Vegan

Last weekend we had a visit from my son Adam, his wife Kylie, my other son, Edna** (Joel) and his girlfriend Amanda. We went to the footy in the afternoon then back home to our place for dinner. As Kylie has adopted a vegan lifestyle, I was determined to present a few vegan dishes for the evening. About a week and a half prior I started researching vegan requirements and a few recipes. I decided on three and was very happy with the result. They all had wonderful flavours with Kylie being very appreciative of the effort. 

We also had Indian Style Roast Chicken Drumsticks for the "meaters". I made a few non-garlic ones for Jen due to her dietary restrictions but unfortunately, being caught up in the night, she had some of the risotto which contained not only garlic but onion as well. Poor Jen was down for the count after 30 mins. A lay down and a few heat bags were in order. Good night, see you on the morrow.

The three "dishes" were as follows:

Summer Vegetable Terrine
Saffron Risotto with Butternut Pumpkin and Spinach
Open Vegetable Tart with Crumbed Potato Topping 

Summer Vegetable Terrine

The terrine presented as the most challenging as it required firm unpressed tofu as an ingredient. Looked everywhere for it. Even Asian grocers had no idea what I was after. I settled for Firm Silken Tofu which worked well.

Tofu and Savoury Yeast Flakes

Processed Tofu, Yeast Flakes, Basil and Parsley

Prepared Vegetables 

Sautéed Vegetables with Tofu mixture and reduced vegetable stock  

Vegetable/Tofu mixture pressed into Steamed Zucchini lined loaf tin

Turned out and almost ready

Ready

Saffron Risotto with Butternut Pumpkin and Spinach

Open Vegetable Tart with Crumbed Potato Topping 

The only concern I had with the Tart was obtaining Vegan Puff Pastry or at worse, a recipe to make it. Luckily, vegan puff pastry is readily available. The Borg's brand is vegan suitable as is one of the larger supermarkets "homebrand".

The tart had three layers.
Mushroom and Spinach
Broccoli and Tomato
Potato with Dill and Mustard

Baked and ready to serve

** "The Black Adder" The Foretelling

Ven a Son Comes for Dinner

Venison!

When will we have it?

What will we serve with it?

Who will enjoy and appreciate it?

Where will I be able to purchase some?
Questions I always ask myself when I have an appetite for this very delicious game meat.

Answers:

This weekend.

Colcannon (I used parsnip mash)

Not too many came to mind. My son Joel and his girlfriend Amanda had spent the past 2 and half years in the UK and travelling Europe. Obvious choice. (Amanda's Irish heritage influenced the decision to choose colcannon)

Alpine Game Meats at Propsect was the place of purchase but I did discover a great butcher at West Hoxton, NSW that carries a range of fine and superior quality products. I was like a kid in a candy shop. Recommend you give Campisi Butchery a try.

Kitchen Time:
Seared venison loin with licorice sauce, and glazed parsnip colcannon was the chosen recipe to follow.

Fine grating of the licorice root - purchased a few years back from one of those British lolly shops at Darling Harbour

Boiled parsnip passed through a ricer

Prepping the savoy cabbage, onion and leek

Ready to serve

Entree' for the night was Celeriac Soup

Dessert - Salted Caramel and Chocolate Tart

Celeriac and Bacon Soup

Now that the cold weather has turned "this is bullshit" cold, a nice warming bowl of soup is on the menu tonight. The chosen soup being celeriac and bacon.

Many people have heard of celeriac but not too many have seen or tasted it.

Celeriac is a root vegetable with a bulbous hypocotyl, (the part of the stem of an embryo plant beneath the stalks of the seed leaves and directly above the root).Typically, celeriac is harvested when its hypocotyl is 10–14 cm in diameter. It is edible raw or cooked, and tastes similar to the stalks of common celery. Celeriac may be roasted, stewed, blanched, or mashed. Sliced celeriac occurs as an ingredient in soups, casseroles, and other savory dishes.








As with most soups, this is an easy and basic one to make. 
For this recipe, I used the following:

1 Leek-sliced thinly
2 Rashers of Bacon-diced
1 Celeriac "Bulb"-peeled and cubed
2 Potatoes-peeled and cubed
500-750ml Chicken Stock

Using a little olive oil and a tablespoon of butter, sweat down the leek in a medium size saucepan,over medium heat, for 4-5 mins than add the bacon and cook for a further 5 mins.

Add the celeriac and potato and enough stock to just cover. Bring to the boil and cook until tender.
When ready and in batches, transfer to a blender and process until you have a smooth and creamy texture. 





Ladle into bowls and serve topped with bacon crumble.

Bacon Crumble

2 rashers bacon, cut into an extremely fine dice (about 2mm)
1/4 cup coarse fresh breadcrumbs (I use Panko Bread Crumbs)

Sauté the bacon in a frying pan. When the bacon is starting to cook and release its fat, add the breadcrumbs. Stir continually, until the breadcrumbs are golden and the bacon pieces are crunchy. 

Taste and season with salt if required – this will depend on how salty the bacon is – then drain on a paper towel. 

Soft Shell Crabs

There's not too many, if any, people I know who enjoy seafood that would knock back a meal that had soft shell crab in it. 

Many sushi restaurants now have soft shell crab sushi rolls.

When I discovered a few months back that our local seafood shop had them, I knew then that it would not be long before I purchased a box to try a couple of yet to be decided recipes.

Two weeks ago I acquired my first box of frozen crabs. I would loved to have been able to get hold of some fresh crabs but that will never happen due to location, time of year, lunar phase, molting and something to do with unicorn burps.

FYI (Northern Hemisphere) (Australia)

Soft shell crabs are not their own species, despite what many people may think. They're just a regular crab (in the U.S. they're often blue crabs) that have gotten too big for their shells. In order to keep on growing, they have to shed their shell to grow a new, bigger one. This typically happens after the first full moon in May and continues to occur until October.
To shed their shell, they form a new "coat" underneath, and then puff themselves up to break their current shell. Once they release themselves, the crab's coat will harden in just a couple of hours into a new shell. It's a very short window for fishermen to catch the crabs during this transition, so instead they're caught a couple of days before molting and kept in a tank until they remove their shell.

At a cost of $22 a box with 10 in the box, although frozen, I saw value in my purchase.

Now to the chosen recipes. I decided to go with Soft Shelled Crabs Meuniere and Panko-Crusted Soft Shelled Crab with Ginger Ponzu Sauce.

Preparing the crabs for cooking involved "cutting off the face", removing the underside flap and the gills (dead man's fingers).

Soft Shelled Crab Meuniere

Milk soaked and dusted with flour.

Ready for pan fry. 

Burnt butter and Tarragon Sauce

Panko-Crusted Soft Shelled Crab

 with Ginger Ponzu Sauce.

Both plates of crab were delicious. A definite must do for future guests.

What else was delicious tonight?

Lime and Coconut Ice Cream!!!

Chai Time

Chai, Chai Tea, Masala Chai, Chai Latte? What is the correct name?

I'm no expert but my understanding is that Chai is a word for tea in numerous languages, derived from Mandarin Chinese. Chai Tea, well, based on the previous, we might as well just say Tea Tea or Chai Chai.

Masala Chai, which is what this post is all about, is literally "mixed-spice tea" and is a flavoured tea beverage made by brewing black tea with a mixture of aromatic Indian spices. Originating in India, the beverage has gained worldwide popularity, becoming a feature in many coffee and tea houses. Although traditionally prepared by a decoction of green cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, ground cloves, ground ginger, and black peppercorn together with black tea leaves. Retail versions include tea bags for infusion, instant powdered mixtures, and concentrates. In some places the term "chai," alone, can refer to the beverage.

As for Chai Latte, it's just Masala Chai with some bubbling froth. A lot like the discussion on what we call this very aromatic and pleasant tasting beverage.

Here is a recipe that I recently discovered and take the time out to make at weekends. Once you try it, I'm sure you'll take the time too for this fantastic brew.

INGREDIENTS

1 inch piece fresh ginger, cut into thin rounds
1 cinnamon sticks
1 teaspoons black peppercorns

1 star anise
5 whole cloves
4 green cardamom pods

1 black cardamom pod
2 cups cold water
3 bags of black tea (preferably Darjeeling)
2 cups whole milk (I use Rice Milk)
1/4 cup raw sugar. (suggest using half this amount if you do not like your tea too sweet or omit altogether)

Using a mortar and pestle lightly crush and bruise first 7 ingredients mortar.

Place in a saucepan and add 2 cups water, bring to boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, partially cover pan, and simmer gently 10 minutes.

Remove from heat. Add tea bags and steep 5 minutes. Discard tea bags. 

Add milk and sugar. Bring tea just to simmer over high heat, whisking until sugar dissolves.

 Strain and serve hot.

Spicy Friday Night

The end of another working week, Friday night footy and it's time to relax with a beer and some delicious comfort food.
For the past month or so, I have been recording and watching a show hosted by a chef named James Martin. The show, titled James Martin Home Comforts, has me saving links to some of his recipes online for future kitchen experiences. I like his knock about, no nonsense approach and presentation in this series.   
It was his Smokey Chilli Chicken Wings with Spiced Potato Wedges on one episode that inspired tonight's munch out. As his recipe for the wings had garlic in it, I decided to follow another so Jen could also enjoy them.
When searching Chef Google for a recipe and I come across one on the Epicurious webpage, that will, at most times, be the one I go with. It is a fantastic source of great recipes. So, Crispy Baked Chicken Wings it is, with Mr Martins Wedges  

The sauce used was a home-made ranch style sauce that was whipped together using home-made mayo, from leftover egg yolks and leftover buttermilk. The buttermilk was a by product from home-made butter I made during the week. I found myself throwing out a lot of unused ingredients and have recently decided to alter that habit. The butter was made using the leftover thickened cream we had in the Pea and Ham soup earlier this week.

Now for that sauce!

Ingredients

1/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 - 2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 tbls fresh chopped dill
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh chives
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
Few dashes Tabasco sauce to liking

Combine all of the ingredients in a medium bowl and whisk well. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Chill until ready to serve.

Pea and Ham?

It may not look like the traditional home-made pea and ham soup we all grew up with but it definitely has that classic flavour we all remember.

A perfect way to end a very enjoyable and relaxing long weekend

(A James Martin recipe)

Chocolate and Cherry Meringue Stack

There are a few times when you decide to prepare a meal or course where you may end up with a leftover ingredient. Deciding what to do with that ingredient, without wasting it, sometimes becomes a bigger choice than the original planning of a meal.

Eggs! Where a recipe only requires egg yolks or egg whites, you no doubt will need to make a decision as to what to do with whichever is the leftover without wasting them. There are several choices you can make for either but your decision will be based on whether you are actually going to indulged in this "by-product" and whether you do need it. 

For a meal next weekend we have decided, for dessert, to make a Hazelnut (Nutella) with Ferrero Rocher Ice Cream to accompany a Chocolate Souffle. Only needing the yolks of 5 eggs for the ice cream, I had the whites of 5 eggs at my mercy. Fortunately for me, I've had a dessert recipe that required only the whites of 5 eggs on my have to do list for the past month or so.

Egg whites used to make 4 meringue discs

Berry Ripple Cream, Mixed Berry Coulis,

 Melted Chocolate

Finished Stack (Recipe)

Note: Went overboard with the chocolate. No such thing I hear most of you say. There are cherries in there somewhere. As cherries are out of season at the moment, I had to settle for canned cherries.

Warm Chocolate Orange

Once again, a challenge presented itself when I first viewed this dessert as a pressure test for current contestants on the popular "reality" cooking show Masterchef Australia. 

"Celebrity" Chef Shannon Bennett's Bistro Vue's Warm Chocolate Orange became part of a menu this weekend. The return of my son Joel and his girlfriend Amanda from their two and bit year life experience of living and travelling the UK and Europe gave me due reason to attempt this multi element dessert.







It was a big day in the kitchen getting everything prepared. Along with the dessert, a Braii had also been planned to welcome the well travelled back home. So I could dedicate most of the kitchen time to the Warm Chocolate Orange, I prepared the marinade and relish for the BBQ last week.
As with most recipes, especially desserts, that have several components to them, I start off with plenty of enthusiasm. Several elements, and hours later, I question my sanity in taking on such tasks. Then all I need to do is remind myself of, with fingers crossed, the end result, thinking of the enjoyment and culinary experience our guest may have.

Then there is that one element that is fun and enjoyable to prepare. In this case, the orange jelly pearls were that element.













Using a syringe, single drops of warm orange jelly, made from freshly squeezed orange juice, sugar and agar agar are slowly added to grapeseed oil that has been chilled in the freezer.

The first (bottom) layer - 

Orange segments in orange jelly

Assembly time.

As for the end result, I was very pleased and relieved that it all came together.

 A special dessert for a special occasion.