Lemon Curd

Homemade lemon curd

Even if you're not making pav, give this lemon curd a go. It makes a great tart filling if you add an extra yolk or two.

• 375 ml fresh lemon juice
• 4 teaspoons finely grated fresh lemon zest
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 whole large eggs plus one egg yolk
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, soft

Beat all ingredients, except butter, together using an immersion blender. Heat over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisking occasionally. When mixture starts to get hot, whisk in the butter. Continue whisking until mixture thickens significantly to the consitency of warm custard. Remove from heat and strain through a fine mesh seive to remove the larger bits of zest. Chill by pressing cling wrap to the surface to prevent a skin from forming.

Herb and Garlic Roast Chicken

• 1 - 5.5 lb organic free range chicken
• 1/3 cup soft butter
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 + 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 1 large sprig thyme
• 2 garlic cloves, bruised
• 1 jumbo shallot (or 6 regular shallots), peeled and quartered

Allow bird to come to room temperature by removing it from the refrigerator 2 hours before you intend to start cooking it.

Preheat oven to 450F.

Rinse the bird and pat dry inside and out with paper towels.

Use your hand to loosen skin from breast of chicken. Cream together softened butter, minced garlic, minced thyme and rosemary and 1 + 1/2 teaspoons salt. Use your hands to distribute the butter mixture evenly between the breast meat and the loosened skin.

Combine 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Use your hands to apply it to the inside of the cavity. Stuff cavity loosely with thyme and rosemary sprigs, shallot and bruised garlic.

Truss the chicken.

Sprinkle an additional 1 teaspoon salt over chicken. Place in roasting pan, breast side up.

Roast chicken for 90 minutes.

Chicken soup with a soul

Mexican Chili, lime and chicken soup

Serves 6

• 1.5 litres of good chicken stock
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 -3 fresh small Thai chilies (most seeds removed) chopped fine
• 1-2 large red chillies (seeds and ribs removed) sliced
• 2 1/2 by 3 cm strips lime zest (all traces of pith cut away)
• 2 fresh corn cobs, rubbed with oil and roasted in a 350F oven for 20 minutes
• 2 chicken breasts, sliced very thinly diagonally to the grain
• 4 ripe tomatoes, diced (skin and all)
• 1/4 cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro
• juice of 2 small limes
• salt, pepper

Combine stock, garlic, chillies and zest in a large pot and heat over medium, high heat. Meanwhile, use a sharp knife to cut the corn kernels from the roasted corn. Be careful if they are still hot out of the oven. Add the kernels to the pot.

Once the pot is simmering very well, add the sliced raw chicken and stir to separate the pieces. Bring the soup back up to the boil and cook just until the chicken is cooked through (check this by cutting pieces through the middle to check for pink). If you've sliced your chicken pretty thinly, this should only take a couple of minutes. The secret is to not overcook the chicken or it will become tough.

Once the chicken is cooked turn off the heat and remove the pan to a cool spot. Stir in the tomatoes, cilantro and lime juice. Add salt and pepper as necessary. Fish out the pieces of zest.

Yum. I like to eat this with toasted tortilla strips crumbled roughly over the top.

The REAL secret of poached eggs

For 4 eggs:

1) Fill a wide, deep pan with hot water. I used my stirfry pan and filled it about 3 inches worth. Place on element at Medium-High heat.

2) Add some salt. I added 2 teaspoons.

3) Break each egg gently into a small bowl (you can do this one at a time if you like instead of messing up several bowls)

4) Wait for the water to just simmer, but don't let it bubble too much at all.

5) Gently slip the egg out of the bowl into the water. I almost submerged the bowl first and then gently tipped it into the water.

6) Add three more eggs in the same way immediately.

7) continue to simmer for a couple of minutes, until the eggs look like they are starting to cook on the outsides and are no longer "bleeding" into the water.

8) Turn the heat off and take the pan off the stove. Allow the eggs to finish cooking in the hot water. This should give you several minutes to set the plates up and get everything else ready. Just keep a close eye on them and check their done-ness by jiggleing the pan a bit - the yolks should still be soft and runny and jiggly and the whites mostly cooked and not jiggly.