Life Without the Challenge of Paper Chef ....
... is like eating plain pizza and pasta everyday. Owen of Tomatilla has handed the reins to Ilva of Lucillian Delights. Look for Ilva's announcements in February 2008.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Christmas 2007
This beautiful ham terrine for Christmas was the end result of "bring a pork dish with a green theme". Around 12 hours went into making the aspic out of ham bones, leek, onion, garlic, celery, carrot, capsicum and peppercorns. The meat came from lean desalted pickled pork. Chilling took another 12 hours. Mashed minted peas, the green "stuff", gave the terrine the lime green. Unfortunately, the kids hated the green. Anyone for pea and ham soup from the leftovers?
For a 10 cm by 20 cm terrine, allow the following:
2 ham hocks or leg ham bones
1.5 kg pickled pork, fat removed and soaked in cold water for 4 hours
2 tablespoons peppercorn
2 celery sticks
2 carrots
1 onions
2 garlic
1 capsicum
1 leek
300 g frozen minted peas
Blanch the pork in boiling water for 5 minutes. Rinse well in cold water.
Place all ingredients, except the peas, in a large pot with enough water to cover. Bring to boil and simmer for 3 hours until the meat pulls apart easily.Carefully remove the ingredients. Discard the spent vegetables.
Remove fat and grizzle from the meat. Break the meat into 2-3 cm chunks.
Skim the fat off the stock. Strain the stock and then reduce to 1 cup. Test for setting strength on a cold saucer.
Cook the peas in half a cup of reduced stock. Drain. Save the stock for future use. Mash the peas with about 1 tablespoon of the stock. Mix the peas with the meat.
To assemble, line a loaf tin with plastic wrap. Put in the meat with the mashed peas. Pour in half a cup of reduced stock. Cover the terrine with baking paper. Weigh down the terrine with another. Chill for 12 hours.
To serve, make a cherry balsamic sauce with 100g fresh cherries, 2 tablespoon sugar, 2 tablespoon leftover reduced stock, 4 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, and 2 tablespoon red wine vinegar. If like, thicken with 2 teaspoon corn starch.
... so it was, Christmas 2007.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Owen's Back with Paper Chef #24 Roundup
Thanks to Owen, the roundup for Paper Chef #24 is up. Check it out here! Just in case you missed out on starring in your own kitchen stadium just like an Iron Chef on the TV, check for updates at Tomatilla. This fun competition lets you create a dish (or even a menu) with four secret ingredients. You have a whole weekend to cook and to brag about your experience for a chance to win the Paper Chef crown for the month.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Paper Chef #24 Shalom, Salaam, Salom
When Owen first announced the Peas/Peace in the Middle East theme, Noah's Pudding, also referred to as ashure (pronounced ashura) was already in the plan. This is a middle eastern (especially Turkish) dessert dish of wheat, rice, beans, chick peas, sugar (or other sweetener), dried fruits, and nuts in many variations. The dish does not normally have religious significance and is enjoyed by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. It is cooked in large quantities and offered to people as a good will gesture, of love and peace. Chick peas, the peas of the middle east is already in the dish, so Paper Chef #24 seems to be off to an easy start. However, on revelation of the four secret ingredients, things got tricky...
... rice, now that's universal, and most cooks can find some in the pantry and that's already in Noah's Pudding!
... coffee, well that can be served after the dessert like ultra sweet Turkish coffee with cardamom, but not much of a challenge. It's more adventurous with wattleseed, which has a nutty hazelnut, chocolate and coffee taste, as a substitute for coffee
.... chilli, in a dessert, whoops, that is getting really hot at 35 degrees Celsius in Perth. Ok, chilli chocolate is not that unusual in the shops..
.... and then the really wildcard PROSCIUTTO! That's PORK, which is forbidden in Muslim and Jewish cuisines! Italian prosciutto in a middle eastern dish? There can be no peace in this challenge. But on a closer look...
The Italian connection was already there, even before Noah and his family on the Ark ate the first batch of Noah's Pudding made from what ever leftover food, presumably grains and dried fruits, towards the end of the Genesis Great Floods. A dove sent out by Noah to find land came back with an olive branch. The dove and olive branch, individually or together, are symbols of peace. Poultry and Italian olives pair well together, as a main course to the Noah's Pudding dessert. However, the rainbow, another symbol of peace, which appeared at the end of the Great Floods seems easier to incorporate through a layered presentation of the dish.
Now it's off to a quick trip to Milan, thanks to internet, for more inspiration, this time from Leonardo Di Vinci's painting of the Last Supper. Disappointedly, there is no goblet with red wine. Nevertheless, red wine seems a good symbol of the promise of peace from bloodshed. Right now there is plenty of red grapes in the garden to put to some good use. Besides a parfait glass suits layering.
Back to the problem with the prosciutto. That can be used as a piccolo garnish, but too late as rival challenger, the very talented Ilva in Tuscany (another Italian connection) has already done that in a rice pudding. With Noah's Pudding sitting a huge pot in the fridge, it was to late to change plan: it's either continue with the challenge or give up.
Then a solution vaporised. Why not curl the prosciutto less tightly and use them as curled streamers and scatter them with seeds on a serving plate, like confetti for a celebration. It will be a joy to celebrate peace in the middle east with Christians, Muslims and Jews comprising on their differences.
Finally the dish which celebrates the ever elusive peace in the middle east, Noah's Pudding with an Italian twist, deconstructed in layers (the rainbow peace argument above), and with symbolism of grape juice buried somewhere in it. The pudding is served with spicy wattleseed chocolate, confetti of pepita and sunflower seeds, and prosciutto streamers!
Unlike the peace process in the middle east, Paper Chef #24 with its challenges, reached a successful conclusion through persistence. So it's Shalom! Shalom! Shalom! until the next Paper Chef battle, or is it salaam... salom...
Noah's Pudding
1/2 cup couscous
1/2 cup risoni pasta (Italian)
1 cup arborio rice (Italian)
4-5 lemon myrtle leaves (or 1 strip lemon zest)
4-5 mountain pepper leaves (or try pinch of clove or cardamon)
2 slices of ginger
2.5 L water
1 can chick peas in brine
1 can white beans in brine
Boil for 1 hour until the rice is soft. Stir in the chick peas and beans together with the brine. Chill until ready to serve. This is a LARGE quantity, so use the leftover for soup or serve 40 neighbours to the North, South, East and West according to tradition reported in the local newspaper!
To serve 4 instead of 40:
2 cup of Noah's Pudding
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup dried longan in syrup, see below
1/4 cup winter melon candy (oriental store) or sugar
1/2 cup labneh made by draining yoghurt overnight
20 jackfruit seeds, boiled and sliced (or sliced almond)
1/4 cup glazed quandong halves (or dried apricots/peaches), see below
2 tablespoon sunflower seeds
2 tablespoon pepita/pumpkin seeds
spicy wattleseed chocolate, see below
prosciutto curls, see below
Stir milk into the pudding. Place in a parfait glass. Add longan and winter melon candy. Top with labneh. Arrange jackfruit seed on the labneh. Add the quandong. Put the parfait glass on a plate. Sprinkle the plate with sunflower and pumpkin seeds. Add a few prosciutto curls. Serve with spicy wattleseed chocolate.
Glazed Quandong
1/4 cup dried quandong halves (native Australian peach)
1/2 cup grape juice concentrate (or red wine)
2 tablespoon raw sugar
Poach the quandong in grape juice and sugar for about 15 minutes to soften. Do not overcook. Reduce the juice to a thickened consistency to coat the quandong.
Grape Wine
4.5 kg red grapes
4 L water
1.5 kg raw sugar
21 g dry yeast (3 sachets)
Ferment for 3 weeks or until the plastic bag becomes limp. Strain. Bottle. Obviously this wine is not going to be ready for Paper Chef in 3 days! Instead, use grape juice concentrate.
Grape Juice Concentrate
4 kg red grapes
water to cover
Simmer till soft. Reduce by 50%. Strain. Keep refrigerated until ready to use.
Dried Longan in Syrup
85 g dried longan flesh (oriental store)
2 cup water
2 tablespoon sugar
Poached the dried longan in water and sugar for 30-45 minutes. Reduce to a thick syrup.
Spicy Wattleseed Chocolate
3 squares of dark chocolate
pinch of chilli powder
1 teaspoon wattleseed (coffee substitute)
Using an egg cup, melt the chocolate in the microwave. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Dip prosciutto curls in the melted chocolate and leave to set. Spread remaining chocolate on baking paper. Sprinkle with wattleseed. Cut the baking paper to shape using scissors. Drape over bowls to shape. Leave to set.
Prosciutto Curls
Place prosciutto on baking paper. Cut into 5 mm fettucine strips with sharp scissors. Curl the cut prosciutto around a 10 cm long roll of baking paper approximate 5 mm in diameter. For piccolos, overlap the prosciutto slightly. Microwave on high for about 15 seconds until the crackling stops. Remove the prosciutto by tightening the centre of the scroll of baking paper and sliding off. Dip the curls in melted Spicy Wattleseed Chocolate.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Paper Chef #24 Peace in the Middle East
Paper Chef #24 is underway! Check it out at Tomatilla! This once a month fun competition lets you star in your own kitchen stadium in front a world wide audience of food bloggers just like an Iron Chef. Instead of one secret ingredient, you use four. This month's secret ingredients turned out to be: coffee, rice, prosciutto and chillies. The theme is peas, peace or Middle East.
While Noodle Cook's choice of Noah's Pudding, a middle eastern dessert of wheat, rice, beans, chick peas, dried fruits, and nuts, fits the theme nicely, the remaining ingredients cannot be easily incorporated. Italian prosciutto in a middle eastern dish? Using prosciutto as a garnish is a possibility... and already used by the very talented Ilva! So its back to the drawing board for Noodle Cook to come up with another interesting dish and not another dessert with prosciutto curls!
What to do with a big pot of Noah's Pudding? Noodle Cook rushes behind the scene ....
Monday, February 12, 2007
Baked Field Mushroom
John's baked field mushroom tasted so good, that there is no picture to show off! The recipe will be lost if it doesn't get recorded somewhere. So here it is:
For each person, allow 1 large 10 cm field mushroom. Remove the stalk. Break an egg into the mushroom cap. Sprinkle with herbs. Add shredded smoked salmon. Top with mature cheddar. Grill at 250 degrees Celsius in an "Easycook" oven for 20 minutes. Serve with a garden salad of baby cos leaves and tomatoes dressed with olive oil and capers.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
The Jackfruit
This baby jackfruit weighs about 1 kilogramme. Have a look inside this amazing fruit...
The flesh around the seeds, called aril, tastes sweet, with hints of pineapple. Tasteless fibrous pulp, "rags", surround each aril.
According to recipes, the unripe jackfruit is used in curries. The seeds can also be cooked and eaten.
Monday, January 01, 2007
"EasyCook" Cornbread
These toasted cornbread slices were cooked in an "EasyCook" glass oven, the new toy from Christmas. The temperature dial on the hour appears 30 degrees Celsius less than measured with an oven thermometer. The cornbread was really easy and cooked to perfection without the need for turning. Here's the recipe:
1 cup plain flour
1 cup fine cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
100 g tasty cheddar cheese
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup yoghurt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon black peppercorn, coarsely ground
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon mint
1 teaspoon lemon thyme
1 cup frozen corn kernel, optional
1 teaspoon lecithin, optional
Mix dry and wet ingredients separately, then combine. Put into muffin tins. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius. Remove from oven and cool. Cut into 1 cm slabs. Toast in the oven until crisp and golden brown. Eat with soups or spreads.
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