The Brick Kitchen

Baked spinach and ricotta gnudi in roast tomato eggplant sauce

March 7, 2022

Baked spinach and ricotta gnudi - The Brick Kitchen

Baked spinach and ricotta gnudi in roast tomato eggplant sauce. Jump to recipe.

Gnudi: Tuscan dumplings, akin to extra large ricotta gnocchi without the shaping and boiling steps. It often takes people aback when you say it, like they might have just heard you suggest nudes of some variety (gnudi does literally mean naked in Italian). The name apparently comes from the fact that they are similar to ravioli filling, only disrobed without their surrounding pasta. The term gnudi is more commonly used in areas near Florence, whereas they are also known as malfatti (meaning badly made) in Siena. This version were born of a day during COVID isolation when a friend dropped off a care package including ricotta, cherry tomatoes and a sourdough baguette (a friend that knew me well, clearly). True comfort food in a bubbling dish, and much easier than either ravioli or gnocchi – less potential for mishap.

As a sidenote, friends dropping off coffee and treats really got us through that home isolation period and I would highly recommend it to anyone else (especially New Zealanders right now who are in the midst of a COVID outbreak). Who knew how exciting a door knock would become when you weren’t allowed to leave the house – our days were bookmarked by what might come through it.

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Apricot, pistachio & cardamom cake

January 22, 2022

Lemon-y apricot, pistachio and cardamom cake. Jump to recipe.

I’m definitely a stuck record but I can’t believe its already been three months since a recipe here! Life is busy etc etc. To sum up – Victoria emerged blinking from lockdown, life outside of home resumed, everyone got covid (myself included, very mildly) and it has been a strange summer of lots of hospital work, cancelled plans because of isolation requirements, retail and hospitality closures with staff furloughs and everyone trying to reach this elusive “new normal” (I realise this is what the rest of the world probably went though a long time ago – we are a little behind). It still beats lockdown. The last hurdle left is border closures – NZ and WA remain the last islands standing, having somehow (luckily for them, unluckily for us) kept out omicron.

Baking has been a little neglected in the interim, but I’ve prioritised a version of my favourite summer cake (basically anything involving stonefruit and nuts in combination). It’s a lemony apricot, pistachio and cardamom cake, moist with an almost caramelised exterior and not too sweet. The apricots roast and soften on the surface, the cake just sturdy enough to keep them afloat. It’s also low maintenance, which is all I can really tolerate currently – one (to two) bowls, no mixer, no creaming butter, no frosting – just a few lashings of lemon glaze to decorate. Rave reviews received all round.

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My best banana bread

October 2, 2021

Best banana bread - The Brick Kitchen009

I know I’ve published three banana bread recipes before (a basic version fancied up with espresso mascarpone, a slightly alternative tropical passionfruit coconut version and a healthy-ish tahini heavy version) and there are literally millions to be found on the internet. Maybe even billions, who knows. I still think you need this recipe. It’s the only one I ever make anymore, and whenever anyone asks for the recipe I struggle because it only exists as an ingredients list on my iphone notes. It’s a one bowl mix frequently made the night before work and might be the only reason they kept me around (adjectives used included life changing).

It’s extra moist thanks to oil, tahini and yogurt, heavy on the banana with a thick sugar caramelised top (crucial) and studded with dark chocolate and toasted walnuts. Tahini delivers an extra subtle nuttiness, but you can substitute with extra vegetable oil if you don’t have any. The recipe originated in Violet Bakery’s buttermilk banana bread and has metamorphosed into this over a few years – I never have buttermilk on hand but always have yogurt, like the additional depth of tahini, and have changed quantities around a bit so it works in a standard size loaf tin. Walnuts and dark chocolate also never hurt.

Best banana bread - The Brick Kitchen001

Key points for optimal banana bread making

EXTREMELY ripe bananas. Almost black. A few spots doesn’t cut it. It also works perfectly with frozen bananas, so leave them to go almost black on the counter then freeze and defrost in the microwave when you want to use (make sure to use all the liquid that leaks out). Make sure to mash them very thoroughly until silky and shiny (warming them a bit in the microwave can also help here). Big chunks of bananas tend to sink to the bottom and don’t deliver the even moist bread you want.
Loaf tin size: somewhere along the way in making this recipe I lost my grandmother’s loaf tin, and then realised when finding another one that it was a bit larger than standard size, and really there is no standard size anyway. This recipe works well in either an 8.5 x 4.5 inch tin (21.5cm x 11.5 cm) or a 9 x 5 inch (23 x 12 cm) tin (won’t be quite as tall and will cook a bit faster).
If tahini isn’t your thing or you don’t have any, sub in the same weight vegetable oil.
Dark brown and demerera sugar– important! You could sub in regular brown sugar and caster sugar respectively, but the originals are worth it for the caramelised interior and dark sugar crusted top.
Cooking time: the last thing you want after going to all this effort is to overbake your loaf (my literal nightmare). When cooked, the top will spring back to touch with a firmness you wouldn’t associate with liquid batter underneath BUT a skewer may still come out with crumbs or even a little gooey batter attached (I put this down to hitting chocolate chunks / banana on the way down). I like to leave it to cool completely in the tin overnight and have never ended up with runny insides. I’ve suggested 40-50 minutes in a 180°C oven on fanbake as mine takes about 45 minutes, but it will all depend on the oven and tin that you’re using.

My best banana bread

Author: Claudia Brick

Ingredients

400 g very ripe banana (approx 3 medium) + 1/2 banana sliced lengthways to top
80 ml vegetable oil (1/3 cup / 80g)
40 g runny tahini (50ml)
150 g dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 eggs
60 g full fat greek yogurt (1/4 cup)
160 g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup toasted walnuts roughly chopped
80 g dark chocolate roughly chopped
3 tablespoons demerera sugar to top (can use caster sugar if you have none)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180°C and line a loaf tin with baking paper, extending the baking paper about 2 cm up over the sides of the tin
Mash the bananas until fairly smooth and shiny.
In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, tahini, dark brown sugar and vanilla. Add the eggs, one at a time, and whisk until silky. Stir in the yogurt and banana.
In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt with fork.
Add to the banana mix and fold in to just combine. Fold in the dark chocolate and walnuts.
Pour into your prepared loaf tin. Place half a banana (sliced lengthways) on top to decorate. Scatter a layer of demerera sugar over the surface of the loaf.
Bake for 40-50 minutes until the surface springs back to touch. A skewer inserted may still come out with crumbs / bits of batter but not be completely runny.
Leave to cool completely in the tin.

Better ricotta gnocchi with kale & pangrattato

September 12, 2021

Ricotta gnocchi with kale & pangrattato - The Brick Kitchen

Better ricotta gnocchi with kale & pangrattato. Jump to recipe.

Ricotta gnocchi are easily the superior gnocchi. Maybe I’m biased, but I wouldn’t even bother with the potato version – the risk is far greater than the reward. Who wants to boil and peel and mash potatoes only to increase your chances of ending up with a stodgy end product? (That being said, Ottolenghi’s swede gnocchi with miso butter remain on my to-make list, but only because any recipe he touches turns to gold). Ricotta, on the other hand, are the light, delicate, easy but casual gnocchi. The throw-together-for-friends-on-a-weeknight gnocchi (when we can finally have friends over again – I’m READY).

This version is slightly different to the recipe I’ve previously published – it has the addition of parmesan and an extra egg yolk with a little less flour, which I think gives a lighter, slightly more decadent end result. The main thing with ricotta gnocchi is the type of ricotta you buy, because all ricotta is not one and the same. Some are very wet and creamy, others quite hard and crumbly – I like to buy something in between, but the main thing is that you want it to be quite dry, so if it is very damp, drain it in a sieve and lay it between a few layers of paper towels to squidge some of that extra liquid out. Usually the regular supermarket ricotta is fine for this recipe.

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Dark Chocolate & Honey Pear Tart

August 23, 2021

Dark chocolate & honey pear tart: a sweet short pastry, rich dark chocolate filling and golden honey roasted pears. Jump to recipe.

Unfortunately very little has changed since the last recipe here – Melbourne remains in hard lockdown, work remains work, life remains limited to takeaway coffee from down the road and runs within a 5km radius and regular house cooking adventures because these are the small things we have left. (If you need inspiration, might I recommend Ixta Belfridge’s biang biang noodles heavy on the sichuan pepper, Alison Roman’s roast pumpkin with pistachio butter on yogurt, basically made to be mopped up with your fingers, and a morning tea rendition of these blueberry scones with lemon curd and cream).

While our bubble shrinks, the feeling of helplessness only increased this week as we watched Kabul fall to the Taliban in a massive backwards step for women’s rights and heard the catastrophic predictions of the latest IPCC climate report – only for our government to continue to pretend it doesn’t exist. The onslaught of COVID news overwhelms even this: vaccine targets (will they or won’t they work), case numbers (linked or mysterious), “freedom” protests in Melbourne (the most disgusting and selfish super-spreader events we have seen yet). It’s hard to feel optimistic. I also have no answers to the above besides what we have all heard before and which many people can articulate much better than me.

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Zucchini ginger udon noodles with maple tofu

July 21, 2021

Zucchini ginger udon noodles with maple tofu: a simple 30 minute dinner with lots of veg, herbs and crispy bits. Jump to recipe

We are back with a new recipe and a new lockdown!! Two things that seem to go hand in hand these days – apparently the only moments I have available to cook/test/photograph are when forced to stay home. It’s lockdown V5 in Melbourne (just to recap, here we have lockdown one (passionfruit meringue bars), two (pear miso galette; rhubarb custard brûlée tarts), three (pannacotta lamington cake) and four (tiramisu tart) for a bit of viewing nostalgia/PTSD). Not much to say about it that has not already been said before: just feeling particularly stagnant this time around. So much for those dinners out! Those holidays! Seeing friends! Seeing more than the four walls of our house! (Great four walls, to be fair).

Anyway. Zucchini ginger udon noodles with maple tofu. It’s a mouthful but I couldn’t work out how to describe it better (let me know if you come up with an alternative). First we have LOTS of thinly sliced zucchini, cooked down low and slow a la @ottolenghi. No browning allowed. Cook gently with oil, salt, ginger and garlic for 15-20 minutes, stirring whenever you remember, until it’s soft, almost translucent and very fragrant. Meanwhile you soak the tofu in a sesame, maple and soy combination, chop some herbs, throw together the lime/fish sauce dressing and cook the udon. Careful with the latter or it’ll end up soft and soggy, opposite of al dente, not what we want. Stir it all together and adorn with your favourite crispy bits – fried shallots, togarashi, extra herbs and the tofu you’ve just pan fried. It might make you feel better about lockdown. It might not either (that would be too much to promise).

Zucchini Ginger Udon Noodles - The Brick Kitchen

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Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Tiramisu Tart

June 7, 2021

Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Tiramisu Tart: a nutty, buttery pastry, silky baked chocolate ganache and pillowy soft espresso mascarpone cream. Jump to recipe.

Hello! It’s been an unintentional 3 month hiatus and I’m not quite sure how it’s already June. There was a scary amount of work (a recent 140 hour fortnight definitely bordered on illegal), an adventure to Western Australia (beaches and wineries and more beaches) and I finally made it back to Aotearoa aka the homeland for a weekend under the new and already suspended COVID safe travel bubble. Already suspended because we are in lockdown yet again in Melbourne. Round 4.0. Hence the new post I guess: you know I like to cook when I can’t leave the house.

I don’t want to linger too long on our virus resurgence and lockdown repeat, but suffice to say it feels a little (a lot) like 2020 all over again. The chilly autumn mornings, the weekend queues outside bakeries as everyone attempts to eat their feelings via the best carbohydrates Melbourne has to offer, the classic walk + takeaway coffee catch ups and multiple house dinners because for once we don’t have anywhere else to be. Even Masterchef is back on. The best: a house brunch (french toast using @bakerbleu challah with Ottolenghi’s rum spiked mascarpone creme and caramelised bananas, if you must know. It was outrageously good). The worst: the return of live streams of case numbers and daily anxiety inducing updates. Only this year there’s an extra layer of disappointment and fatigue that even 2020 couldn’t manage. We were just piecing ourselves back into some semblance of normality, you know? It’s like we almost passed go but went directly to jail.

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Grilled corn, cucumber & peanut soba salad with crispy tofu

March 4, 2021

Grilled corn, cucumber, peanut & chilli soba salad with crispy tofu - The Brick Kitchen

Grilled corn, cucumber & peanut soba salad with crispy tofu and a creamy chilli, lime & tahini dressing. Jump to recipe.

There are a number of recipes on high rotation which I continue to make variations of, based on the season and *mostly* the contents of my fridge. This is one. The formula goes: soba noodles, lots of herbs and veg, some riff on a usually lime and tahini based dressing, protein source (gooey egg, peanut tofu, miso salmon etc etc), crunchy bits (crispy shallots, chopped nuts and seeds, spring onion). Despite the fact that the instagram algorithm would have you think we are all sugar fiends and only a elaborate cake or a cookie (melted pool of dark chocolate and flaky sea salt for maximum impact) is worth the anyone’s time/eyes, it’s actually these weeknight recipes that far more of you actually cook. I guess dinner is a (somewhat) compulsory meal of the day, whereas cakes are a fun bonus (no less important or necessary though). Although I love making new recipes, 90% of the time currently I can’t face the mental energy associated with trying anything other than what I know will take me no more than half an hour, is guaranteed to turn out well and will give me work leftovers to look forward to – so here we are.

It’s also my final recipe in collaboration with Prahran Market, and inspired by the late summer stacks of local sweetcorn and bunches of fresh herbs currently available. Helpfully, the market also is home to a number of specialty food stores which means you can pretty much buy every single ingredient you might possible need – from the chilli oil, tahini and soba noodles used in this recipe to the black limes and preserved lemons I’ve been using for our Ottolenghi dinner nights.

The easiest way I’ve found to make the smoky grilled sweetcorn is directly over a gas element (if you have one) or on a barbecue. While you occasionally rotate the cobs over the flame (don’t worry if it pops and spits madly), make the chilli lime dressing and pour a 1/3 or so over the cucumber batons for maximum flavour. Peanuts go in the oven to toast, as does the crispy salt and pepper baked tofu. Toss together the cold soba with spiced thai basil and coriander, finely chopped peanuts and the remaining dressing (with a little tahini added for creaminess) and top with crisp cucumber, grilled corn, lots of tofu and extra chilli oil, depending on much heat you can tolerate.

*Side note – crispy tofu is very delicious right from the oven, and slightly less delicious and definitely not crispy on subsequent days. I don’t mind it, but you might also prefer this peanut tofu if you’re making it for a few meals. If you want to read everything you might want to know about oven baked crispy tofu, I would direct you to this blog post by my friend Georgia (who also has innumerable other veg recipes you should check out).

Grilled corn, cucumber & peanut soba salad with crispy tofu

Author: Claudia Brick

Ingredients

3 cobs of corn
2-3 lebanese cucumber
Large handful Thai or regular basil torn
1/2 bunch of coriander finely sliced
1/3 cup peanuts toasted and finely chopped
200-300 g soba noodles

Lime chilli dressing

1/3 cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 red chilli finely chopped ± seeds depending on how spicy your chilli is
1 clove garlic finely chopped
Zest and juice of a large lime
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons tahini
Chilli oil to serve

Crispy baked tofu

300 g extra firm tofu
salt and pepper
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Drain the tofu, wrap in paper towels and press underneath something heavy (like a mortar and pestle or a pot with cans in it) to get as much liquid out as possible. You can skip this, just accept that the end result won’t be quite so crispy.
Shuck the corn and grill directly on the flames of a gas element or a barbecue, turning occassionally, until charred in spots and mostly cooked through.
Toast the peanuts for 10 minutes in the oven or until golden.
Meanwhile, make the dressing. In a small pot, heat the rice vinegar and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat, add the finely chopped chilli, garlic, lime zest and juice and sesame oil.
Slice the cucumbers into matchsticks (as in photo). Spoon 3 tablespoons of dressing over the top, toss to coat and set aside.
Cut the tofu into cubes, season well with salt and pepper, stir through 2 teaspoons sesame oil and toss through the cornstarch to evenly coat. Spread out on a baking paper lined tray and bake for 20 -30 minutes until golden and crisp on the outside.
Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to the boil and cook the soba noodles according to instructions. Drain and rinse in cold water to cool.
Cut the corn from the cobs.
Stir the 2 tablespoons of tahini into the remaining dressing.
Toss the cold noodles with the herbs, finely chopped peanuts and the tahini dressing. Add the cucumber and corn now if desired or serve separately for DIY bowls.
Serve with crispy tofu, extra chilli oil. You can also add avocado and soft boiled eggs if desired