Butter Chicken

I've always wondered what the fuss was all about. Butter Chicken seems to be a firm favourite among many, but I never got the itch to try it until today! No time like the present..

I'm not sure if it was the howling winds trashing the yard, or the fact that at midday I had to find my Ugg boots to fight off an attack of the chills, but spicy curry was just the ticket. I did a bit of research and decided that although I could fry off the chicken, then add ingredients in to make a sauce, I think that the more traditional(?) method of using 'leftover' tandoori chicken in this curry sounds more to my liking. Granted I don't have a Tandoor oven, but that has never stopped me making Tandoori dishes before!

So a two-step it is!

I love Indian food, and have pretty much every required spice for a more complicated recipe, but I also have a full jar of quality Tandoori paste in the fridge, and it already has most of those spices in. So I am going to take a short cut for the first step.

The second step calls for Kasuri Methi or dried fenugreek leaves. I have fenugreek seeds, but alas no leaves. Apparently celery leaves are a suitable substitute, BINGO! Once again the photography skills need work. Practise, practise...Yum, yum.





Butter Chicken

You will need:
750g chicken pieces (I used 2 breast fillets, halved and 2 drumsticks)

For the marinade:
4 tbsp tandoori paste
4 tbsp natural full fat Greek yogurt
2 tsp lime juice

For the sauce:
700g round tomatoes, skinned and pulped, see note.
2 tsp finely chopped celery leaves
60g chilled butter, in small cubes
1/2 tsp hot curry powder
salt, to taste
2 tbsp cream

Start by preparing the marinade. Mix all the ingredients together. You can skin the chicken, which is more traditional, but I like to leave it on. Score the meat on bones, to allow the marinade to penetrate. Mix the marinade and chicken together, and leave to sit for at least one hour, more is better.

Roast chicken under a hot grill, or in a hot oven until done. Don't overdo it, or the meat will be dry. Gently heat extra marinade in a large simmer pan, and add the cooked chicken. Keep warm.

Cook the tomato pulp in a frying pan over medium heat until the liquid has mostly evaporated, about 7 minutes. Add the chilled diced butter. Once the butter is melted, cook for only one minute more. Add the celery leaves, hot curry powder, and salt, to taste. Stir for 30 seconds, then add the cream, and stir to combine.

Pour the sauce over the chicken, stir gently to combine, then eat!

Tonight we had Butter Chicken with Naan, Aloo Gobi, Rosella Relish, Steamed Rice, and Mint Raita. I ate way too much again! Smokily delicious was the comment from DB. So a hit, must try that again!

Note: Round (not roma) tomatoes are generally better suited to Indian cuisine. The sauce needs tomato pulp, so I guess you could save yourself some work, and just use a plain passata, but you may need to add a few drops of vinegar to adjust for the sweetness. But, just the other day, I discovered a fun way to reduce a tomato to pulp, with just a little effort. So, cut the tomato in half, and use a box grater, over a bowl, to pulp the flesh. Watch fingers! Hang onto the skin, it goes to the chooks! Repeat with remaining tomato halves. Well it's fun for the first five minutes anyway, and by then you're committed.

Pork Chops a la Scrumptious

It was late when we got home tonight, so I wasn't all that keen on being uber-fancy (it's a tech term! lol). After a vote on whether to have chops or sausages, the chops found their way into the microwave for a brief warm-ifying. Now what? I have a bag of yummy mushies begging to be ate, and now I have to come up with a non-mushie meal seeing as we chose pork chops! I should have nuked the sausages............Then it dawned that some soul must have matched mushies and pork chops before, and I could just search the net, find a recipe and copy them. :) I had always considered pork to be a more fruit friendly type meat, and hadn't considered it's potential with earthy flavours like mushrooms. Why not? I don't know really, but it is certainly a blessing that I tried it tonight. Incredible.

Many thanks to Delia. Such a wonderful collection of recipes on her site, check it out next time you are looking for a recipe, she probably has one! Tonight's meal was a version of the following:

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/main-ingredient/pork/pork-chops-baked-with-wild-mushrooms-and-creme-fraiche.html



I had about 8 large button mushrooms, and one (almost dead, aka dried) Swiss field mushroom. Also, some thickened cream that was sitting patiently in the fridge. Two pork chops, and a ceramic bowl substitute for the alfoil boat. Voila! Yum. Try it, you won't be disappointed.

Lamb and Silverbeet Curry

I was trying to think up a way to get some excellent mileage out of this week's vege box, and was contemplating making another Spanakopita with my bunch of silverbeet. However there had been a request for curry tonight, and requests (good ones) should invariably honoured, right. It occurred to me that lamb and silverbeet are great friends, in most every cuisine. So the search for a recipe began....and ended promptly, when I found this:

http://jeenaskitchen.blogspot.com/2008/03/lamb-and-spinach-curry-recipe.html

I sat reading this recipe stunned, and practically drooling. So that's what I made. Sort of. I had to make a few adjustments to utilise the ingredients I have at home. Like; Silverbeet instead of spinach, fresh curry leaves off my plant, fresh galangal out of the garden because I didn't have ginger on hand, crushed garlic instead of cloves, harissa paste in place of chillis just 'cos I wanted to use some up, etc. :)

I thought I would record my own recipe here, for future reference, but either recipe would send any hungry mouth/belly into a state of bliss. There are a few repetitious steps to this recipe that require you to add the same spices more than once, but I did it anyway, why not? It's a bit like an asian curry method, and an indian compliment of ingredients. So very wonderful, and the whole house smelt divine.


Lamb and Silverbeet Curry

You will need:

2 tsp crushed garlic
1 2cm piece galangal, peeled, grated
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1 tbsp harrisa paste
1.5kg lamb leg roast, I had a hip/leg joint
2 onions chopped roughly
oil to saute, plus more for later on
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
3 tsp tomato paste + 1 cup water, mixed together
1 beef stock cube, crumbled into above mix
a pinch fenugreek powder
2 curry leaves, crumbled
2 tsp coriander powder
salt, to taste
a pinch of saffron threads
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
reserved lamb stock, fat removed
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp garam masala
1 bunch silverbeet, washed thoroughly, stalks removed, roughly chopped
2 onions, thinly sliced
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
a pinch fennel seeds
a pinch cumin seeds

Make a paste with garlic, galangal, ginger powder, and harrisa paste. Set aside. Pressure cook lamb roast with 1 cup of water, for 30-40 minutes, until falling off bone. Remove from bone, and chop roughly into 2 cm-ish cubes, ie keep it chunky.

Heat a few tablespoons of oil over medium high heat, and fry onions stirring to coat. Add tumeric and coriander seeds. Fry until onion is becoming translucent. Add tomato paste and water mixture. Bring to a simmer, then lower heat to hold at a simmer. Add fenugreek, curry leaves, and 2tsp coriander powder. Simmer for 10 minutes, then add salt to taste. Add saffron, simmer until colour is released about 2 minutes. Add cumin and coriander powders. Simmer until oil starts separating. Add reserved, skimmed lamb stock. Stir a few times and bring back to the simmer. Add final cumin and coriander powders, and garam masala. Simmer for 5 mins, until thickened slightly. Add silverbeet, and push under the curry gravy gently to submerge. Cook until wilted, but still vibrant green.

Meanwhile fry remaining sliced onions in a little fry pan until golden, remove from pan, set aside, reserve any oil. Add lamb to curry, stir gently and heat through. Reheat oil in small frypan, adding a little more oil if necessary. Lightly fry the mustard, fennel, and cumin seeds until golden and fragrant, the mustard seeds will start popping like popcorn. Add to lamb curry with fried onions. Stir gently to distribute. Serve. Best with fresh steamed rice, a hearty ale, and a good friend or three. :)

Lamb Shanks A La Northern Africa!

I bought a great little cook book about 6 years ago called HOME FOOD. I have since bought at least 4 more copies for gifts to friends, and have lent it out for months at a time. Everyone who opens it finds at least one new favourite recipe. One of my favourites is Lamb Shanks with Chickpeas. That name is misleading in that it has many more interesting ingredients than that. Cinnamon sticks, green olives, and harissa paste being the most unusual combination I had run into in a while. How could that work I thought at first, but I was brave, and gave it a whirl. One mouthful and I was hooked. Now I make it almost every time Lamb Shanks find their way home with me. They used to be a budget cut at 50 cents each when I first started cooking them, now look at the price! Ohh well, worth it for the flavour.

Harissa hails from Northern Africa, and the combination of Lamb and Chickpeas is common in Moroccan dishes. I am sure it is usually served with cous cous, rice, or some other grain, but it works especially well with creamy mash. That's what we are doing this evening.

I have never actually found harissa paste in any of the usual places. The closest I have ever got was a paprika paste intended for Hungarian cuisine. Most likely I haven't really tried hard enough. :) I normally just use a half quantity of chilli paste, but today I thought it would be a great opportunity to make some harissa of my own. I looked at a few (dozen) recipes for harissa paste, came up with the following recipe, including items that I already had. Surely not very authentic, but close by my reckoning.

Harissa Paste

You will need:

12-16 chillis, grilled, I used half birds eyes, half long reds
1/2 capsicum, grilled, skin removed (I only had green, but red would be better)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 onion, finely diced
1 tsp garam masala (I used a spice mix that I had made the night before it was pretty much equal parts: cinnamon, nutmeg, fennel, cumin, all spice, coriander seeds, black pepper.)
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp crushed garlic
1 tomato, skinned and chopped
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp chilli sauce (ABC brand)
2 tbsp water

I started by grilling the chillis and capsicum, and then peeling the capsicum, and chopping it roughly. Then fried the cumin and caraway seeds over medium heat in the olive oil until fragrant. Add the onion and cooked until it was softened, then added the garam masala, and paprika. Stirred that a bit until fragrant, then added the garlic, tomato, chillis and capsicum. Dropped the heat down to low, and cooked covered until the moisture started coming out of the vegetables, stirring frequently. Then I added the vinegar, tomato paste, chilli sauce and water, brought it to a simmer, and cooked uncovered for 20 minutes until thick and saucy. Then I processed until smooth. Voila, harissa paste! It needs to be stored in the fridge, under a layer of oil.

So now to the main event. As I said a firm favourite around here, and shockingly simple really.



Lamb Shanks with Chickpeas

You will need:
1 tbsp olive oil
4 lamb shanks
2 small onions, finely chopped
1 tsp crushed garlic
1/2 tbsp harissa paste (be gentle, you can add more later, to taste)
1/2 cinnamon stick (I've made it with ground cinnamon before, but usually only 1/4 tsp)
1 beef stock cube, crumbled
pepper, to taste
1 400g can crushed tomatoes
1 300g can chickpeas (you can used dried then rehydrated chickpeas if you like)
50g-100g green olives (best to use Sicilian olives with seeds in)
1/4 tsp lemon rind, finely grated
1 tbsp mint, finely chopped

Heat olive oil and brown lamb shanks over medium heat. Get a good overall browning happening, it is important to the end product. Add onion and garlic, and stir around. Cook until onion is slightly softened. Add harissa, cinnamon stick, stock cube and pepper. Stir to distribute, then add tomatoes, and enough water to almost cover the shanks. Cover, bring to the boil, and lower heat to a simmer, cook for 50 minutes.

Add chickpeas, olives and lemon rind to pot, and stir gently to distribute. Season with salt to taste, and continue cooking lid slightly ajar for 30 minutes. The lamb should be meltingly tender by this stage. If not, continue cooking checking regularly until it is! Remove any oil from the top of the sauce, and then stir in the mint. Serve over your preferred carb.


So with a scoop of tasty 'old' potato mash, and a radicchio, green bean, and apple salad, that's Tuesday night done. Now to think of some other likely ways to finish off the harissa......

Pumpkin Scones and Rosella Jam

I went to the markets the other day and nearly shrieked with joy when I saw rosellas for sale. The flower, not the bird, mind you. Why get so excited I hear you ask? Well if you have ever had Rosella Jam you would understand. So as soon as I got home I jumped in the computer chair and started hunting down recipes. I only had 1.2kg or so of the little blossoms, so I stuck to a modest 3 recipes. lol. Really I could have just picked one, but who knows when I will be able to buy them again? Well truth be told, if I can convince DB to get his green thumb out, I should be harvesting my own next year. We'll see.

So I made Rosella Cordial, Rosella Jam, and Rosella Relish. It only took me the whole afternoon, so I had plenty of time to make dinner. Just a little sumthin' sumthin' I whipped up. Actually it was Duck with Cherry and Rosella Sauce, Leek and Sweet Potato Mash, Crispy Fried Sweet Potato Chips, Pork Spring Roll and Green Beans. :) It's not very well presented, but was very well received.



This morning I wanted to have something perfect to eat with my jam. What is more perfect than Flo's Pumpkin Scones? Very few things stand up to Pumpkin Scones with Rosella Jam, and Whipped Cream. It is a little slice of heaven.

I got my jam recipe from:

http://www.nt.gov.au/d/Content/File/p/Recipe/RS5.pdf

And the scones from:

http://gourmettraveller.com.au/pumpkin_scones.htm

And breakfast was served. Simply delicious.

Spanakopita..........or 'Spinach' Pie

My vege box this week had the biggest bunch of silverbeet (swiss chard) in it and I was so excited to find it there. I get a random selection of goodies each week, so its a big surprise when I open it. And I have heaps of fun thinking about what I will make! Silverbeet can be one of those vegetables that earn a poorly reputation from mistreatment in the kitchen. Tastes pretty average just boiled and plonked on a plate. But there are ways to make it shine, and Spanakopita is certainly one of them.



I have a recipe for this dish thanks to my Uncle Lucky. He is a wonderful chef. His recipe which I really only remember as a list of ingredients yields a delicious pie, and can handle a fair bit of adjustments according to what you have available. I made this today and had only a little feta to add. I made up for this by including extra ricotta, and salt. I have written this recipe according to what I did yesterday. It's great warm from the oven, as well as cold from the fridge.


Spanakopita

You will need:
1 bunch silverbeet, washed, trimmed from stalks, and roughly chopped
1 box frozen spinach
1 tsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
3 small leeks, sliced
1 small onion, finely diced
2 tbsp uncooked rice
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp dried dill
1/2 tsp dried oregano
500g ricotta
80g feta, crumbled
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp salt or so, to taste
black pepper, to taste
1/2 packet filo pastry
2 tbsp butter, extra
2 tbsp olive oil, extra

Start by steaming the silverbeet until wilted, I just plonked it in a saucepan over medium heat, and kept an eye on it stirring occasionally, until it was done. Add the frozen spinach and stirring occasionally, heat through. Once everything is cooked, set aside until cool, then squeeze out as much liquid as possible. If you forget to do this you will end up with very soggy pie. In a fry pan over medium heat cook leeks and onion in the butter and oil until soften and starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Add rice and fry until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Take off the heat and cool to room temperature. Stir in cooled, squeezed spinach and silverbeet, breaking it up a bit. Next stir in nutmeg, dill, oregano, ricotta, and crumbled feta. Mix well. Add lightly beaten eggs, and stir to combine. That's the filling done. It can really go in any kind of pastry. Filo, Puff, Short Crust, Bread dough, etc. It's up to you.

I chose filo this time. It can be a little tricky to handle as it is really thin and tears easily, also you have to be careful that it doesn't dry out, keeping the unused portion under a damp tea towel.
So you need to layer the sheets of pastry, brushing with the combine extra butter and oil, between each layer. Build up 4-6 layers for the base, place in the prepared filling, then make another 4-6 layer blanket of pastry and cover the top. Fold the edges over the top of the pie, sealing the edges with the butter oil mixture, and then finally brush the top.

Bake in a moderate oven for 40-60 minutes, until golden and slightly puffed up in the middle. Cover with foil if it browns too fast. I have a confession. My oven is broken. It has no handle to open, is missing the front glass panel (ie it only has one panel instead of two), has only two settings on and off (no temperature control, it gets to around 150 Celsius, but is fan-forced so that's approximately moderate heat), and heat comes from the grill at the top, which is luckily dispersed around the oven by the fan, and a large flat tray I put at the top of the oven. But I can't get rid of it yet, because it still works, in it own fashion. I tell you this, because I know that my instructions for cooking times are very vague. That's because I am guessing a little about how long it will take in your oven, if you decide to make this recipe. So I apologise in advance if they are a little off. :)

Thanks to Lucky for the recipe, and you for reading! Hope you make and enjoy this delicious pie.

We had it tonight with pork sausages, bakery rolls, cabbage and bacon baked risoni, and green salad. Oh and good old tomato sauce. YUM

Rice Pikelets....or Pancakes if that's your thing!

This is what I had for Breakfast yesterday. A Homemade Cheeseburger. Not entirely sure if that's considered a breakfast food, but it was after 10.30am.

Today, however, I made something a little more breakfast style, with a twist that was new for me. Rice Pikelets. Made with left over rice, from dinner last night which was actually leftovers.......... To be perfectly honest I kept just enough rice aside last night so that I would have unadulterated rice for cooking these moist little morsels. I think that the end result might not have been so palatable otherwise, hmmm.

This recipe, which I have tweaked just a little, came from a website called Hillbilly Housewife. Of course pikelets are a one or two mouthful version of the sit-down pancake. And if you are looking for the original recipe, it's listed as Rice Pancakes. It's a really great site, and I have cooked many things from the hundreds of recipes listed there. Apparently rice in pikelets or pancakes is not that unusual a thing to do, but it the first time I have done it so wish me luck.


Rice Pikelets

You will need:
3/4 cup cooked rice, cooled
1 cup plain flour
1 cup plain yoghurt
1 egg
1/2 tsp baking powder
1-2 Tbsp water
1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda, optional
1/4 tsp vinegar, optional
butter or oil, to pan fry

Firstly you have to mash the rice up a bit with a fork, don't go too crazy, just break the grains up a bit. Next add flour, yoghurt egg and baking powder. Sift the flour if you want, don't if you don't want. Whisk everything together, and add as much water as you need to get the batter to a usable consistency. Add a little more flour if you over did it a bit. Let the batter sit on the bench for a few minutes, like 5-20 minutes or so. Now if you like your pikelets quite fluffy, you can include the optional extras. It is a little bit like a primary school science experiment. Add the bicarb, stir it in then add the vinegar, stir it around, and watch the bubbles appear! Magic. Not entirely necessary as the sourness of the yoghurt and the baking soda achieve a similar result, only less spectacular. But it is fun, something that is always welcome early in the morning, and it does add a little extra fluff to the end product.

Now to the cooking part. Heat a non stick pan over medium heat, coat the pan lightly with butter or oil, and cook pikelets a few at a time. Turn just as the bubbles start to appear, don't wait too long or they overcook and go gluey.

So the taste test.

Kmindde ofm mtastme like crmumpets!

It is an interesting texture, as I said kind of like a crumpet. Not really like what you would expect from a run-of-the-mill pikelet, but tasty and wholesome all the same.

I ate them with apricot jam, then butter and apricot jam, then butter and blackberry jam, then blackberry jam and peanut butter. And they were all good. Give them a try if you are feeling brave. ;0)

Ratatoullie.....how much I love you!

This is one of my all time favourite foods. It takes many forms, and perhaps the version I have come to love so dearly is not exactly the most traditional one, but who cares? It actually saved my life once, really!

We had just arrived in Barcelona after a flight from Australia, with one night stop-overs in Tokyo and London, on a Asian airlines flight. We had been eating all sorts of interesting yet strange foods, and had lasted, oh...2 hours in our resolve to avoid British Beef. Basically we were feeling a little odd in the stomach region, and needed a meal of 'normal' food... stat!

After settling into our Spanish apartment we headed out to find something 'normal' to eat for dinner. Much to our joy we came across an open market and grabbed a bunch of fresh veges, a lemon and a loaf of rustic bread. Next we stopped into the grocery store for some olive oil, salt and pepper, (and wine) and headed back to the apartment for our a dose of normalcy.

It was the most wonderful thing I had ever eaten in my life. The veges were super fresh, and I can't really describe the taste of onions in Spain, but suffice to say... it was heaven.

So back to earth, and today.

Mum used to make Ratatouille a bit as I was growing up and it was always delicious. It was basically like a stir fry of vegetables with olive oil. But my favourite recipe hails from a book called cooking under the influence - food to drink to, featuring the wit of ben canadier + greg duncan powell which I got for Christmas from my Nana one year.

And what great wisdom does this approach bring? Well instead of adding the vegetables to the pan in order of longest cooking to shortest, it suggests that each element is cooked separately then tossed in the pan together at the very end before serving. It really is just a 'bunch of sauteed veges' approach. It's only a simple thing, but makes for a really great dish. Try it, what have you got to lose?

Ratatouille

You will need:

1-2 capsicum (whatever colour you have/like, in the picture I have yellow and purple capsicum, fate decided on that one.)
1-2 zucchini
1 onion
2 tomatoes, chopped
4 tbsp olive oil, you get get away with less
2 cloves garlic, crushed
a dash of red wine vinegar
salt and pepper, to taste

Cut the capsicum into 2cm cubes, slice the zucchini into 1cm thick rings, and slice the onion . You can use extra veges if you like, I sometimes add in mushrooms, green beans, eggplant, etc.

Get your large frypan hot, you will be trying to cook at a reasonably high temperature. Get out a big bowl, and toss the capsicums in 2 tbsp of the oil. Saute them for about 3 minutes moving them around so that they don't burn. Once they are done, remove to a serving bowl. Repeat with the zucchini and another 1 tbsp of oil, cook for only a minute or so, moving them around to prevent burning, remove to the serving bowl with capsicum. Repeat once more with onion, remaining 1 tbsp of oil, and cook for a minute or two.

Now dump the capsicum and zucchini back in the frypan, and stir in the tomatoes, closely followed by the garlic. Cook for 2 more minutes, then add the vinegar and salt and pepper. Toss for a few seconds. Remove back to the serving bowl, and...um...serve. Or if you like, let it come to room temperature!

It's a wonderful side dish, and can easily star in an anti pasti. With some fresh bread, and a glass of wine it's a light meal. Tonight we are having this as a side to left over Boeuf Bourguignon, and steamed rice.

Just how do you pronounce Boeuf?

So what happened yesterday in Kitchen Stadium?

Baguettes and Boeuf Bourguignon.

Or Bread sticks and Beef Stew. Even though it's a little backwards, lets start with the Boeuf Bourguignon (even though I didn't!).

It's certainly not a mid-week whip up type meal. I started before midday. It's one of those slow-food recipes, which is fine by me. Food that has time to introduce itself to the others in the cooking pot tends to be relaxed (read: very tender) by the time it reaches the stage (plate). Making a meal with a slosh (or half a bottle in this case) of booze appears to improve that effect, funnily enough.

I did a bit of surfing to check out a few recipes, but decided in the end to have a go at Julia Child's recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon. It requires 3 different recipes that get to share one pot right at the end. Brown Braised Onions, Sauteed Mushrooms, and the Beef stew. I decided to take the long road and started with the onions. On reflection, it would probably have been more time conscious to start with the stew, and cook the onions and mushrooms while the stew was in the oven. Next time.


Brown Braised Onions

You'll need:
20 (or so) small onions peeled
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp oil
Salt and Pepper, to taste
1/2 cup beef stock
1 bouquet garni, thyme/parsley/bay leaf

Start by heating butter and oil over medium heat. Toss onions to coat and brown over medium heat for about 10 minutes. The idea is to get an even(ish) golden colour to the surface of the onions. Be careful not to burn them, or roll them around so hard that they start to fall apart. Once you have the onions browned to your liking, season with salt and pepper, add the stock and bouquet garni, lower the heat, cover the pan, and simmer over low heat for 40-50 minutes until the onions are tender and the liquid has reduced. The picture on the left is just before I added the stock. And that's it for the onions for a while. Put them aside, covered, and move on to the next step.


Sauteed Mushrooms

Just a quick note: to saute is to brown while preserving texture, moisture and flavor. The most important points here are to have the oil/butter hot, don't overcrowd the pan, and get them out asap!

You will need:
500g button mushrooms
4 tbsp butter
2 tbsp oil
Salt and Pepper, to taste

Use small mushrooms whole, or large mushrooms thickly sliced, you want to be able to find them in the stew at the end. Heat half the oil and half butter over high heat, and when the butter stops foaming add half the mushrooms. Flip them around a bit to coat evenly. The fats will absorb into the mushrooms at the beginning and then come out again after 2-3 minutes. Cook for about 4-5 minutes all up, just until you achieve a golden tinge, quickly season with salt and pepper, and toss about one last time. Now get those little guys out of there! You don't want them to start stewing in their own juices. You want those delicious juices to stay inside, or you will end up with chewy remnants of mushrooms instead of plump tender morsels.

Once the first batch is safely cooling to the side, go ahead and do the second batch. You can do this in 3 or 4 batches if that suits you (and your pan size) better. And that's the mushrooms done.


Boeuf Bourguignon (serves 4-6 people)

You will need:
150g bacon, cut into strips, rind reserved
3 tbsp oil
1-1.5 kg cubed beef
1-2 carrots, thickly sliced
1 onion, thickly sliced
1 tsp salt
pepper, to taste
1 tbsp flour
2 cups red wine, I used a young Shiraz
3 cups beef stock
1 tbsp tomato paste
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp thyme
1 bay leaf, crumbled
1 batch brown braised onions
1 batch sauteed mushrooms
chopped parsley, to serve

So start by putting your bacon and the reserved rind in a saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. This process stops the bacon from disappearing in the sauce. Simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes, then drain thoroughly. Preheat oven to 200 Celsius.

Heat 1 tbsp of the oil over medium/high heat in a big oven safe fry pan or casserole, and fry bacon until golden, about 5 minutes. Set aside. I used my fry pan because the fancy french casserole I own tends to catch on the bottom too easily, and I have severely browned (read: blackened) a few items in the past, when using it on the stove top. Anyway whatever works is the way to go!

Next pat your meat dry with paper towels, or in the event you don't have paper towels, use a clean tea towel, or just regular unprinted paper. It's got to be dry or it will not brown properly., it will start losing juices. Heat the oil again, and add the beef in small batches, heating extra oil as needed, browning for a few minutes each batch and setting aside with the bacon. When all the beef is browned, tip out out most of the fat in the pan and discard.

Heat the pan up again to medium heat and saute the carrot and onion until softened and golden brown. Add the meats back to the pan, and season with the salt and your preferred amount of pepper. You can always add more at the table, so keep it conservative. Sprinkle over the flour, then toss everything about to coat. Now put the pan/casserole into the oven for 5 minutes, then take it out toss everything around again and put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes. Take out the pan/casserole, and turn the oven down to about 160 Celsius.

Put your pan/casserole back on the stove, and add the wine, and enough stock to just about cover the meat. (This is about where I moved my stew into the casserole pot, I used a little of the wine to deglaze my pan just to make sure I didn't waste any of the yummy stuff.) Stir it around then add the garlic, tomato paste, herbs, and the reserved rind. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, then cover and put into the oven for 2.5 - 3 hours. You want the contents to cook at a slow simmer, so check it occasionally to make sure it's not too hot. It's ready when the meat is tender, and easy to pierce with fork.

Take the casserole out of the oven, and use a slotted spoon to transfer the solids to a warm dish. Ditch the rind if you spy it, it's done it's job. Bring the gravy to a steady simmer on the stove and thicken it so that it coats the back of a spoon. When I read the recipe, this seemed like a crazy step, but I thought about it a bit and realised that it's the best way to thicken the sauce without the solids disintegrating in the process. I will probably adapt it to other recipes I cook regularly.

Now remember those tasty onions and mushrooms that were prepared earlier? This is their time to shine. Arrange the meat, mushrooms and onions in a serving dish, and pour over the reduced sauce. You can leave it as is, or give it a gentle stir if you like. Sprinkle with parsley, and dig in!

And dig in we did, and slept well we did, and forget to take a picture I did..........Oops. Luckily we had way too much and I have leftovers in the fridge, which I took a terrible picture of . Stew is not the most photogenic of foods especially when it's cold, and I am certainly a bad photographer, sorry. Anyway you get the idea, tasted way better than it looks.


French Baguettes

So the Baguettes were pretty awesome too! Actually probably the best bread I have ever made and possibly eaten! I followed the recipe at:

http://www.applepiepatispate.com/bread/pain-ancienne-french-baguette/

It only has the 4 basic ingredients needed to make bread, but involves a lengthy process.

You start by making a dough of bread flour (500g) and ice water (325g) that gets a quick 5 minute knead, and then an 8 hour sleep (well more like 6.5 hours because I am terribly impatient).

Then you:

• add more water (50g), some salt (10g) and a little yeast (5g) to the bowl and end up wrestling a gummy mess for 5 minutes,
  
• then you lest it rest again for an hour or so,
  
• wrestle for 2 minutes,
  
• rest for an hour,
  
• wrestle for 2 minutes,
  
• rest for a few hours,
  
• then you divide up the dough and attempt to make 4 pretty(ish) lumps,
  
• rest for 10 minutes,
• then stretch them a little before a trip to the oven for 30 minutes or so.
  

And voila. Bread. Easy huh? Lucky I got so many rest breaks! Look good don't they?

And so it begins.......

Well yesterday I went a little crazy in the kitchen. Fancy that, eh! I woke up and immediately demanded that I produce a little easter treat seeing as I wasn't prepared to waste money buying said treats from the grocery giants. Have a cuppa I said, but this thing takes forever I said, and I don't want to be full of afternoon tea when I want to be settling down for dinner I said. (NB: I have developed a (un?)healthy habit of talking to myself over the years, mayhaps blogging will ease that ailment?). So I got to work, and quickly before it turned into an argument.


So what exactly am I talking (to myself) about? Gubana.....or Il Forno (small snail) It's an Italian Celebration Bread/Cake thing-o. And it's pretty special to eat I must say. I kind of melded a few recipe ideas, but mostly just followed the recipe posted at http://www.citrusandcandy.com/2010/03/gubana-sweet-italian-easter-bread.html Thanks citrusandcandy!