When we picked up sticks 15 years ago and moved to our home in Byron Shire, the last thing I expected to find thriving in our humid climate were citrus trees. Yet they absolutely love it here, and despite our awful clay soil and at times, monsoonal rainfall, our citrus trees have flourished. We have limes, lemons, oranges and mandarin trees, and now at last, we’ve planted my favourite of all – a blood orange.

I love the way that the fruit looks quite plain on the outside, however once cut they reveal their startling crimson and tangerine-coloured flesh with its wonderful, rich orange flavour. The brilliantly-coloured juice would have to be the best breakfast eye-opener I know, however more often than not when I only have a few fruit I use them in this beautiful salad, which stretches just a handful of blood oranges into a stunning winter salad for four.

(BTW, if you’re pushed for time, reduce the orange juice as per the recipe for the orange mayonnaise, but then just stir it into some ready-made mayo).

SMOKED SALMON, FENNEL AND BLOOD ORANGE SALAD

Serves 4

3 – 4 navel oranges, depending on size

3 – 4 blood oranges, depending on size

2 medium-sized (or 1 ½ large) bulbs fennel

Approx. 350g hot-smoked (also called smoked roasted) salmon fillets

Small mint leaves, to garnish

Orange mayonnaise:

1 cup (250 ml) freshly-squeezed #orange juice, strained

1 egg

200 ml olive oil

50 ml extra virgin olive oil

1 – 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar, to taste

2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 teaspoon sea salt, or more to taste

# If by any chance you have a plethora of blood oranges, use the juice in the mayonnaise – it gives it a lovely flavour and soft pink hue.

For the mayonnaise, pour the orange juice into a small saucepan and sit it over high heat. Bring the juice to the boil, then leave it to bubble vigorously, swirling the pan regularly, until it has reduced to about 2 tablespoons of syrupy juice. (Keep an eye on it towards the end of the cooking time as it scorches easily). Remove it from the heat and let it cool a little.

Plop the egg into a blender, and then with the blender going, ever-so slowly dribble in the olive oils. Basically you’re making a thin mayonnaise, so start off by dripping the oil in and then slowly increase the rate so a fine thread of oil streams in – the mixture will thicken as more oil is added. Finally, with the blender still going, pour in the vinegar, lemon juice, reduced orange juice and salt. The mixture will be a little thinner than

regular mayonnaise but that’s fine, as it should have more of a sauce-like consistency. Taste it and adjust the salt/lemon/vinegar balance to suit you,then scrape it into a container and store it in the fridge until you need it

(you can make it a couple of days ahead of time if you like). It’s best to get all the salad ingredients ready before starting to put this together. Peel the oranges with a very sharp knife, making sure no white pith remains, then cut down between the membranes to release the segments into a bowl. Halve the fennel bulbs and slice them very, very finely (a mandolin is fabulous for this) and flake the fish into nice chunks.

To assemble the salads, spoon a little orange mayonnaise into the middle of each plate and sit a small pile of fennel strips on top. Scatter some orange segments over the fennel, then top these with chunks of smoked trout. Drizzle a little of the orange mayonnaise on top then repeat the layers, finishing off with a tiny bit more mayonnaise and a scattering of mint leaves. Serve any remaining dressing separately.

To find out more delicious Belinda Jeffery recipes go to: belindajeffery

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It’s time for summer salads to give way for winter soups, and just in time for the big wet,  Belinda Jeffery’s given Verandah Magazine a fabulous soup – complete with ‘sippets’.

Split Pea and Ham Soup with Sippets

It never ceases to delight me the way just a few simple ingredients can be transformed into such a soothing and delicious meal with so little work. But remember ‘meal’ is the operative word here, for this soup really sticks to your ribs and I can’t imagine following it with a main course!

500g green split peas

1 large meaty ham hock*

1 bay leaf

2 large onions, peeled and chopped

3 large potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

2.5 litres water

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Garnish: continental parsley leaves and sippets (see recipe below)

*Ask your butcher to saw the hock into 3 or 4 pieces as it is much easier to fit these into the pan.

Split peas always need a good wash and soak before you use them, so the night before you want to make the soup, tip the peas into a large bowl and fill it with cold water. Swish the peas around with your hand – the water will become quite milky – then drain them. Do this another three or four times at least, until the water becomes relatively clear. Once that happens, cover the peas again with cold water and leave them to soak overnight in a cool spot. (A cool spot is important, because they can ferment if they’re too warm. This is something I learnt early in the piece, when we had an unseasonably warm autumn night – when I checked on the peas in the morning they were merrily bubbling away!)

The next day, rinse the peas well then drain them. Tip them into a very large saucepan or stock-pot and add the ham hock pieces, bay leaf, onion, potato and water. Bring the soup to the boil over high heat, then reduce the heat and let it simmer, partially covered, for about 1 ¼ -1 ½ hours until the peas and potatoes are mushy and disintegrating. Every so often while the soup is cooking, skim off any froth that floats on the surface. To check it’s ready, squash some pieces of potato against the side of the pan – they should fall apart easily.

When the soup is ready, remove the chunks of ham hock and reserve them. Discard the bay leaf. Puree the pea mixture (ideally with a stick blender so it can all be done in the same pan) then add salt and pepper, to taste.

As soon as the ham hock pieces are cool enough to handle, strip the meat from them, discarding any skin and fat. Chop the meat into little chunks and return it to the soup reserving a handful for garnishing. If the soup has cooled down a bit too much, warm it gently. Ladle into bowls and sprinkle each serve with some of the reserved ham and parsley leaves. Serve a bowlful of sippets separately. Serves 6.

P.S. As the soup sits it thickens even more, so if you make it ahead of time, you will have to thin it with more water when you reheat it.

Sippets

These tiny little cubes of fried bread are awfully addictive and I invariably make heaps more than we need as at least half of them mysteriously disappear off the draining paper as soon as they are cool enough to eat! To make them, remove the crusts from slices of white or wholemeal bread, and cut the bread into small chunks (about 1 ½ cm). Pour olive oil into a large frying pan to the depth of 4mm or so, and heat over medium heat. When the oil is hot, toss in the bread cubes and cook, turning them regularly, until they’re golden all over – this doesn’t take long and you will need to keep an eye on them as they burn quite rapidly. As soon as they’re ready, scoop them out onto paper towels to drain. Pile them into a bowl and serve them with the soup. My mum used to fry the bread chunks in bacon fat which would probably not be considered quite the done thing these days, but gosh they were delicious!

Photographs: Rodney Weidland

For more information on Belinda Jefferey and her recipes go to: belindajeffery.com

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I never tire of mangoes. Frankly I can eat them until the cows come home, and we’ve been doing just that these past few weeks, making real little pigs of ourselves. I remember my dad saying that they should only be eaten in a bathtub, and I well understand why – these are so luscious that the juice leaves sticky trails down our arms as we eat them, but they are oh-so-good! I could quite happily go on ad infinitum eating them just as they are, however sometimes it’s nice to gild the lily a little bit, which is just what these pretty tartlets do. The recipe is simple – no pastry, just a biscuit-crumb crust, delicate passionfruit cream and slices of sweet, juicy mango.

Simple little mango and passionfruit tartlets

You can make the tartlet crusts a day ahead if you like and store them in an airtight container (just make sure it is airtight, otherwise they will soften rapidly in summer’s humidity). The passionfruit cream can be made a few hours ahead, which really only leaves the mangoes to be sliced and passionfruit seeds scooped out of their leathery shells onto the tartlets just before you serve them.

Biscuit crusts:

250g digestive or #ginger nut biscuits, finely crushed

125g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Filling:

4 large or 8 medium-sized passionfruit

250ml sour cream

300ml double thick cream

½ cup (80g) icing sugar

Topping:

2 large ripe mangoes, peeled and thinly sliced

Seeds from 1-2 passionfruit

Tiny mint leaves, to garnish, optional

(I use Swedish ginger biscuits for this – they have a lovely, subtle ginger flavour)

Preheat your oven to 180C. Line six 11cm tartlet tins with foil, leaving a small overhang all the way around. Use a folded cloth to press the foil down snugly to ensure it follows the contours of the tins. (I often sit one tin in another and press down lightly on it to make quite sure it is as snug as possible.) Sit the tins on a baking tray and set them aside.

To make the biscuit crust, tip the crushed biscuits into a bowl and pour in the melted butter, then stir the two together until the mixture is crumbly. Divide this evenly among the tartlet tins. Now press the crust mixture firmly and evenly onto the sides and base of each tin. I hate to say it, but this is easier said than done. I start off using a spoon to spread it evenly, then my fingers to press it into the sides of the tin, and finally I use a small tumbler to press the mixture firmly onto the base to compact the crumbs.

Put the tray with the tartlets into the oven and bake them for 12 minutes until the crumb mixture is slightly darker. When they are ready, remove the tray from the oven and transfer the tins to a cooling rack. The mixture may well have puffed up and slipped down the sides of the tins a bit at this stage. To remedy this, hold one tin at a time in a thick cloth to protect your fingers from the heat and use the back of a spoon to push the mixture back up the sides. Leave the crusts to cool completely in the tins.

Meanwhile, make the passionfruit cream. To do this, halve all the passionfruit then scoop the pulp out into a fine sieve sitting over a measuring jug or bowl. Use the back of a spoon to work the pulp against the sieve to extract as much juice as possible – you need 1/3 cup (80ml) all up (if you have any juice leftover it makes a lovely drink, mixed into some fresh pineapple or orange juice.) Set the juice aside and discard the seeds.

Spoon the sour cream and double thick cream into a chilled bowl. Sift in the icing sugar and using a balloon whisk, gently whip the mixture until it is softly thick but not stiff. Pour in the passionfruit juice and stir it gently with the whisk – the mixture may thin a bit initially, but will thicken again quickly. Cover the bowl and store it in the fridge.

When you are ready to serve the tartlets, use the overhanging foil to help you gently ease the crusts from the tartlet tins. Peel away the foil – the crusts are very fragile at the edges so be careful – then sit a tart crust on each dessert plate. Divide the passionfruit cream evenly between them. Lay the mango slices decoratively over each one, then spoon a few passionfruit seeds on top. If you’re using the mint leaves, scatter some over each tartlet. Serves 6.

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I’m talking to Belinda Jeffery by phone, and the normally calm-amongst-the-chaos Jeffery is sounding, well, just a little bit stressed.

“I’ve been giving cooking classes for 36 people,” she says, “I’ve been on TV, radio, at book signings, doing workshops…it’s busy!”

But the busyness is for good reason – one of Australia’s most beloved food writers has a new book out – and for those of us who believe that you should actually be able to cook the recipes in a recipe book, this is a grand thing.

In this instance too, the book itself is a grand thing – a richly textured, large-format hardback filled with Jeffery’s signature dishes, inspired by produce and flavours from around the world and with Rodney Weidland’s exceptionally beautiful photography.

Jeffery’s books, which include Belinda Jeffery’s Collected Recipes; Mix & Bake; The Country Cookbook and Desserts have all been co-created with Weidland, and it’s the partnership that gives the books – if you’ll forgive the pun – that special flavour.

“Each book takes about two years,” Jeffery explains, “and one of the things that’s unusual about how we work is that everything is cooked and styled by me, and it’s all shot at my home in Mullumbimby. We don’t have a studio, or a food prep person, or a stylist. Rodney comes up throughout the year, usually for a week at a time, and the whole house turns into a studio. We’ve worked together for 26 years, since I first started, and he’s shot all of my books – we have a wonderful collaboration.”

The successful partnership has meant that Jeffery is given an unusual amount of freedom by her publisher at Penguin, Julie Gibbs, the genius behind many of Australia’s most iconic food books. “Julie just leaves us alone,” says Jeffery. “In fact it was actually Julie that came up with the title. We were talking one day and she said ‘all of us in the office were saying that the great thing about you Belinda is that you just give us utterly simple delicious food’. Then she stopped and looked at me, and said ‘I think that’s your next book’.”

Rodney Weidland has collaborated with Belinda Jeffery on all her books.

It’s been 12 years since Jeffery left Sydney for Mullumbimby, and decades since Jeffery first opened her Good Health Café in Mosman, right at the start of the interest in healthier food – and the realisation that it could taste good as well. During that time, Jeffery has become a staunch advocate for seasonal cooking, the farmers’ markets and growing your own vegetables and herbs wherever possible.

“The produce is the cooking,” she says. “When we moved here I found that I immediately felt closer to the cycle of veggies and fruit trees and fruit. It inspires me to walk around the farmers’ market in the morning. At the moment there are beautiful mulberries which I love, and for me it’s so important to use what’s there and immediate, in season, fresh and hasn’t travelled far.”

Another aspect of farmers’ markets that appeals to Jeffery is the personal touch. “I love dealing with the person that grew the produce, and these days I know all the stall-holders,” she says. “I listen to other people asking questions and talking and I’ve noticed there’s a whole new interest in health and organics. A few years ago you hardly saw anybody selling fermented foods – now quite a few do.” She laughs. “I love it all so much I sometimes wonder if I was a greengrocer’s daughter in a past life!”

Belinda and her husband Clive have just celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary.

Asking a food writer to name their favourite meal of all time is perhaps the hardest question they could answer. I’m thinking to myself of all the amazing places Jeffery would have eaten at over the years, but her answer is immediate, and down to earth.

“Quite recently we went to Spain because my father-in-law lives there,” she tells me. “We visited Barcelona and went to the Santa Caterina market – which is not the big main market but a beautiful produce market. In amongst all the throngs and the stalls with the wild mushrooms was this tiny tapas bar. We were asking the chef at the tapas about the mushrooms, and he yelled something to one of the sellers who walked over with the mushrooms, and put them down. Our guy just cooked them so simply. He sautéed them with garlic and olive oil, and lots of manchego cheese, and then added a quickly cooked fried egg. We sat there surrounded by all the market activity with a glass of wine, and ate this delicious food. There was another dish they did with thin, crispy, deep-fried eggplant, with wild honey and goats cheese, asparagus and re-pepper sauce. It was all just the classic rustic food I love. Clive and I were there for a week, celebrating our 40^th wedding anniversary, and that food was the best food we had in Spain without a doubt. We went back every day.”

So many mushrooms: The Santa Caterina market

She thinks that perhaps the fashion for long, complicated meals for hours at a time in expensive restaurants is passing. “I know for ourselves that we love to go out to the wonderful pop-up restaurants that we have in our area like Forage & Graze and Francisco’s table,” she says. “I love to eat at our local little Japanese restaurant in Mullumbimby or at the Japanese café in Federal – and another favourite is Sarah Swan and the 100mile Table. Sarah used to work for Neil Perry and is a wonderful chef.”

Jeffery’s passion for simple food is continuing with her seventh book, which will of course feature all the beautiful local market produce. But in the meantime there’s the PR trail to get back onto before she can home again and relax. “Someone asked me if I was getting sick of signing books,” she says, “and I said I never get sick of signing books!”

* * * * * * * * *

It would hardly be fair to write a story about a new cookbook from our very own food writer and not include a recipe – and how can you ever go wrong with chocolate cake?

A Really Simple Really Lovely Chocolate Cake

I think that what makes this slim little cake so special to me is the texture/taste balance – the crumb is remarkably fine and light, yet it has a deep chocolate-y flavour without being at all heavy or cloying. It’s really versatile too – you can simply dust it lightly with icing sugar and serve it as is, or dress it up with a shiny chocolate ganache (see page 196) or billows of whipped cream and shards of praline, as we have in the photo. And to my mind, like all chocolate cakes, it’s only better for being served with berries that have been lightly sugared so their juices flow.

SERVES 8

80 g unsalted butter, roughly chopped
1/3 cup (35 g) dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/3 cup (80 ml) light olive oil
2/3 cup (160 ml) cool water
90 g good-quality dark chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup (220 g) caster sugar
1 1/4 cups (185 g) plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 large egg, lightly whisked
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup (80 ml) buttermilk
300 ml thickened cream, softly whipped
almond praline (see page 197), to decorate

Butter a 23 cm springform cake tin (which is at least 6 cm deep) and line the base with buttered baking paper, then dust the tin lightly with flour and set it aside. (I’ve also made this in a 20 cm tin so the cake is a bit deeper; it worked quite well, but it domed a bit and had some fairly large splits in it – thank goodness for the whipped cream on top!)
Put the butter, cocoa powder, olive oil, water and chocolate in a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Warm the mixture, stirring it regularly (a flat sauce whisk is ideal for this as it gets into the corners of the pan) until the butter and chocolate have melted and the mixture is smooth – just make sure it doesn’t come to the boil or it may become grainy. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the sugar until it’s thoroughly combined, then set the pan aside until the mixture is cool.
In the meantime, preheat your oven to 150°C.
Tip the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl, and whisk them together with a balloon whisk for 1 minute so they’re thoroughly combined.
Once the chocolate mixture is cool, thoroughly whisk in the egg and vanilla, then stir in the flour mixture until it’s combined – don’t overdo this or the cake may be a bit tough. Finally, mix in the buttermilk. It won’t look like all that much batter and it will be quite runny.
Pour the batter into the prepared tin, shaking it gently to level the batter out. Pop the tin in the oven, and cook the cake for 45–50 minutes (if you’re making the cake in a 20 cm tin, it may take a little longer), or until it springs back when you lightly press the centre with your fingers, and a fine skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Sit the tin on a wire rack and leave the cake to cool for 5 minutes, then gently loosen around the sides and invert the cake onto the rack. Remove the base paper; sit another rack on top, and turn the cake again so it’s right-side up, then leave it to cool completely.
To serve the cake, transfer it to a cake stand or platter, and use a large palette knife to swirl the cream over the top, then decorate it with shards of praline.

Utterly Delicious Simple Food by Belinda Jeffery, Lantern Books, rrp $49.99 utterly-delicious-simple-food

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Living as we do slap-bang in the middle of one of Australia’s biggest blueberry-growing regions, we’re blessed with an abundance of them, so much so that at our local farmers market we buy them by the bucketful rather than in punnets. It’s such a treat to be able to fling handfuls willy-nilly into cakes, muffins, puddings, ice cream, tarts…you name it, and I’ve quite likely tried it!

This classic fool, which is made in no-time, is probably one of the simplest but most sublime ways to eat them, as it’s nothing more than blueberries gently heated in a fragrant crème de cassis syrup then cooled and partly folded into rich whipped cream. The only addition I’d think about serving with it is a few crisp little biscuits to add a welcome crunch (homemade would be lovely, but good bought ones are fine too) – or, if you’re anything like me, for scooping up little morsels of fool.

By the way, if you would like to make a somewhat less rich version, you can replace some of the whipped cream with thick Greek-style yoghurt – it won’t be quite as light and airy, but it’s still very good.

Serves 4-6

1½ tablespoons cool water

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

½ cup (110g) caster sugar

1/3 cup (80ml) crème de cassis

450g blueberries

400ml rich (or thickened) cream

¼ cup pure icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Almond thins or shortbread fingers, for serving, optional

I nearly always keep a bottle of this intensely berry-ish blackcurrant liqueur on hand as it’s amazing what a little splash of it can do to pick up the flavour of all sorts of berries – and, I have to admit, it’s also not half-bad trickled into a glass of white wine as an aperitif!

Put the water, lemon zest, lemon juice and caster sugar into a large-ish heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved , then stop stirring and bring the syrup to the boil; as soon as it boils, reduce the heat to low, and pour in the crème de cassis and blueberries. Adjust the heat so the mixture bubbles very, very gently, and leave if for 5 minutes, giving it a slow stir now and then, being careful not to break up the berries.

Remove the pan from the heat and leave the berry mixture to cool, then carefully pour it into a container (watch out as it’s very splashy and the colour is lethal if it gets on your clothes). Seal it tightly, and pop it in the fridge to chill (you can make this 4 or 5 days ahead if you like).

Just before serving the fool, pour the cream into a chilled mixing bowl, sift in the icing sugar, then add the vanilla. Using an electric beater (or balloon whisk if you’re arm and wrist muscles are strong!) beat the mixture on medium speed until it forms lovely, billowy soft peaks, just be careful not to let it become grainy as this spoils its texture.

Mash about 1 cup of the chilled blueberry mixture to form a chunky puree, then partially fold it into the cream – the mixture will be a glorious streaky magenta colour. Spoon this into serving goblets or glasses (glass isn’t essential, but the jewel-like colour looks particularly gorgeous through it), spoon some of the reserved blueberry mixture over the top, and serve immediately with biscuits on the side.

Belinda Jeffery’s Utterly Delicious Simple Food is published by Lantern: https://www.penguin.com.au/products/9781921383359/utterly-delicious-simple-food

You can find out more about Belinda on her website https://www.belindajeffery.com.au/home.html

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