Eight Bells

Jerk Chicken

2011-07-17T11:58:00.003+12:00

Jerk chicken is about as Jamaican as it gets, hot from the chilli, spicy and aromatic from the allspice, mace and cinnamon, it's the original Caribbean fast food.
There are probably as many jerk recipes as there are people who cook jerk, this is just one of the many, it is very simple to prepare and super delicious.

Jerk Chicken

1 large chicken, spatchcocked, skin on (or chicken pieces)
1 teaspoon of sea salt
1 tablespoon of freshly ground black peppercorns
1 tablespoon of allspice
1 tablespoon of mace
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 onion, finely chopped
2 teaspoons of dried thyme
5 bay leaves, torn into small pieces
2 scotch bonnet chillis, finely chopped (we substituted a tablespoon of chilli flakes, if you use scotch bonnets make sure you wear gloves or wash your hands thoroughly after handling them)
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
3 tablespoons of rice bran oil (or canola)
Juice of four limes
2 tablespoons of butter

Place all the ingredients except the chicken in your food processor and blend to a smooth paste.
Place your chicken in an oven pan and coat all over with the jerk marinade, cover and leave in the fridge overnight.
Preheat your oven to 180C.
Line an oven pan with tin foil and place the chicken in the pan skin side down, cover loosely with another sheet of tin foil and bake for one hour. After one hour remove the foil, turn the chicken so the skin is up, make sure there is plenty of jerk marinade on the skin side, return to the oven and bake for another hour. Serve with prawn, pawpaw and avocado curry (see recipe below), rice and grilled corn. Crack open an ice cold Red Stripe lager and enjoy.

Caribbean Prawn, Pawpaw and Avocado Curry.

2011-07-17T11:26:00.004+12:00

This dish is a meal in itself but it also makes a great accompaniment to jerk chicken (recipe to follow). It's not a hot Indian style curry, it's fruity and fragrant, just what you would expect from Caribbean cooking, evocative of white sands, sparkling blue seas and tropical fruit. The recipe below will serve two as a main, we halved the recipe to make side dishes for two to go with the jerk chicken.

Caribbean Prawn, Pawpaw and Avocado Curry

450g of peeled prawns
1 small pawpaw (papaya), diced into 1-2cm cubes
1 avocado, diced into 1-2cm cubes
1 garlic clove, sliced
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 hot green chilli, finely chopped
100g of raisins
250g natural yoghurt
Juice of a lime
125ml of chicken stock
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
2 teaspoons of ground cumin
1/4 of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon of paprika
2 teaspoons of curry powder
1 teaspoon of ras el hanout (or 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric)
Oil
Salt, pepper, sugar.

Heat oil in a frying pan and cook the onion until soft and translucent. Add the chopped garlic and ginger and cook for one minute. Stir in the curry powder, cumin, cayenne pepper, paprika, ras el hanout and chopped chilli and cook for one minute.
Add the prawns and cook for two-three minutes.
Pour in the stock and add the yoghurt and stir to combine.
Place the avocado, pawpaw and raisins in a bowl, squeeze lime juce over them and add to the pan. Heat through for a minute or so and then adjust flavours to suit using salt, pepper and sugar. Be careful not to cook the curry too long once the pawpaw and avocado have been added or they will fall apart, be particularly careful with the avocado.

Orange Juice Jelly

2011-07-17T10:21:00.002+12:00

We picked the last of the oranges from our little tree today and got 16 oranges, enough for a litre of freshly squeezed juice.

Orange Juice Jelly

1 litre of orange juice
6 leaves of gelatin
3 tablespoons of sugar
Cold water
Spray oil, canola
Jelly mould

Strain your juice and then warm the juice in a pan. Soak gelatin leaves in cold water for five minutes. Add sugar to juice and dissolve. Remove the pan from the heat, gently squeeze excess water from gelatin and add to pan, stir to dissolve. Spray jeely mould lightly with oil and then pour the liquid into it and refrigerate over night. Wobbly, orangey goodness.

Thai Beef Salad

2011-03-26T14:11:00.003+13:00

With winter seemingly just around the corner it's probably the wrong time of year to be blogging salads however this one is just too delicious to keep from you until next summer. The serving bowl is La Chamba pottery from Columbia, the technique is centuries old and the pottery is still made by hand, in the traditional manner, mainly by the women of La Chamba village in central Columbia. It is really lovely cookware and can be used on the stove top, in the oven or like this, as an elegant and slightly unusual serving dish.

Thai Beef Salad

500g fillet steak
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander
1 tablespoon chopped mint leaves
Lettuce leaves
3 or 4 spring onions, sliced
1 or 2 fresh red chillies, thinly sliced
Cherry tomatoes

Remove any sinew and fat from the meat and cook in a frying pan until rare/medium rare. Remove the steak from the pan and leave until cold.
Crush and peel garlic and place in a food processor with the soy sauce, lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, coriander and mint, process until smooth.
Thinly slice the beef and then toss the beef in the garlic and herb mixture. Arrange lettuce on a platter along with the beef, spring onions, chillies and cherry tomatoes. As you can probably see from the picture we did not use cherry tomatoes and we added green beans.

Tarte Tatin

2011-02-10T14:04:00.003+13:00

Tarte Tatin is classic French cuisine at its very best and, when served warm with a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream, my favourite dessert.
The key to the perfect Tarte Tatin is the reduction of the caramel and the choice of apple. The apples should be dessert apples such as Cox or Golden Delicious and must be large, firm and crisp; the caramel should be reduced to a rich, syrupy, golden brown before the tarte goes into the oven. It may take you two or three attempts before you get your caramel and your tart just right but it's well worth the effort.
This recipe is taken from Rick Stein's excellent "French Odyssey".

Tarte Tatin

250g puff pastry (buy sheets but make sure the pastry is wide enough to cover your tart pan).
75g softened butter
175g caster sugar
5 large, firm dessert apples (not cooking apples like Granny Smiths as they tend to turn to mush quite quickly)

The pan pictured is a 20cm cast iron Le Creuset skillet and is perfect for this dish. If you don't have one then use any non-stick cast iron frying pan but of course it must be able to go from the stove top into the oven. You can also buy purpose made tarte tatin dishes.
Roll out your puff pastry and cut a circle of pastry around 4cm larger in diameter than your pan. Chill for 30 minutes (the pastry, not you, get back to work).
Spread the softened butter over the base of your pan and then sprinkle the sugar evenly over the top.
Peel, core and quarter (or halve) your apples then pack them neatly into your pan as pictured below.

Place your pan over a medium heat and cook, shaking the pan every now and again, until the butter and sugar have mixed with the apple juices to produce a rich toffee coloured sauce and the apples are just tender. This should take 30-40 minutes. Take care not to take the sauce too far, it is better under done than over and if it burns even a little you should start again or just cry and eat the ice cream on its own.
Preheat your oven to 190C. Lift the pastry on top of the apples and tuck the edges down inside the pan. Prick the pastry five or six times with a sharp knife or fork, transfer to the oven and bake for 25 minutes until the pastry is puffed up, crisp and golden.
Remove the tart from the oven and leave to rest for five minutes. Once rested, run a knife around the edge of the tart to free any stuck pastry and then invert it onto a flat round serving plate. Serve warm or cold with creme fraiche or vanilla ice cream. Magnifique!

Caramelised Onion and Potato Stacks.

2011-02-06T12:29:00.002+13:00

This is the accompaniment to the spatchcock and again it is from the Dec/Jan 2011 edition of "Donna Hay" magazine.
We didn't make individual stacks, we instead used a 20cm x 20cm square dish about 4cm deep. This is so delicious don't wait until the next time you cook spatchcocks to serve it because, let's be honest, that could be never.

Caramelised Onion and Potato Stacks

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 large brown onions, thickly sliced (about 1cm slices)
500g floury potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced (we used a mandoline on 1.5mm slice setting)
2/3 cup of chicken stock
80g butter, melted
8 sprigs of thyme (we used double this about but removed the leaves from the stalks as they can be a little twiggy)

Preheat your oven to 180C (350F). Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion slices in batches and cook for around 3 minutes or until golden. Place an onion slice in the base of each of eight, 1/2 cup capacity (125ml) muffin tins lined with non-stick baking paper. Layer with potato slices and finish with another slice of onion. Divide the stock and butter between the stacks and top with a sprig of thyme. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 30 minutes or until the onions and potatoes are golden and cooked through.

Spatchcock with Apple and Pistachio Stuffing

2011-02-06T11:38:00.003+13:00

It seems ever so slighty gruesome to be eating baby chickens when our own baby chickens will be arriving in about 5 days but if you're going to make the choice to be a meat eater you can't be too precious about these things. In our defence we only buy free range chicken, pork and eggs and do our best to support local businesses by buying locally grown produce as much as possible.
Don't be scared off this recipe by assuming it's difficult, it's actually very simple and incredibly delicious, it's really just flash roast chicken.
This recipe is taken from the Dec/Jan 2011 edition of "Donna Hay" magazine and serves eight. We only cooked two spatchcocks so we made half the stuffing, wrapped the left over stuffing in bacon, cooked it with the birds and ate it in sandwiches the next day, yum.

Spatchcock with Apple and Pistachio Stuffing

1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 brown onion, chopped
3 cups (210g) fresh breadcrumbs
2 small Granny Smith (green) apples, peeled and chopped
2 1/2 teaspoons chopped thyme leaves
3/4 cup (105g) shelled unsalted pistachios, chopped
50g butter, melted
Sea salt and cracked black pepper
8 x 500g spatchcock (baby chickens), trimmed
8 slices of prosciutto (we used rindless, streaky bacon)

Preheat your oven to 200C (400F). Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat, add onion and cook for 4-5 minutes or until softened. Set aside to cool. Place the breadcrumbs, apple, thyme, pistachios, butter, onion, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix well. Spoon the breadrumb mixture into the cavities of the spatchcocks. Wrap each spatchcock in a slice of prosciutto (again, we used bacon) and secure the legs with kitchen string (stops them running away).
Place on a lightly greased roasting tray and roast 40-45 minutes or until golden and cooked through (test the thickest part of the spatchcock with a wooden skewer if unsure, the juices should flow clearly). Reserve the pan juices for gravy or just do what we did and make it from a packet, we used Massel Supreme Gravy Mix, easy peasy.
Cover the birds with foil and rest for 10 minutes, serve with green beans and caramelised onion and potato stacks (recipe to follow).

Kumara, Orange and Pomelo Salad

2011-01-23T15:46:00.008+13:00

If you've ever been in an asian greengrocers and seen a fruit that looks like a gigantic green grapefruit and you wondered what it was and what you would do with it if you bought it, it's called a pomelo and the following recipe makes the most delicious salad. This salad is a Julia B original and serves around six to eight people. The serving plate is from Nigella Lawson's "classic" range of kitchenware.

Kumara, Orange & Pomelo Salad

1 large golden kumara
1 large white kumara
1 bag of baby spinach
1 red onion
1 orange
1 lemon
1 pomelo
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1 teaspoon of paprika
1 teaspoon of turmeric
Salt and pepper
Oil

Pre heat your oven to 160C.
Peel and cut the kumara into 2-3 cm square chunks. In a roasting dish toss the kumara chunks in olive oil, cumin, paprika, turmeric and salt and pepper. Roast the kumara, turning occasionally until soft and golden (around 45 minutes).
Peel and halve the onion and cut it finely into half rounds. Place the onion in a small bowl and squeeze over the juice of the lemon, set aside and toss occasionally.
Peel the pomelo with a sharp knife, removing all the thick pith and exposing the segments inside. Cut the segments from the pomelo one by one making sure all the pith and membrane is left behind. Place the pieces in a bowl, do the same thing with the orange and place in the same bowl.
Squeeze the juice from the remaining desegmented pomelo and orange over the orange and pomelo segments.
Rinse spinach and place half of it on a serving platter and the rest in the bowl with the orange and pomelo segments. Add the onion and kumara, toss together and serve on spinach.

A new year and a new kitchen toy

2011-01-09T17:14:00.008+13:00

Happy New Year everyone!

I have been looking for a decent 30cm stainless steel frying pan for some time and finally came across this Cuisinart example in the Christmas sales, $130 down to $78! Thank you jesus, you truly are a blessing for all mankind.

What could be better, in the one of the hottest and muggiest summers I can remember, than a classic and fiery Goan fish curry, the signature dish of Goa and one of the best traditional fish curries India has to offer, it's a little cracker.
The recipe is from the fantastic "50 Great Curries of India" put together by Camellia Panjabi, a book that is in constant use at our place and one I cannot recommend highly enough.

Goa Fish Curry

800g fish cut into large pieces (we used blue nose, a good meaty fish that will hold together)
Juice of 1/2 a lime (we used a whole lime)
3/4 teaspoon of turmeric powder
Salt
8 red chillis, dried Kashmiri type
100g fresh coconut (this was very difficult (impossible) to smoothly blend into the curry paste, next time I make this curry I will try using about 1/4 of a cup of coconut cream instead)
3 teaspoons of coriander seeds
2 small onions, one chopped, one finely sliced
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons of chopped garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons of tamarind pulp
2 tablespoons of oil
1 tomato very finely chopped (we used two tomatoes)
3 green chillis, slit lengthways (we finely sliced them)
A few okra (these are optional, we did not use them)

1. Marinate the fish in a mixture of the lime juice, a little of the turmeric powder, a pinch of salt and a little water for about 30 minutes then rinse.

2. Soak the red chillis in 200ml warm water for 15 minutes, strain and reserve the soaking water. In a blender or food processor grind the soaked red chillis, coconut, coriander seeds, chopped onion, cumin seeds, the remaining turmeric powder, the garlic and 1 teaspoon of the tamarind pulp to make a really fine, smooth paste. This is traditionally done using a grinding stone and it can be difficult to achieve a smooth paste in a blender/food processor; just do your best, you will probably be processing for 10 minutes or so. Use some of the left over soaking water from the red chillis to facilitate grinding, don't over heat your appliance.

3. Soak the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of tamarind in 100ml of water for 15 minutes, strain and reserve the soaking water.

4. Heat the oil in a wide, shallow pan and fry the sliced onion on a low-medium heat until lightly coloured (about 5-7 minutes).

5. Add the spice paste and saute over a moderate heat for 6-7 minutes, adding a little water if necessary. When the paste is cooked add 800ml of water.

NOTE: This seems an awful lot of water!
The original recipe says to add the water and then cook for just 6 minutes before adding the fish but if you do this you will end up with a thin tasteless soup and by the time you reduce it your fish will have completely fallen apart.
The curry is traditionally a fairly thick soupy consistency and very strong in flavour and so I believe 800ml is a printing error. Next time I would use 300ml and I suggest you do the same as it took about an hour to reduce the curry to the point where the flavour and thickness were ok and I could add the fish and serve.

After adding the water, add the tomato, the green chillis and the okra if you are using it, salt to taste and adjust the flavour with the tamarind water if necessary.
When you have the right flavour and consistency add the fish and cook turning once, be very careful not to over cook your fish, it should only take five or so minutes at most. Serve with rice, raita and flat bread and sprinkle with fresh chopped coriander as in the photograph below. Have some nice cold beer on hand and enjoy!

John Torode's Ragu

2010-07-17T10:40:00.005+12:00

Ragu is an italian term for a meat based sauce, usually served with pasta. This ragu sauce is taken from John Torode's excellent newish book "Beef" and is his take on the traditional Italian bolognese sauce.
Spaghetti bolognese is a little boring and in his book John presents the sauce with gnocchi so I have chosen to do the same. I won't give you the gnocchi recipe here as you will be able to find it on this blog under my May 24th 2010 post. I'll present the recipe exactly as it appears in John's book and I'll note any slight changes we made.
If you love bolognese sauce but you've never made it from scratch you really should give this a go, it's incredibly easy and is far superior to any of the awful, sugary, pre prepared sauces you will find in the supermarket. This sauce will serve four-six people.

Ragu alla Bolognese

1kg minced beef (avoid supermarket mince, you need a really good mince from a decent butcher. You want a mince with plenty of fat, we got ours from Wholly Cow at the Hamilton farmer's market)
200ml red wine (again, don't skimp here, if you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it)
60ml vegetable or olive oil (we used olive oil)
2 large onions, diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
salt and pepper
3 bay leaves
A good shake of dried herbs such as oregano or thyme but not a lot (we used a teaspoon of each)
3 x 400g cans of plum tomatoes
20g tomato paste, about half a tube (we used about 40g of tomato paste)

Take the meat and massage the red wine into it so that the mince absorbs it. Heat a big, heavy pan. Add the oil and onions and cook gently (or sweat) until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic, a good amount of ground pepper and a teaspoon of salt. Stir and stir until the garlic starts to give off a fragrant aroma.
Add the meat and herbs and continue cooking and stirring for a few minutes until the meat starts to get a little colour. Add the canned tomatoes and tomato paste and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer and cook for two hours (we cooked ours for 3 1/2 hours just to intensify the flavour a little more), stirring every half an hour or so. Taste, adjust the seasoning as necessary then serve with any pasta or gnocchi.

Baked Beans and Baked Eggs

2010-06-06T10:34:00.004+12:00

This dish is perfect for those cold, wet, winter weekend days when all you want to do is snuggle on the couch under a blanket and watch old movies.
The recipe is taken from the May 2010 edition of Better Homes and Gardens, with a couple of minor changes. The magazine calls the dish "Baked Eggs" but it's really a bean dish rather than an egg dish. Serves four, enjoy.

Baked Eggs

50ml olive oil
1 onion sliced (we used 2 onions and left out the leek, simply because we didn't have one)
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 leek sliced
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 tablespoon brown mustard seeds
5 sprigs of thyme
2 x 400g cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed (we used one can of butter beans and one can of kidney beans instead of cannellini beans)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 x 400g crushed tomatoes
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
3 tablespoons raw sugar (we used brown sugar)
1 cup water
Salt and pepper
4 eggs
100ml cream
Toasted ciabatta

We added a little cooked chopped bacon, smoked paprika and parsely to get a little more depth and a stronger, more smokey flavour.

Preheat your oven to 200C. Heat olive oil in a large pan over a medium heat, add onion, garlic and leek and cook for around five minutes or until soft. Add curry powder, mustard seeds and thyme and cook for a further two minutes.
Add the beans, tomato paste, canned tomatoes, vinegar, sugar and water (and the bacon, paprika and parsely) then simmer for 40 minutes until reduced by about a quarter.
Spoon the mixture into four oven proof bowls, make a well in the centre and crack an egg in each. Spoon over a little cream and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bake for around five minutes until the egg is just cooked. Serve with toasted ciabatta.

Yummy Potato Skins

2010-05-29T08:58:00.005+12:00

This delicious potato skins recipe is loosely based on a recipe from the delicious Nigella Lawson's "Nigella Christmas" and is a great way to use up the potato skins you had left over from your baked potato gnocchi. I'll present the recipe here as if you are starting from scratch, if you have left over skins just boil a few potatoes to give you enough for your filling. Nigella's recipe makes 20 potato skins, if you're using leftovers just over fill your skins because you won't have 20, you'll more likely have 10 or 12, I hope that all makes sense.

Potato Skins

10 baking potatoes
225g tasty cheddar cheese
125ml sour cream
6 fresh chives (or fresh parsley)
4 spring onions
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
Fresh black pepper
1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
6 rashers streaky bacon
oil

Bake your potatoes at 180C for around 1 1/2 hours until the insides are completely soft and the skins starting to wrinkle and go slightly crispy, this is best done the day before you intend serving this meal.
Cut the potatoes in half lengthways and when they are cool enough to handle, scoop the insides into a large bowl and leave the skins to cool, refrigerate if not using the same day. When the potato has cooled down a little pass it through a ricer or mash and stir in a splash of olive oil.
When you are ready to fill the potatoes, preheat your oven to 160C. Chop up the bacon into 1-2cm pieces and cook until crispy. Grate the cheese and add it to the potato along with the sour cream and mustard. Finely chop the spring onions and chives and add to the potato along with the worcestershire sauce, cooked bacon, paprika and salt and pepper. Mix well and fill your potato skins.
Bake at 160C for around 40-50 minutes until heated through and starting to crisp up, serve with fresh salad or what you will.

The Chicken or the Egg

2010-05-25T16:35:00.004+12:00

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
If you've ever been presented with this question and found it far too deep a scientific and/or philosophical conundrum to confidently answer correctly, you can cut that silly nonsense out right now, the answer is, the egg. In our case, of course, the reverse is true, the chickens arrived about a month ago and the first egg arrived yesterday.

Designing and building the chicken palace and then meeting the chickens for the first time and having them move in was great fun but it was nothing compared to the excitement of opening up the chicken coop yesterday and finding our first egg! I haven't yet figured out which chicken is our little overachiever but hopefully they will all follow her example quite soon, there was another egg there today!

The egg was summarily executed by being immersed in boiling oil for four minutes and then eaten, a first egg sacrificial offering to the egg gods if you will, it was delicious.

The Palace

The Ladies

The Egg

Potato Gnocchi

2010-05-24T15:53:00.005+12:00

Almost all potato gnocchi recipes will tell you to steam your potatoes, don't, the secret to successful and great tasting gnocchi is baking your potatoes.
For best results a potato ricer should be used but you can get excellent results mashing your potatoes. The real trick with gnocchi is, don't be scared to have a go at it, it will probably take two or three attempts to get perfect, fluffy, soft, delcious, pillows of gnocchi.

Potato Gnocchi

1.2kg baking potatoes
200g flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
salt

Heat your oven to 170C and bake your potatoes until well cooked and soft all the way through in around 1 1/2 hours.
Remove potatoes from the oven, slice in two length ways and leave to cool down until you can handle them without burning yourself but they are still hot.
Scoop out your potatoes and pass through a ricer into a large bowl or mash well but gently. Refrigerate the potato skins, I will have a delicious potato skins recipe for you in a couple of days.
Stir in the flour, egg and a couple of pinches of salt and mix well until you have a stiff uniform dough then turn out onto a flat surface. Cut off about 1/5 of the dough and using the palms of your hands roll into long thin rolls about 1 1/2 cm thick then cut into 2cm lengths and place on a tea towel lightly dusted with flour, continue until you have used all your dough. You can leave the gnocchi like this for an hour or two before cooking if you wish.
When you are ready to eat bring a large pot of lightly salted water to the boil, pick up your gnocchi in the tea towel and dump the whole lot into the boiling water. Very gently stir the water a couple of times during cooking to ensure all the gnocchi cooks and when it has all risen to the surface of the water remove with a slotted spoon or skimmer and serve.

Sauce

Very simple, a can of crushed tomatoes, a finely diced sweet red pepper, cooked streaky bacon and a little Kaitaia Fire, salt and pepper. Heat until slightly reduced and serve over the gnocchi with fresh parmesan.

Jam Doughnut Muffins

2010-05-21T16:11:00.004+12:00

For those of you who love a nice warm muffin but also crave a sugary jam doughnut, now you don't have to choose! This recipe will make 12-15 muffins.

Jam Doughnut Muffins

1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup oil
1 egg
jam (I used raspberry)

Topping

1/2 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar

Preheat your oven to 180C.
In a bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. In another bowl, using a whisk, thoroughly combine the oil, 3/4 cup of sugar, egg and milk.
Add liquid to dry ingredients and gently fold in with a spatula until combined.
Using a dessert spoon, half fill your muffin tins with batter then using two teaspoons gently drop about a teaspoon of jam on top of the batter then add enough batter to just cover the jam.
Bake at 180C for 20-25 minutes until the tops of the muffins are just starting to turn golden brown.
Remove muffins from the oven and mix 1/4 cup of sugar with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Brush the muffins generously with the melted butter then spoon over your sugar and cinnamon mixture until the muffins are coated well.
Eat immediately or heat briefy in a microwave being careful not to over heat as the hot jam can be dangerous. Yum!

Perfect Breadmaker Burger Buns

2010-05-20T14:28:00.004+12:00

Most supermarket burger buns leave a lot to be desired in the flavour and texture department and are often too small for a real Kiwi burger. When you want a burger bun for your 1/4 pound beef patty, steak or whole chicken breast, lettuce, tomato, beetroot, bacon, cheese, pineapple, fried egg, gherkin and onions and you don't want the insides to end up on the outside before going into your insides then these are the buns for you.

Perfect Burger Buns

1 1/2 cups warm water, less two tablespoons
3 1/3 cups white flour
3 tablespoons rice bran oil
2 tablespoons milk powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons dry yeast

Place the ingredients in your breadmaker in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Set the machine to dough mode, start.
Lightly grease a sheet of baking paper or lightly coat with cooking spray. After the bread machine has finished making the dough gently punch the dough down so that any large bubbles are gone. Tip the dough out and using a sharp knife, divide into six equal pieces. Form each piece into a ball by gently rolling and passing from hand to hand a few times and then place on the greased baking paper. Press down each ball so it is about 3cm thick and make sure the pieces of dough are at least 5 cm apart.

Cover buns with another sheet of greased baking paper (do not use a tea towel). Put in a warm place (hot water cupboard with cat removed should be fine) until doubled in size in around 40 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180C. When the dough is ready, remove the top sheet of baking paper and bake in the centre of your pre heated oven until the tops are golden brown and you get a hollow sound when you knock them on their bottoms (lol), this should take around 16-18 minutes.
Place buns on a rack to cool, they are best eaten the same day but will keep well for a day in a sealed plastic bag or bread bin.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

2010-02-14T13:14:00.004+13:00

This delicious carbonara is one of the best I've tasted and very easy to prepare. Thanks must go to Nigella Lawson as this recipe is based on a recipe from her television show "Nigella Feasts" and is almost identical to hers.
The recipe below will serve two or three depending on your gluttony level.
Sorry about the lack of posts lately, if there is anybody still reading this blog, again, I promise to do better.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Half a packet of spaghetti
About 220-250 grams of pancetta, rind removed and diced (for Hamilton residents, Vetro in Alexander St is a good place to get your pancetta)
A teaspoon of olive oil
1/4 of a cup of vermouth (substitute white wine if you don't have vermouth)
3 or 4 free range eggs depending on the size
1/2 a cup of freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
1/4 of a cup of cream
Freshly ground black pepper
Freshly ground nutmeg

Put a large pan of salted water on to boil for the spaghetti.
In another large pan that is big enough to fit the cooked pasta in, cook the pancetta in the oil until just crispy. Once cooked you may need to remove a little of the fat from the pan depending on how fatty your pancetta was, you only want a couple of tablespoons of fat in the pan when you add the vermouth. Pour in the vermouth and simmer for a few minutes until a little reduced and slightly syrupy. Take the pan off the heat.
Beat together the eggs, cream, cheese and pepper in a bowl, set aside and put the spaghetti on to cook (do not over cook, it should be al dente).
When the pasta is cooked, keep aside about half a cup of the pasta water and drain the spaghetti. Put the pan with the pancetta back on the heat, add the drained pasta and toss well to coat the spaghetti in the pancetta and vermouth mixture.
Take the pan off the heat and add the egg, cream and cheese mixture, quickly tossing and coating the spaghetti to cook the mixture. Thin with a little of the pasta water if necessary, it should be quite runny.
Grind over a little more pepper and grate over a little nutmeg before serving.

Delizioso!

Roast Duck with Pomegranate Molasses and Rice Pilaf

2009-10-26T13:03:00.003+13:00

This is a Ray McVinnie recipe, taken from Cuisine magazine. It can be done in one day but we cooked it over two days, first roasting the duck and then allowing it to cool down in the fridge over night. The sauce is incredibly rich and deeply flavoured and the pilaf is delicious and very easy to prepare. This method of cooking removes most of the fat from the duck without producing dry meat, the result is a tender, crispy skinned duck. One bird will easily serve four.

Roast Duck with Pomegranate Molasses and Rice Pilaf

Duck
1.6 kg duck
1 carrot and 1 meduium onion, both peeled and roughly chopped
1 stick of celery, roughly chopped
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
A 5cm piece of unpeeled ginger, chopped
The zest of two lemons
500mls of beef stock
750 mls of water
2 tablespoons of pomegranate molasses
1 1/2 tablespoons of brown sugar

Rice Pilaf
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 cinnamon stick
4 cardamom pods, flattened slightly
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 1/2 cups well-washed basmati rice, soaked for 10 minutes in cold water then drained
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup chopped pistachios
1/4 cup sultanas
12 dried apricots, sliced
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups chicken stock

Duck
Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Prepare the duck by removing the head, wing tips and feet, and make a 'V' section cut in the tail area to completely remove the parson's nose and the oil glands, which can give an unpleasant gamey flavour to the duck. Rinse the duck inside and out and dry with paper towels. Place the carrot, onion, celery, garlic, ginger and the zest of one of the lemons into a roasting pan and put the duck on top, breast side down. Pour the stock and water around the duck and place in the oven. Roast for one hour then turn the duck on to its back and roast for another hour until very tender and well browned. Remove from the oven.Remove the duck from the pan. Strain the stock and reserve, discard the vegetables. Leave duck until it is cold enough to handle, or cool completely and refrigerate until needed. When you decide to proceed, cut the duck in half lengthways on either side of the backbone, which you discard. Cut each half into two portions so that you have two breasts and wings and two whole legs. Remove and discard the thick layer of fat from the stock. Reserve the stock, you should have about two cups. To serve the duck, put the four portions into a roasting pan, skin side up, with the stock and place in a hot oven for about 20 minutes until the duck is very hot and the skin crispy. Remove the duck to a warm serving platter. Put the stock into a deep frying pan over high heat and add the pomegranate molasses and sugar. Bring to the boil and boil until syrupy. Pour the sauce over duck portions and sprinkle on the zest of the other lemon. If you want to proceed and serve the duck immediately after it is cooked, don't cool and portion it. Just keep the duck warm, skim the stock as soon as possible and make the sauce. Carve the duck at the table and serve the sauce in a bowl separately, with the pilaf on the side.

Rice Pilaf
Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan over moderate heat and add the onion, carrot, garlic, cinnamon, cardamom pods and turmeric. Fry gently without browning until the onion is soft. Add the remaining ingredients, mix gently but well and bring to the boil. Cover, reduce the heat to low and cook, without uncovering, for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat without uncovering and allow to stand for 10 minutes. Uncover and carefully fluff up the rice with a fork without mashing the rice grains.

Citrus

2009-08-02T17:16:00.002+12:00

No recipe today, just a quick post to show you how my limes and oranges turned out this year. I don't have any great citrus secrets to share with you, just don't over water and make sure you feed them regularly.

Baked Moroccan Chicken with Pumpkin and Rice

2009-07-28T15:20:00.002+12:00

This recipe is taken from the Aug-Sept edition of "Dish" magazine.
We used Rangitikei corn fed free range chickens thighs.
This is a fantastic one pot winter dish with delicious and exotic flavours.
I'll transcribe the recipe exactly as it appears in the magazine and note any changes we made.

Baked Moroccan Chicken with Pumpkin and Rice

6 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on (we used eight boneless, skinless chicken thighs)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon each of ground ginger, turmeric, paprika and cinnamon
Finely grated zest of one lemon
500 grams of crown pumpkin, peeled and diced into 2cm pieces (we used butternut pumpkin)
2 1/2 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of basmati rice, washed and drained
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180C
Tie the chicken thighs with kitchen string to give an even shape (we omitted this step, it is unnecessary). Season.
Heat the olive oil in a 30cm ovenproof saute pan or cazuela (as you can see from the picture we used a le creuset casserole) and cook the chicken on both sides until a good golden colour. Remove to a plate.
Spoon off any excess fat, leaving 3 tablespooons in the pan. Add the onions, carrots and garlic, season and cook for 10 minutes. Add all the spices and lemon zest and cook for 2 minutes. Add a splash of water if the pan is too dry.
Stir in the pumpkin to coat in the spices. Pour in the stock, scraping the base of the pan to release all the sticky bits on the bottom.
Stir in the rice then place the chicken thighs on top along with any resting juices.
Cover tightly and bake for 45 minutes. Uncover and gently fluff up the rice with a fork. Serves 4-6.

Prawn Patia (Sweet, Hot and Sour Prawn Curry)

2009-07-17T18:00:00.001+12:00

The following is taken directly from "50 Great Curries of India" by Camellia Panjabi.

The Parsees fled Persia about 1300 years ago and settled on the coast of Gujarat in India. Others who in recent centuries gradually arrived from Persia formed a small but distinct communities in Bombay and Dahanu, just to the north, where they are known as Iranis and cultivate fruit orchards of mangoes, chicoos (sapotas) and lychees. This patia recipe is an Irani one from Dahanu. The Parsees also have a version of patia.

A patia is a curry with sweet, hot and sour flavours equally balanced. Both Parsees and Iranis serve the patia on auspicious family occasions, along with yellow rice and lentils, calling it by its traditional name - dahn, dar or patio. The Irani patia is slightly spicier and hotter than the Parsee one. There are many chillis in this recipe but the heat is offset by the sour tamarind and the sugar.

Prawn Patia

450g shelled, uncooked prawns
1 1/2 teaspoons of tamarind pulp (we used about 4 teaspoons of pulp)
5 green chillis, chopped
3 plump garlic cloves
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
50ml oil (we used rice bran oil)
2 large onions, finely chopped (we used three onions)
1/2 teaspoons of cumin powder
3/4 teaspoon of coriander powder
3/4 teaspoon of red chilli powder
1 teaspoon of garam masala powder
1/2 teaspoon of turmeric powder
2 medium tomatoes, finely chopped
1 teaspoon of jaggery (jaggery is palm sugar, we used about a tablespoon)
10 curry leaves
1/4 cup of coriander leaves (we used about half a cup)
salt

Wash the prawns and devein.
Soak the tamarind pulp in 100ml of hot water for at least 30 minutes.
Grind the green chillies, two of the garlic cloves and the cumin seeds to a paste (a large mortar and pestle is best for this)
Heat the oil in a cooking pot and cook the onions slowly until deep pink/brown (you're not frying the onions you are very slowly browning them, this should take about an hour).
Add the ground paste and fry for two minutes then add the cumin, coriander, red chilli, garam masala and tumeric powders. Stir constantly for one minute then add the tomatoes and fry for a further five minutes.
Add the tamarind water (not the pulp), the jaggery, curry and coriander leaves and about 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt. Add 150ml of water and bring to the boil. Simmer for five minutes and then add the prawns. Cook until the prawns are done, remembering that prawns cook very quickly, as soon as they turn pink they are done.
You should have a thick, non runny gravy and in India it is always served with moong dal.
Serve with cucumber and yoghurt raita, and papadums

Moong Dal

200g moong dal
2 large tomatoes chopped (we used a tin of chopped tomatoes, drained)
2 green chillis chopped (if the curry you are serving this with is a hot one you can leave out the chillis)
1" square piece of fresh ginger chopped
3 large garlic cloves
1/4 tsp tumeric powder
1 Tbs fresh coriander leaves chopped
6 fresh curry leaves
1 Tbs butter

Wash the dal well and then soak for 15 mins.
Bring 5 cups of water to the boil in a large pot. Add the dal with the tomatoes, chillies, ginger, 2 of the garlic cloves, minced and the tumeric powder. Return to the boil, then add salt. Cook partially covered (or the dal will splash every where) for 40 mins or until thick, like a runny porridge. Remove from the heat and whisk with an egg beater, until the grains of dal are completely mashed. Add coriander and curry leaves and cook a further 5 mins.
Heat the butter in a small frying pan, add the rest of the chopped garlic and fry until golden. Pour into the dal, which is now ready to serve. The consistency should be like thick soup.

World's Best Roast Chicken

2009-07-12T12:27:00.004+12:00

Although I'm sure I have previously claimed a roast chicken recipe as the world's best, this one really is. We use Rangitikei corn fed free range chickens, they cost a bit more than your average chook but it is well worth the extra money to get a bird that has lead a relatively happy life and tastes like chicken should taste.
This dish is based on a recipe from Tessa Kiros' "Falling Cloudberries". Tessa has produced a beautiful range of cookbooks quite unlike anything else on the market. They are full of the most wonderful recipes, pictures and stories from her life, I highly recommend them all.

Ludi's Chicken

4 or 5 large potatoes, peeled
2 large carrots, thickly sliced
2 heaped tablespoons of grainy mustard
Juice of two large lemons (but save the squeezed lemon halves)
1 tablespoon of dried oregano or thyme
4 tablespoons of olive oil
1 medium sized chicken (about 1.3kg)
3 onions, peeled and cut into quarters
2 bay leaves
12 garlic cloves (with the skin left on)
125ml of white wine

Preheat the oven to 180C. Halve the potatoes length ways and then cut into large wedges.
Mix together the mustard, lemon juice, oregano and olive oil to make a marinade. Put the chicken, potatoes, onion wedges, bay leaves and eight garlic cloves in a large oven dish. Season the potatoes and chicken with plenty of salt and freshly ground black pepper. Put two of the squeezed lemon halves and the remaining garlic in the chicken cavity. Splash the marinade over the chicken and potatoes, shuffling them around with your hands so they are well coated. Gently pour a cup full of water into the dish (trying not to wash away the marinade) Roast for about one hour.
After an hour the top of the chicken should be getting brown. Add the carrots and pour the wine over the top of the chicken. Turn the potatoes and onions and roast for another hour. If the tray is too dry add a little more water and place tin foil over the top of the chicken if it starts to brown too much.
Serve with something green. Delicious.

Chilli Cheese Mini Muffins

2009-05-06T15:30:00.003+12:00

By popular request here is Alison Holst's famous chilli and cheese mini muffin recipe. This is taken from her book "20 Minute Finger Foods & Starters".

2 cups (200g) grated tasty cheese
1 1/2 cups of self raising flour
1 teaspoon of garlic salt
2 tablespoons of Thai sweet chilli sauce (I use 3 tablespoons of chilli sauce and a pinch or two of paprika for a little extra kick)
1 cup of milk
1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 210C. Put the grated cheese, flour and garlic salt into a large bowl and toss gently with your fingers to combine.
In a smaller bowl beat the chilli sauce, milk and egg together until thoroughly combined. Pour the liquids into the dry ingredients and fold together, mixing no more than necessary to just wet the dry ingredients.
Brush 24 mini muffin pans with melted butter and then using two teaspoons fill the muffin pans. Place in the middle of the oven and bake for about 12-14 minutes until the muffins are golden brown and spring back when pressed.
Leave the muffins to stand for 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

Osso Bucco

2009-03-22T17:15:00.004+13:00

The dish Ossobuco alla Milanese or "Osso Bucco" comes from Milan, Italy and is traditionally made with braised veal shanks and dry white wine. This version uses the sliced venison shin/shank that we got from the "Taupiri Deli and Ice Cream" shop a couple of weeks ago and substitutes red wine for white. The gremolata is sprinkled on top at the end, as in the picture. The recipe will serve four or five.

Osso Bucco

10 slices of venison shin/shank about 3cm thick
1/2 a cup of plain flour
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 1/2 onions, chopped
4-5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
3-4 sticks of celery, diced (makes about 1 1/2 cups)
3 carrots, diced (makes about 1 1/2 cups)
1 tin of Delmaine whole roma tomatoes
2 cups of liquid beef stock
1 1/4 cups of red wine (we used Pinot Noir but any red wine that you like to drink would be fine)
12 Kalamata olives
1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
1 teaspoon of dried thyme
1 fresh red chilli, finely chopped

Gremolata

2 teaspoons of lemon zest
2 teaspoons of minced garlic
2 tablespoons of fresh parsley, finely chopped

Put the flour in a large plastic bag with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add the venison pieces and coat with the mixture.
Heat a large, deep, oven proof casserole, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and brown the venison on all sides.
Remove the meat and set aside then add the remaining olive oil and fry the garlic, onions, celery and carrots. Continue cooking until lightly browned and then add the tomatoes, stock, wine, olives, herbs and chilli.
Return the meat to the casserole ensuring the meat is covered with the vegetable mixture. Cover and place in your oven at 180C, cook for around two hours. After two hours remove the lid and cook a further 30 minutes to reduced the sauce until it is thick and tasty, taste and season if necessary.
Mix the ingredients for the gremolata in a bowl, plate the Osso Bucco and then sprinkle the gremolata over the dish. Serve with scalloped potatoes or what you will.
For the true carnivores among you, don't forget to suck the marrow out of the shin bones...ewww.

Rabbit with Mushrooms and Mustard Sauce

2009-03-15T13:44:00.006+13:00

First, catch your rabbit; not as easy as we thought. Our rabbit hunting adventures took us all around town and eventually to the curiously named "Taupiri Deli and Ice Cream Shop" in Taupiri. This fantastic little shop has a huge range of wild foods and about 30 different flavours of ice cream. We picked up fresh rabbit, venison shin and half a smoked eel...yum.
This recipe comes from the April-May 2009 edition of "Dish" magazine. I have altered it slightly because the "Dish" recipe produced a dish that was too salty. We used fresh rabbit shoulders rather than a whole rabbit.
This recipe was the perfect thing to try out our shiny new toy from The Scullery, check out this bad boy.

The recipe will serve 4-5. At the end of cooking you should have something that looks a bit like this.

Rabbit with Mushrooms and Mustard Sauce

1 fresh, farmed rabbit (we used a pack of fresh rabbit shoulders, there were about 16 pieces)
Enough streaky bacon to wrap your rabbit pieces
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of butter
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon of wholegrain mustard
1 tablespoon of finely chopped rosemary
2 bay leaves
450g of small button mushrooms
1/2 a cup of Marsala
1 cup of chicken stock (use campbells reduced salt liquid stock, the powdered stock will be too salty)
Freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup of cream
2 tablespoons of flat leafed parsley, chopped
Salt

If you are using a whole rabbit break it down in to 6-8 pieces and wrap each piece with the bacon. Secure the bacon with kitchen string. You should have something resembling the picture below although if you are using a whole rabbit you will have bigger and fewer pieces.

Heat the olive oil and butter in a large pan and brown the rabbit on all sides. Remove to a plate.
Add the garlic, mustard, rosemary, bay leaves and mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms start to soften, add a little stock if the pan becomes to dry.
Increase the heat and add the Marsala and stock, add freshly ground black pepper and allow to bubble up. Add the rabbit and any resting juices back to the pan.
Cover and reduce the heat to medium low. Braise for about 25-30 minutes or until the rabbit is tender.
Remove the rabbit to a plate and cover to keep warm. Stir in the cream and boil until the sauce is reduced and syrupy. Stir in the flat leafed parsley, taste and season if required. Add the rabbit back to the pan and spoon over the sauce.

We served the rabbit with scalloped potatoes and green beans. Remove the string before serving.

Vindaloo

2009-02-14T18:12:00.006+13:00

If you're in the mood for a decent chilli hit, this recipe is for you; it's a classic Indian dish and this particular recipe is the best I have ever tasted.
Vindaloo is a dish of Portugese origin and is usually made with chillies, garlic, garam masala and vinegar. The word vindaloo comes from the word vin for vinegar and alho, the Portugese word for garlic.
The Portugese arrived in Goa, India, as merchants in the early 16th century and conquered the territory soon afterwards. They introduced Chillies into Goa and the garam masala spices were those traded in the 16th and 17th centuries.
This recipe is based on a Vindaloo recipe from Camellia Panjabi's '50 great curries if India'. It is hot.
I sourced nearly all of the ingredients from Khyber Foods and Spices at 5 X roads in Hamilton.

10 dried red Kashmiri chillies (more if you like it super hot, less if you don't)
1 teaspoon of ground cumin seeds
6 cloves
5cm cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon of garam masala
1/2 a star anise
1 teaspoon of black poppy seeds
2cm x 2cm piece of fresh ginger, minced
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon of tamarind pulp (remove the seeds)
4 teaspoons of cider vinegar
65ml of oil
3 large onions, finely chopped
1kg of rump steak, cubed into 2cm pieces
salt
1 tablespoon of grated jaggery (palm sugar)
15 curry leaves

Heat the oil in a large pot or pan and cook the onions slowly until brown, this can take 40 minutes or so.
Soak the chillies in hot water for 15 minutes to soften them. Remove from the water, deseed them and chop finely. Be very careful doing this, if you get these chillies on your hands and then rub your skin or eyes you wil not be a happy camper.
Using a large mortar and pestle or small food mixer, grind all the spices, ginger, garlic and tamarind together with the vinegar and chillies to make a rough paste (do not add the curry leaves at this stage).
When the onions are brown add the paste to the onions, fry for 3-4 minutes and then remove the onions and chilli mixture from the pan, put in a bowl and stand aside.
Add the beef pieces to the pan and brown them well before adding 800ml of water and the onion and chilli mixture back to the pan. Add salt and jaggery to taste and cook partially covered over a low heat until the beef is tender and the sauce is thick and delicious (around an hour or so). Add curry leaves and cook for a further 5 minutes then serve.
I served this with plain white rice, fresh chapatis from Khyber Foods and Spices and a youghurt and cucumber raita.

Hot and spicy chorizo salad

2008-11-08T16:31:00.003+13:00

Here's is an example of something Julia calls 'man food'. I'm not sure whether she calls it that because it's so simple or because it's so tasty so I'll assume the latter. This will serve four.

Hot and spicy chorizo salad

2-3 hot chorizo sausages (300g)
6 tomatoes, cut in half
3 capsicums, red, yellow and orange, quartered and seeds removed
3 red onions
180g of Haloumi cheese

Spray oil
Salt and pepper

Baby spinach and/or rocket leaves
Steamed new/baby potatoes
Sherry or balsamic vinegar

Heat your oven to 200C and spray a large roasting dish with oil and.
Place tomatoes and peppers in the roasting dish, spray lightly with oil and season. Cook for abour 30 minutes in the middle of the oven.
While these are cooking slice the chorizo into half centimetere slices and cut up the Haloumi into 1-2cm pieces. Peel the onions and cut into quarters (when you peel them leave the base of the onion intact so that they don't fall apart when you quarter them). Set aside.
After the tomaotes and peppers have cooked for 30 minutes remove from the oven. Turn the peppers amd make sure the tomatoes have not stuck to the oven dish. Add the cheese, sausage and onion to the oven dish and return to the oven for a further 30 minutes.
Check regularly to make sure nothing is burning or sticking to the over dish.
20 minutes before you are ready to serve bring the potatoes to the boil in a pot of salted water and cook until just done. Remove from the heat, drain and put the pot lid on and set aside.
Mix the spinach and rocket (you can use both or either) and place a decent handful of leaves on each plate.
Remove the veges cheese and sausage from the oven and place on the salad leaves with some of the potatoes.
Splash with a little vinegar and season with a little salt and freshly ground black papper. Serve hot.

Moussaka

2008-10-26T11:23:00.002+13:00

There are many different recipes for Moussaka and arguments about what is traditional and what is not could go on for hours. This recipe takes the best of two good Moussaka recipes, one more traditional the other vegetarian to come up with a dish that is really tasty and quite traditional. Serves 4-6.
Apologies for the lack of posts recently but school is nearly finished for the year and with more free time I expect to be posting at least once a week again soon.

Moussaka
500g of minced beef or lamb
2 onions, finely diced
3 sage leaves, chopped
2 bay leaves, whole
6 sprigs of fresh thyme, chopped
6 sprigs of oregano, chopped
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
Italian flat leafed parsley (about 1/4 cup), chopped
Salt and pepper
Two tins of tomatoes
1 small tin of tomato paste
1 teaspoon of chicken stock powder
3 cloves of garlic, minced
150 ml of red wine
Oil
6 medium sized potatoes
1 large eggplant

Heat a little oil in a large frying pan or pot. Add onions and cook until soft, add mince and brown well (remember, brown=flavour). Add garlic and cook for five minutes then add tinned tomatoes, tomato paste, wine salt and pepper, herbs, cinnamon and stock. Mix well and simmer for 30-40 minutes stirring occasionally. After 30-40 minutes, taste, season again if necessary and remove the bay leaves. Remove from the heat.

Peel the potatoes and slice into 1/2 cm slices, parboil, drain and cool. Parboiling just means partially cooking something in order to finish cooking it later. In this case emerse the potatoes in boiling water for five minutes (no longer than five minutes or they will completely cook and start to fall apart)

Slice the eggplant into 1 cm slices and poach in boiling water for five minutes, drain and cool. Poaching the eggplant prevents it from absorbing oil later and this helps it to keep its shape.

Custard (the bit that goes on top of the Moussaka)

Bring 3/4 of a cup of milk to simmer with one whole bay leaf. Simmer gently to infuse for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat, remove the bay leaf and set the milk aside to cool.

200ml greek yoghurt
1/3 of a cup of flour
1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder
Cooled infused milk
salt and pepper
3 eggs
1 cup of grated cheese (to sprinkle on top of the custard once you have poured it over the Moussaka)

Whisk the eggs and yoghurt together in a large bowl. Add cooled milk (so the eggs don't cook) and dry ingredients (not the cheese), mix together until smooth.

Moussaka assembly
Spray your dish with oil
Place the potatoes in a layer on the bottom of the dish followed by the eggplant and the meat sauce. Cover with the custard, sprinkle grated cheese on top and cook in the oven at 180C for 40-50 minutes. Cover with foil if it starts to burn on top. Let the dish rest for 10-15 minutes before serving.

Pot Roasted Cider Chicken

2008-09-14T11:18:00.003+12:00

Any recipe that includes the line 'put the cooked bacon inside the chicken' is ok with me.
This recipe is taken from the September 2008 edition of 'Delicious' magazine, a particularly good food magazine from Australia. It is possibly the best roast chicken dish I have ever tasted.
We made some minor changes to the original recipe so I'll give you the recipe as is and note the changes. This will serve four.

This is what it should look like before it goes in the oven

Pot Roasted Cider Chicken
1.8kg free range chicken (it doesn't really matter how big it is as long as it's a decent free range corn fed bird)
1 1/3 cup of dry cider (we used Scrumpy)
2 large onions, sliced (we used one very large onion and replaced one onion with a large leak)
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
150ml cream
4 baby cos lettuces, leaves seperated
4 rashers of streaky bacon (this is not in the original recipe)

Preheat the oven to 200C and heat up a large casserole or very large saucepan on an oven element. Add a tablespoon of oil to the casserole and cook the bacon. Remove the bacon and put the chicken in the pot searing it on all sides in the oil and bacon fat. Put the cooked bacon inside the chicken.
Pour over the cider and add the onion, the sliced leak and the thyme. Season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper, cover and roast in the oven for 45 minutes.
Take the lid off the chicken and cook for a further 45 mniutes until golden on top and the juices run clear when you prick the thickest part of the thigh with a skewer. Transfer the chicken to a plate and remove the bacon. Let the chicken rest, loosely covered with foil, for five minutes while you finish the sauce. Chop the bacon.
Place the casserole on an oven element on low heat, add the cream and stir for 3-4 minutes until heated through. Add bacon (again, there is no bacon in the original recipe) and lettuce, cover and cook gently for a further 3-4 minutes until the lettuce is tender. Taste and season if necessary.

Stewart's Salty Sauteed Spuds
Taken from 'beach bach boat barbecue' a fantastic summer cook book that we use all the time. Recipes by Penny Oliver. We love this book so much we have given it to friends all around the world.

1.5kg floury potatoes, unpeeled
Olive oil for roasting
Salt

Thoroughly wash the potatoes. Cut them in half lengthways and place, cut side down, on absorbent kithcen paper to thoroughly dry. Slash the cut surface of the potatoes in a criss cross pattern. Select a roasting pan just big enough to hold the potatoes and pour in enough oil to generously cover the bottom. Salt the cut surface of the potatoes and place them , cut-side down, in the oilve oil. Roast the potatoes in an oven preheated to 210C for 1 1/4 hours or until they are tender and crisp, and easily lift from the pan. Do not distub the potatoes while cooking.

No ordinary meat sandwich...

2008-07-26T18:16:00.002+12:00

As well as being the best way to use up left over roast meat this meal is also the perfect food to eat while watching an Australia vs New Zealand Bledisloe Cup test match during one of the worst storms in the last decade. It's a slightly different take on that good old kiwi favourite, the roast meat sandwich.

You will need:
Left over roast meat (beef, lamb or pork it doesn't really matter. We used a mixture of left over roast lamb and pork)
Onions
Rich dark gravy
Tiger bread sticks
Sauerkraut (1 tin is plenty for four or five of these sandwiches)
Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 180C.
Slice your meat thinly and trim off any fat. If the pieces are large cut into bite size pieces. Slice the onion thinly and cook in a little oil until soft and starting to brown. Make your gravy, use a little less water than the packet instructions to produce a thicker gravy (two packets of gravy for four to five people). To the gravy add a little salt and pepper and 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce.
Put the meat, onions and gravy together in an oven proof dish, cover and put in the oven for around half an hour until well heated.
Split your bread down the middle, hot dog bun style and heat in the oven until warm and just starting to crisp up. Heat the sauerkraut in a covered saucepan (if it gets a little dry add a very small amount of water, you don't want it wet).
To serve put sauerkraut in the bread sticks and then add meat, onion and gravy mixture. Don't add too much gravy as your bread sticks will become too soggy and fall apart. Crack open a Steinlager, turn on the rugby and enjoy.

Crockpot Chicken Casserole with Cornmeal Dumplings

2008-07-12T15:35:00.003+12:00

I last ate dumplings when I was six years old. In England in the mid 70s many schools provided lunch for their students, this was both a blessing and a curse. I can still recall the meal, the dumplings floating in a sea of thick bland gravy, grey blobs of gluey dough that stuck to your throat and settled like stones in your stomach.
I was therefore a little unenthusiastic when Julia said that we were having dumplings for dinner. Of course I needn't have worried, the meal was delicious and the light and tasty cornmeal dumplings were a revelation, yes thank you I will have seconds.

You will need a crockpot with a capacity of at least 5 litres for this recipe. Serves six.

Chicken Casserole

1/2 kg of potatoes, scrubbed
1 kg of skinless, boneless chicken breast or thighs cut into 2cm pieces.
2 carrots, quartered and sliced
1 onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon of dried thyme
2 bay leaves
2 x 420g can of cream of chicken soup
1 cup of chicken stock

2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of flour
Salt and pepper

Spray the inside of the crockpot with a little oil (rice bran oil can be bought in spray cans at your supermarket). Cut the potatoes into 1-2cm cubes and place in your crockpot with all the ingredients except the butter, flour and the salt and pepper. Stir to combine the ingredients and turn your crockpot on to low. Cover and cook for 7-8 hours.
About an hour before you want to serve turn the cooker on to high. To thicken the casserole combine the butter and flour to make a beurre manier and stir into the casserole. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Cook for another hour.

Cornmeal Dumplings

3/4 of a cup of flour
1/2 a cup of cornmeal
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 of a teaspoon of salt
25g of butter, melted
1 large egg
1/4 of a cup of milk

Italian flat leafed parsely

About 30 minutes before serving, prepare the dumplings by combining the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In another bowl stir together the melted butter, egg and milk. Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and stir just enough to mix.

Drop dessertspoonsful of the mixture over the surface of the casserole, you should have enough mixture for about 8-10 dumplings. Put the lid back on and finish cooking the casserole (another 30 minutes as you put the dumplings in 30 minutes into the final hour of cooking).
Serve in bowls with a little chopped Italian flat leafed parsley for colour.
You can serve these dumplings with any casserole or stew and cook them in the same way.

Sausage Casserole

2008-07-02T14:13:00.005+12:00

Yes finally a new post!
Here's a great comfort food dish for cold wet winter days. Try to get hold of some decent sausages for this one. This dish is based on an Allyson Gofton recipe and will serve four.

Sausage Casserole

8 sausages
1/2 a tablespoon of oil
4 rashers of bacon, diced
2 onions, peeled and sliced
1 teaspoon of minced garlic
1 tablespoon of flour
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
1 cup of beef stock
1/2 a cup of red wine
1 tablespoon of fresh thyme (or 1/2 a teaspoon of dried thyme)
1 tablespoon of fresh parsley (or 1/2 a teaspoon of dried parsley)
250 grams of mushrooms, thinly sliced
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil to a medium heat in a frying pan and brown the sausages slowly, turning regularly to prevent the skins from bursting. Take the sausages out of the pan and set aside.
Add the bacon, onions and garlic and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
Sprinkle in the flour and add the tomato paste, cook until frothy, stirring continuously.
Gradually stir in the beef stock and red wine, stirring continuously until the sauce thickens. Return the sausages to the pan, add the thyme and parsley, cover and simmer gently for 25-30 minutes. Add the mushrooms after 15 minutes and continue cooking. Taste and season with salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper.

Julia's Pumpkin, Kumara and Potato Mash

Half a butternut pumpkin
2 medium potatoes
1 large kumara
A cup of hot milk or cream (we used Anchor long life lite cream)
Salt and pepper

Peel and dice the vegetables. Place in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to the boil and cook until soft. Drain and return the vegetables to the pot. Break the vegetables up with a potato masher or pass through a potato ricer and then gradually add the hot milk while blending with your whiz stick. When you have the desired consistency, season and serve.

Date and Almond Loaf

2008-04-20T17:35:00.004+12:00

Free range eggs are fairly expensive so when we broke one making poached eggs for breakfast this loaf was the answer. It is adapted slightly from a recipe in Alison Holst's 'Good Food' book. Alison's recipe contains walnuts instead of almonds and has no banana.

75g of butter, cubed
1 cup of dates, pitted and chopped
3/4 of a cup of brown sugar
The zest of an orange or lemon, chopped
1 cup of boiling water
1 egg
2 1/4 cups of plain flour
3 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 a teaspoon of salt
1 70g packet of almonds, chopped
1 banana, mashed

Put the cubed butter into a mixing bowl with the dates, brown sugar and orange zest. Pour over the boiling water and leave to stand for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until the butter melts. Cool to room temperature before adding the other ingredients. While the date mixture is standing prepare the tin and the other ingredients. Beat the egg in a small bowl until frothy. Measure the remaining ingredients into a bowl and combine well. Tip the beaten egg and combined dry ingredients on top of the cooled date mixture and fold in until just combined and damp (do not over mix).
Line the bottom of a loaf tin with baking paper and tip the mixture into the tin. Bake at 180C for about an hour until a wooden skewer inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Yum.

Preserved Lemons and Limes

2008-04-20T17:13:00.004+12:00

You may have noticed the link to the St Andrews Limes company website in the post below, they have some great products that you can order online, try the hot lime pickle it's a cracker. Preserved lemons are an integral part of Moroccan cooking (as are tagines) and if you want to have a go at preserving your own lemons and/or limes this is how you do it.

Lemons
Limes
Peppercorns
Rock salt
Bay leaves
Jars and lids

Sterilise your jars and lids in boiling water and dry.
Scrub your lemons and limes and then slice them into quarters without completely seperating the quarters. Stuff rock salt into the cuts (about a tablespoon per lemon/lime) and then place a tablespoon of rock salt in the bottom of each jar. Add three peppercorns and a bay leaf then place 1 lemon or lime in the jar. Add another tablespoon of salt, three peppercorns and a bay leaf and then another lemon/lime. Finish off with another tablespoon of rock salt, three peppercorns and a bayleaf and then squeeze the juice of half a lemon or a whole lime over the contents of the jar and seal. We have used small jars so that when we come to cook with the preserved fruit we can open the jar and use all the contents for a recipe rather than resealing. The fruit can be used after one month and left unopened will last for many months.

Lemon Chicken Tagine

2008-04-20T11:00:00.003+12:00

I know these tagine recipes don't look like much on the plate but they are incredibly tasty and very easy to prepare. Again you don't have to cook this in a tagine, it could be done in a crock pot or just a normal casserole dish. This will serve 3-4.

2 tablespoons of rice bran oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
6 chicken thighs, bone in
1 teaspoon of ground turmeric
1 teaspoon of ground coriander
2 tablespoons of fresh coriander, chopped
2 cups of vegetable stock
1 teaspoon of chicken stock powder
1 preserved lemon or 2 preserved limes, flesh discarded and peel cut into thin strips
Black pepper

Heat a little oil in the tagine base and cook the onion and garlic until soft and turning translucent. Remove the onion and garlic from the tagine and set aside.
Add a little more oil and cook the chicken thighs until browned.
Return the onion and garlic to the tagine and add the rest of the ingredients. Make sure to wash the preserved fruit to get rid of any excess salt and discard the flesh before cutting the peel into strips and adding to the tagine. Do not add salt to this dish while cooking.
Cover and cook very slowly for 2-2 1/2 hours. You may need to remove the tagine lid towards the end of cooking and turn up the heat to reduce the liquid. Serve with couscous and green beans.

Moroccan lamb with fennel and dates

2008-04-06T09:48:00.003+12:00

I can't write this blog today without sending out our best wishes to the firefighters hurt in yesterdays blaze in Hamilton and to their families. Our deepest sympathies go out to the the Lovell family for their tragic loss and our thoughts are with the families of those others that were injured.

This new toy arrived by courier on Friday courtesy of Julia's in-laws (thanks mum and dad). We have been looking at the Le Creuset tagine for some time but as we have had no experience of using tagines we had relegated them to the interesting but non essential list of cooking utensils. After having cooked just one meal in it I can safely say that it is a piece of equipment we will use often. After two hours slow cooking in the tagine the lamb almost melts in your mouth and while I know that there won't be many of you that own a tagine this recipe can be made in a normal casserole. You need to start cooking this about three hours before you want to eat it. Serves four.

Lamb
2 tablespoons of oil (we are using rice bran oil for almost everything these days. It has a very high smoke point and adds almost no flavour)
1 red onion, sliced thinly
1 fennel bulb, trimmed and thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
800g of lamb, cut into thick chunks (we bought lamb leg steaks)
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
2 teaspoons of ground cumin
2 teaspoons of ground corriander
1/2 a teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1/2 a teaspoon of salt
1 cup of chopped dates
2 cups of water
Fresh coriander to garnish

Heat a tablespoon of oil in the tagine base over medium heat. Add the onion, fennel and garlic and cook until almost starting to turn brown. Remove from the tagine and set aside.
Add the rest of the oil and fry the lamb pieces until they are evenly browned.
Add all the spices and the salt to the tagine and stir into the lamb. Cook for a further minute or two.
Add the onion, fennel, garlic, dates and 1 cup of water. Stir well.
Cover and cook very slowly for 2-2 1/2 hours. Stir and add a little water occasionally as the dish thickens.

Couscous
We use Tipiak brand plain couscous and just follow the instructions on the packet. Add 1/2 a teaspoon of chicken stock powder to the water.

Pics from the weekend.

2008-03-25T15:21:00.007+13:00

No food today just a couple of pictures from our Easter weekend trip to see Julia's parents in Coromandel. The pigeons love the cabbage tree fruit.

The New Zealand native pigeon/kereru

Whangapoua beach is just across the Coromandel peninsula from Coromandel township which is about two hours drive north from Hamilton. Julia's parents used to live there in the house/bach that her father built about 35 years ago, she has been going there since she was born. I first went there when I was 15 and fell in love with the place. Julia's parents sold their house a few years ago and moved to Coromandel township but we go to the beach for a swim at least once every time we visit. We spent many of our summers as teenagers on this beach, it holds great memories.

This is my first attempt at a panoramic edit using photoshop.

Click the link below.

Whangapoua

Fresh Snapper En Papillote

2008-03-16T14:15:00.003+13:00

Greetings fellow food lovers. Again, it has been some time since my last post. I offer you my humble apologies and promise to do better.
It has been a very busy time for me having started at Wintec (Waikato Institute of Technology) mid February and working part time in the evenings five days a week. The Journalism Diploma course is lots of fun, very interesting and challenging (grrrr Teeline shorthand classes). My fellow class mates are a great bunch of people and I am looking forward to spending a very entertaining year with them.
The inspiration to blog has been somewhat lacking of late but I now have a new and powerful motivator and I pledge to post at least once a week from now on (yes you've heard it before but I really really mean it this time, honest). We have been advised by our tutor that when applying for jobs prospective journalists are expected to have been blogging. So there it is, I no longer have any excuse, I MUST BLOG.

And now for the food. The following recipe will serve two, with a very tiny bit left over for the cat if you so desire (or, if you're like me, eat it all and the cat gets nothing).

En Papillote means 'in paper' and baking parchment is traditionally used, however, tin foil will do just fine.

300-400g of fresh snapper
6 black olives
2 large cloves of garlic sliced thickly
2 teaspoons of capers
1 tin of Delmaine tomatoes with garlic and olive oil
2 large chargrilled and peeled capsicum (buy them in jars from the supermarket)
The juice of half a lemon
A tablespoon of fresh Italian flat leafed parsley, roughly chopped
Salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper

Mix your ingredients in a bowl. Place your fish on a large sheet of tin foil and pour the sauce mixture over the top. Fold the foil over to seal the fish in a parcel and bake at 180C for about 25-30 minutes. Serve.

Paella

2008-02-03T17:33:00.000+13:00

As some of you are already aware, we will soon be hosting a dinner party with a Spanish theme to the food. We have been busy trying out various dishes and over the next couple of weeks I will post the more successful ones to give you a taste of what is to come. Today we start with a quintessentially Spanish dish, Paella. Julia trawled through many books and came up with this which is really a mixture of two or three different Paella recipes. The following will serve four.

Paella
1 traditional steel Paella pan (34cm)
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, chopped
250g Marinara mix (buy it frozen in bags from the supermarket)
300g of gurnard fillets
150ml of white wine
1 cup of Paella rice (Bomba rice)
1 litre of fish or chicken stock (or a mixture of both)
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
2 large tomatoes, deseeded and skinned
1 green capsicum, finely sliced
2 teaspoons of smoked paprika
A pinch of saffron
Chopped herbs, parsley, thyme etc
2 bay leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Crush the saffron in a little of the stock and then add to the rest of the stock and heat. Cook the onion and garlic in the olive oil in the paella pan then add the marinara mix and cook a further 2 minutes. Add the rice and stir before adding the wine, paprika, tomato paste, tomatoes, capsicum and the bay leaves. Stir and cook for a further 2 minutes.
Add the hot stock in small amounts (we used about 3/4 of a litre but this may vary) and continue to cook until the rice is al dente, this should take 8-12 minutes.
Add the fish ensuring that there is still plenty of liquid, cover and cook until the fish is done. Add herbs, season and serve.

Mushroom Tarts with Duck Breast and Cherry Relish

2008-01-20T12:50:00.000+13:00

We've been looking at this recipe for about a month but with cherries at around $25 a kilogram it was a little on the expensive side. We found 1kg boxes of cherries at the Asian vege market at Five Crossroads for $9.95 and used half for the cherry relish and half for pickled cherries.
This recipe is taken from the Dec 07-Jan 08 edition of 'Dish' magazine and is attributed to Al Brown of Logan Brown Restaurant in Wellington. The cherry relish is made exactly as described in the magazine, the mushroom tarts are based on the recipe in the magazine but are not made in exactly the same way. We made the cherry relish about five days before we needed it. The dish is incredibly simple and quick to make and the results are delicious.

Cherry Relish
500g of cherries, halved and pips removed
1/3 of a cup of sugar
1/4 of a cup of sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
1 1/2 teaspoons of freshly grated ginger
1/4 of a cup of finely chopped shallots
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Combine all the ingredients in a heavy-based saucepan. Simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, for about one hour, until the mixture is almost jam like in consistency. Season, cool and refrigerate in a sealed container or jar.

Mushroom Tarts
4 large Portobello mushrooms, thickly sliced
Butter
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Puff pastry sheets
Egg wash (one egg beaten with a teaspoon of cold water)

Fry the mushrooms in the butter till just done, season with salt and pepper then leave to cool. Put baking paper on a baking tray and lay the pastry out on the paper. For the tarts (the recipe above makes two) I used two bowls with very thin rims, one about 15cm across and the other about 10cm across. Use the 15cm bowl to cut pastry circles and then use the smaller bowl to impress a thin circle into the pastry (don't cut right through the pastry). Place your cooled mushrooms within the border of the smaller circle and then brush your egg wash aroung the outside. Place in a preheated oven at 200C and cook for around 15 minutes until golden brown.

Duck
Use 1 large duck breast for two people
With a sharp knife score the skin on each duck breast in a criss cross pattern and season each breast very well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cook skin side down in a medium-hot pan for around 8 minutes or until the skin is golden and starting to turn brown. Pour the excess duck fat from the pan, turn the breasts and cook for another 4-5 minutes. Remove the duck from the pan, cover with foil and a tea towel and leave to rest for 10-15 minutes. Slice and serve with the mushroom tarts, reheated cherry relish and green beans.

Summer Chicken

2008-01-08T17:24:00.000+13:00

Here's a nice little experimental chicken recipe courtesy of Julia. Thank you Jules it was delicious.

8-10 chicken drum sticks
1 tablespoon of oil
1 large red onion
12 kalamata olives
6 large bay leaves
1 teaspoon of green peppercorns
1 large lemon
1 1/2 cups of reduced salt chicken stock
6-10 sprigs of fresh thyme
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and squashed a bit

Pre heat oven to 160C.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan and brown the chicken until lightly golden. At the same time put the stock into a small saucepan and heat gently until hot.
Cut the lemon and the onion into eighths and mix the lemon, onion, garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves, thyme and olives together in a bowl.
Put the chicken legs into a medium sized roasting dish and add the mixture in the bowl, distribute the contents of the bowl evenly throughout the dish. Pour over the hot stock and place uncovered in the middle of the oven for approximately 2 hours.
Check after 40 minutes and turn chicken, check after a further 40 minutes and baste.
The sauce will be salty but the chicken will not be, do not reduce the sauce too much or it will be too salty too eat. Serve with whatever.

Focaccia

2008-01-05T18:20:00.000+13:00

Time to try something a little different with our new toy. This focaccia recipe was provided by Julia's mother, Shona. Thank you.

Focaccia
300 ml of tepid water
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of milk powder
2 teaspoons of Surebake yeast
450g of white flour

Topping
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of fresh chopped rosemary
1 teaspoon of dried thyme
1 teaspoon of rock salt
Black olives, chopped

Place the ingredients in your breadmaker in the order above. Set the breadmaker to the 'dough' setting and press start.
Prepare an oven tray with a sheet of baking paper and when the dough is ready turn out on to your tray.
Mix the olive oil, herbs and salt in a bowl and rub on to the dough. place pieces of sliced olive on to the dough and then bake in a 200C oven for 20-25 minutes.

New Toy and Lunch

2008-01-02T17:13:00.000+13:00

Just a quick entry to show off our new toy. We have been talking about making more of our own bread for some time and Julia's parents very kindly bought us a breadmaker for Christmas. We originally chose a Tefal OW3001, do not purchase this model. Sorry Tefal but although your toasters are fantastic you have really missed the mark with this breadmaker. The breadmaker is far too light and unstable and in fact about 20 minutes into the first loaf the machine 'walked' off the kitchen bench and crashed to the floor, not impressed. We took the machine back to Heathcote Appliances and instead purchased a Breville 'Ultimate Baker's Oven'. The Breville is $250 as opposed to the Tefal which is $170 but well worth the extra cash. The Breville is a much heavier machine, more solidly constructed and has a better recipe book. There is no measuring spoon included with the Breville and the book uses the Australian 20ml tablespoon measure which is especially annoying given that Breville knows the breadmaker it is being sold in New Zealand and could easily have included a plastic 20ml measure, grrrr.

The machine

The first loaf. SUCCESS!

Lunch Platter
No recipe for this just a list of what's on the plate for a little inspiration perhaps?

Marinated artichoke hearts
Ham
Gherkins
Fig jam
Blue cheese
Fresh apricots
Aged cheddar
Black olive tapenade
Olive bruschetta
Marinated red capsicum
Smoked salmon
Salmon paté
Avocado
Hummus

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T11:53:00.000+13:00

It has been a very long time between blog entries, so long in fact that it's a whole new year! I apologise to all my many thousands of readers, your suffering is over. I hope you all had great Christmas breaks and are ready to keep all those new year's resolutions (at least for a couple of weeks).
This is New Year's Eve dinner. The weather has been absolutely scorchio for the past week and today is another beauty. It's definitely bbq weather so I whipped out the Weber and cooked two of the biggest steaks I have ever seen along with some fantastic salads (courtesy of Julia).

Potato salad is just potato salad but this is a new take on the dressing and is a huge improvement over just dumping half a cup of mayonaise in to a bowl of spuds and serving.

Potato Salad
1kg of small new potatoes, boiled until just cooked and then drained and left to cool
2/3 of a cup of unsweetened Greek yoghurt
1/3 of a cup of lite mayonaise (we used ETA 98% fat free)
Chopped parsley
6 finely chopped garlic chives (available at most asian vegetable shops)
The juice of 1 lemon
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Mix all the ingredients, coat the potatoes thickly with the dressing and serve cold.

Green Salad
1/2 an iceberg lettuce, broken up
3-4 inches of cucumber, sliced thickly
18 snow peas (or sugar snaps) trimmed and cut in half
1 or 2 avocados
The juice of 1 lemon
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Prepare the vegetables and squeeze lemon juice over the avocado. Carefully mix all the salad vegetables together in a large bowl, season with salt and pepper and dress with lemon juice.

We had a lovely Christms Eve dinnner at a friend's house and this is our take on something similar that we were served that night.

Kate's Salad
1 red onion , finely sliced thickly
The juice of 1 lemon
20 kalamata olives, stoned
2-3 large ripe tomatoes
1/2 a large red or yellow capsicum, sliced
100g of mild feta (try to find a cow's milk feta for this salad)
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
A handful of flat leafed Italian parsley, chopped

Keep all of the ingredients seperate until just before serving. Finely slice the onion and place in a bowl with the lemon juice, leave for at least 30 minutes.
To assemble combine onion, capsicum, tomatoes and olives in a bowl. Season with salt & pepper, add parsley and the lemon juice that the onions were marinating in. Mix ingredients gently, serve on to plates and then sprinkle feta on top or combine the feta with the other ingredients and serve immediately.

Find the biggest T-bone steak you can and char grill it on your Weber, serve with lot's of ice cold Steinlager or maybe with my L.A. friend Brian's favourite beer, Corona.

Fruit Brioche

2007-10-21T12:14:00.000+13:00

Any recipe that begins with 'Day one: the brioche base' is going to be fairly involved. This is a lot of time and effort and is quite technical so not for beginners. This is real baking and the success of this recipe largely depends on your eye for dough texture, consistency etc. Don't be put off though it is great fun to make and the results (if it all goes right) are simply amazing, I ate four straight from the oven! This recipe is taken from the book 'Baker' the best of international baking from Australian and New Zealand professionals put together by Dean Brettschneider and Lauraine Jacobs and published by Tandem Press.

Brioche Base
250g of strong flour
5g of salt
25g of granulated sugar
5g of dried active yeast
25ml of water
160g (3 1/2) eggs, cold from the fridge
125g softened butter

Poached Fruits
500ml water
250g sugar
Fruit (we used bottled plums from last years harvest and a can of cherry pie filling)
1 cinnamon stick

Cinnamon Sugar
100g granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon
2-3 drops of olive oil

Day one: the brioche base
1. Sieve the flour onto your work surface. Make a well and add the salt, sugar and yeast
2. Slowly add the water and 3/4 of the egg, knead the dough well for 6-7 minutes or until the dough is almost fully developed (it is important to develop the gluten structure before all the egg is added). It will look like basic bread dough at this stage.
3. Continue to add the balance of the egg slowly while the dough is still being kneaded. Add sufficient egg to achieve a very soft, elastic, smooth and shiny dough.
4. While kneading, slowly add the softened butter in small amounts. Knead in all the butter to achieve a smooth, elastic, silky dough. Do not over mix as this will cause overheating and the dough will become oily and greasy.
5. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled container covered with plastic wrap and give a bulk fermentation time of 1 hour in a warm draft free place. The dough should have doubled in size.
6. Gently knock back the dough to expel all the gases, reactivate the yeast and strengthen the gluten structure. Finally push the dough out to a thickness of 5cm, place into a shallow container and cover with plastic wrap.
7. Place in the refrgerator overnight (12 hours). This makes the dough easier to work with and mould.

Day two: poached fruit
If you prefer you can use fresh fruit without poaching.
1. Place water and sugar into a saucepan and gently bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer.
2. Place your selected fruit into the simmering sugar syrup and poach until tender, don't let it get too soft.
3. Remove the fruit from the syrup and cool. Cover and set aside.
4. Place the sugar, cinnamon and oil into a bowl.
5. Using your fingers, rub the oil into the cinnamon and sugar to ensure an even distribution and prevent separation. Set aside until required.

Assembly
1. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and scale off into 10 dough pieces at about 60g each. Mould each piece into a round ball, place onto a floured tray and return to the fridge for 5 minutes.
2. On a lightly floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll out each ball into a circle or disc about 10cm in diameter.
3. Place the brioche discs onto 2 baking trays lined with baking paper, 5 per tray. Lightly sprinkle each disc with the cinnamon sugar.
4. Cover with plastic to prevent the dough from skinning and then put in a warm place for around 40 minutes to allow the dough to proof. Place a selection of fruit on top, pressing down slightly to prevent the fruit from coming off during baking.
5. Place each tray into a preheated oven at 180C and bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly golden brown.
6. Allow to cool and serve warm by themselves or with cream or ice cream.

Venison and Mango Salad

2007-10-21T11:49:00.000+13:00

Simple, delicious and low fat. We slightly over cooked the venison, the meat should be pink if done correctly. Serves 2 as a main course.

Marinade
400 grams of venison cut into thick slices
The juice of a lime
1 tablespoon of honey
5 tablespoons of olive oil
1 clove of garlic, crushed
Pepper

Dressing
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons of raspberry vinegar
4 tablespoons of olive oil
4 tablespoons of pumpkin seed oil (obviously this will be almost impossible to find so just substitute more olive oil like we did)
The juice of a large orange
Salt & pepper

Salad
1 mango, finely sliced or a tin of mango slices
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
2 large handfuls of baby spinach, rocket, salad greens etc
Salt & pepper
t tablespoons of toasted pinenuts
2 tablespoons of pumpkin seeds

Combine the marinade ingredients together, add venison, coat the meat and set aside.
Combine the dressing ingredients. Briefly cook the venison in a frying pan over a high heat until cooked but still pink. Heat the mangos in a pan and add the balsamic vinegar and salt & pepper, reduce slightly.
Place the salad greens on a plate, top with the venison and mango slices and drizzle over the dressing. Sprinkle with the pinenuts and pumkin seeds.

Pan Roasted Scallops with Crispy Potatoes, Asparagus and Anchovy Butter

2007-10-21T11:12:00.000+13:00

It's one of my favourite 'foody' times of year, scallop season. They are fat, plentiful and relatively cheap at the moment and we go through dozens of them. This recipe is taken from the September edition of Listener magazine and serves 4.

20 asparagus spears
4 tablespoons of unsalted butter or olive oil
12 gourmet potatoes, cooked and cut into 5mm thick slices
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
24-30 scallops depending on the size
The juice of a lemon
3 tablespoons of anchovy butter
2 teaspoons of finely chopped chives

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and plunge in the asparagus. Cook until just tender-a maximum of 3 minutes. Remove the asparagus from the water, drain on a wet tea towel and the roll it up to keep the asparagus warm.
Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in large frying pan and cook the potatoes until crisp. Season lightly with salt and pepper, drain on absorbent kitchen towel and keep warm.
Wipe the frying pan clean and return it to the heat. Put the scallops in a bowl and mix with the remaining melted butter until they are well coated. Carefully add the scallops to the hot pan and cook until just golden. Season with salt and a squeeze of lemon juice then remove from the pan and lower the heat. Add the anchovy butter to the pan and let it melt slowly while stirring through the pan juices. Place a small pile of potatoes in the center of each plate and lay five asparagus spears on top. Divide the scallops between the plates and pour anchovy butter over each stack. Sprinkle with chives (we omitted this part of the recipe, I'm not a huge fan of chive garnish). Yum.

Anchovy Butter
300g of unsalted butter, softened
5 anchovies
The juice of a lemon
Freshly ground black pepper

Puree the ingredients without the pepper until smooth. Season with pepper, place the butter on a piece of greaseproof paper and roll into a log shape. Refrigerate until ready to use. Will keep for many months in the freezer.

Three Fruit Marmalade

2007-09-25T17:22:00.000+12:00

There is a ton of citrus fruit around at the moment and despite the fact that this recipe is mainly sugar (as with most marmalade recipes), it is still a good way to use up any excess fruit you may have. This recipe will make around 10 cups of marmalade and is the best home made marmalade I have eaten. The recipe is taken from 'Jams and Preserves' published by Murdoch Books.

1 grapefruit
2 oranges
2 lemons
3 kg sugar, warmed

Scrub the fruit under warm, running water with a soft bristled brush to remove the waxy coating. Quarter the grapefruit and halve the oranges and lemons. Slice the fruit thinly and place in a non-metallic bowl. Retain the pips and place them on a square of muslin and tie securely with string. Add the muslin bag to the bowl along with 10 cups of water, cover and leave overnight.

Put two small plates in the freezer. Put the fruit and water in a large pan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered for about an hour until the fruit is tender.

Add the sugar and stir over a low heat, without boiling for five minutes or until all the sugar has dissolved then boil rapidly for 50-60 minutes, stirring often. Remove any scum during cooking with a skimmer or slotted spoon. When the marmalade falls from a tilted wooden spoon in thick sheets without dripping, start testing for setting point.

Remove from the heat, place a little marmalade onto one of the cold plates and place in the freezer for 30 seconds. When setting point is reached a skin will form on the surface and the marmalade will wrinkle when pushed with your finger. Discard the muslin bag and remove and scum from the surface of the marmalade.

Hot wash your jars and place in the oven at around 100C until dry. Place the jar lids in boiling water while the jars are drying. When the maramalade is ready spoon immediately into the clean, hot jars and seal. Turn upside down for 2 minutes, then turn right way up and leave to cool. Can be stored in a cool, dark place for up to 12 months. Refrigerate after opening and use within 6 weeks.

Onion Soup and Duck with Cherries

2007-09-09T11:16:00.000+12:00

Todays French theme is in honour of the opening day of the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France. Unfortunately for Les Tricolours their opening match against Los Pumas didn't go according to plan with the French team succumbing to the Argentinians 12-17. The All Blacks first up game against the Italians went a little more as the form guide predicted with the New Zealanders destroying a surprisingly inept Azzurri 76-14.
What can I say about these next two dishes? Tres délicieux! The duck recipe is from Gourmet Traveller magazine's August 2006 edition.

Onion Soup

6 large red onions, peeled and thinly sliced
4 tablespoons of olive oil
1/4 of a teaspoon of sugar
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups of beef stock
4 cups of chicken stock
1/2 a cup of dry white wine (any half decent sauvignon blanc is fine)
1 bay leaf
1/4 of a teaspoon of dried thyme
Salt & pepper
Toasted bread
1 1/2 cups of grated Gruyere with a little Parmesan cheese

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and then saute the onions over a medium-high heat until well cooked and lightly browned, this will take around 30 minutes. Add the sugar around 10 minutes into the process to help caramelise the onions.
Add garlic and saute for a minute then add the stock, bay leaf and thyme. Cover and simmer for around 30 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper and remove the bay leaf.
Put the cheese on your toasted bread and grill until golden. Serve.

Duck with Cherries

1 tablespoon of butter
1.8 kg duck, quartered (don't worry you can buy prepackaged duck quarters, a good place for this in Hamilton is the Foodtown at Chartwell Square)
125 ml of red wine
500 grams of cherries, pitted (we used a 625g jar of pitted cherries in juice)
1 1/2 tablespoons of cornflour
Salt & pepper

Melt the butter in a large saucepan or casserole over medium-high heat. Add the duck and cook for around 5 minutes on each side until well browned. Add the wine and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cover and simmer over low heat for around an hour. Carefully drain the excess fat from the pan and add the cherries, cover and cook for another 30 minutes.
Remove the cherries and duck from the pan, cover and place in a warm oven while you finish the sauce. Combine the cornflour with 2 tablespoons of cherry juice to make a smooth paste, bring the juices in the pan to the boil and add your cornflour/cherry juice mixture. Whisk the sauce over a medium heat adding more cherry juice until you have a slightly thickened and tasty sauce. Serve with Puy lentils.

Puy Lentils

125g of Puy lentils (about 1/4 of a box)
2 cups of chicken stock
1 bay leaf
Black pepper
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 sticks of celery, diced
1 teaspoon of butter

Melt the butter in a saucepan and sweat the carrots and celery for around 5 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a gentle boil, reduce the heat and simmer for around 25 minutes (the lentils should absorb all the liquid but still retain their shape and firmness when done).

Aglio Olio with Chicken

2007-09-08T19:00:00.000+12:00

Literally garlic and oil this dish is inspired by the excellent Aglio Olio served up by Scott's on Ward in Hamilton. It is sold as a takeaway meal kit that you put together yourself from their pre measured ingredients. I don't know what their secret recipe is but this comes pretty close. Along with the spiced meatball dish below this is definitely on my all time top ten favourite meals and if you're looking for a quick and simple dish it doesn't come much quicker and simpler than this. The recipe below will serve two.

A very large handful of flat leafed Italian parsley
5 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
A heaped teaspoon of chilli flakes (more if you like the heat)
3 tablespoons of good extra virgin olive oil
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast
Spaghetti for two

Heat a little oil in a pan and start to cook your chicken breast on a fairly high heat. Cook until well browned and then turn. Don't poke at the chicken or play with it just put it in the pan and turn once. When both sides are well browned remove the breast from the pan and slice lengthways through the breast (imagine you have a slice of lemon and you are making 2 thinner slices, this is how to slice the chicken) and then return to the pan to brown the newly exposed sides. When the chicken is done remove from the pan and rest (not you, the chicken!) while you cook your spaghetti. While the spaghetti is cooking whiz the garlic, parsley, oil and chilli flakes together in a food mixer or with a whiz stick (we use a Black and Decker mini food mixer for this, very handy). Slice the chicken. Drain the spaghetti and then return to the pan, add the herb/garlic/oil/chilli mixture and the sliced chicken and mix so that the spaghetti and chicken are well coated. Serve as it is or with Parmesan.

Squid and Scallop Salad

2007-09-03T18:50:00.000+12:00

We almost always call into the Coromandel Smoking Co. on the way back from Coromandel. They have a great range of smoked and fresh seafood and we picked up some of their excellent lime and cracked pepper Trevally and some fresh scallops. This is a quick and very tasty little salad, preparation time is around twenty minutes.

Fresh squid, cut in to rings
Scallops
Romano cheese, shaved
Lettuce
Radicchio
Lemons
Lemon oil
Self raising flour
Salt & fresh, coarsely ground black pepper

Heat a large frying pan and add a tablespoon of lemon oil. Flour the scallops and squid rings and fry in batches (to avoid steaming) adding lemon zest and plenty of the ground black pepper. The squid and scallops will only take 2-3 minutes to cook, remove when they are just starting to turn golden brown. Keep the cooked seafood in the oven to keep warm while you finish off the remainder
Arrange lettuce and Radicchio on plates and sprinkle on the Romano. Add the squid and scallops, squeeze lemon juice over and serve.

Cat Snacks

2007-09-03T18:01:00.000+12:00

We travelled to Coromandel in the weekend to watch the Waikato V Canterbury Ranfurly Shield defence (let us never speak of it again) and have a few beers/wines with Julia's parents. I have been getting to grips with my new camera having recently upgraded from my trusty little Sony W1 (3.1 MP 3X optical zoom) to the Panasonic Lumix FZ8 (7 MP 12X optical zoom), a huge improvement and a fantastic mid priced camera if you are in the market. The food pictures will not be improved greatly but having more zoom has been great for most other things including the 'wildlife' shots below taken from the in-laws back door. The bowls contain sugar water which the Tui and Tauhou love, I think the cat is after something else entirely.

Tui (Prosthermadera novaeseelandiae)

Tauhou or wax-eyes (Zosterops lateralis)

No Isis, I don't think they are coming back

Spiced Meatballs and Israeli Couscous Salad

2007-08-26T09:15:00.000+12:00

If you asked me to make a list of my top ten favourite meals this dish would definitely be on there somewhere. The flavours in this meal are so deliciously different from the food that we normally eat in New Zealand, I am almost magically transported back to the Middle East. A little bonus with this recipe is that I finally get to crack open one of my jars of pickled chillis that I made in January. This recipe is taken straight from Issue 121 March 2007 of 'Cuisine' magazine. The Cuisine recipe calls for the egg plant and meatballs to be fried in oil whereas we grilled the meatballs and oven roasted the eggplant for a tastier and healthier finished dish. You may prefer to try this recipe in summer when eggplants are not $8 each! Serves four.

Meatballs
250g of lamb mince
2-3 teaspoons of harissa
3 tablespoons of coarsley chopped fresh coriander leaves
2 tablespoons of coarsley chopped fresh Italian flat leafed parsley
A pinch of ground cinnamon
A pinch of ground cardamom
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons of fresh breadcrumbs

Mix all the ingredients except for one teaspoon of the harissa. Fry a little piece of the mixture and taste, adjust by adding a little salt, pepper or harissa if needed, the flavour should be quite strong with a bit of a kick to it. Roll the mince into approximately 16-20 meatballs and refrigerate until needed (you can do this a day ahead of time to give the flavours a chance to develop but it is not necessary). Grill the meatballs until golden brown, turning once.

Israeli Couscous Salad
1 large eggplant cut into 3 cm pieces
1 cup of Israeli couscous, boiled in salted water until al dente, drained and cooled
1/4 of a cup of extra virgin olive oil (I think this is a little too much oil, we used 2 tablespoons at most)
4 tablespoons of lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups of baby spinach leaves
1/2 a cup each of coarsley chopped mint, coriander and flat leafed parsley.
1/2 a cup of labneh (we used plain unsweetened Greek yoghurt)
Pickled chillis (optional)

Toss the pieces of eggplant in a little oil and oven roast at 180C for around 20 minutes, they should be turning golden brown but still soft when you take them out.
Toss together the couscous, eggplant, olive oil, lemon juice, salt & pepper, baby spinach leaves and most of the herbs (keep a little of the herbs aside to garnish the dish once you have plated up).
Fold the meatballs through the salad, sprinkle on the remaining herbs and serve with a decent dollop of labneh (yoghurt). Place a couple of pickled chillis on the side of the plate for a little extra ooomph. Heaven.

Easiest Chocolate Cake Ever

2007-08-25T18:25:00.000+12:00

It doesn't look like much in the photograph thanks to my less than professional icing job but this is one of the nicest chocolate cakes I have tasted. Preparation time is only about ten minutes and the recipe is pretty much foolproof. This recipe is taken from Alison Holst's 'Good Food'.

1 1/2 cups of plain flour
1/2 a cup of cocoa
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 cup of sugar
125g of butter, melted
1 cup of plain unsweetened Greek yoghurt
2 eggs (at room temperature, not from the fridge)
3/4 of a cup of black coffee, cooled (2 teaspoons of coffee)

Cake
Sieve the flour, cocoa and baking soda into a bowl, add the sugar and mix well. Mix the yoghurt, melted butter, cooled coffee and eggs together in a second bowl and mix well.
Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and combine well, do not beat.
Pour the mixture into a greased and lined 20cm square cake tin with sides at least 6cm high. Cook at 180C for around 50-55 minutes until the centre springs back when pressed lightly and a wooden skewer comes out clean.
Cool and ice.

Icing
1 1/2 cups of icing sugar
1/4 of a cup of cocoa
25g of melted butter
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
Boiling water

Sieve the icing sugar and cocoa into a bowl and then mix in the melted butter and vanilla essence. If necessary add a little boiling water and mix in until the icing is the correct consistency.

Creamy Cauliflower And Potato Soup With Blue Cheese Toasts

2007-08-20T20:15:00.000+12:00

Ok back to the food now. This is a lovely winter soup and a great way to use up the blue cheese in the fridge that was two weeks past its use by date (hey it's already mouldy, what's a little more?!). This recipe will serve 6-8 and takes about two hours.

1 cauliflower head, chopped up
1/2 a celery, finely chopped
1 large onion, finely diced
4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
50g of butter
8 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of cream
1 cup of milk
Salt and pepper
2 teaspoons of dried sage
1 cup of fresh parsley, chopped

Bread
Blue Cheese

Melt the butter in a large pot (think about the quantities above, the pot has to be big enough to take all the ingredients). Add onions and celery and cook gently till the onions are transparent.
Add cauliflower and stock and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer until the cauliflower breaks up after about 30-40 minutes.
Add diced potatoes and top up the stock if required. Cook a further 20 minutes and then add salt, pepper, sage, milk and cream. Cook a further 20 minutes remembering to stir often to prevent sticking and burning. Let the soup cool down slightly and then whizz with a stick blender. Taste and adjust the seasoning to suit then add the fresh parsley and serve.

Thinly slice your bread, we used olive sour dough. Lightly toast and top with slices of creamy blue cheese. Grill till golden brown and serve with the soup. The word of the day de jour is scrumptious.

Arcade Machine

2007-08-19T09:20:00.000+12:00

Ok so you can't eat it but you can sure as hell have a lot of fun with it. As some of you are aware I have been working on this for some time and it's finally 'finished'. In reality they are never really finished, I could keep tweaking and adding things for months/years but it now looks and plays like a real arcade machine.
The cabinet is built from scratch and based on the Mortal Kombat series of arcade machines. The PC inside runs a programme called MAME (multiple arcade machine emulator) and a programme called Mamewah which is a frontend. It plays almost all the arcade games that you remember and a lot that you don't: Pacman, Joust, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter etc and it's endless hours of fun.
If you want to find out more about how to do this yourself check out this website BYOAC. You will find all the info and links etc that you need and answers to any questions you may/will have. If you have any questions you would like to ask me just post a comment or email me (the email address is in the blog title).
Thanks for checking in, more food soon!

Herb Crusted Beef Eye Fillet With Green Peppercorn Sauce

2007-08-04T12:55:00.000+12:00

If you're not a vegetarian then you regularly make other animals die so that you can have dinner. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with this and personally I am perfectly happy to do this but I need to know that the majority of the meat I eat has been cared for reasonably well and not spent a miserable life couped up in a concrete bunker being fed antibiotics and pieces of its dead relatives.
If you're going to eat animals then try to buy free range and organic, it's becoming quite easy to do so and as availabilty increases and prices drop it is only going to get easier. We are very fortunate that our local butcher (Fifth Ave, Hamilton) is widely recognised as one of the best places in Hamilton to source good organic and free range meat. The recipe below will serve at least four with meat leftover for sandwiches.

700g piece of free range, organic beef eye fillet
3 tablespoons of freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon of salt
1/2 a cup of chopped fresh parsley
1 bunch of chives, chopped
1/2 a cup of mixed fresh herbs: thyme, basil, oregano etc, chopped.
Oil (we use rice bran oil for its high smoke point and low flavour)
300 ml of reduced fat cream
1 tablespoon of green peppercorns
Salt/pepper

Mix salt, pepper and herbs on a large chopping board.
Oil the meat all over and then roll the meat in the herb/pepper mixture making sure that is is well coated. Preheat your oven to 180C and cook the beef for around 20 minutes depending on the thickness of the meat. You are aiming to cook the beef rare and stand it for around 10 mins before slicing and serving. By the time the beef has stood and been served it will be medium-rare.
While the beef is cooking pour the cream in to a saucepan, heat gently and simmer while stirring. After 10 minutes add the peppercorns and salt and pepper to taste. Continue to cook gently while the sauce thickens and the colour changes from white to a light yellow (about 20-25 minutes).
Serve with green beans and chips. Yum.

Chips
Par boil large potatoes for 5 minutes, cool and cut. Place in a large metal oven tray and spray with oil (rice bran oil again). Cook at 180C for around 30 minutes turning half way through. The chips should be above the beef in the oven.

Turkish Lamb Pie

2007-08-04T12:11:00.000+12:00

Yes I know, it's some kind of minor miracle, you have checked the blog and incredibly there is a new post! Thank you to those who regularly check in and apologies that updates are few and far between, I will do better. No I'm sure I've never promised that before, what are you trying to say?

Here is another great winter meal in the form of the second best method of presenting food, the pie, the best method of course being the sandwich.
We have had the crockpot out a lot more this winter and it's been something of a revelation. It has been really great getting home from work with almost all the dinner preparation already done. This pie recipe is taken from Robyn Martin's 'Best recipes for crockpots and slow cookers'. This pie will serve 4-6 people.

Turkish Lamb Pie
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
500g piece of lamb forequarter, cut in to 2cm cubes
1/4 of a cup of flour
1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons of ground cumin
1 teaspoon of ground allspice
1 teaspoon of dried marjoram
1/2 a cup of beef stock
1/2 a cup of dried apricots
1/2 of a cup of currants
Salt
Flaky puff pastry
1 egg yolk

Place the flour, pepper, cumin and allspice in a plastic bag. Add the lamb and shake to coat the meat. Place in your crock pot (not the plastic bag!) with the marjoram, onion, garlic, stock, apricots and currants. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, stirring half way through the cooking if possible.
Taste and season with salt and pepper as necessary. If you are making this in to a pie (it can be eaten just as a casserole) remove from the crock pot and leave until just warm.
Place the pie filling in to your pie dish and make a lid with the pastry. Decorate the pie with cut out shapes (we used farm animal cut outs) mix the egg yolk and a tablespoon of water and brush the pastry with this egg wash. Bake at 200C for 20-30 mins until the pastry is cooked and golden.
Serve with steamed vegetables.

Beef and Guinness Stew

2007-07-03T18:01:00.000+12:00

Here is my take on a what has become a bit of a classic. This will easily serve six. The real beauty of this recipe is that most liquor outlets only sell Guinness in four packs so I get to drink the other three cans while I'm cooking. That's nice. You will need a large casserole like the one in the picture below so that you can brown meat and cook the casserole on the oven top in the same dish. You can get this particular Le Creuset for around $420 or do what we did and get it free with your Fly Buys! Bonus!

Guinness Stew
1.5 kg of beef shin cut in to 2-3 cm chunks (you will need to buy around 1.8kg of shin on the bone to get 1.5kg of meat)
1 440ml can of Guinness
500ml of beef stock
2 large onions, roughly chopped
2 large carrots, sliced into large pieces
2 parsnips, cut in half down the middle
2 sticks of celery, sliced quite finely
5 medium potatoes, quartered
3 tablespoons of tomato paste
A can of chopped tomatoes
6 cloves of garlic, skin on
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon each of dried thyme, oregano and parsley
Oil
Butter
Flour

Marinate your beef in the Guinness overnight in the fridge.
Take the beef from the Guinness and pat the beef dry with paper towels, save the Guinness.
Put a little oil in your casserole, brown the beef well in three separate lots and put aside.
Add the celery, garlic, onion and carrots to the pot and cook for 2-3 minutes while stirring then put the lid on and cook a further 5-6 minutes till the onion is starting to soften.
Add the meat, herbs, Guinness, beef stock, tomato paste, tinned tomatoes, salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper (by plenty I mean at least a tablespoon). Mix everything together and cook over a low heat so that the stew is just simmering for 1 1/2 hours stirring about every 30 minutes.
Add the potatoes and parsnips after 1 1/2 hours and cook for a further 30 mins making sure that the potatoes are immersed in the liquid from the stew. Taste at this stage and add further salt and pepper if necessary.
After the potatoes have been in for 30 minutes remove the lid and cook for a further 30 minutes making sure that you do not over cook the potatoes as they will disintegrate (this is bad).
Thicken the stew by making a paste (beurre manier) using a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of flour. When the flour and butter are well mixed add half a cup of the stew liquid and whisk until combined. Add this mixture to the stew, mix in well and cook for 5-10 minutes until the stew is thick. Season again if necessary remembering that the potatoes will tend to thin out your flavours and may make the stew a little bland if not seasoned well. If you do find that the flavour isn't strong enough for you just reduce the stock volume to 250ml and cook the potatoes and parsnips separately next time, personally I like them in there.
Serve with something green.

Provençal Style Leg of Lamb with Potato and Courgette Gratin

2007-07-01T13:35:00.000+12:00

You may have seen this recipe before in this blog but it has been a while and it is such a great winter dish that I think it is worth repeating. The lamb recipe is taken from Cuisine magazine issue 117, with a few minor changes. The Cuisine recipe does not include stuffing the lamb. In the magazine the accompanying gratin recipe is for a courgette gratin. We made a courgette and potato gratin loosely based on the Cuisine recipe. The recipes below will serve 4-6.

Lamb
1 boned leg of lamb
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons of olive oil
6 sundried tomatoes, soaked in boiling water to rehydrate and then chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
1 bulb of garlic, cloves separated but not peeled
2 large tomatoes, skinned, seeded and quartered
Several sprigs of fresh thyme
300ml of dry white wine (we used Montana Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc)
1/2 a cup of baby niçoise olives (we just used black olives)
2-3 anchovies, chopped (we used 6)

Stuffing
1 tablespoon each of chopped parsley and chives
1 tin of artichoke hearts, bases removed
35g of pine nuts
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon of oil

Gratin
600g of small courgettes
1.3 kg of potatoes
60g of butter plus some extra to dot the surface
1 large onion finely chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons of flour
350ml of milk
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3-4 tablespoons of finely chopped flat leafed parsley
1/4 of a cup each of grated gruyere and parmesan cheese
1/2 a cup of fresh breadcrumbs
1/4 of a cup of white wine

Lamb
Preheat the oven to 180C. Whiz the stuffing ingredients together in a food processor. Stuff the lamb and tie with kitchen twine. Rub the lamb leg with olive oil (we used a lemon infused olive oil) and season very generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper (lots of pepper). Heat the olive oil in a large heavy casserole on a hot oven element and brown the lamb well all over.
Add the chopped onion and continue to cook, stirring until golden. Add the garlic, tomatoes, thyme and half the wine and bring to a gentle simmer.
Place the casserole in the oven and cook for two hours, taking out occasionally to turn the lamb and ensure that the liquid has not evaporated. Add more wine during cooking if necessary. Add the olives and anchovies after one hour.
When ready take the lamb out of the casserole, carve and serve. Pour some of the sauce over the meat, we placed extra sauce on the side in ramekins.

Gratin
Peel the potatoes and top and tail the courgettes. Slice the potatoes and courgettes lengthwise.
Parboil the potato slices briefly and then leave them to cool. Arrange the courgette and potato slices in neat overlapping rows in an large ovenproof dish. Melt the butter in a frying pan, add the chopped onion and cook until soft and golden. Add the flour and continue to cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the milk and stir until the milk comes to the boil. Add the wine, turn the heat down and simmer over a low heat until the sauce thickens. Season the sauce, add the parsley and pour the sauce over the potatoes and courgettes. Mix the cheese with the breadcrumbs and sprinkle over the surface adding a few dots of butter as you go.
Bake for 35-40 minutes at 180C until golden brown. Serve with the lamb.

Prawn, Tomato and Herb Pasta

2007-06-04T19:34:00.000+12:00

We used spaghetti for this one but you can of course make this dish with any pasta you have handy. The tomatoes and chilli in this recipe are taken from our garden, the very last of the summer vegetables before I ripped them out and planted spinach, new parsley, thyme and sage and various salad greens.

This recipe will serve four.

1 onion, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 cups of prawns
1-2 red chillis, finely diced (1 chilli will make this warm, 2 will make it hot)
1 cup of fresh basil leaves, torn
2/3 of a cup of fresh Italian flat leafed parsley, chopped
The juice and zest of 2 lemons

Salt
Ground black pepper
2 large tomatoes, chopped
1/2 a tin of chopped tomatoes in juice
Cooking oil (we used rice bran oil spray for it's low flavour and high smoke point)

Spaghetti or other pasta (penne would be another good choice)

In a pan cook the onion and celery until soft, add crushed garlic and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
Add fresh tomatoes, tinned tomatoes and lemon zest and cook for 10 minutes.
Add lemon juice, pepper, prawns and chilli. Taste and season with salt and more pepper if required.

Cook pasta

Drain pasta, add herbs to sauce, mix and serve.
No Parmesan is added as most Italians don't serve dairy products-including cheese-with chilli.

Cook Me Some Ribs

2007-04-28T21:43:00.000+12:00

There are hundreds of different ways to cook pork spare ribs but for a kiwi this is the BEST RIB RECIPE EVER. Texans like to rub them down with 63 secret herbs and spices and barbeque them slowly for three weeks. If however you're from the land of the long white cloud you will know that we do things a little more simply. Follow this recipe and you will be in spare rib heaven. This is taken from the book 'Beach Bach Boat Barbeque'. This will serve four.

2 kg of pork spare ribs
6 tablespoons of soy sauce
6 tablespoons of tomato sauce
1/4 of a cup of lemon juice
3 tablespoons of soft brown sugar
3 tablespoons of liquid honey
3 tablespoons of medium sherry
3 tablesppons of hoisin sauce
3 cloves of garlic, squished to bits
2 tablespoons of olive oil
8 large baking potatoes

Mix all the ingredients (not the pork ribs you twit) in a bowl. Place the ribs in some kind of container and pour the marinade over them. Cover and place in your fridge for at least 6 hours.
Place the ribs and marinade in a large flat roasting dish and bake for 2 1/2 hours at 150C basting about every 30 minutes. Put your potatoes in the oven at the same time.
Serve with coleslaw.

Asian Pork Dumplings

2007-04-22T17:18:00.000+12:00

As the days get shorter and colder it's time for traditional winter meals to come out again. This dish is a slightly different take on the hearty and warming winter soup. Don't let the number of ingredients put you off attempting this dish, it is easy to prepare and delicious. The following is based on a recipe taken from the New Zealand magazine 'Taste' and will serve 4.

Dumplings
450g of pork mince
1/2 a cup of finely chopped spring onions
2 tablespoons of oyster sauce
2 teaspoons of minced ginger
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon of cornflour
1/2 a teaspoon of salt
1/2 a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
20-30 dumpling wrappers (found at your local Asian supermarket)

Prepare the dumpling filling by thoroughly mixing all of the above ingredients in a bowl (except the dumpling wrappers of course).
Place the dumpling wrappers on a flat surface and place a teaspoon of the filling in the centre of each (don't over fill). Moisten the edge of one half of each wrapper and fold over to enclose the filling. Press down firmly right along the edge to seal.
Poach the dumplings in batches in boiling water until they are cooked through, this takes around 4-5 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Broth
1 1/2 litres of chicken stock (buy it in liquid form not powder)
1 clove of garlic, squashed (not minced)
6 slices of ginger
A handful of dried shitake mushrooms, sliced and rehydrated in a cup of hot water
250g of portobello mushrooms
2 heads of baby bok choy halved lengthwise
1 head of broccoli cut in to florettes

To prepare the broth pour the stock in to a large pan and add garlic, ginger and the shitake mushrooms and the water they soaked in. Bring to the boil and then add the fresh portobello mushrooms and the bok choy and broccoli. Simmer for 3-4 minutes until the vegetables are just tender but not soft.
Put the dumplings in to your serving bowls and ladle over the broth adding mushrooms, bok choy and broccoli. Seve with Asian style soup spoons and chopsticks. 好吃

Fig Salad

2007-04-12T18:54:00.000+12:00

The figs are fat and juicy on the trees and as the season lasts only about three weeks you really have to try and make the most of them. Julia is a huge fan and has been eating them whenever she can; figs, honey and Greek yoghurt have been seen regularly at breakfast. This salad is very easy to prepare and with the goats cheese is a real taste of the Mediterranean at your table (I am aware that there is very little soy sauce used in Mediterranean cooking, call it fusion if you must...shudder). The following will serve three.

9 ripe figs
1 chicken breast
1 Lebanese cucumber
3 tomatoes
lettuce
1/2 an avacado
Goats cheese
Runny honey
Soy sauce
Balsamic vinegar

Mix equal parts of the honey and soy sauce so that you have about 1/4 cup of marinade. Marinate your chicken breast for 30 minutes and then cook in a frying pan until nicely browned. Rest the chicken and then slice and serve with the salad.
Cut figs open and place slices of goats cheese on top. Cook in your oven at 160C for 20 minutes.
Place lettuce leaves on plates with cucumber, avocado and tomato. Dress the salad with a sprinkle of good balsamic vinegar or extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice. Finish the salad with the cooked figs and sliced chicken.

Venison Medallions with Mushroom Tart

2007-03-18T08:57:00.000+12:00

The following tart recipe will make eight small tarts. We used eight 10cm loose bottomed fluted tart tins. You can instead use one 30cm tart/flan tin.

1 packet of flaky pastry
3 eggs
1 tub of ricotta
3 tablespoons of flat leafed parsley, chopped
6-8 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
5 portobello mushrooms, sliced
1 cup of dried Shitake mushrooms (available at most Asian supermarkets, we got ours from New Save Asian Supermarket next to Foodtown in central Hamilton)
1/3 of a cup of dried Chanterelles (from 'La Cave' French shop in Hillcrest, Hamilton)
1/3 of a cup of self raising flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2 tablespoons of olive oil spread (we used Olivio light)
Salt & pepper

Re hydrate the dried mushrooms in boiling water. You are aiming to finish up with around 5 cups of mushrooms all together. Set aside to cool.
Heat the olive oil spread in a frying pan and cook the sliced fresh mushrooms until well cooked and starting to brown. Cool the mushrooms.
Put ricotta, eggs and herbs in to a large bowl. Season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Mix well and then add the mushrooms. Mix the mushrooms in gently, you don't want to turn your tart mixture grey.
Pre heat your oven to 200C. Oil your tart tins, line with pastry and bake blind for 10 mins. Remove from the oven and stand while you finish the filling. Turn oven down to 180C.
Mix in the flour and baking powder to your tart mix and fill your tarts. Cook until set. Small tarts take around 20 minutes a large tart could take up to 40 minutes.

While the tarts are cooking prepare the venison and sauce (the sauce below makes enough to serve 3 people).

2 venison medallions per person
1/2 a cup of red wine (we used Penfold's 'Rawson's Retreat' Cabernet Sauvignon 2006)
1/2 a cup of liquid beef stock
2 bay leaves
A sprig of fresh flat leafed parsley
Butter
Flour

Sear your venison in a hot pan, the same pan the mushrooms were cooked in (don't wash the pan after cooking the mushrooms).
When the medallions are nicely browned but still quite rare place them on a baking tray and cover with foil. Place in the oven with the tarts. Deglaze the pan with the red wine and then add stock and herbs. Reduce the sauce a little over a med-high heat, the sauce should be rapidly simmering. after around 10 mins remove the herbs and thicken your sauce with a buerre manier. The buerre manier is simply 2 teaspoons of flour and a teaspoon of butter made in to a paste and then added to the sauce. Cook for a further 2-3 mins until taste and texture are as you want them. Strain the sauce to remove any bits of mushroom or venison.
Serve with the tarts and steamed asparagus. Enjoy.

Chillis

2007-03-15T17:59:00.000+13:00

These are starting to look pretty good and will end up pickled at some stage.

Quickie Fish Pie

2007-03-15T17:46:00.000+13:00

The 'quickie' part of this is the preparation time, everything goes in to one bowl and is mixed together. The actual cooking time is around one hour. Serves 4-6.

300g of hot smoked salmon (the 'hot' refers to the smoking process, the salmon will be cold when you use it)
1 small tin of crab meat
1 medium onion
1 tub of ricotta cheese
1/3 of a cup of cream
4 eggs
1/2 a cup of flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
3 courgettes, finely diced
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon of dried dill
Salt & pepper
Filo pastry

Preheat your oven to 180C
Dice the onion and place in a large mixing bowl.
Skin and flake the salmon, drain the crab meat and add salmon and crab to your bowl.
Add the rest of the ingredients mixing as you go and add the flour and baking powder last. Mix thoroughly and add plenty of salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Line an oil sprayed baking/pie dish with 6 sheets of filo pastry. Pour in your mixture and scrunch up the filo at the edges. Cook on a low shelf in your oven at 180C for approximately 60 minutes. This is great reheated the next day as well.

Plummy Goodness

2007-03-15T17:20:00.000+13:00

We got a bumper crop from our plum tree this year and the plums were turned in to plum sauce, plum jam and bottled plums with absolutely no cursing or swearing at all.

Before

After

Second Thoughts

2007-03-09T13:58:00.000+13:00

On reflection I have decided to keep blogging. I will change what I have been doing slightly and only blog a meal if I consider it interesting or if I think others may enjoy preparing it. Instead of trying to post every meal I will post once or twice a week.

Stay tuned

Christmas Dinner Take 2

2006-12-27T15:21:00.000+13:00

I hope you all had a great Christmas and we wish you a very happy new year.
My apologies for the lack of updates recently but as you know it's a pretty crazy time of year and I haven't had a lot of free time for bloggage lately.
This is our second Christmas dinner for 2006 this time on Christmas eve and just for Julia and I. Some of the courses are similar to the previous dinner so you will find the soup and blini recipes in the last post. It is a lot of food but keep in mind that the dinner was eaten over the course of around three hours. If you want to know anything about any of the dishes feel free to send me an email or leave a comment as this is just a quick catch up. I hope to return to more regular posting in the new year.

The Table

Turkey on the Webber
Cooked on my new Webber charcoal bbq. I have never tried this before but the turkey cooked perfectly and the slight smokey flavour was lovely.

Soup

Blinis
Smoked salmon and caviar

Christmas Margaritas

Pâté de frois gras
Served with mini toasts

Crayfish

The Bird

Christmas Dinner

2006-12-17T12:21:00.000+13:00

Yes I know it's way too early and in reality this meal was eaten over a week ago (you can thank my terrible inattention to this blog over the last couple of weeks for that) but circumstances dictated that we had christmas dinner a little early this year.

To make things simple this year we cooked a deboned and rolled ham for the first time instead of a full leg. It is definately something we will do again. This ham glaze recipe is taken straight from the Cuisine magazine website and is one we have been using every christmas for about 5 or 6 years now.

Baked Ham with Palm Sugar & Kaffir Lime Glaze

1 whole leg of ham, cooked on the bone (or not in this case)
1 cup of palm sugar, grated
2 tablespoons ginger juice (grate the ginger and squeeze out the juice)
2 tablespoons crushed garlic
1 kaffir lime leaf, finely shredded
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 mild red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 teaspoon five spice powder
Whole star anise

Cut a scallop pattern around the shank end of the ham skin. Working from there, remove the ham’s skin, using your fingers for ease. Score diamonds into the fat, but do not cut into the meat. Put the ham in a large roasting dish. Combine the rest of the ingredients, except for the star anise, and spoon over the ham. Arrange the star anise on top.Bake for 2 hours in an oven preheated to 150°C. Every 15 minutes, scoop up the glaze and baste the ham with it. At the end of this time, the ham will be beautifully golden brown and warmed right through.
Remember not to store a ham for long in plastic – it likes to breathe. The best way to keep it is to wrap it loosely with waxed paper – this protects the glaze – then to store it, in a dish large enough to contain it, in a muslin ham bag (these are sold in kitchen stores), or wrapped loosely in clean muslin.
The main course was just ham, new potatoes and peas. It was a nice light christmas meal which didn't put anyone into a coma for 5 hours afterwards, always a bonus.

You can play around with this recipe a little I used about double the amount of ginger and lime juice and used a large hot red chilli and left out the kaffir lime leaf.

Ajo Bianca de Malaga

This is also a borrowed recipe and comes from Ray McVinnie's 'Eat' book.

2 cloves of garlic
225g of finely ground almonds
150g of fresh white breadcrumbs
100ml of non-peppery extra virgin olive oil
About 3 tablespoons of sherry vinegar
1 litre of iced water
Flaky sea salt to taste
300g of seedless white grapes, halved

Put the garlic, almonds, breadcrumbs and olive oil into a food processor and pureé to a smooth paste. Add the vinegar and water and process until frothy. Taste and season with salt. Pat attention to the sweet and sour flavour and add a little more vinegar if necessary.
Serve each portion of soup with a small handful of grapes in the bowl.

Just a note re this recipe, make sure you select the light variety of sherry vinegar and our feelings were this would be better with just 2 tablespoons of vinegar rather than the 3 in the recipe.

Blinis

This will make 30-40 blinis

7g sachet of dried yeast
A pinch of sugar
1 cup of warm milk
3/4 of a cup of buckwheat flour
1/2 a cup of plain flour
2 eggs separated
20g of butter
1/3 of a cup of oil
150g of creme freche
Lemon juice
Salt & pepper
Fresh chives, flat leafed parsley and thyme, finely chopped

Place the yeast and sugar in a bowl and grdually stir in the warm milk. Sift the flours into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the egg yolks and warm milk mixture and whisk until combined and smooth. Cover and stand in a warm place for 45 minutes.
Melt the butter, stir into the dough mix and then season. Place the egg whites in a clean dry bowl and beat until soft white peaks form. Fold one third of the egg whites into the batter until just mixed. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites until just combined.
Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Drop 1 heaped teaspoon of batter into the pan for each blini. Cook for 1 minute until bubbles form on the surface, turn and cook a further 30 seconds. Place the cooked blinis on kitchen roll and continue until finished. Cool the blinis completely before dressing.
Mix the creme fraiche with a little lemon juice and the chopped herbs, spoon on to the blinis and add smoked slamon and caviar or pancetta. Leftover blinis can be frozen and served again.

Scallop Risotto

2006-12-17T11:57:00.000+13:00

You could probably serve 3 or 4 with this recipe but with fresh scallops at just $6 a dozen at the moment we ate it all between the two of us!

1 cup of arborio rice
2 dozen scallops
1 litre of good fish stock
1 onion, chopped
1 cup of white wine
Fresh baby spinach leaves
1 cup of freshly grated parmesan
Fresh flat leafed parsley, chopped
Salt & pepper
1 lemon
1 lime
Oil

Warm the stock and wine in a pan.
In a large pot cook the onion in a little oil until soft and then add the rice. Cook for a further 2-3 minutes and then start to slowly add the stock/wine mixture half a cup at a time so that the rice absorbs the added fluid before adding more. Cook until the rice is nearly done but not completely soft. Once you have the right consistency add your parmesan and parsley and cook a further 5 mins (if the risotto is a little too dry add a little white wine at this stage).
Sear the scallops in a little oil until coloured and then squeeze the juice of half a lime and half a lemon over them in the pan.
Serve the risotto in bowls on a bed of raw baby spinach leaves with the scallops on top. Add parmesan and enjoy.

Spaghetti Carbonara

2006-12-17T10:54:00.000+13:00

Classic and simple carbonara is the quintessential Italian dish. The following will serve 3-4.

Spaghetti

1 cup of 00 flour (normal high grade white flour will do)
3 eggs
1/2 a teaspoon of salt

Tip the mixed flour and salt on to a flat surface and form a well in the middle. Break the eggs into the flour well and begin to mix in with a fork. Once the eggs and flour are roughly combined use your hands to knead the mixture into a dough. Continue kneading the pasta dough for 10 mins and then wrap in plastic wrap and set aside for 20-30 mins.
Once rested use your pasta machine to make the spaghetti.

Carbonara Sauce

300g of streaky bacon (or if you can find it pancetta) cut into pieces
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 large brown field mushrooms, sliced
2 large cloves of garlic, whole
1 tablespoon of clarified butter
Salt & pepper
1 cup of finely grated parmesan

Cook the bacon and the garlic in the clarified butter until the bacon is browned. Squish the garlic cloves a little to increase the flavour (not too much you need to remove and discard them). Discard the garlic and set the bacon aside. Cook the mushrooms in the same pan until just cooked and set aside.
Cook the spaghetti in a large pot of salted water, usually around 8-10 minutes. When al dente drain and then return to the pasta pot but off the heat. Mix in the beaten egg, the parmesan and the bacon. Mix until the egg is cooked (around a minute or so). Serve in warm bowls with more grated parmesan, the mushrooms and freshly ground black pepper.

Birthday Tools

2006-12-06T17:54:00.000+13:00

A microplane has been on my shopping list for a long time but I just hadn't got around to buying one. It was my birthday on the 3rd of December and look what I got, not one but three! Of course I had to try them out immediately and the difference it made to parmesan was incredible. Instead of a dense heavy mass of grated cheese I had a bowl full of feather like ribbons, a fluffy cloud of cheese. The taste was amazing due to the increased surface area of the grated cheese. The three microplanes have different guages for cheese, nutmeg, ginger, vegetables etc. They aren't cheap but are a fantastic addition to your kitchen tool range.

Easy Chicken

2006-12-06T17:42:00.000+13:00

I debated posting this as it's hardly a recipe however for a no effort meal it is just too nice not to write up.

1 chicken, thawed
Lettuce
Cherry tomatoes
Bread
Mayonaise
Salt & pepper
2 lemons
Half a handful of fresh thyme
10 leaves of fresh sage

Preheat your oven to 180C. Cut the lemons in half and stuff the chicken with 2 of the lemon halves and the herbs. Squeeze the other lemon over the chicken and grind over salt and black pepper. Roast the chicken on a grill in a metal baking dish for approximately 1 1/2 to 2 hours depending on it's size. If it starts to brown to quickly place tin foil over the top of the chicken.
When the chicken is ready remove it from the oven and leave it to rest for 10 mins while you heat your bread. Make a simple salad of lettuce and cherry tomatoes and serve with the bread and chicken. Have salt, pepper & mayonaise ready.

Garlic press

2006-11-30T19:10:00.000+13:00

I was looking through some old bloggage tonight when I came across this. It is still the best garlic press I have ever used so I'm posting it for those that may have started reading this blog recently and not trawled through the old posts. It is from tupperware, it is expensive and it has a lifetime guarantee. Buy one.

Cauliflower Soup

2006-11-30T18:40:00.000+13:00

There is something really magic about growing your own vegetables and turning them into something like this delicious cauliflower soup. It's the kind of thing that makes people go hippy and start talking about 'going off the grid' and 'getting back to nature'. Not me though, I like my dinosaur drinking car and my sauvignon blanc and by the time the ice caps melt and we're deep in the poop I'm hoping to be long gone. I feel pretty sorry for the polar bears though, they are pretty damn cool, they would totally eat if you if they met you. The recipe below will easily serve six but it freezes well.

Cauliflower from the estate

The finished product

2 medium sized heads of cauliflower, thick stalks removed.
3 medium sized potatoes, peeled and cut up
2 litres of chicken stock (substitute vegetable stock for a vegetarian option but you may need a little more salt)
2 medium sized onions, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons of clarified butter
1 cup of milk
1/2 a cup of water
Salt & ground white pepper

In a very large pot cook the onion and garlic in the clarified butter over a medium heat until soft. Add the water and boil for around 5 mins.
Add the milk, chopped potatoes and stock and boil for 5 mins before adding the chopped cauliflower. Boil until very soft and then remove from the heat and stand for 20-30 minutes until cool enough to whiz with your 'whizstick'.
Puree the soup with your 'whizstick' until completely smooth then taste and add white pepper and salt (only add the salt if really necessary the stock will bring a lot of salt to the dish). Serve with toast and butter and a little grated Parmesan cheese.

Fish Cakes

2006-11-30T18:10:00.000+13:00

This is a great way to use up leftover mashed potatoes or fish, in this case it was leftover prawns I wanted to do something with. I have to say I've never eaten a really good fish cake but I'm pleased to say these were an exception (of course they were I cooked them myself, I thankyou). This recipe will make 6 large fish cakes.

350g of fresh snapper
20 cooked prawns
2 medium sized potatoes
1 cup of bread crumbs
1/2 a cup of fresh flat leafed parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese
2 garlic cloves, squished through your garlic press
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Oil

Boil the potatoes until soft and set them aside until ready to mash them.
Mince the prawns in a food mixer with a metal blade and set aside.
Cook the snapper in unsalted boiling water for a few minutes until it is cooked through and easily comes apart.
Mash the potatoes and place in a large bowl with the prawn meat, flaked fish and the rest of the ingredients. Taste the mix and adjust seasoning.
Form into cakes, I used a round pastry cutter as a form for the cakes and then fry in a little oil over medium heat. Try not to play with the cakes too much or they will fall apart. They take about 20 mins to cook through (10 mins each side).
Serve with a salad of chopped cucumber, capsicum, tomato, red onion and strawberries dressed with a simple olive oil and red wine vinaigrette with a little salt and pepper added.

Barbequed Lamb and Panzanella

2006-11-28T13:54:00.000+13:00

I had to show off my new toy, this is the Webber 22 1/2 inch charcoal burning kettle. I have always had gas barbeques in the past but I have been getting sick of the mess and the taste. The fat seems to get everywhere and the taste is nothing like a charcoal burning barbeque. The Webber lived up to the high expectations I had of it. The meat tasted fantastic and instead of the fat from the meat going everywhere it simply drips on to the coals and burns away. When I bought the barbeque I also bought the Webber brand skewers and skewer rack which turned out to be a great buy.

500g of lean lamb (I used thigh steaks so I could get decent sized chunks of lamb for the skewers)
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
2 teaspoons of ground paprika
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt & plenty of freshly ground black pepper

Cut the lamb into cubes roughly 2cm square trimming most of the fat as you go. Place the lamb in a bowl with the other ingredients and mix well to coat the lamb. Cover the bowl with cling film and place in the fridge for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
When you are ready to cook the lamb place it on skewers and barbeque until lightly brown on the outside and still slightly pink in the middle. Serve with a dressing of unsweetened youghurt mixed with a little lemon juice.

Panzanella (serves 4-6)

1 small loaf of Italian ciabatta
2/3 of a cup of extra virgin olive oil
3 red peppers
3 yellow peppers
1 small tin of anchovy fillets
6 large ripe tomatoes
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
4 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
1/2 a cup of black olives
1/4 of a cup of capers
Salt & pepper
Basil leaves

Preheat the oven to 200C. Cut the ciabatta into 2-3 cm chunks and place in a metal baking dish. Drizzle the bread liberally using half the olive oil coating all sides of the bread and bake in the oven until lightly golden.
Put the peppers in a metal baking dish and bake for around 45 minutes until the skin begins to char. Remove from the oven and place in a bowl covered with cling film until the peppers cool slightly (this will help the skins to come away more easily when you peel them). Pull the skin from the peppers and cut them into large pieces. Roughly chop the ancovies and set aside.
To make the dressing for the salad remove the skin from the tomatoes by immersing for 5 minutes in water you have just boiled and then peeling them. Halve the tomatoes and scoop the seeds and central flesh into a sieve set over a bowl. set the emptied tomato halves aside after cutting them into large pieces. Use the back of a spoon to press the pulp into the sieve so that the tomato juice runs into the bowl. Once you have as much juice as you can get from the tomatoes discard the pulp and add the vinegar, remaining oil and garlic, salt & pepper.
In a large bowl mix the bread, peppers, tomatoes, anchovies, olives and capers. Whisk the dressing briefly, pour over the salad and mix well. Leave to stand for 30-60 minutes mixing occasionally. Garnish with chopped basil and serve with the lamb.

French Dinner Party

2006-11-27T18:01:00.000+13:00

The day finally arrived after much procrastination mainly due to the fact that finding a spare Saturday night was très difficile. A marvellous time was had by all and the hosts finally got to bed at 4am. I'm not going to write up recipes for everything we had as I would be here all night and we all know I just haven't got the motivation or the inclination for that sort of nonsense.
Although I haven't detailed the recipes if any readers would like recipes for any of the dishes please don't hesitate to email me, the address is at the top of the page.

Sans guests

Avec guests

Menu

Entrees

Cheese Soufflé – Gruyere Cheese

Escargots wrapped in pancetta with garlic, thyme and shallots in a white wine and stock reduction.

Pate – free range organic duck liver with Cointreau

Mains

Duck - with cherries and Pinot Noir sauce

Or

Poussin - stuffed with roasted pistachio and pine nuts, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, herbs and lemons

Mains served with lentils from Le Puy, baby carrots and asparagus

Dessert

Chocolate mousse with baby toffee apple and vanilla seed rose water merangues

Cheeses of France with biscuits, dried cherries & figs

A selection of random food shots.

French Quiz (winners John & Nellie with 24 from 29! congrats)

1 Alexandre Gustave Eiffel designed the Eiffel Tower. What other famous structure did he design?
2 Where does L’arc de Triomphe sit?
3 Which river flows through Paris?
4 Who plays Marie Antoinette in the new movie ‘Marie Antoinette’?
5 Who is the current president of France?
6 Who wrote ‘Les Miserables’?
7 Who sculpted ‘The Thinker’?
8 What do the French call the English Channel?
9 If you were eating fois gras what exactly would you be eating?
10 On what island in the Atlantic did Napoleon Buonaparte spend the last six years of his life?
11 What famous Paris hotel did Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel call her home for more than 30 years?
12 Which famous French general said ‘How can anybody expect to govern a country with 325 cheeses?’
13 What is the approximate population of France, 60 million, 80 million or 100 million?
14 Where would you view the Mona Lisa?
15 What do a famous statue in The Louvre and a popular New Zealand drink have in common?
16 The line ‘Vote for Pedro and all your wildest dreams will come true’ comes from which movie?
17 A French man might become quite upset if you called him a ‘grenouille’ why is that?
18 Which French impressionist painter painted a famous series of paintings of water lilies?
19 According to Vincent in Pulp Fiction what do the French call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in McDonalds?
20 What does FCUK stand for?
21 France have won the soccer world cup just once, in which year?
22 The Tour de france started in which year, 1903, 1913 or 1923?
23 As a champagne maker what you be doing if you were ‘riddling’?
24 What is the highest number of Michelin stars a restaurant can be awarded?
25 One point each for naming the countries surrounding France, there are eight.
26 What was the name of Asterix’s canine companion in the comic book series?
27 What was the name of Tintin’s dog?
28 Which French philosopher, mathematician and scientist born in the late 16th century has been dubbed the ‘Founder of Modern Philosophy’?
29 Who wrote the theme music to the film ‘The Pink Panther’

Beef Eye Fillet

2006-11-19T17:36:00.000+13:00

We're obviously feeling very carnivorous at the moment, here is another big chunk of meat and some more pork products. Serves four.

700g beef eye fillet, room temperature
250g of lardons
6-8 large field mushrooms, quartered
6-8 long sprigs of fresh thyme
Oil
3-4 tablespoons of freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon of freshly ground salt
6 sage leaves, chopped

8-12 very large Agria potatoes, (or more depending on how many chips you want to serve)

1 large bunch of fresh spinach

Sauce
200 ml fresh cream
1 teaspoon of black pepper
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon of clarified butter
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon chives

Pre heat your oven to 180C and place oven racks one near the top for the potatoes and one in the lower half of the oven for the beef.
Peel the potatoes and make as many large chips as you can, you will have waste but keep the chips as straight and square as you can (see picture). Try to get an even thickness of chip, different lengths are fine.
Dry the chips and oil them. Place on an oven tray and put in the oven on the higher rack.
Oil the beef fillet and then pat the freshly ground black pepper and the salt all over (you will have to spend some time grinding the pepper, 3-4 tablespoons is a lot of grinding).
Lightly oil a baking tray and place the lardons in the centre to form a bed on which you can rest the beef while cooking. Place the beef on the lardons and put in the oven on the lower rack. If the beef fillet is thin you may want to wait until the chips have cooked for 15-10 minutes before putting it in the oven.
Wash the spinach and remove any thick stems, chop into large pieces and set aside in a large pot until ready to cook.
After 30 mins turn the chips (they will take about an hour). Remove the beef from the oven and add the mushrooms, sage and thyme to the lardons. Turn the beef and place back on the lardons. Return the beef to the oven. The amount of time the beef takes will depend on the thickness of the fillet, you are aiming for a medium-rare finish so check it to make sure it is not getting over done. The beef can be removed from the oven and rested for some time before serving if it is cooking too quickly.

Sauce
Heat the butter in small saucepan and cook the garlic for about 1-2 minutes to colour very slighty but not brown. Add the cream and stir. Leave the cream to come to a simmer and cook for about 10 mins. The cream will change colour to a light yellow and reduce. Taste and add salt & pepper and then keep cooking till you have a good sauce consistency. Add parsely and chives, taste and season again if necessary. Remove from heat when done and reheat just before serving the meal.

When you are ready to serve, place the pan with the spinach in on a hot element and pour in some boiling water. Put the lid on and shake and then let the spinach cook it will only take 2-3 minutes. Drain.
Arrange your chips, beef, lardons and mushrooms on the plate. Add the spinach and spoon over the sauce.

Stuffed Pork Fillet with Parsnip, Apple and Potato Puree

2006-11-18T13:58:00.000+13:00

Here's a dish straight out of Homer Simpsons recipe book. Pork fillet stuffed with pork sausage and wrapped in bacon.
We used some leftover raviloi filling to stuff the pork fillet. The following will serve two.

1 350g pork fillet
Enough rindless streaky bacon to wrap the fillet
Pork sausage, cabbage and ricotta stuffing (from the ravioli recipe)
3 parsnips, peeled and cut into pieces
1 apple, peeled, cored and cut into pieces
4 potatoes, peeled and cut into pieces
1 lemon
Salt & pepper
Stams tart apple syrup

Pork

The pork fillet needs to be slit down one side with a sharp knife and then laid out flat and beaten carefully till you have a flat fillet about about 1 cm thick.
Spread the stuffing on to the fillet and then roll up and wrap with bacon.
Cook at 160C for around 40 mins, cover with foil towards the end to prevent the bacon from over browning, it needs to remain tender. Rest the fillet for 5 mins when cooked while you make the puree.

Puree

Put your potatoes in a pot of water and boil till cooked. Put your parsnips and apple in a seperate pot of water with a little lemon juice and about a teaspoon of lemon zest. Boil until soft. Drain both when done and put in a bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of warm cream and some salt & pepper and blend to a smooth consistency with your 'whizstick'.
Serve with the pork and drizzle on a little of the apple syrup.

Ravioli

2006-11-17T19:07:00.000+13:00

Time for some more machinery. A pasta machine is not really something that you need but making your own pasta from scratch and then using the pasta machine to make the pasta sheets for ravioli or lasagne or making fresh spaghetti is an almost spiritual experience. For a devout atheist like me that's got to be good right?

Buying pasta at the supermarket is a lot quicker then making fresh pasta and with the availability of so many kinds of dried and fresh pasta why would you bother right? In reality pasta is one of the easiest foods in the world to make and everybody should do it at least once in their lives if only to discover how those Italian women get their huge forearms. There is a real sense of achievement in knowing that you created what is essentially the Italian version of the staff of life. The following recipe will make around five pieces of ravioli for four people (20 pieces).

Pasta

400g of plain flour
4 eggs
A pinch of salt

Sift your flour into a large bowl mix in the salt and then form a well in the middle. Pour in your egg mixture and with a fork begin to stir the egg gradually working in the flour. Once the egg and flour are mixed use your hands to form the dough. If the dough is a little dry add a very small amount of olive oil if too wet add a little flour.
Turn the dough out on to a flat surface and knead for a good 10 minutes, don't skimp on the kneading it is very important. Once you have your pasta dough prepared set it aside under a damp teatowel for at least 30 mins.

Sauce

3 large tomatoes, skinned and chopped finely
2 tablespoons of flat leafed parsley, chopped
1/2 a fresh red chilli (or more if you're feeling brave), de seeded and chopped very finely
3 garlic cloves cut in half
1 teaspoons of tomato paste
1/4 of a cup of white wine
Salt & pepper

Put all the ingredients in a pot and cook until thickened. Once done discard the garlic cloves.

Filling

250g of spicey pork sausage, cabana or choritzo is fine just ensure the sausages are moist enough to mince in a food processor
200g of ricotta cheese, chopped finely
1/4 of a cabbage
Salt & pepper
1 tablespoon of clarified butter

Put the sausage in a food processor with a metal blade and whiz until minced. Meanwhile cook the cabbage in a frying pan with the butter. Cook till most of the liquid is driven off and the cabbage is soft, do not brown at all.
Put the minced sausage, the cooked cabbage and the ricotta in a bowl and mix well. Taste and season with salt and plenty of black pepper.

Roll out your pasta using your pasta machine or if you have bought pre made pasta sheets then SWEET! Cut your raviloi, I used a 6cm round pastry cutter. Fill with the sausage and cabbage filling, you will only need 2 teaspoons of filling per piece. Press down the edges of the pasta very firmly and when you have 20 pieces (you may need to re roll some of the pasta trimmings) place in a large pot of salted boiling water for around 10-12 minutes.
Serve with the sauce and plenty of parmesan. Wipe a little olive oil on the plate to stop the ravioli sticking. Oh man, FOOD PORN!

Spaghetti Carbonara

2006-11-17T18:33:00.000+13:00

One of the classics of Italian Cuisine and one of the simplest and tasiest dishes you can prepare. We started with a reduction of the broccoli soup as just a very light entrée.

Take the leftover broccoli soup and just reduce it to 2/3 of the volume, serve in a small bowl with one piece of buttered toast.

Carbonara

Spaghetti for 2
300g of streaky bacon or if you can find it pancetta cut into pieces
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 large cloves of garlic, whole
1 tablespoon of clarified butter
Salt & pepper
1 cup of finely grated parmesan

Cook the bacon and the garlic in the clarified butter until the bacon is browned. Squish the garlic cloves a little to increase the flavour (not too much you need to remove and discard it). Discard the garlic and set the bacon aside.
Cook the spaghetti in a large pot of salted water, usually around 8-10 minutes. When al dente drain and then return to the pasta pot but off the heat. Mix in the beaten egg, half the parmesan and the bacon. Mix until the egg is cooked (around a minute or so). Serve in warm bowls with the rest of the parmesan and frshly ground black pepper.

Creamy Broccoli Soup

2006-11-15T17:37:00.000+13:00

I'm almost running out of ways to use all the broccoli but I'm also almost out of broccoli so I think it will all work out. Here is a picture of what I hope will be a new world record for broccoli hugeness, seriously it was as big as my head.

500g of broccoli florettes
2 tablespoons of clarified butter (normal butter is fine)
1 large onion, finely diced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed (using a garlic press)
1/2 a cup of water
500g of potatoes, peeled and diced
6 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of milk
Salt & pepper

In a large saucepan heat the butter and then add the onion and garlic. Cook until softened and add the water, simmer for 5 mins.
Add the potatoes, stock and milk and simmer, partially covered for around 10 mins. Add the broccoli and cook for a further 15 mins and then remove from the heat and leave for 15 minutes. Use your 'whizstick' to blend the soup to a smooth creamy consistency (don't worry if you don't get every lump they will sink to the bottom anyway). Season with salt & pepper as required and serve with a little light sour cream and toasted bread and butter.

Crab Bisque

2006-11-15T16:42:00.000+13:00

This is a very time intensive meal and will take around 5-6 hours from start to finish. A lot of that time is just waitng while the dish cooks and if serving for dinner at 7pm you really would want to start preparing the meal at midday. The following recipe will serve 4 as a main 6 as a starter.

2 kg of fresh crabs

Remove the legs and claws and set aside in a large bowl.
Place crabs on their backs and using a strong knife crack the shell on the abdomen.
Open up the crab and using your fingers or a small knife remove the flesh.
Discard the gills on either side of the body and the dark flesh. Keep the white flesh. Discard the crab carcasses.

In a large stock pot put the following
50g of clarified butter
1 large onion, finely diced
1 carrot, diced
2 sticks of celery, diced
10 black peppercorns
3 Bay leaves
Fresh flat leafed parsley, chopped

Cook until the onion is soft turning transparent, add the crab legs and claws and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 hours to make stock. Top up with water if the stock reduces too quickly. Taste and when ready strain the stock through a fine sieve and discard the waste. You should aim to produce 2-2 1/2 cups of stock from this. Set aside.

To make the bisque in a large stock pot put

1 red capsicum, finely diced (seeds etc removed)
1/2 a cup of brandy
The juice of 1 lemon and the squeezed lemon halves
1 teaspoon of fresh thyme, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
2 litres of fish stock (not the crab stock, that comes later)
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
100g of short grain rice

Bring to the boil and simmer for around 1 1/2 hours so that the rice breaks up and the soup thickens. Stir regularly so that the mixture does not stick and burn.
After 1 1/2 hours add the crab stock and the crab meat and continue to cook for a further hour adding extra stock if too thick.
Force the mixture through a sieve and discard lemon skins, lumps of garlic etc but keep any crab meat or capsicum.
Return the strained soup to the pot and re add the crab meat and capsicum. Blend using your 'whizstick'. Taste and adjust with salt and pepper if desired. At this point the bisque can be cooled and refrigerated for later use or served.

To serve

Ladle the bisque into warm bowls and stir in a little cream and a little olive or avocado oil. Grind over fresh black pepper and sprinkle with fresh flat leafed parsley. Eat with hot baguettes and olive oil spread or butter.

Kitchen Tools

2006-11-15T16:16:00.000+13:00

I thought I might just start making mention of some of the tools we use in the kitchen to prepare the food you see in this blog. This tool is particularly relevant as the crab bisque and the broccoli soup really require it's use.
This is the Kenwood Wizzard Pro 400W 2 speed hot/cold hand blender. Note particularly the hot/cold feature. A lot of these 'whizsticks' have plastic blender arms and cannot be immersed in hot liquid. This is one of the cheaper 'whizsticks' on the market but so far is the best we have tried.

Pasta with Creamy Broccoli Sauce

2006-11-11T18:43:00.000+13:00

We have a surplus of broccoli at the moment thanks to all my broccoli plants being ready within the space of about 10 days so here is a tasty little pasta sauce using some home grown goodness.

Pasta (we used fettucini for this one)
1 small onion finely diced
1 large head of broccoli, cut into florettes
1 tin of Carnation light evaporated milk
2 tablespoons of oil
4 rashers of bacon, chopped
4 large mushrooms, sliced
Salt & pepper

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a saucepan and gently cook the diced onion until soft.
Add light evaporated milk and bring to a simmer, cook stirring regularly until sauce thickens (about 30 minutes).
Place the broccoli in a separate pan and cover with water, boil and cook until the broccoli is falling apart (again around 30 minutes).
Meanwhile heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan and cook the chopped bacon until browned and set aside. Cook the mushrooms in the same pan and set aside. The bacon and mushroom will get added to the pasta sauce later.
Prepare the pasta as per packet instructions.
Drain the now very overcooked broccoli and add to the sauce (the onion and evaporated milk). Whizz with whiz-stick to blend the broccoli into the sauce. Add salt & pepper to taste and heat through. Add bacon and mushrooms.
Drain the pasta and serve in warm bowls, top with sauce and parmesan cheese.

Lamb Rump with Cauliflower Puree

2006-11-11T17:52:00.000+13:00

Heart of lamb rump
Broad beans
Cauliflower
Potatoes
Meat glaze or beef stock and red wine reduction
Salt & pepper
Cream

Preheat your oven to 180C. Oil the lamb rumps and season well with freshly ground black pepper and a little salt.
Cook the lamb rumps in the oven for approx 30 mins and rest for 5-10 minutes prior to serving.
Heat your meat glaze, this one was from Gourmet Direct or prepare your reduction.

Cauliflower Puree
Take half a cauliflower and 3 potatoes.
Cut the cauliflower up into pieces and do the same with the peeled potatoes.
Boil potatoes and cauliflower together in unsalted water until soft.
Heat 1/2 a cup of low fat cream in a pan (no need to even bring it to a simmer, just heat it).
When ready to serve the meal, drain the cauliflower and potatoes and mash finely or pass through a potato ricer (this will cool the puree down somewhat though). Add hot cream and plenty of ground sea salt and white pepper.

Blanch, shell and reheat your broad beans in boiling water, and serve with the puree and the lamb.

Venison With Blackberry and Red Wine Sauce

2006-11-10T14:40:00.000+13:00

This is a French dish and quite rich with some big flavours and a lot of butter. The seperate components are not difficult to prepare but the timing is a little tricky and may take some practice. The recipe below will serve four.

60 grams of clarified butter
16 pickling onions
150 grams of fresh blackberries (I couldn't find any in the supermarket so I used a tin of whole blackberries in syrup with most of the syrup drained off)
3 tablespoons of redcurrant jelly (again I couldn't find exactly what i wanted so I used a redcurrant and cranberry jelly I found in the supermarket)
12 venison medallions, approximately 750 grams of venison.
120 ml of red wine
400 ml of liquid beef stock
1 tablespoon of softened butter
1 1/2 tablespoons of plain flour
Salt & pepper
Asparagus
Potatoes

Peel the onions by slicing off the ends and removing the skin (just take a small slice off the base so that the onion stays together while cooking). Peel and cut your potatoes into pieces for roasting, here I used a star shaped pastry cutter.
The onions and roast potatoes will take around about the same length of time to cook 45-50 mins.
Boil the potatoes for about 2 minutes, oil and then put in the oven at 180C. Heat half the clarified butter in a saucepan and add the onions. Cover the onions with a sheet of crumpled baking paper which has been run under a tap so that it is wet and then place a lid on the pan. Cook on low for 45-50 mins stirring occasionally.
Put the berries in a saucepan with the redcurrant jelly and 4 tablespoons of water. Boil for 5-10 mins until the fruit is soft anf the liquid has thickened slightly, put aside.
Season the venison with plenty of freshly ground black pepper (the meat should be coated on both sides with the pepper) and a little salt. Heat the rest of the clarified butter in a frying pan and cook the venison in 3 batches over high heat. Turn the medallions once only and brown both sides (do not cook through, it should only take 2-3 minutes for each batch). Place seared meat on a plate, cover with foil and a tea towel to keep warm.
Add the red wine to the frying pan and boil for 20 seconds then add the stock and simmer to reduce by half, taste constantly to ensure the flavour is right, add a little more red wine if too strong.
When the onions and potatoes are about 10 minutes from being ready put the foil covered plate of venison into the oven.
Steam the asparagus.
Mix the flour and butter together to form a smooth paste (beurre manié) and whisk into the sauce to thicken it over a low heat. After 1 minute place the fruit mixture you prepared earlier into a sieve and strain into the sauce, mix, taste and adjust flavour. Serve on hot plates.

Quicky

2006-11-10T14:21:00.000+13:00

Lettuce
Tomato
Capsicum
Chicken fillet
Plum sauce
Vinaigrette

Sear the chicken fillet in a little oil in a hot pan till coloured. Coat the chicken fillet liberally with the plum sauce, place in a baking tray and bake at 180C until done (around 30-40 mins). Slice the chicken and serve with the dressed salad.

For The Masses

2006-11-08T21:36:00.000+13:00

Scotts On Ward

2006-11-08T18:44:00.000+13:00

'Scotts Epicurean' has been around for a few years now and is always a great place for breakfast or lunch, 'Scotts On Ward' is a recent addition to the family and sell the most delicious meal kits this one is their Pad Thai kit and at a cost of around $20 is great value. The preparation is incredibly simple and this one took about 15 mins from start to eating.

The kit

The finished product

Chicken Parmigiana

2006-11-08T18:30:00.000+13:00

This is a repeat but again a fantastic meal and incredibly easy to make.

Chicken Parmigiana
6 boneless skinless chicken cutlets (you can use any chicken pieces for this)
1 large aubergine (eggplant)
1 jar of prepared tomato pasta sauce, homemade or shop bought (about 500ml/1 pint)
2 tins chopped italian flavoured tomatoes
1/3 of a cup white wine
The juice and peel of a large lemon
Salt & pepper
2 tablespoons of oil and spray oil
1/2 cup of tomato paste (optional)

Crust
2-3 slices of bread or 2/3 of a cup of breadcrumbs
A large handful of fresh chopped parsely
3 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese
Salt & pepper

Pre heat oven to 180C/355F
Slice eggplant to get at least 12 slices of even width.
Spray an oven tray with oil lightly and place slices of aubergine on the tray. Spray surfaces with oil and cook till very lightly brown on top. Take out of the oven and set aside. There is no need to 'salt' and draw out the moisture from the aubergine before cooking as the bitterness has really been bred out of the modern aubergine.

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan or pot and sear the chicken till well browned. Don't mess around with the chicken by prodding it or inspecting it as this will cause it to stick. Cook it on a high heat and turn once only, this will prevent it from stewing (about 15 mins).
While the chicken is cooking prepare your sauce.
Pour the tomato pasta sauce into a large bowl with white wine, tinned tomatoes, salt & pepper and the lemon peel and juice (peel the lemon peel into one long strip and then cut into about 4 pieces).
In a food mixer whiz the bread until finely crumbed, add the chopped garlic, parsely, parmesan and coarsely ground black pepper and salt whiz again then remove.

To assemble
Spray a large lasagne or baking dish with oil. Lay 6 large slices of aubergine on the bottom of the dish. Place a piece of chicken on each slice and top with remaining aubergine slices.
Cover with tomato sauce including the pieces of lemon peel and then cover with the crust mixture.
Place tin foil over the dish and cook in a preheated oven at 180C/355F for 20 mins, remove foil and cook for a further 20 mins until the crust is golden. Bellissimo!
Serve with steamed green vegetables.
Again this meal is great frozen and reheated for work lunch or dinner.

Pasta Al Yummo

2006-11-08T18:10:00.000+13:00

Serves 4

Pasta
1 onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 cup of flat leafed parsley, roughly chopped
2 kransky or choritzo sausages, sliced
Salami, sliced
2 large tomatoes, diced
1 bunch of asparagus
Olive oil
Salt & pepper

Cook onion in a little olive oil until soft and then add the garlic and meat. Cook till the meat is very lightly coloured and then add the tomatoes, parsley, asparagus and salt & pepper.
Cook pasta as per packet instructions at the same time as you are preparing the sauce.
Cook the sauce until all the ingredients are hot and the asparagus is tender, drain pasta and serve with parmesan.

And For My Next Trick

2006-11-08T17:41:00.000+13:00

I started this blog in March this year in part to give me an excuse to write every day (yes I hear you from here saying 'BUT IT'S NOT EVERYDAY!' meh so sue me) and in part to create a recipe database that my wife and I could access and you the paying public (what do you mean I'm not making any money from this!? What a gip) could use and search through for possible food inspiration and the occasional chuckle. So far we haven't had many repeats but here is one recipe that is worth doing again and again, it's not cheap and the resulting plate doesn't look like much but if you ever get the chance or inspiration to cook it please do you won't be disappointed.

Provencal Style Lamb
1 tunnel boned leg of lamb from Gourmet Direct
1 onion, chopped
1 bulb of garlic with the cloves seperated but not peeled
2 tomatoes skinned, deseeded and quartered
Several sprigs of fresh thyme
3 tablespoons of olive oil
300ml of dry white wine
1/2 a cup of black olives, stoned (if you're out of weed give them a margarita or two)
2-3 anchovies chopped
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180C/355F. Season the leg of lamb generously on all sides with salt & pepper.
In a large heavy casserole (we used the Le Crueset marmite again which is perfect for this) heat the olive oil and brown the lamb well all over. Add the chopped onion and continue to cook, stirring until golden. Add the garlic, tomatoes, thyme and half the wine and bring to a very gentle simmer.
Place the lamb in the oven and cook for 2 hours, taking out from time to time to turn the lamb and check the liquid has not evaporated. You may need to add more wine during cooking. Add the olives after 1 hour and continue to cook.
When you are almost ready to serve add the anchovies so that they melt into the sauce for a few minutes.

Gratin of Courgettes
1 kg of small courgettes
60g/2 OZ of butter plus a little extra to dot the surface
1 onion finely chopped
1 tablespoon of flour
250ml of milk
Salt & pepper
304 tablespoons of finely chopped flat-leaf parsely
1/4 of a cup of grated gruyere cheese
1/2 a cup of fresh white breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven to 180C/355F. Slice the courgettes lengthwise into 4 or 5 slices.
Arrange the slices in overlapping rows in an ovenproof dish. In a frying pan melt the butter and add the chopped onion, cooking over a low heat until it is soft and starting to turn golden.
Add the flour and continue to cook for 3 or 4 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the milk and stir well until the sauce comes to the boil. Simmer over a low heat for 7-8 mins then season to taste, add the parsely and pour the sauce over the courgettes.
Mix the cheese with the breadcrumbs and sprinkle over the top adding a few small pieces of butter to keep it moist. Bake in the oven for 35-40 mins until golden. Serve with the lamb.

Maple Syrup Marinated Salmon With Potato Rosti

2006-10-29T18:38:00.000+13:00

Salmon fillets
Maple syrup
Potatoes
Salt & pepper
1/4 of a teaspoon of ground nutmeg
Green peppercorns
1/2 a cup of light cream
A lemon

Debone your salmon fillets and marinate in 1/4 cup of maple syrup per two fillets for 40 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 180C and place salmon on a lightly oiled baking tray. Cook until done, around 30-40 minutes.
In the mean time scrub two large potatoes, place them whole in a pot of water and bring to the boil. Cook for 10 mins, drain and let rest until cool enough to handle easily. Peel and grate the potatoes into a bowl they should be just cooked on the outside but hot and firm in the middle. Add salt & pepper and 1/2 a teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Mix well, make into fritters and fry in a little oil turning only once to ensure they stay together.
Simmer cream and green peppercorns together very gently until it thickens a little (you must watch the sauce the whole time it is cooking and stir frequently to prevent sticking) then remove from the heat and whisk in a little lemon juice and zest.
Serve the salmon and rosti with green vegetables and the peppercorn sauce.

Spaghetti With Prosciutto

2006-10-29T18:37:00.000+13:00

Spaghetti
Prosciutto
Parmesan

Sauce

1 tin of chopped tomatoes
3 tablespoons of tomato paste
1 onion, finely diced
1 courgette, diced
1/2 a capsicum, diced
2 tablespoons of oil
Salt & pepper
1 tablespoon each of fresh parsley, oregano and thyme, chopped

Cook the diced veges in the oil, add tomatoes and tomato paste with salt & pepper and herbs. Simmer till thick and keep warm.
Cook your spaghetti and grill the prosciutto till just done.
Put spaghetti into warm bowls, top with the sauce, prosciutto and parmesan cheese.

Asian Pork For Two

2006-10-29T16:56:00.000+13:00

1 300g pork fillet
1 packet of Continental Japanese soy, ginger and honey flavour base
Rice
Bok Choy

Marinade the pork for an hour in half of the sauce, keep the other half of the sauce aside. Cook the pork in the oven at 180C for 40 mins turning once and basting with the marinade. When cooked stand for 5 mins and then slice.
Cook your rice, we used a mixture of white and wild rice called 'entertainer' from Sunrise. One cup of rice to 1 1/2 cups of water. Put the rice and the water into a saucepan, bring to the boil then turn right down and cover and cook for a further 12-14 minutes or until done, you will need to stir to stop the rice sticking to the pan.
Steam the Bok Choy.
To serve heat the remainder of the sauce by placing the packet in a pan with about 3cm of water, heat.
Make a tian of the rice using a small shallow bowl or in this case a star shaped pastry cutter. Serve with the pork and Bok Choy and a little sauce.

Alert! Your PC Maybe Infected With Prawn

2006-10-29T16:42:00.000+13:00

Prawn Cocktail, serves four.

1 lettuce, Iceberg or Romaine
300g packet of prawns, thawed and deveined
Fresh celery
Avocado

Sauce
5 tablespoons of mayonaise
1 tablespoon of tomato sauce
1 tablespoon of worcestershire sauce
A few drops of Tobasco or Kataia Fire sauce (careful now)
The juice of a lemon
1 tablespoon of very finely diced onion
1 tablespoon of very finely diced celery
Salt & pepper

Mix the sauce ingredients and set aside after adjusting for heat, sweetness etc to taste. Chill (not you, the sauce, you still have work to do).
When ready to serve mix the sauce with the prawns and spoon into bowls or glasses filled with a couple of large lettuce leaves. Add pieces of avocado and sliced celery if you wish.
You can vary this in many ways, use crab or crayfish, use lime juice instead of lemon, leave out the hot sauce or add more. Play around with it until you have something you like. We used light tomato sauce and Weight Watchers mayonaise just to cut out a little unnecessary fat.