Cooking with Ceylon Tea...
a refreshing & innovative
experience
Tea is finally breaking out of
its familiar role as an accompaniment to afternoon tea fare and emerging as a
provocative ingredient and more and more chefs around the world are bringing
tea into the kitchen to create recipes using tea for entrees, desserts, or as a
base for sophisticated new drinks. This "old" beverage easily
translates as a "new" ingredient that adds an indefinable something
to a dish, and helps a recipe evolve into one that is beautifully compounded with
flavour. Tea is an essential part of fine living and dining ... just as wines
are selected to enhance certain foods, teas can also be selected and brewed to
match sweet, savoury or spicy foods and the various hours and moods of the day.
Like fine wine, the quality of tea depends on climatic conditions, regional
characteristics, and the expertise of the plantation manager and the blender. But,
also like good wine, there is only a limited quantity of premium tea available
in the world. These recipes are refreshing, innovative, healthy, flavoured,
interesting and easy for anyone to prepare. And, best of all, tea is the ideal
condiment: no calories, no sodium, no sugar, no fat - just pure flavour.
Long regarded in the Orient as a health
beverage, tea is now medically accepted as having natural properties
(polyphenols which process antioxidants) beneficial to health. A cup of tea
generally has only one-third the caffeine content of a typical cup of coffee.
Ceylon tea is an incredible flavour enhancer; it can be just the right addition
to so many... such as tea shortcakes and truffles to traditional dishes using
fish, meat, or even tofu with tea to delight any palate. There is a colour
photograph of each finished recipe, so you will see at the beginning what the
dish will look like at the end... a real bonus when you are trying something
new! Whether your experience with tea is simply drinking a cup occasionally or frequently, with these easy-to-follow recipes and photographs to guide
you, we invite you to experience the fascination and excitement of cooking with
Ceylon tea. You can have fun cooking and
enjoy preparing these simple recipes as much as you and your guests or family
will enjoy eating them.
Ingredients
450 gms stoned and chopped dates
2 cups strong tea made with
2 tbsps Ceylon black tea leaves
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
250 gms sugar
250 gms flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
100 gms ginger preserve
100 gms chopped cashewnuts
300 gms margarine
2 tsps vanilla essence
Method
Place the dates in a bowl and add
the bicarbonate of soda. Pour in the hot tea and keep covered overnight or 8-10
hours. Cream the margarine and sugar, add eggs one at a time and beat. Sift
baking powder and flour and fold into the creamed mixture. Add the chopped
ginger and cashew nuts to the dates and fold in lightly. Add vanilla and pour
into a lined and greased baking pan (12"x10") and bake in a
pre-heated oven 180 C for 35-40 minutes.
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