Dinner? For me? Too kind!

Red curry with tofu and fish-cakes, courtesy of Mel.  Thanks!  (It was really good)

That time of year...

Hot Cross Buns!

People don't spice hot cross buns enough.  These have ginger/cloves/nutmeg/cinnamon/allspice/pepper, about a teaspoon each.  Also rye flour, because why not?

4 cups flour (I used 2 cups white, 1.5 cups rye, 1/2 cup rice)
4 tsp yeast
All those spices
1/4 cup sugar
1.5 cups mixed fruit (currants/sultanas/mixed peel/whatever else you like... I would have added coconut if I had it)

1 cup milk
40gm butter
1 egg

Mix dry stuff including fruit together.  Melt butter in milk, add to dry, mix a little, add egg.  Knead 10 minutes.  Leave it to rise for an hour, hour+half. Shape into 12 buns on a baking paper lined tray.  Rise for half an hour.  Bake at 190c for 20 minutes.

If you want crosses, make them with flour and water in a thick paste, and spread them on just before cooking the buns.  If you want delicious, make a sugar syrup by boiling 1/4 cup sugar with a little water, and brush it on the cooked buns.

Dessert: Pierre Roelofs at Rosamond, Feb 2.

A dessert degustation, 4 courses, the best of the last 3 months, apparently.  I was convinced, it was all amazing.

A golden syrup dumpling shot. Open ended glass tube, heat the jelly end in hot water for a couple seconds, then suck it out.

Prunes, brown rice, meringue, passionfruit and hazelnut.

Raspberry foam, mandarin granita, blueberry, sago, pound cake, puffed millet.

Vanilla and caramel, apple, brie and pinenut.

Highly, highly recommended.  They run them every Thursday, 7-11.  Of course, getting in is tricky.  There was a line at the door at 7 sharp, and by the time I finished (just after 8), people were on a waiting list for 10pm.  Some people in line when they opened the doors didn't get seats. So, you know, be there early, or turn up at 7, name on list, and go grab a drink or some food somewhere... no shortage of choices around Smith St these days.

Pumpkin Pie

Easy. Delicious.  Worth doing.

Also, a thanksgiving treat.  Thank you America for holidays revolving around food.

Of course, people often make pumpkin pie with canned pumpkin, because they are insane.  Use butternut pumpkin.

Ingredients:

Half a medium sized butternut pumpkin.
 1 can evaporated milk
1 egg + 1 yolk
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger (ground)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves (ground)
1/2 tsp allspice

(for all spices, adjust as per preference.  I tend to use more ginger and nutmeg than stated above)

1 1/2 cups flour
100 gm butter (v. cold, grated)
2 Tbsp white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
Splash of water/milk/buttermilk (whatever you have.  Alternatively, use an egg yolk)

To make dough, mix flour/cinnamon/sugar.  Add cold grated butter, and combine until mixture is breadcrumby.  Add a dash of your liquid of choice (a single egg yolk will probably be about perfect, alternatively start with 1-2 Tbsp of liquid, and add more if necessary).  Bring dough together.  it should form a smooth ball.  Set in fridge to cool before rolling out.


 Filling goes like this:  De-seed and peel the pumpkin.  Chop in inch sized chunks, boil until soft.  Allow to cool a little.  Mash/process the pumpkin, with the sugar, spices.  Place in pan with evaporated milk, heat until boiling, simmer for 3-5 minutes, take off heat.  When cooled slightly, mix through egg + yolk.

Shape cold pastry into a pie dish.You can blind bake the pastry if you want, but it isn't needed.  Add filling, cook at 180c (fan oven) until filling is firm (about 50-55 minutes).

Eat. Yoghurt works with it.

Went to a beer tasting at Blackhearts and Sparrows yesterday.  Cavalier Brewery in West Brunswick had some samples going, as seen below.  I was impressed by their Weizen, as most Australian brewers don't really seem to understand what a Weizan is meant to be.  They also sold me by saying that they wanted more esters in the next batch.

Taste Photos

Guess who was too busy eating things to take photos?  Me!

2 things that escaped...  A pork and fennel slider, and pistachio panna cotta with caramel salted popcorn.

Phone Photos!

One of the biggest problems I have with having a smartphone is that I use it to take photographs, which then sit on the phone, not uploaded, and not thought about, for months on end.  And I use it instead of my camera, which just makes things worse...

Pikelets with cinnamon poached apple, honey roasted mixed nuts and maple syrup, drizzled with Greek yogurt.

Peated strong beer, awesome name, awesome label, delicious (if intense) taste.

Daring Cooks September: Consommé

Peta, of the blog Peta Eats, was our lovely hostess for the Daring Cook’s September 2011 challenge, “Stock to Soup to Consommé”. We were taught the meaning between the three dishes, how to make a crystal clear Consommé if we so chose to do so, and encouraged to share our own delicious soup recipes!

I decided that simplicity would be key for this challenge, and so I made a shiitake/bonito stock, spiced up with white peppercorns, then turned it into a lovely consommé served with pumpkin and snow peas.

The stock base is made by taking an onion, diced, half a dozen dried shiitake mushrooms, 2 bay leaves, a tablespoon of soy sauce, and some bonito flakes (I used 2 heaped tablespoons, but I like the fishy flavour).  Add to 1.5 liters of water and simmer for a couple hours.  You might want to add further flavour, i have a japanese mixed spice I use.

When the flavours have sufficiently infused, strain the solids from the soup base and leave aside to cool for 10 minutes or so.  While it cools, separate 2 eggs, and whisk the whites to soft peaks. You do this because I follow the 'egg raft' method of consommé preparation.  Fold the whites into the cooled soup, and simmer very gently for about 35-40 minutes.  As it simmers, scrape a hole in the centre of the egg raft so you can watch the stock clearing as the particles attach to the raft.  When the stock is clear (use a soup spoon to look at it if it is hard to see while it is in the pan), take the whole off the heat and rest again for 10 minutes.

Now, you need to remove the consommé from under the raft, without breaking the raft and releasing the bits back into the mix.  You will need to use a ladle or similar, and to take your time.  You cannot strain it, the raft will collapse.  You might be able to pour off from underneath the raft, but this is delicate, and seems to release some bits and pieces, no matter how carefully you try, so I would recommend ladling.

Upon successfully extracting the consommé, discard the raft.  pour consommé over lightly steamed snow peas and pumpkin, serve with something in character with your soup.  In this case, it was shredded cabbage and Japanese mayonnaise, and sushi rice with shredded dried salmon and smoked tofu.

Chocolate-Caramel pudding!

So, who knew that if you boil a can of sweetened condensed milk for a couple of hours, it turns into delicious, delicious caramel?  I did, and I do it semi-regularly.  it is good.

Once you have said delicious, delicious caramel, you can put it in the bottom of a 1 1/2 cup ramekin, and add a chocolate pudding base on top (melt butter with chocolate, mix sugar/cream/flour/eggs together, add the two together, layer over caramel).  Bake the resulting awesome, and you get a choc-caramel pudding.  Yum!  (Hint: add cream for bonus goodness)

Outpost: No

St Ali's Outpost, in South Yarra, should be good.  The coffee is nice, the food is good, but... The service would be bad for Canberra.  For Melbourne, it was almost enough to make me wonder if this is a new variation on hipster cafe snobbery.  Be obnoxious enough to your customers that they stand up and walk out before you actually have to give them their meals.

I kid, but only a little.  The atrocious service seemed to be incompetent rather than malicious.  Terribly disappointing, as I wanted to like the place.

Daring Cooks June: Potato Salad

Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. [The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads.]

I went for a simple salad of kipflers, boiled, and shaken through a dressing of wholegrain mustard, salad vinegar and japanese mayonnaise.  A bed of rocket, cherry tomatoes, chevre, boiled eggs, olives and smoked trout rounded it out.

Simple as anything to prepare (assuming you don't plan to catch and smoke the trout yourself).  Take a half kilo of kipflers, slice roughly, boil until soft, drain dry.  Mix 2-3 tbsp each of mayonnaise and vinegar together with 1-2 tsp mustard.  Place potatoes in a pot with a tight fitting lid, add dressing, and shake well (holding lid securely on).  Pile potatoes onto rocket, and amass everything else you are using in as decorative a manner as desired.  Top with some extra virgin olive oil if you want a bit more dressing over the remainder.

Daring Cooks May Challenge: Gumbo

  Our May hostess, Denise, of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need, from creole spices, homemade stock, and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh.

I went for a seafood gumbo, using crabs and prawns, bulked out with a bit of chicken on the bone because things like oysters are expensive here.

Ingredients
1 cup Duck Fat
1 cup flour
2 large onions, diced
2 blue swimmer crabs, quartered
1 chicken maryland & 1 chicken breast on the bone
1/2 kg chorizo
1 stalk celery, diced
1 green capsicum, seeded and diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
250 gm sliced fresh okra, ½ -inch slices
Sprig of fresh thyme
2 litres chicken stock
2 bay leaves
300gm peeled and deveined medium shrimp.
1 cup (240 ml) (100 gm) (3½ oz) minced green onions (scallions, or spring onions)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Basic Creole Spices, to taste (recipe below)
4-6 cups cooked Basic Louisiana White Rice (recipe follows)

Directions:
1. Prepare stock.
2. Prepare homemade Basic Creole Spices.
3. Prepare all vegetables and meat... cut, dice, chop, mince!  You must stir the roux continuously to prevent it from burning.

4. In a large cast-iron or heavy-bottomed pan, heat the duck fat over high heat. Whisk the flour into the hot oil – it will start to sizzle. Reduce the heat to moderate, and continue whisking until the roux becomes deep brown in color, about 15 minutes.

5. Add the onions. Switch to a wooden spoon and stir the onions into the roux. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and continue stirring until the roux becomes a glossy dark brown, about 10 minutes.

6. Add the blue swimmer crabs, chicken and smoked sausage and stir for a minute before adding the celery, bell peppers, garlic, and okra. Increase the heat to moderate and cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes.
7. Add the thyme, chicken stock, and bay leaves. Bring the gumbo to a boil, stirring occasionally.
8. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, skimming off the fat from the surface of the gumbo every so often.
9. Add the shrimp and green onions to the pot and cook for 15 minutes. Make sure everything is ready to serve before adding the shellfish to the gumbo. DO NOT OVERCOOK your shellfish.
10. Season with salt and pepper, Creole Spices, and hot sauce.
11. Serve in bowls over rice.

Delicious.  The creols spices and Louisiana rice added extra depth to it, recipes are as follows:

Basic Louisiana White Rice

Adapted from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh
Servings: About 4 cups
Ingredients
1 tablespoon (30 ml) (30 gm) (1 oz) chicken fat, extra-virgin olive oil, or butter
1 small onion, minced
1½ cups (360 m) ((280 gm) (10 oz) Louisiana (or another long-grain white rice)
3 cups (750 ml) Basic Chicken Stock
1 bay leaf
1-2 pinches salt
Directions:
1. Put the fat, oil, or butter and the onions into a medium saucepan and sweat the onions over moderate heat until they are translucent, about 5 minutes.
2. Pour the rice into the pan and stir for 2 minutes.
3. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil.
4. Add the bay leaf and salt.
5. Cover the pan with a lid, reduce the heat to low, and cook for 18 minutes.
6. Remove the pan from the heat, fluff the rice with a fork, and serve.

Basic Creole Spices

From My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh
Makes ½ cup
Ingredients
2 tablespoons (30 ml) (33 gm) celery salt
1 tablespoon (15 ml) (7 gm) sweet paprika
1 tablespoon (15 ml) (18 gm) coarse sea salt
1 tablespoon (15 ml) (6 gm) freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon (15 ml) (7 gm) garlic powder
1 tablespoon (15 ml) (7 gm) onion powder
2 teaspoons (10 ml) (4 gm) cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon (2½ ml) (1½ gm) ground allspice
Directions:
Mix together all spices in a bowl. Transfer the spices to a clean container with a tight-fitting lid. Store up to six months.

Finally, I made a Pecan Pie to finish things off.

Dough: 
1 1/4 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 tsp salt
125gm butter, cold and diced
1 egg

Mix dry ingredients together, rub in butter until the whole mixture is gritty (like cornmeal) with some bigger (pea sized) lumps of butter remaining.  Add lightly beaten egg and stir until just combined.  Press into a flat disc, wrap in cling film, and refrigerate for half an hour minimum.

Roll out to 30cm round, about 5mm thick.  Press into a 9" pie dish, and use foil or baking powder to fill the centre for blind baking.  Bake at 200c for 20 minutes or so.  (This is a good time to prepare the filling below).  Remove blind baking weights.  Either return pie without weights to the oven for 5-10 minutes, or if you prefer a softer crust, move immediately to filling and final baking. (follow filling recipe)

Filling:
100gm butter
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup golden syrup
2 cups pecans (whole, sliced, raw, toasted... whatever your preference)
3 eggs, lightly beaten.
2 tsp vanilla

Combine butter, sugar and syrup in a pan over medium heat.  Bring to boil, then boil, stirring constantly for 1 minute.  Take off heat and add vanilla and pecans.  Mix through.  In a separate bowl, lightly beat eggs.  After sugar mixture has cooled for 5-10 minutes, mix eggs through, and stir with a fork until well combined.

Directions:
With pie crust blind baked and filling prepared, add the filling to the crust (just pour it in!).  Cook at 180c for 40-45 minutes. Edges should be firm, and centre still a little soft.  It will harden as it cools.  Set it aside, and serve with cream. (Whipped with maple syrup!)