Green Bean Salad

I have often been told that the recipes I describe as "easy" are anything but.  However, this time, I bring you a recipe that is really, truly super simple.  I promise.  It also has the benefit of being zesty and a crowd pleaser at a BBQ - having tested it out this weekend, I can attest to that!

This recipe is my attempt at recreating the green bean and pistachio oil salad introduced to me at Camont by Kate Hill.  I'm not sure I can top the atmosphere, but this turned out pretty well.  I guess the only trick to the recipe is sourcing the pistacho oil, which you can buy at Essential Ingredient and the Italian Deli at the Fyshwick Markets.  It jazzes up a salad dressing beautifully.





Green Bean and Pistachio Oil Salad

Ingredients
- 800 grams crispy, fresh green beans
- 1/4 cup pinenuts
- 3 tablespoons pistachio oil
- 1/2 lemon
- pinch of sea salt

Select the freshest, crispiest green beans you can find and don't forget to pick up some pistachio oil where you can.  This is the secret ingredient for this recipe.







Chop the ends off the green beans and drop them in a pot of boiling water.  Watch them carefully - you don't want them to go soggy.  This should take around 5-8 minutes.

While the beans are cooking, put your pinenuts in a glass or ceramic bowl and pop in the microwave on high for 1 minute.  You may need a second minute to roast them until they're golden brown but it will depend on the strength of your microwave.  Allow them to cool in the hot bowl, as they will continue to crisp up.

Drain the green beans in a colander.  You don't want them to keep cooking, so run them under cold water.



While the beans are still warm, place them in a large salad bowl and drizzle the pistachio oil over the top.  Squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the top and then grate the zest of the lemon over the top.  Finally, sprinkle the pinenuts over the salad and serve immediately.  The lemon and pistachio scents will waft up with the steam and beg you to eat them.

Penny's Lemon and Coconut Tart

Today's post started with an invitation to dinner at a friend's house.  I had volunteered to make dessert and thought it was time to dust off the tart cases I had purchased about ten years ago at a closing down sale and had never used.

My friend Penny makes a mean lemon and coconut tart, which she very kindly brought along to dinner at my place not long ago.  She even swore it was super-duper easy!  Suddenly I thought... lemon tart + unused tart cases = a moment of genius.  The plan also had the benefit of using shredded coconut, which is officially my new favourite thing (as you might have guessed from the number of recipes featuring coconut in recent times on Four Figs).

Penny's recipe is of the never-fail kind, something I know I appreciate and thought you might too.  It's always great to have a dessert that can be made in a pinch from pantry basics - lemons, flour, butter, sugar, eggs and shredded coconut straight out of the cupboard.  And given that this was a non-pay week, it also has the benefit of being quite an economical option.  The only thing I had to purchase was plain yoghurt.

Now, I am not much of a natural pastry maker.  As a result, I took a pastry making course at Podfood (now 3 Seeds) a while ago.  To be honest, this recipe was my first ever stab at shortcrust pastry since the class I took in November last year.  I used the 3 Seeds recipe for sweet shortcrust rather than the one from Penny's recipe largely because I had seen it made, so I thought I might have a better chance of success.  I am not sure if this was a stellar example of pastry-making skills, but it didn't turn out to be completely inedible and the only way is up from here.  The cases shrunk a little at the sides, which meant the filling dripped over the edge a little bit in places.  Not that this made it any less delicious!

The filling recipe Penny recommended came from the Marie Claire Kitchen Cookbook - and Penny was right, the filling is perfectly stress-free after the (what I regard as) stressful process of making the tart cases.  If you're after the super-duper easy version, by all means buy the pre-made pastry cases in the freezer section of your supermarket and blind bake away.  I know I had one waiting just in case the homemade shortcrust pastry completely tanked.

Lemon and Coconut Tart

Ingredients

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry Cases (care of 3 Seeds)
-  2 cups plain flour
-  1/4 cup icing sugar
-  180 grams unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
-  approximately 3-5 tablespoons chilled water

Lemon and Coconut Filling (care of Penny and the Marie-Claire Kitchen Cookbook)
-  125 grams unsalted butter, softened
-  350 grams caster sugar
-  4 eggs
-  150 grams plain yoghurt
-  3 tablespoons lemon juice, fresh (I got this from one lemon - but juiciness varies!)
-  2 tablespoons lemon zest (the zest of two medium-sized lemons)
-  1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
-  1 cup shredded coconut (you can also use the same amount of desiccated coconut)

Take out your 125 grams of unsalted butter for the filling and allow to soften on the bench.  This is also a good time to remove your 4 eggs from the fridge so they can come to room temperature.  Now, preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celcius and grease your tart tins (either two smaller tart cases or one large 25 cm tart tin).  I used tins that have a removable base, which really helped with getting the tarts out of their cases later on.

Dust off your food processor and set it up on the bench - the shortcrust it fairly quick when you use the processor.  The trick is to make sure the butter and water you are going to use are chilled in the fridge before you start.  Now pop your flour, icing sugar and butter in the processor and process until it looks a lot like coarse breadcrumbs.  While it's processing drizzle in the chilled water a tablespoon at a time until the pastry forms a ball in the processor.  Stop immediately once this happens.  Cover the ball in cling film and put it into the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.

Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll it out on a floured bench.  You need to put quite a bit of flour on the bench (which should be cleaned beforehand) and on your rolling pin so the pastry doesn't stick to either the bench or the pin.  Roll it out as thinly as possible, I managed about 3 millimetres.

Next, drape the pastry over the tart case/s and gently press it in until it lines the tin.  Cut off the excess and prick the base of the tart case with a fork.  Place the tart case/s back in the fridge for 30 minutes, or in the freezer for 15 minutes.  This will help the cases hold their shape in the oven, so it's worth the extra time and fuss.  Go make yourself a cup of tea or put on a load of washing.

Now, cut some baking paper to into a circle a bit wider than the circumference of the tart case and crush it up as if you were going to ball up a piece of paper to go in the bin.  I didn't do this with my cases, but read about this tip afterwards and I can see it would make it much easier.  Uncrush the paper and pop the baking paper in the cases then add rice to weight the tart case.  Bake in the oven for approximately 15 minutes or until cooked through but not too brown.  Remove the cases from the oven and cool on racks.  Don't turn off the oven - you'll need it for the next step.

You can make the filling with either a hand beater or a fixed stand mixer like a Kitchenaid.  First cream the butter and sugar until its light and aerated.  Add the eggs one at a time until combined, then add the yoghurt, lemon juice, zest and vanilla paste.  Finally, stir in the coconut and then pour into the cooled pastry cases.  These go back into the oven for a further 30 minutes at 180 degrees Celcius.  You'll know when they're ready as the filling will brown on top and be firm to the touch.  Remove and cool on racks before attempting to remove from their cases.  A great tip from the Kitchen cookbook is to stand the cases on an upturned medium-sized bowl and allow the rim of the case to fall away.

I sliced the tart and served it with a dusting of icing sugar and a sprinkling of toasted unsweetened shredded coconut.  The Red Avenger contributed some delicious vanilla cheesecake ice cream to accompany the dessert which complemented the lemon-tart flavours perfectly.

Lemon Curd and Citrus Cupcakes

Good friends are wonderful to have in your life - but good friends with lemon trees in their backyard are priceless.

I was lucky enough to recently be invited to dinner at the home of the lovely Ruth to enjoy an incredible meal featuring the lemons from her own tree...and I walked away with an armful of juicy, yellow fruit.  (It should be noted that the champagne and homemade guacamole were also highlights.  And I am still dreaming of the chicken with one hundred cloves of garlic.)

So, as a woman in possession of a bowl of lemons, I pondered what on earth to do with them, other than to admire how pretty they looked on my bench.

Some of you will recall my gluten-free lemon curd cheesecake, which was made with lemon curd bought on a trip to Beechworth last year. It was certainly very tasty, but didn't have a patch on the homemade lemon curd the Divine Ms CR (aka Baking Queen) brought round to my house not long ago and drizzled on some meringues. Now, the recipe the Baking Queen recommended was from Stephanie Alexander's Cook's Companion. Voila! This was how I was going to spend my Sunday morning.

Stephanie's recipe is very straightforward - just the way a good recipe should be.  She notes that, because of the citrus juice and sugar in the recipe, there's absolutely no need to worry about curdling, so don't bother fussing with double boilers.  If my lemon curd was anything to go by, she is absolutely right.  It was so simple, in fact, that I am planning on experimenting with other citrus flavours, just to mix it up a bit in future.

The one thing I would note is that the quantities of lemon curd produced by following the below recipe weren't huge - barely enough to fill a very small jar - so if you were planning on making enough to frost-and-fill the cupcake recipe I have included, then you should make double (or even triple, if you love lemon curd) the quantity outlined below.  I had to restrain myself from sitting down with the jar and a very large spoon, so I doubt any leftovers will go to waste!

Finally, once you have a jar (or two) of lemon curd in the fridge - where they'll keep for a couple of weeks - the next question is what to serve it with.  You can certainly use it like jam, smearing it over toast for a sweet morning treat.  Another classic is to make (or buy) shortcrust tart cases, whip some cream and serve them filled with a spoonful of curd, a dab of cream and a strawberry on top.

Once I have my lemon curd ready to go, I decided some cupcakes were in order for the office morning tea.  They're always a hit, require no slicing up, are easy for colleagues to eat at the desk and require zero washing up of plates and knives.

The inspiration for the cupcakes came from Ryan Bakes, my new favourite food blog.  (The link is over there on the left...)  As Ryan did in one of her cupcake recipes, I used lemon zest and juice for the vanilla extract for flavouring, but unlike her recipe, I used duck eggs (thank you, Kylie!) and self-raising flour for convenience.   Don't worry - large chicken eggs will work just as well!

To serve, I hollowed out a small well in the centre of the cupcake and filled it with curd, using the overflow like frosting on top.  The curd's sweet-sourness cuts through the crumbly sweetness of the cake beautifully.  In the pictures in the blog, I have drizzled a tablespoon of cream over the top for presentation, but the ones I took to work just used the curd and they were absolutely a hit.

Lemon Curd

Ingredients
-  4 egg yolks
-  2/3 cup caster sugar (I used raw sugar which gave the curd a darker colour)
-  100ml lemon juice
-  60g unsalted butter
-  2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (I might have added the zest of an entire lemon...sorry Stephanie)

Beat the sugar and eggs together - they don't have to be creamy, just combined.  Put into a saucepan, throw in your cubed butter, lemon juice and zest.  Put on a medium-high heat and stir constantly until it starts to bubble (around 5 mins).  Take of the heat at that point - it should have begun to thicken - and allow to cool.

Transfer to sterilised jar/s (I threw mine into some boiling water while I made the curd) and pop in the fridge for up to two weeks.  See?  Incredibly simple!

Citrus Cupcakes

Ingredients
-  1 cup softened butter (feel free and use salted if you like, as I omit salt in the recipe)
-  2 cups white sugar
-  4 eggs (I used duck, or you can use large chicken eggs)
-  3 cups self raising flour
-  1 cup milk (I'd love to try this recipe with buttermilk instead... next time)
-  1/4 cup lemon juice
-  2 teaspoons lemon zest

First off, preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcius and line two muffin tins with your pretty cupcake papers (recipe makes 24, so you'll need two trays of 12).

Next cream the butter and sugar until it fluffs up - I use my stand mixer, but a hand held electric beater will do the trick too.  Add your eggs one at a time, and make sure they're all combined before you add the next one in.

Now add the flour in three lots, alternating with half the milk between each.  Don't set the beater too high or spend too long mixing it or else it will end up pretty tough, and not at all the light-and-fluffy we are going for.  Add in your juice and zest and mix just until combined.

Fill your patty cases - the best ones were those I filled to the half-way point.  Now, bake in the over for around 15-20 minutes and make sure they're cooked by inserting a skewer or toothpick.

Wait for them to cool (I turn mine out on wire racks), then hollow out a small hole in the centre with a teaspoon, fill with lemon curd and smear another teaspoon of lemon curd on top like frosting.  These are good to go just like this, or if you want to schmancy them up, drizzle a teaspoon of cream over the top.