Here are our favourite recipes containing a spalsh (or more) of some of our favourite tipples. Call it alcohol, booze, liquor or liqueurs, a little fermented or distilled juice can add zing to many sweet and savoury recipes. to be on the safe side, think of these as adults only recipes.
Chocolate mousse has never gone out of fashion because it simply tastes so good (and is so easy to make). The trick to good mousse is keeping it as light as possible, so when adding the egg white and cream gently fold it in without stirring more than necessary, better to have a slight unevenness […]
Zabaglione Zabaglione is a deliciously frothy combination of egg, sugar and wine that’s best eaten as soon as it’s made. It originated in Italy hundreds of years ago and migrated to France where it became known as sabayon. Sicily’s famous fortified wine, Marsala, is often used to make zabaglione, though any dessert wine works well […]
I love the simplicity of these poached pears that Janni Kyritsis taught me to make many years ago. At MG Garage, he served them alongside a delicate cardamom-scented blancmange made with yoghurt – I like them with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream or dollop of Chantilly cream, or just on their own for […]
Coppa di Mascarpone This simple dessert was a fixture on Italian restaurant menus in the ‘70s and ‘80s but seems to have fallen from favour now, replaced I suspect by the more complex tiramisu. While tiramisu is an excellent dessert (and you can see my recipe here), this simpler version is a great quick standby, […]
Deep-Fried Ice Cream Like most Anglo-Celtic Aussies growing up in the 1970s, Chinese was the first foreign food I ever tasted and, at the time, frying ice cream was about as exotic a thing as I could imagine. Thankfully Chinese food in Australia has come a long way since then, but humour me and try […]
Cranachan Cranachan, a combination of oats, raspberries, whisky and honey (ideally heather honey, which is available online from Gourmet Life), is the most typical Scottish dessert. A bit like a Scottish Eton mess, these days it’s usually made with whipped cream, though traditionally Scotland’s cottage cheese, crowdie, was used, giving it a more lactic tang. […]
Duck a l’Orange I love this easy version of the classic duck à l’orange. It’s inspired by Pierre Koffman’s recipe for wild duck in orange sauce in Memories of Gascony and is simpler than most because it doesn’t require stock, just fresh orange juice. When they’re in season, I love to use Peter Dryden’s Poorman’s […]
Soup, bread, cheese: three of my favourite comfort foods. I especially love French onion soup because it combines all three! Beef stock is considered the traditional base, but I’ve also successfully used chicken stock or even just water. If you use the stock leftover from poaching veal for vitello tonnato, the vinegar cuts through some […]
Swiss Kaffee Fertig Adding alcohol to coffee is popular in many cultures. Caffè corretto (coffee ‘corrected’ with a nip of grappa) is a common way to start the day in Italy, in France it’s pousse-café and in Spain, carajillo. The Swiss drink kaffee fertig (‘finished coffee’) at any time of day; and call it kafi […]
Swiss Vermicelles One of the easiest Swiss desserts is chestnut puree on crisp meringue topped with whipped cream; it’s also popular in France, where it’s called Mont Blanc (or la torche aux marrons in Alsace). A potato ricer, typically used to crush potato for gnocchi or potato puree, is perfect for making the long thin […]
