Masterchef Inspiration

The call from Masterchef Australia appears genuine. So, with less than 8 days, Noodle Cook rushes to cookbooks by top chefs for inspiration, like Neil Perry's "The Food I Love, Beautiful, Simple Food to Cook at Home".

BEAUTIFUL plays some importance, but it appears success lies in the word SIMPLE, after the lessons learnt in the artistic "United Heart" (同心) creation, a French style dish which utilizes Australian desert limes and Chinese ingredients like dried oysters, onion hearts, and Chinese celery. The flavours prove too complex for the tasters. In particular John, the villain in this blog,  proclaims the dish inedible (sob, sob, sob) after the other tasters try not to grimace.


Australian Desert Lime jelly and oyster avocado mousse, fused together as united hearts, garnished with onion hearts (flowering stalks with buds) twisted in a knot. A chilled appetizer or cheese course served with a beet root fruit sauce and an oyster flavoured cream.

The dish that Noodle Cook creates must be simple, beautiful AND withstand summer heat. With so many ideas running through the head, Noodle Cook's cool, level head, starts to puff up like a Michelin Chef, and then deflates, as stage fright takes over: the chill goes down the spine and the feet suddenly feel cold. There's no time to perfect "beautiful, simple food" like Chef Neil in 8 days!

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Masterchef Dreaming

The mobile phone rings at midday while Noodle Cook, the self proclaimed electronically qualified "Masterchef", with geologist boots on instead of chef hat, looks down a microscope for evidence of the next diamond mine.

"Congratulations, you have won one of 100 places out of 6000 applications to audition for Masterchef!"

Stunned, Noodle Cook tongue twists into a knot while the brain races excitedly. Maybe it's no more running a restaurant electronically through a blog: Pinocchio getting a chance to become real???

"You need to impress the judges with a dish on 16 January. Please bring 2 plates. There's no refrigeration..... You'll get an email shortly with details."

Noodle Cook, the dreamer, starts visualizing the dishes created for Paper Chef challenges. The euphoria of winning the Paper Chef's hat for the month with Bush Tucker Lamb starts coming back. The winning dish features Australian bush herbs and spice in a beautiful green marbled lamb parfait with orange basil seed champagne jelly.



By the time the caller says good-bye, Noodle Cook has forgotten to ask for the name of the caller, the time to show up, and the location of the audition, or in this instance, the place where dreams potentially become real....

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Dumplings

Basic Dumpling Mince
Makes approx 1 kg for 4 batches of dumplings. Dumpling packs usually come in 24-30 skins.

700g pork
150g prawn meat
1 red chilli
4 garlic cloves
4 dried shiitake mushroom
1/2 cup dried chives
Marinade:
2T wine or stock (acid)
1T soy sauce (enzyme)
1T olive oil
1T cornstarch
1T sugar

Water Dumplings (Sui Gow)
Makes approx 24
Boil in stock

250 g dumpling mince
1/2 c slivered bamboo shoots
1c chopped cloud ear fungus (soaked)
2T chopped coriander
2T chopped spring onions
2T dried squid, soaked
1 green chilli chopped
1T soy sauce, to taste
1T cornstarch

Cabbage Gyoza, Jiaozi or Gow Gee
Makes 30
Pan fry and steam

250 g dumpling mince
1 T minced ginger
100 g spring onions or 1/4 c dried chives
250 g Chinese cabbage, shredded & de-watered with 1 T salt for 30 minutes, rinsed, dried - yields 1 cup
1 t sesame oil
1 T cornstarch
2 t soya sauce to taste

Vegetable dumpling
Makes 30
Steam

250 g dumpling mince or 1 c mashed firm tofu, chopped fried tofu, mushroom or bean thread noodles
1/2 c shredded carrot
1/2 c chestnut, diced
1/2 c shredded bamboo shoots
1/4 c chopped chives
1/4 c chopped coriander
1 T soy sauce to taste
1 T potato starch
1 t sesame oil

Wontons
Makes 30
Deep fry

250 g dumpling mince
1/4 c water chestnut, finely diced
1/4 c bamboo shoot, finely diced
4 dried mushroom, soaked & slivered
1 T soy sauce

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Pasta with Confit Turkey, Garlic and Onion in a Caramelised Semidried Tomato Sauce

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Abalone

Export quality green lip abalone from Australia sells for $175 per kilogram. Most oriental dishes with abalone require braising or boiling for several hours to achieve the tender melt in the mouth texture. Canned abalone is often recommended in recipes.

Fresh abalone needs scrubbing to remove the green and/or black coating. When cleaned, the abalone looks creamy white. Before cooking, tenderizing with a mallet is recommended.

Thin slices of fresh abalone needs only a few seconds in a hot pan to cook. Should the abalone turn rubbery on over cooking, convert the dish into a soup or continue with braising.

Abalone is easy to confit in a flavoured oil. Chef Neil Perry's recipe cooks at 60 degrees Celsius for 2 to 2.5 hours, while Chef Stephanie Alexander's "Cooks Companion" indicates 125 degrees Celsius for 3-4 hours. The abalone texture at the end should be "soft as butter".

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Paper Chef 31 - Another Fish Tale

Paper Chef 31 : walnut, chickpea, oregano and fish steak.

At "An Electronic Restaurant", where there is unlimited drama, the script continues...

The entry is just about done as Noodle Cook recalls some walnut oil, chickpea flour and oregano in the pantry. Just a dash to the shop for a piece of swordfish, and behold the Paper Chef entry??? URRrrgh, Noodle Cook opens the pantry and discovers stale walnut oil, chickpea flour in a falafel mix, and oregano, DRIED, which doesn't qualify or taste right with the spices in the falafel mix. Dial 000 for John to save the day evening. The swordfish ends up beautifully grilled and served with steamed beans and caramelized yam bean slices. A Paper Chef entry not to be.

Kudos: Owen (Tomatilla!) the inventor, Ilva (Lucullian Delights) the successor, Hank (Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook) July 2008 judge.

For all the monthly fun with a Paper Chef challenge where you star in your own kitchen stadium like an Iron Chef, check out the details in the Paper Chef Blog. This month's roundup can be found here. Read about the winner here.

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Salt Bush

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The Sharp Knife

According to those in the know, it's the SHARP chef's knife that makes a great chef. For that chef's knife, you need the most expensive brand on the market preferably costing in excess of $200, otherwise it isn't the real chef one. Just about every top chef thinks the chef's knife is his/her favourite kitchen tool, and it will be so for yourself if you own one. Check out Chef Benjamin's website for a chance to win a Japanese Chef Knife.

While such a luxury is beyond the means of most, the next best is a StaySharp cook's knife, as invented by Wiltshire. It's the Aussie invention of "a spring loaded sharpening block inside a sheath or scabbard, which sharpened the knife every time it was taken out or replaced". This 1969 invention resulted from a 1964 survey that showed 80% of Americans didn't know how to sharpen a knife.

Noodle Cook's cheap & reliable Wiltshire knife comes without the sharpening scabbard, and logically, for the knife to remain sharp it needs sharpening. The 1964 survey seems to hold true downunder in 2008, some 44 years later. After 2 hours of negotiating the knife on both coarse and fine sides of an aluminium oxide sharpening stone ($2.20 from oriental stores), it is clear the sharpening technique that Noodle Cook uses, does not work. The factory bevelled knife's edge starts to disappear while sharpness remains same, that is, not sharp enough to cleanly slash newspapers. Perhaps technique has nothing to do with the tough metal designed to reduce the need for sharpening? It's time to get the man of with steel, aka John the villain in this blog, to rescue the knife from doom.  John is an expert at sharpening knives for hunting in the Canadian Prairies before Staysharp inventions.

Leigh Hudson's (Chef's Armoury) professional tips for sharpening on a stone:

• Soak the stone in water before using


• Position knife at 45 degrees to the length of the stone


• Angle the blade at 20 degrees from the stone surface


• Push away firm pressure, push back with light pressure


• Use a sweeping action from handle to tip of knife or up and down movements


• Start sharpening with a coarse stone and polish off on a fine stone. Tip with an iron to finish the sharpened edge. The knife is sharp if it slashes a sheet of newspaper.

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Roast Chicken for Dinner

Every chef has a favourite kitchen tool. If yours is a good knife you have yet to own, then you can try winning one at Chef Benjamin's website if you register for the newsletter.

Noodle Cook's favourite used to be a pair of secondhand cast iron skillets with seasoning still intact thanks to the previous owner. That was until IKEA reduced their "Made in France" 5 litre enamelled cast iron cocotte to $59.95, a mega 25% savings. At such a bargain price a cheap skase like Noodle Cook has no choice but to queue up and grab. Why wait for a La Creuset or La Chasseur sale? After all, there are only two factories in France making cast iron cookware and the IKEA one probably comes from one of brand name factories. The Kitchen Warehouse sells discount price La Creuset and La Chasseur which you can order online.

There is just one slight problem with this marvellous piece of cookware: Noodle Cook has never used one before! The instructions come with no recipe. OK, you fry some milk in oil to prepare for first use, then what???

It is now up to sly Noodle Cook to hatch a dinner plan for the weekend...

It doesn't take too long for John to announce roast chicken and suddenly out comes the cocotte! John was thrilled with the prospect of cooking with a "camp oven" again, ever since he was volunteered into cooking for the field crew out in the bush. The downside of having John as executive chef means Noodle Cook does the peeling and cutting.

An executive chef cooks to perfection, so a recipe must be found. The first Google attempt returns "Le Poulet de Muriel" by Chocolate and Zucchini, a roast chicken scented with garlic, lemon, thyme and rosemary. An incredibly simple bung it into the oven at 150 degrees Celsius for 3 hours and uncover to brown at 220 degrees Celsius. Before long the Google searches proclaim that it takes 50 minutes per kilo of chicken plus 25 minute at 180 degrees Celsius to French roast a chicken in a Le Creuset cocotte.

Just as Noodle Cook reaches out for the calculator to work out how long it takes to cook a 1.8 kg Mt Barker free range chicken, John interrupts that dinner must be started NOW as it takes 2 hours to cook the chicken his way: it must not be overpowered by garlic, it must have chilli, remove the fat but not the neck, stuff with lemon blanched in boiling water in a pot heated on the stove...

Under intense supervision, Noodle Cook makes one mistake by cutting the blanched whole lemon, intended for stuffing, into halves instead of just slashing the skin which makes the flavouring sour instead of just lemon scented. Like Chocolate and Zucchini's recipe, there really is nothing to the recipe:

1. Defat the chicken
2. Stuff with a blanched lemon
3. Rub the chicken with grapeseed oil
4. Place in the brand new crocotte
5. Arrange quartered potatoes, turnip, and sweet potatoes, and an unpeeled onion around the chicken
6. Top the chicken with chilli slices
7. Season with coarse sea salt
8. Cover and put in an hour preheated at 220 degrees Celsius.
9. Cook for 2 hours at 180 degrees Celsius without peeping.
10. Remove chicken and vegetables to a serving tray and brown at 250 degrees Celsius. Allow 15 minutes browning plus 15 minutes for resting.
11. Decant the fat from the cocotte
12. Use the pan juices to make a gravy
13. Add some plain flour and deglaze with white wine

... and WOW, what an awesome dinner, from a simple chicken scented with intense flavours of onion, lemon and roasted chilli. If there is any secret to roasting to perfection using the crocotte, then it lies in keeping the ingredients dry while letting heat and enough moisture from the ingredients themselves to infuse the aromas.

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Boneless Beef Shin

There's only one foolproof way of transforming a frugal cut like boneless beef shin into a restaurant meal to please the worst food critic in town, such as John the villain in this blog. The secret is slow cooking at low temperature to melt the tough gristle into sumptuous gelatine.

To get this beef cut, check out Wing Hong, at 402 William Street in Northbridge which offers it at $7.79/kg.


Lightly oil the beef. The oil keeps the roast moist rather than develops the flavour during cooking as the temperature is not high enough.

Season with salt, pepper and fennel if liked.

Refrigerate overnight or up to 72 hours. Bring to room temperature before cooking in an oven preheated at 75 degrees Celsius. Place the meat in a ceramic container which retains the heat well during cooking.

Allow 6 hrs to bring 600 g of meat to 60 degrees Celsius for medium rare. Check that the meat is cooked to your liking using a meat thermometer or a skewer to test the juices. If you like medium to well done, the juice should run clear.

Rest for at least 30 minutes before serving. It is best to under cooked as the meat will continue cooking while resting. The cooking can always be finished off by searing in a hot pan


The cooked beef looks pink on the inside and brown on the outside. Don't be fooled by the colour: the meat looks pink even when well done.



A juicy roast tastes great with horseradish sauce and creamed broccoli, cauliflower or spinach as part of a main course. Thin slices, cut after lightly freezing, works well in cold entree platters.

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