Cream cheese and marmalade

personalised gut health, and undulating fatty terrain at Caia

Food news of the week:

Today’s recipe is another nostalgic one that I’m making again today, not just because it’s delicious, but it’s one of the oldest ones on the blog and for the book.

Next, chicken on my mind. Chicken brown butter is the main theme of today’s review, and I recommend the highly-raved roast chicken at Noble Rot, which sits pretty in heavy, wine-rich velvet. If you’re not willing to splash, the consistently tender chicken curry at Laxsa is too good to pass up if you visit.

Science (and big news) of the week:

If you know me at all, you know I’m big into gut health, and I’ve been working with someone on something pretty exciting in the space. Truthfully, I wouldn’t be as much of a foodie now if it weren’t for my passion for the field, and things learned from my own gut health journey. If you’re interested at all in health and wellness, you start with the gut, the cornerstone of physical and mental health, and I would love to know what level of personalisation you are interested in (if you navigate to the waitlist tab), to understand the inner workings of your body in order to optimise it.

Speaking of which, Lactobacillus plantarum is one of the most researched bacteria and one I’m particularly fascinated by as a probiotic species: it has been shown to significantly reduce blood glucose markers, and significantly improves stress-related symptoms.

Insight of the week:

I forget that Seneca and Tarquin of ancient Rome all had three names, kind of like bacteria (Lactobacillus plantarum is the species, and Lactobacillus plantarum DR7 is a strain): A surname (like the species), personal name (strain), and the voting tribe or clan they belonged to (genus). Seneca is Lucius Annaeus Seneca, who I’ll now quote in honour of his stoic philosophy: “If you live according to what others think, you will never be rich”.

Recipe of the week:

Cream cheese marmalade brownies (serves 8-10)

Ingredients

For the brownies:

105g dark chocolate, chopped, or bittersweet chocolate chips

150g unsalted butter

1/2 tsp fine salt

2 eggs

70g brown sugar

130g white sugar

130g plain flour

For the topping:

60g cream cheese

10g sugar

6 tsp orange marmalade

Directions

Preheat your oven to 160C. Line an 8×8-inch baking pan with parchment paper so that two edges are longer and hang off the sides for easy removal. In a microwave-safe bowl, microwave together the butter and chocolate or chocolate chips on high for a minute. Make sure your butter is at room temperature or slightly cold, and not rock-hard from the fridge. Remove the bowl from the microwave and use a fork or spoon to mix everything together until you get a dark, liquidy consistency and the butter and chocolate has melted together nicely. Microwave for longer if your butter is still a little hard. Let the mixture cool for 2 minutes. In the meantime, add your two sugars and pinch of salt into a separate, larger bowl. Add the chocolate mixture and use a whisk to whisk it in well. Then crack and whisk in the 2 eggs. Finally, add the flour and use a rubber spatula to fold it in well, then pour the brownie batter into the prepared baking pan.

In a small bowl, whisk together the cream cheese and sugar until smooth and homogenous. Add teaspoonful-sized dollops of the cream cheese mixture on top of the brownie batter, then add teaspoonfuls of the marmalade just next to the dollops of cream cheese mixture. Use a knife to swirl the topping randomly into the batter. It should look slightly weird and messy. Sprinkle some coarse salt (like Maldon) on top if you’re fancy like that, but you can skip this step. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted into the middle comes out with moist-to-slightly-wet crumbs. Leave the brownies to cool for 10 minutes before cutting. These keep at room temperature for up to 3 days, but you can freeze them if you don’t have many people to share these with!

Restaurant of the week:

Wood-fired is a phrase almost lost as a concept in its frequency of use. Caia is a newer jaunt that celebrates this category, with a limited but directed menu, and one dish in particular that really stands out.