Instant Entertaining

Donna Hays Instant Entertaining is must have cook book for an easy yet stunning entertaining menu.

Ingredients
1 cup parmesan cheese, grated
2 red apples, thinly sliced
80g rocket leaves, washed
1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
sea salt
cracked black pepper
150 g goat's cheese

Directions
Preheat oven to 180degC and arrange 8 x 1 1/2 tablespoons of parmesan in circles on a baking tray lined with non stick baking paper and bake for 10 minutes or until crispy. Set aside to cool.

Toss the apple and rocket in the combined vinegar, oil, salt and pepper. Arrange on serving plates with the goat's cheese and parmesan wafers.

Recipe and image from Donna Hay Instant Entertaining

Superb Marinated Pork Fillet

Roasted on Rhubarb

This is one of favorite no time to cook recipes you can prepare earlier in the day and when your ready to eat put in the oven for ½ an hour. If you can find rhubarb wedged apple works well too. I have also used chicken fillets as well, cut in half length ways, but you may need to vary cooking time.

1 large handful of fresh sage
2 cloves garlic, peeled
olive oil
2 pork fillets, trimmed
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
10 slices of prosciutto
12 long sticks of baby rhubarb, washed

First bash up half your sage with a pestle and mortar or use a metal bowl with a rolling pin. Add your garlic and smash. Add 5 tablespoons of olive oil, then rub the mixture all over your pork fillets and allow to marinate for an hour if possible.

Preheat the oven to 220c. Lightly season the pork and drape 5 slices of prosciutto over each fillet - any excess marinade can be rubbed onto this as well.

Cut your rhubarb into finger-sized pieces and place in an appropriately sized roasting tray (preferably not aluminium as it will taint the rhubarb) i have also used wedges of apple when rhubarb unavailable. Place the pork on top of the rhubarb, almost tucking it into bed. Sprinkle over the rest of your sage leaves and drizzle with olive oil.

Get yourself a piece of greaseproof paper, wet it and scrunch it up. Then lay it over the meat and tuck it in round the sides. Cook in the preheated oven 15 minutes, then remove the paper and cook for an extra 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to rest for about 5 minutes. Pour any juice that comes out of the meat back into the roasting tray. Serve the meat with the rhubarb, the lovely juices from the tray and roast potatoes.

Recipe Jamie Oliver

Baked goat's curd and lemon tartlets

with blackberry and honey ice-cream
Serves 8

Tartlets
180 gm goat’s curd
100 ml pouring cream
2 eggs
55 gm (¼ cup) caster sugar
1 lemon, finely grated rind and juice only
For dusting: icing sugar

Blackberry and honey ice-cream
80 ml (1/3 cup) milk
4 egg yolks
35 gm caster sugar
30 gm honey
250 ml (1 cup) pouring cream
50 gm blackberries

Shortcrust pastry
75 gm caster sugar
300 gm plain flour
150 gm unsalted butter, coarsely chopped
125 ml (½ cup) pouring cream
1 egg yolk, whisked


For blackberry and honey ice-cream, heat milk in a saucepan and bring almost to the boil. Combine egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and whisk until thick and pale, then gradually whisk in hot milk. Return mixture to pan and stir over low heat for 2 minutes or until mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Do not boil. Remove from heat, add honey, then strain through a fine sieve into a bowl and cool. Add cream and blackberries. Pour into an ice-cream machine and churn according to manufacturer’s instructions. Freeze ice-cream until required. Makes about 800ml.

For pastry, combine sugar and flour in a bowl and, using fingertips, rub in butter until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add cream and mix until combined. Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth. Form into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly grease eight 9cm-diameter loose bottomed tart tins. Cut pastry into eight pieces and, working with a piece at a time, keeping remaining pieces in the refrigerator, roll out pastry onto a lightly floured work surface to 5mm-thick. Line a prepared tart tin with pastry, prick base with a fork and return to fridge. Repeat with remaining pastry. Place pastry-lined tart tins on an oven tray, line with baking paper, weight with pastry weights or rice and bake blind for 15 minutes or until lightly golden. Remove paper and bake for another 10 minutes or until pastry is golden and dry. Brush with egg yolk and cook for another minute.

Reduce oven temperature to 160C. Combine goat’s curd, cream, eggs, sugar and lemon rind and juice in a jug, then pour into prepared tartlet shells. Bake for 18 minutes or until set. Serve tarts at room temperature, dusted with icing sugar and blackberry and honey ice-cream to the side.

Gourmet Traveller Fare Exchange
RECIPE Jonathan Kemble, Star of Greece restaurant
PHOTOGRAPHY Brett Stevens STYLING Yael Grinham

Braised shank of lamb with parsnip purée

I love this particular cut, as it’s the part that people tend to forget. When I was little I grew up eating either leg of lamb or shank. The shank is a cheap, very earthy cut of meat and easy to cook, as you can start it off and then forget about it for a few hours. It benefits from a slow cooking process - the longer you cook it the better. During the process you can actually watch the meat slide down the shank, and the bone is great for presentation. If you’re not a confident cook, this is a good cut to start with. Why serve it with parsnips? Well, I’m fed up with potatoes always being served with lamb. The sweetness of the purée really cuts through the richness of the meat. Parsnip goes hand in glove with lamb - two of the cheapest ingredients and they sit beautifully together. Words by Gordon Ramsay

Serves 4

Olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 small lamb shanks
1 carrot, roughly chopped
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 leek, roughly chopped
1 celery stick, roughly chopped
½ a head of garlic
A sprig of fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
a sprig of fresh rosemary
2 star anise
300ml dry white wine
1 litre chicken stock (see recipe under stock)

Parsnip purée
100g butter
4 large parsnips, peeled and chopped
100ml double cream
Sea salt and freshly
ground black pepper


1 Heat a little olive oil in a large pan. Season the lamb shanks and brown them all over in the oil, then remove from the pan and set aside. Add a little more oil to the pan, add the chopped vegetables, garlic, herbs and anise, and cook gently until browned. Pour in the wine and cook until it has reduced down to a syrup. Put the shanks back into the pan and pour on the stock. Season to taste.

2 Cover the pan and cook gently for 2½-3 hours until the meat is tender and falls off the bone. About 30 minutes before the end of the cooking time, make the parsnip purée. Melt the butter in a frying pan over a low heat and cook the parsnips until completely soft and falling apart (about 25 minutes). Add the cream and bring to the boil. Season, then liquidise to a smooth purée. Keep warm.

3 Remove the lamb shanks from their liquid and keep warm. Strain the stock, pour it back into the pan and cook over a high heat until it forms a sauce consistency. Serve each shank with a good spoonful of the parsnip purée, and pour over the sauce. Lovely with some simple steamed broccoli or green beans.

Extracted from Kitchen Heaven by Gordon Ramsay,

Gourmet Baked Mushroom on Sourdough

I have used this recipe as a starter for a dinner party, a light meal and it would also make a fab breky with some crispy pancetta on the side. This recipe was sorced from Taste magazine

Bash olive oil, garlic and basil.

Brush flat mushrooms with basil oil and season with salt & pepper. Place two halved cherry tomatoes cut side up on mushroom and bake in oven for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile: brush a slice of sourdough or pane de casa bread with basil oil. Bake in oven for 6 minutes.

Place rocket on bread then mushroom. Sprinkle with crumbled feta and drizzle with basil oil.

Garnish with basil leaves.

I don't know where is recipe came from.