On air on Byron Bay’s community radio station Bayfm 99.9 on April 2, 2012

 

Sister T and Miss April, Alison Drover from Fork in the Field, had fun today talking about Easter food.  We had eggs hidden around the studio, lambs and Easter bunnies running around, hot cross buns in the oven, smelling great… In the Byron area for many of us this time of year is also all about the Bluesfest, so most of the tracks today are from this year’s Bluesfest artists.

 

HOT CROSS BUNS

This year for Easter I thought I would focus on these delicious cross topped raisin and spice buns.  There is a really good recipe here, from the very reliable Australian Gourmet Traveller magazine.  They are pretty simple to make, a bit like muffins in that you mix all the dry and all the wet ingredients separately first, but yeast risen.   This makes them very easy to change, glam up, complicate or simplify.  Heston Blumenthal makes earl gray tea flavoured buns, a chocolate chip variation is apparently particularly Australian, you can get coffee, sour cherry, gluten free,  in  Newtown, Sydney, you can find them with frankincense glaze so you feel like you are in church – which is a bit odd becuase you shouldn’t eat in church.  Or even filled with flavoured mousse or bread & butter pudding.
Every year in Australia someone complains that shops are selling them in January, in the UK you can get them all year round.
For a sweet little bun, they were always controversial – in England at one stage forbidden by Protestants as too Catholic, then limited to Good Friday (maybe it was easier to get people to obey then – an eye for an eye, a head for a bun…)
Now there is also controversy among historians about whether they used to be made in honour of the goddess of light or of the moon, the cross originally the horns of a sacred ox.
Certainly there were many superstitions about them – if you bake them on good Friday they will never go off, you can hang one in your kitchen to bring luck, they were even used ground up as medicine.

Have a look at the recipe link,I love the mix of orange zest and candied orange in it, or try your own favourite hot cross bun recipe with one of these belly lab variations:

Tuscan bun – skip sugar glaze and sugar in dough, add rosemary

Pagan bun – The cross is normally made with a simple paste of flour and water (see recipe link).  Make a sunburst instead of a cross by adding 2 more lines, or  try other designs, moon, starts, happy face, flowers …,  colour the flour – or just leave the cross off, call them buns, eat them all year round

Ultra traditional bun – make cross  shape with a wooden ‘bun docker’ – see here for how to make your very own docker – probably useful to give yourself stigmata too…be careful

 

MISS APRIL’S BEST IN SEASON

 

Out with the nectarines in with apples it’ April!

Celebrate the new life with eggs and a roast lamb or if you are not a meat eater perhaps a fish pie for Good Friday.

Crack a real egg over a chocolate one and make a baked egg custard and serve with a roasted stuffed apple or simply the custard paying homage to the egg.

Give your garden a new life by getting in there and weeding and treating it to some worm juice make your own or look at the farmers’ market or community garden for some and see everything spring to life.

Miss April Alison Drover Fork in the Field X

 

What’s in season NSW

 

Almonds

Apple

Avocado

Banana

Beetroot

Broccoli

Brussels Sprouts

Cabbage

Capsicum

Carrot

Celery

Chestnuts

Chilli

Coriander

Cucumber

Eggplant

Fennel

Fig

Garlic

Ginger

Grapes

Green Beans

Hazelnut

Lemon

Lime

Lobster

Mushrooms

Okra     Olive   Onion   Oregano

Papaya   Parsnip   Pear     Persimmon   Pistachio   Plums   Pomegranate   Potato   Pumpkin

Quince

Sage   Shallots   Silverbeet   Spinach   Squash

Thyme   Tomato   Turnip

Walnut

 

Northern Rivers Locally best is … silverbeet, basil, avocado, and tomatoes.

 

MISS APRIL’S EASTER RECIPES

 

EASTER POMEGRANATE AND YOGURT LAMB

 

Serve with crunchy rosemary potatoes

 

Shoulder of lamb – deboned approximately 1.6 kg or more

 

• 1 tsp. cumin

• 1tsp coriander

• juice of lemon

• 3 cloves of garlic (not imported) minced

• 1 tsp. fennel seeds

• 1 tsp. chopped thyme

• 4 tablespoons of olive oil

• 4 sprigs thyme

• 1 tsp. cinnamon

• 1 tsp. salt

• 3 cinnamon sticks

• 4 tablespoons yogurt

• 1 pomegranate – seeded

• 2 onions

 

Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3.

Take each onion cut top and bottom off (don’t cut off the skin).

Place onions in the bottom of baking tray. This will be used to rest the lamb on.

Place all the pomegranate seeds in a saucepan and 2 tablespoons of water and heat gently on a low heat on the stove for about 5 minutes or until the seeds have softened. This is a simply way of making a syrup to rub over the lamb.

Mix all the spices except the thyme and the cinnamon quills add the yogurt.

Take a paring knife and cut across the lamb. Ensure you have clean hands and then rub the spice and yogurt mix into the lamb. Take the pomegranate syrup/seeds and rub this all over the lamb.

Push the cinnamon quills into the lamb and then the thyme sprigs into the cinnamon.

Place the lamb in the oven and then cover the dish with a lid or the tin with a large piece of foil. Roast the lamb, undisturbed, for 3 hrs, then remove the lid or foil and continue to roast for 30 mins to give the lamb colour. When the lamb has had its time, pour off the juices, remove as much fat as possible, then pour the juices back over the lamb.

 

 

BAKED EGG CUSTARD

 

• 425ml organic full-cream milk

• 300ml organic double cream

• the zest of 1 orange

• 140g natural caster sugar

• 5 large, free-range eggs

• 4 large egg yolks

• a few drops of real vanilla extract

• a few gratings of nutmeg

• a 25cm deep ovenproof dish

Preheat the oven to 120 C/gas mark . Put the milk, cream and orange zest into a largish saucepan over a low to medium heat, and slowly bring the contents to a simmer. Immediately remove the pan from the heat, pour in the rum and leave the milk to infuse for about 15 minutes. In the meantime, whisk the sugar, whole eggs and yolks until thoroughly combined. Strain the milk on to the egg mixture (discarding the zest), stir well and add the vanilla extract.

Pour the custard mixture into the dish, grate on nutmeg, and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 1 hour, or until the custard has set (gently push the top with a finger to test). Serve at room temperature.

 

MUSIC

 

Love You More, Bobby Alu

Trouble Somehow, The Audreys

Rocksteady Woman, Nicky Bomba

Magdalena, Watussi

In the ghetto, Candi Staton and Elvis Presley

 

love and chocolate hot star buns, Sister T

 

ps – if this is all too much Easter sweetness for you, check out the Easter bunny and Ghengis Khan going head to head in a rap battle on Youtube here