red currants at Lower Longley

Rita's Bite

artichokes at Lower Longley

Pavlova

(Recipe kindly provided by Monica Donnelly - Master Pav Chef)

Monica is one of those youthful older members of our community who has lived, and still lives, an exciting and productive life.

Mon was born in Hobart and raised at Wattle Grove near Cygnet during the depression years of the 1930's. She moved to Hobart in the late 1940's, married and had two children. She had a successful career in life assurance, has travelled widely and later in life has developed her writing skills with a bunch of friends, named aptly The Domain Writers. She has written and published a book of her reminiscences of life.

More to the point, she is renowned for a few choice dishes which she cooks with that innate skill of all good country women.

Her prize dish, for me, is her Pavlova. I asked Mon if she would share with us the finer points of her skills as a master pav chef - and she has.

The recipe

Ingredients

• 6 - 8 egg whites
• 10 oz caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornflour
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar

Method

• Beat the whites to stiff peaks
• Add half the sugar, a tablespoon at a time (about every 30 seconds)
• Add vinegar
• Combine the remaining sugar with the cornflour
• Fold into pav mix carefully
• Pour onto a greased tray, piling it up in the centre
• In a fan-forced oven, temp 150 degrees for 45 minutes, then 120 degrees for 60 mins. Then turn off the oven and leave pav in the oven overnight.

Mon's warnings

• Turn the oven on before you start to prepare the pav
• Use electric beaters
• Don't overbeat
• When the peaks are soft, start putting the sugar in
• Halve the sugar before you start, rather than trying to guess if you've added half the sugar
• Gently fold in the sugar/cornflour mix
• Grease tray very well
• Use foil then grease the foil
• Put into the oven straight away
• A normal oven will cook it at 150 degrees for 30 minutes, then 120 degrees for 45 minutes