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chocolate compost brittle
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plate 2 plate - Cracked Green Olives with Cardamom and Harissa

23 Dec 2015

Welcome to the last Plate 2 Plate post for 2015, where Juliana and I take the same recipe but make and style it our own way. Juliana suggested this simple marinated olive recipe from Ghillie Basan's book, Vegetarian Tagines & Couscous.




Here's Juliana's image.






I looked through my cupboards and was low on cumin and coriander seeds so off to the fruit shop I went, list in hand.





Isn't this an elegant composition by Juliana?





The cracked green olives I already had, lovingly prepared by the wife of one of my Greek patients. 





I bought this mortar and pestle ages ago and I've just been waiting for the right opportunity to use it. It ground those toasted spices in no time at all. Image below by Juliana.






These olives are really easy to make and pretty tasty. 





With all that Harissa, I thought they might be a bit too spicy but they're not as hot as I feared. btw, isn't Juliana's berry spoon lovely?




I always like to give something from my kitchen at Christmas time. I thought a bottle of these olives would make the perfect hand made gift along with some of the other things I've been making, like these sour cherry amaretti and some chocolate coated peanut and pretzel brittle. To make this batch of chocolate coated peanut and pretzel brittle, I used the quantity of ingredients from the chocolate compost brittle but used the method from this recipe




Here's the recipe for Cracked Green Olives with Cardamom and Harissa from Vegetarian Tagines & Couscous by Ghillie Basan, serves 4-6

1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1-2 tsp cardamom seeds
4-6 black peppercorns
2-3 Tbs olive oil
freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 lemon
1-2 tsp Harissa
350g/12oz. cracked green olives, rinsed and drained

Dry roast the cumin, coriander and cardamom seed with the black peppercorns in a skillet, until they emit a nutty aroma. Using a mortar and pestle, crush the roasted spices to a coarse powder. Stir in the olive oil and lemon juice and add the Harissa.

Put the olives into a serving bowl and spoon the spice mixture over them. Toss well and leave to sit for at least 30 minutes before serving.

The olives will keep in a sealed jar in the refrigerator for 3-4 weeks.





Thanks again to Juliana for the recipe and for her photographs. 

That's my last post for 2015 so all the best to you and yours over the holiday season. See you all again in 2016 with some more recipes from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian
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chocolate compost brittle

7 Dec 2015

I like to make something from my kitchen to give to my neighbours and friends at Christmas time. I'm planning to make sour cherry amaretti this year but after reading this post from Smitten Kitchen I thought it would be nice to make some brittle as well. 





Inspired by this recipe for compost cookiesI thought I'd make some chocolate coated compost brittle using pretzels, popcorn and peanuts for the 'compost'.



I love peanut brittle and even though it's easy to make, I chose not to make it very often as it's way too addictive. 



I'm warning you because I don't think this version is any less addictive.






Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. My oven is not fan forced so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Chocolate Compost Brittle
1 cup caster sugar
30 mls light corn syrup or golden syrup (I used 15 mls of each)
¼ cup water
30g butter
½ teaspoon bicarb soda (baking soda)
½ cup broken-up chunks of thin salted pretzels
½ cup roasted salted peanuts
½ cup coarsely crumbled salted popcorn pieces
125g coarsely chopped dark chocolate

Method
Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F. Line a lamington tin (12 x 8 inch tin) with baking paper and place the pretzels, peanuts and popcorn on the tray. Put the tray in the oven to keep the pretzel mixture warm while you're making the toffee.

Combine the sugar, corn or golden syrup and water in a medium saucepan, stirring to combine. Cook without stirring until the temperature of the mixture reaches 150
°
C. Take the pretzel mixture out of the oven. Remove the saucepan from the heat and quickly stir in the butter, the warmed pretzel mixture and the baking soda (which will make the mixture froth up). Mix until the pretzel mixture is coated in toffee then immediately pour the brittle back into the paper lined pan. Using a knife or an off set spatula flatten out the brittle as much as possible. Leave the brittle to set. 

While the brittle is cooling, melt the chopped chocolate in a small bowl over simmering hot water or in the microwave. I reserve about 15-20% of the chocolate and put the rest of the chocolate into a small bowl. Zap the chocolate on high in 30 second bursts until most of the chocolate has melted. Give the chocolate a good stir until it has completely melted before adding the reserved chocolate. Keep stirring until the chocolate has completely melted.

Once the brittle is cool and has set, gently remove the brittle (still on the baking paper) and then turn it upside down onto a cooling rack. Remove the baking paper, then pour the chocolate over the flat base of the brittle smoothing it out using a spatula. Leave until the chocolate has completely cooled. If you can't wait, you can refrigerate the tray for about 20 minutes to speed up the setting process.

Once the chocolate has set break the brittle into shards. Store the shards of brittle in an airtight tin between waxed or baking paper. As its pretty warm in Sydney at the moment, my tin is stored in the bottom of the fridge to stop the chocolate from melting.



All packed and ready to share.

See you all again next week for a full week of posts for Christmas week 2015.

Bye for now,

Jillian
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