Well I guess this is the start of my new blog about food, gaming and well whatever else I have to talk about, but I'm sure it's going to be mostly about food.
So lets start off with a quick intro.
I'm the senior sous chef of a restaurant in Sydney, Australia. I started my career uh 7 years ago now...I think. Anyways I have always been cooking, I cook all the time when I'm at home and it is one of the most enjoyable things I could possibly do.
I create all of the desserts that are served at the restaurant, and I usually test them out on friends and family before introducing them to work.
So I guess this will be a nice middle ground so everyone can see what I make first before it goes to the restaurant.
So this first dessert is something of a classic, but re-invented. It's an old Sicilian family recipe from one of my bosses, which was passed on to him from his mother. I've taken the standard recipe and turn it into something restaurant worthy....I hope ;)
I present....The Sicilian Vanilla Slice with vanilla bean mascarpone and passionfruit syrup.
It's not the most photogenic dessert, but who cares! The taste is amazing!!
It's a bloody simple dessert, but tastes so god damn good! The longer it sits and absorbs the citrus syrup, the better it becomes. And this baby can be left out at room temp as well, it tastes 100 times better than being cold.
So how do we go about making it you say hmmm?
Well here is the recipe, super quick to make, pretty well fool proof, and you will want to make a big batch, because once you start eating it, you won't stop :)
Sicilian Vanilla Slice
Make's a 12inch by 10inch baking tray
Ingredients:
30g Corn Flour, Sifted
240g Fine Semolina
300g Caster Sugar
750ml Thickened Cream
1100ml Full Cream Milk
4 whole eggs
2 Vanilla bean pods, scrapped for the seeds, keep seeds and pods
1 Pack of Filo Pastry, Chilled
250g Butter, Melted
Citrus Syrup:
500g Caster Sugar
600ml water
2 Oranges, Zested, juiced
1 Lemon, Zested, Juiced
Method:
Pre-heat oven to 180°C
Start by combining the cream, milk and vanilla beans and pods in a stainless steel pot. Place on medium heat, stirring once in a while to avoid catching the milk and burning it. Allow the mixture to come to the boil.
Meanwhile combine the corn flour, semolina and caster sugar in a large mixing bowl.
In another bowl, whisk the eggs till combined, pale and frothy.
Once the milk mixture has come to the boil, turn the heat down to low. Using a whisk, slowly rain in the corn flour, semolina, sugar mixture, constantly whisking to incorporate the two mixtures. The whole mixture will start to thicken, keep whisking for 5 minutes on low heat until it resembles a thick custard. Take the mixture off the heat and whisk in the eggs.
Pour the whole mixture into a mixing bowl to allow it to cool.
While the custard is cooling, we can start to prepare the baking tray.
Using a pastry brush, brush the entire inside of the baking tray, now grab the filo pastry, fold it out on top of a damp tea-towel, and cover with a another damp tea-towel. This will insure that the pastry doesn't dry out while your working with it.
so lets start layering filo into the baking tray. Grab 1 sheet and drop it into the tray, lightly pushing it down into the corners of the tray, allow the overhang to sit there, now brush the whole pastry sheet with more butter, then fold the overhang down onto the base. It doesnt matter if the outsides are thicker than the middle, because one this whole dessert is put in the oven to bake, its going to take a lot to cook the center of the pastry, so by the time the outsides are cooked, the middle should be nice and crisp because it's thinner.
Repeat this layering process 5 more times, for a total of 6 layers, making sure to butter each layer in between so the new layer can stick. Don't worry if you have a bit of filo packing up the sides of the tray, its all going to contract and shrink inwards, and will work perfectly.
Once the 6 layers are done, pour the custard mixture onto the filo layer. Now we are going to do the same layering proccess on top of the custard mixture.
This part is a bit of a bitch, but you will quickly get the hang of it.
Take 1 sheet of filo and place it on a clean part of the bench, using the pastry brush, in single strokes in one direction, cover the filo with butter. Then place another sheet on top of that one, and brush with butter. Now gently pick up the sheets and place on top of the custard, buttered side up. Fold in any overhang, and butter the overhang, now just layer 4 more sheets of filo, buttering each layer.
Once all of the layering is done, your going to pre-cut the portions of the dessert. Because once cooked your its going to be crispy, and its far to annoying and hard to cut cooked filo, and once its been soaked in the citrus syrup, it becomes to soft to cut properly. So portion that bastard up.
Now pop it in the oven for 30-45 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.
Meanwhile we can start work on the citrus syrup.
Place the caster sugar, water, zests and juices of the three fruits into a heavy based pan, and pop it on a high heat on the stove. Allow it the come to the boil, then reduce the heat to medium and simmer for a further 10 minutes.
Turn off the heat and let the syrup steep while the pastry is cooking. Just before you pull out the pastry, strain the citrus syrup and discard the zests.
now pull out the pastry, and pour over the citrus syrup, pour it all on. The filo and semolina will soak up all of the liquid over time and it will create the best flavour.
Allow the dessert to cool at room temp for quite a while, until it starts to set and the syrup has really started to soak in.
When I make this at work, I do it a day ahead so it can set and soak overnight, which produces the best thing ever.
For the mascarpone, just gently fold in vanilla beans and icing sugar into the mascarpone, store in the fridge until use.
For the passionfruit syrup you can make your own syrup using fresh passionfruit, but it takes a while. pulling all of the flesh and seeds out, reducing the syrup, chilling, etc. At work I create a big batch of passionfruit syrup once every few days. But at home you can simply by canned passionfruit syrup, and there is nothing wrong with that, it tastes just as good.
Well there you have it, the first entry on my blog, I hope you all enjoyed the essay of a read, and enjoy the dessert! I'll leave you with some photo's of some of the food I create at work :)
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