Today saw a bit of a food extravaganza - C. and A. were coming for lunch and, while C. sadly was called in to work, E. kindly agreed to come over and eat. First up, roasted capsicum studded with goat's chevre (honestly - no idea how to pronounce that one) from the Yarra Valley and fresh basil leaves. Then I did the roasted chicken, lemon and olives from the front cover of the May Delicious - sensational. It was made with thigh cutlets which I haven't used before and they were impressively juicy and full of flavour. The browned chicken rested on masses of slow-fried garlic, onion and lemon thyme and was soaked in stock and covered with fine slices of lemon and sicilian green olives: what's not to love? Dessert = pear and caramel pie from the Donna Hay magazine that I firmly believe I was subliminally persuaded into buying after all the googling on Thursday. Actually, the magazine is a little lack-lustre to my mind; lots of glossy ads and stylish shots and not a lot else. Having said that, the pie was pretty fab and easy. Can I say how much I love making pastry? It's such a magic process: powder and bits of butter become a mess of crumbs and whatnot and then, just at the point when you're thinking "man, I really stuffed this up" it transforms into dough. Springy, malleable, fabulously smooth - it's that essential pleasant shock where two very different things transform into an altogether new thing. This one was in the 'crumbly pastries' category - the ones that "come apart into small, irregular particles" according to McGee. In these pastries, tiny parts of the dough are separated and coated with fat; kneading is all about spreading the fat into the smallest possible pieces through the dough. Speaking of dough, I just took orange and lemon shortbread out of the oven - smells all buttery and citrusy round my place tonight.
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