Baroque was originally (an often still is) used as a pejorative term to describe something that is overly flamboyant, excessive or highly ornamented.  I have had a culinary Baroque – anyone with enough time on their hands and a love of cooking probably has. It reached it’s peak around 10 years ago before being replaced with the Abstract Expressionism of parenthood. It entailed the construction of overly complex or otherwise excessive dishes: consommes nail-bitingly clarified with egg-whites, fiendishly complex curries, peking duck, vitello tonnato etc. Entire weekends would pass in the ongoing consumption of incredible food and assorted social lubricants. Laughter and hangovers were both abundant. On one memorable occassion we accidentally invited a couple of vegetarians to a kangaroo and beef themed Sunday lunch. At a friend’s dinner party the 14th and final course was a huge slab of Jindi Triple Brie which caused (and I kid you not)  30% of the substantial party present to, shall we say “retire” from the event. Now might be a good time to look at another work of Baroque art, Caravaggio’s David and Goliath.

This Winter Pear Flan is the sweet flowering of my personal baroque. It is an original recipe and I am, to be honest, very proud of it. I’m not going to lie and tell you how easy it is to make. It has a lot of components and each one has it’s own complexities and difficulties. You have to really pay attention. You have to get a lot of dishes dirty. And you will get very, very sticky. But I’m telling you, the combination of cloves and creme patissiere, the pears heady with bay and star anise and lightly glossy with a touch of honey,  the super short pastry crust – well, I’ll leave it your imagination. This is a dish to be used unwisely. Baroque, incidentally, means “a rough or imperfect pearl”. A perfect description of this dish.

Winter pear flan

For the pears:

• 6 pears, peeled and halved length ways. Choose pears that are only just under-ripe
• 4 cups of water
• 2 cups red wine
• 3 cups caster sugar
• 2 bay leaves
• 6 cardamon pods
• 2 star anise
• 10 whole cloves
• 6 peppercorns
• 1 cinnamon stick
• Piece of orange peel
• 1-2 tbsps LIGHTLY flavoured honey (omit this step if you only have a heavily flavoured honey available)

Bring all the ingredients apart from the pears and honey gently to a boil, stirring often so that the sugar doesn’t stick. Add pears to the syrup and keep the liquid to a gentle simmer. Poach until the pears are just soft. Gently remove the pears and boil the remaining syrup for around 20 mins to reduce it. Add the honey (don’t be tempted to use too much), remove from heat and stir until dissolved. Return pears to the syrup and set aside. Now it’s time to move on to the pastry.

For the pastry (do NOT use pre-prepared shortcrust for this, it would be a crime against the flan)

• 180g of unsalted butter
• 240 g of plain flour
• Pinch of salt
• 3 tablespoons of water

Take the butter from the fridge half an hour before starting. Sieve your flours and salt straight onto a lightly floured surface. Cut the butter into little pieces and rub into the flour to partly combine it. Make a well in the centre and add the water. Quickly work the mixture with pastry scrapers (I don’t have these so I use a cake server and a metal egg flip – classy!) and work into a rough heap of buttery lumps of dough. Stephanie Alexander says to be mindful of cement mixing techniques, if this helps. Then, very quickly use the palm of your hand to smear the pastry away from you across the workbench. It will combine lightly and be very fragile and dry. This is what you want. Gather it together, dust in flour, wrap in gladwrap and refrigerate for at least half an hour. The secret of shortcrust is to work it as little as possible and keep it cold so that the butter doesn’t over-combine with the flour. It will help to chill your bench down with ice packs beforehand if your workspace is too hot. Then move on to the creme patissiere.

For the Creme Patissiere

• 2 cups of milk
• 6 egg yolks
• 50g cornflour
• 175g caster sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, spilt
• 1/2 cup of thickened cream
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves

Place the vanilla bean in the milk and bring it just up to boiling point before removing it from the heat. Whisk the yolks, egg, cornflour and sugar together until thick. Slowly pour the milk on and stir. Transfer the mixture to a clean pan, bringing slowly to the boil and stirring until thick. Beat vigorously for one minute until smooth and then pass through a sieve. Discard the vanilla bean. Press glad wrap down onto the surface until ready to use. Before use stir through the thickened cream.

And finally…

Heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius and and line a flan tin with pastry. Place in the freezer for 20 minute and then cover the pastry in foil or baking paper weighed down with dried beans. Bake for 15 minutes, remove the paper and beans and bake for another 5 minutes until lightly golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool. When cooled spread with pastry cream and sprinkle with ground cloves. Remove the pears from the syrup and arrange in circles on the flan, decorate with the bay leaves, anise and some freshly zested orange. Chill before serving. Aaaaaahhhh. I’m exhausted……

The cuisines I most like to cook for people are all Asian, specifically south east Asian, Indian and Chinese. I love these foods, they are my culinary heartland. I love the cunningness of Chinese cooking, the mad combinations, the double cooking, the peculiar textures. I love the delicacy and balance of south east Asian food, finding the perfect balance on a narrow flavour profile where the slightest mis-step is the difference between sublime and banal, or even downright awful. I love how food from this region is created from stinking, pungent, difficult ingredients and transformed into something beautiful and sophisticated. It’s like starting with Courtney Love and ending up with Audrey Hepburn. I love the huge variety of spices and methods in Indian food, the profound sense of satisfaction in creating a curry paste from scratch and the total sensual immersion required to cook it well.

I love to cook bog-standard b-grade meals for my family on a nightly basis, to know that they are well fed and a bit more educated about the world of food. I love to cook for guests. When Pete has people to stay (usually old friends or Kendo players) I’m always seeking an opportunity to make them sit down for a meal I have cooked. But most of all I love to cook for special occasions and this is where I really shine – in the kind of meals that take at least a day to make. Blissful, complicated hours of dedication to food to be destroyed in a single act of consumption like the dissolution of a sand mandala. And here I have added a new weapon to my arsenal: I have all but mastered the art of making beautiful, light flaky south east Asian style Roti.

Roti take time and patience, but otherwise they are not too complicated. I have not yet mastered the art of throwing the bread like a proper roti-wallah, and given the way I nearly broke my wrists and dislocated my shoulder in the first attempt I probably never will. The tragically unskilled white girls way of doing it is serving me just fine so far. I should probably stop perving at the roti guy at Rich Maha, however. My interest may be misinterpreted. The secret is in the oil bath. The little balls of dough like to relax covered in oil. They need at least 4 hours. Seriously, don’t even bother trying less than this. My experience suggests they don’t like too much more than 8 hours, though, or they become too relaxed and can’t focus on the task at hand. Give these a try – they are delicious, impressive and will cause sighing, shivery delight among those you love.

Roti

• 3 1/4 cups plain white flour)
• 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 tbsp white sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tbsp milk
• 3/4 – 1 cup water
• About 1/2 cup of peanut oil, plus extra to cover. You could also use canola.

Sift the flour, salt and sugar into a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Make a well in the center and add the egg and milk before folding them into the dry ingredients.  Add  the water slowly while working the flour with your hand to form a moist, sticky dough. Knead for 5 to 10 minutes until the dough is soft and elastic. You’ll know when its there – if you’re having doubts, you’re not there yet and need to keep going. Cover the dough with a damp cloth or plastic wrap and let rest for a couple of hours.

When its had a nice rest,  pull off enough of the dough to form a round ball about the size of a lime. Knead until you get a smooth, creaseless ball. Place on a tray greased with oil and continue until you get about 12 balls. When you’re done, place them in a large shallow bowl and cover them with oil. Cover them with gladwrap and place them in a cool place for 4 – 8 hours. If they go into the fridge, take them out at least an hour before you plan to cook them. They will be much more relaxed and elastic at room temperture.

Oil a work surface and press a dough ball into a flat disc. The trick now is to stretch it as thinly as you possibly can, pulling, stretching, whatever, until it is  big flat sheet of super thin dough. You will find that it pulls back quickly and is thicker around the working edges. I guess this is where the proper roti throwing techniques would come into their own. When you’ve got it as thin as you can, hold it one hand so it hangs down in a long string and swirl it into a snail-shell like disc. Place on an oiled surface and continue until you have completed them all. Heat an iron pan or griddle over a medium heat and when hot pour a splash of oil on it.  Pick up one of your discs and flatten it out until its about 6 inches across. Remember they are very elastic and will contract very quickly. Shrinkage is completely normal. Fry on one side and then the other until golden brown.

The last and most fun step is to tale a piece of paper towel in each hand and hold the edges (not the surface) of the roti between your hands, resting it on the work bench. Then you are basically going to clap your hands together while rotating the disc around. Smash it this way a few times until it becomes flaky. You’ll figure it out.  Place the bread in a bowl lined with kitchen paper in a warm oven and repeat until finished.

Guava paste

I love quince paste. Love it. Make it every year. Hunted all over town and stood in front of my stove for 8 hours while 39 weeks pregnant and in the grip of some bizarre hormonal quince madness making the damn stuff. You know what? I’d give it all away for guava paste. This sweet, crazy goodness came in a satisfactorily large tin from Casa Iberica in Fitzroy. Oh and it brought friends – a truly gorgeous hard goats cheese that completely lacked that sometimes confronting goatiness, some lovely ham and (bliss!) chorizo. Wrap it small goods, smear it on bread, cuddle it up with cheese, feed slabs of it to your kids. Think of it constantly and try to resist its sweet, sweet siren song. Dare you.

Prawns stuffed with pork

The tastiest wee creatures of the sea stuffed with the tastiest wee creatures of the land.These delights were stuffed with a very simple paste of pork mince, coriander, black pepper and fish sauce, dredged in a mixture of rice flour and plain flour,dipped in egg and deep fried. Smear them in a commercial sweet chili sauce – good, good,good. I served these up with a zinging and blisteringly chili-hot green mango salad and an incredibly simple sweet and sour pineapple curry. One of the best all round spreads I’ve plated up in a while -we sweated and giggled for a solid half hour.

Campari and orange

My drink of the season. Not much to say- it’s the taste of summer. The Campari is dusty and bitter and strange and the orange is refreshing and easy and it won’t get you too tanked. My husband doesn’t like it. I try not to be judgemental about this.

Sage and onion stuffing, Christmas cake and flaming puddings

As my northern English grandparents start to age and I evidently start to mature (!!), certain secrets are being passed down. I witnessed the making of the Christmas cakes and now know the sage and onion stuffing that for me is the only thing worth putting up a turkey’s bum. Grandad’s piece de resistance is always the Christmas pudding, however. It is dense with fruit but somehow maintains that spongey soft steamed pudding texture. Drenched with brandy and ceremoniously set on fire before being bathed in custard and hard lumps of mum’s brandy butter, I’ve never had better.

Tim and Jane’s leftovers

My brother and his family arrived at our folks house from Singapore on boxing day and stayed a week – great to see them.  They are GOOD at food. I rocked up at mum and dad’s on new years eve, hungry and with a lot of  cooking to do. And,  joy, they had heaps of leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. All very middle eastern – lovely strips of polenta crumbed calamari, tartare sauce made with yoghurt and tahini instead of mayonnaise (therefore kind of healthy and easy to eat lots of) and a yummy salad. There is little more delightful than a fridge full oflittle bowls of fantastic leftovers that need to be eaten.

I haven’t even got to the balinese seafood satays, the lentil salad or the five spice roast chicken but I’m spent and the guava paste is calling…

Chinese New Year soon – better get my skates on!

I find this a joy to make (vegetarians read no further). It’s very physical to prepare, rubbing the stuffing mix into the flesh, trussing the wee beastie up and rubbing salt into the skin. You need to blast the roast in a hot oven to get really crispy crackling, so you get to listen to that glorious bubbling and splattering for a while which always reminds me of the sound of suet in the pan that accompanied my grandparents’ roast dinners.  Then you drop the temperature back to moderate for a few hours – so you get a whole afternoon or morning of porchetta aromas in the kitchen. You need to have no fear-you will not overcook it. The meat is best left to cool to room temperature or eaten out of the fridge the following day. This way the meat and stuffing mix sort of settle in together and get real friendly with each other.  This is a test of endurance. Pete and I always lurk with intent around the meat and it’s a relief when its wrapped in the fridge and safely out of temptation’s way.

Porchetta

• Pork loin,boned, fat and skin still on (this recipe will do fora 1 -2 kg piece of meat)
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh sage
• 1 tablespoon fennel seeds
• Generous amount freshly ground black pepper
• Sea salt
• Olive oil
• Cooking string

Heat oven to around 220 degrees Celsius. Score the skin of your pork. This can be a tricky job but try and get the score lines as close together as you can as once the skin gets really crispy the meat will be hard to carve except along the score lines. Mix the garlic,rosemary, sage and fennel seeds with a small amount of olive oil to make a paste. Open out your loin and lay it skin side down. Grind a VERY generous amount of black pepper on the meat and then rub the herb and garlic mix all over the meat. Take a short end of the loin and roll it up tight like a jam roly poly. Tie it securely with cooking twine so that it makes a tight roll.Rub some oil into the skin and then a good whack of salt, making sure you get salt into the grooves of the score lines.

Place the meat in a roasting pan and cook in hot oven for 20 mins to half an hour to get the skin going. Take the temperature down to 160 degrees Celsius and cook for a further 3 hours. Baste occasionally with pan juices. Remove loin and let sit for at least half an hour before serving. Can most happily be made a day ahead and served cold.

I got the idea of cooking with rose geranium while working for a friend who ran a business making exquisite ice-creams and sorbets. It really is gorgeous, like turkish delight without the sugar. This is an absurdly simple dish and the only difficulty lies in finding some rose geranium. You can’t buy it from a regular grocer so I have some of my own growing happily on my deck. Make sure the peaches are almost ripe and poach them until just tender. This ensures the best chance of the skin staying in good condition. The skin isn’t good to eat but I like to keep it on for presentation because they blush the colour of sunset when cooked and look very beautiful served with a dollop of the pink syrup in a white bowl. I like white peaches more to eat but the ordinary yellow peaches look prettier.

Rose geranium peaches

• Firm, almost ripe white or yellow peaches, skin in good condition (1 per person)
• Quantity of light sugar syrup (1 part sugar to 2 parts water) – enough to cover your peaches.
• 1 large or 2 small sprigs of rose geranium leaves or flowers, washed

To make your sugar syrup stir together the sugar and cold water in a heavy based pan until the sugar is dissolved. Bring it to the boil and then drop it back to a gentle simmer.  Add the rose geranium leaves and simmer very gently for 5 – 10 minutes. Do not boil the syrup too hard or the rose geranium will turn a bit bitter. Gently add your peaches and simmer gently, covered, until peaches are just tender. You can stir them once or twice but be careful not to break the skin. When tender, remove the peaches from the syrup and allow the peaches and syrup to cool separately. Remove the rose geranium from the syrup and gently return the peaches to the cooled syrup. The peaches will keep quite well in a sealed, sterilised jar.