Easy Summer Entertaining with Chef Dominique Rizzo
It’s summer time and Chef Dominique Rizzo is sharing some of her favourite summer recipes with you. These are fabulous drinks and recipes to prepare for your guests without spending hours in the kitchen. Easy summer entertaining in a busy schedule makes sense.
Easy Summer Entertaining – Lime and Lychee Wine Spritzer
This fresh wine spritzer is ideal for those summer days or warm nights when the zesty flavours of lime, lemon grass and a bite of chili will liven up the taste buds and with the soft sweet flavours of lychee its ideal to accompany any dish or dessert.
Ingredients:
1 bottle Lindeman’s Crispy Dry White
1 tbsp. Gourmet garden lemon grass
½ cup lime cordial
2 Kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced
10 lychees – muddled
1 long red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced into threads
Juice of 2 limes
1lt soda water
Method:
- Combine the wine with the rest of the ingredients leaving the wine to sit in the fridge for at least an hour to infuse with flavours.
- Serve the wine half-filled in glasses and top with the soda water.
Easy Summer Entertaining – Baked Eggplant, Goats Cheese and Tomato Olive Salad
This is a light lunch or entree option full of wonderful colours and textures and a great dish to make ahead of time as all the components can be put together at the last minute.
2 tbsp. chopped basil
2 tbsp. chopped parsley
3 tbsp. olive oil
Salt and pepper
60g goat’s cheese
60g cream cheese
3 roma tomatoes
40g green olives, pitted and chopped
40g black olives, pitted and chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
5 leaves of basil, chopped
Zest of 1 lemon
40g baby spinach
12 thin slices focaccia or Turkish bread
Method:
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Pre heat the oven to 200c.
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Combine the olive oil with the basil and parsley and season with salt and pepper, using a pastry brush cover both sides of the eggplant slices with the herb oil and season with salt and pepper.
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Place the slices of eggplant onto a baking tray and bake for 10 minutes, turn the eggplant over and bake for another 10 minutes. Allow to cool.
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Blend the goat’s cheese with the cream cheese until smooth. Deseed the tomatoes and dice into 1cm pieces, finely dice the olives and mix in with the tomatoes, add in the garlic, basil and lemon zest, blend with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
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To serve place a round of eggplant onto a plate and spread with a dessert spoon of the cheese mixture, top with some of the spinach leaves and then another eggplant round. Spoon over some of the olive salsa and serve with focaccia or Turkish bread.
Easy Summer Entertaining – Italian Crispelle with Sweet Fresh Pear and Honey Relish
This is such a fresh, fast and easy dessert or breakfast recipe and is delicious with ice cream, pouring cream or thickened yoghurt.
Ingredients:
1 cup plain flour
Salt
2 whole eggs
280ml milk
50g butter
1 tbsp. honey
½ tsp. Gourmet Garden ginger
½ tsp. orange zest
2 tbsp. Lindeman’s Sweet Seasons Blancello
Couple of drops of vanilla or 1/8 tsp. vanilla bean paste
3 ripe pears, peeled, cored and diced into 1cm pieces
10 leaves of mint, sliced
Method:
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For the crispelle, pour the flour into a bowl and add in the salt. Make a well in the centre and in a separate bowl whisk the eggs and the milk together. Gradually whisk the eggs and milk into the flour and continue to whisk until the batter is smooth and lump-free.
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Melt 20gms butter and pour this into the batter mixing to combine.
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Heat a non-stick frypan over low-medium heat, add a little butter to coat the base then ladle in enough crepe mixture to coat the base completely, turning gently to ensure an even thickness. Cook 1-2 minutes until light and golden.
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Turnover and cook for 10-15 seconds. Remove to plate and cover to keep warm. Repeat using the remaining crepe batter. To serve, place the folded crepes onto a plate and top with the fresh pear relish. Serve with a scoop of ice cream.
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To make the fresh pear relish, combine the honey, ginger, zest and the Blancello and whisk until the honey dissolves, add in the diced pears and the chopped mint and toss together, serve this over the crepes.
These recipes by Dominique Rizzo were originally featured at https://www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes/.