Let's Eat

Cheapo mojito

2011-12-30T13:43:00.000+11:00

What do you do if you're throwing a Cuban BBQ and the price of limes is astronomical? Improvise!

Make a lime simple syrup with the zest from your limes; use 1 lime for each cup of sugar.

Mojitos
Makes 1 drink

Mint leaves
Lime wedges (1/6 of a lime each)
Raw sugar
White rum
Lime simple syrup
Ice
Soda water

Muddle 6 mint leaves and a lime wedge with a hint of raw sugar. Add two shots of rum and 1/2 shot (15 mL) of sugar syrup.

Grind a handful of ice and add to the minty rum mixture then top-up with soda. Stir before serving.

Baby turnips

2011-10-10T18:50:00.011+11:00

Mid-October baby turnips start appearing at the market; which means that there are a few weeks for me to make on of my favourite curries.

Moghul Lamb with Turnips

Serves 4

Adapted from Food of India by Priya Wickramasinghe

2 brown onions

4 cloves of garlic

5 cm piece of ginger

2 green chillies

1/4 cup oil

2 cassia (Indian bay) leaves

1 kg boneless lamb shoulder or leg chopped into a 2.5 cm dice

Pinch asafoetida

1 tsp chilli powder

2 tbsp ground coriander

2 tbsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp ground turmeric

1/2 tsp garam masala

1 tbsp tomato paste

2 tbsp thick plain yoghurt

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground black pepper

450 g baby turnips, halved

Put the onion, garlic and ginger in a food processor and process in to a paste.

Heat the oil in a large shallow pan and add the onion mixture and the cassia leaves. Fry until golden then add the meat and stir until everything is thoroughly coated. Fry for a further 15 minutes until the oil begins to separate from the meat.

Add the spices and cook for 1-2 minutes, then add the tomato paste and yoghurt and fry for another minute. Add the salt and pepper then pour in 2 sups of water a little at a time stirring after each addition. When the sauce is thick cover with a lid and leave to simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the turnips and allow to simmer for a further 45 minutes or both the lamb and turnips are soft.

The Webber returns - Mexican BBQ

2011-09-04T21:18:00.000+10:00

After a wet and almost barbecue-less summer in 2010-11, the gorgeous spring weather in Canberra inspired me to get the Webber out. Since the citrus season is in full swing, this Mexican recipe adaptation makes use of oranges and tamarind to produce a scrumptious caramelised roast pork.

I served this with a potato salad with blanched green beans, charred corn and capsicums, garlic, lemon juice and scallion oil.

Chicken with tamarind orange glaze

Adapted from Mexconnect

2kg chicken

Zest from two oranges

1/2 cup orange juice, freshly squeezed

Salt and pepper

For the glaze:

3 cups chicken stock

1 cup orange juice

1/2 cup light brown sugar

3 tablespoons light vegetable oil

2 tablespoons tamarind paste

1 tablespoon orange zest

Zest 2 oranges and juice them, this should provide 1/2 a cup of juice. Butterfly the chicken and rub with zest, pour the orange juice over and leave to marinate for 2-3 hours.

Combine all glaze ingredients in a saucepan, bring to a boil then lower heat and cook until the glaze reduced to 3/4 cup and is quite sticky. This reduction takes a while, so get it started right after setting up the chicken marinade.

Grill he chicken in the Webber with all vents open; glaze the skin after 45 minutes.

Apple and raisin bars

2011-07-19T18:26:00.002+10:00

These are quite tasty bars, but they're too a bit too rich for snacking that doesn't follow mountain climbing.

Oat and raisin Bars
Makes 16 bars
Modified from Everyday Food via shutterbean

170 g unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pan
3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup plain flour
2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup raisins
1 green apple, grated

Preheat oven to 180°C, then line a 20cm square baking tin with baking paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together butter, sugars, egg, salt, and cinnamon until smooth. Add flour, oats, and raisins; fold in just until combined. Spread batter in prepared pan, and bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs attached, 25 to 30 minutes.

Leave to cool completely in pan then cut in to bars.

Gado-gado

2011-07-17T16:30:00.003+10:00

Another from the archives of delicious meals past. This peanut sauce is quite spicy, so if you're a thinker you may want to water-down some sauce with coconut for guests who can't handle heat.... Also this recipe it fine without shrimp paste, just add more salt.

Peanut sauce for gado gado
Makes 1 1/2 cups of sauce
Adapted from South East Asian Food by Rosemary Brissenden

1 1/2 cups small raw peanuts
1 tbsp vegetable oil + more for deep-frying
7 chillies, seeded and sliced
2 small cloves of garlic
1 tsp shrimp paste
1 cup coconut milk
1 tsp palm sugar
salt to taste
water as necessary
lime juice or white vinegar to taste

Deep fry the peanuts in batches until golden, once they have cooled remove the skins and then grind them into a coarse powder.

Grind the chillies, garlic and shrimp paste in to a paste, then heat 1 tablespoon of oil and fry the spices until fragrant. Mix the peanuts, fried spices, coconut milk and sugar in a saucepan, bring the mixture to the boil and cook until the sauce thickens. Add salt to taste and water to bring the paste to a pouring consistency; then remove from the heat. Add lime juice or vinegar to balance the sauce and allow to cool before serving.

Historic cake

2011-07-11T19:25:00.000+10:00

I must have last eaten this cake in the early 1990s; it's still great. My mum always made it as a loaf, but it actually holds together as a square.

Apple and Pecan Nut Cake
Makes 1 20 cm square cake

2 cooking apples

½ cup of sugar

1 ½ cups plain wholemeal flour

1 level tsp bicarb of soda

2 tsps cinnamon

2 Tsps allspice

1 cup roughly chopped pecan nuts

1 egg

125g butter, melted

Peel, core cut apples in chunks, and mix with sugar. Set aside. Shift flour, bicarb, spices and mix in chopped pecan nuts, beat egg into cooled butter. Add apples, lightly mix in flour- nut mixture and spoon into a greased 20 cm square tin. Bake at 180°C for 45-55 mins.

Olebollen

2011-07-10T17:41:00.000+10:00

They don't photograph well, they were golden and delicious. Yum!

A Dutch New Year's tradition, made January 1 2011 (it's been a bit like that this year).

Ollebollen
Makes enough for 6 hungry people
Adapted from Dutch Cooking by H. Halverhout

3 cups plain flour
2 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups currants and raisins
50 g glacé ginger
2 small pink lady apples, peeled and diced
1 egg
1 cup milk
Icing sugar
Oil for deep frying

Mix everything together in a large bowl, cover and leave in a warm place to rise for an hour.

Heat the oil to 190°C, use two spoons to shape the batter in to balls and drop them in to the oil.Fry them a few at a time, until golden brown (~8 minutes). Drain on absorbent paper, then pile high and cover with icing sugar.

Worldwide BBQ

2010-10-20T18:00:00.000+11:00

In summer 2009-10 the Webber and I attempted a BBQ world tour, cooking a meat dish and an accompaniment from each county. Here's a recap before the 2010-11 season begins.

Africa and the Middle East
Lebanon
Morocco

Asia
India
Indonesia
Malaysia
Thailand

The Americas
Argentina
Jamaica
South Carolina
Texas

Europe
Spain
Portugal

A Pumpkin Soup

2010-10-10T11:30:00.001+11:00

We're moving away from thick soups this time of year, but we did enjoy this is a vibrant tasting version of pumpkin soup several times over winter.

Hot Carrot and Pumpkin Soup
Serves 4
Adapted from Gordon Ramsay

2 tbsp olive oil 2 red onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
270 g carrots (3 medium), peeled
1.1 kg butternut pumpkin, peeled and deseeded
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 birds eye chillies
1.5 litres water
150 g small pasta shapes
Freshly grated parmesan, to serve

Sweat the onion and garlic in the oil over a medium heat for 5-7 minutes until soft. Chop the carrots and pumpkin into 1.5cm dice and add to the pan. Finely slice the chilli and add. Season and cook for another 5 minutes until the vegetables start to soften.

Add the water, stir and bring to the boil. Simmer for 25-30 minutes until the carrots and squash are soft and beginning to break down. Remove from the heat and puree the mixture.

Add the pasta shells. Stir well and return to the boil. Simmer for about 15 minutes or until the pasta is cooked. Check the seasoning and sprinkle with parmesan and serve.

Golden Temptations

2010-10-09T22:02:00.000+11:00

How am I supposed to resist lovely miniature golden lemons hanging, unwanted, over somebody's back fence? These seven fit snugly in a 500 ml preserving jar, perfect for a batch of preserved lemons.

Preserved lemons
Adapted from flavours of Morocco and taste.com.au

7 small, thin-skinned lemons
7 tbsp sea salt
Freshly squeezed lemon juice

Wash and dry lemons to remove any surface dust or dirt. Cut one end of each lemon, about 5mm from the base, so they sit flat. Place 1 lemon at a time, cut-side down, on a chopping board and cut lengthways into quarters without cutting all the way through to the base. Repeat with remaining lemons. Fill each lemon with as much salt as possible. Salt extracts juice from the lemon, softening the rind. Push lemons into jar. Sprinkle over remaining salt.

Place the lemons, in a single layer, in a zip lock bag or a covered bowl. Seal and place in fridge for 3-4 days to soften the skins.

Wash and dry a 500 ml glass jar with a plastic or plastic-lined lid (a metal lid could corrode). Transfer the lemons to the jar. Pour over enough lemon juice to completely cover lemons. Seal, label and date. Place in a cool place, away from direct sunlight, for at least 4 weeks.

Birthday Feasts

2010-07-11T13:37:00.002+10:00

Walnut and honey tart from Skye Gyngell's A Year in My Kitchen. Made with fresh local walnuts, cracked on the day of baking. Fantastic!

Lemon self-saucing pudding (aka lemon delicious) from olive magazine April 2008.

The dragon cake! This was a spectacle was made form a base of chocolate Mayan bundt cake, glommed together with a chocolate hazelnut spread and covered with black chocolate buttercream icing. The lolly banana spines were the most fun to make.

May leftovers

2010-05-31T23:30:00.000+10:00

Other recipes from the internet that I used this month:

*In the spirit of trying new things, I made a bitter gourd curry (kayippakka vartharacha curry). Despite its name, I was a bit surprised by the intense bitterness, it's definitely not one for the unadventurous.

*A Mark Bittman Spanish influenced chickpea and chorizo dish. I made it mid-week and had no fresh spinach, so I grilled some large chunks of tomato and chucked them in before the whole dish is covered in breadcrumbs and grilled. It was really quite good.

*When Aldi had cheap bundt pans I bought one and made this orange bundt twice; it's a great cake for a crowd.

Pumpkin Loaf

2010-05-30T13:44:00.000+10:00

Pumpkin loaves amongst the mess of a Sunday cookathon

Sweet and lightly spiced, this loaf is a great way to use up left over pumpkin.

Pumpkin and Ginger Loaf
Adapted from Martha Stewart
Makes 2 loaves

450 g pumpkin
2 cm piece of ginger
170 g unsalted butter, melted
315 g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt
225 g white sugar
200 g brown sugar
3 large eggs

Peel and de-seed the pumpkin and cut it in to large chunks. Crush the ginger and add it and the pumpkin to a pot of water. Simmer until the pumpkin is soft then remove the ginger and drain well. Puree with a food mill or food processor.

Preheat oven to 190°C. Line 2 loaf pans with baking paper; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, ginger, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together sugars, pumpkin puree, melted butter, and eggs; add flour mixture, and stir until just combined.

Divide batter between prepared pans. Bake until a toothpick inserted in centre of loaves comes out clean, about 60 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes; invert pans and transfer loaves to a wire rack to cool completely.

Moroccan BBQ

2010-05-29T15:06:00.002+10:00

We had the final barbecue of the season about a month ago. On the menu, grilled harissa chicken legs, made with a hastily prepared harissa paste when my tube ran out. A stew of broad beans and pumpkin made also well seasoned with harissa from a Sheridan Rogers recipe for the vegetarians and the table and cous cous.

Dessert was the remarkable part, a simple salad of watermelon and lemon balm.

Watermelon Salad with Lemon Balm
Adapted from Flavors or Morocco by Ghillie Bassan
Serves 4-6

1.5 kg of seedless watermelon
2 tsp white sugar
2-3 tablespoons of orange blossom water
A small bunch of fresh lemon balm

Remove the skin from the watermelon and cut into bit size cubes and place in a serving bowl. Add the sugar to the orange blossom water and stir until the sugar has dissolved Pour the mixture over the watermelon, mix gently then cover the bowl and leave to chill in the fridge for about an hour.

Toss the watermelon again before serving, and scatter the lemon balm leaves over the top.

Tomato Chutney

2010-05-23T20:00:00.001+10:00

In February I bought a big box of tomatoes, I wanted to make chutney using the other fruits I had in the house and came up with a tomato and apricot combo. It was devoured with home made samosas last night, and will appear on many sandwiches in the weeks to come.

Tomato and Apricot Chutney
Makes 2 litres

2 kg ripe tomatoes
260 g granny smith apples (2)
480 g brown onions (3)
25 g fresh ginger
120 g raisins
350 g brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp turmeric
10 green cardamom pods
2 tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper
650 ml white vinegar
300 g Turkish dried apricots

Score the tomatoes, place them in a large bowl. Cover them with boiling water and leave them for about 30 seconds, then drain and peel. Peel, core and chop the apples, chop the tomatoes and onions and stir these ingredients together in a large saucepan. Grate the ginger and add it, the raisins, sugar, turmeric, cardamom, and salt. Season with freshly ground black pepper and then pour in the vinegar.

Bring the mixture to the boil, stirring frequently, and simmer uncovered for an hour. Cut the apricots into halves and add after the first hour, and leave to simmer for a second hour stirring from time to time to makes sure that it does not stick to the pan. Transfer the chutney to warmed sterile jars and cover immediately with airtight lids. Allow the chutney a month to mature.

April Leftovers

2010-05-02T21:38:00.000+10:00

April was filled with visitors, books, birds and perfect autumn weather. We also ate very well.

For my recollection, internet recipes we enjoyed were
*This sweet potato and chipotle soup, topped with sour cream and a handful of crushed corn chips.
*Pasta with broccoli and ricotta, which although simple, is worth remembering.

March Leftovers

2010-03-31T09:20:00.000+11:00

*Youtube is a great resource for learning to cook International cuisines. I made cookingwithdiog's yakisoba noodles and I really liked them.

*I made Nigel Salter's onion soup to use up some Gruyere, I think I prefer a onion soup with more onion.

*The Accountant loved this chickpea salad from Gordon Ramsay. So I made it too. It's very nicely balanced and delicious with some finely slices medium-rare lamb steak mixed through.

*I've been trying to eat more fish, we had teriyaki salmon with pickled vegetable salad. I liked the salad a lot, but I wasn't convinced by the salmon - it's probably better pan fried to achieve some different textures.

*I made these blueberry pancakes, but used all yoghurt instead of butter milk. They were great, but it's uncommon to go terribly wrong with a pancake recipe.

*Nigel Slater's oven method for rice pudding got well-tested this month, but I still haven't decided on the optimal amount of sugar, and the timing is off too. Letting the pudding cook slowly in the oven is much more convenient that the stove top method.

Barley, Beans, and Greens

2010-03-30T21:15:00.007+11:00

A simple vegetable soup, with lots of greens. Season well or it's slightly bland.

Barley, Bean and Vegetable Soup
Serves 4
Adapted from Bill Granger, delicious March 2009

115 g barley
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 small bunch silverbeet (about 700g), finely shredded
2 red skinned potatoes, cut into 2 cm cubes
1 L chicken or vegetable stock
400 g cooked cannellini beans
2 zucchini, cut into 2 cm pieces200 g green beans
85 g peas
Grated parmesan to serve

Place the barley in a large saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer for 45 minutes or until barley is tender. Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes. Add garlic, silverbeet and potato, and cook, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes or until the silverbeet has melted.

Add the stock and 1 litre of water and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the cannellini beans and simmer for a further 10 minutes. Add cooked barley, zucchini, green beans and peas and simmer for 5-10 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Season, then serve topped with grated parmesan.

Portuguese BBQ

2010-03-21T19:45:00.001+11:00

The Portuguese have a popular charcoal grilled sardine dish called sardinhas assadas; I recreated it using whole blue mackerel to great success. The traditional accompaniment, a salad of roasted capsicums, tomatoes and onions, cut through the oily fish beautifully.

To finish we had arroz doce, or rice pudding, flavoured with lemon peel and cinnamon. Next time I may try to make this in the Webber too.

Salt Grilled Blue Mackerel with Portuguese Salad
Serves 4
Adapted from Jill Dupleix, delicious November 2008

2 large potatoes, peeled, cut into 2cm rounds
2 tbsp olive oil1 tbsp hot smoked paprika
1 red capsicum
1 green capsicum
2 tomatoes
1 red onion
Handful coriander or parsley
4 blue mackerel
1 lemon quartered

Parboil the potatoes, when cool slice into rounds 1 cm thick, coat with oil and paprika and bake in the barbecue over indirect heat with all vents open for 45 minutes.

Cook the capsicums over the coals until blistered, then put them in a bowl and cover it with cling film. Peel the capsicums when cool and slice into strips. Finely slice the tomatoes and onion and mix into the capsicums, add the herbs. Dress with a little vegetable oil if not serving immediately.

Salt the cavity of the fish and the outside, cook over indirect heat for 10 minutes a side, or until the flesh comes away from the bone easily. Serve the grilled fish with lemon quarters, the roasted potato slices and capsicum salad.

Lebanese BBQ

2010-03-14T19:40:00.000+11:00

Tonight we had a Lebanese inspired barbecue. I grilled the lamb kafta and served them with a fattoush salad with Shepard avocado. An appetising, light, end of summer meal.

Kafka Mikli
Serves 2-3
Adapted from New Flavours of the Lebanese Table by Nada Saleh

1 onion
Large handful of parsley or thyme
8-10 mint leaves
450 g lamb mince
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp salt

Place the onion and herbs in a food processor and blend until smooth. Mix with the mince, spices and salt. Divide into six even amounts and shape each around a long soaked bamboo skewer.

Cook over direct heat in a kettle BBQ with all vents wide open for fifteen minutes, then turn and leave for a further ten minutes.

Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

2010-03-02T09:20:00.002+11:00

My current favourite pizza sauce is so simple and delicious that you should make it for your next pizza night. Char-grill some red capsicums and peel them. Blend the peeled capsicum with some olive oil, about 1 tablespoon of oil for every 100 grams of capsicum, the spread over your pizza base as you would a tomato sauce.

I often buy lots of red capsicums when they're cheap; they freeze well after roasting and the roasted peppers make a great addition to soups and home made baked beans.

Spanish BBQ

2010-02-28T19:00:00.015+11:00

Spanish BBQ, just prior to covering the patatas bravas in luscious sauce

BBQ season has taken us to Asia and the Americas, this week it's off to Spain. I got all my recipes for the meal from Cooking in Spain by Janet Mendel.

The meat portion of the meal was chuletón a la vasca or beef chops Basque style. The beef is marinated in lemon juice and oil, then grilled over charcoal, while grilling the meat is sprinkled with chopped garlic and parsley. It's served with grilled green peppers.

I also made Catalan speciality calçotada de valls (grilled spring onions) and tapas favourite patas bravas, roasting the potatoes in the BBQ makes this dish a bit less fatty than the regular deep fried preparation. So good.

Patatas Bravas
Serves 4
Adapted from Cooking in Spain by Janet Mendel

800 g waxy potatoes
4 tbsp olive oil
90 ml tomato sauce
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 clove of garlic, crushed
2 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne

Parboil the potatoes. Drain and cut into 3 cm tubes, coat in oil. Place the potatoes in foil tray and bake in a covered BBQ for 40 minutes or until crispy and golden. Drain, salt and serve with the following sauce.

To make the sauce mix the tomato sauce, mayonnaise, garlic, vinegar, paprika, cumin and enough cayenne to make the sauce picante - spicy hot.

February Leftovers

2010-02-28T09:45:00.001+11:00

I cooked a few internet recipes this month:

*I made the Alice Mendrich cocoa brownies that seem to be doing the blog rounds this month. The recipe is great because it uses ingredients that you're bound to have in the house and produces a rich, fudgy browine. Expect to cook them for 30-45 minutes in a conventional oven.

*I made a celebratory flan to accompany a pseudo-Mex meal using a Diana Kennedy recipe, as I hadn't made a flan before I found the instructions from the Science of Cooking really helpful. Slightly panicked when the water bath almost dried out, I learned that this would just cause a bubbly flan, it will still be quite delicious.

*Similarly, then I bought a heap of tomatoes these instructions for freezing them came in handy.

*I also made cornbread and tuna melts that I mentioned in earlier posts and some internet regulars - black beans and Korean tofu.

Indian BBQ

2010-02-27T21:22:00.007+11:00

Last weekend we had Indian BBQ. I cooked from The Food of India by Priya Wickramasinghe, making parathas, pork tikka and a delicious salad dish called kosambri.

To convert the pork tikka recipe for the BBQ I skewered the marinated pork and grilled over indirect heat. I made the sauce the recipe calls for in the food processor using red onion, garlic, ginger, green chilli, coriander, and added about 30 millilitres of vegetable oil. This was served alongside the pork like a fresh chutney, it was refreshing and complemented the lightly charred pork well.

The salad was worth repeating, make a larger batch so you also have some for lunch the next day. For the coconut I used McKenzie's moist flakes, which worked really well here.

Kosambri
Serves 4
Adapted from The Food of India by Priya Wickramasinghe

50 g moong dal
200 g carrot or white radish
25 g grated coconut
25 g coriander leaves
1/2 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp yellow mustard seed
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
2 tbsp lemon juice

Cover the dal in boiling water and leave to soak for at least 3 hours. Rinse well and drain.

Finely grate the carrot or radish in to a bowl and add the coconut, dal and coriander. Heat the oil in a small fry pan over a medium heat and add the mustard seed. When the seed begins to pop add the chilli and remove from the heat. Add the lemon juice and stir, pour over the salad once cold and toss well.

Tuna Melt

2010-02-21T15:58:00.002+11:00

Saw the tuna melt on the menu at Sweet Mothers Kitchen while in Wellington recently, I was curious, but I got a burrito. With my amazing (ha!) powers of recall I thought to make it for lunch today. One of my few food issues is warm canned tuna, but this was surprisingly tasty. Needs about ~1/4 the mayonnaise and I can't imagine the celery is necessary or essential, Swiss or Emmental cheese probably is.

Tomatoes

2010-02-07T20:20:00.002+11:00

Summer is a bad time for impulse buying fruit at the markets. This week I couldn't pass up ten kilograms of roma-ish tomatoes for $12, for that price they were in great shape and I only threw out about 250 grams of squashed fruit.

0.25 kg were used to make warm tomato salsa for Sunday brunch

1.0 kg became tomato soup with Christmas ham bone stock and lot of sweet basil

1.5 kg were slow roasted for 4 hours to make Skye Gyngell's tomato and chilli jam

2.0 kg were simmered with spices, onions, raisins, apples and apricots to make tomato and apricot chutney

2.0 kg got peeled, chopped and frozen in 400g packs since I'm trying to stop using most tinned food

3.0 kg of the smallest tomatoes were slow roasted overnight with herbs, salt and black pepper to pack in oil for later use

Hot Chilli

2010-02-07T13:00:00.002+11:00

When we had the Texas barbecue I served a big pot of vegan chilli made from a kilogram of dried pinto beans and loosely based on a recipe I found online. I didn't try any but the guests really liked it and several requested the recipe, so I have recreated it with a more manageable quantity of beans.

There are several ways you could prepare beans; I like to precook them and then cook them with the spicy sauce in the oven, allowing everything to become rich and well-incorporated. Blending the onions and other aromatics is a trick I have picked up from doing lots of Indian cooking, it gives you a smooth and even sauce. Since the beans have been fully cooked this dish is good eating from the day it's made.

We ate chilli with this fresh corn and basil cornbread (as written but sugar reduced to 1/4 cup). It wasn't as fluffy and delicious as some other corn breads that I have made, but when cut into batons and served with the chilli the textures contrasted nicely.

Vegetarian Chilli
Serves 6-8 as a main

500 g dried pinto beans
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp vegetable oil
3 brown onions
3 jalapeños
2 chipotle peppers with adabo sauce
3 tsp ground cumin
3 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp chilli powder
1-2 red capsicums (about 350 g), diced
700 ml tomato passata
4 tsp fresh oregano or 2 tsp dried
4 tbsp fresh coriander

Preheat the oven to 120°C. Put the dried beans in a large oven-proof dutch oven, add the salt and water to cover by 4 centimetres. Bring to the boil, then cover and bake for 75 minutes or until soft, check the water level at 45 minutes and top up if necessary. When the beans are soft pour them and the cooking liquid into a large bowl.

Increase the oven temperature to 150°C. Add the oil to the dutch oven, peel and dice one onion and sauté until brown. Peel and quarter the other onions and place them, the jalapeños, chipotles and spices in a blender or food processor to make a smooth purée. Pour the purée onto the sautéing onions and cook until fragrant, then add the tomatoes, diced capsicum, oregano, cooked beans and their cooking liquid and bring to the boil. Cover and bake for 2 hours, then remove the lid and bake for a further hour. Add the fresh coriander just prior to serving.

Asado!

2010-02-01T16:00:00.013+11:00

Asado is a South American variety of barbecue. To accompany some slow cooked barbecue veal ribs and chorizo I made chimichurri. Chimchurri is a hot vinegar sauce, this version is from Argentina and is really invigoratingly intense. To serve it with the grilled meats I shredded some fresh coriander and spooned over some chimichurri so that the leaves were coated and just suspended in the sauce, leaving a lot more sauce for later use.

As usual dinner was ready too late for photos.

Chumchurri
Makes about 300 ml
Adapted from The Book of Latin American Cooking by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz

3 tbsp olive oil
240 ml red wine vinegar
2 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp hot Spanish paprika
4 cloves of garlic
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp salt

Mix the oil, vinegar, cayenne and paprika in a jar or bottle. In a mortar and pestle crush the garlic, peppercorns, oregano, bay leaf and salt to make a paste. Add the paste to the container and shake well to mix. Put the sauce in a cool place or refrigerate for four or five days to allow the flavours to develop.

Texas BBQ

2010-01-21T23:20:00.014+11:00

We had a few things to celebrate, so we threw a huge BBQ before departing for summer holidays. I was keen to try out some Texan BBQ, since I still think about the brisket sandwich I had in the Fort Worth airport last September. Twenty-four people turned up for the BBQ, including several vegans and vegetarians, so the menu had to have something for everyone. I settled on the following:

Barbecued Texas Beef Brisket
Vegetarian Texas Chili (I changed the recipe a lot ans will post the modified version later)
Coleslaw
Grilled corn
Peach ice cream, vanilla ice cream with pecans, and peach sorbet

Acquiring brisket was problematic, three days before the barbecue I couldn't get one from any of the butchers in Belconnen and then my shopping patience ran out. I could get a few large pieces of silverside which in the American meat vocabulary is known as top round (and coincidently is the preferred cut for Baltimore-style barbecue). To make something with a similar texture and flavour to my recollection of to brisket from silverside I followed these instructions for barbecuing bison top round, the meat was cooked for 90 minutes per kilo with the barbecue set up for indirect heat and a tray of water placed in the centre to create some steam. The barbecue was about 135 °C for the duration, I wanted the meat cooked medium to avoid potential toughness, so left it cook until it reached and internal temperature of 63 °C, then took it out of the BBQ to rest for 30 minutes wrapped in foil. It wqs really good, but a thinner and fattier cut may have been even better.

The dessert required less experimentation. Peach ice cream is a Southern US speciality, this version comes from Texan former First Lady Ladybird Johnson; it was extremely delicious.

Mrs. Lyndon B Johnson's Peach Ice Cream
Makes about 2 liters
Adapted from The Texas Cookbook by Mary Faulk Koock

1 kg ripe peaches
1 cup water
600 ml cream
250 ml milk
1 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
2 egg yolks

To make peach purée halve, pit and quarter the peaches, then cut the quarters into smaller pieces. Put the peach pieces and the water into a saucepan, cover with a lid and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the peach skin has separated from the flesh and the flesh can easily be pierced with a knife. Let the peaches cool then process into a purée with a blender, pass the blended mix though a sieve for a very fine purée.

To make the custard, mix the cream, milk, sugar, and salt in a medium-sized saucepan and heat gently. Whisk the egg yolks in a small bowl, remove the cream mixture from the stove and gradually whisk in half of the warm milk. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over a moderate heat, stirring constantly, until the custard has thickened.

Strain the hot custard into the puréed peaches and stir until well mixed. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions, for a standard ice cream machine with a 1L bowl divide the mixture into two portions .

Cabbage and Potato Curry

2010-01-04T19:10:00.003+11:00

Clockwise, rice, sour chickpeas (khatte chhole), papadum, cabbage and potato curry

I made this Pakistani curry for the first time last May, I remember choosing it because it used up staple vegetables. I really enjoyed it when we ate it then but I didn't make any notes and the recipe was a bit vague in places.

The version below is quite hot, you could easily use the same spice mix and increase the vegetables to make a more mild curry that feeds more people, just maintain the 2:2:1 ratio of cabbage, potatoes and tomatoes.

Bund Gobi Aur Aaloo
Serves 4-6
Adapted from Asian Spicy Recipes

400 g wedge of cabbage
400 g potatoes
200 g tomatoes
2 tbsp oil
1 medium onion
3 cm piece ginger
1 tsp chilli powder
1\2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp coriander seed, ground
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garam masala
2 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
2 green chillies, chopped

Remove any tough cabbage leaves, shred the leaves and discard the tough core. Peel and cut the potatoes into a 1.5 cm dice. Roughly dice the tomatoes. Set the vegetables aside.

Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Peel and dice the onion, peel crush and chop the garlic. Add the onion and garlic to the hot oil and sauté until soft or about 5 minutes. Add the chilli powder, turmeric, coriander, and salt and cook for a further 3 minutes stirring frequently, add a little water if the mixture sticks.

Add the diced tomatoes to the pan and fry the mixture until the tomatoes are reduced to a pulp and the oil begins to separate from the mix. Add the cabbage and potatoes and stir to cover them with the aromatic tomato mixture. Reduce the heat and cover the pan, allow to cook for about 20-30 minutes or until the potatoes are soft and the curry looks quite dry

Add garam masala, fresh coriander and green chillies and serve.

December Leftovers

2009-12-31T15:06:00.001+11:00

Roasted sweet potato salad

Cooking in December was unpredictable, these are the recipes I made from the internet:

*I made Spanish-style grilled fish using whole whiting. It was good, but not notably Spanish.

*To accompany our Jamaican barbecue we had a roasted sweet potato salad based loosely on this recipe from Mark Bittman. I roasted the sweet potato on the barbecue sprinkled with some chilli flakes and raw sugar, once cooked I left them to cool. I added a can of drained and washed kidney beans, some diced red onion, young rocket and some finely sliced radish. The salad was dressed with olive oil, lemon juice and seasoned with salt and black pepper. It was really tasty and made a great accompaniment to the jerk chicken.

*The glaze for the Christmas ham and the rub for the South Carolina barbecue. Both of these were very successful.

I only made 11 recipes from 8 cookbooks this month:

A Heritage of Indian Cooking: Brinjal and tomato curry, murgh palak
Food for the Vegetarian: Lentils and rice pilaf
Jerk from Jamaica: Jerk marinade, jerk chicken
Kitchen: Whitebean salad
My Bombay Kitchen: Everyday dal
Sri Lankan Flavours: Beetroot curry
The Food of India: Saag bhaji, chana masala
The Perfect Scoop: Buttercrunch toffee

South Carolina BBQ

2009-12-30T11:45:00.005+11:00

This week we moved on from the Caribbean to the USA, South Carolina to be exact. There is fierce barbecue rivalry between the states in America, which means more delicious styles of barbecue for us to try.

This barbecue was prepared without much planning, so I had to use two boneless pork shoulder roasts instead of a big bone-in shoulder. I also couldn't be bothered hiking over to Bunnings in the heat to investigate the availability of wood chips for smoking the meat. Get yourself a bigger hunk of meat and some smoking chips for a more authentic South Carolina barbecue. But if you can't be bothered doing either of those things, this barbecue still comes out rich, smoky and delicious.

To serve the cooked pork pull it or chop it into small pieces, serve it in a soft white bread roll with coleslaw and the vinegar and pepper barbecue sauce

Blackjack Barbecue Dry Rub
Makes 1 cup of rub
From here

2 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
3 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp salt
3 tbsp chilli powder
1 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp brown sugar

Grind all the spices and combine.

Vinegar and Pepper Barbecue Sauce
Makes 1 cup

1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp crushed red chilli
2 tbsp black pepper, ground
2 tbsp brown sugar
Salt to taste

Combine the ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer until the sauce is reduced to one cup.

BBQ Pork Shoulder
Serves 8-12

3-4 kg pork shoulder
1 cup dry rub

Cover the pork with dry rub and let it sit while you light the BBQ. The Webber site has comprehensive instructions on how to barbeque the pork.

Christmas 2009

2009-12-27T01:36:00.000+11:00

Christmas was cool and rainy. Much of the menu was served warm, it included:

Smoked shoulder ham with pomegranate molasses and mustard glaze
Smoked salmon with capers
Lentil and rice pilaf
White bean and tomato salad
Roast new potatoes with thyme
Chickpeas, carrot and beetroot roasted with sumac, served on baby rocket
Cornichons, mustard and sourdough

Red Enchilada Sauce

2009-12-14T20:00:00.002+11:00

My partner in fruit crime is mostly vegan, which I find pretty easy to cater for since I was a vegan for eight or so years - I wish I had invented this sauce back then. My red enchilada sauce is made with tomatoes, roaster red capsicums and chipotle peppers, it bears no resequence to an authentic Mexican red sauce, but is rich and spicy and totally satisfying anyway.

If you can't get chipotle peppers might be able to imitate the flavour with Spanish smoked paprika and chilli powder, but you really should try and get some chipotle peppers in adabo sauce, I stocked up when I was in America earlier this year. In Canberra you can get canned Chipotles at Deli Cravings at the Belconnen Fresh Food Market and you can buy them online here. Freeze the canned peppers you don't use in twos with a tablespoon on the accompanying sauce for later use.

I used this to make enchiladas with kidney beans (using this method, again). Serve with avocado and green salad, cheese and sour cream on the side for those OK with dairy.

Red Enchilada Sauce
Serves 3-4 for enchiladas

1 tsp vegetable oil
1 medium red onion
1 can of whole peeled tomatoes
1/2 tsp dried marjoram/oregano
2 canned chipotle peppers and 1 tbsp adabo sauce
3 red capsicums, roasted, peeled and cut into strips
Salt to taste

Heat the oil in a small saucepan, add the onion and cook until soft. Pour the tinned tomatoes and juice into the pan and crush with a wooden spoon. Add the dried herbs, chipotles and adabo, and the roasted red capsicum. Let the sauce simmer for about 5 minutes, remove from the heat and purée with a immersion (stick blender), then return to the stove and let the sauce simmer gently for about 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and season to taste with salt.

Scrumped

2009-12-14T19:30:00.002+11:00

During my morning bus journey and my evening walks, I have been making a list of neglected loquat trees currently filled with an abundance of blushing yellow fruit. We relieved a tree of some this weekend just past, with all last years preserves gone, I decided to turn our first harvest into chutney. Should I find the time to go scrumping again before the rest of the fruit falls, I'd also like to make this loquat barbecue sauce.

Date and Loquat Chutney
Makes 1.25 litres

1.5 kg loquats, washed, deseeded and chopped
225 g dates, chopped
450 g brown onions, diced
200 g brown sugar
2 tsp ground coriander
3 tsp fresh grated ginger
2 cloves garlic crushed
250 ml vinegar

Mix all the ingredients in a large saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring continuously. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to a simmer, cook the chutney for 1 1/4 hours stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Uncover the pan and cook for a further 15 minutes.

Transfer the chutney to warmed sterile jars and cover immediately with new lids. Allow to mature for one month before eating.

Jamaican BBQ

2009-12-13T15:48:00.003+11:00

This week we took a detour from Asia and moved to Jamaica. Jerk isn't a style of BBQ I have come across in Australia, but with all the ingredients for the marinade readily available it's a easy style to try and recreate on a charcoal BBQ.

I marinated some whole butterflied chickens in jerk marinade for about 3 hours, then cooked the chickens over coals with the vents partially closed.

To accompany the chicken we had a roasted sweet potato salad and a cold watermelon for afters.

Jerk Marinade
Makes enough for 2kg of meat
Adapted from Jerk form Jamaica by Helen Willinsky

1 brown onion, chopped
1/2 cup spring onions, chopped
2 tsps of fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp allspice
1 jalapeño chopped
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp cider vinegar

Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and process until smooth. Store leftovers in a sealed container in the fridge for up to one month.

Eggplant Curry

2009-12-07T22:53:00.003+11:00

I've made this eggplant curry a few times and each time I am rewarded for persisting with the frustrating unordered list of ingredients. The recipe comes from a book from a historic Indian restaurant that was located in the Canberra in the 1980s called Shalimar, the owner and author of the book gallantly refused to moderate the intensity of his food - a sentiment I agree with entirely. The curry delicious and well-suited for those who can't handle heat as it's not very spicy.

Brinjal and Tomato Curry
Serves 4 or more with other dishes
Adapted from A Heritage of Indian Cooking by Joseph Cotta

1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 large onions, finely chopped
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cumin, ground
2 green chillies, chopped
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 tsp ginger, grated
4 large tomatoes, diced
1/2 kg eggplant, diced
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the onions until golden brown. Add the spcies, chillies, garlic and ginger and fry until aromatic. Mix in the tomatoes and allow them to begin to break down, stirring frequently, until the oil rises to the top. Add the eggplant and stir well, add the lemon juice. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat to low and cover, allow to simmer for 20 minutes or until the eggplant is cooked through, then season with salt as required and serve.

November Leftovers

2009-11-30T11:53:00.005+11:00

In November I used these recipes from the internet

*Simmered black beans, a recipe that I have at least six times since it was published in March, I really should have memorised it by now.
*I recently bought some vanilla beans from Spice West on ebay, which seems to be the cheapest way to get them. I used some beans to make vanilla extract using this method, but used half the alcohol and twice the beans. It smells fantastic after four weeks, I probably won't wait eight weeks to use it.
*I finally got around to trying Peter Reinhart's Napoletana pizza dough recipe. The pizza bases made with this recipe were awesome and the long cold fermentation makes a lot of sense during the warmer months.
*I wanted to add something a but different to the lunchbox fruit loaf rotation, coconut-pineapple loaf cake from Martha Stewart looked good. I made mine with yoghurt and a 400g tin of crushed pineapple, it's very nice, but the crumbly texture lends itself more to a cake than a loaf.

From the cookbooks; 20 recipes from 13 cookbooks

Artisan Baking: Royal Crown's fennel taralli
Cooking in Spain: Spinach omelette
Food of Indonesia: Ayam taliwang, acar mentimun
Ladies a Plate: Ginger crunch, Mrs Mackie's moist and spicy fruit loaf
Land of Plenty: Pot sticker dumplings with chicken stock
Little Vietnam: Barbecued pork balls, papaya salad
New Flavours of the Lebanese Kitchen: Kafta mikli, green bean pilaf (madfounet al loubieh wa roz bi-zeit)
South East Asian Food: Malay satay, nasi impit
Thai Food: Gai yang
The Classic Italian Cookbook: Pasta, pesto
The Perfect Scoop:Strawberry-rhubarb sorbet, banana sorbet
The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market Cookbook: Rustic rhubarb scone cake

Vietnamese BBQ

2009-11-29T21:50:00.008+11:00

Vietnamese BBQ this week, I picked some recipes from the recently released Little Vietnam by Vietnamese-Australian chef Nhut Huynh. The meaty component of the menu was barbecued pork balls, these pork meatballs were seasoned with fish sauce, oyster sauce, shallots, and sugar which led to some lovely caramelisation. Threaded onto bamboo skewers for grilling they were then served with iceberg lettuce cups, cucumber, and a hoisin dipping sauce.

To accompany the pork I made the papaya salad, which I can add to the new foods list for this year as I've only eaten it ripe in the past. I have a potted Vietnamese mint (Persicaria odorata) which came in handy, the picture in the book also has something that looks very much like perilla (serrated leaf margins, purple underside) which might be worth trying if you can get some, but wasn't listed in the recipe. Don't bother making more servings than you need since it supposedly doesn't keep well, a green papaya weighing 550 grams should be enough for about 4 serves; half of the unpeeled and unseeded fruit can be put in an air-tight container and reversed for later use.

The salad is a really interesting mixture of textures, the mint is probably the most notable flavour, the papaya is crisp and fresh and is more like bean shoots than you might be expecting. Piling the salad into the lettuce cups with cucumber and the BBQ pork made for a refreshing late lunch.

Papaya Salad
Serves 2
Adapted from Little Vietnam by Nhut Huynh

1/2 a small green papaya (~260 grams), peeled and seeded
Squeze of lemon juice
1 cup Vietnamese mint, washed
2 tbsp fried shallots
1 tbsp crushed roasted unsalted peanuts
20 ml fish sauce
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
2 fresh birds eye chillies, finely chopped

Finely julienne or grate the papaya then soak in cold water with a squeeze of lemon juice added, this removes some bitterness.

Mix the papaya with the other ingredients and toss well to ensure the papaya is coated with the dressing. Serve immediately.

Thai BBQ

2009-11-22T16:00:00.005+11:00

There is something intimidating about a giant, bright pink silk-covered cookbook. The tone of David Thompson's epic Thai Food, is rigorous and reverent but also sort of discouraging, it took me a while to finally start cooking from it. Now we're properly acquainted, this weeks barbecue dish came from the book, we made gai yang (grilled chicken) for a late Sunday lunch and it was fantastic!

A large jug of freshly made sweet chilli sauce in the centre, mojitos at the front

To accompany the chicken we had cucumbers, thinly sliced carrots and a herb salad made with roughly even quantities of coriander, ginger mint and pineapple sage lightly dressed with peanut oil. The archivist maintains that he loves ayam taliwang the best, but I thought that this dish had a great balance of hot, sweet and sour and it will be on the menu again.

The only part of this dish that requires planning it the coriander root since the other ingredients can all be acquired fairly easily. Coriander roots can be stockpiled in the freezer for later use. I have included the recipe for a half quantity of sweet chilli sauce, this should be enough for at least six chickens.

Gai Yang
Serves 4
Adapted from David Thompson's Thai Food

3 coriander roots, washed and chopped
Pinch of salt
4 garlic cloves, peeled
10 white peppercorns
3 tbsp fish sauce
Large pinch palm sugar
1 small chicken

1/4 cup coriander root
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 cup long red chillies
2 cups white vinegar
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 cups water

Using a mortar and pestle, pound the coriander roots, salt, garlic and peppercorns into a fine paste. Work in the fish sauce and sugar. Butterfly the chicken, wash and pat dry and and rub in the marinade, leave to marinate in the fridge for a few hours.

For the sweet chilli sauce, process the coriander root, salt, garlic and chilli in a food processor. Combine the vinegar, sugar and water in a pot and bring to the boil, then add the chilli paste. Simmer the sauce until reduced by half, then set aside to cool.

Chargrill the chicken until it reaches at internal temperature of ~83°C. Serve with a bowl of the sweet chilli sauce.

Baked Beans

2009-11-20T11:40:00.003+11:00

All the baked beans from the last batch I made using a Jane and Jeremy Strode recipe had been eaten, to replenish the stocks I used the recipe from The Cooks Companion by Stephanie Alexander. I modified the recipe based on what I had in the kitchen and because her beans didn't sound particularly delicious; I did mostly follow her technique though (I didn't purée tinned tomatoes in the food processor when they are going to cook for four hours however).

As far as Stephanie's technique goes, I can't see any advantage to par-boiling the beans then baking as she instructs, over fully cooking the beans and then cooking them a second time with the tomatoes with spices etc. like the Strode recipe. The later is definitely faster and having eaten this batch a few times now, I couldn't detect an appreciable difference in the texture of the beans. Otherwise the mix of vegetables and spices I concocted is quite pleasing and has a much greater depth of flavour than your typical baked bean sauce. I wouldn't bother with the maple syrup again as it makes the beans incredibly sticky when you reheat them and the flavour is disguised by the tomatoes and spices, brown sugar seem like a better choice.

Basque Beans
Makes six 520 gram tubs for freezing (12 serves)
Adapted from The Cooks Companion by Stephanie Alexander

700g dried haricot beans
3 tbsp olive oil
400 g diced brown onions (~2 large onions)
6 cloves of garlic, crushed and diced
275 g carrot diced small (~2 big carrots)
350 g roasted red capsicums, skin removed
2 400g tins of tomatoes, crushed
140 g tomato paste
175 ml of shizaz cabernet or other red cooking wine
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs of thyme
2 tsp smoked Spanish paprika
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp salt
1 tsp crushed black pepper
1/2 cup maple syrup

Place the dried beans in saucepan and cover with cold water to four centimetres above the beans. Slowly bring the beans to simmer, then leave at a simmer for an hour.

Half an hour before the beans are done preheat the oven to 180°C; heat the oil in a large enamelled cast iron casserole and sauté the onion, garlic and carrot. After about 5 minutes or when the onion is translucent add the capsicum, wine, tomatoes, tomato paste and spices and mix well. Put a lid on the pan and let the mixture simmer until the beans have cooked for an hour.

Pour the beans and their cooking water in to the tomato mixture and stir, add water to cover by about 6 cm. Bake for about 4 hours or until the beans are fully cooked, checking after 2 hours to top up the water. When the beans are ready add the maple syrup and serve hot or divide into containers for freezing.

Ginger Beer

2009-11-17T19:36:00.006+11:00

Ginger beer starter on day two, there's not much to see

Finally it's sunny more days than it's not, I've been planning some brewing experiments and now seems like a good time to get started. The Archivist has fond memories of his family bottling ginger beer and suggested that I get the family recipe. His mum wrote back, she and her brother used to use a method like this with bakers yeast and dried ginger when they were kids. She didn't recall the method that they used later.

So I decided to an experimental approach and culture a wild ginger beer starter. I found a recipe and I started things off in the hot water cupboard about three weeks ago, combining water, ginger and sugar in a loosely covered jar. I bottled the first batch 6 days later in 1 litre Italian made stoppered bottles scavenged at garage sales. After two weeks the beer was still flat and I moved the bottles from the garage to the living area, six days over 30 degrees later, a batch bottled in cheap and evidently shoddy Chinese made bottles started exploding, so I decided to try the the first batch was again.

The resulting beer is has a good ginger zing and has a slight and pleasant sourness from the microbes that you don't get in the commercial variety. If you can wait the recommended two weeks it will be more fizzy if it's left longer to ferment.

Now I need to try it in a Dark 'n' Stomry.

Ginger Beer
Makes 4 litres
Adapted from Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz

8 cm or more of fresh ginger root
500 g sugar
2 lemons or limes
Water

To prepare the ginger beer starter add two teaspoons of grated ginger (skin on) and two teaspoons of sugar to 250 mL of water. Stir well and leave in a warm spot, covered with cheese cloth to allow air circulation. Add this amount of ginger and sugar every day or two and stir, until the bug starts bubbling in two days to a week.

Make the ginger beer any time after the bug become active. Boil 2 litres of water, add about five centimetres of grated ginger root (add up to 15 cm for a really intense ginger beer) and 500 grams of sugar. Boil for 15 minutes and cool.

Once the ginger-sugar-water mixture has cooled, strain the ginger out and add the juice of the lemons and the strained ginger bug (if you want start an ongoing process keep a few tablespoons of the bug and replenish it with water, grated ginger and sugar). Add enough water to make four litres.

Bottle in sealable bottles, leave the bottles to ferment in a warm spot for about two weeks. You will be able to see bubbles of carbon dioxide rising to the top of the bottle when fermentation is active.

Chill before opening and be prepared for strong carbonation.

Malaysian BBQ

2009-11-08T17:50:00.002+11:00

Worldwide BBQ season continued this week. I wanted sate/satay and I choose to go with the Malaysian beef variant rather than any of the myriad of Indonesian options. I took my recipes from Rosemary Brisenden's book South East Asian Food and followed her serving suggestions by accompanying the satay with rice cake (nasi impit) and chunks of cucumber.

My inexperience with direct charcoal BBQ left the meat a bit overdone which meant that the flavour of the meat overwhelmed the well-balanced satay sauce. Everything was tasty, but not as delicious as last week. Oh well, practice makes perfect as they say.

Malay Satay
Serves 2 or 4 as a part of a larger meal
Adapted from South East Asian Food by Rosemary Brisenden

500g rump steak
1 stalk lemon grass, finely sliced
2 cloves of garlic
pinch of turmeric
1/2 tsp ground fennel
1/2 tsp ground cumin
Vegetable oil for basting

2 tsp coriander seed
1 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp cumin
6 dried chillies, soaked in warm water until soft
1/2 tsp shrimp paste
6 shallots
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp peanut oil
85 grams of peanuts, fried and roughly ground
250 ml coconut milk
4 tbsp tamarind water made from 1 tsp tamarind pulp
1 tsp palm sugar
salt to taste

Trim the fat from the rump and dice the steak in to 1.5 cm cubes. Make the paste by combining the lemongrass, garlic and spices in a food processor or mortar and pestle. Mix the meat and spice paste and leave to marinate for 2-3 hours; soak bamboo skewers in water at the same time to prevent them from burning on the BBQ.

To make the satay sauce, grind all the spices into a fine powder. Combine the soaked chillies, shrimp paste, shallots and garlic and ground spices in a food processor or mortar and pestle and make a paste. Heat the oil in a saucepan and fry the paste until aromatic. Add the ground peanuts, coconut milk, tamarind water and sugar and stir well. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes, stirring to prevent the sauce from sticking. Taste and adjust the seasoning. This recipe makes enough sauce for twice the amount of meat.

Thread the meat onto skewers, covering about 1/3 of the length of the skewer. Cook directly over a charcoal fire, brushing frequently with the oil. Serve the meat with the sauce on the side.

Indonesian BBQ

2009-11-01T19:25:00.008+11:00

It was 31 degrees and sunny today, it seemed like a good idea to cook outdoors. I would like to try BBQ dishes from all over the world this summer, we started with Indonesia. According to my cookbook ayam taliwang (chicken with spicy sauce) is Lombok's most famous charcoal grilled chicken dish; it is basted with and served with a chilli-coconut sauce - which is quite delicious on it's own.

To complete the meal we had an authentic pickled cucumber - acar mentimun - and some improvised sides of spinach stir-fired with kecap manis and BBQ roasted sweet potatoes. The chicken elicited audible moans of appreciation and the vegetables provided a sweet textural counterpoint to the chook.

Next weekend, Indonesian again or Malaysian BBQ.

Ayam Taliwang
Serves 4 - 8
Adapted from The Food of Indonesia, Periplus World Cookbooks

14 bird's-eye chillies
1 medium brown onion
1 tsp dried shrimp paste, toasted
1 tsp palm sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil
4 cups coconut milk
1 tbsp lime or lemon juice
1 whole fresh chicken (sauce will be enough for 2)
1 tsp salt

To prepare the sauce blend the chilli, onion, shrimp paste, palm sugar and salt into a smooth paste using a food processor or mortar and pestle. Heat the oil in a wok then add the paste and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the coconut milk and reduce the heat, let the mixture simmer until the coconut milk is reduced by a quarter, then remove from the heat and add the lime/lemon juice. This makes enough sauce for up to two whole chickens, it can be stored in the fridge or frozen for longer term storage.

Butterfly the chicken by removing the backbone with a knife or kitchen shears, then place the chicken breast side up and press hard on the breast to snap the wishbone so the chicken will sit flat. Charcoal grill breast side up for 20 minutes, pour half a cup of sauce into a new container and use it to baste the chicken every 10-15 minutes until the internal temperature reaches ~83°C. Allow the chicken to rest for 10 minutes and then cut into large serving pieces. Spread some additional warmed sauce on the chicken before serving.

Christmas Cake

2009-11-01T19:24:00.001+11:00

The first time I made a Christmas cake I made Alison Holst's Pineapple Christmas cake, that was 2006. I wrote the the Archivists mum asking for recipes and she sent me scans of three recipes from her collection. It turned out great and lasted beautifully until well after New Year, so I made it again in 2007 and somehow botched the timing and it was raw in the middle. I tried a different cake from Martha Stewart in 2008 and I would recommend the recipe, but I want a cake to call my own.

This year I cobbled together a recipe based on Alison's. I used a fruit mix similar to the Bourke Street Bakery's* Christmas cake recipe (raisins, dates and figs) and plan to feed the cake with dark rum just like the 2008 Martha Stewart cake, since I don't really like brandy and I have most of a bottle of rum.

I washed 500 grams of raisins, 400g quartered figs, 200g chopped dates and 200g of sultanas, drained them, splashed them with rum and left them in the fridge to macerate for a week. Where the Hoslt recipe lists optional extras I tossed in 200g of glacé ginger. A 440 gram tin of Golden Circle crush pineapple is sufficient for the cake, squeeze out most of the juice. Blanched almonds on top, fed rum weekly, it should delicious in eight weeks time.

*The Bourke Street Bakery cookbook is lovely to look at, the recipes have very clear and precise instructions and the photos are great. Unless you're cooking for a crowd it may not be very practical as most of the recipes make large quantities (three loaves for breads, at least 12 serves for most sweet pastries). I am plotting an event so I can make some tarts to test it out properly.

October Leftovers

2009-10-31T11:20:00.005+11:00

October is a great month for garage sales in Canberra. The Willow ware collection is swelling and it's probably best we just don't talk about the accumulation of French preserving jars. In the kitchen, October was a cookbook month, although all the recipes for bunmania were sourced online. Otherwise:

*google directed me to Gordon Ramsay's caramelised bananas and rum which I made to accompany some hotcakes (can't comment on his hotcakes as I used a different recipe). I did something a bit wrong as my caramel also contained delicious chunks of toffee, definitely worth revisiting when there are too many bananas and another mysterious bottle of rum appears in the pantry.

Since I'm tracking my cookbook use for collection management reasons (hey, I live with an archivist!), I made seventeen recipes from twelve different cookbooks
*A Heritage of Indian Cooking: Brinjal and tomato curry
*Cocina de la Familia: Chicken and chickpea soup, crispy chicken tacos
*Fat: Petit sale
*Goose Fat & Garlic: Cassoulet
*Ladies a Plate: Banana cake, ginger crunch
*Land of Plenty: Ants climbing a tree
*Maggie's Orchard: French-style nectarine tart (for the rough puff pastry)
*My Bombay Kitchen: Channa ni dar
*Soul Food: Deep dish apple pie, Aunt Peacie's double pie crust
*The Food of India: Pork with capsicum and potatoes, kheema matar, aloo gobi
*The Korean Table: Seasoned bean sprouts (kong namul)
*Wild fermentation: Ginger beer (starter, beer next month if all goes well)

Bunmania

2009-10-25T15:40:00.012+11:00

Red bean buns prior to steaming, I need to work on making them round

I read the book tie-in blog Asian Dumplings written by Andrea Nyugen. When she directed me to her article in the LA Times on steamed buns I thought about making buns, and when one of my food fancying facebook friends posted a link to the article week later, I decided I should probably make buns as soon as possible. I had bunmania!

The yeasted bun dough was very easy to work and the recipe tripled successfully. I used one third unbleached bread flour and two thirds unbleached plain flour to produce a mix that I assumed would have equivalent levels of gluten to the American brand she mentions.

I made curried chicken and red bean steamed buns; using Andrea's instructions for filling and steaming the buns. I altered the curried chicken filling slightly by skipping the coconut milk and cornstarch, instead I added three tablespoons of shredded coconut and a little bit of water to bring everything together. I made the red bean paste recipe as instructed, which made roughly twice a much filling as required to fill one quantity of bun dough. To steam sixteen buns at once, you will need to use two twenty-eight centimetre bamboo steamers. These buns were light, fluffy and delicious; infinitely better than the frozen variety and most of the steamed buns I have tried locally.

Pan fried pork and scallion buns at the back, red bean buns at the front.

I also made the pan-fried pork and scallion mini buns and dipping sauce from the article. These were my favourite buns of the day, the buns were pillowy on top and crispy on the bottom, and the dipping sauce complemented the filling brilliantly.

I think it probably took me about two hours to make all the fillings, the dough and prepare and cook the buns, which isn't bad as I had sixty-four buns roll out and fold. Since the dough can be left in the fridge after the first rise, these buns don't need to be a weekend project. The steamed buns can also be frozen after steaming and reheated from frozen in the steamer later, which will be great when it heats up a bit more and I start avoiding the kitchen.

Cheap and plentiful bamboo stemers available in all sizes at
Oriental Groceries
2/38 Weedon Cl, Belconnen

Le Cassoulet

2009-10-05T19:30:00.030+11:00

Thirteen people attended Labour Day cassoulet, the meal was pretty amazing. The cassoulet was rich and delicious with exceptionally creamy beans, it was accompanied by a simple green salad dressed with a vinaigrette based on walnut oil (la salade à l'huile de noix). For afters we had the tart aux pommes with Chantilly cream and an orange and poppy seed cake. We had champagne, a few different red wines and a dessert wine, I am surprised I'm still standing.

The final recipe I used for the cassoulet is as follows, if you want to add steps like making salt pork, duck confit and/or pork sausages you will need to plan at least a week in advance; after soaking the beans overnight this recipe could be prepared in a day or over two days. You will need an enamelled cast iron pot with a 28 cm diameter/ 6.3 L volume at least. I didn't use breadcrumbs and I was satisfied with the crust.

Le Cassoulet
Serves 10-15
Adapted from Goose Fat & Garlic by Jeanne Strang

To prepare the beans:
1 kg of dried white haricot beans
350g of salt belly of pork
Pork rind to cover the base of your cast iron pot, rolled and tied
1 carrot
1 onion stuck with 2 cloves
Bouquet garni (thyme, parsley and bay leaves)
Ham bone (optional)
6 cloves of garlic
Salt to taste

The meat:
2 tbsp duck/goose fat
350 g pork shoulder, 2.5 cm dice
2 medium sized onions
700 g Toulouse or pure pork sausage
250 g tomatoes, peeled, cored and diced
1 L duck stock or water
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
bouquet garni

For the cassoulet:
3 pieces of confit de canard
Duck fat
Breadcrumbs (optional)

To prepare the beans:
Soak the beans overnight in lots of water. Drain, rinse and place in a large pan. Cover with cold water and bring it slowly the boil. Boil for 10 minutes, skim off the foam then add the salt pork, pork rind, whole carrot, onion, boquet garni, ham bone and garlic. Cover and allow the beans to simmer slowly until just tender, adding salt half way through if necessary; the beans should be soft enough after 30 minutes at a simmer, don't let them overcook and turn mushy.

To cook the meat:
Add the duck/goose fat to a heavy bottomed pan, heat and add the diced pork to seal. When the pork has browned add the onions and carrots and let them colour. Prick the sausages and fry them separately until until golden. Drain and cut the sausage into bite-sized pieces then add to the pork, onions and carrots. Add the diced tomatoes, garlic and herbs and cover with stock or water. Allow to simmer gently for about 50 minutes.

To assemble the cassoulet:
Break up the duck confit into bite-sized pieces, discarding the skin and bones.

Preheat the oven to 150°C. When the beans are tender, drain the cooking liquid into a bowl, discard the ham bone, onion, carrot and bouquet garni. Cut the salt pork into bite-sized pieces. Use the pork rind to line the bottom of a large enamelled cast iron pot (at least 28 cm/ 6.3L), fat side down. Cover the rind with half of the beans then layer on the meats. Cover the meat with the remainder of the beans then pour on the sauce from cooking the meat; top up with stock or the bean cooking liquid so that the beans are almost covered.

If using breadcrumbs sprinkle them over the cassoulet, then place in the over cooking for an hour. After the first hour top up pot with more bean cooking liquid, more breadcrumbs (if using), and dot the surface with duck/goose fat, then return to the over for another two hours, or until the crust has become and appetising golden colour.

Le journal intime de cassoulet III

2009-10-04T16:30:00.007+11:00

Left shows ingredients for the beans, on the right the ingredients for preparing the meat.

Sunday October 4

I drained the soaked beans, dumped them in to my pot and covered them in water. While I brought the beans to a boil prepared the salt pork and the other ingredients used to flavour the beans. The salt pork turned out nicely, since it had a relatively short curing time it as not terribly salty. I took all the rind from the whole piece of belly I cured to cook with the beans as you're supposed to use rind to line the base of the pot when cooking the assembled dish, I probably needed even more rind that I had. The beans took about one and a half hours to get to the undercooked stage (still a bit grainy and hard in the middle) needed for baking the completed dish on Monday.

Once the beans were ready I cooked the meats; the Strang recipe instructs you to brown the sausages, then simmer the meats in stock for 50 minutes and then assemble the cassoulet in layers with the cooking liquid from the meats, topped up with the cooking liquid from the beans if required. One of the sausage casings had spilt so we had it with brunch, it's a very tasty sausage with large chunks of pork, appropriately seasoned with black pepper. After all the cooking was done the house smelled amazing.

Confit de canard from La Belle Chaurienne

To assemble the cassoulet I had to prepare the confit to add to the beans and meats. Despite the best intentions, I have never gotten around to making my own duck confit. Mostly because I never have a surplus of duck fat, any duck fat I do collect is rapidly recycled into roast or fried potatoes; but it's also because I have had a 1.25 kg tin of duck confit sitting in the can cupboard. The confit was sent to me by the Archivist's mum a few Christmases ago, it will provide duck legs for the cassoulet, a few more legs to eat with salad, and I can reserve the fat to make more confit. I extracted three duck legs from the creamy fat and broke them up to add to the cassoulet, cutting my fingers several times. Instructions for making confit from scratch can be found here; now that I have about 2 cups of fat I will be making some soon.

I guessed that I probably would be able to fit the cassoulet in my pot after all; but it's very full and very heavy. If I had a bigger oven I would have done it in two pots to increase the amount of delicious bean crust. I lined my pot with the rind, added a layer of beans, then meat, beans, duck, meats, and beans on top and poured in all the liquid from cooking the meats. Tomorrow it just needs to bake for at least three hours to finish cooking the beans and develop the crust.

Labour Day cassoulet is looking like it's going to be a success. Friends are bringing wine, I will make a very simple green salad and get some baguettes, and for dessert we will have tarte aux pommes.

Le journal intime de cassoulet II

2009-10-03T15:10:00.003+10:00

Tuesday September 29

The salt pork required attention on Tuesday, I was a bit apprehensive about discovering rancid meat, but the pork smelled strongly of bay from the cure which seemed to have worked as it should. I tipped off about 100 millilitres of the liquid that had been drawn out of the pork, the belly was fairly rigid, I applied more cure and this time I placed it skin side down in the container then returned it to the fridge. Two more days to wait.

Since I was working from home I decided to test an new recipe for baked beans starting from 700 g of dried haricot beans that I had leftover from something else. I think I have identified the first problem in my cassoulet plan, that is that there is no way one kilogram of cooked haricot beans and about another one and a half kilograms of meat are going to fit into my 28 centimeter round Chassseur French oven. The recipe fails to mention size of the cassole/casserole needed to prepare the completed dish. Damn.

Thursday October 1

A quick examination of the salt pork showed that while mostly firm it was a but squishy in places. I applied some fresh cure and will check it again on Saturday.

Friday October 2

I got the Accountant to pick up some pork sausages from the Lyneham Meat Centre on the way to my house, apparently their sausages are fairly awesome and it was especially fortuitous that they had Toulouse-style sausages. I picked up the rest of the ingredients today too, a just finished ham bone from Deli Cravings at the Belconnen Fresh Food Market and some lean pork.

Saturday October 3

Three tasks today, soak the beans, wash and wrap the salt pork and defrost the duck stock.

The salt pork was uniformly rigid after an additional two days in the cure; it hadn't lost much more liquid but it seemed more compact. I washed off all the cure, dried it well, wrapped it in a clean cotton tea towel and returned it to the fridge.

The fact I made duck stock in June and need the freezer space so I can use my ice cream maker was a significant motivating factor for Labour Day cassoulet. To make the stock I used the carcass of a roasted duck, wing-tips and a skinless neck (I rendered the fat from the neck skin earlier), covered the duck parts with water and simmered for at least in hour; I prefer to make neutral stocks so I rarely add aromatics - they can be usually added later anyway. From this I got about one and a half liters of stock.

September Leftovers

2009-10-01T20:20:00.003+10:00

Two weeks in the US means I had two cooking free weeks during September. I did manage to cook these internet recipes over the rest of the month:

*This recipe from the New York Times served as starting point for a brunch. I sautéed my beet greens in unsalted butter in which I had let a shallot soften, in a second pan I browned some diced bacon, then mixed the two and served it on rye toast with eggs over easy.

*Soft pretzels, delicious, I blogged about them earlier.

*I made these apple and cinnamon hotcakes for another brunch, I used a tasty but not especially juicy mix of pink lady and sundowner apples, the apples could have used a bit more sugar and water to make more of a syrup. I left the batter to rest and the cast iron pan to warm up for 15 minutes while I went and got ice cream, which meant perfect non-stick hotcakes.

*Rice pudding for Oktoberfest, I think 150 grams of rice to 1 Litre milk is the magic ratio for rice pudding.

As well as thirteen recipes from five cookbooks
*Fat: Salt pork, ghee
*hsa ba: Tamarind pork, cauliflower & coriander, butter & lentil rice
*New Flavours of the Lebanese Table: Cabbage salad, aubergine dip, fried cauliflower, tahihi sauce
*The Border Cookbook: Mexican red rice
*The Cook's Companion: Falafel, Angie's lemon cake, baked beans

Pluot

2009-09-28T23:22:00.004+10:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sadsnaps/ / CC BY 2.0

I was recently in the United States, while there I thought I'd try some foods I hadn't tried before; but being stuck in the midwest with limited access to transport my options were limited. I did get some pluots, a fruit that I haven't seen in Canberra markets yet. The pluot is a complicated hybrid Prunus bred from plums and apricots, Slate recently ran an accessible piece explaining the genetics of the fruit.

I grabbed a few plouts of varying ripeness for a taste test. The variety I tried was very similar to a ripe plum in taste and texture, the redish flesh was pleasantly juicy, maybe with a hint of under-ripe apricot sourness that wasn't unwelcome. Based on this test, I think I prefer plums to pluots and won't be paying a premium of pluots when they do start appearing in fruit shops here; if I had my own orchard though I'd consider growing one. Ed is far more excited about the pluot than I was.

Le journal intime de cassoulet I

2009-09-27T23:41:00.026+10:00

Somewhere in the Pyrenees

Friday September 25

I finally decided to make a cassoulet this year since the warm spring weather seems to have changed its mind and it's cold again. Labour Day offers an opportunity for lengthy food prep and a long lazy lunch. Cassoulet is a bean stew with assorted meats that originates from the south west of France probably from the city Castelnaudary. It is renowned for taking days to prepare and its extreme richness.

I gather from the number and variety of recipes that I have read, that a fairly authentic cassoulet isn't really an onerous a task for the type of cook who can find the time to cook legumes from scratch. Besides soaking the beans overnight and cooking them for up to 6 hours, the number of days of prep required largely depends on the amount of charcuterie you're willing to do. Some recent cassoulet experiences from food bloggers are a good indication of the varying levels of complexity in the preparation of cassoulet

The Heavy Table makes a cassoulet inspired by Juila Child's recipe
The Accidental Hedonist makes cassoulet from Savuer magazine
The Amatuer Gourmet makes Daniel Boulud's cassoulet
Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman make cassoulet on No Reservations
From the Canberra Cook develops her own recipe Launching the Cassoulet Project: Duck!, The Cassoulet Project Continues, Finally, Cassoulet

I re-read the cassoulet chapter in my copy of Goose Fat & Garlic by Jeanne Strang (currently available at Clouston and Hall for cheap). Strang describes her recipe as a compromise good for the "Anglo-Saxon kitchen"; like the "original" Castelnaudary version her recipe is principally pork, but adds a Toulousain twist with duck confit. The Strang recipe clearly divides the cooking process into three steps that seem easy to follow - cooking the haricot beans, browning all the meat, and assembling the beans and meats to bake.

From the Strang recipe I noted the first thing I would need to make was salt pork, which is used for cooking the beans. The book doesn't have a recipe for salt pork, so I spent some time searching the Belconnen Fresh Food Markets for pink salt assuming I would need it to preserve the pork. I didn't find any.

Saturday September 26

I googled salt pork and found that there's a recipe in Jennifer McLagan's book Fat which was featured on The Splendid Table podcast; you don't need pink salt to make salt pork as it happens. I retrieved my copy of the book and bookmarked the recipe for Sunday.

I solicited some wine advice from my Francophile mother in law; who kindly provided me with some regional suggestions, Madiran or Tursan. Should Cox Kelly, Jim or Dan Murphy fail me (and I believe that they probably will fail) I looked for some alternatives. I nabbed a copy of Cooking under the Influence by Ben Canaider and Greg Dencan Powell at the Lifeline Bookfair on Friday, they recommend a shiraz grenache blend, a syrah blend from the Rhône or a Barossa shiraz, so I should be able to find something complementary, possibly Canberran.

She also suggested a green salad with a mustard dressing to accompany the cassoulet and oeufs a la neige or madelines or macaroons with coffee. I'm not sure sure there will be space for anything but the cassoulet, but she might be on to something.

Sunday September 27

I bought the pork belly, about 1.3 kilograms. Salting it was simple and I was pleased to use up some more of the quatre épices I bought on a whim at Aldi. I made ther sure as instructed from salt, brown sugar, juniper berries, black peppercorns, bay leaves and quatre épices then rubbed it into all surfaces of the pork belly. It then went in to the fridge where it will sit unmolested until Tuesday. I plan to use the leftovers in baked beans or petit salé aux lentilles.

I did more more reading on cassoulet, leafing through another bookfair purchase, Elisabeth Luard's European Peasant Cookery, I was impressed by her cassoulet recipe which came from a neighbour she had while living somewhere in Languedoc. It is essentially a very similar recipe to the one I started with but adds lamb and lots of bacon rind, it excludes duck confit and the breadcrumb crust (I am undecided on the breadcrumb issue, but leaning towards not having it). I also found the recipe for Toulouse style cassoulet from Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France online, no lamb, insane amounts of duck confit and a meagre quantity of crumbs. Both the Luard and Wolfert recipes offer important notes on technique not mentioned in the Strang recipe, so they will be useful when it's time to cook.

Oktoberfest

2009-09-26T19:02:00.004+10:00

We had a very low key Oktoberfest dinner on Saturday; the menu was

Soft pretzels
Pork sausages, cabbage braised with apples, and mustard
Rice pudding with applesauce

The pretzels were my favourite part of the meal, food bloggers seemed to agree that Alton Brown's recipe was the best. It's a simple bread recipe very similar to a pizza dough with the addition of butter. Folding the pretzels is the most time consuming part; I found it easiest to use both hands to squeeze out the dough, one hand following the other until I had a fairly even length of dough about 50 cm long, then folded them following this tutorial. I made 12 hand sized pretzels from this quantity of dough. I only had 1/6 cup of bicarb left, this seemed to be enough for the water bath

They took about 17 minutes to bake in my recalcitrant but correct temperature conventional oven; at this point the bottoms were quite brown, but the tops were not quite as photogenically golden as I would have liked; if there is enough bread flour left I may have to experiment some more.

August Leftovers

2009-09-15T09:51:00.001+10:00

I cooked a lot of stir-fries and recipes from cooks books in August; the internet recipes I tried were

*Turkish carrot, tomato and lentil soup; unadulterated this soup is kind of grainy from the lentils, it definitely needs some sort of dairy added to improve the mouth feel.
*Nigel Salter's braised lamb shanks with leeks and haricot beans was enjoyed by the Archivist while I was out of town. Not too heavy for an early spring meal while leeks are cheap.

Brunch

2009-08-08T15:33:00.003+10:00

Breakfast is beloved over here, so on the weekends we brunch and forego lunch. The morning starts with a strong freshly brewed coffee, then the cooking starts. Popular choices for brunch include

*Porridge with spiced fruit compote, crushed almonds, Greek yoghurt or a splash of cream
*Ricotta pancakes with yoghurt, banana and honey or stewed rhubarb and extra ricotta
*Conventional pancakes with banana and maple syrup
*The fry up, comprised of some combination of fried eggs, baked beans, bacon, pork sausages and some wholemeal toast
*Potato hash (boil the potatoes skin-on the night before) with bacon and eggs fried sunny-side up
*Smoothies made with bananas, seasonal soft fruit (berries, mangoes, apricots), honey, yoghurt, bran cereal soaked in milk and cinnamon
*Bill Granger's sweetcorn fritters with avocado salsa
*Herb omelette with cheddar or smoked salmon served on an English muffin
*Huevos motuleños

Since I'm currently mad for pink lady apples, I have been experimenting with the dramatically deformed Dutch baby pancake

Apple Dutch Baby
Serves 2 to 4

30 g unsalted butter
2 pink lady apples, peeled, cored and cut into thin wedges
3/4 cup milk
100 g plain flour
4 eggs
60 g white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Ground cinnamon
Yoghurt or vanilla icecream to serve

Peconfigure your oven so that there is one shelf in the middle and preheat oven to 230°C. Melt the butter in a 28 centimetre cast iron skillet over moderate heat. Add apple wedges and cook until they soften and begin to caramelise, 10 to 15 minutes.

While the apple is cooking, mix milk, flour, eggs, sugar, and vanilla in a bowl until smooth. Pour the batter over the apples and transfer the skillet to the oven, bake until the pancake in golden and puffy, 20-25 minutes. Dust with cinnamon and serve with yoghurt or vanilla icecream.

July Leftovers

2009-08-01T18:47:00.001+10:00

*I inherited an unnatural affection for soup from my Dutch grandfather, as a result we eat soup weekly year round. Curried black-eyed pea soup has been in my bookmarks for a while. I withheld the bacon, doubled the spices using sambar masala instead of madras powder, after puréeing 3/4 of the bean mix I added a box of fresh baby spinach that I had chopped roughly. I added fried bacon to bowls just before serving. This soup was nice enough to add to my big mental list of soups, I'll be making it again.

*Continuing with soup experimentation I made a pot of spicy cashew tomato soup. I puréed the lot as recommended by the Culinate editors and only added the optional cayenne. Delicious and very filling, Afghan bread makes a nice accompaniment.

*I got a specific request for black bean quesadillas for dinner this month, I use this NYT recipe for simmered black beans. I like that the beans in this recipe are not heavily seasoned during cooking. The beans are great over Spanish rice with sour cream, avocado, and hot sauce or puréed and smeared in a tortilla with cheese, jalapeños, and fresh coriander, or served in huevos motuleños.

*With a recent yum cha meal on my mind, I made steamed spare ribs with black bean sauce. The marinade does not need the a tablespoon of salt in addition to all the other salty condiments. Easy to prepare and it didn't taste bad, but there was too much sauce and the flavour was too generic.

*I wanted a rice pudding recipe that serves two, I found on on Simply Recipes. The Archivist loved it, I though the egg yolk gave the pudding an unpleasant grainy texture.

*It seems July was the month of orange cakes, since I had a whole three kilogram bag of oranges to use up. Milk and Cookies' orange and yoghurt cake was the first cake of the month. It is dense and tasty as written and great smeared with raspberry jam, cut into batons and covered in hot custard, if you're in to that sort of thing. With some oranges still lingering in the fruit bowl I made this orange cake. I thought the cake tasted far too greasy. I also made a jaffa drizzle loaf from the BBCs Good Food. It sunk so I didn't bother with the drizzle, I suspect is was over-leavened since I finally got an oven thermometer and used the right size tin. The orange and yoghurt cake is the only recipe of the three that I'd make again.

Too Many Bananas

2009-07-04T20:30:00.002+10:00

With all the apples, mandarins, and left over birthday cake, the bananas didn't get much attention this week. I can't really claim that this banana is healthy in any way, but it is delicious. I use freshly ground and brewed Jinedabah espresso for this cake, which tastes much better than a coffee substitute.

Banana Cake
Adapted from Ladies A Plate by Alexa Johnson

115 g unsalted butter softened
150 g white sugar
2 large ripe bananas
1 egg
1 tsp strong espresso coffee
180 g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarb
1/4 cup milk

120g icing sugar
30 g unsalted butter, softened
1 tbsp strong espresso coffee

Preheat a conventional oven to 180°C, grease and/or line a 18 cm square baking tin. Cream the butter and sugar, mash the bananas into the mixture with a fork then add the egg and coffee and mix.

Mix the flour, baking powder and bicarb and mix it into the wet ingredients alternating with the milk. Bake for about 40-45 minutes, then remove from the oven and turn the cake onto a rack to cool.

When the cake is cold make the icing. Mix the icing sugar into the butter then add the coffee. Use the back of a spatula to break up any lumps of butter and add a small amount of boiling water if required to make the icing spreadable. Spread the icing over the cake with a palette knife, then store it in an airtight container.

June Leftovers

2009-06-30T10:45:00.003+10:00

A quick review of some recipes that I made this month, that you can find on the internet:

*I brought some Korean chili powder back from Sydney earlier this month, Korean seasoned tofu, was a simple choice from the to-make list. I made this recipe with a 300 gram block of firm tofu and quantities of seasoning as written. I served the tofu with rice and some stir-fried greens, the tofu was very tasty and had an appealing texture cooked this way.

*Lamb shank and barley stew from Steve Manfredi's Sydney Morning Herald column. He calls it a stew and later a soup, my version was definitely soupy. I couldn't get celeriac so I used a swede instead, which when combined with pumpkin and carrots led to an unexpectedly sweet, but oddly delicious soup. It takes longer than 40 minutes to get shanks falling off the bone-cooked at the suggested simmer, so if you plan to reheat and/or value the integrity of your vegetable chunks add them with the barley and tomatoes. Recipe serves at least six.

*Home-made baked beans from Jane and Jeremy Strode. I started paying attention to my sodium intake this month, canned baked beans sadly made the too salty list and have been banished from Friday night fry-ups and Sunday brunches. To prepare the 450 grams of dry cannellini beans I used the 90 minute, no-soak beans technique to completely cook the beans; then I seasoned the beans (sans bacon) using the Strode recipe replacing the white pepper with mustard powder. The process makes five 450 gram batches of cooked beans; the resulting beans are infinitely better than the canned variety, but I'm on the lookout for another recipe to try.

*Chinese-style braised beef one-pot from the BBCs Good Food magazine. I made this using one kilo of beef shin, but I followed the recipe as written with respect to seasoning quantities since many commenters remarked that the dish needed extra seasoning. The ambiguous one red chili was six bird's eye chillies which gave a invigorating boost to the flavour of the dish and about 300 milliliters of stock was needed to cover the reduced quantity of meat. As written this recipe is unsoundly salty, I cut the salt back a bit by using home-made unsalted chicken stock and I didn't season the flour for browning the meat, it didn't need additional soy sauce either. My one kilo version would feed four very hungry people, or perhaps up to eight if it was served with other dishes; like all braises it is much better on the second night so make it a day in advance.

*Barbara Tropp's chill-orange oil. A dim recollection of a tasty sounding infused oil led me back to the New York Times Bitten blog and on a wild goose chase around the internet to find the actual recipe. I carefully watched my deep frying thermometer while the magic happened, sadly 15 minutes of boiling is overkill for infusing oil. The oil has a lovely aroma and it's moderately tasty on rice vermicelli with carrots and cucumbers, but I think I will toss this batch and try again as the burned chili overwhelms the other flavours. For the next attempt I will use the just-published Mark Bitman's method.

A Birthday Feast with a Middle Eastern Twist

2009-06-29T21:00:00.000+10:00

The Archivist didn't feel partying for his birthday this year. I didn't want to leave it pass uncelebrated so I planned a roast meal with some Middle Eastern influences, the menu:

Honey-Glazed Duck with Walnut Stuffing
Roast potatoes with Thyme and Sumac
Minted Cabbage Salad
Sticky Date and Cardamom Cake with Caramel Sauce

Working from home for the day, I decided to use the Amazing Five Hour Roast Duck technique. I have roasted duck this way before, it's a great technique since the duck cooks at a low temperature it doesn't make a mess of the oven, it lets you to collect all the fantastic duck fat for later, and makes great roast duck.

The cabbage salad is a simple combination of finely shredded cabbage, mint and a citrus dressing, it worked well as a crisp and refreshing counter to the rich duck. The potatoes, parboiled then baked in the oven with the duck for the last 90 minutes, were both crisp and creamy, and tasted of a hint of lemon from the sumac. To accompany the meal we drank Mt Majura pinot noir. The birthday boy declared his birthday dinner "duckalicious".

I'm sure I've made the sticky date cake before, but the recipe I found online adds dark chocolate, I added a teaspoon of ground cardamom to intensify the flavour and to tie it to our main. I made the sauce as described, but without whiskey. Served warm with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce, this dessert was really great. Plates were licked.

Honey-Glazed Duck with Walnut Stuffing
Serves 4
Adapted from Mietta's Recipe Collection, Arabesque by David and Lucy Malouf

2kg duck
30 g butter
1 medium onion, diced
60 g walnuts, chopped
120 g fresh breadcrumbs
1 tsp parsley
2 tsp thyme
1 cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
1 beaten egg
Juice of 1 orange and 1 tsp zest
2 tbsp of honey
1 tsp sherry
3 tbsp water
1/2 tsp black pepper, crushed
1 tsp orange blossom water

Preheat the oven to 150°C. Cut the wing tips and head of the off the duck, remove any giblets and the large fatty deposits from the cavity. Rinse the duck and dry well with paper towel or a clean tea-towel.

To make the stuffing, melt the butter and add the onion and cook until soft but not brown. Add the walnuts and fry until browned. Mix the onions and walnuts with the breadcrumbs, parsley, thyme, egg, juice and zest. Stuff the duck, pack the stuffing around the bay leaf and cinnamon stick and truss to the duck to contain the stuffing.

Use a small paring knife to make lots of small slits all over the ducks skin, but be careful not to pierce the flesh. Put the duck breast side up on a rack and set the rack on a edged baking tray. Place the duck in the middle of the oven. Every hour for four hours, take the pan out of the oven, pierce the duck all over with the knife, and turn it over. After the first two hours of cooking and every subsequent hour, pour off the fat from the pan.

To make the glaze, put the honey, sherry and water in a pan and warm the mixture until the honey dissolves. Add the crushed black pepper and when the mixture is cool add the orange blossom water.

After four hours, increase the oven temperature to 180°C. Glaze the breast-up duck with the honey glaze every 20 minutes during the last hour of cooking.

Pie Crust

2009-06-20T13:31:00.003+10:00

Remains of the cherry and pear pie

Each year, around Thanksgiving, food forums and blogs are suddenly aflutter with panic over pie crust; it's really not that hard especially if you use a food processor. The food processor evenly distributes tiny butter pieces throughout the pastry better than I can do by hand. After letting the dough rest in the fridge, roll your crusts out quickly and ideally, do it in a cool kitchen. This will give you an effortless flaky crust.

Pink Lady apples make a delicious pie this time of year, I made one this week. Jarred Morello cherries also make a decent pie if you can't be bothered faffing around with apples.

Aunt Peacie's Double Pie Crust
Makes a double crust for a 25cm (10 inch) pie
Adapted from Shelia Ferguson's Soul Food for a small food processor

250 g plain flour
1 tsp of salt
160 g unsalted butter, cubed
Iced water

Put 125 g of flour, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 80 grams of the butter in the bowl of a food processor. Blend until the mixture resembles coarse sand, then add iced water little by little until the crumbs form a large ball and the blade won't rotate any more. Turn the dough out onto cling film and form into a disc, refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling out to make crust. Repeat with the remaining ingredients.

Choc Chip Cookies

2009-06-12T21:00:00.001+10:00

Several of my favorite baking recipes have come from the wrapper of the featured ingredient. This choc chip cookie recipe was featured on the packet of Nestlé milk chocolate chips sometime in 2004 and I have been using it ever since, making a few tweaks of my own. The addition of peanut butter and oats to the mixture gives the biscuits a most moorish yielding crumb.

At some point I want to try the apparently super-awesome Jaques Torres choc chip recipe, but my recipe takes a fraction of the time, has no hard-to-find ingredients and is more satisfying than any cookie you'll get from a supermarket or cafe, so it will do for now.

Choc Chip Cookies
Makes about 3 dozen
Adapted from a Nestlé packet

125 g unsalted butter
60 g smooth peanut butter
200 g brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
85 g self-raising flour
85 g cup plain flour
50g of rolled oats, pulsed in a food processor to make a coarse meal
185 g chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Combine butter and peanut butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently for 3- 4 minutes until the butter has melted and the mixture is well combined. Transfer to a large bowl and let cool for 5 minutes.

Add the sugar and egg, mix well. Add sifted flours, oats and chocolate chips and mix well to combine. Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls, place onto a lined tray and flatten slightly. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes – less in a fan forced oven - until golden and firm to touch. Stand for 5 minutes on the tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

This recipe can be doubled and the dough can be well-wrapped and frozen for up to six weeks.

Korean Stone Pots

2009-06-07T16:00:00.005+10:00

When I travel I like to bring home cooking souvenirs; a palella pan, saffron, and many tins of paprika from Spain, duck fat and preserving jar rings from France, Marlborough flaky salt harvested from shallow pools near the Archivist's Grandad's house in the South Island of New Zealand; cookbooks too. A trip to Korea is not on the cards any time soon, so a mission to Koreatown at the south end of Sydney's Pitt St was necessary to acquire some new regional cooking tools.

After visiting every Korean grocer between Golburn and Bathurst Streets, admiring fermented stuff and purchasing a variety of chilli products, I finally found two stone pot bowls, made of smooth Korean granite, $25 a piece. Pressed for time I carted my booty to the Opera House to enjoy Brian Eno's 77 Million Paintings and then back to Central Station for an uneventful bus trip to Canberra.

The stone pot is essential for making the delicious scorched rice that characterises dolsot bibimbap (돌솥 비빔밥); a current food obsession of mine. My Korean cookbook - The Korean Table by Taekyung Chung and Debra Samuels - advises that you can also get crispy rice by preparing bibimbap in a pre-heated cast iron pan - but this isn't such a great solution if you want individual servings and to enjoy the ritual of breaking the egg yolk and stirring the artfully arranged namul (나물) through the rice as it sizzles.

Preparing the Stone Pot

To season the stone pot before it's fist use, fill the bowl 1/3 with salty water and heat in the oven at 200°C until the water boils. Then carefully remove the bowl from the oven, tip out the water and place the bowl on a heat proof surface. Paint the inside, rim and outside of the bowl with sesame oil or any other edible oil until oil no longer permeates the stone. Wipe off the excess oil with paper towel.

To make dolsot bibimbap, preheat the oven to 230°C, then heat the bowl for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven, brush with sesame oil, press cooked rice against the bottom of the bowl and assemble the dish.

DO NOT put hot stone pot into cold water, granite is sensitive to sudden temperature changes and will fracture.

For bibimbap topping ideas and assembly instructions check out these videos

Chilli While They Last

2009-05-11T19:23:00.012+10:00

Further trimming my cooking magazine collection, I set upon the Gourmet Travellers from 2005. Gourmet Traveller is a beautiful magazine (with a very average website) but I have rarely cooked from my issues. When I spied a Masterclass focussed on Mexico I decided to make the lima bean and chicken chilli verde for Sunday dinner and leftovers. As luck would have it I was able to buy a cheap kilo of anaheim chiles at the trash and treasure market at the Jamison Center on Sunday; now the frosts have started it's probably the last of the local peppers for the season.

This chilli tastes light and is deliciously spicy, perfect for an autumn eve, it's good served with sour cream, lots of fresh coriander and parsley, and steamed rice or some warm flour tortillas.

Lima Bean and Chicken Chilli Verde
Adapted from a recipe by Kathleen Gandy in Gourmet Traveller January 2005
Serves 6

250 g dried lima beans, soaked overnight
500 g fresh anaheim chillies
1 kg skinless chicken thighs cut into 2 cm cubes
Plain flour for dusting the chicken pieces
4 tbsp extra light olive oil
2 jalapeño chillies
1 large brown onion
3 cloves of garlic
400g tin of tomatoes
2 sprigs each of oregano and thyme
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 dried bay leaf
1 1/2 cups of chicken stock

Place the soaked lima beans in a large pot of fresh water and bring to the boil, cook for 30 minutes or until the beans are soft; drain and set aside.

Remove the stalks from the anaheim chillies, then place them under a grill on high. When the skin has blistered on one side, rotate the chillies. When they are charred all-over remove them from the grill and wrap them in cling wrap. While the chillies sweat, seed and dice the jalapeño chillies and dice the onions and garlic. Open the cling wrap parcel of chillies and slide the charred skin off the chilli, you can also remove some of the seeds; roughly chop the skinless chillies.

Toss the diced chicken with seasoned flour to coat. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large (28 cm) pot over a medium heat, then add a third of the chicken and cook for 3-4 minutes or until browned, then remove and set aside. Repeat twice with the remainder of the chicken.

Add the remaining oil to the pan, then add the chillies, onion and garlic and cook over a low-medium heat for 5-6 minutes or until softened. Crush and add tomatoes, herb and stock and increase the heat to bring the mixture to the boil. Return the chicken to the pan and add the drained lima beans. Decrease the heat to low and cook with the lid on for 20 minutes, season with salt and pepper and cook for a further 20 minutes with the lid off to allow the sauce to thicken.

Best Banana Bread

2009-03-23T21:34:00.007+11:00

This recipe comes from C. Thiel of North Albury, New South Wales. I clipped it from a New Idea or a Women's Weekly in the 90s; it's one of the three banana bread recipes I use, each has different textural properties. This loaf is full of bits of fruit and nuts and is a little bit spicy and not too sweet; the dried fruits and nuts can easily modified to use up bits and pieces from the pantry. If it doesn't all get eaten during the week leftovers can be frozen.

Best Banana Bread
Adapted from a recipe by C. Thiel

140 g of raw sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
125 g mashed banana
1/2 tsp mixed spice or a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg and all spice
120 g chopped walnuts
2 tbsp shredded coconut
3/4 cup sultanas or raisins
190 g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp of milk

Grease a 15 x 25 cm loaf pan then line with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Mash the banana in a large bowl, add the sugar, egg, spices, nuts, coconut and sultanas and mix to incorporate. Add the dry ingredients and milk in two stages.

Spread the mixture evenly into the prepared pan, bake for 45 minutes or until cooked when tested. Let the loaf stand for five minutes in the tin, then turn on to a wire rack to cool.

Cookbook Shopping

2009-03-18T09:25:00.003+11:00

I have a bad case of procrastinators diligence; instead of devoting my time to career making activities, I am compulsively planning and pricing additions to my cookbook library for the next 5 years in exhaustive detail. Memories of a Cuban Kitchen by Mary Urrutia Randelman, Bengali Cooking by Chitrita Banerji and Quick and Easy Tsukemono by Ikuko Hisamatsu and many others have become items of great importance.

Recently launched Australian price comparison site Booko has been a great aid to my compulsive searching and list compilation. You search the site by title, author or ISBN and it retrieves prices and the cost of shipping from an impressive list of book sellers. You can compile a cart of books that gives you a running total of your bill and also accounts for things like free shipping after x dollars offered by some retailers.

For cookbooks, the UK based Book Depository (offers free international shipping), the charitable American retailer Better World Books (cheap carbon neutral shipping) and Australia's Fishpond usually come out cheapest; I even managed to score a copy of the lauded Australian reference The Cook's Companion for less that $60 from Fishpond (it's back to around $110 now). In my experience books will take longer to get to you from Fishpond than the other two.

Booko, bookmark it and don't buy books online without it.

Sorrel

2009-03-16T11:42:00.000+11:00

My unofficial new years resolution for 2009 was to try new foods. This week's find was a bunch of just-picked of sorrel from the local Sunday markets. I used it in a simple breakfast, I removed the stalks and cut the leaved into ribbons and folded though an omelette until the leaved were just wilted. I served the omelette over a small pile of home fries. The tartness of the leaves really complemented the eggs and fried potatoes beautifully.

I will buy it again. Or I might try and forage for some as this vegetable is a common weed in most of eastern Australia. This video shows how to identify it in the wild.

Inspiration for our next meeting:
*Salmon with Sorrel Sauce
*Sorrel Tart

For the Zucchini Sceptic

2009-03-15T20:33:00.002+11:00

I couldn't resist a big bag of late-summer zucchini from the market this morning. With a weekly lunch box gap to fill, I went back to my feed reader for inspiration. I've further modified a recipe for zucchini loaf that started in this months delicious magazine and made it to me via the Canberra Cook. I further reduced the sugar as she suggested, used a walnut and canola oil mixture and added some drak chocolate and it came out with moorish loaf with a hint of sweetness that even swayed the zucchini sceptic in the house.

Zucchini Loaf
Serves 10-12
Adapted from the Canberra Cook and delicious magazine March 2009

400 g self-raising flour
200 ml vegetable/nut oil
1 heaped tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
115 g white sugar
115 g brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract
500 g zucchini, grated
90 g walnuts
40 g dark chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 150°C; line a large bread tin (mine is 29 x 10 x 13 cm) with baking paper.

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients except the flour and oil. Add the oil and mix well, then fold in the flour gently.

Pour into the loaf tin, and bake for 90 minutes, or until a testing skewer comes out clean. Cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then turn out onto a rack.

One From Nigel and One From Gordon

2009-03-14T16:22:00.008+11:00

Foccacia topped with a paste of sun- dried tomaotes, garlic and oregano; Persian-style Onion Soup and Rocket salad

It's a cool evening, a storm has just passed over leaving the ground barely damp. I'm finishing off last weeks vegetables, cooking a pot of potatoes to make home fries for breakfast tomorrow and a big pot of lamb bones, carrots and aromatics are simmering into lovely stock for a soup next week. Dinner tonight is foccacia, a rocket salad and a bowl of warmly spiced onion soup from Gordon Ramsay recipe. The Accountant bought a Ramsay cookbook last year, the only recipes that interested me were the soups, I've got to say that he does make a fine soup.

Foccacia
Serves at least 6
Adapted from Nigel Salter via Blake at the Paupered Chef

450g bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp fast-acting yeast
400ml warm water
cornmeal
3 tbsp olive oil

Put the flour and salt and yeast into a large bowl, mix well then pour in the water to make a sticky dough. Mix well with a wooden spoon then knead in the bowl using a silicone pastry scraper to fold the mixture and make a smooth dough, this takes about 5 minutes. Alternatively use a stand mixer. Foccacia is a particularly wet dough and you don't want to be adding a lot of flour to make it possible to knead by hand. Once the dough has been kneaded, cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp clean tea towel and leave it until it has doubled in size, which may take up to 1 hour.

Prepare a baking tin (30 x 20 cm rectangle; 30 cm diameter circle) by coating with olive oil and applying a thin layer of cornmeal. Preheat the oven to 220°C.

Remove the dough from its bowl, then push it into the baking tin. Trying to cover the base of the tin. Cover with plastic wrap then let the dough rise for another 30 minutes.

Create a seasoning mixture from garlic, fresh herbs, salt, with olives, sun-dried tomatoes or caramelised onions. You will need about 3 tablespoons of a seasoning mix to cover the loaf of focaccia. When the dough has risen for the second time push several holes deep into the dough with your index finger, then spread the seasoning mixture over the dough.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until the top is golden. Drizzle with the remaining olive oil and let the loaf rest for 5 minutes, then remove from the tin and serve while warm.

Persian-style Onion Soup
Serves 4
Adapted from Healthy Appetite by Gordon Ramsay

3 tbsp olive oil
800 g onions, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
2 tsp fresh mint or 1/2 tsp dried
2 tbsp plain flour
1 L vegetable or chicken stock
1 cinnamon stick
Juice of 1 lemon or some preserved lemon
1 tsp raw sugar
A few flat-leaf parsley sprigs, chopped

Place a heavy-based pan over a medium heat. Add the olive oil, the onions and 1/2 tsp salt. Cover and sweat for 12-15 min until the onions are soft, lifting the lid and stirring occasionally. Remove the lid and increase the heat slightly. Add the spices and mint, then stir in the flour. Cook, stirring frequently, for 3-4 min.

Gradually pour in the stock, whisking as you do so to prevent any lumps forming. When it has all been added, drop in the cinnamon stick and simmer over a low heat, for 30-40 min.

Stir in the lemon juice and sugar, if using preserved lemon dice the peel of half a lemon and add to the soup with the sugar, then taste and adjust the seasoning. Discard the cinnamon stick and serve with parsley.

Lebanese BBQ

2009-03-09T20:47:00.003+11:00

An impromptu BBQ for Archivists, partners and me on a long weekend. Forequarter lamb was on special so I decided to get the BBQ out and try some more Lebanese recipes from New Flavours of the Lebanese Table by Nada Saleh. The menu for dinner:

Hummous
Pumpkin Dip, latkin m'tabal bi-thini
Thyme Flat bread, mankoushi bi-zaatar
Tabbouleh
Cheats BBQ Shawarma and Spiced Roast Potatoes

Pumpkin Dip
Adapted from New Flavours of the Lebanese Table by Nada Saleh

650 g peeled de-seeded pumpkin
1 garlic clove
3 tbsp tahini
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp walnut oil
Salt to taste
Crushed walnuts and parsley to serve

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Cut the pumpkin into 2.5 cm wide chunks and place on a greased baking tray. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until soft and beginning to caramelise. Remove from the oven when done and allow it to cool.

Place the cooked pumpkin, garlic, tahini, lemon juice and walnut oil in a food processor and blend until smooth. Taste and add salt, then move the dip to a covered bowl. When you're ready to serve chop some parsley with some walnuts and sprinkle over the surface.

Cheats BBQ Shawarma and Spiced Roast Potatoes
Serves 8

1.6 kg lamb diced 1.5-2 cm
1 tsp whole allspice
1 tsp whole black pepper
1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp whole fenugreek
1 tsp whole nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp Spanish paprika
2 tsp salt
Canola oil

1.5 kg chat potatoes
3 tsp rock salt
Canola oil

Soak 18 bamboo skewers for 30 minutes to prevent them burning on the BBQ. Peel and par-boil the potatoes. Prepare the BBQ for cooking with indirect heat then light it.

Using a mortar and pestle crush the allspice, black pepper, cloves and fenugreek then grate nutmeg into the mortar, add the ground ginger, cinnamon then mix; this mix is known as Sabea Bharat in Lebanon. Place the lamb in a bowl, then mix though the spice mix, paprika and salt. Tread the meat onto the bamboo skewers leaving space at either end for easy turning, this amount of meat should make at least 18 skewers. Drizzle some oil over the meat to prevent sticking to the grill and leave the meat to marinate.

Quarter the cooked potatoes the spread them out in foil trays. Crush the rock salt in the mortar and pestle, mixing the leftover spice mix with the salt. Sprinkle the spiced salt over the potatoes and toss with the oil. Cook with the lid on and vents open until the potatoes are crispy.

Once the potatoes have been cooking for 30 minutes, close the lid vent on the BBQ and add the meat. Cook the skewers for 25-30 minutes.

Lunchbox Muffins

2009-03-01T03:39:00.001+11:00

My criteria for a good lunchbox muffin are (1) the muffins aren't too sweet, (2) they contain a good portion of fibre, (3) they include ingredients that I normally have in the pantry. Muffins made with vegetables and wholegrains meet all my requirements, I've modified this carrot and coconut recipe to my preferences and I have a pumpkin one that I'm still working on for next time. I use my Benriner to finely shred the carrot for this recipe, the resulting grated carrot is consistently whispy and is easily distributed though the muffins.

Carrot and Coconut Muffins
Make 12 muffins
Adapted from Comfort: Real Simple Food by Michele Cranston, Mikkel Vang, and Christine Rudolph

280 g wholemeal plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
150g sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
200 ml vegetable oil (canola, sunflower, grapeseed)
200 g grated carrot
100 g shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease or place paper muffin cups into a 12-hole muffin tray.

Put the flour, baking powder, sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl and mix. Add the eggs, zest and lemon juice and oil and stir until smooth. Then mix in the carrot and coconut through.

Spoon mixture into muffin tray and Bake for 25-30 minutes, until muffins have risen and are golden brown. Allow to sit for 5 minutes after removing from the oven before turning the muffins out onto a cooling rack. Pack the muffins into a storage container when they are completely cold.

Five Rules for Fried Rice

2009-02-21T20:25:00.003+11:00

I have had many unsatisfying bowls of fried rice, but recently I have perfected my technique. These are the my rules for making perfect fried rice.

1. Use room temperature rice, I usually cook mine then tip it in a colander rinse under the cold tap and leave it to sit on the sink while I chop everything else.
2. Use five or fewer vegetables and proteins and cut everything into similar sized pieces.
3. Use a very hot wok.
4. Cook fried rice a serve at a time, start with aromatics like ginger and garlic and raw meat or the hardest vegetable; add the rice and egg last.
5. Add liquid seasoning like soy or fish sauce to the finished dish.

Links clean-up

2009-02-01T22:30:00.006+11:00

I was going though the food bookmarks I have accumulated over the last two years, I thought it might be interesting to see how many I have tried and clear out the folder at the same time. I store internet recipes as bookmarks if I might make them and email myself a copy or the recipe if I am actually planning to make the recipe that night or during the week, that way if I really like it I have a handy permanent electronic copy.

*Brinjal Masala, a Kerela-style eggplant dish. I have made this multiple times and it's fantastic. Grill the eggplant instead of frying to reduce the oil content a bit
*Bill Granger's Coconut Bread from the New York Times, I've made this a few times. It's good.
*Jamaica Banana Jam, bookmarked during the Australian banana shortage of 2006. I must have been really craving bananas, but now I have real bananas again I'm not really interested in making this.
*Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread reprinted by The Wednesday Chef. I did make no-knead bread lots shortly after the recipe came out, but it isn't fantastic as written. I like it made with 1/3 rye, but I've moved on to other breads.
*Perfect Coq Au Vin from Nigel Slater. I haven't made this yet. But I will when the temperature drops below 30 degrees Celsius.
*Korean Vegetable Rice Bowl from Gourmet magazine. I have never followed this recipe, but I did use it as a starting point for my own bibimbap, since nobody on epicurious follows the recipe as written, I think this probably counts as made.
*Frijoles Negros from the Three Guys From Miami. I have made these beans at least twice, but I've failed to return to the site for other recipes.
*Curried Sweet Potato Soup appealed to me because I normally have all the ingredients to hand, but I haven't made it yet.
*Braised Lamb Shanks with Leeks and Haricot Beans from Nigel Slater. I normally braise shanks in a style similar to osso buco; this is another one I will try when the weather cools down.
*Five-hour Shoulder of Mutton from Gourmet Traveller by way of Stonesoup. I was going to try this about 18 months ago, but the butcher didn't have any lamb shoulders and mumbled something about people wanting this cut after watching Jamie Oliver. I still haven't made it.
*Bill Granger's Scrambled Eggs, Aussie food bloggers mostly seem mad for Bill's eggs. I bookmarked it, but I prefer my eggs in most other formats.
*Pickled Jalapeño Rings, I will make this as soon as I can find a lot of jalapeños in good condition and at a reasonable price. I love pickled jalapeños.
*The Amazing Five-Hour Roast Duck, made for Christmas 2007, it was amazing.
*Piaz ka Chatni, a fresh onion relish. I should make it next time we have Indian food.
*Pita Bread, I have been meaning to try this when the bread runs out, but still haven't got to it.
*Traditional Napa Cabbage Kimchi, I totally want to make Kimchi this year. I'm not sure this is the recipe that I'll use.
*No-Knead Pizza Dough, another one from Jim Lahey. I think the no-knead recipe would work better for pizza bases than as a loaf. This only came out this month and it's too hot to make pizza.
*Curried Black-Eyed Pea Soup, it's also too hot for soup.

Six out of eighteen, not too bad for recipes I wasn't necessarily going to try. Lots of these are cold weather meals, so I'll try to review some later in the year.

Long & Short Soup

2009-01-26T17:36:00.002+11:00

Gōngxĭ fācái!

Apparently Long & Short Soup is named for the long thin egg noodles and the short fat pork won tons it contains. Tonight's version contained fresh egg noodles, blanched kai-lan, and pork and shitake won tons cooked in a tangy soup. To save another call to the Accountant so she can read me the recipe, this is the soup base I like to use. The dumpling are cooked in the soup, then the dumplings and soup are spooned over blanched fresh egg noodles (70 - 100 g per person) and Asian greens (blanch if the vegetable has dense stems, otherwise it will cook easily in the soup) in large bowl. Garnish with scallions, coriander and/or garlic chives.

Long & Short Soup Soup
Serves 2 as a main
Adapted from Takeaway by Les Huynh

1.25 L chicken stock
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp saoxing rice wine
1 tbsp Chinese black vinegar
1/2 tsp white pepper

To make the soup bring the stock to the boil in a large saucepan. Add the soy sauce, rice wine, vinegar and white pepper. Cook fresh dumplings in the soup for 4-5 minutes.

Pins, Pans, Jugs and Tins

2009-01-22T10:27:00.002+11:00

Mostly thrifted

Fine Slice Ratatouille

2009-01-21T17:29:00.004+11:00

Ratatouille made with fresh eggplant, green and red capsicums, zucchini, and onions cut into fine slices. Crushed garlic and tomatoes, salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

The finely sliced veges make this version of the Provençal classic a great pizza topping and the prep is super easy when you use Benriner slicer. The Benriner has been getting a lot of use this summer for slaws, it's really simple to use - especially if you are a rebel like myself and discard the useless finger guard. People seem to harp on about the dangers of this device, but as long as you pay some attention it's fairly difficult to cut yourself.

The blades are carbon steel, so make sure you dry the Beriner off completely before you pack it away. I sewed an ugly towel pouch to keep the slicer and the blades safely confined in the utensil drawer.

A Persian Experiment

2009-01-11T18:44:00.016+11:00

Gözleme filled with silverbeet and feta, the soup was not so photogenic

I've recently been reading a lot about the Food of Turkey, Lebanon and the Middle East and was inspired by this post from the Canberra Cook to try and make gözleme. Gözleme is a super-thin, filled Turkish pastry. I checked my copy of turquoise by Greg and Lucy Malouf, they list yufka as the ideal wrapping, filo as a substitute (further reading leads me to believe that gözleme dough is different to both these pastry's). I thought the photo on taste.com.au looked pretty good, so I lazily used their recipe with leavened dough. A wet leavened dough is not easy to roll thin, the Archivist tried his best, but the resulting pastries turned out more like a tasty pide than the gözleme I had imagined. Where the dough was thin, the siverbeet and feta were enhanced with a squeeze of lemon and tasted sublime. Those hints of the real thing make me want to try again, next time I will try this version.

The unmitigated success of the meal was the accompanying soup, from New Flavours of the Lebanese Table by Nada Saleh. This lemony green lentil soup is rich, sour and oddly compelling.

Adas Bi-Hamud
Serves 4
Adapted from New Flavours of the Lebanese Table by Nada Saleh

225 g green lentils
1.5 L water or stock
1 large onion (200g and over), peel and finely diced
2 medium potatoes (350-400 g), washed and diced into 1.5 cm cubes
6-7 large silverbeet or swiss chard leaves, remove the main rib and cut into fine ribbons
6 sprigs of fresh coriander
4 garlic cloves, skin removed and crushed
1/2 tsp of salt or to taste
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp lemon juice

Put the lentils in a medium saucepan, add the water or stock and bring to the boil. Add the onion, potatoes, greens and bring to the boil again. Reduce the heat to medium and leave to simmer for 15 minutes. Add the garlic, coriander, salt and pepper and simmer over a low heat for 20 minutes or until the lentils are soft. Add the oil in the last 5 minutes (you can omit the oil if you have used a stock that contains some fat). Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice.

Indian Summer

2009-01-03T21:11:00.012+11:00

Tonight we threw together a summery Indian vegan meal for our visiting Auditor. I picked all the dishes from Indian Cookery by Madhur Jaffery, I've had this book for a few years and have appreciated most of the recipes that I've cooked from it; her recipes can be a bit generous with the oil and salt, but these quantities can be easily adjusted to taste. One food blogger is reviewing his experience with all the recipes in the book here. As a general Indian cooking text I think that Indian Cookery is notable for the variety of vegetable and pulse dishes and other accompaniment recipes it contains; here we've made a light, invigorating vegan Indian meal with minimum effort that's perfect for a mid-summer evening. The dishes prepared were:

Aromatic yellow rice, peelay chaaval
Flat bread, chapati
Red split lentils with cumin seeds, masoor dal
'Dry okra', sookhi bhindi
Beetroot with onions, shorvedar chukander
Tomato, onion and green coriander relish, cachumber

It's the first time I've cooked okra and I was surprised how much I liked it. This easy dry preparation allows you to fully appreciate the texture and flavour of this pod. Besides okra, amchoor is probably the only exotic ingredient in this recipe - amchoor is a seasoning of powdered dried green mangoes. It adds a sour note to Indian food, a small amount of lemon or lime juice could be used as a substitute. If you make this dish as a part of a larger meal make it last, since the texture of the okra is best straight out of the pan, I suspect that keeping this dish warm or reheating it would turn the okra to mush.

Madhur Jaffery's Dry Okra
Serves 4 as a side
Adapted from Indian Cookery by Madhur Jaffery

450 g fresh okra
4 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp cumin seed
200 g onions, peeled and cut into a large dice
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp amchoor powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Wash the okra, then wipe it dry with towel. Cut the stem and tips from the pods, then cut crosswise into 1 cm pieces.

Heat the oil in a large cast iron frypan (at least 28 cm) and set over a medium-high heat. When the pan is hot add the whole cumin seed and let them sizzle for 10 seconds. Put the onions and okra in the pan and spread the mixture evenly, ideally into a single layer. Fry the onion and okra mix for 10 minutes stirring occasionally, both the onions and okra should be browning at this point.

Turn the temperature to medium and cook for a further 5 minutes, stir gently to avoid mashing the okra. Add the salt, ground cumin and coriander, amchoor and cayenne and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Serve hot.

A Summer Christmas Fruitcake

2008-12-28T11:07:00.010+11:00

I found this recipe sometime shortly after Christmas 2007; the mixture of tropical fruits and whole nuts caught my eye. The cake is really simple, and unlike many "grape based" fruitcakes doesn't require you to soak the fruit in alcohol for hours or days in advance - but you do still need to be sufficiently organised to bake the cake a month before Christmas. For all the rum this cake is doused in, the rum flavour isn't overpowering, it's really quite delicious.

Summer Fruitcake
Makes 1 20 cm cake
Adapted from Under the High Chair; originally from Martha Stewart's Backhouse Family Fruitcake

170 g softened unsalted butter, plus more for pan
110 g cup raisins
130 g dried pineapple, chopped into1 cm inch pieces
160 g dried apricots, chopped
200 g dates, pitted and chopped
120 g dried paw paw
140 g whole blanched almonds
265 g whole Brazil nuts
210 g plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
240 g light-brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp allspice
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp dark rum, plus more for dousing

Heat a conventional oven to 150°C. Brush a circular 20 cm cake pan with softened butter; line the bottom and sides of the pan with baking parchment.

Combine fruits and nuts in a bowl and set aside. Sift the flours, baking powder, and salt. In a second bowl cream butter and sugar until fluffy, then add eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Add vanilla and rum. In two additions, add dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Fold in the fruit and nuts. Transfer the batter into pan. Bake until golden and set, about two and a half hours. Cover with foil if it colours too much.

Cool on wire rack. Remove from pan; discard parchment. Wrap in a clean linen tea towel. Brush all over with a quarter of a cup of dark rum. Store in a cool, dry place; douse with 3 tablespoons of rum weekly for at least 1 month before serving.

Christmas Lunch

2008-12-25T19:18:00.007+11:00

We don't celebrate Christmas, but I do like to make an elaborate lunch once a year. This years required a fair bit of planning and incorporated lots of fresh seasonal fruit. The bread was an unexpected success, I've never worked such a wet dough by hand. The biggest disappointment was the ham glaze - it gave the ham a nice spicy flavour - but didn't melt into the glorious shiny coating I expected; the pickled cherries were great. The sorbets were fabulous, the nectarine was the better of the two and the cake was delicious - not at all like a typical Christmas cake - I'll post the recipe later in the week.

Nibbles
Acme's Herb Slabs (Artisan Baking - Maggie Glezer)
Hummous - Lebanese style (New Flavours of the Lebanese Table - Nada Saleh)
Beetroot Dip
Chicken Liver Parfait (jamie's kitchen - Jamie Oliver)

Main
Leg Ham with Danks Street Glaze and Pickled Cherries (Danks Street Depot - Jared Ingersoll)
Rosemary-Rock Salt Roast Potatoes
Green Salad with Walnuts and Roasted Beetroot and an Orange Vinaigrette

Dessert
Cherry Sorbet (The Perfect Scoop - David Lebovitz)
Nectarine Sorbet (The Perfect Scoop - David Lebovitz)
Fruit Cake

BBQ Tarragon Chicken

2008-12-10T20:22:00.010+11:00

The massive tarragon looms behind the Webber

I have a French tarragon problem. This is the first year I've grown tarragon in my potted Canberra garden and my tarragon has thrived in the dry conditions. It grew massive, really truly humongous. I started to worry it might overshadow the lime tree it shares a pot with.

So I set out to find ways to use it. French tarragon has a bitter anise flavour, I tried it as a salad green but found the flavour was too powerful. I have found two other ways to use it. First I cut off a few handfuls, I carefully picked the leaves from stalks and fed them into my half-full bottle of white wine vinegar. I left the bottle of vinegar and leaves on the kitchen window sill for a couple of weeks and have been using it to make a simple vinaigrette with olive oil, it's lovely on a simple green salad.

My second successful tarragon experiment began when I bought a Webber Kettle BBQ at a charity garage sale. Now the afternoons are getting longer and it's too hot in the kitchen, it's nice to cook outdoors. I searched for recipes combining meats and tarragon and settled on a chicken tarragon combo. The tarragon and charcoal impart a delicious flavour on the meat, it's great hot or cold so it doesn't hurt to cook more than one bird at a time. We sometimes eat this chicken with BBQ baby potatoes roasted in duck fat and with thyme; plain roasted butternut pumpkin is good too.

I still have too much tarragon; but at least I'm working out what to do with it.

BBQ Tarragon Chicken
1 whole free range chicken 1-1.4 kg
1/2 cup loosely packed tarragon leaves
1 lemon
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp rock salt

Use kitchen shears or a knife to trim off the large deposits of fat around the chicken's cavity, then spatchcock the bird. A simple method is turn the chicken breast side down, then remove the spine by cutting down both sides of it. Flip the bird skin side up and press hard between the breasts to break the breast bone. Fold the wings in above the legs to help stop them from drying out or burning.

Peel the zest from the lemon, then cut the zest and tarragon into a rough dice. Feed about half of the tarragon and zest mixture under the skin of the chicken around the breasts and the thighs, the skin should lift away fairly easily around the edges. Make sure to pull the skin back over the meat when you are finished. Coat the skin side of the chicken with the oil, salt and the remaining tarragon/zest mixture. You can put the chicken back in the fridge for a few hours at this point if you need to.

If you're using a charcoal BBQ light it, when the coals are ashed over it's ready. Insert a meat thermometer though the leg and thigh of the chicken then place it in the centre of the BBQ and put the lid on. The chicken is cooked when the internal temperature reaches 77°C/170°F, which takes around 45-50 minutes.

Pitting

2008-12-09T13:10:00.008+11:00

Cherry pitting is slow and messy with a hand held tool like mine. I bought my Avanti cherry & olive pitter at the Salvation Army some time ago since with a plan to make cherry jam in summer. At first it only saw some scant action on olives, it really isn't much good for olives - it forces out a cylindrical plug of flesh and seed - you lose less olive by crushing the fruit with the back of your knife and peeling the flesh away from the seed. I used it to pit cherries for the first time Sunday, it's better at cherries than olives, it's easy to target the seed and I was able to pit a kilo of fruit in about 40 minutes, it would have been faster if the tool didn't lock in the half-open position so frequently. If I pitted cherries more than once a year I'd be looking for a better designed tool.

I could be convinced to make a lot more jam if I had one of these

And this is how the pros do it

Cherries Three Ways

2008-12-07T20:38:00.009+11:00

One of the good things about living in Canberra is the abundance of local stone fruit available during the summer. Today's haul was a 5kg case of black cherries. One kilogram was gifted to The Accountant, one kilo pickled, one kilo turned into a boozy conserve to spoon over ice cream and cakes, and about 750 grams became jam and the rest were picked over and nibbled on - but many of the remainder were past there prime; at $3 a kilo I can't complain.

I like to store my preserves in French La Parfait preserving jars that I buy compulsively op-shops. I can't find a reasonably priced source for jar rings in Canberra or from any Australian online retailer, I got these lovely red ones in a supermarket some where on the journey from Toulouse over the Pyrenees; I need to work out a way to get some more! I label my preserves with Time Tape and Sharpie, it's something I picked up from the lab. Like the brochure says Time Tape is a paper tape that's oil, water and acid resistant, it stays sticky between -23 and 121 degrees Celsius; it peels off easily and at worst may get brittle after a couple of years, I have no idea how someone outside science or medicine could get some.

I pickled the cherries following the recipe in Jared Ingersoll's Danks Street Depot book. The recipe differs from other pickled cherry recipes where it calls for the cherries to added to the boiling vinegar and kept on the stove for 5 minutes. I got a 1L jar of pickled cherries and 300ml of extra pickling liquid. I won't know what they taste like 'til Christmas.

For the cherry jam, I used David Lebovitz' No-Recipe Cherry Jam guidelines; I had 3 cups of cherries stewed with the zest and juice of 2 lemons and added 2 cups of sugar. This made a 500ml jar with a tiny bit left over which was delicious mixed into vanilla ice cream.

Finally the cherry conserve was made using a recipe from a little cookbook published in 1983, written by English author Bridget Jones called Jams, Pickles and Chutneys. I have made about 1/3 of the recipes in this book and they have all been great. Due to an unforeseen shortage of brandy, half of the alcohol in mine was apple and pear eau de vie. These conserves will also remain closed 'til Christmas, but I trust Bridget enough to share the recipe

Cherry Conserve
Makes enough to fill a 1L jar
From Jams, Pickles and Chutneys by Bridget Jones

1 kg sour cherries
1 kg white sugar
150 ml brandy or orange liqueur

Stone the fruit and place it in a large non-reactive saucepan with the sugar and alcohol. Stir the mixture over a low heat until the sugar dissolves and then bring the mixture to a boil. Once the mixture has reached boiling point reduce the temperature so it simmers gently. Let the mixture simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally, after the hour has passed the liquid should have reduced by about a third.

Pour the conserve into heat sterilised jars. Process in a water bath if you want to keep the conserve for more than 6 months. Allow the conserve to mature for about a month before eating.

Third Time Lucky Tea Cake

2008-11-26T07:05:00.023+11:00

Tea cake II, with apples

I first made this tea cake on Sunday for a work do the Archivist was having on Monday, choosing apple tea cake to use up some small Fuji apples. I woke up at 6 am to bake this cake again for a friend from works' birthday morning tea - but thanks to a delivery mess-up I couldn't attend to try it, so I made it again this afternoon to have with friends tonight! The third time I made the cake I had finished all the apples and had to make it with Packham pears - yum.

I grabbed a recipe from the internet Sunday night, using the internet recipes has bitten me on the arse on several occasions, the tea cake recipe that I used for the base of my recipe is from the head chef at Fifteen in Melbourne - Tobbie Puttock. -I seriously doubt that the recipe was tested as written since the cooking time is completely wrong (fan-forced vs. conventional electric can't explain the 30 extra minutes it takes to bake this cake - not that the recipe specifies an oven type anyway!) and the batter over-leavened so the fruit disappeared beneath the surface of the baked cake. I've had three attempts to perfect my version, and my changes produce a lovely cake with golden caramelised fruit.

Tea Cake
Makes 8-10 serves
Based on Tobie Puttock's apple and cinnamon tea cake

95 g softened unsalted butter

125 g cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
175 g cups self raising flour
150 ml milk
2-3 small apples or pears
3 tsp cinnamon sugar or 2 tsp sugar and 1 tsp of ground cinnamon
30 g unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 200°C; grease and line a 20cm (8 inch) round baking tin with baking paper. Cream the softened butter and sugar in a large bowl, add the vanilla and the egg. Alternately add the flour and milk to the mix and beat until smooth. Spread the thick mix to evenly cover the base of the pan.

Peel, quarter, and core the apples and then slice the quarters into thin wedges and place over lapping slices in a wheel pattern on the top of the cake, sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the apples. If using pears leave the peel on, but otherwise the preparation is the same.

Place into the middle of the oven and bake for 55-60 minutes (check the cake 10 minutes sooner for a fan-forced oven). Check to see if the cake is cooked by inserting a skewer, if it's cooked it should come out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and let cool in the baking tin for a further 10 minutes, melt the remaining 30 grams of butter and brush over the top of the cake. Then turn the cake out of the pan to cool apple side up. This cake is nice warm, and is best eaten on the day of baking.

Spicy Lentil Soup

2008-11-20T19:06:00.019+11:00

The Archivist had to get a wisdom tooth removed; the procedure wasn't especially traumatic by his account, but the dentist recommended soft foods be eaten on the following day. I love soups and braises, and the weather here had turned unseasonally mild. For lunch I made a soup inspired by one my mum used to like to make - using a can of Sanitarium Savoury Lentils and a can of tomato soup with some fresh vegetables added; my version uses some short cuts but is far more satisfying. I used half green and half Australian puy lentils, the puy held up well to the long cooking time and and green started to disintegrate making the tomatoey broth rich and hearty.

Spicy Lentil Soup
Makes 6 serves

1 tbsp olive oil
2 small brown onions, diced
3 small carrots, cut in half length ways and into half-moons
1 cup of celery, cut into crescents
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp Spanish smoked paprika
1.5 liters chicken or vegetable stock or water
300 g lentils
3 small potatoes, diced into 2 cm cubes
600 ml tomato passata
1 zucchini, cut in half and into half-moons

Sweat the onion, carrot and celery in olive oil in a saucepan of about 3 liter capacity over a low heat, the onions should turn translucent and the vegetables should soften - if the vegetables stick or brown the pan is too hot. Grind the cumin, coriander and black pepper, add these spices and the paprika to the pan. When the spices are fragrant add the stock, lentils, potatoes and passata and let simmer over a low heat for about an hour and a half. Add the zucchini about 10 minutes before serving, other delicate green vegetables like broccoli or baby peas could also be added at this point. Add salt to taste.

This soup reheats well, but you may need to add some water on the second day. It also freezes well.

Sunday Pizza

2008-11-03T17:07:00.012+11:00

The Archivist and I both enjoy pizza, so about once a month we make some from scratch. I've been using an easy dough recipe I tore from a magazine, possibly Australian Gourmet Traveller, in the late 1990s which always works beautifully - but I think I will try Peter Reinhart's Napoletana Pizza Dough next time. November's pizza featured my home-made pizza sauce, mozzarella, Italian sausage, and green olives; October was an Australian favourite - ham and fresh pineapple and September was prosciutto, parmesan and rocket.

If you happen to be in Canberra, lovely peppery Italian sausage is available at the Go Troppo Fruit Market in the Jamison Centre, Macquarie.

Tomato Sauce for Pizza

1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, red or brown
3 cloves of garlic
A pinch of chilli flakes
1 400g tin of tomatoes
1 tbsp fresh herbs (parsley, oregano, marjoram)

Dice the onion, crush and dice the garlic and finely chop the herbs. Pour the oil into a small saucepan and place over a low heat. Add the onion, garlic and chilli and cook until soft, about 10 minutes. Crush the tomatoes and add to the pan with the chopped herbs, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Leave the sauce to simmer gently for about 20-25 minutes stirring occasionally. The tomatoes will reduce to a paste like consistency - perfect for spreading on pizza.

This amount of sauce is ideal for the amount of pizza base yielded by the following recipe.

Roman-style Pizza Base
Makes three 28 cm pizzas

3 cups/500 g of bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp white sugar
2 tsp of instant dried yeast or 15 g fresh compressed yeast
1 cup lukewarm water
2 tbsp olive oil

Mix the dry ingredients (if using fresh yeast dissolve in the water) in a large bowl, make a well in the centre, add the water and oil and mix. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board or bench and knead until it is smooth and elastic, usually about 5 minutes. Put the dough into an oiled bowl and cover with a damp cloth and leave it in a warm spot until it has doubled.

Preheat the oven to 230 to 250 degrees Celsius. Punch down the risen dough and divide into three portions, and shape using your hands or a rolling pin- each portion will make a 28 cm round pizza. Spread over tomato sauce and leave to rise again for 10 to 15 minutes on a oiled baking tray or in a cast iron fry pan - which is my preferred method. Add toppings and bake in the very hot oven until the crust is golden brown; or bake the base and assemble after removing from the oven for a combination like prosciutto, parmesan and rocket.