I think I’ve mentioned before on this blog that my kid sister is absolutely hopeless in the kitchen. In fact, my kid brother (who is younger than both of us) is far better at wielding a kitchen knife than she is - whenever I see her attempting to chop something up, my heart leaps into my mouth and I have to resist the urge to make any sudden movements in fear that she will hurt somebody, most likely herself. This probably has something to do with the fact that she has had to do very little fending for herself - she’s always had my mother and I around to take care of her, and there is always at least one of us at home and cooking when she is home and wanting a meal.
Worse comes to worse, there’s always leftovers in the fridge, a fact that she is most grateful for.
I do have to give her some credit, though. She has offered to make dinner for the family…once. And though the dinner actually consisted of an Old El Paso taco kit, she does get points for effort (mostly on the basis that even though my brother does know how to cook a little, he’s never done the same. Though he usually does help with dinner if we ask him to…)
Anyway, my sister’s lack of kitchen prowess isn’t entirely her fault - I do have to admit that some of the blame is on me. You see, as the member of the family who most enjoys pottering around the kitchen, I’m constantly looking for recipes that I think my brother and sister will be fond of and enjoy, and I am forever pestering them and asking them what they would like me to try. Which is how, incidentely, I ended up making a sticky date cake though I’ve never actually tried a sticky date anything before in my life…
As happens quite often, I was sitting at the kitchen table, feeling frustrated, bored and utterly idea-less. You see, I had a baking itch that was begging to be scratched, but alas, I had absolutely no idea what to try. I flipped mindlessly through cookbook after cookbook, before finally admitting defeat and letting out a loud sigh as I dropped my head onto the table.
Thud.
Ouch.
Yeah, lets not repeat that ever again *rubs sore head*
My sister, upon hearing the resounding thump from her room, pranced down the stairs and saw my depressed form sitting behind a mountain of scattered cookbooks. “Uhh,” she probed, “what’s wrong?”
“I want to bake!”
“Eh? Then bake - what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know WHAT to bake!”
I heard her burst into laughter, and I scowled as I looked up. “Why are you laughing?! I don’t think its funny at all! Hunh! I demand you give me an idea!”
The laughter abruptly stopped as her grin was replaced by a rather thoughtful look. “Actually…there’s this thing I tried at a restaurant awhile ago…sticky date…something? With a really nice sauce! Can you make that?”
Eyeballing her, I replied “sticky date something? Can you give me a better idea? Anything??”
“Nah…but sticky date…yeah, that tasted gooooooood!”
Hmph! Some help she was! Oh well - I did have to thank her for giving me some direction. Thankfully, I remembered reading a recipe for a sticky date cake in my Bill Granger cookbook, so the search wasn’t long, and I have to admit that I’m quite glad that my sister suggested this as though I had never actually had a sticky date pudding or cake myself, trying this cake has made me absolutely fall in love.
(the butterscotch sauce should be a lot more oozy..I accidentally cooked it for far too long while watching ‘Knocked Up’! Whoops!)
Sticky Date Cake w/ Butterscotch Sauce
(from “Every Day” by Bill Granger)
Ingredients
300g pitted dates, chopped (NOT medjool dates - they are too soft/moist and will disintegrate)
250mL (1 cup) water
1 tsp bicarb/baking soda
70g unsalted butter, diced
80g caster sugar
1 tsp natural vanilla extract
2 eggs, lightly beaten
185g self-raising flour, sifted
To serve
Butterscotch sauce (below)
Vanilla ice cream
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line the base of a 20cm round cake tin with non-stick baking paper.
2. Put the dates in a pan with the water and cook over low-medium heat for 5-6 mins, stirring occasionally, till the dates are soft and almost all the water has been absorbed. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the bicarb/baking soda (not baking powder!) and butter and set aside for 10 mins to cool slightly.
3. Transfer mixture to a large mixing bowl, then add the sugar, vanilla extract and eggs and stir well to combine. Fold in the sifted flour till well combined, then spoon into your lined cake tin and bake for 50 mins, or till a skewer poked into the middle comes out clean.
4. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Serve while slightly warm, with some warm butterscotch sauce (below) and ice cream!
Butterscotch Sauce
185g soft brown sugar
200mL cream
150g unsalted butter
Heat the sugar, cream and butter in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a simmer and cook over low heat for 3 mins. Pour over the sticky date cake and serve each slice with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Technorati Tags: sticky date, cake, butterscotch, recipes, Bill Granger, desserts
And since it’s been awhile since Mr Woofy made an appearance on this blog, here’s a gratuitous cute photo!
He’s SUCH a typical little boy, whenever I kiss his nose he always pulls a face and licks his nose clean (I guess the doggy equivalent of trying to wipe it off), as if to say “Ewww, mom! Gross - don’t kiss me!”
I managed to capture this facial expression purely by chance - and I almost bust a gut laughing when I saw that I’d actually caught it on camera! Hopefully it’s given you a bit of a grin too 
If you want to see more photos of Mr Woofy, you can find them in his Flickr album
Now, I have professed my love of the mightly nut on this blog before, and anyone who is a long-time reader may have picked up on my sheer adoration of the walnut. It is, in my opinion, one of the most marvellous nuts out there - with its soft, meaty flesh, fragrant oil and mild flavour, it is great for eating on its own or for use in any variety of dishes, sweet or savoury (though, me being me, my penchant is for sweet!)
In fact, only early this year I had gone completely ga-ga for a honey & walnut caramel recipe that had appeared in the March edition of one of my favourite food magazines, the Australian Gourmet Traveller. The pairing of walnut and honey was a beautiful marriage that made for an extremely moreish caramel that resulted in my mother letting off more than a few colourful adjectives every time I made them as she found them completely irresistible.
So when I saw a recipe for honey & espresso caramels circling the food blog circuit, like a moth to a flame I found myself drawn to sweet, sweet, calorie-laden fire…
The source of the latest caramel recipe that was circling around turned out to be Heidi from 101 Cookbooks, and upon seeing her delicious photos, I immediately bookmarked the recipe as one for the ‘To make IMMEDIATELY’ list (sad to say but I operate two lists at a time - one is of things that must be made ASAP, the other of interesting recipes to bear in mind for the future). However, when I read the post later, my jaw dropped at her inclusion of walnuts. Walnuts? Honey? Caramel? I’m sorry, but I had to drop whatever I was doing and race to the kitchen to make them, stat!
So I printed out the recipe and carefully read through the ingredients and instructions so that I would have a vague idea of what I was doing in the kitchen before rushing around and trying to do 5 things at once (and quickly!), but for some reason I had a slight feeling of deja vu. I mean, I knew I’d made honey & walnut caramels before, but still…
Pulling out my now worn and tattered copy of AGT, I had a look at the recipe and discovered that it was almost exactly the same, the main difference being a substitution of the citrus zest for espresso powder. Well! I’m always up for giving a new recipe a try, and let me say that I am SUPER glad that I did! The espresso powder gives these caramels a beautiful depth missing from the citrus version, and it also helps to lessen the sweetness of the honey - though whether the latter is a good thing I’m not sure, as this *does* mean you can have more than one. Or two. Or three…
You get my point.
Walnut, Honey & Espresso Caramels
(Adapted from Heidi)
(Non-espresso, citrusy variety can be seen here)
Ingredients
360 grams (1 cup) honey
250mL (1 cup) heavy cream
550-600g (2.5 - 3 cups) toasted walnuts, roughly chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp fresh espresso powder
1. Place the toasted, chopped nuts into a bowl and set aside. Line a 20cm x 30cm dish with nonstick baking paper, fold corners so it doesn’t pop out.
2. Heat honey, cream, espresso powder & salt in a heavy-bottomed saucepan with high sides (this mixture is prone to lots of foaming!) over medium heat and bring to the boil. Once boiling, reduce heat and cook whilst continuously stirring for 20 minutes or till mixture reaches 125 degrees C (firm ball stage).
3. Pour walnuts into the caramel and quickly stir well to combine, then pour into the lined dish. Lightly rub the back of a spatula/large metal spoon with oil and use it to firmly press the mixture into the corners and level it down. Store in the fridge till it has firmed up and set.
4. Lightly rub a sharp kitchen knife with oil, then carefully slice the block of caramel into bite size pieces (such as those pictured above). Take a roll of non-stick baking paper and cut into little squares that are big enough to comfortably wrap around each of the caramels, then wrap them all up and store in a cool, dry place to be enjoyed when you wish!
Technorati Tags: walnuts, candy, honey, caramel, recipe, cooking, sweets
Any of you who have had direct contact with me may have wondered a bit about the email address. I know that when I have to give out out for various reasons, people seem to be unable to actually wrap their heads around it:
“Chip…monk…what? Huh? Not a monk? OH! Chip-munk - chipmunk, like the animal! Right…so…chipmonk…sorry, chipMUNK…sneeeeze? Sneeze? They sneeze? Okaaaaaaaaaay…so, chipmunksneeze…”
You get the gist.
Though I hear my dog sneeze every now and then (usually after he’s stuck his entire head into his water bowl for some utterly unknown reason), I’ve never been in a position to actually hear a chipmunk let rip with one. So, you may ask, what’s with the email address?
Warning - this video is rather loud and may take you by surprise, so make sure the volume isn’t too high…
And yes, this is the sound of my sneeze. A sneeze that has brought many a movie theatre, restaurant, cafe, library and lecture hall to a complete and utter halt before its inhabitants pissed themselves laughing whilst I wanted to crawl under a table and die.
And no, I can’t sneeze like a regular person. As far as I can remember, I never have.
I’d go so far as to say that in addition to the sneeze, there’s a slight ‘chipmunky-ness’ to my appearance…
Ellie vs a chipmunk
Personally, I think the resemblance is rather uncanny…
This apparent resemblance to this nut-lovin mammal may have something to do with the fact that I love anything that comes out of a shell. There’s something about the satisfying ‘crack’ as you bust apart that tough exterior to the delicious interior - whether it be walnut, almonds, chestnut or crab…
Yeah, I know regular chipmunks don’t eat crab, but *this* little mammal happens to love ‘em!
Anyway, one encased nut which my furry compadre and I both love, but is highly underrated in human food consumption is the acorn.
There is, of course, a reason that acorns aren’t more widespread in their use in our food, and the reason for that is the high levels of tannins found in them. What’s wrong with tannins? I mean, wine has them, as coffee and some teas…and all three are delicious! While this is true, tannins are somewhat dangerous for us due to the fact that they can rob the body’s absorption of important minerals such as calcium (hallo brittle bones and osteoporosis) and iron (anyone eager for a little anaemia?).
While this sounds pretty icky, there are a few cultures that have managed to find ways to rid acorns of their icky icky tannin situation. One such method stems from Korea - oak trees have always been plentiful on the peninsula, and the abundance of acorns made Koreans try and discover a method of using these as a food source. The harvested acorns are turned into a paste and through many turns of rinsing and sieving, the tannins and fibres are leeched out till just the acorn starch remains.
As for what to do with the starch, why, turn it into jelly of course!
Whilst the jelly itself is quite simple, it is also unfortunately rather flavourless aside from a very slight bitterness from the raw acorn powder. This is why it is generally eaten in a salad-type dish such as this, with a few chopped vegetables and a spicy sauce over the lot. It makes for a wonderfully cooling summer dish, and my mother believes that anyone watching their weight should give this a try as though it is quite filling, it doesn’t leave you weighed down, is fairly low in calories and tastes a helluva lot better than those nasty diet shakes that one of my friends loves so much!
So there you have it! An acorn recipe from the chipmunk of food bloggers - so what are you waiting for? You should go give it a try!
Dotori Mook Muchim
(Acorn Jelly Salad)
Acorn Jelly Ingredients
1 cup acorn starch (found in any Korean grocery store - ask for dotori ggaru)
5 cups cold water
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp olive oil
1. Take a 30cm x 20cm deep glass/ceramic dish (like a lasagna dish) and oil it well, then set aside. Pour acorn starch and water into a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat and begin to whisk briskly and continuously for about 10-15 minutes, or till the mixture turns dark brown and thickens quite substantially.
2. Add the salt and olive oil and continue to whisk for another 2-3 minutes to make sure it is well-combined.
3. Put the lid half over the pot (wedge it up with the whisk if need be) and reduce the heat to low and leave it to bubble and cook for 5 minutes. Give it a quick stir then leave again for another 10 minutes.
4. Turn off the heat and pour the liquid jelly into the oiled dish and leave till it is completely cool and solid.
5. Slice into thin pieces and use in the following salad.
Acorn Jelly Salad Ingredients (serves 3-4)
1/2 quantity of acorn jelly (from above recipe)
Your choice of crunchy vegetables:
- 1 cucumber, julienned
- 1 carrot, grated
- 1/2 bell pepper (red or green), deseeded & finely sliced
or
1 cup ripe kimchi, diced
1-2 sheets toasted nori sheets
3 tbsp light soy sauce
1-2 tsp gochuggaru (Ground red pepper)
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
1 tbsp caster sugar
1. Mix together the sliced acorn jelly with the vegetables/kimchi and place onto a dish. Crumble the toasted nori sheets over the top.
2. Pour the soy sauce with the gochuggaru, garlic, sesame oil, sesame seeds and caster sugar into a small container and shake till the sugar has dissolved and everything is mixed up. Pour as much as you’d like over the salad, then serve and enjoy
(Note - we get lazy so we generally only mix the soy, sugar and sesame together for a quick dressing if we’re making a salad, and forego the dressing altogether if we’re mixing it with kimchi and the ‘juice’ from the kimchi provides ample flavour!)
Technorati Tags: Korean cuisine, chipmunks, recipes, Asian food, acorns, jelly, savoury, vegetarian, vegan
A few weeks ago, I got a surprising email from a Flickr user, completely out of the blue. A lovely guy by the name of Dave had spotted my photos and loved them so much that he wanted to build an application with them on Facebook and was asking for permission to use the photos and text from this blog to do so.
Talk about blush - I thought my face would burn into a charred crisp!
Anyway, I jumped eagerly into the project, and after many emails and a few chat sessions…we’d finally like to present you with:
Kimchi Restaurant is a Facebook application designed to let you share some of the Korean dishes from this food blog, and we’ll be doing regular updates every few months after I’ve blogged enough entries to warrant adding them
Now, as Dave and I are new to the Facebook building thing, we’d both really appreciate it if you could have a look and let either of us know of any bugs that you find so that we can fix ‘em up quick smart.
Oh, and I should set the record straight - Dave is definitely the brains of our operation, coding late into the night while his cat hindered his efforts by doing things such as sitting on his mouse, all I did were the pictures and nattering! So, thanks to the most gifted, funny, talented Dave for his support, friendship and all the effort he put into creating this! 
EDIT - Incidentally, if any of you guys have any particular Korean dishes that you’d like the recipe to, then please feel free to leave a request in the comments here so I can add them to my ‘to-do’ list
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Folks, just a quick note to let you know that nominations for the 2007 Food Blog Awards are now open. Having glanced over the categories, I don’t think I actually qualify for any of them, but you should definitely stop by and nominate any blogs that you love that fit the categories! Now, onto the pancakes! |
Now tell me that this picture doesn’t make you hungry. I dare ya. Ethereally light and moist ricotta pancakes resting ever so gently on a pile of fresh, sweet, ruby-red strawberries, dusted in a generous helping of powdered sugar.
Here, want a napkin to wipe up that drool? 
Now, if you’re even the slightest bit familiar with Aussie chef and toothpaste icon Bill Granger1, you’ll know that his ricotta pancakes are famed for being the breakfast/brunch food of choice, and as a result most folks who visit any of his cafes in Sydney end up ordering them and joining the list of converts. Unfortunately, the last time I made it to Sydney quite some years ago, I was unaware of who exactly Bill was and thus didn’t seek the chance to try them out - something I regret quite a bit now (mostly because I would rather have every teeth pulled than willingly go back to Sydney - I tell you, the town planners were on crack cocaine when they designed that city) as I don’t see myself visiting the area again anytime in the near future.
However, thankfully all is not lost, and continue reading to find out why…
Recently, I have been lucky enough to have an independant grocery store open in my area (YEAH! F*CK YOU, COLES!), and whilst its small and no frills, they’re doing things that I highly approve of - such as training their staff to keep a careful on on the produce (there is a staff member manning every section and constantly checking over all the fruit/veg/meats/chiller cabinet goods, removing anything that is no longer fit to be there and keeping the shelves stocked with a minimal amount of produce - enough so that you have choice, but not so much that everything risks going off), and using 100% biodegradable plastic bags. The flip side of this is that the store is extremely bare bones and has no kind of print advertising, though frankly I think of this as another bonus as they’re producing less waste this way
Anyway, back to the story…
So, I was browsing the grocery store the other day when I noticed that there was some extremely loud commentary going on somewhere in the store. At first I thought that someone had just turned up a tv WAY too loud, I scanned the store to spot a little figure in the corner who appeared to be in the midst of cooking and waving his arms around. As it turned out, it was an Australian/French chef by the name of Gabriel Gaté who happened to be giving an in-store presentation. Now, while I know OF him, I don’t actually know much about him, so I decided to take a closer look, being very careful to look very intensly at the various product aisles that I was passing so that I wouldn’t look like I was making an actual beeline in his direction. Deciding that the dairy chiller was about as far as I wanted to go, I parked my trolley and cast a lazy eye over the goods on display while keeping one ear in Gabriel’s direction to listen to what he was saying.
Something about garlic…and Greek cooking…ahh, poor bastard, he may be a good chef but he’s pretty darn uncharismatic and not much good at getting an audiences attention.
Anyway, having lost interest in the cooking demo, I began to look over the goods in front of me in earnest when I spotted a tub of ricotta right in front of my face. Hmmm…I’d never cooked with ricotta before, but they suddenly reminded me of Bill’s pancakes, so I took ‘em off the shelf with the intention of trying them the next day.
And the verdict?
Fluffy? Obscenely so.
Light? As a cloud.
Moist? Almost TOO moist.
Would I make them again?
Ahh, now there’s the sticking point. You see, to me pancake breakfasts are all about lazy mornings, kicking back with a well brewed pot of tea, taking your time and slowly moving about. Since this recipe requires the beating of egg whites to firm peaks, this meant waking up the household on a Saturday morning at 8am - something that wasn’t entirely appreciate. Of course, the pancakes did make up for it, but the complaints I got before they sat down to enjoy the pancakes kinda killed that thrill. So yes, I would make them again, but perhaps only for a brunch or special occasion. Otherwise, my 5-minute pikelets will more than suffice for a regular pancake indulgence…
Bill Granger’s Ricotta Pancakes
Ingredients
For the honeycomb butter
250g/8¾oz unsalted butter, softened
100g/3½oz sugar honeycomb, crushed with a rolling pin (you can use a Crunchie bar for this)
2 tbsp honey
For the hotcakes
225g/8oz ricotta
170ml/6fl oz milk
4 eggs, separated
140g/5oz plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch salt
50g/1½oz butter
To serve
banana or strawberries
icing sugar for dusting
1. Make the honeycomb butter first. Place all the ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Shape into a log on clingfilm, roll, seal and chill in a refrigerator for two hours.
2. Place ricotta, milk and egg yolks in a mixing bowl and mix to combine. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Add to the ricotta mixture and mix until just combined.
3. Place egg whites in a clean dry bowl and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites through batter in two batches, with a large metal spoon.
4. Lightly grease a large non-stick frying pan with a small portion of the butter and drop two tablespoons of batter per hotcake into the pan (don’t cook more than three per batch).
5. Cook over low to medium heat for two minutes, or until hotcakes have golden undersides. Turn hotcakes and cook on the other side until golden and cooked through.
6. Transfer to a plate and quickly assemble with other ingredients.
7. Slice one banana lengthways onto a plate, stack three hotcakes on top with a slice of honeycomb butter. Dust with icing sugar. You can use strawberries in place of the banana.
Technorati Tags: Bill Granger, pancakes, strawberries, breakfast, brunch, recipes, dessert
1 - Bill Granger has an insanely white and picture-perfect smile, and was featured in a commercial for Macleans toothpaste earlier this year…I looked for a video on youtube but alas, nothing can be found 
Others who have tried this recipe:
- Thanh at I Eat Therefore I Am
- Trish from TeaLilyPhotography
