Pork Pie and a Plowmans’ Lunch.

Posted on October 24, 2015 by kjverant

There is something very satisfying about making a pork pie. I think it’s the labour intensity along with the tactile nature of hot water crust pastry that gives it the edge over a shortcrust or puff pastry specimen. My American friends are not very familiar with savoury pies, when I mention meat pies they look at me with confusion sprinkled with a touch of horror. They don’t know what they are missing.

This pie is very basic. My fluted french pie mould is in storage so I made do with a high sided pie dish. Not as pretty as the Tractor Wheel Pork Pie I had in Manchester, UK, in the September of 2012 post either. But Yummo all the same.

Pies here in the USA are mostly filled with fruit and are unbelievably sweet by my British/Australian taste buds. I won’t mention sausage rolls or pasties here for fear I will induce a dead faint on anyone within earshot… (sausage roll recipe to follow shortly)

For savoury meat pies and convenience you can buy ready made puff pastry or short crust pastry in the UK and Australia but here they are invariably full of sugar. Phyllo pastry really was the only choice until Trader Joe’s finally brought out a plain unsweetened Frozen puff pastry recently. Hurrah!

Anyway, it was a cool day and I felt like baking. The slow cooker really helped with the labour of this endeavour.

Pork Pie (a cheats version)

Put 1kg of diced pork in the slow cooker with 1 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp sage, thyme and a teaspoon of salt and a sprinkle of Italian seasoning and a cup of water for 4 hours on low. It will form a thick “pancake” of meat perfectly fitting the pastry lined cake tin. (There was plenty of stock that came off the meat and it set really well without having to add gelatine.)

For the pastry:

200g lard (may substitute butter or 50:50 of each, but the crust won’t be quite as crisp)

220g water

575g plain flour

1 beaten egg

1 x 20cm cake tin or a pie mould the same diameter as the slow cooker insert.

Make the pastry

Put the lard or butter and water into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Sift the flour with a good pinch of salt into a large bowl. Lightly beat the egg with a fork and add to the flour and give it a quick mix. Pour the hot lard and water into the flour, mix with a wooden spoon quickly so the hot liquid doesn’t cook the egg, then leave until cool enough to handle. The pastry must be warm when you start to work it.

Pull off a quarter of the pastry and roll it into a lid that will fit the top of the cake tin. Roll the remaining pastry to fit the base of the tin. Lay it in the bottom, then firmly push the dough up the sides with your hands. It should spread quite easily. If it slides down, leave it to cool a bit more. Make certain there are no holes or tears, this is very important, as the jelly will leak out. Add the pork filling into the lined cake tin and press it down. It should come almost to the top of the pastry.

Brush the edges of the pastry above the meat with beaten egg. Lower the lid into place and press tightly to seal with the edges. Make a small hole in the lid to let out the steam and to give you a place to pour in the stock later.

Bake the pie (on a baking sheet) in a 180’c/ 350’f oven for 45 mins or until the pastry is golden and cooked through. Let the pie cool enough to handle and then carefully remove it from the cake tin.

When the pie is cool, warm the stock until it melts and then pour the stock carefully through the hole in the top of the pastry until it will take no more liquid. A funnel is invaluable here. Leave the pie to cool further, then refrigerate overnight so the stock will set to jelly.

Serve with a cold ale.

A Plowman’s Lunch

Enjoy.

Regards,

Springing into action.

Posted on May 15, 2015 by kjverant

I love Strawberries. Glorious reddy pink orbs of joy. Have them naked or dress them with cream. Toss them into a salad and they somehow lift the whole thing. A little black pepper brings out the flavour of the strawberrry which in turn brings out the flavour of the good champagne. I’ve taken up watercolour painting and could not resist the strawberry…

Slice them and wrap them in the warmth of a crepe at breakfast and feel the summer around the corner. Crush some and let them sit in the bottom of a shooter glass covered with gin and a lick of soda. Soak them in a little brandy and cover with thick cream and enjoy them outdoors while the sun sets. Ah yes, winter is finally a fading memory… I am dreaming of the sea shore, of sun and seafood, and of course – some strawberries.

Kind regards, J.

The Lake is still frozen, but… part two

Posted on March 21, 2015 by kjverant

Well, we had the Mongolian beef that I cooked yesterday for dinner. I found the spices had penetrated the meat well, though I thought it tasted a little “flat”. That’s why it’s important to taste your food and adjust seasoning before serving. So, I added a teaspoon of freshly grated ginger, an extra teaspoon of sriracha chilli sauce, half a teaspoon of ground szechuan peppercorns, and a tablespoon of soy sauce. Wow! It sould have served 4 but we ate the lot. It was that good. I garnished with chopped corriander/cillantro. Yum.

Kind regards,

The Lake is still frozen, but…

Posted on March 20, 2015 by kjverant

It’s been a long winter. Watching cars drive on the frozen lake has been an education to say the least. Now things are beginning to thaw, the snow is gone but the ice is still there, dangerously thin by now I imagine. I’m told the lake goes from white, to grey and then to black. I’m waiting.

I’ve been in love with my slow cooker during this time. It somehow conveys a feeling of contentment and nurturing that the pressure cooker lacks. Though the latter is a very useful tool, particularly if you are in a hurry or your meat is still frozen. I do like the slow cooker though, particularly because you can set and forget it. It does curries and spiced Asian fusion food so well. The spices permeate the meat in a way that is unctuous and all the better for it if you refrigerate overnight and reheat (not in the slow cooker) the day after. Somehow the aroma of the dishes cooked in it makes me impatient to eat, so preparing a larger batch than needed, so that there are leftovers, is a good thing.

I’m typing this while the smell of Mongolian Beef wafts through the house. Yes I know, it should really be Mongolian Lamb but finding good lamb here is somewhat of a challenge and I had some nice beef shank (similar to an Osso bucco cut ) in the freezer, so why not?

This is the before picture, the beef is in the spiced liquid, though there isn’t much of it, liquid that is. The beef will release its own juices and add to the “gravy” as it cooks. You may need to thicken the sauce at the end of cooking with a small slurry of cornflour/cornstarch, or not as the case may be. Taste before serving and adjust the seasoning. Enjoy!

Mongolian Beef ready to cook…IngredientsIngredients

Ingredients

2 tablespoons dark soy

1 teaspoon five spice powder

1 tablespoon hoi sin sauce

1 teaspoon sriracha chilli sauce

1 tablespoon chinese cooking wine or dry sherry

4-5 spring onions/scallions sliced diagonally

1 large onion

500 g beef or lamb

peanut oil or ghee for frying (1-2 tablespoons)

Method

Slice onion and fry off in a medium fry pan for a couple of minutes in peanut oil/ghee. Place onion in slow cooker. Brown meat quickly in the same pan, 3-4 minutes and add to slow cooker. Deglaze pan with about half a cup of water or beef stock and mix in remaining ingredients (except spring onions/scallions) and then transfer to slow cooker pouring liquid over the meat and onions. Cook on high for 1 hour and then on low for 5 hours or until meat is tender. Adjust cooking time according to your slow cooker. Add spring onions and stir through. Serve with rice.

Almost done, just needs a stir, the spring onions, and a bit of thickening for the sauce so it coats the meat in sticky goodness. Then grab a spoon, it will melt apart…

Kind regards,

Baking in a slow cooker… Why?

Posted on August 30, 2014 by kjverant

Well, I’ll tell you. It doesn’t over heat the entire kitchen in the summer. It also means you’re using less power by not switching on the main oven. But does it bake?

It was a wet and stormy day and I had nothing better to do. Plus, I had three bananas that were overripe and in my mind too squishy to eat as is. I had been reading about slow cookers and what other weird things you could do with them. Baking seems a little peculiar, but apparently slow cookers are not the exclusive realm of curry and stew. I was a little sceptical, but lets see how it went shall we?

Banana walnut bread with Maple cream cheese icing.

I’m not really a sweet tooth these days, savoury fair is my preference, but occasionally a little sugar indulgence is necessary. This banana walnut bread is not that sweet and if you choose to ice it with the cream cheese mix, it has a very pleasant tartness too. The bread (cake actually) comes out moist and sticky, a little more like a steamed pudding. It’s a little crumbly to cut on the first day but seems to get more moist the day after and holds up better. Goes well with a cup of coffee…

Slow Cooker Banana Walnut Bread

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 1.5 hours
Total Time: 2 hours
Yield: 8-10 Servings

Ingredients
2 Eggs
1/2 Cup Butter (softened)
3/4 Cup Sugar
2 Cups Flour
2 level Teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
3 Medium Bananas Mashed
1 Cup Chopped Walnuts or Pecans (optional)
1 tsp cinnamon

Instructions
In a bowl, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, beat in eggs one at a time until combined.
Add in baking powder, salt and 1 cup flour. Sift into mix and stir gently.
Add in last cup of flour (sifted into mix also). Mixture will be thick.
Mash Bananas well and then add to mixture along with the remaining ingredients.

Line your crock with baking/parchment paper and pour mixture in. Drape a tea towel over the top of the crock and place the lid on top. (This keeps the cake dry from moisture dripping off the lid). Cook for 1.5 hours on high. The top will be slightly brown. Bread will bounce back to the touch and a clean toothpick poked into the cake middle will come out clean when the cake is done. Timing varies with the size of the slow cooker and each one has its own quirks. You may need to be present the first time you make this. Rotating the insert 90′ every half hour helps prevent burning if your cooker has a hot spot. When the cake is cool, spread the icing and enjoy!

Maple cheese topping/icing

250g/8 ounces cream cheese (such as Philadelphia), room temperature
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cups icing/powdered sugar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup

Cream the butter and sugar together, add cream cheese (chopped in chunks) and continue beating until combined. Add maple syrup and stir again. Spread the icing on the banana bread.

Thin sliced and iced.

Enjoy!

Kind regards,

Slow Cooker Revelations

Posted on August 23, 2014 by kjverant

Well, it’s been quite some time since I last posted. Now my health is good again, I’m off the blood pressure meds after 16 years and I’m starting to feel really well again. Thank goodness. Now I’m ready to explore. Welcome back to my journey…

It started a couple of weeks ago. It was too hot to cook indoors, the humidity was off the scale and dripping into your dinner as you cook is no fun. So, I was trawling the internet for recipes (so that’s what you call it?) and I’d found some slow cooker groups on Facebook. Interesting stuff, mostly. It seemed like a good idea then, even though in my head slow cooked meals were a winter phenomenon. Apparently not. I was pleasantly surprised to learn I was not utilising this cheap appliance to its full potential. I had acquired a secondhand cooker for all of $6.99 from Goodwill and figured I should give it a try. It works! Baking, braising, roasting, it seems the cooker has a lot to recommend it, and it didn’t fry me in the kitchen in the process! Ok, beef cheeks in Borello can wait till the first frost, but there are many things to attempt in the meantime.

The next few posts will be related to slow cooking, some stuff that is new, and some adaptations of previously stove topped tagine or other recipes. Have fun and enjoy the endeavours (and maybe some epic fails ha ha…)

kind regards,

Gosht Kareli or Spiced Lamb Shanks

Posted on June 5, 2013 by kjverant

Sit back with a glass of your favourite and absorb the aroma of the food cooking. The house is filled with the perfume of cloves and cardamom and cinnamon. Onions give off their wonderful scent as they caramelise. The whole spices are dry fried lightly until they crackle, then the lamb shanks are sautéed in ghee with ginger and garlic and garam masala until they are sealed.

Into the slow pot they go to spend the day becoming so tender and gelatinous you could chew them only with your lips and tongue as the sticky gravy coats the meat and runs down your chin through your fingers.

This dish is too good to eat with cutlery. Clean hands and hot naan bread are all you need. Smell the spices as they blend and compliment each other. Watch the colour deepen as the Kashmiri chillies give up their secrets. I challenge you not to keep opening the pot to savour the heady allure of the feast to come.

Served with a rich Dal and a good strong Czech Pilsner outdoors under Capricorn and it doesn’t come much closer to heaven than this…sigh…

My spice rack is from Malaysia and is 1.2 metres tall and the same wide. It has 64 drawers in it and is filled with everything from ajwan to zedoary. I have three marble and granite mortars of various sizes, the smallest of which I broke the pestle so now I use a suitably shaped river stone I found. (Works better than the small marble original!) I have some friends who keep asking me where the batteries go in my largest pestle,they are culinary heathens and have no class.

I’ve been asked a few times now, so here is the recipe, this is one of my favourites….

Gosht Kareli

1 kg lamb shanks
2 bay leaves
4 cinnamon sticks
4 cloves
3 tsp garam masala
3 tbsp garlic paste
3 tbsp ginger paste
10 green cardamom pods
2/3 tsp corn flour
4 tbsp oil
2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
A slack handful of rich red dried chillies (doesn’t have to be hot ones) Kashmiri are fabulous.

Method

1. Remove the white membranes from the shanks and prick all over with a fork down to the bone, thoroughly. This helps the marinade penetrate the meat.

2. Apply the ginger, garlic, chilli, corn flour and garam masala evenly over the shanks. Marinate for 2 hours, preferably overnight. (the longer the better)

3. Heat the oil in a pan and add all the whole spices. Sauté over medium heat until they begin to crackle. (remove from the pan and place on a plate while you sauté the lamb)

4. Arrange the shanks in the pan and sauté over medium heat for 10 – 15 mins until the meat changes colour and browns.

5. Add water to cover the shanks, add fried spices, stir and cover. Let the meat simmer gently until tender and gelatinous. Three hours plus is good, or use a slow cooker on low for 8 hours.

6. Carefully remove each shank piece with tongs, they will be inclined to fall apart if you have cooked them for long enough.

7. Strain the sauce (optional) and reduce further on low heat (or high if you watch it constantly) until it becomes a thick, sticky concentrate (about 200-300ml)

8. Add shanks back to sauce, coating each one evenly.

To Serve

Serve garnished with sliced cucumbers, onion rings, tomatoes and lemon wedges. Rice is a good option, but so are mashed potatoes. Enjoy.

regards J.

Wacky Wakame Salad with Mussel, Mushroom Miso soup

Posted on April 25, 2013 by kjverant

The red bean Miso paste that has been sitting quietly in the cupboard minding its own business could no longer be ignored. It kept falling out every time I opened the pantry door (that’s probably a reflection on my tendency of overstocking of the cupboard like we are about to have a famine or something.) I took it as a hint.

So, for the wacky Wakame salad… gather some seaweed.

A packet of dried seaweed.

Ingredients

Take out 20 grams of wakame and soak in hot water for about an hour, changing the water a couple of times as you go and stirring to make sure all the seaweed is reconstituting evenly.

Wakame soaking, wet ingredients mixed, and sesame seeds waiting for toasting.

In the meantime mix together:

2 tbsp rice vinegar

2 tbsp light soy sauce

1-2 tsp chilli powder or flakes

1 tsp sesame oil

Toasting sesame seeds

2 tbsp roasted sesame seeds (place in a dry frying pan and heat until they are just starting to toast and smell nice)

Method

When the wakame is suitably rehydrated, drain it in a colander and dry it off with paper towels. Place the wakame in a mixing/serving bowl, you may need to “cut it up” with a pair of scissors, or you could actually chop it into smaller strands with a knife. I liked the scissor option in the bowl… and then add all the other ingredients and stir well to mix the dressing through the seaweed. Cover and let the flavours infuse.

Now for the Miso

This is not a traditional miso recipe per-se. I used what I had in the fridge and improvised a wee bit.

Home made frozen prawn stock, pretty colour hey?

Heat 3 cups of home-made prawn stock over high heat and add;

1 tsp ikan bilis (dried shrimp, garlic and chilli. Available from most good asian markets)

Heat until hot.

Gather together

1 tsp minced ginger

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp rice vinegar

5 drops of Tamari (soy sauce)

2 tablespoons red miso paste (softened with a couple of tablespoons of your prawn stock.)

add all the above to the stock and stir.

Veggies for interest.

1 medium field mushroom cut into 1 cm cubes.

1 small pak choi (or cabbage or whatever you have on hand) sliced thinly

3 spring onions (scallions?) chopped thinly for garnishing later

Pop the mushrooms and pak choi into the stock and add 300 grams of cleaned raw mussels. Simmer the stock gently until the mussels open.

Assembled wakame salad.

The Salad

You can serve the wakame salad as a side dish, or if you prefer, you can place a mound of the salad in the bottom of your soup bowls and pour the soup around the side.

Mussel, mushroom miso soup

Ladle the soup into your soup bowls and garnish with the chopped spring onions.

Mussel, mushroom miso soup by J

Incidentally, prawn stock is easy to make and freeze. Next time you acquire some fresh prawns for cooking in a tapas dish such as garlic chilli prawns for example, shell and de-vein the prawns, throw the heads and shells into a stock pot and fry gently in a little olive oil (or coconut oil as an alternative for say Laksa stock) until they change colour. Then cover the heads with water and simmer very gently for about 15-20 minutes. Strain the stock through a fine sieve and let cool in smaller containers and then freeze for later use.

I hope you enjoy.

Kind regards,

A Small Taste of Summer

Posted on January 27, 2013 by kjverant

“…on the table, in the belt of summer, the tomato, luminary of earth, repeated and fertile star, shows us its convolutions, its canals, the illustrious plenitude and the abundance…” – Pablo Neruda.

The fellow is right.

Orbs of joy.

Wow, I had to post again so soon because the cherry tomatoes growing in the veggie patch were too good to pass up. The hot summer sun intensifies the rich flavour of these little orbs of joy. They have a richness of flavour not found in supermarket varieties. They positively explode in your mouth when you bite into them, and as we had a glut of them, I decided to make soup. Simple and unadulterated fresh tomato soup.

Take one large finely diced onion and sweat it off in a big pan with some robust extra virgin olive oil for a good hour. Yes, you read correctly, one hour. This intensifies the sweetness of the onion and develops those lovely caramel flavours and colour that will give a great base note to the soup. Because you are sweating them on such a low heat you are free to potter in the kitchen doing other things and stir the pot once in a while. Trust me, the aroma will have you back often enough.

Very slowly heated onion.

When the onions are soft and nicely golden you can add the uncut tomatoes (if they are big cut them up) and give them a gentle warming with the onion to soften them and free up some juices. It is better to skin them first but these where too small and fiddly so when the soup was cooked I passed the liquid through a fine sieve. You could use skinned tinned tomatoes if you don’t have fresh ones by the way.

Glistening succulence.

At this point a little water facilitates the juices flowing out of the tomatoes. Simmer gently for about 45 minutes. If you’ve already removed the skins you can stick blend or puree the soup at this point and add some salt. That is all that it needs. A simple and tasty showcase for fresh, sunny summer tomatoes. Yummo…

Ready to go.

You could, if you were so inclined, add some shaved parmesan and a wee bit of black pepper, but honestly, it was delightful just as it was.

Needless to say, fresh crusty bread served with lashings of good butter goes down a treat!

Kind regards,

Hot Stuff Baby

Posted on January 26, 2013 by kjverant

Funny how you fancy hot food when the temperature is hovering around 35’c plus…

Long time between drinks.

Spicy dahl with some lime pickle and marinated lamb rump, cooked on the barbie for dinner. Yummo.

Dahl starts with a spice blend. This one was cumin, black mustard, fennel and fennugreek seeds dry roasted and then ground. Oh, and a tablespoon of ground turmeric for good measure.

Dry roasted spices and turmeric.

Mashed garlic with ghee and some minced ginger.

Mashed garlic and ginger with some diced onions.

Fry off an onion until transparent in some nice ghee. add the dry spices and fry until fragrant. Add the garlic/ginger mix and sweat for a couple of minutes till it smells good. Chuck in a cup of pre-soaked lentils and add 3 cups of water and a couple of chillies (I used a red and green one this time)

Pre-soaked lentils.

Pressure cook for 15 mins on low and then let it naturally release. Add seasoning to taste, like maybe 3 tablespoons of fish sauce and 2 tablespoons of lime juice and viola!

BBQ lamb to the left, Dahl to the right and marinade sauce with lime pickle above. Doesn’t photograph as well as it tastes. But it was Delicious .

Small portion, but it was so tasty. Well worth the effort to cook. And it’s lamb. And it’s Australia day! Yay!

I hope you liked it too.

Kind regards,

The Art of Eating Well

Wellness through eating good food

Pork Pie and a Plowmans’ Lunch.

Springing into action.

The Lake is still frozen, but… part two

The Lake is still frozen, but…

Baking in a slow cooker… Why?

Slow Cooker Revelations

Gosht Kareli or Spiced Lamb Shanks

Wacky Wakame Salad with Mussel, Mushroom Miso soup

A Small Taste of Summer

Hot Stuff Baby