Dragonfruit Striped Ravioli

Everybody should have his personal sounds to listen for - sounds that will make him exhilarated and alive or quiet and calm.
~ Andre Kostelanetz

Among the few things in life I find relaxing to do is making pasta. The others are swimming (in the ocean), ogling at the stars on a clear evening and creating something beautiful, be it food, jewelry or paintings. 

Okay enough of that, back to the pasta. When I first posted about my quirky dish for the 5-Star Makeover Challenge, a number of readers commented on the striped ravioli I made using dragonfruit and some even asked how I did it. Well, I promised to show you and *ta-daah*...here's a video of my hands doing all the work. Once I can afford the hair and make-up guy, you'll get to see me from the neck up, I promise. For now, you can admire my cool T-shirt that looks as if a massive bearded guy is about to devour the ravioli!

5-Star Makeover: Teriyaki Chicken with Dragonfruit Ravioli and Apple-Plum Chutney, and a Charitable Cause

Today marks my first participation in the 5-Star Makeover challenge hosted by Natasha of 5 Star Foodie and Laz of Lazaro Cooks! So honored to be cooking amongst these very creative lot. I've left it till the very last minute because the theme this month stumped me a little...it's 'Cooking with Wine'. 

hosted by 5 Star Foodie & Lazaro Cooks!

If you're a regular here, you'll know that I've never featured wine on this blog for the simple reason that we do not drink or cook with it. But hey, rather than back out, I thought this will be a great opportunity to be creative and look for alternatives that could possibly fit the challenge. And in my manic thinking (for that is the state I normally get into during a creative process), this is what I came up with. It's Teriyaki Chicken with Dragonfruit Ravioli and Apple-Plum Chutney, which I can confidently declare is not a dish I grew up eating! These are simply memorable fragments of the food I loved to eat whilst travelling or living abroad. Hah...at least that's my story (in case mom asks), and I'm sticking to it! :-). 

French Fridays with Dorie - Citrus Berry Tropical Fruit Terrine

Having sworn off from ever making terrines again after this attempt, I turned around and subsequently saw this recipe on the French Fridays with Dorie cooking list - Citrus Berry Terrine. Great. Not that I dislike eating terrines per se, in fact I could quite easily indulge my sugar addiction with decadent terrines like this chocolate one, made by Mardi of Eat Live Travel Write blog. I'm just not a big fan of the ones fixed in place with gelling agents. I simply don't get the concept of suspending the freshest seasonal ingredients in gelatine or agar, only to be sliced afterwards so we can admire its colors and layers from a cross-sectional view. Could someone explain to me what the fixation with that is, please?

French Fridays with Dorie - Coconut Lemongrass-Braised Chicken with Pink Fettuccine

There is hope in every heartbeat
Tiny as it seems
You're a beautiful seed

~ Beautiful Seed lyrics, Corrinne May

If you're a regular here on Fridays, you'll probably do a double-take on my new banner. Overnight, it looks as if I've turned into an anime version of myself. Wearing pearls and a pink apron as per real life, but 20lbs thinner. I really like it! The banner is actually a gift from my friend, Nic in Singapore. I can't say 'thank you' enough times, Nic. In case you're all wondering, yes, I do have a bunch of fabulous and selfless friends like him. I try to surround myself with the real deal, or maybe they come to me. I really can't say for sure. 

Anyway, back to the business at hand. There was no ducking out of this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe without seeming a bit lame (after last week's absence). Coconut, lemongrass, turmeric, coriander, cardamom...I have them all; these ingredients form the hallmarks of my territory. In a twee twist, for there is always at least one, Dorie's Coconut Lemongrass-Braised Pork recipe was chicken-fied under my pork-less abode, but the rest of the ingredients remained. Oh, except for the turmeric, which Diva D threw out because she thought it had expired (I bought it just last year!). While writing this up, I did a quick research to see if turmeric in its powder form really does expire and came across this anecdote entitled Old Spice. You must click on the link and read it because it cracked me up...the things we women hoard in our kitchens!

Dragonfruit-Basil Mascarpone Ice Cream and Mochi Ice Cream

Have you noticed how there've been way too many recipes using dragonfruit on this blog lately? It's not that I can't help myself, but I really can't! Red-fleshed dragonfruit is seasonal, just like strawberries, and rhubarb and God knows what else. It lasts a mere few months and then I have to wait nearly a whole year to do this again. A whole year of resisting using artificial pink food coloring. Yes, my name is Maya and I'm a PINK addict. Do you think I need to join a support group as a form of therapy? :-)

Dragonfruit and Black Sesame Mochi Ice Cream

Happiness, hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her, stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with a drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink

~ Florence And The Machine, Dog Days Are Over

My childhood friend and I had gotten together for lunch recently and for dessert, we treated ourselves to mochi ice cream at a Japanese restaurant. It was black sesame ice cream wrapped in a plain mochi shell and to say it was hea.ven.ly is an understatement. The creamy, nutty flavor was not unlike frozen peanut butter, with the black sesame ice cream melting effortlessly on the tongue. As for the mochi, oh the mochi...have you ever had it like this before? Despite being frozen, it retained its chewiness, softness and silkiness that it didn't require much of an effort to cut through it. That leisurely afternoon treat lodged an intention in my mind... I needed to learn how to make mochi ice cream at home!

French Fridays With Dorie - Mozarella,Tomato and Dragonfruit Salad

To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist -- the problem is entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one's vinegar.

~ Oscar Wilde

I was so looking forward to this week's French Fridays with Dorie's recipe. That was, until I went looking for the ingredients and realised there was absolutely no fresh strawberries on the shelves anywhere. It was a repeat of the roasted rhubarb episode of last week... the MIA ingredient this time being strawberries due to it being out-of-season over here :-(.

No matter, I got the tomatoes, I got the mozarella and I even managed to get the fresh basil. All that was left was a suitable substitute for strawberries. Now if you were lucky enough to procure strawberries where you're at, then I was equally lucky to be able to get my hands on dragonfruit, of the red-fleshed variety, at that. As an aside, dragonfruit is also sold widely in France mainly due to the influence of the large Asian communities (especially Vietnamese) residing in its cities. So I guess my version of Dorie's summer salad is not totally out of the context of her cookbook, Around My French Table (well, not when you consider that Cola and Jam Spare Ribs have made it in there too!).

Still Hopeful - Black Sesame Macarons with Dragonfruit Cream Filling

I am sick and tired of the perfect macaronages going on around me. Can we even remember what life was like before Ladurée and Pierre Hermé Paris came along and showed us that food superstardom could be packaged as small, colorful and incredibly tasty discs? All of a sudden, I wanted in on the fun.

There has always been a wall around my mind where the thought of making macarons refuse to penetrate. It is odd, but I was intimidated... afraid to jump in and look foolish if I failed. Which is even more odd because being perceived as foolish is something that has never stopped me from living a full life, the funnest life. And I've failed at a lot of things, actually.

For The Love of Polvoron & YBR

Since I first tasted polvoron a long time ago, I've been wanting to make it. If you've ever eaten these before, you'll know that polvoron is a soft, dusty, dense and magnificently crumbly shortbread of Spanish origin made from powdered milk, flour, sugar and sometimes nuts. When I finally remembered, I scoured the net for a really good, simple polvoron recipe. At around the same time, I miraculously discovered a tiny polvoron maker/press at my local baking supplies store (bearing in mind that I don't reside in a Spanish-speaking country here, nor do we have much Spanish influences. Well, apart from having an army of Argentinian polo horses, if you want to be pedantic about it). Talk about the planets aligning at the same time, hey!

 L-R: Dragonfruit, Matcha and Plain Polvorons

 The process: Gather, press, release and presto! Then wrap in cellophane to store.

I'm thinking that this would probably be my best recipe this month...but I haven't totally decided. You'll just have to wait and see if I have more tricks up my pantry! ;-) For those in the know, every month, I try to submit to the Your Best Recipe event hosted by that crazy-talented Mexican chick in Prague, Nancy of Spicie Foodie. If you haven't checked out my YBR contribution for April yet, please click Nancy's post here and look up the others too while you're at it!

Polvoron

Plain Basic Recipe (approx. 1kg)

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup powdered milk (I used Anlene low fat, ultra-high calcium for geriatrics like me)

1 cup caster sugar

1 cup melted butter, cooled thoroughly

Method:

1. Sieve the flour into a thick-bottomed, non stick pan and toast on medium heat, stirring constantly, until flour turns light brown. Transfer the roasted flour in a bowl right away to prevent further cooking.

2. Add powdered milk and sugar into the mixing bowl, stir to mix. Then add the melted butter, mix with a spoon and press the flour to ensure there are no lumps.

3. Take the polvoron mold, fill it with the polvoron mixture by pressing down on the flour until it is fully filled. Press down hard to compact the mixture before releasing it from the mold. Add more butter if the mixture in not cohesive enough.

4. Carefully wrap a polvoron in cellophane or colored Japanese paper. Store in an airtight container.

5. If you want to try the different Flavorings, divide the polvoron mixture above into 4 portions (approximately 150g dry mixture each, before the addition of butter). Leave one portion plain.

To each of the other portions:

Matcha polvoron - Add 1 teaspoon matcha powder to dry ingredients, before adding 1/4 cup cooled, melted butter.

Chocolate polvoron - Melt 25g dark or milk chocolate in 1/4 cup melted butter, cool, then add to dry ingredients. You can also add 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to the dry ingredients before adding the butter.

Red dragonfruit polvoron - Scoop a tablespoonful of dragonfruit flesh, press through a small sieve into 1/4 cup melted butter. Stir until pink color is incorporated in the butter. You can also tip the seeds and remaining flesh in the sieve into the butter. Add this cooled butter mixture to the dry ingredients.

FFWD - Mustard and the United Nations of Bâtons

'Allo, 'allo, what 'ave we 'ere? That's a whole lot of puff pastry bâtons for this week's French Fridays with Dorie's recipe cook-along. Actually, the recipe in the book called for just Mustard Bâtons, but then Dorie's bonne idée section led me astray. As in, waaay astray... My imagination got the better of me and everyone in the house ended up feasting on a bâton buffet.

Now, Dorie herself admits that she uses storebought puff pastry every time she makes these. I, on the other hand, have a bucket list of to dos that includes free-falling from the sky, swimming in the ocean with sharks and hmm, making puff pastry. The other two are doable, done even, but making my own puff pastry from scratch.... I had never been too sure if I could pull it off. It may have something to do with all the butter, the rubix-cube folds and the waiting time involved - I would simply go mad!

But I went ahead and did it, anyway. In the least painful way possible. As luck would have it, I found this link on how to make the 'quickest puff pastry' that took me all of 5 minutes to put together and roll (but still needed to chill it in the fridge for an hour before using). That sounded more like it. Lo-and-behold... I managed to produce these really cute, gnome-like bâtons below. It was my test run with puff pastry-making, and while it did rise and produce the layers, it hadn't risen as much as I had hoped. A quick text message to Diva D to "please pick up some puff pastry on your way home, mwaah!" later, and I was ready to play.

My 'junior' bâtons out of homemade puff pastry....more flaky than puffy.

I started off with the mustard bâtons recipe but soon graduated to making other savory combinations and finally, ventured into sweet bâtons. The recipe for mustard bâtons here isn't so much a recipe as it is a set of instructions. I am not at liberty to share it with you but you can find it in the book, Around My French Table or I found an official link here.

My United Nations of Bâtons

Alors, here are my versions! (Click on images to enlarge)

SAVORY BATONS

Mustard with Lavender Salt Bâtons

2 T mustard

1 T sea salt

1/4 t lavender flowers (dried)

Sprinkles: Nigella seeds (or blackseeds)

How to: Chop or blend the sea salt and lavender together until fine, stir into the mustard and spread. Brush eggwash on pastry and sprinkle Nigella seeds on top before baking.

Mustard with Shallot Bâtons
2 T mustard
1 T red shallots, chopped finely
Sprinkles: Shredded Nori (seaweed)
How to: Stir chopped shallots into the mustard, and spread. Take a small sheet of Nori and shred or cut into tiny ribbons with scissors. Brush eggwash on pastry and sprinkle Nori on top before baking.

Basil Pesto with Pumpkin Seeds Bâtons
Sprinkles: Pumpkin seeds
How to: Follow the pesto recipe in Dorie’s book (pg. 488) but substitute pumpkin seeds for the pine nuts. Brush eggwash on pastry and sprinkle more pumpkin seeds on top before baking.

Chilli and Garlic Bâtons
3 large, red chillies
3 cloves garlic
1 T sugar
1 T extra virgin olive oil
2 T grated cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper, to taste
Sprinkles: Cumin seeds
How to: Grind chillies, garlic and sugar together, then drizzle in the olive oil. Add cheddar cheese and blend until well distributed. Season with salt and pepper, then spread on pastry. Brush eggwash on pastry and sprinkle cumin on top before baking.

Hah! I forgot to take a picture of the sesame batons so here's the actual sesame spread (middle)...

Sesame Bâtons
4 T sesame powder or seeds

1 T chopped ginger
1 T olive oil
1 T black soy sauce
Sprinkles: Sesame seeds
How to: Grind sesame and ginger, then drizzle in the olive oil and soya sauce. Blend for a few more seconds, then spread on pastry. Brush eggwash on pastry and sprinkle sesame seeds on top before baking.

  SWEET BATONS

Nutella with Chilli Bâtons
2 T Nutella
1/4 t chilli or paprika powder
Sprinkles: Chilli powder
How to: Really? Is there a need? :-)

Nutella with Macadamia Bâtons
2 T Nutella
2 T macadamia nuts, chopped finely
Sprinkles: Chopped macadamia nuts

Banana and Palm Sugar Bâtons
1 ripe banana, mashed
2 T grated palm sugar
Sprinkles: Shredded coconut ribbons
How to: Spread the mashed banana onto the pastry and sprinkle palm sugar all over it. Brush eggwash on pastry and sprinkle coconut ribbons on top before baking.

Dragonfruit and Lemon Bâtons

2 T dragonfruit flesh, mashed

1 T lemon zest

Sprinkles: Cinnamon sugar

How to: Spread the mashed dragonfruit onto the pastry and sprinkle lemon zest all over it. Brush eggwash on pastry and sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top before baking.

Phew, that was a long one! I'm passing the baton on to you now. Check out what the other Doristas over at French Fridays with Dorie have under (or inside) their bâtons!

Dragonfruit and Coconut-Lime Bread Pudding

“Enchant, stay beautiful and graceful, but do this, eat well. Bring the same consideration to the preparation of your food as you devote to your appearance. Let your dinner be a poem, like your dress.”


- Charles Pierre Monselet, French journalist

It's that time of the year and red-fleshed dragonfruit has made its appearance in the markets once again here. How long I have waited for you to return.... you fushia-pink, non-fire-snorting ball of juiciness! The dragonfruit is in time to be part of this recipe I've created especially for The Bread Pudding of the Month Club. My friend, Victoria over at Mission: Food hosts this monthly event and if any of you have made/are going to make a bread pudding dish this month, please do hop over there and join us!

In my previous recipes using dragonfruit, I mentioned that on its own, the fruit has very little flavor. Almost like a watered-down kiwi, with a similar texture when it's ripe. Because of this, I flavored the custard out of coconut milk and lime to give the bread pudding some tangible character. The dragonfruit was not completely hopeless because its flesh, when blended with the custard, gave the pudding its striking fushia-pink hue that turned to a baby pink color once cooked.

For as long as I can remember, I've held the perception that bread pudding of any kind and flavoring can only be enjoyed fully after a light meal of salad and... well, just salad. Many times when I've had a hearty main course plus appetizer, I've had to turn up my willpower and turn away this filling dessert. Even as my heart screams, "I WAAAANT!". Okay, I tell a white lie. Sometimes I do have a bite, but I can't really get into it, you know, because I'm so full by that time. If only the serving portions were smaller in the restaurants...

Wait, if I was the one making them, I could make them in a size my stomach can handle. So how does mini-bread pudding sound to you? Because that's exactly what I made. My individual portions were so 'mini' they were the size of a small teacup (150ml capacity). No danger of over-indulging here! And once the puddings were turned out for serving, they even fitted nicely on the saucer, just like a cup.

You can, of course, fashion the bread slices into any shape or cube it and dump it all in the ramekins without any grand order. I decided to cut my bread into rounds and arranged them stacked on top of each other in the ramekin. The smaller circles formed a flower-like pattern on top. Tastes the same, just looks prettier. Oh, such visual animals we all are....

Barbie would love these figure-friendly portions

Instead of serving the bread pudding with cream or any type of sauce, I decided to top it off with fresh fruit. Yes, more dragonfruit! You can save all the trouble by simply chopping and sprinkling the fruits on top of the pudding, but.... I served them as dragonfruit balls skewered with toothpicks and stacked upright on top of the pudding. The fruit balls were chilled in the fridge beforehand, so when you eat this, you can feel their juicy coolness against the warmth of the bread pudding on your palate. Three dessert fork-scoops later, my portion of mini-bread pudding was all gone. To quote Goldilocks, "It was just right".

                                                                            Baby pink love

Dragonfruit Bread Pudding on a saucer. Enjoy!

Dragonfruit and Coconut-Lime Bread Pudding
Makes: 4 small ramekins (150ml capacity)

Ingredients:
6-8 slices stale bread, cubed or cut into circles with cookie cutter
1/2 cup dragonfruit, chopped roughly
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 large egg
4 tablespoons caster sugar
1 lime, juice only
Vegetable oil, for greasing
1/2 of a dragonfruit, scooped into balls for topping

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 325F/165C. Fill a 9x9-inch baking tin with water halfway up and place on the middle rack in the oven. This will be the water bath.

2. Line the base of ramekins with cooking foil and brush their insides with vegetable oil to grease. Arrange the bread circles or cubes in each ramekin until it reaches the top. Set aside while you prepare the custard.

3. In a blender, add the chopped dragonfruit, coconut milk, egg and sugar and process until smooth. Pour this mixture over the bread in the ramekins and press the bread pieces down with the back of a spoon. Squeeze or drizzle a splash of lime juice over the top layer.

4. Carefully arrange the filled ramekins inside the preheated water bath and bake for 35-40 minutes until the tops are just browned. Leave to cool for about 5 minutes before serving. To turn out, run a thin knife around the edge of the ramekin and invert onto a small plate. Invert again onto a dessert plate so that the browned layer is on top.

5. For the fresh fruit topping, use a melon scooper to form about 8 balls from the dragonfruit flesh. Take 2 balls and skewer them with a toothpick. Press this fruit skewer on top of a bread pudding and serve immediately.

Poetry Thursday #6 - Dragonfruit, Chocolate & Cream Dessert

 Poetry Thursday #6:

Today, I am sharing with you Haiku, the Japanese poetic form of 17 syllables in three lines. These are created with a food theme and there really are only 17 syllables, I counted! 

If you love someone
Hold the sugar and flour,
Try kisses instead.
      Joan Ifland Johnson

Tender artichoke
Reveals its succulent heart
to prying fingers.
     Georgia Terrell

Pop open pea pods
Set free some plump round voyeurs --
Peeping toms in green.
     Jane Butkin Roth

Mole chocolate
Melting spicy -- ancient kiss,
Mayan reminisce.
      Erica Hernandez

Symbol of teachers
The repellent of doctors,
The red fruit of sin.
      Roatha Chap

Food for the body
So tempting to the spirit.
The table is set.
       Tom Farrar

Flavor symphony
Best shared with friends and lovers,
Touching tongues and hearts.
        Charlene Turner

Boyfriends and brownies,
Two things that never last long.
I eat them both up.
       Nancy Sarnoff

Grab salsa and cheese
In queso emergency.
Come on, light my fire.
      David Henry

I smell your garden
Simmering in my soup bowl.
I taste your passion.
      L.Z.Martini

No, this is not molecular gastronomy, so stay, don't be scared.  This is just agar.

It's just that I felt like creating something pretty so I tinkered in the kitchen for a while and made these sweet red globs of red dragonfruit agar. Don't you love the fruit's natural fuschia pink color? Mmm...so do I. Sometimes inspiration hits while sitting doodling in the kitchen, tired after making sure everything's shining and in its place (ready for the next culinary upheaval). Amazing what a wilting brain can come up with, really.

Agar-agar, usually abbreviated as agar, is a gelatinous substance derived from a variety of seaweed vegetation.  It is normally sold in health food stores/Asian stores in both flake and powder varieties, and can be used in a variety of dairy-free and vegan recipes as a stabilizing and thickening agent for custards, puddings, sauces and even vegetarian marshmallows. Since agar is derived from plant material, it has the advantage of being vegetarian, unlike gelatin derived from animal sources.

Although pretty, these red globs alone does not a complete dessert make. So I whipped out the chocolate and double cream, mixed them with the agar liquid, and layered the two flavors. The dragonfruit agar rounds are then interspersed with the chocolate agar. My original idea was to have the red glob suspended halfway between the cream and chocolate layers, but the bottom layer had gelled too fast and I didn't have time to sink the dragonfruit pieces in it! Note to self:  next time I attempt this, be more organized and work quickly.

If you've never handled agar powder before, let me assure you working with it is child's play (except that it's not, because of the heat involved). Like gelatin, agar dissolves in water in a matter of minutes, after which you can add flavoring and/or coloring to it, before pouring it into moulds. I used this brand (Rose brand) of Japanese agar, it's super easy to use and makes 1 litre of agar solution:

Here's one funky way to serve up dragonfruit!

Place dragonfruit agar on top of the cream layer, then cover over with chocolate.

How it looks like once sliced.

Dragonfruit, Chocolate and Cream Agar Dessert

Ingredients:

1/2 of a dragonfruit, peeled and sliced

100g dark chocolate

100ml double cream

13g agar powder (1 packet)

700ml water

1 cup sugar

Method:

1. Dissolve sugar in water in a pot, and put on medium heat. Add agar powder and stir frequently to prevent agar from thickening at the bottom. Once the mixture boils, switch off the heat.

2. Measure out 200ml of of the agar solution and blend with the dragonfruit slices. Pour immediately into tiny semi-circular moulds (I used tiny muffin tins). Let it cool slightly before placing in the refridgerator to harden. Remove carefully from mould and set aside.

3. Measure out 250ml of the remaining agar solution and add the cream to it. Pour immediately into the bottom of a square tin (8 x 8in). Let it cool and firm up only slightly.

4. Add the chocolate, broken up into chunks, into the remainder of the agar (250ml) and stir until combined. Now the dessert is ready to be assembled.

5. Take the dragonfruit agar rounds and arrange on top of the cream agar layer, pushing in slightly into the layer (if it is still soft. If not, don't sweat about it, just place them on top!). Pour the chocolate agar on top of the cream layer and dragonfruit, and leave to cool. Chill in the fridge before cutting into slices and serve immediately.

Cashew Crusted Dragonfruit Hearts and Matcha Cheesecake

You gotta hand it to boredom, it makes you do something you normally won't. Just like doodling on a piece of paper led to oh, say, the creation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the concept arose from a humorous drawing sketched out by Kevin Eastman during a casual evening of brainstorming with his friend Peter Laird), doodling recipes in my mind led to this slightly outrageous creation - Cashew Crusted Dragonfruit Hearts and Matcha Cheesecake.

Cashew nuts and biscuit base

Well, this dessert was not totally unfounded. I had leftovers that needed to be used up, and I didn't want to use them for anything that I normally do. There was half a dragonfruit from my scones session, some matcha powder from my churros post, half a packet of Digestives and a large jar of roasted cashew nuts left over from that day I cooked biryani rice and made my creamy pear-cashew sorbet. Oh, also a packet of cream cheese that I wanted to bake with but hadn't up to this point.

The mental doodle started with the cashews, condensed milk and matcha, three of my most favourite flavors in the world. The cheese was the anchor ingredient and made me think, okay, a cheesecake would be good. Then the visual part of my brain reasoned that I needed to brighten this dish up a little and what goes well with green? Yep, you guessed it, the ever dazzling fushia pink that dragonfruit provides! The hearts were originally supposed to be swirls on the green filling, but somehow I stopped swirling when I saw the much cuter hearts. Especially since they were fuschia pink hearts. Yeah.

Little fuschia hearts, for your sweetheart. Ask them to marry you, quick!

(Or if they already have, ask them to go with you on a romantic cruise, or out dancing ;-))

This cheesecake was surprisingly easy to make, and even easier to photograph! (No melting ice cream or precariously leaning food stacks, thank goodness). If you don't believe me, here's the recipe:

Cashew Crusted Dragonfruit Hearts and Matcha Cheesecake
Ingredients:
Pastry base:
2 cups Graham crackers or Digestives, crumbed
2 cups cashew nuts, roasted and finely chopped
¾ cup butter, melted and cooled

Cheesecake filling:
1 packet (250g) Philadelphia cream cheese
1 ½ cups sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs
½ small dragonfruit
1 tablespoon matcha powder

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/325F. Grease an 11-inch pie pan and set aside.

2. Prepare the pie base: Place cashew nuts in a food processor until finely chopped and pour into a bowl. Crumb the biscuits the same way, then add this to the bowl of cashew nuts. Add the cooled, melted butter and mix well. Press crumb mixture onto the bottom and sides of the pie pan. Chill for 15 minutes in the fridge.

3. For the filling: In another mixing bowl, whisk the cheese until smooth, then add the condensed milk. Mix until combined before adding the eggs one at a time.

4. In the meantime, peel, slice and puree the dragonfruit in a blender. Divide the cheese batter into two portions. In one bowl add the dragonfruit puree, and into the other add the matcha powder.

5. Reserve about 3 tablespoons of the dragonfruit cheese batter for the hearts decoration. Pour the rest of this red batter onto the base of the pie dough and bake for 20-25 minutes until the top is slightly firm to the touch.

6. Take the pie tin out of the oven and carefully pour the matcha cheese batter on top of the dragonfruit layer.

7. Drop little dots of the extra dragonfruit mix on the matcha layer and run a knife through each of them to form little hearts and swirls.

8. Place it back in the oven and bake further for 25 minutes until a rod inserted into the centre of the pie comes out clean.

9. Let it cool for at least 20 minutes before serving.
PS. The bottom dragonfruit layer turned an orangey-pink color upon cooking, probably because it was in the heat for too long. The dragonfruit hearts on the top, meanwhile, retained their fuschia color. So strange, this cooking business!