A good cake and a tasty dinner
A few tasty, simple recipes to make this last weekend of January.
Hello! What are we cooking this weekend? Did last week's bumper 'progressive dinner' post inspire any cooking/walking adventures? I hope so. If not, or if you are still thinking or planning, below is a bit more inspiration to hopefully get you over the line.
This really is such a fun way to catch up, and if you divvy up the stops/jobs, it’s doable (on your street, in your building, in the hood, at the local park, whatever).
Also, today, if you scroll down, here are a few good things we made last weekend and you might like to try this one? All were easy to pull together and very tasty, making the people in my house (and me) very happy. Isn't that what cooking is supposed to do?
The pork belly and crispy rice salad feel celebratory and quite fancy, but they are truly easy and tasty. That salad was a major winner. We all loved it.
And for dessert, maybe warm slices of strawberry loaf cake with a dollop of ice cream on top? Or just hand around some sweets and chocolates and save the cake for afternoon tea the next day? Just spitballing here.
Thank you so much for reading. I hope you try one or both of these this weekend. Have a goodie. Next week’s subscriber post is going down the ‘batch’ cooking road with a map for how to make then spin all the recipes into a bunch of dinners and lunches. There’s a long video too so if you want, we can cook it all together. See you back here in a week.
Sophie x
Here are some more tips on hosting progressive/walking dinner parties.
Erm…how about this lunch in a Scottish forest for an Autumnal take on a walking dinner?
And this dusky summer twilight situation looks pretty great too.
Also…how cool is Sweden’s Edible Country initiative? I’d love to see something like this here in Orange one day…
And now to the recipes. Here are three good things you might like to make this weekend…
Pork Belly Sisig with crispy rice
This recipe comes from my book What Can I Bring? Michelle Lim, a wonderful cook from Boorowa NSW, contributed it, along with a few others (thank you!). Lim brines the pork overnight and then cooks it on a charcoal barbecue.
I skipped the brining this time and cooked it in our wood-fired pizza oven, which was running super hot. So we cooked two pieces for about 15 minutes, then cut away the crackling and sliced the meat into 1-2cm pieces.
These went back into the oven for a few minutes to crisp up a bit. Then we dunked everything into the dipping sauce (which is so good it's almost drinkable) and served it with the crackling as a garnish, plus chopped salted peanuts, spring onions, etc. On the side was a tray of crispy rice salad (below).
For how to prepare and cook the pork belly, please check out last week's post; it's the fourth recipe down.
For the dipping sauce
1 cup (250 ml) soy sauce
3/4 cup (185 ml) sugarcane (or rice) vinegar
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 green chilli, finely chopped
5 kumquats, halved, or limes if they're not in season
When you're ready to cook the pork, heat a charcoal barbecue until the coals are smoking, or preheat your oven to 220C. If you have a wood-fired oven, get that cranking! Pour the dipping sauce into a large, high-sided serving tray.
Grill or roast the meat for 15-20 minutes, turning it halfway so it is cooked and caramelised on both sides.
Remove the pork from the heat, chop it into big chunks, reserving the crackling to chop and use as a garnish and dunk it straight into the tray of dipping sauce. Serve immediately.
Crispy Rice and Cucumber Salad
I have seen (and been inspired by) various versions of this all over Instagram recently and am so glad to have tried and added it into the ‘salads we love’ category. Truly it’s so easy and good…
Line a large baking tray with baking paper. Cook a couple of cups of rice in your rice cooker, using the absorption method, or however you prefer to cook rice. Spread the rice onto the tray and let it cool.
Preheat the oven to 220 and mix a couple of tablespoons of red curry paste through the rice (I find it easier to do this with my hands). I used one tablespoon of paste per cup of rice, but please adjust it to taste. Pop the tray in the oven and cook until the rice is crispy, about 25-30 minutes, tossing it all around halfway through.
Meanwhile, cut up three cucumbers into half moons, transfer to a bowl, add in a handful of coriander, chopped, a couple of spring onions, finely chopped and a handful of roasted, toasted peanuts, chopped.
I used Nuoc Cham for the dressing. To serve, I added the rice and tossed it by hand with the dressing, then transferred it to a nice serving plate.
So. SO. Good.
Strawberry and vanilla loaf cake
This is a beautiful plain loaf cake that would do well wrapped up and packed in a backpack with a thermos of iced mint tea for an excursion, maybe this weekend? Or as a cut-and-come-again cake for the tin?
The base recipe for this one comes from my book What Can I Bring and is probably the recipe I bake the most. Here it's gone all high summer with sweet little strawberries and vanilla.
I made this on Saturday. It was so windy, and we'd been out doing jobs on the farm all morning. The wind had made me a bit antsy, and making this cake, the repetition of a beloved recipe, filling the house with the smell of butter and sugar and then slicing into this soft, comforting loaf helped settle the nerves.
I hope you try this one; it's easy and go. You can swap the strawberries with soft (or poached) fruit or just make it plain vanilla.
Prep time: 25 mins
Cook time: 55–60 mins
1 cup (250 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
250 g caster (superfine) sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
200 g (11/3 cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
1 cup (100 g) almond meal
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
½ cup (125 ml) buttermilk
Zest and juice of one lemon
1 tsp vanilla paste
200g strawberries, washed, hulled and halved
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F), grease, and line a large 30 x 15cm (or thereabouts) loaf tin.
Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition (stop and scrape the side of the bowl down now and then if needed).
Combine the flour, almond meal, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl and whisk. Place the buttermilk in a jug and whisk in the vanilla.
Fold half the buttermilk and flour mixture into the butter mixture, then repeat with the remaining buttermilk and flour, then gently fold in the strawberries.
Transfer the mixture to your prepared tin and bake for 55–60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
