Daring Cooks June 2013 - Meatballs

Rather an open challenge this month...  Shelley from C Mom Cook and Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to try meatballs from around the world and to create our own meatball meal celebrating a culture or cuisine of our own choice.

I told M about the challenge and she got excited, thinking, it turns out, that I would be making Italian style meatballs.  But, I had hatched a plan to make chipotle/spring onion pork meatballs, with a blackened pineapple salsa.  Not exactly what she was expecting.  Oh well.  As it turned out, she liked these too, so it didn't go too wrong.

Chipotle Pork Meatballs with Pineapple salsa, rice and beans.

Take 600gm pork mince, 3 spring onions, 3-4 canned chipotles and a tablespoon of the adobo sauce from the chipotle can.  Combine together.  Add an egg and some wheatgerm (1-2 tbsp) to bind it together.  

Generously coat your hands with flour, and place more on a plate.  Roll meat mixture into balls.  Roll each in flour and line them up.

Drop the meatballs into a pan with a thin layer of oil (rice-bran) in the bottom.  You will cook them long and slow, for 25-30 minutes, shaking them so they don't stick, and turning to brown all sides.

In the meantime, grab some pineapple (I used a tin of pineapple chunks in unsweetened juice.  Drain some, and drop them into a hot hot pan to blacken quickly.  Won't take long at all.

Set the pineapple aside.  Look back at the meatballs, make sure they aren't sticking!

Cook rice.  (You know how to do that. I used brown rice). Warm your beans (1x can, red kidney), with a couple tomatillos (adds flavour to the beans/rice).  Stir rice into beans.

Maybe make some bbq sauce for the meatballs, if you want.

Salsa!  Dice an avocado.  De-seed a tomato, discard seeds, dice the remainder.  Tear up some mint and coriander leaves.  Toss it all together. Squeeze a lime over it.  Add salt (the black here is Falk black salt, it is delicious)

Voila!

Rogue - Double Dead Guy

Drink this!  Strong (9%) but good. Toffee-malt flavours, lots of sweet, decent hoppiness. Massively tasty.

Quinoa & Roast Cauliflower with Haloumi

Pretty good!

Daring Bakers, May 2013: Prinsesstårta

Korena of Korena in the Kitchen was our May Daring Bakers’ host and she delighted us with this beautiful Swedish Prinsesstårta. 

Looks good, right? This cake is ridiculous. Multiple layers of sponge, interspersed with jam and pastry cream, the top filled with very whipped cream, the whole thing coated in marzipan. Completely crazy. Really tasty. Not. That. Hard. (Really!)

She asked us to make a huge cake. I made a small cake, and played around with the proportions a bit in doing so. I'm still not sure the two of us will finish it.  So, how do we do this?  There are 4 parts, plus assembly.  Custard, Sponge, Marzipan, Cream.  Ingredients are listed under each section.

Vanilla Custard

Ingredients
1/2 cup cream, divided (2x 1/4 cup)
2 egg yolks from large eggs
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon granulated white sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)

Whisk yolks, sugar, cornstarch together until smooth and creamy.  Add 1 portion of the cream, and whisk again to combine.  Heat the other portion of cream with the vanilla until just below boiling.  Pour into the egg mixture slowly, whisking gently to combine as you do.  Transfer all back into the pot in which you heated the cream/vanilla, and heat again until it thickens, stirring as you go.  Remove from heat once thickened.  (This will happen really quickly.  Note, if you miss it and find it separates, you can often save it by adding a splash more cream and whisking vigorously until it smooths out again).

Set this aside to cool.  You can store it in the fridge overnight, press plastic wrap onto the surface of the custard to stop it developing a skin.

Sponge Cake

Ingredients

3 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup whole milk
3 tbsp.  butter (lightly salted)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt

This is not the original sponge cake recipe.  I wanted a smaller cake, and this worked better for the ratios I envisaged than the original.

Beat eggs in large mixing bowl for 4-5 minutes, until light yellow and creamy. (I did this by hand, but if you are sensible, use a mixer) 

Add sugar, beat another 4-5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and stir in.

Sift dry ingredients into the egg/sugar mixture. Stir to combine.

Heat milk and butter in a pan on low heat just until butter is melted. Add to above mixture and beat to combine.

Pour into a greased and floured medium round cake pan.

Bake at 160 until done. (Springy centre, toothpick inserted comes out clean).  This will take 40 minutes or so, depending on your oven.  Let stand 10 minutes before turning out onto a rack and cooling completely.

Cream

400ml Cream.

Did I mention you need more cream?  I whipped 1 1/2 cups, was enough to do the filling on this size cake comfortably. Needs to be very thickly whipped, close to turning into butter (but not quite there)

Marzipan

350gm Marzipan.

Green food colouring

Red food colouring

Icing sugar (for dusting surfaces when keneading/rolling)

I cheated here, bought premade marzipan.  Added gel food colouring to it and kneaded it until the colour was evenly distributed.  Rolled out between sheets of plastic wrap.

Assembly

Cut your cooled sponge into three layers.

Spread base layer with jam, then with pastry cream (you need 2 layers of pastry cream, so only use half of it here).

Place another layer on top, and spread the rest of the pastry cream over it.

Using about 2/3 of the whipped cream, mound up the top of the cake to produce a round, and to cover the edges all the way around the cake.

Cover the mound with the final layer of sponge, and use the remaining cream to provide a thin layer of cream over the entire cake again.

Cover with rolled out green marzipan, and tuck the edges in, cutting off the excess around the base.  Form excess into leaves/decoration if you want.  Decorate centre (leaves and a flower appears to be the classic approach).

fin.

Daring Cooks, May 2013

Monkey Queen of Don’t Make Me Call My Flying Monkeys, was our May Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to dive into the world of en Croute! We were encouraged to make Beef Wellington, Stuffed Mushroom en Croute... I went for something slightly different, with chicken tenderloins in a mushroom/onion/sundried tomato case, with feta, manuka smoked ham and a puff pastry shell. Oh, and I candied up some persimmon in pastry for a sweet.

 Simple really, one takes a puff pastry case, lays a couple slices of ham into it.  To make 2 pastries, I blitzed half a brown onion, 50gm sundried tomato, and 2 small flat mushrooms in a blender, and spread onto the sliced ham.  A layer of feta cheese, and topped with chicken tenderloins (2 per case).  Folded into the above rectangles, and baked for 25 minutes, ends up looking like...

This.

 Or this.

I also diced a ripe persimmon, dropped it into another sheet of puff pastry, sprinkled with brown sugar, and folded it up.  Dessert!

Nøgne Ø: Sunturnbrew

This beer is divine.  If you can read the print on the label below, you will see that it is a peat smoked barley wine, aged in bourbon barrels.  It comes in a very little bottle, 250ml, but that is to the good. M and I shared one, and while we would have happily drunk more, we each had enough to get a handle on how good this beer is.  Very, very good.  The colour is a deep reddish brown, the peat smoke really comes through well, both on the nose and in the mouth.  There is that thick mouthfeel that you get from punchy strong beers, and the aftertaste is pleasant, with the bourbon aging coming through well.  Punchy, at 11%. 

Quince Paste

Quince paste is dead easy.  You should make it.  Right now.  Here is how.  Take as many quinces as you want, say 1 kg of them.  rub the fuzz off their skins, core and roughly chop them.  Add them to a large pot with 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup lemon juice, and boil for about 1/2 an hour.  Let cool a bit, then push through a coarse sieve, to get rid of the harder bits.  Ok. Prep done.  Photo time.

Now, weigh what you have.  Add that, with an equal weight of sugar, to a pot.  Cook it on moderate heat, stirring every few minutes (or more often, really, you could do well to just stir constantly), until it is as dark as you want it.  This might only take half an hour, if you like pale quince paste.  It might take an hour, if you want it dark and intense.  I do.  Don't give up though, it is delicious.  Eventually, it will look like this.  Now you can eat it.  

Once the above has cooled, I cut it into squares, and wrap in glad wrap. It keeps for ages (read: months) in the fridge, but you could also freeze it, if that is your thing.  Defrosts without issue.  I'd keep mine in the fridge until next quince season though, without worrying.

The pot you use will be sticky, but that is ok, just soak it.  It will clean up fine.

Daring Bakers, April 2013

This month, Natalia of Gatti Fili e Farina challenged us to make a traditional Savarin, complete with soaking syrup and cream filling. We were to follow the Savarin recipe but were allowed to be creative with the soaking syrup and filling.

Savarin

Ingredients
2½ cups (600 ml) (12-1/3 oz) (350 gm) bread flour
2 tablespoons (30 ml) water, lukewarm
6 (320 gm) large eggs at room temperature, separated
½ satchel (1½ teaspoons) (4 gm) instant yeast or 15 gm (½ oz) fresh yeast
4 teaspoons (20 ml) (20 gm) sugar
2/3 stick (1/3 cup) (80 ml) (75 gm) butter at room temperature
1 tablespoon (15 ml) (15 gm) (½ oz) orange and lemon zest (optional)
1 teaspoon (5 ml) (6 gm) salt
¼ cup (60 ml) (2 oz) (55 gm) butter for greasing the work surface, hands, dough scraper & baking pan


Directions
0. In a small bowl mix 2 tablespoons (30 ml) lukewarm water, 3 tablespoons (1 oz) (25 gm) flour and yeast , cover with cling film and let rise 60 minutes
1. After 30 minutes put the egg whites in the mixer bowl and start working with the paddle at low speed adding flour until you have a soft dough that sticks to the bowl (about 2 cups or 270 gm) and work until it comes together , cover with cling film and let rest 30 min
2. Add the sponge to the mixer bowl along with a tablespoon of flour and start mixing at low speed (if you wish to add the zests do it now)
3. When it starts pulling away from the sides of the bowl add one yolk and as soon as the yolk is absorbed add one tablespoon of flour
4. Add the second yolk , the sugar and as soon as the yolk is absorbed add one tablespoon of flour
5. Raise the speed a little
6. Add the third yolk and the salt and as soon as the yolk is absorbed add one tablespoon of flour
7. Keep on adding one yolk at the time and the flour saving a tablespoon of flour for later
8. Mix the dough until is elastic and makes threads
9. Add the butter at room temperature and as soon as the butter is adsorbed add the last tablespoon of flour
10. Keep on mixing till the dough passes the window pane test
11. Cover the dough with cling film and let it proof until it has tripled in volume 2 to 3 hours.



12. You can prepare the Pastry cream now if you chose to use it, and refrigerate it



13. While you wait prepare your baking pan buttering it very carefully not leaving too much butter on it
14.Grease your dough scraper, your hands and your work surface and put the dough on it and fold with the Dough Package Fold two or three times around (5 folds twice or three times). Cover with cling foil and let it rest 15 minutes on the counter
15. Turn the dough upside down and with the help of your buttered dough scraper shape your doughhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta2_h6Qogp0 in a rounded bun
16. Make a hole in the center with your thumb and put it in the prepared pan



17. Cover with cling film and let rise in a warm spot until the dough reaches the top of the pan about 1 hour



18. Pre-heat oven to moderate 340°F/170°C/gas mark 3
19. Bake the Savarin for about 40 minutes until the top is golden brown



20. Meanwhile prepare the Syrup



21. When the Savarin is done take it out of the oven, let it cool and remove carefully out of the pan



22. You have two choices now : you can immerse it in syrup right now or you can let it dry out (so it will lose some of the moisture that will be replaced by the syrup) and soak it later on.
23. To immerse it in syrup it is a good idea to place it in the mold you baked it in (I’m afraid a spring-form one wouldn’t work for this) and keep adding ladles of syrup until you see it along the rim of the pan. Or you can just soak it in a big bowl keeping your ladle on top of it so it doesn’t float. Once the Savarin is really well soaked carefully move it on a cooling rack positioned over a pan to let the excess syrup drip



24.The soaked Savarin gains in flavor the next day
25.Whatever you decide the day you want to serve it glaze it and fill the hole with your filling of choice and decorate it. You can serve the Savarin with some filling on the side




Syrup


Orange & Vanilla Syrup in this one.


2 1/2 cups orange juice.
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean pod
1 cup water
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 2 lemons


Mix it all up, reduce it until sticky, and total volume is about 2 1/2 cups


Pastry Cream


Vanilla and Lemon flavoured...


2 cups (500 ml) milk
¼ cup (60 ml) (2 oz) (60 gm) sugar
zest of one lemon
2 large egg yolks
1 large egg
2 tablespoons (30 ml) (1¼ oz) (35 gm) cornstarch
¼ cup (60 ml) (2 oz) (60 gm) sugar
1 cup (250 ml) heavy cream (I used Marscapone instead, because I had it on hand. Worked fine.)
1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthways


1. In a saucepan bring to a boil milk, sugar and vanilla bean
2. In a bowl whisk together egg yolks, egg, cornstarch and sugar
3. Add the hot milk to the eggs one tablespoon at the time to temper it
4. Pour in the saucepan again and bring to a boil stirring constantly
5. When the cream thickens remove from the stove
6. Put cling film onto the cream (touching the surface) and cool
7. Pour 1 cup (250 ml) cold heavy cream in mixer bowl with the whisk attachment
8. Beat until whipped
9. Combine with the cooled pastry cream adding a tablespoon at the time of whipped cream until it gets to the right consistency.

Daring Cooks, April 2013

For the April Daring Cooks Challenge, Lisa from Parsley, Sage and Sweet has challenged us to debone a whole chicken, using this video by Jacques Pepin as our guide; then stuff it, tie it and roast it, to create a Chicken Ballotine.

...

Sounds like fun.

As there are only 2 of us, I went for a small chicken, about 1 kg before boning.

It turns out that it is actually pretty easy to debone a chicken.  First, the forelimbs become 'lollipops'

Then the central mass is exposed

The remaining limbs deboned...

Stuffing prepared (Spinach & breadcrumb)

Tied and roasted...

Cut for serving.

With accompanying sides.

 The chicken is easy to do, the video makes it nice and clear.  I used a couple good handfuls of spinach, a small onion, 1 home-made bread roll, 6 cloves garlic, salt, pepper, and oil, to make the stuffing.

Roast potatoes, garlic breaded roll, and Brussels sprouts with bacon to accompany.