The theme for this week’s Cookbook Challenge is “comfort food”. After a rather busy week, this weekend has been incredibly lazy so something comforting and puddingish sounded good to me.
I have rather a lot of lemons (due to Maria giving me 5kgs from her tree) and I’ve been doing my best to cook and bake my way through them. So for this week’s theme, I decided to make lemon delicious in an effort to use up more lemons. If you don’t know what lemon delicious, it’s a classic – a baked pudding that ends up with two layers: a light sponge on top of a tangy sauce. (more…)
Hola! Welcome, welcome! Come in, take a seat, and get comfy. I would feed you all if I could, but unfortunately because technology hasn’t quite progressed to that point, you’ll just have to read all about the following lunch, and wish you had been there!
The theme for Week 35’s Cookbook Challenge is Spanish, and last Sunday a few bloggers came over for a Spanish themed potluck lunch. At first I really struggled with the Spanish theme and wasn’t sure what to make. I don’t own any Spanish cookbooks, and couldn’t find anything in any of my other cookbooks that wasn’t paella. I didn’t want to make paella, and interesting no one else made it either – we really needed Kat to come and cook it for us!
After a whinge on twitter, I received some good suggestions from @gastromaniac, which helped me decide on one dish – salted wrinkled potatoes with mojo verde. The following day, I went to the library and while I couldn’t find any Spanish cookbooks, I borrowed Saffron and Sunshine which contained assorted recipes from around the Mediterranean. When I flicked through it, I realised it was a goldmine and I came away with four additional recipes I wanted to make. So um, that would be five recipes altogether. Uh oh. I did consider culling my number of recipes but I really wanted to make them all.
Recipe: Spicy tomato soup with chorizo From: Soups
This week’s Cookbook Challenge theme is “soup”. Last winter I made a lot of soup – pretty much every Sunday for a couple of months – see the Soup Sunday posts. This winter, I’ve barely cooked any soup, most likely because I’m busy cooking up the various themes for the Cookbook Challenge. So I’m glad that soup is one of the themes – it’s like revisiting an old friend!
Yesterday (when I made this soup), I spent a lot of time cooking for next week’s theme – Spanish. Rather a lot, actually – you’ll see what I mean next week! I didn’t have much time left over to do a complicated soup, so I pulled out the Soups cookbook and flicked through it. I decided on this soup because I had left over chorizo (from my Spanish dishes) and because it looked pretty straight forward.
Well, I say it was straight forward, but the recipe has a weird way of cooking the chorizo – they are simmered in water until all the water evaporates and then they are fried in the fat that is left over. Honestly, if I was to do it again, I would just fry the chorizo in a pan and then throw it into a pot with the rest of the ingredients. Seriously, why go to all that kerfuffle? It’s soup! And a rather good soup too, if you like tomato based soups, and you like it spicy. Plus if you need some warming up, it’ll certainly help as it has a decent heat to it.
Stay tuned for a mammoth Cookbook Challenge post for the Spanish theme next week. We ate… boy did we eat! And see previous Cookbook Challenge posts here.
Spicy tomato soup with chorizo From Soups
500g chorizo sausage 2 tablespoons olive oil 3 onions, halved and sliced 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 1 teaspoon paprika 1-2 small red chillies, seeded and finely chopped 1.5 litres chicken stock 800g tinned chopped tomatoes
Fill a large frying pan with about 3cm of cold water. Add the chorizo sausages and bring to the boil. Lower the heat to a simmer and let the water reduce, turning the sausages occasionally, until all the water evaporates. Allow the sausages to cook in any fat left in the pan for several minutes, or until they are lightly browned. Allow to cool and cut into bite sized pieces.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and add the onions and garlic. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until they are soft. Stir in the cumin and paprika, chilli, chicken stock, and tomato. Bring to the boil and add the chorizo. Reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Check the seasoning – adding salt and pepper to taste – and serve.
Recipe: Sardine Tagra From: Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes
Occasionally I’ve made things for this blog that seemed like a good idea at the time. And then afterwards, I’ve thought, “What on EARTH was I thinking??” See recent examples: hand pulled noodles, xiao long bao, ladybird cupcakes, to name just a few. I suspect this recipe will join those entries. Why? Well, tell me – have you ever butterflied sardines before?
Cookbook Challenge… Week 32… Theme: potato… I made gnocchi…. blah blah blah….
My mind is a bit fried tonight. This morning I got out of bed early, made gnocchi, baked muffins, baked a banana cake, and went out to a 1 year old birthday party, where I drank bubbles, and ate far too much cheese and cake.
The early start, combined with far too much sugar, has left me feeling a frazzled, so I’ll keep this post short and sweet.
The theme for this week’s Cookbook Challenge is potato, and when I asked Alastair what I should make, he replied, “Gnocchi!”. I made gnocchi for the first time the other month, but since I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to make, gnocchi it was.
This time I followed a recipe from a different cookbook, and it worked out pretty well. I managed to roughly make the gnocchi shape by rolling it over a fork – unlike last time when it was too soft to shape. Oh! And I bought a food mill, so it was much easier this time. Whoo hoo for not having to push potato through a fine sieve!
We had the gnocchi for lunch so I sauteed some mushrooms with garlic and butter to have with it. I have to say, it was pretty good! The gnocchi turned out quite well too, fairly light and fluffy. And if we hadn’t eaten such a filling, carbalicious lunch, I’m sure the bubbles, cheese and cake would have put me in a worst state. As it is, I think I’m done for the evening. Thank you and good night!
1kg starchy potatoes 2 small eggs, lightly beaten about 320g plain flour pinch of salt
Wash the potatoes, and cover with cold water in a pot. Bring the water to a boil, then turn down to a simmer. Let the potatoes cook until they are soft (about 45mins – 1 hr depending on the size). Drain the potatoes – you may want to put them in a hot oven at this stage to dry them out.
While the potatoes are still hot, peel them and put them through a sieve/food mill. (I found it easiest to hold the potato with tongs and peel the skin off with my fingers.) Put them in a bowl or on your work surface and create a well in the centre. Add the egg, pinch of salt, and three quarters of the flour. Mix well and as soon as the dough comes together, stop. Only add the rest of the flour if you think it needs it. Don’t overwork the dough.
Dust your work surface with flour and flatten your dough into a rough square about 1.5cm thick.
With a knife, cut the dough into strips about 1.5cm wide. Roll each piece lightly until it is cylindrical.
Lay two or three cylinders next to each other and then cut through them at the same time , cutting them into 1.5cm wide pieces. Repeat with the rest of the cylinders.
Take a fork and push each piece of dough on to the prongs, so that it rolls itself up and is marked with lines. Repeat with all the pieces.
To cook, bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and add the gnocchi, stirring until they rise to the surface (a minute or so). Lift them out with a slotted spoon and serve with your choice of sauce.
Cookbook Challenge: Week 31
Theme: French
Recipe: Pissaladiere From: The Australian Women’s Weekly “Kitchen” Dear Cookbook Challengers in Melbourne! See the end of this post for details of a meet up!
The theme for this week’s Cookbook Challenge is French, and initially I was stumped. What could I make for French week that would be fairly easy and only involved ingredients already in my pantry?
But after a bit more thinking, I realised there’s TONS of things that come from French cooking! I almost made a dessert (it was a toss up between brulee or clafoutis) but, despite all the sweet things on this blog, I don’t actually have a huge sweet tooth. (Lots of sweet things make an appearance here because they’re easier to photograph…..! Confession time!) So rather than dessert, I made pissaladiere – an onion and anchovy tart.
The recipe I followed for the pissaladiere had a bread type base, although I believe pastry can also be used. The topping is made from a rather large amount of slowly cooked onions, on to which anchovy fillets and olives are placed. Oh. Notice anything missing on mine? I ran out of olives so mine is sans olives!
Despite the missing olives, the pissaladiere was DELICIOUS. There’s something about the combination of the bready base, sweet onions and the salty fishiness of the anchovies that really did it for me. I know lots of people don’t like anchovies, but gosh it’s worth acquiring the taste for them, just so you can eat pissaladiere!
And now an announcement for all Cookbook Challengers in Melbourne! April and I have been discussing a meet up and we have decided on a date. It’ll be a potluck lunch on Sunday 11 July – with the theme being Spanish (which is the theme for the week after – so if you come, you get to tick off your dish for the following week!). Email me or comment on this post if you’re interested. And if you’re a lapsed Cookbook Challenger, perhaps this could be the motivation to get back into it?! 🙂
50g butter 1 tablespoon olive oil 3 large onions (600g), peeled and sliced thinly 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 bay leaf 1 sprig fresh thyme 1 tablespoon baby capers, rinsed 3/4 cup (110g) self-raising flour 3/4 cup (11g) plain flour 30g butter, extra 3/4 cup (180ml) buttermilk 20 drained anchovy fillets, halved lengthways 1/2 cup (90g) small seeded black olives
Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan over low heat and add the onions, garlic, bay leaf and thyme. Cover the pot and let the mixture cook gently for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want the onions to be soft but not browned.
Let the mixture cook uncovered for a further 10 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and thyme, and stir in the capers.
Preheat the oven to 220°C and oil an oven tray.
Make the base by sifting the flours into a large bowl. Rub in the extra butter, and then stir in the buttermilk to form a soft dough (mine needed more flour). Turn the dough on to a lightly floured surface and knead until it is smooth.
Roll the dough into a rectangular shape that is about 25cm x 35cm. Place on to the tray.
Spread the onion mixture over the dough, up to the edges. Top with the anchovy fillets, placing them in a diamond pattern. Put an olive in the middle of each diamond.
Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the base is crisp.
We’re on to week 30 of the Cookbook Challenge, and the theme is “baked”. Easy right?! For someone who does a lot of baking, this week’s theme was great!
I was pretty keen to bake bread of some kind, but I ran out of time to do a proper loaf. Instead, I pulled out a book that has recipes for quick breads, and put together this loaf in just over an hour. It should have taken longer, but I didn’t let the oats soak for the full 30 minutes – as soon as my oven had preheated I figured it was good enough.
The loaf is made with porridge oats, molasses or treacle (I used treacle), buttermilk and a mixture of wholemeal and white flour. And it is really good! The oats and wholemeal flour give a chewy, nutty, texture and flavour with a crisp crust. Because it has a mix of white and wholemeal flour, it’s not too dense or heavy. When it came out of the oven, I couldn’t wait for the loaf to cool completely before I cut a slice to taste. Bad, I know, but who can resist bread straight from the oven? Not me! It was great with butter (natch) and a second slice was also really good with honey. The third slice (ha!) saw the return of butter, but I do think a bit of sweetness works really well with this bread.
I’ll definitely make it again. And I’m looking forward to eating the rest for breakfast tomorrow!
Update: see the round up for this week at My Food Trail.
Molasses oatmeal loaf
From Quick Breads
Makes a medium loaf
2 tablespoons molasses/black treacle 300ml buttermilk 75g porridge oats 200g plain wholemeal flour 200g plain white flour 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 1 teaspoon sea salt 25g unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes 1 large egg, beaten
a 450g loaf tin, well greased
Mix the molasses/treacle and buttermilk in a bowl and add the oats. Stir, and let it soak for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
In a separate bowl, stir together the flours, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Add the butter and rub it in, using the tips of your fingers until it looks like fine breadcrumbs.
Add the beaten egg and the soaked oats and mix well with a wooden spoon. It will be a very thick, heavy dough. Pour it into the greased tin and press it into a loaf shape.
Bake the loaf for 10 minutes, and then reduce the oven temperature to 180°C. Bake for a further 35 minutes.
Turn out on to a wire rack and let it cool completely before slicing.
Recipe: Crepes From: Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion
The theme for this week’s Cookbook Challenge is breakfast – fortunately a much easier theme than last week’s! The only problem with the theme this week were all the options – I had visions of omelettes, baked eggs, pancakes, French toast and bacon circulating in my head.
But then I got up this morning and went to the kitchen and suddenly – Crepes! I want to make crepes! As you do.
The best thing about crepes is how quick they are to put together and how quickly they cook. The bad thing about crepes is that I’m not very good at making them. Mine always end up rather thicker than the thin, lacy ones I imagine should come out of the frying pan. The recipe for crepes in The Cook’s Companion says “you will get better – and so will the pancakes!” but I don’t think this applies to me. I keep trying though.
Whenever I make pancakes or crepes for breakfast, I always like to serve it with fruit – it makes me feel better about eating something that’s not terribly healthy! So today I stewed a couple of pears in a raspberry sauce to go with the crepes. We keep receiving masses of pears in our fortnightly fruit and vegetable delivery but I’m not a huge fan of pears. I really only like fresh pears when they are still crunchy, but the bloody things ripen so quickly. Fortunately, I don’t mind cooked pears so poaching them is one way I deal with them.
The stewed pears and raspberry sauce is super easy – I cut a couple of peeled pears in half (removing the core), and put them in a small pot with a literal splash of water and a couple of teaspoons of sugar. Into the pot went a handful of frozen raspberries, and then I put the lid on and let it cook until the pears were soft. After that, I removed the pears and simmered the leftover liquid without a lid to reduce and thicken it. When the sauce was nice and thick, I stirred in a small knob of butter, and it was ready.
If you don’t like crepes (wtf) there are other pancake/waffle/crepe posts here.
30g butter pinch of salt 1 & 1/2 cups of milk 150g plain flour 2 eggs
Warm the butter, salt and milk until the butter has melted.
In a separate bowl, sift in the flour, and then make a well in the middle. Break the eggs into the well and work in some flour.
Add the warm milk and whisk until smooth. Refrigerate for 2 hours before cooking. Add more milk if the batter seems too thick.
Heat a frying pan over medium-low heat. Wipe the pan with a piece of buttered paper for the first pancake. Lift the pan from the heat, add in a ladle of batter and swirl the pan so the batter spreads to the edges.
Put the pan back on the heat and cook for a minute. Lift the thin outer edge of the crepe with a spatula and flip to cook the other side for another minute. Repeat with the rest of the batter.
Cookbook Challenge: Week 27
Theme: Insect
Recipe: Carrot cupcakes From: The Australian Women’s Weekly “Bake”
The theme for this week’s Cookbook Challenge is the most challenging one we’ve had yet – insect. YES INSECT! I racked my brain the whole week, trying to decide what to make.
In the end, I decided to bake something and decorate it to look like an insect. Carrot cake is one of my favourite cakes, so I decided to bake carrot cupcakes and make them into ladybirds. I made the carrot cakes on Saturday, doing so in a bit of a rush because we were heading out for dinner. I had an hour to do the baking from start to finish – but fortunately the recipe I chose was, with the help of a food processor, super quick and easy and I threw it together in 15 minutes.
Unfortunately, I made a rookie mistake and………. forgot to put the eggs in the cake mixture…………. Sheesh! It’s not even the first time I’ve left eggs out of a cake – I am a fail baker sometimes. Without the eggs, the cupcakes tasted fine, but they didn’t rise very much.
Cookbook Challenge: Week 26
Theme: Green
Recipe: Pandan Cupcakes & Green tea cupcakes Adapted from: Primrose Bakery’s Cupcakes
Wow, it’s week 26 of the Cookbook Challenge – and you know what that means, don’t you? We’re half way through the challenge! The theme for this week is “green” and I really like these kind of themes because it’s so open.
This week I really wanted to make something with green tea – but unfortunately I couldn’t find any recipes in any of my cookbooks. So I decided I would bake cupcakes and adapt a recipe for my purposes.
For the cupcakes, I thought that using matcha powder would be best. However, when I went to the Asian grocery store I couldn’t find it anywhere. Fortunately, I came across a bottle of pandan extract. Perfect – for green week AND cupcakes!
For the pandan cupcakes, I followed a recipe for vanilla cupcakes, but substituted pandan extract for the vanilla extract. The extract was really green, but I wasn’t sure how strong the colour would be after baking so I added a few drops of green colouring – it was for green week, after all!
For the frosting, I made pandan flavoured buttercream, piping it on in a rose shape. I didn’t really think it through – green roses?? Maybe I should have tried piping leaves!
Taste wise, I didn’t think that much of the cupcakes. I wish I had used this recipe for vanilla cupcakes which I have always had great success with. I found these cupcakes a bit dry, and they weren’t as fluffy as I would have liked. But the pandan in them was lovely – giving a vanilla-ish, nutty fragrance. I would definitely try using the pandan extract in cakes/cupcakes again, with other recipes.
For the green tea cupcakes, since I couldn’t find any matcha, I tried infusing milk with green tea. This didn’t work as well as I had hoped – when they were warm and not frosted, there was a faint taste of green tea But when they were cold and with buttercream on top, I couldn’t detect it at all.
Oh well! I’ll have to get my hands on matcha and have another go. Now, who wants some cupcakes??
Pandan cupcakes Adapted from the vanilla cupcake recipe in Primrose Bakery’s Cupcakes Makes 12 cupcakes
110g unsalted butter, softened 225g caster sugar 2 large eggs 150g self-raising flour, sifted 125g plain flour, sifted 120ml milk, at room temperature 1 teaspoon pandan extract
Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a 12 hole cupcake tin with cupcake wrappers.
In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter for several minutes with an electric mixer. Gradually add the sugar, beating well between additions, until the mixture is pale and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing for a few minutes after each addition.
Add a third of the flours to the butter mixture and beat on low speed. Add a third of the milk and beat again. Repeat these steps until all the flour and milk have been added. Add the pandan extract and beat until just combined.
Spoon the mixture into the cupcakes cases. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until cooked.
Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. When completely cool, ice with pandan flavoured buttercream – see recipe below.
Green tea cupcakes Adapted from the Earl grey cupcake recipe in Primrose Bakery’s Cupcakes Makes 12 cupcakes
125ml milk, at room temperature 4 teaspoons of green tea leaves (I used sencha) 110g unsalted butter, softened 225g caster sugar 2 large eggs 150g self-raising flour, sifted 125g plain flour, sifted
Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a 12 hole cupcake tin with cupcake wrappers.
In a saucepan, heat the milk over medium heat until it just begins to boil. Remove from the heat and add the green tea leaves. Leave to infuse for about 30 minutes. Once infused, strain the milk into a measuring jug. You may need to top up the amount of milk, so do that if necessary.
In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter for several minutes with an electric mixer. Gradually add the sugar, beating well between additions, until the mixture is pale and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing for a few minutes after each addition.
Add a third of the flours to the butter mixture and beat on low speed. Add a third of the milk and beat again. Repeat these steps until all the flour and milk have been added.
Spoon the mixture into the cupcakes cases. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until cooked.
Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. When completely cool, ice with vanilla flavoured buttercream.
Pandan buttercream
Makes enough for 12 cupcakes
250 grams unsalted butter, cut into cubes and very, very soft 3 cups sifted icing sugar 2 tablespoons milk 1 teaspoon pandan extract
Beat the butter in an electric mixer on high until it is very pale and fluffy.
Gradually add the icing sugar (I do this a tablespoon at a t
ime), beating well between additions. Beat until the buttercream is very fluffy – about 5-6 minutes.
Heat the milk in the microwave until it’s very warm. Add to the butter cream and beat on high for another couple of minutes. Add the pandan extract and mix to combine. Pipe on top of the cupcakes.
