Lack of raw egg, incidentally, also means that you might be happier giving this mousse to small children, though I certainly feel they shouldn’t be the only beneficiaries.
Serves 4-6
mini marshmallows 150g
butter 50g, softened
good dark chocolate 250g (minimum 70% cocoa solids), chopped into small pieces
hot water 60ml, from a recently boiled kettle
double cream 1 x 284ml tub
vanilla extract 1 tsp
Put the marshmallows, butter, chocolate and water in a heavy-based saucepan.
Put the saucepan on the hob, over heat, though keep it fairly gentle, to melt the contents, stirring every now and again. Remove from the heat.
Meanwhile, whip the cream with the vanilla extract until thick, and then fold into the cooling chocolate mixture until you have a smooth, cohesive mixture.
Pour or scrape into 4 glasses or ramekins, about 175ml each in capacity, or 6 smaller (125ml) ones, and chill until you want to eat. The sooner the better!
From Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson (Chatto & Windus, £25)
Uyen Luu’s banana fritters
My mum used to make banana fritters often as a frugal, simple, use-up-bananas, easy-to-please dessert. They’re coconutty and crisp on the outside, yet sweet and meltingly soft on the inside. This is a lovely dessert to share after a dinner party – though I could actually eat all these up in front of the television, as quiet as anything. And though I like to serve them straightaway after cooking, they’re also good cold, or reheated in the oven. The batter can be used to make pineapple or other fruit fritters.
Serves 4-6
rice flour 200g
coconut milk 400ml
light brown sugar 70g, or maple syrup
vanilla extract 1 tsp
just-ripe bananas 6
coconut oil 4 tbsp, or vegetable oil
ice-cream to serve (optional)
In a large bowl, mix together the rice flour, coconut milk, sugar and vanilla extract until it forms a smooth batter.
Cut the bananas in half widthways, then halve each piece of banana lengthways.
On medium, heat a frying pan with about 4 tablespoons of oil. In batches, coat some of the bananas in the bowl of batter then gently fry until golden, turning occasionally. This should take about 2-3 minutes on each side.
Set aside on kitchen paper and serve hot with ice-cream.
Uyen Luu is a food writer, and the author of My Vietnamese Kitchen (Ryland, Peters & Small, £16.99)
Ravneet Gill’s mochi
Despite being around sweet things all day as a pastry chef, I never pass up the opportunity to eat more sugar. Recently in Cambodia I went on a cookery course and we made these mochi for dessert and I haven’t stopped thinking about them since. They’re really quick and easy to make, and you really don’t need any fancy equipment; if you don’t have scales, use a tablespoon. Start off by measuring out equal quantities of glutinous rice flour and water in tablespoons, adding the water a little at a time until you reach a slightly wet dough consistency.
Glutinous rice flour is available online, or from Chinese and Japanese supermarkets; it’s relatively cheap, about £1-£1.50 for a 500g bag. You can fill the mochi with whatever you like – chocolate, palm sugar, crunchy peanut butter, tahini etc. My favourite filling is palm sugar as it retains its shape after cooking and stays crunchy, which is a nice contrast to the sticky outside. How much filling you need will depend on what you use, but will be between 2-5g per 10g of mochi dough.
This recipe makes about 16-17 small balls, and I find two or three per person is a good serve.
Serves 6-8
glutinous rice flour 145g
salt ¼ tsp
caster sugar 1 tbsp
water 120ml
fillings of your choice 32-85g, chocolate chips, palm sugar, crunchy peanut butter, tahini
toasted sesame seeds or desiccated coconut to garnish
Place the glutinous rice flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Stir the dry ingredients together.
Add the water, keeping a little bit back at first, and mix with a spoon until a rough dough forms (you may need to add a touch more water). Turn the dough out onto a clean workbench and knead for a few minutes. It will feel a bit like Play-Doh, and will become smooth.
Portion the dough out equally – use a scale if you want them all to be the same; 10g works nicely.
Take a chunk of your chosen filling – it should be the same size as a small chocolate chip – and stuff this inside your portioned dough. Roll into a ball.
Bring a large pan of water to a rolling boil and gently drop in the balls. Cook until they start to float to the top (4-6 minutes). Plunge straight into ice cold water. Remove from the water and sprinkle with your chosen garnish.
Ravneet Gill is a pastry chef and the founder of Countertalk
Claire Thomson’s marzipan and roasted nectarine cake
I’ve always hated marzipan as a thick slice between the Christmas cake and the fondant icing. Chopped small and cooked in a cake batter, however, the marzipan here does something wonderful to the cake, turning fudgy, sweet and unmistakably almondy.
Makes one 22cm cake
butter 120g, softened, plus extra for greasing
eggs 2, lightly beaten
caster sugar 120g, plus an extra 2 tbsp to toss and sprinkle
plain flour 120g
ground almonds 50g
baking powder 1 tsp
salt a pinch
plain yogurt 100g
marzipan 100g, cold, finely chopped
ripe nectarines 2, halved, stoned and sliced
icing sugar to dust
Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5. Grease a 22cm springform cake tin and line with greaseproof paper.
Put all the ingredients apart from the marzipan, nectarines and icing sugar into a food processor and pulse until smooth. Stir in the marzipan and spoon the batter into the prepared tin.
Toss the nectarine slices with 1 tablespoon of sugar and lay them on top of the cake batter.
Sprinkle with 1 more tablespoon of sugar and bake for about 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing, then peel off the paper and slide the cake on to a plate. Dust lightly with icing sugar before serving.
From The Art of the Larder by Claire Thomson (Quadrille, £25)
