dicky & debbie.com

These are a great lunch box filler.  They are nearly fat free, freeze well and are really tasty.  I found them on the recipezaar website here.

Ingredients

It has taken me years to get this recipe out of Margaret my neighbour.
She grows the most amazingly tart organic blackberries in her back
yard. She only gets maybe 10 kilos of berries and she makes the most
fantastic sponges. She very kindly gifted me with a kilo of
blackberries but more importantly she finally handed over the recipe to
go with it.

This is her recipe as she gave it to me:

Beat till creamy
9 tablespoon sugar
9 tablespoon butter

Beat in 1 at a time
3 small eggs or 2 large eggs

Beat well (5 minutes)
Add 1 cup self-raising flour with
1 tablespon milk.
(Add more flour if you think you need it.)

Place on top of hot cooked fruit. Bake at 190 degC for about 40 minutes or thereabouts.

Heston Blumenthal’s tv show, In Search Of Perfection only recently became part of my viewing selection when the latest season of American Idol finished, so I only saw a few episodes.  There was the steak one, the fish and chips, and the spag bol.

I watched this episode about three times over a few weeks to make sure I truly understood some of the principals at work but as they same, watching is not the same as doing.  So I set out to do.

What started out as a meal intended to make the best of a bottle of wine I had been given, a Rockburn Pinot Noir 2006, for 3 people, became a marathon effort for 10 so required some juggling.  Also it took two days as half the guests suddenly could not come.  But the pause did not seem to hurt the sauce.

As you will see, there are 4 steps to the process.  First there is the onions which is pretty easy.  And yes, these do brown up best in a stainless steel saucepan.  Then comes the soffrito.  The carrots, onions and celery.  If you are doubling the recipe than I suggest you cook these in two batches otherwise they wont brown.  I also recommend a very small dice to help the process along. Browning the meat is next and again, hot pan, and if doubling, brown in batches.  Finally comes the tomato compote.

I skipped the “frying” stage, and sorely wished that I had not.  The compote just did not seem to punch above its weight and I ended up dumping in loads of tomato paste to bulk up the flavour.  Also the tomatoes I used seemed to lack any flavour so depending on the tomatoes I can find next time I might follow my gut instinct and used tinned.  If I do used tinned tomatoes then I will try and remove the seeds because then can turn bitter.  I will also drain off a lot of the juice and try to reduce that down in a saucepan.

The whole experience was worth the effort.  There were several comments of “Like nothing I have ever had before,” and that was the point.  It really glammed up a traditional average dish with little in the way of expectations.

Oh and there are no photos because I just plain forgot.

I love winter for the food.  All the soups and stews, those rich meals laced with starchy accompianiments and thick gravys are just blissful.

This soup can be as thick or as thin as you like.  I actually like this quite thin but the missus likes it so thick it can nearly be cut with a knife.  Each to their own, I suppose.

When looking for a ham hock, make sure you dont get a smoked hock or a bacon hock.  They just dont work with this recipe.

Ingredients

1 ham hock
500 grams split peas
4-5 medium carrots, fienly diced
4 onions finely diced
200 grams of frozen peas, not minted

Method.

In a 6 litre stock pot, cover the hock in cold water, at least 3 litres,  add the lentils and bring to a simmer for about two hours, stirring every now and then to stop sticking.

Remove the the hock from the broth and remove the skin and any large chunks of visible fat. Chop the remaining meat into small dice and return to the stock along with the carrots and onions.  Simmer for another hour or until everything is cooked.  Add the frozen peas and remove from the heat, serving with crusty bread.

It seems like a long, long time since I have had a good cooking session, something that was complicated in its parts but combines to make a simple dish that is full of flavour.  Today I indulged myself in just that and at the end I am tired but excited and brimming with anticipation.  Onto the menu:

Roasted Rack of Lamb with pistachio pesto and bacon

served with broccoli in a pistachio pesto cheese sauce, root vegetable mash and sauted cabbage.

For dessert:

Roasted Plums with maple and balsamic drizzle and Chocolate and Water Mousse.

For the Rack of Lamb with Pistachio Pesto and Bacon

2 racks of lamb
2/3 of a cup of shelled rosted pistachio
1 tablespoon finely chopped thyme
2 tablespoons finely chopped rosemary
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
8 slices of streaky bacon

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Remove any silverskin from the lamb racks, season with salt and pepper and reserve.
In a mortar and pestle (or a mini  food processor bowl) crush the pistachios to a very rough paste.  Add in the herbs and few drizzles of olive oil.  Keep pounding until it starts to come together and the texture is a lot smoother.  Slather the pesto on the meaty part of the lamb racks, then lay over the streaky bacon.  I like to reserve a few pieces to wrap around to hold the bacon in place.
Roast for about 40 minutes or until medium rear.  Let rest 7 minutes before carving.I par cook the broccoli and the drain, placing in a ceramic baking dish in a single layer.  Make a cheese sauce as per norman but add a table spoon of the pistachio pesto and pour over the top.  Bake along side the lamb for about 20 minutes or until golden and bubbly.
Root vegetable mash is the simplest thing in the world to make.  Simple dice enough carrots, parsnip, potato and swede in small chunks the same size to serve everybody.  Bring to a boil and simmer until cooked.  Mash roughly with plenty of salt and pepper to season and a good few knobs of butter.

Roasted Plums and Chocolate and Water Mousse

Roasted plums are easy.  2 plums per person, halved and stoned.  Drizzle over maple syrup and some balsamic glaze of you have it.  Roast for around 30-40 minutes until softened.

Chocolate and Hot Water Mousse..
This is tricky and the main secret is to whisk as hard as you can for a long time.
Prepare and ice bath.  Pleasty of ice in your largest bowl, top with water and good dose of salt.  Place a smaller glass bowl inside.

Ina small saucepan, add cold water and grated chocolate  in the ratio of 1 to 1.3, or for every 100 grams of water (100 mls) 130 grams of 65% or more grated chocolate.  Apply the heat and begin whisking rapidly until the chocolate is melted and fully incorporated.

Remove from the heat and pour into the inner bowl of your water bath and begin whisking again rapidly.  As the mixture cools, the water molecules become emulsified with the fat and eventually solidify into a light moose that has no cream andwhen you try it, just dissappears in your mouth.  In this dish the key is the chocolate so the better the chocolate, the better the mousse.

These have to be an all time favourite biscuit.  Generally I am a take it or leave it kind of biscuit eater but these I wil l always take.  Debbie whipped up the above batch using a recipe from the Ladies, A Plate cookbook which has become my culinary nemesis.  If she keeps churning out these wonderful masterpieces then I will know its my baking skills and not the recipes at fault.

She did report that this was a very wet dough and suggested rolling out on parchement paper and removing the excess rather than trying to transfer.

Ingredients

For the biscuits

225g butter
225g brown sugar
1 egg
250g flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons mixed spice
2 teaspoons cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
raspberry jam to glue together

For the Icing

20 red glace cherries (optional)
240g icing sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
red food colouring
raspberry jelly crystals

Method

Cream the softened butter and sugar until very pale, beat in the eggs, add the sifted dry ingredients and combine to form a smooth dough.  Chill for a couple of hours or overnight, covered.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. and line two baking sheets with baking paper.

Divide the dough in half and return half to the fridge.  Knead the remaining half until it is malleable.

Flour the bench lightly, flour the rolling pin and roll the mixture out thinly.  Aim for about 3mm thick.

Cut the dough into circles about 5cm in diameter and set out on trays about 2cm apart.  Bake about 10-12 minutes rotating the trays halfway through cooking.  They should be firm on top, slightly brown underneath and small cooked.  Repeat for the remaining dough.

Pair up the biscuits and glue together with the raspberry jam.  Make a smooth icing with the icing sugar, lemon juice and little hot water.  Colour with the food colouring.

Makes about 40

Overnight Hot Cross Buns

An Easter treat to be sure are Hot Cross Buns.  I prefer them to Easter Eggs, hot, steamy, slathered in butter and much to the eternal horror of my wife, with a little bit of Vegemite.  Hot Cross Buns are not too sweet and I think the fruit lends itself to a savoury application, rather than her preferred Raspberry Jam.

Last night, after flicking through the Ladies, A Plate cookbook which is a tome that I have dismissed after three failures, the decision was made to make up a batch.  The recipe gave two options for rising the dough and we took the option of rising in the fridge overnight.  This give a wonderful texture and seems to eliminate the yeasty flavour that can happen with other homemade breads.

Ingredients

300ml milk
30g active yeast
510g flour
55g brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoon mixed spice
55g butter
2 eggs
115g currants
115g mixed peel

For the crosses

2 tablespoons self-raising flour
1-2 tablespoons cold water

For the glaze

3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons milk

Making the Dough

Warm the milk slightly and sprinkle the yeast over and leave to soften for about 5 minutes.

Put the flour in a bowl, add sugar, salt and spices and mix with a whisk to combine.  Rub in the butter with your fingers.  Then pour in the milk and eggs and mix with the paddle attachment on your mixer then the dough hook.  Or use a wooden spoon.  Lastly add the currants and mixed peel.  The dough will be very sticky.

Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and a lid and leave in a warm place for about 2 hours until puffy or doubled.  Or leave in the fridge overngith, take it out in the morningm knead it slightly and leave it to return to room temperature for about an hour before cominuing on the with the recipe.

Turn out the dough onto a floured board.  Flour the top, knead a little and divide into 24 pieces.  Form each piece into a smooth ball and arrange them in rowsin a shallow greased tray about 1cm apart.  Cover with a cloth and allow to rise for about 45 minutes.

Once the buns are shaped, pre-heat the over to 200°C.

Making the crosses

Make a soft batter from the self-raising flour and cold water. Cut crosses in the tops of the buns and pipe the batter into them.  Bake for about 25 minutes, rotating the tin after 15 minutes.

Glazing

To glaze the buns and make them nice and sticky: when they are almost done, heat together the sugar and milk, stirring to form a syrupy glaze.  Remove the buns when they are browned and brush the tops with the syrup, twice.

This make 24 buns.

We have tried many variations on this formula and one of the better ones is this one which I found on the  Serious Eats blog.  the batter is enough for a 9 x 9 or 22cm square tin.  The dish also relied on the quality of the sausages as they are the bulk of the dish.  Great with mashed potato and lots of gravy.

Ingredients

For the batter:
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
2 eggs
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
400 grams cumberland sausage

For the gravy:

1 tablespoon butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons flour
1 cup beef stock
Worcestershiresauce to taste
Salt and pepper

Method
For the batter:

Preheat oven to 220°C.

While oven is heating prepared batter.  Whisk together the flour, eggs, milk and salt until smooth.  Let stand for about 10 minutes or so.

Cut the sausages into individual links and brown without cooking in the oil over a medium-high heat.  If need be pierce the sausages to stop then splitting.

Dump the sausages and the fat into the preheated dish and top with the batter.  Put into oven.  Bake for 40 minutes, checking the colour in the last 10 minutes so that it does not burn.

For the gravy:
Heat butter over medium heat in a medium saucepan.  Add onion and saute until  golden and almost lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

Add flour.  Stir in, cooking the flour and distributing well for about a minute.

Whisk in the beef stock and let come to a simmer and slowly thicken.  Simmer for a few minutes to get rid of the floury taste.  Add a few dashes of the Worchetershire sauce, salt and pepper to taste.

Serve the onion gravy alongside the the toad in the hole.

This is a real rib sticker of a soup.  It is dense, hearty and filling.  Look out for bacon or ham hocks at the supermarket or butchers and keep in the freezer. Dont use a pork hock which is an altogether different cut.  At a pinch you could use bacon bones.

Ingredients
1 bacon or pork hock
1 packet of split peas
3 liters of water
2-3 medium carrots, medium diced
3 medium onions, diced
pepper to taste

Method

Cover the hock and the peas with the water and simmer until the peas have dissolved and the meat is starting to fall off the hock.  Remove from the heat.

Remove the hocks and allow to cool enough to handle.  Remove the skin and and excess fat and discard.  Dice the meat up and return to the stockpot with the peas.

Add the onions and carrots and simmer until they are softened.  Add the pepper to taste.

This soup tastes much better when allowed to cool until it become stodgy and then reheated for service.

What a day!  A whole day in the kitchen cooking up a storm.  OAMC or Once a Month Cooking requires attention to detail and to planning but I have found it hugely rewarding.

Here is what I made today:
6 liters of chicken stock.
6 servings of meatballs in a homemade tomato sauce.
600 grams of homemade fusili pasta
600 grams of lasagne pasta for the
lasagne which shoud have 16 portions at least
400 mls of a rough pesto.
2 chickens roasted, halved and frozen

Somethings to remember from the day.

Comfortable shoes.  When you are standing on your feet all day, good support is imperative.

Planning.  Write down your plan and the order you want to go in.

Shopping.  Do it the night before and lay it out in groups on the day.

Lunch and breaks.  Make sure you have something prepared for lunch and take breaks and do something completely different.

Shortcuts.  Dont be afraid to take shortcuts.  Instead of making my great but time consuming tomato sauce, I could use a canned bolognese sauce.  Instead of making the lasagne sheets from scratch I could have used bought sheets.  But it is not the same.