Moving House

Have been in flux for the past while, at this stage I have zero kitchen stuff, hoping to remedy that this coming weekend by way of a trip to Ikea. Back after that. At least I now have internet at home.

Chilli Jam

Sometimes, the hot food you find places just isn't hot enough. hen that occurs, what you need is homemade chilli jam. It is surprisingly easy. A half cup of water, some sugar, half a finely sliced red onion, half a dozen cherry tomatoes, and a bunch of the hottest chillies you can find. Chucked in a pot and cooked until jamlike. Lasts ages, tastes great.

More from Tasmania: Smolt Restaurant.

Things to do: Stop shifting houses, stop going to conferences, start finding time to post my backlog of stuff up here.

Beginning with the second wonderful restaurant we visited on our weekend in Tasmania, Smolt.

We were perhaps a little worried about following up the absolutely marvellous lunch we had at the Source with another upmarket dinner, as we didn't want to go away disappointed.  We were sensible enough to wait a day between the two, but it turned out we had nothing to fear, as Smolt delivered some fantastic food, with friendly service in a nice atmosphere.


M started with half a dozen oysters, while I had a soup from the specials board, with beans and pork and delicious all wrapped up in a wonderful bowl and served with nice crusty bread.  The oysters were fresh as you can imagine, and we both enjoyed these courses.

For the main course, I couldn't go past the venison, while M took up the challenge of a lamb ragout with home made tagliatelle.

Did I mention that they do marvelous side dishes as well? This one was spiced deep fried cauliflower.

July Daring Cooks Challenge

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

I'm currently surrounded by vegetarians, and as such was not about to put any meat in the curry I made.  I do, however, have a soft spot for almonds, so I blended a decent amount of them (that is, the amount that fit in the processor) until the collapsed into butter.  They needed a little oil to help them along, I imagine partly to do with the processor being an attachment to a relatively weak stick blender, and partly to do with almonds being less oily than some other nuts. When done (I got bored), it looked like this:

This would be tasty, but everything is tastier as a curry.  So I went for a tomato based one, with mushrooms and eggplant providing the substance.  One medium sized eggplant, 2 brown onions, 2 cans of diced tomatoes, a couple of dozen mushrooms, some garlic, garam masala, chilli powder and flakes, a little turmeric, salt and pepper.  Curry, of course, is easy.  You brown off the onion and garlic, add the spices (and a dash of stock here, in my case), then the mushrooms and eggplants, cook until beginning to soften, add tomatoes and simmer on low until the rice is cooked.  Then you eat it.

Tasty

Lunch at The Source, Moorilla.

We took a long  weekend off in Hobart.  Well, we intended to take a weekend off, but I spent most of it doing a job application, as it turned out.  (A successful job application, yay.)  So instead of spending the days relaxing, I spent some part of the days relaxing, other parts working, and in between, got in a couple of very nice meals.  The first of these was a leisurely Friday afternoon lunch at The Source, which is the restaurant at Moorilla Winery.

We took a ferry to get there, and they offered us a wonderful deal, a two course set lunch with our tickets for not much money.  We of course said yes, as the set menu options looked amazing, and we figured we could always branch out if it took our fancy.

The ride out was nice, a pleasant cruise with some colourful local commentary about the good old days of Hobart.  Upon disembarking at the pier, we were met by a lovely staff member in a golf cart, who drove us to the door of the restaurant.  Such service.  We began with some wine (and beer) tasting.  The wines are excellent, although I think both of us preferred the cheaper of the two available Pinot Noirs, a 'Praxis' Pinot Noir.  Good wine.  We were paritcularly keen, though, to try the beers, and they didn't disappoint at all.  While I am a little jaded on both pilsener and IPA, the Moorilla versions were tasty.  The real treats, though, were the Hefeweisen, the Dark ale, and the Stout (this last is only, I am told, on tap, but apparently there is one at Beer Deluxe in Melbourne, well worth getting your hands on a glass of).

That done, we moved to the restaurant for our food.  We were already comfortably impressed by the service and the style of the place, and the restaurant did not disappoint.  Ushered kindly to a pleasant table overlooking the harbour, we began with Goats cheese gnocchi for myself ("Goats Cheese Gnocchi, Jeruslaem Artichoke, Hazelnut"), and a beetroot tart ("Pickled Beetroot tart, Celery Caviar, Lemon Thyme, Creme Fraiche) for M.

The Jerusalem artichoke, both in pureed form and the crispy roasted chunk of it on the right of the photo, was amazing, and the hazelnuts added a nice crunch and textural change to the airy, delicious gnocchi.  The standout part of the beetroot tart was, for me, the celery caviar, and odd texture, but I found them endearing.  Both dishes were delicious.  For the main course, I went for a Cape Grim Angus steak, while M. had the line caught fish of the day with "truffled macaroni, fois gras emulsion and jus."

Again, the food was delicious, my steak was wonderfully rare, as ordered, and while the fish doesn't photograph perfectly (probably my fault more than anything else), it tasted incredible.  So much so, that we decided to order a dessert.  In addition to a coffee (good), we had a handmade chocolate each, the jersey caramel being particularly delicious, and we were drawn to a fascinating sounding dessert on the menu, "Chocolate, Olive Oil, Salt."  Upon asking what exactly this meant, we were told that it was exactly what it said on the tin.  This turned out to be true, but not at all in a bad way.  Pink flakes of Murray River salt on a soft, ganache like chocolate, drizzled with a light and fruity olive oil, and served with crisp bread (which we ate some of, and moved the rest of, before remembering to take a photo of this).  Would definitely get this again, and encourage others to do the same.  Oh, and the glass with the sugar cubes in it made for a nice photo, so that is included here too.

Highly recommend the restaurant and the Winery, excellent food all round, and a wonderful location.  Not crazy prices either.  Website is http://moorilla.com.au/moorilla/

The Daring Cooks, June: Pâté and Bread

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice. I chose to make a Three Spice Pork Liver Pâté, and I made some bagels to go with it.

Three Spice Pork Liver Pâté (Recipe modified a bit to make sizes easier for me (rounding up from pounds, increasing garlic/spice quantity because garlic and spices are good)

Yields one 25 by 12,5 cm (10 by 5 inch) terrine or loaf pan

Oven: 180 centigrade

500 grams pork liver
250 grams ground pork
250 grams pork fat (or pork belly)
3 cloves garlic
2 shallots
1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp coriander (ground or crushed)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tbps coarse freshly cracked peppercorns
30 ml cognac (brandy)
2 bay leaves
250gm bacon (long strips)

I got the butcher to grind the pork belly for me, as I don't have a food processor, so the making it smooth was going to be fun at the best of times (stick blender almost works, it turns out). Basic plan for the recipe is to blend/grind/slice all the meats with the garlic, shallots and spices until the whole thing is as smooth as you want it to be. From there, mix it through the cognac and eggs.





Line your tin with bacon, overlapping the sides (see photo). Put a bay leaf in the bottom. Spoon in the mixture and fold the bacon over the top, sealing in a second bay leaf. Put in a water bath in the oven and bake for an hour and a half. Let it cool in the pan so it reabsorbs the liquid. Chill before turning out.


 

 I made a second Pâté, a Red Lentil and Goats Cheese one, as I was attending a party where I knew there would be vegetarians. The recipe for this one is tremendously easy: 1 cup lentils cooked in 2 cups vege stock + bay leaves until soft and the liquid is absorbed, 125gm soft goats cheese mixed with 3 eggs. Combine the two, season with salt/pepper, bake until they come away from the sides. I used individual size (300mL capacity) dishes for these, and they cooked in an hour in a 180 centigrade oven, at the same time as the other Pâté. Next time I would maybe add some paprika to darken the final colour of the dish, but that isn't a major.



I also made Bagels, as my bread contribution. The bagel recipe is from Gray - The Destitute Gourmet:

(1) 1/4 cup warm water, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tbsp yeast (I used 2 sachets of the supermarket dry yeast)

(2) 4-5 cups plain flour, 1 tbsp salt, 1 1/2 tsp sugar, 1 1/4 cups water (I used 5 cups flour and needed a little more water, say 1 1/2 cups)

2 tbsp molasses, 1 egg (beaten). Toppings (sesame seeds and sea salt, for mine)

Combine ingredients in (1), set aside.

Put ingredients in (2) in a mixing bowl. When (1) is frothy, add to (2), mix until combined. Then turn out and knead for 8-10 minutes (original recipe says 5-8, more works for the consistency, I find).

Put dough in greased bowl, covered with greased gladwrap/clingfilm, leave to rise until doubled in size. Punch down, knead lightly, break into 12 pieces.

Make the pieces round, poke a hole in the centre, then shape into bagels. This process is hard to describe, so here is what I did (with apologies for the description). I poked my forefinger through the centre of the ball, then smoothed the whole. Linked thumb and forefinger, and turned the doughball slowly, contracting/releasing the thumb/forefinger loop until I had performed a full rotation of the bagel. I then put a second finger through, repeated the process.

An alternative method is to make the hole with your thumb, and shape the dough around your thumb, using your other hand, then remove dough from thumb, and compress to a bagel shape. This produces a smaller hole, but if done right, a smoother ring. (Thumb length/width may be a factor).



Boil a bot of water. Add the molasses. Drop the bagels in for 20seconds, then flip and leave for 20 more (they may sink at first, should rise fairly quickly). Remove, drop immediately in cold water, then put on a tray. I did this step in batches of three, so they didn't bump as they rose, pan size will determine how many you can do at once.

200c oven, put the bagels on a tray, bake for 7 minutes, remove, flip, brush new topside with egg and add topping, return to oven and bake for 13 more minutes. Then eat them. (Recipe has a complex process to avoid bagel flattening, I ignored it, seemed to turn out fine anyway. It involves the first 7 minutes being baked on a wet cloth, then flipping out onto the tray proper for the last 13).

The whole thing turned out pretty well, as you can see from the photo's.

Something refreshing.

Sometimes you have egg whites left over from something or the other, and because one isn't American, the perfect thing to do with them is, of course, to make a sour of some description. This particular version was made with Chambord (a black raspberry liqueur) and 42 Below Honey Vodka.

Basic recipe, for 2 drinks:

1 egg white
45mL simple syrup (sugar syrup)
30mL lime juice
Half a lemon juiced.

Spirit of choice, 90mL of one, or whatever division you desire. Mine was 50/50 of these.

In the glass side of a boston, put a bunch of ice. Add the rest, lid it, shake a while, vigorously. Pour into two glasses, over some more ice (you can leave the shaking ice in, if you want)

Other delicious options include the Candy sour, equal parts frangelico and amaretto, or a sour made with either of those alone. Also, I should really buy some more appropriate glasses for this kind of drink. Maybe when I move house!

Daring Bakers Challenge: Croquembouche

Starting out again, the May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

I tried. At the very least, it tasted delicious. Although my original plans to make an arch rather than a tower fell through as My sugar support beams wouldn't do their job. Oh well. It still tasted delicious, even if it was a little on the small side, tower-wise, as I had made an Arch sized batch. Both caramel and vanilla flavoured creme patissiere fillings were used.

The Recipes:

For the Vanilla Crème Patissiere
2 cups whole milk
4 Tbsp. cornflour
200 g. sugar
2 large egg
4 large egg yolks
60 g. unsalted butter
2 Tsp. Vanilla

Dissolve cornstarch in ¼ cup of milk. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan; bring to boil; remove from heat. Beat the whole egg, then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook. Return the remaining milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking. Continue whisking (this is important – you do not want the eggs to solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil. Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla. Pour cream into a stainless steel/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface. Chill immediately and until ready to use.

To make caramel creme, I added A shot of monin caramel syrup to the vanilla mix.

Pate a Choux (I got 21 from this recipe)
175 ml. water
85 g. unsalted butter
¼ Tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
125 g. all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

For Egg Wash: 1 egg and pinch of salt

Pre-heat oven to 425◦F/220◦C degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Preparing batter:
Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely. Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan. Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly. Add eggs one at a time, stirring each in completely before adding the next.

Pipe the choux in 1 inch size mounds onto a baking paper lined tray. flatten tops with finger to make them round. Brush tops with egg wash (1 egg lightly beaten with pinch of salt).

Bake the choux at 425◦F/220◦C degrees until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350◦F/180◦C degrees and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

Can be stored in a airtight box overnight.

Filling:
When you are ready to assemble your piece montée, using a plain pastry tip, pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux with pastry cream using either the same tip or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet. Choux can be refrigerated briefly at this point while you make your glaze.

Hard Caramel Glaze:
1 cup (225 g.) sugar
½ teaspoon lemon juice

Combine sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan with a metal kitchen spoon stirring until the sugar resembles wet sand. Place on medium heat; heat without stirring until sugar starts to melt around the sides of the pan and the center begins to smoke. Begin to stir sugar. Continue heating, stirring occasionally until the sugar is a clear, amber color. Remove from heat immediately; place bottom of pan in ice water to stop the cooking. Use immediately. (I didn't, because I like darker, burntish caramel. It does get very hard though)

Pumpkin, Pearl Barley and Pine Mushroom risotto

Final update for the day, I promise! This is a Pumpkin, Pine Mushroom and Pearl Barley risotto. pearl barley instead of arborio rice works marvellously. You need to stir it far less than rice, but it does take a while longer to get to the right mouth feel.

Pine mushrooms are giant orange things, look a little scary, you need to brush the pine needles off and slice them up, fry them before adding to the risotto (I put them in right at the end of this one). They taste wild (wild as in not farmed, that is). It is pretty good.

So I diced and roasted the pumpkin, began the risotto with an onion and some garlic, a cup of pearl barley and a glass of wine. Used a chicken stock as the water, kept adding as the barley soaked up the liquid (standard risotto stylings). Towards the end add roast pumpkin. At the very end, add pine mushroom (that you have sliced and cooked in some butter in a medium heat frypan beforehand).

Served on rocket with parmesan.

2x2 peoples worth:
1 cup pearl barley
1 glass wine
Chicken stock (as needed)
1 large white onion
6 cloves garlic
1 large pine mushroom
400gm pumpkin, diced.

Rocket to serve

A slow cooked black bean stew

We bought a new slow cooker a little while ago. When the last lot of essays came in I had an excuse to stay home and put in some serious hours marking. This, conveniently enough, gave me time to watch over the slow cooker as it spent eight hours turning a motley collection of black beans, onions, chorizo and bacon into a delicious aromatic stew.



In a slow cooker, this type of thing is ludicrously easy. No need to do anything at all to the meat or veges, just in the cooker and ignore for a few hours. So here is the recipe (open to any tweaking you desire):

2 large brown onions, roughly chopped.
2 spicy chorizo, roughly chopped
Garlic - half a head or so, chopped.
2 cups dried black beans (Soaked overnight in water, drained)
Mushrooms (couple of cups of tiny brown buttons in this case, but whatever you want will do)
2 cans chopped tomatoes
150gm good bacon (buy a chunk, cut it into wedges)
Spices (paprika, chilli, some hot sauce, salt and pepper)
4-5 cups of beef stock (use low salt stuff if you can, the saltiness builds up in this dish)

Eat with cornbread (Recipe from a friend who I know doesn't mind me sharing it, but who might not want her name on a blog, so...)

3/4 c. yellow cornmeal
2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. sugar
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. buttermilk
3/4 c. (1 1/2 sticks) butter, melted
3 eggs, beaten

In a large bowl measure cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and
salt. Blend well. Add buttermilk and butter slowly. Pour in eggs. Stir
only enough to blend the mixture thoroughly. Pour into 9 x 9 x 2,
baking pan (greased) and level with a spoon or spatula.

Bake in 400 degree preheated oven until the bread tests done when
pierced with a metal skewer, wooden toothpick, or the blade of a
knife. If it comes out clean and dry, the corn bread is done. Cut into
squares.

I found this too sweet the first time, so drastically reduced the sugar content. Still works, but you might want to play with it until you find a balance you like.

Pavlova!

So it turns out that I am at least partially competent, and succeeded in making a pavlova that looks almost worthy of the name. Here are two pictures, the whole and a slice.

Daring Cooks Challenge!

Ok, and here we go for the month. Recipe was brought to us by Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food. They have chosen a Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh.

I have fiddled with bits and pieces of it because some of the ingredients were hard to get in Melbourne. In particular, where the original recipe below calls for Anaheim chiles, I used whatever the right sized ones were from Vic market, and my tomatillos were canned.

1½ pounds Fresh Anaheim chiles (about eight 6 to 8 inch chiles)- roast, peel, remove seeds, chop coarsely. Ot
7-8 ounces Tomatillos (about 4-5 medium)
4 cups Chicken stock
1 clove Garlic, minced
2 teaspoons brown onion, minced
½ tsp salt
½ tsp Black Pepper
2 tablespoons Cornflour (dissolved in 2 tablespoons water, for thickening)
El Yucateca hot sauce.
2 Boneless chicken breasts
3 tablespoons Olive oil or other neutral vegetable oil (use more as needed)
Kosher salt and pepper
Small Corn tortillas (5-6 inch/13-15 cm).
6 ounces Mexican cheese, grated (just asked at Casa Iberica for a good one - important it is melty)
Cilantro for garnish, chopped and sprinkled optional

Burn and peel the skins of the chiles, on a gas burner or with a kitchen blowtorch. Cool, peel and chop. Add with chopped tomatillos (canned ones don't need prep) to a pot with the stock onion, garlic, salt, pepper. Boil and reduce for 10 minutes, then add cornflour mix and reduce more, for 15 mins or so. Add some hot sauce for a kick.

Grill and cool then shred chicken breasts. Stack tortilla's (I'm assuming you have precooked ones) by layering first sauce, then a tortilla, then sauce, chicken and cheese, then tortilla, then chicken, cheese and sauce... Until you have the requisite stack height (3-4). Final layer should be cheese and sauce. Bake 20 mins or so, let rest for 5-10. Eat.