Cheese biscuits

Okay, okay, there actually has been heaps of kitchen action in the Lushlife household for the past three weeks, just no time to photograph and write about them. Counting tomorrow it will be the fourth major feast we will have prepared in the past three weekends.

The first weekend, we prepared a barbecued butterflied lamb which turned out so well we would definitely prepare it again, dessert that night was a disaster of monumental proportions, a failed chocolate mousse and some successful hazelnut meringue. (The hazelnut meringue morphed into an ice-cream sandwhich drizzled with the chocolate sauce - which was the separated chocolate mousse- egads!)

24 hours after that dinner, the failed chocolate mousse was restored to it's intended glory (if you get the gist) after a gentle reheating and re-chilling. We enjoyed the mousse after the more pedestrian dinners which are a feature of our working week.

Some of the other highlights of that feast (which I will identify as Feast 1) that I intend to record here eventually, are the making of a Romesco sauce this link is of a different version to the one I made but it will give you the idea). This is one of those foodie recipes you have never heard of then like some kind of existential coincidence it pops up everytime you open a cookbook, magazine or search the recipes on a blog you have never searched on before, much like the Bellini which has become a fixture of late in the late, summer afternoons in our backyard, with our other latest semi-permanent physical fixture being a badminton net.

Last weekend (Feast 3), it was Bellinis with a blood orange twist, chorizos and garlic broadbeans with dill and mint, marscapone and gorgonzola stuffed pepperdews, dukkah, turkish bread, Persian feta, pesto & tapenade and the cheese biscuits above (belatedly getting to point of this post) Oh!- and the badminton and the kiddies and a couple of our most wonderful friends.

Back to the cheese biscuits. Just before Christmas last year, we had a huge dinner at a good friend's place (and in fact whom I credit with providing me with the recipe for the main course I produced for Feast No. 3 and I will publish later) one of the couples was tasked with bringing the Antipasti and she arrived with beautiful marscapone and pesto dips, gorgeous brie and these melt in your mouth shortbread cheese biscuits. She had not made them but sourced them from one of our town's finest baked good providores. Once I had tried one I couldn't forget them and I was determined to find a recipe for something like them which I am glad to say only took me a little more than a month from the first taste. I think that the bought ones had a higher butter content than mine but nevertheless I am more than happy with the product I have made in any case.

The recipe source: my every so handy little book of Small Food (snack-sized bites to share with friends) by Murdoch Books.

Recipe
1 cup (125g) plain flour
2 tablespoons self-raising flour
1 teaspoon curry powder (optional - I decided against it)
125g butter
1/2 cup (50g) Parmesan
2/3 cup grated cheddar
20g crumbled blue-vein cheese
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup (25g) finely grated Parmesan extra

Place the flours, curry powder and butter in a food processor. Process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the cheeses and the lemon juice. Bring the mixture together into a ball. Roll into a 30cm (or two logs). Wrap in plastic and chill for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to moderately hot 200c (400FGas 6) Slice into 5mm slices (although I thought thicker was better and opted for just under 1 cm) Reshape, if necessary. Place on baking paper-lined oven tray, allowing some room for spreading. Sprinkle tops with Parmesan. Bake for 15minutes, or until biscuits are golden. Cool on trays. Makes plenty (40+)

I have to say I did prefer them thicker and not so crispy, so you could get a big cheesy buttery mouthful, perfect topped with some Persian feta or pesto or tapenade.

Yea - a post I have done it . Oh and by the way Tomara and Brenton or Tom if you do find my website this weekend or at another time, please be kind enough to leave me a comment!