Gourmet Traveller Annual Cookbook

It really is time to eat clean, exercise and drink water, but I'm not quite done with banging on about what we ate over christmas. Craig brought me the GTAC 2010, courtesy of the lovely Johanna. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It has been our christmas time go to recipe book and we have been working our way fairly quickly through it. So far we've done a gin cured trout (served with a scattering of herbs and a pile of biscuits), home made gnocci with brussel sprouts and pancetta (how festive)(and such creamy gnocci! not my work at all) and the baked mascarpone marsala cheesecakes with an espresso syrup. I've my eye on a pancetta, kale and clam soup next, although we might substitute mussels for local availability. That'd be the second of two mussels dishes after we made the pugliese version of paella for our boxing day meal.



That all sounds very fancy, but really it is simply layers of sliced potato, halved cherry tomatoes, grated parmesan, fresh cooked and shelled mussels and risotto rice. Once you've reached the top of the dish you add some of the mussel cooking liquor and hot chicken stock till the dish cant take any more, scatter a handful of reserved shell on mussels and whack it in the oven to bake till it is piping. We improvised and sprinkled it with a healthy amount of smoked paprika too, and when it was done finished it off with some chopped flat leaf parsley.