Are we there yet?

Hi there friends!

 There is something strange about holidays. We spend all this time preparing for one day; buying, making, baking, cooking, wrapping, planning and forget that we have to live in the meantime. The only thing in our fridge at the moment is Christmas chocolates and home-made presents! I haven't read anything that doesn't have the words 'celebrate', 'merry' or 'spirit' in it since September. Nothing I eat doesn't faintly taste like cloves.  Even my dreams have Christmas carols in them and you can't swing a sock for hitting Santa or ANOTHER huge leg of ham.  The other thing I simply can't get my head around is Turkeys!  Frightfully bland things, and absolutely enormous. What's more is that, because everyone only cooks them once a year, no one knows how. Their already bad conditions are made worse from over-cooking and dryness.
  And although I quite agree with eating as much as you can, whenever you can, I feel like I shouldn't be eating anything at all so I can fit in as much as I possibly can for Christmas dinner. It is quite confusing indeed.

Anyway, enough ranting from the Grinch here is something that has been keeping me sane in the meantime. A nice and easy stir-fry, while I twiddle my thumbs and wait for Christmas.  In between making potato-stamp cards and papier-mache tree decorations it is recommended that you take 5-10 minutes out of your Christmas schedule and have dinner.  This, and boiled eggs, seems to be the only thing anyone could possibly have time for.

I'm using a lot of udon and ramen noodles at the moment,  quite delicious and marvellously good for you

  The trick to making something delicious out of a time-poor environment is good ingredients and lots of seasonings. The more garlic, ginger, soy sauce and kecap manis the better. If you are breaking you Christmas Curfew and spending a naughty half-hour on dinner, you might like to try grilling (or wok-frying) some eggplant. Cut it into 1cm thick slices, salt it and leave it to sit in a colander for half an hour while you resume knitting. Then wash the salt off, pat dry with a tea-towel, oil them and toss them onto a hot, hot griddle pan. If you are not so fortunate to own one of these or are sick of cooking in the nude because your griddle pan makes the house so darn hot, then cut the slices into batons 1cm or so thick and wok fry with lots of oil.

 My stir-fries only seem to work if I am prepared. So unless you are much luckier than I, cut everything up beforehand. Crush the garlic and ginger, thinly slice some onion or golden shallots (if you are that way inclined), toast up some sesame seeds, chop up carrots, broccoli, zucchini, green beans, spring onions and coriander. Cook your eggplant and whatever you plan you have with it- noodles or rice or something else vaguely accommodating.

James takes off a bit of skin around the edges, I'm still not sure if it's just because it looks pretty or is less tough.

Our beautiful griddle

Add your oil to a hot Wok and toss in your golden shallots, let these caramelise before adding the garlic and ginger (if you're looking for a quick way to help caramelise and cool down the pan throw a bit of palm sugar in). From here you can add meat of some kind, should you so please with an extra dash of oil to stop it sticking. Then throw in the vegies in the order of slowest to cook to fastest- broccoli and zucchini first ect... Stir through the noodles with a slurp of the cooking water so they don't clump together. Then season! I'm a big fan of a teaspoon of black bean paste, a decent shake of sesame oil and sriracha chilli, a solid soaking of kecap manis and soy sauce and heaps and heaps of finely chopped coriander, fresh chilli and spring onions with a good handfull of bean sprouts. Then you can sprinkle over your sesame seeds and top with a quick omelette cut into strips. 

  Eat very quickly and get back to your Christmas puddings. 

Obviously my favourite wooden spoon

Ohh Jolly!

Hi Friend!

Sorry for being the laziest blogger in the world. I'm having one of those weeks/months/years but I am back on the horse. I think it is all down to the festive season, I get so excited I am too exhausted to do anything but be excited. There are presents to think about, our Christmas feast to dream up, puddings to make, lights to put up, cranky people to deal with... No wonder Santa is a fat, old goat living in the South Pole all I feel like doing is eating Ginger Nuts with a cup of tea and ordering some elves around to do it all for me, even then I'd probably still go grey.

 So because Christmas is such a strangely stressful time James and I have decided to by-pass the horrid shopping malls and superstores and make as many presents as we can. We are also ordering a few little goodies from companies that we love. Today we got some beautiful chocolates delivered to our door all the way from Western Australia (we guiltily decided they were worth the food miles when we tasted them). The company is Bahen and Co. and they have sourced non-genetically modified, organic cocoa beans and turned them into the most luscious chocolate with vintage machinery and well...visit their website http://www.bahenchocolate.com/ - they are a lot more eloquent than I.

In the Christmas spirit I have also started some festive baking, mostly procrastinating with scrumpy, easy things to avoid the fact that I still haven't made any Christmas puddings. One of these such things was an edible Christmas Wreath!
 It starts with a simple yeasted dough...

The Raspberry Christmas Wreath

•  Mix 1tsp dry yeast, 2 tbsp brown sugar, 125ml luke warm water, 1 1/2 tbsp warm milk  together and stand (5mins) until the yeast bubbles. 
• Add the yeast mixture to 1 1/2 cups of plain flour, 1 1/2 tbsp of olive oil,  1/2 cup of currants, the rind of an orange, 3 tsps of cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of ground cloves in a bowl. 
• Mix together to form a dough then turn out and kneed on a floured surface until smooth- 7 minutes or so.
•  Place dough in a bowl, cover with a tea-towel and leave to prove somewhere toasty for an hour and preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius.

From here you can make a simple raspberry or strawberry jam by cooking 200gms of the chosen (can be frozen) berries with 150gms of castor sugar over a medium heat until it thickens then cool completely or -use one of your favourite jams.

Rolling up the dough, if you are confused about where to make the cut think of cutting the roll in half from my left hand down length ways to my right

I must recommend making the raspberry jam, it was very easy and rather delicious. Make double and have it on toast.

•  Roll the rested dough out into a rectangle around 55cm to 25cm on a floured surface with some sort of rolling implement. I use a wine bottle but I suspect a rolling pin may suffice. 
• Spread with 1/2 a cup of jam, homemade or otherwise, and roll up quite tightly length ways like you would a jam roll.
• Once you have your jam roll looking dough, take to it with a very sharp knife  and slice it in half length ways. You will have a bit of a sticky mess, but this is what you want- to be able to see all the layers of jam and dough.
• Join the top of the two pieces together so you have one long half-a- jam-roll and slide onto a sheet of baking paper.
• Twist the dough carefully and join the ends together to form a wreath. Slide the wreath on the paper onto a baking tray.
• Brush with milk and sprinkle with raw or brown sugar then bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until it is completely cooked through.

The first cut of curranty goodness

You simply must eat some then and there, all hot and sticky with a cup of tea and a little cream, but save a slice for a midnight feast or morning tea the next day as the flavours seem to get even better.                        
   Leave it out of the fridge, tightly wrapped in a plastic bag and if you've forgotten about it for a bit toast it up as you would a hot-cross bun.

Thanks friend,
Ruby

The Humble White Bread

The Basic white bread a.k.a the lackof time/effort bread

This white loaf style bread with dried yeast is for those days where you want fresh hot bread for your dippie eggs but do not have the time, effort or a combination of both.

The essentials for 2 largish loaves!

Pizza stone/baking tray/ anything that you can preheat in the oven then place your bread on

An oven with fitted gas, electricity or wood power

1kg of the flour of your choice (i normally use 70% strong white flour 30% demeter organic plain flour, ground fresh in dungog by the lovely Fosterton Farm Bakery (the people who supply that scrumptious bread at subo! (i could just eat a loaf of that with subo's tasty butter))

14g of Dried yeast (if you plan on making bread this way often or making your own pizza bases i recommend buying the 100g (i think) tins at the supermarket then store in fridge as it will save you heaps)

600ml of tepid water + extra for your hand (especially in summer, make sure the water just has it's chill taken away (not warm)

20g of salt 4 teapsoons is not accurately 20g of salt but if you dont have a scale than it should suffice.

some good quality baking paper (not homebrand, this makes your life so much easier)

Process:

Mixing!

Place all the flour into a bowl, then in another bowl add your yeast to the water. Mix the yeast untill it is fully combined and let it sit for a few mins.

Slosh in the  yeastwater to the flour bowl (not need for a well or anything YOU HAVE A BOWL!) then mix with a spoon or the like untill roughly combined (it should be wet but not a sludge) i personaly like a wet loaf as it tends to rise better so my technique at this stage is to wet my hand (once the flour and water is combined a wet hand will prevent any dough from sticking to your hand) repeatedly while kneading the dough for around 2 mins i normally add in an extra 50ml by using this hand technique.

Now add the salt to the bowl and continue to knead untill the windowpane effect (break a small bit off then stretch it. If you can stretch it infront of a light source and the dough is so thin it is translucent without tearing) achieved. See below.

This can take about 10 mins but normally 5 or so. Next put the dough in an airtight container (i just put a plastic bag over the bowl i was using) out of drafts and let it sit untill it has doubled in size (in summer 1- hours, in winter 2-  hours)

congratulations the hardest part is done! now a little more work before you can reap your rewards!

Once the dough has rested you need to release some of the air (without breaking the air bubbles, delicate handling benefits your end product). Take your dough out of the bowl, by turning the bowl upside down and using a spatcular to slowly edge it out onto a lightly floured surface.

Next up, half the dough and wrap the dough back in on itself and smooth to make a ball this is explained in the video at http://vimeo.com/9457983.

From here you can leave it but if you want a batard shape loaf (more rectangular) you need to gently grab each side of the ball and like your shaking a sheet and gently stretch the ball outwards to create a rectangular like shape then gently press the dough into a rectangle on the bench. From here you start to roll the dough from the furthest edge towards you. About half way through use your palms to apply more pressure and at the end even more to seal the crease. This just takes practice, i am still a horrid shaper. Once shaped place on floured baking paper sheet and preheat the oven to 220 (make sure the tray/baking stone is in there!).

The next step is to leave the dough untill doubled in size about 45mins (you can press the dough lightly with your finger, if the dough springs back very slowly it is ready, if it doesn't spring back at all it needs to go in the oven asap.)

Before placing in the oven lightly flour the top of the dough then score the top by diagonally slashing 1-2cms into the dough evenly spaced (make sure the knife is very sharp, i use an old fashioned razor blade) slide the baking paper with the dough onto the pizza stone/baking tray but before you close the door spray some water into the oven (10-15 sprays) this will slow the crust from forming so the dough has time to rise. As soon as the oven door shuts drop the temp to 200.

Bake for 30mins without opening the door once (i know this is hard) unless you can see it is burning, The flour and spraying of water should keep the crust from burning before the inside is cooked. Tap the bottom of the bread at 30 mins and every 10 mins from there on. If it sounds hollow it is ready! (45 mins give or take)

leave the bread to rest out of the oven for 5 mins if you can.

On cutting the bread take some time to look smell and touch the bread. Study the loaf. If there is a dense line at the bottom of the loaf, just above the crust it was not quite cooked.

To improve your bread making, following a recipe to a tee wont help you as much as learning by trusting your senses. Learning how the dough changes to become elastic, how much water the flour needs or how the weather will affect the proving times.


Here is an amazing video of a top class bakery in San Fran- "Tartine Bread" http://vimeo.com/14354661

Some other great videos!
http://vimeo.com/18060783
http://vimeo.com/21348306

I haven't made much yeasted bread lately but here are some recent sourdough loaves including a barberry and sultana loaf.

Forgive me for the gramatical mistakes- James

Frittata? Spanish Omelette? Tortilla?

Hi Friends!

  I can't decide which, but my Dad has always called it a frittata so I will continue doing so until someone corrects me. We have always eaten frittata for Brunch, normally on a week-end with fresh bread, whole egg mayonaise, pesto (if it's lying around), sweet chilli (because it's always around) and Watties baked beans. Watties because they are a New Zealand brand and my Dad, a true-to-form New Zealander, is convinced everything that comes from that great nation is wonderful. In the case of Watties baked beans he is actually right, they are miles ahead of any canned baked bean, obviously nothing like homemade but they manage to hit the spot.
  I am no longer living at home though and I pull this one out when James and I are tired and hungry because it is the ultimate comfort food, rather tasty indeed and I could make it with my eyes closed I've been doing it for so long. So it is no longer a Brunch dish but a lazy dinner, thus I pair it with a salad and get rid of the bread.

The last broad beans of the season

  I always start with potatoes, I cut them in half and chuck them on to boil the minute I walk through the door. Then by the time I've unwound, had a shower and put the kettle on they are soft and ready. I usually use Kipflers so cutting them in half horizontally makes them thin enough but if you are using anything bigger you will want slices about 1-2cms thick.
 I heat a heavy based, oven proof pan, add some oil and spread the potato slices over the bottom to make a potatoey mosaic that covers most of the pan's surface. Let this cook, really cook out, over a low heat so they will hold their crispness when you add the egg mixture.
 When you are about 5 minutes in, add some thinly sliced onion (red or brown) and let it caramelise while the potato browns.  Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

The browned potato underside

   I use a basic, rough ratio of 6 eggs to 100mls milk to 150mls cream to 1/4 cup broken up or grated cheese (I use anything- mozzarella, parmesan, haloumi, ricotta, fetta ect.) and this seems to hold everything together and gives a light and fluffy result.
  James had gone to the Sandhill's community garden working bee that day, so we had a collection of foraged goods that I could add to the eggy mixture. Sprouting broccoli, zuccini, broad beans, asparagus, capsicum and herbs. Herbs are probably the the most important part of a frittata for me. I add at least half a cup of mint, parsley, dill or whatever else I can scrounge up and it seems to give the dish a lovely freshness.

Green friends with olives before I add the egg, milk, cheese and cream

   To pull it all together I  cut the all vegetables up, except the asparagus and I also grate the zucchini, add them to the beaten egg mixture with the herbs and season like a mad woman. Loads and loads of salt and pepper.  Pour this over the potato and onion and cook with a lid on over a low temperature . There should be enough liquid to cover all the veggies, if you have gone wild with too many delicious broccoli sprouts and peas (as I often do) just beat a bit more cream, milk and eggs together and pour it over the top.

After it has come out of the oven, it should puff up a little in the middle

 

  After 15 minutes or so when the mix is firming up and beginning to come away from the sides of the pan put the whole thing in oven and leave it with the lid on for 5-10 minutes. You can then take the lid of and brown up the top if it is still a bit uncooked in the middle. Let it sit for a bit and then turn it out onto a plate to reveal the pretty potato underside.
   What I think everyone likes about the frittata is that it is very, very forgiving and a marvellous way to clean out your fridge. Any old thing can be chucked in, frozen peas, old baked veggies, spinach, little unused ends of cheese, olives, artichokes, tomato ect....................