Sorry for the lack of updates, folks, but my mother has been ill this week and consequently I’ve been kept busy running the household and taking care of the rest of my domestically-challenged family. Not to worry, there are posts in draft, just need the time, energy and mental capacity to blog them.
I have a confession to make. The last time that I made sultana scones was actually the the one and only time that I’ve blogged them. Now don’t get me wrong - the recipe itself is a gem, and the resulting scones are marvellously polished, gorgeous golden mountains that frankly look like they belong in a hotel as part of a spread for a rather posh afternoon tea. While they had awakened a hidden desire of scones, the fact that you had to pre-soak the sultanas meant that you could hardly whip up a batch when you were in the mood for one, and by the time the sultanas were ready for the scone-making ritual the next day, the craving may have passed!
Not happy, Jan. Not happy.
While it is, in my opinion, still my scone recipe of choice, what I needed was to find a recipe that would give close to sensational results, a moist and tender crumb that still had some heft, and something that could be whipped up in a heartbeat. Whilst I do not have the world’s biggest cookbook collection, I have my fair share but I found that though many held scone recipes of their own, reading the recipes left me feeling decidedly dull and uninspired.
Since I’d made my new year’s resolution last year had been not to buy any new cookbooks, I was stuck with the internet as being my only source of new inspiration (which isn’t so bad, considering the sheer excess of food blogs that there are), however, while I kept my eyes open, I just didn’t spot anyone doing a nice simple sultana scone recipe. Why is that? What have you lot got against sultana scones?!?
Anyway, my brother, bless his cotton socks, had read about this resolution on the blog (hi Martin!), so what did he get me for Christmas? Why, a couple of cookbooks that I just happened to have my eye on! How awesome is that?
One of the cookbooks he got me was a wonderful little marvel by an Australian lady by the name of Belinda Jeffery called ‘Mix & Bake‘ and has very quickly become one of my favourite baking books. Full of uncomplicated, easy-to-follow recipes, from beginning to end it’s an absolute gem and, in my humble opinion, it’s a darn shame that Ms. Jeffrey isn’t better known as I consider this to be far superior to all of my Donna Hay cookbooks.
There is a whole chapter in this book dedicated to sweet scones, and I drooled over each recipe before finally deciding on these marvellous fluffy buttermilk scones, which are perfectly marvellous in every way, and wonderfully homely and comforting, especially with some homemade jam and freshly whipped cream!
Fluffy Buttermilk Scones
(from Mix & Bake by Belinda Jeffery)
Ingredients (makes 10)
1 cup/150g self-raising flour
1 cup/160g wholemeal self-raising flour (or wholemeal AP flour + 2 tsp baking powder)
2 tbsp/25g caster sugar
Pinch of salt
80g cold unsalted butter, diced
100g natural sultanas (or chopped dried dates or other similar dried fruit)
1 cup/250mL buttermilk
To make a vegan version of these scones, you can use margarine instead of the butter, and make a buttermilk substitute by mixing together 1 cup soymilk with 1 tbsp white vinegar or lemon juice and allowing to sit for 5 minutes before using.
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C and line a baking tray with some baking paper, then liberally dust with flour and set aside.
2. Sift together all the dry ingredients (both flours, sugar and salt), then rub in the cold butter with your fingertips till the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the dried fruit and toss well so it’s well coated.
3. Make a well in the middle of the dry mixture, then pour in the buttermilk and quickly stir together till it holds together, then tip onto a floured chopping board and knead till just combined. Pat the dough about 4-5cm flat, then dip a round cutter into some flour and stamp out the scones, carefully placing the scones closely together on the prepared baking tray.
4. Lightly dust the tops with flour, then bake for 20 minutes, or till the scones are golden and sound hollow when lightly tapped on the top. Remove the tray from the oven and tightly wrap a clean tea towel around it for 5 minutes before serving with some homemade strawberry jam and freshly whipped cream!
Technorati Tags: scones, Belinda Jeffrey, sultanas, raisins, quickbreads, biscuits
People who have tried this recipe:
- Thanh from I Eat Therefore I Am
Finally.
Here it is.
What so many of you have requested and been waiting for.
Mother’s bulgogi (Korean bbq beef) recipe.
Let me tell you something about my mother’s cooking. There is no binder of recipes, no handwritten notations, no secret stash of recipe cards like some of your mothers have so thoughtfully kept and which you hope to one day inherit. No, all of my mother’s recipes are stored in the sometimes useless gelatinous mess inside her skull (and of course, I say that in THE most loving way possible, despite her penchant for putting the cereal in the fridge and the milk in the pantry, and filling the half-empty SUGAR tub with SALT, ARGH!), the same way my grandmother’s were, both women taught by standing by their mother’s side and learning to hone their instincts, not through weights and measures, but through colour, sight, touch, smell and taste.
Despite my mother attempting to teach me in this manner, my love of purchasing cookbooks and baking have meant that as I’ve grown up, my cooking method has varied greatly from hers. While I have some of her instincts and can eyeball some of my ingredients fairly decently, I am still desperately in love with my measuring spoons, cups and kitchen scales and cannot bear giving them up.
What this means is that mother and I often butt heads when I’m trying to take down a recipe of hers, from her insisting that ‘halmoni’ (grandmother) would be rolling around in her grave at my determination to measure everything to my telling her that her sheer refusal to measure is the reason that dish X/Y/Z turned out utterly bizarrely. To be honest, to her credit, though she rarely measures anything, there is an astonishing accuracy to her cooking, and any different outcomes are 99% due to forgetting or not having an ingredient, and trying to substitute something else in it’s place.
The bulgogi recipe was something I mastered fairly early on in my cooking journey - it’s extremely easy and straight-forward, and you can marinate batches of this and leave them in the fridge or freezer to be defrosted and cooked for a quick meal later, but despite the ease of this recipe, it took awhile for me to get right (according to my mother) as she outright refused to give me measurements, instead getting me to slowly mix in one ingredient at a time, tasting along each stage and seeing how each addition built upon the flavour. As I got the hang of it, I understood why my mother insisted upon teaching me in this manner.
Nothing is ever the same.
Though the ingredients rarely vary, the produce itself does. For example, one time we may buy an extremely sweet Nashi/Asian pear, but the next time we make it, the pear we’ve bought may turn out to be more watery than sweet. The meat can vary in thickness, depending on which butcher we’ve purchased from, and though we usually use the same brand of soy sauce, there have been a few occasions where we’ve been caught out with a different brand that has a different level of pungency and saltiness to our regular variety.
It is for all these reasons that my mother cooks the way she does, and why she values her own kitchen intuition above any kitchen implement that they can create.
However, since the techno-whizzes have yet to create computers that engage any senses other than sight, I’ve taken the liberty of writing down the basics of our recipe for your ease of use. Just remember that, like most marinates, it’s best to taste the marinade along the way, tweaking it to suit your tastebuds so you end up with a final product that is perfect for you!
I can’t stress this enough, PLEASE don’t buy those atrocious ‘Korean bbq marinade’ bottles they sell, that sh*t is disgusting and to be honest, putting in the work to make it yourself will result in a FAR more pleasing product. Just be warned that when you are making it yourself, doing things like replacing the ingredients or using utterly foreign additions (for example, I’ve seen one bulgogi recipe that involved SHERRY. You have GOT to be kidding me, my grandmother would start spinning in her grave if she saw that - and I’d bloody well like to hear a native F-O-B Korean SAY sherry, let alone use it!) will result in a completely different end product.
(Bulgogi - Korean BBQ beef)
Ingredients (to marinate 1kg beef)
1kg thinly sliced beef sirloin (sliced to about 2-3mm thick) *
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 medium-sized brown onion, peeled
1 nashi/Asian pear, peeled
1 sweet apple, such as fuji, grated
2/3 cup Korean soy sauce (’kanjang’), but you can substitute it with Japanese tamari soy or Chinese light soy sauce in a pinch
2 tbsp toasted sesame seed oil
2-4 tbsp caster sugar (this will depend on the sweetness of your pear)
2 spring onions, washed and finely sliced
Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
* - Most Asian butchers will be able to slice the beef for you if you let them know. If not, then the way to do it yourself is to half freeze it so that the piece of beef is almost solid through, then use a sharp kitchen knife to slice pieces, about 2-3mm thick, against the grain. If the beef thaws and becomes soft and hard to slice during this process, just pop it back in the freezer to firm up for an hour or two before continuing.
1. Use your hands to squeeze the juice from the apple over the sliced beef and set aside. Using an extremely fine grater, turn the onion and pear into pulp (alternatively, you can just blend till liquid but this makes the marinade a bit watery), then mix together with the soy sauce and crushed garlic, then taste for sweetness. If it’s not quite sweet enough for your tastes, add all the sugar, but if it’s close, just add 1-2 tbsp of sugar, mix and taste again.
2. Add the sliced meat to the bowl, then pour the marinade over the top, then add the sesame seed oil, sliced spring onion and cracked pepper and massage all the marinade into the meat for about 1-2 minutes, making sure none of the slices of beef are stuck together and that the marinade has been distributed evenly throughout.
3. Pour into an airtight container and store in the fridge for at least a few hours, ideally overnight, and cook over a griddle or in an unoiled non-stick frying pan - the reason for that is that the pan juices are extremely tasty, and can be very nice poured over your bowl of rice!
Though the common translation of this is ‘Korean bbq beef’, a direct translation of the name is actually ‘fire meat’. It really should not be cooked over a traditional Western bbq as the meat is sliced so thin that you’ll lose a lot of it through the grill! Instead, if your bbq has a flat plate then use that or a flat griddle pan, or just use your frying pan in a pinch!
Serving Information
While this is quite tasty, it’s not exactly a dish that you eat on it’s own - it should be served (at the very least) with a bowl of rice and an assortment of kimchi and other banchan.
Bulgogi is extremely tasty to serve cooked together with other ingredients - some of our favourite veggies to add to the pan when cooking bulgogi are enoki mushrooms (about 1-2 bunches with the roots trimmed, washed and patted dry), (mung) bean shoots, grated carrot or baby bok choy, briefly blanched and drained.
Another great addition is some ‘dang myun‘, or cellophane noodles made with sweet potato flour (very different in taste and texture to regular Chinese cellophane noodles), which can be boiled, rinsed under cold water, drained and added to the pan when cooking the bulgogi, they will absorb the pan juices and become delicious!
The final way that bulgogi can be enjoyed is in the Korean ’ssam’ style - as a lettuce leaf wrap. Take a few crisp lettuce leaves, washed and spun dry, then place a spoonful of rice in the middle, a piece of bulgogi, ‘ssam jang‘ (a fermented soybean/chilli paste specially made for this style of eating) and a few banchan, then wrap up and enjoy! If you can be bothered, grilled garlic cloves taste GREAT in this combination, so if you’ve got a grill pan, peel a few cloves, pop them on and leave to cook through before adding them to the spread!
Technorati Tags: bulgogi, beef, Asian, Korean, recipes, food, savoury, barbeque, bbq
People who have tried this recipe:
- Kevin from Closet Cooking
Happy Lunar New Year, everyone! The Lunar calendar for 2008 falls as the Year of the Rat, which brings us right back to the first animal of the Chinese astrological cycle! May this new year bring you all prosperity (which doesn’t necessarily equate to financial!), much joy and many wonderful moments!
I meant to have a new food post up by now, but the new year food preparations have been just a little crazy this week! However, don’t forget to check back as later this week I will be blogging our family recipes for bulgogi (Korean bbq beef), japchae (traditional glass noodle salad) and a variety of jeon (battered & fried foods).
Hope you all have a wonderful day!
Love,
Ellie 
Happy new year, everybody!
You may think that my greetings are either too late or too early, but you’re only correct if you guessed the latter! For those who aren’t aware, it is the first day of the new Lunar year on this coming Thursday, so at this stage, Korean families all over the world are either beginning or in the midst of their massive food preparations for 
(pronounced ’sol-nal’). Though the exact method of celebration will vary from family to family, according to their religion and beliefs, there are a few traditions that cross both these barriers, and all of them have to do with the food.
For example, one part of the new year celebrations has to do with a bowl of soup. Just a simple, humble bowl of soup.
This soup is made with a beef broth and usually holds just thin slices of rice cake which thicken it up and provide the filling sustenance of the dish, but many families (such as my own) often prefer to add some mandu (Korean dumplings) to their soup in order to make it more flavourful and interesting to eat. And, let’s be honest, we’ll take any excuse to enjoy some tasty home-made dumplings 
The reason that this soup can be found in almost all Korean households on the first day of the Lunar year is because of a longstanding tradition that says that you do not gain or enter the new year until this soup is consumed. The white of the dduk (rice cakes) and dumpling skin are meant to signify a new start, and the rice cakes are traditionally cut from a long sausage shape, the length of which is meant to bring luck for a long and happy life, thus the consumption of this dish on ’sol nal’ is not seen as a choice but almost as more of a necessity in order to start the new year on the right foot!
Other Korean ‘Sol Nal’ traditions:
- ‘jyol’, or ritual bowing to your elders. People dress up in their ‘hanbok‘ (traditional Korean dress), and the younger generations will perform the traditional bow to their elders, with kids often receiving an envelope of money in return
- ‘jae-sah’, a ceremony to your ancestors. The adult children of a household will gather at the home of the eldest son to perform this ceremony, along with their wives (who usually celebrate this the day before or after with their own families), and a feast table is prepared for the ancestral rituals which are usually performed early in the morning. The arrangement of the food is very particular and must be done in keeping with the elements and east-to-west directions, and this offering is made to the family ancestors in hopes that they will provide help and good fortune in the new year.
- wishing your friends and family a ‘happy new year’, by saying
(’sae-hae-bok mah-ni bah-de-sei-yo’) - visiting the east coast of the Korean peninsula (if you live in Korea) to see the first sun rays of the new year
While many of these traditions are probably a bit beyond those who aren’t Korean, if you feel like celebrating the new Lunar year with the rest of us, then try making this soup - who knows, it may give your ‘new year’ an even better start!
(’Dduk mandu guk’ - rice cake & dumpling soup)
Ingredients (to serve 4)
2.5L cold water
300g frozen sliced rice cakes
16 frozen home-made mandu (Korean dumplings)
200g beef brisket
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp freshly cracked pepper
1 1/2 tsp beef dashida (yes, this contains a little MSG but it’s very hard to get the right ‘umami’ flavour without it, and a LOT more work)
1 egg, lightly beaten in a small bowl
1 spring onion, finely sliced
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 sheets of toasted seasoned Korean nori sheets (kim), cut into thin strips
1. Soak the sliced rice cakes overnight in water. Traditionally, freshly made and dried rice cakes in sausage shape are used, but they go off quickly so it’s much more convenient to buy a bag of the pre-sliced frozen rice cakes.
2. Soak the beef brisket in water for 1-2 hours to soak out the blood, then put into a large pot with the cold water, garlic, salt, fish sauce, pepper and dashida. Slowly bring to a boil then allow to boil for 45mins - 1 hour, or till the brisket is tender. Scoop off any foam on the surface of the stock, then remove the brisket and finely slice against the grain and set aside.
3. Meanwhile, heat a frying pan and fry the 2 lightly beaten eggs in a thin omlette. Once cooked, remove to a chopping board and slice into thin, 4″ strips
4. Add another 1 cup of water to the pot (to compensate for liquid lost during the boil), then bring the stock back to the boil. Once boiling, add the frozen dumplings to the pot and boil for 10 minutes, or till they float to the surface.
5. Boil for an additional 5 minutes to make sure the dumplings are cooked through, then drain the soaked rice cakes and add them to the pot. Boil for another 10-15 minutes, or till the rice cakes are cooked, soft and floating on the surface.
6. Once the rice cakes are cooked, immediately turn off the heat and add the sliced brisket back to the pot. Take the lightly beaten egg, then slowly pour into the pot in a thin stream, moving the bowl around to create thin egg ‘ribbons’ in the broth. Place the lid on the pot to help cook the egg ribbons for just a minute.
7. Carefully pour into individual bowls, then top with the sliced egg, nori sheet and sprinkle the finely sliced spring onion on top, then serve immediately while piping hot!
Technorati Tags: Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, Asian, Korean, food, recipes, tradition, rice cake, dumplings, soup, broth
People who’ve tried this recipe:
- Kristine at Web-Goddess
Just a few things:
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Joey from 80 Breakfasts has put up the round-up of pizzas for Hay Hay it’s Donna Day! If you enjoyed my lamb, rocket & roasted red pepper pizza with chive yoghurt, then please let Joey know by emailing her and placing a vote for me
You’ve got till February 9th to vote, so drop her a line at eighty_breakfasts (AT) yahoo (DOT) com with a vote for your favourite pizza! |
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I’ve FINALLY got some new pictures of Korean mung bean fritters, called ‘bindae dduk‘, and just in time before the Lunar New Year!
If you want to see our recipe for this traditional festive food, often served as part of the feast for ‘Sol Nahl’, the beginning of the new Lunar calendar, then click on the picture to the left to be taken to the post! |
Technorati Tags: HHDD, pizza, bread, Korean, food, recipes, mung beans, Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year
