Drunken Fruit and Biscotti Icecream Terrine with Red Wine Poached Pears

Serves 6

There are many steps to this dessert, but it’s not as scary as it looks and there is a certain sense of satisfaction at its completion. The good thing is it can all be prepared ahead of time. Besides which the wow factor is certainly present.

Drunken Fruit and Biscotti Icecream Terrine:

• 70g mixed currants, craisins, raisins, sultanas
• 40ml sweet sherry
• 400ml thickened cream
• 6 egg yolks
• 140g caster sugar
• 100ml water
• 6 biscotti, cut into chunks

Method:

1. Soak dried fruit in sherry and set aside (overnight if possible).
2. Prepare a loaf tin first with glad wrap then with baking paper
3. Whip cream to soft peaks and set aside.
4. Whisk egg yolks with electric beaters until thick, pale and very creamy – this takes a good 5 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, place water and sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Boil to *soft ball stage.
6. (Soft ball stage* Now, I don’t have a sugar thermometer to measure this, so I keep a bowl of water and a spoon on the bench beside me, and as the sugar boils and thickens, I keep dipping my spoon in the sugar syrup until it coats the spoon. At that stage, dip the spoon in the water and touch it. The sugar syrup should be thick and sticky like glucose. If this is taken too far, to hard ball stage, when you put the spoon of sugar syrup in the water, the sugar will make hard shards of toffee. This can be fixed by adding a little more water and repeating the process)
7. When the sugar has reached soft ball stage, take the saucepan to the electric beaters and slowly pour the sugar in. Pour in the excess sherry from the drunken fruit. Keep beating until the bowl of the electric mixer feels cool (it will be quite warm when the sugar if first poured in). This process takes about 10 minutes.
8. In a large bowl, with a metal spoon, gently combine the egg yolks and sugar syrup mixture with the cream, the dried fruit and the biscotti. Pour into the prepared loaf tin. Place a strip of baking paper over the top and freeze overnight.

• 6 hard pears, like corella
• 500ml red wine
• 150g (2/3 cup) caster sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 2 strips of orange rind, pith removed

Method:

1. Combine all ingredients, except pears in a saucepan and stir over low heat until sugar dissolves.
2. Peel pears, cut in half and scoop out the pips with a melon baller, leaving the stem on one of the sides intact.
   
3. Add pears to saucepan, bring liquid to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10-12 minutes or until pears are tender.
   
4. Remove saucepan from heat and allow pears to cool in the liquid. Once liquid has cooled, remove pears, bring liquid to the boil and boil on high heat until it’s reduced by half, thick and syrupy.

To Serve:

Remove the loaf tin from freezer and take the top layer of baking paper off the terrine and turn it out onto a large platter. Place a few poached pear halves over the top and drizzle with red wine syrup. Place remaining pears around the dish.

Eggplant and Fetta Balls

Ingredients:

• 1 medium eggplant
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 small brown onion, finely chopped
• 100g fetta, crumbled
• 1 tbsp parmesan, freshly grated
• 2 slices stale white bread
• 1 cup coarse breadcrumbs
• 1 egg
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• Oil for frying

To Crumb:

• 3-4 tbsp plain flour
• 1 egg, lightly whisked with a tbsp milk
• 1 cup breadcrumbs
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley

Method:

1. Prick eggplant and place in a saucepan with enough cold lightly-salted water to cover eggplant.
2. Bring to boil and continue to boil on a medium flame for about 20 minutes, turning eggplant occasionally, or until eggplant starts to soften. Remove from saucepan.
3. Peel skin off eggplant and discard. Squeeze out the excess liquid from the flesh.
4. Roughly chop the flesh and place in a large bowl with lemon juice, onion, fetta, parmesan, breadrumbs, egg and seasoning.
5. Wet stale bread with a little water, squeeze excess liquid out and chop roughly. Add this to the bowl. Combine all ingredients well. (Mixture should be wet, but sturdy enough to form ball shapes.)
6. Divide mixture into 12 even sizes and roll each into a net ball. Refrigerate for an hour.

To Crumb:

Place flour in a small bowl, egg wash in another, and breadcrumbs combined with parsley and sesame seeds in another. Roll each eggplant ball into the flour, then the egg wash, then the crumb mixture. Keep eggplant balls in refrigerator until needed.

To Deep Fry:

Heat fryer to 160C and immerse balls in hot oil until golden. Serve hot.

Fetta Scones

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups mixed cheese (cubed fetta, shredded tasty cheese and grated parmesan)
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• ½ cup melted butter\
• 1 cup milk
• 4 cups SR flour

Method:

1. Combine all ingredients except flour.
2. Add flour slowly to make a slightly wet scone batter.
   Roll out onto a lightly floured surface, to a 2cm thickness.
3. Cut into squares or cut out round shapes using an espresso
   cup or cookie cutter.
4. Bake scones on a lined or greased tray in 180C oven for
   about 10 minutes.

Potato Skordalia

• 1kg potatoes, peeled
• 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
• ¼ cup almond meal
• Salt and pepper to taste
• ½ lemon, juiced
• ½ cup olive oil

Method:

1. Boil peeled potatoes until cooked and mash well.
2. Stir in minced garlic and almond meal.
3. Slowly pour in olive oil.
4. Add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.

Semi-dried Tomatoes

Method:

1. Halve or quarter roma tomatoes.
2. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and sugar and place on a baking tray.
3. Dry tomtatoes out in a low oven (120C) until sides of tomatoes start to curl up and the liquid in the tomatoes has evaporated. This takes a few hours.

Fetta Scones with Potato Skordalia and Semi-dried Tomatoes

To assemble:

Slice fetta scones in half , paste bottom half with potato skordalia and place semi-dried tomatoes on top. Place top back on. Repeat with remaining scones.