Make a splash in the kitchen - top chefs and cooks share easy ways to take your dinner to the next level.
Paul Flynn, chef-owner of The Tannery County Waterford
and author of Butter Boy (Nine Bean Rows, $104):
♦ To make a glamorous aperitif:
Poach pears in supermarket-bought mulled wine, reduce the cooking juice to a syrup and serve through prosecco or cava for a glamorous aperitif.
You can add spices like cinnamon and cloves to the wine.
If there’s any juice left over, freeze it in ice cube trays and add to gin and tonics.
♦ A ravioli shortcut
Chinese wonton wrappers are a brilliant shortcut to making perfect ravioli: soft, silky and easy to work with.
No-one will ever know you didn’t make them yourself.
You can get wonton wrappers in the freezer at Asian shops.
Fill them with pumpkin and sage, or mushrooms with cream and parmesan, use a bit of egg wash to pinch them closed.
♦ Instant Caesar salad dressing
Add a squeeze of lemon to cream along with some grated parmesan and garlic to make the quickest, tastiest Caesar salad dressing. The lemon juice thickens up the cream so that it coats the lettuce perfectly.
For 100ml of cream, I’d use about one teaspoon of lemon, one tablespoon of parmesan and one small grated garlic clove, a bit of pepper and salt, and away you go.
Do it at the last minute before serving.
Richard Bainbridge, chef-owner of Benedicts, Norwich:
♦ Salted butter: the home baker’s friend
Always use salted butter in your pastry: it’s more stable and forms a better bake.
Most recipes say to use unsalted butter and then add salt, but it’s not very consistent - you’re trying to break the salt down into the pastry and you end up overworking it in the process.
In salted butter, the salt is already emulsified in and distributed all the way through.
I think it freezes better as well - it comes out of the fridge more stable.
♦ For my recipe for sweet pastry:
Place 125g of diced, room-temperature salted butter in a bowl with one vanilla pod (or one teaspoon of vanilla paste), 250g plain flour and 90g caster sugar.
Run it through your fingers, massaging the butter with the flour and sugar to incorporate.
Once you have a breadcrumb-like consistency, make a well in your flour mix and add one whisked egg. Gently bring together, careful not to overwork your pastry, remove and place on to a lightly floured surface.
Knead three or four times until it comes together, cover with clingfilm and put in the fridge for 30 minutes before using.
This will keep for up to seven days in the fridge and 3 to 6 months in the freezer.
- The Guardian
