Antonella Gambotto-Burke summer cookbook recipe: Virginia Woolf Brittle
The impact of Virginia Woolf Brittle on a current partner or potential mate, particularly when fed by hand and in combination with a reading in the late sun, cannot be overstated.
Every day this summer, we’ll publish an exclusive recipe from a favourite Australian author, dishes made with affection for family, friends or someone special.
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Summer can be trying for those of us who cannot tolerate peanuts.
We watch, perspiring, as those around us, usually in baggy sluggos, zinc – and with minimal concern for our mental health – break great wodges of delicious brittle and stuff them into their mouths, drunk on gluttony.
I designed the brittle in this recipe not merely as a counterpoint to such bestial displays, but to remind us all of another kind of pleasure – that of moments stolen in sun-dappled gardens, away from the voices, away from the party, moments in which we feel more ourselves than we have ever felt, and in which the promise of sweetness is held as delicately as the stem of a rose.
The impact of Virginia Woolf Brittle on a current partner or potential mate, particularly when fed by hand and in combination with a reading in the late sun, cannot be overstated.
You have been warned.
Tools you will need:
A biscuit tray, baking paper, a cup of cold water, and a saucepan
200g butter
200g honey
½ cup lavender flowers
Organic damask rosewater to taste
Edible eco gold glitter to taste
1. Line the tray with the baking paper.
2. Over a relatively intense heat – not Dostoevsky intense, as you don’t want the butter to burn – blend the honey, butter and rosewater.
3. After 8 to 12 minutes of passionate, emotionally dislocated stirring, blob a bit of the mixture into the cold water. If it cracks, it’s ready.
4. Fold in the lavender and the edible glitter. Refrigerate until it is as hard as Henry Miller.
SUMMER COOKBOOK: THE WAY TO THE HEART
Minestrone (Mum’s vegetable soup)
This soup is a message of comfort via comfort food — delicious, nutritious, foolproof, cheap and feeds lots of people.
Tuna with pasta
Maybe I love this dish because it takes me back to when two pots and a black-and-white TV was enough, and there was nothing that could not fixed by a pint and a shared laugh.
Made-in-Minutes Goan Prawn Curry with Spinach
I love curries and this one is simple, with lots of flavour and a wonderful, creamy, coconut base.
Monster mash
My mash consistently makes women moan and gentlemen raise their eyebrows. The secret is simple muscularity.
Slow-cooked rabbit
A couple of decades ago I started to collect rabbit recipes from here and across the world, and ended up with hundreds.
Sri Lankan omelette
This is my favourite meal in the whole world. In particular, Sri Lankan omelette is my go-to comfort food. I can make it quickly and eat it three times a day.
My Humble Pie is the greatest to exit an oven
It may be humble in terms of cost, but it is bold, brash, punchy and delectable with a Stroganoffish zest. It will change your life. Humbly.
Raspberry and elderflower trifle
This dish tells a story of my life. I grew up eating custard, real custard made from cornflour and eggs and milk, along with fools and flummeries.
A roast chicken comfort dish
I love the way the roasting smell fills the house. It reminds me of so many wonderful family dinners.
Beef keema
What I love about keema is how forgiving it is and how easy it is to make. This is the homely dish that introduced my children to their Pakistani side.
Triple ginger bar cake
This is cooked in a loaf tin and is flexible; delicious naked, slathered with butter, or more traditionally iced with a loose glace to become a perfect tea cake.
Peter Craven’s Duck a l’orange
Any kind of duck is grand but duck as the French do it, and especially duck a l’orange, is a joy forever.
Selvie’s chicken curry with curry leaves
When our spice couriers managed to get their contraband through customs, there was much celebrating – usually in the form of Mum’s fragrant chicken curry.
Ice cream with caramel and cherries
And then the dessert comes... It slides into that part of our experience that is pre-politics, pre-speciality, pre-peculiarity and even pre-sophistication.
Lamb scrag end neck chops stew
This is the meal I constantly cook because my husband will live on it quite happily for a week, saving me a lot of bother ... he is not a modern man.
Creme brulee with candied rhubarb
More than 30 years ago, I gave a formal sit-down dinner party for 30 people. Dessert was the piece de resistance, individual creme brulees with candied rhubarb.
Borsch for the busy person
With the right mix of ingredients, borsch is a tangy but sweet and belly warming mouthful of delight.
Virginia Woolf Brittle
The impact of Virginia Woolf Brittle on a current partner or potential mate, particularly when fed by hand and in combination with a reading in the late sun, cannot be overstated.
Wakame beurre blanc
This sauce has become such a staple that I douse all grilled, poached, or pan-fried seafood in it at all times of the year.
Lemon Chicken
When our children were growing and my wife Steph was teaching evening classes, lemon chicken was the go to meal – simple and tasty.
Crispy Latkes
Creamy mashed, crispy smashed, jacket roasted and anointed with butter, pan fried with sliced onions, deep-fried to limpness, over-salted and wrapped in newsprint – however they come, I love potatoes.
Lamb Moussaka Therapy
Imagine a dish as therapeutic to eat as a lasagne, but instead of beef it’s made with lamb and has layers of potato and eggplant as the pasta sheets … Imagine no more, champions!
Odd couple share recipe for great summer reading
They’re one of the less likely duos to be found discussing the filleting of trout or basting of chicken – but Tom Keneally and Nat’s What I Reckon have all bases covered.
Summer Cookbook
Australia’s favourite authors share their most meaningful recipes.
5. As if it were Woolf’s heart, shatter into pieces and recklessly consume.
Antonella Gambotto-Burke is an Italian-Australian critic, journalist and author currently based in England who writes for The Weekend Australian's book pages and is widely published in the UK. Mama, the band she formed with Gavin Monaghan, will release its first single early in the new year. She loves high heels and all social media other than Twitter, which bores her with its incessant demands.
Apple: Sex, Drugs, Motherhood and the Recovery of the Feminine, by Antonella Gambotto-Burke, Pinter & Martin