Kitchen Wench — Page 45

Peaches divine, please be mine

March 26, 2007 | 750 views

Who doesn’t love pancakes? Light, fluffy and oh-so-versatile, they can be adapted to sweet or savoury dishes (though I stop short of serving a rump steak on top of a buckwheat pancake, as once witnessed at the pancake parlour!) and are generally just a marvellous way to start, sustain or end the day And whilst I thought I made a decent pancake, it wasn’t till I first tried my hand at buttermilk pancakes that I realized just how fluffy, delicate and moist they really could be! However, though that recipe was super-tasty, the pancakes were a bit too moist for my liking, and hence I kept my eye out for another recipe that would give me a product with a little more body without sacrificing that delightful airiness that had won my heart.

However, what led me to these pancakes was not this particular search, but my mother’s inability to buy stone fruits. Once a fortnight my ma usually heads out to the markets to stock up on fruit (we only buy fruit and veg from the local supermarket if extremely desperate for something right this instant). On her way out the door my sister requested that she get some peaches, so a few hours later she returned with 2kg of peaches, much to the delight of me and my siblings.

Quite the happy chappy, my brother grabbed a peach and commented that it felt a little firm. And then he washed it and bit into it. When I heard some unhappy grunting, I turned around to see the peach had become wedged in his teeth – not exactly the kind of thing that you’d expect a peach to do! Unfortunately for us, every single peach that had been bought was completely unripe and as hard as a rock!

What could be done so that we didn’t have to wait a few weeks for these peaches to reach optimal ripeness and sweetness? I started flipping through some of my old editions of the Australian Gourmet Traveller, remembering that I’d seen a special on stone fruits in one of them, and eventually came back to the buttermilk pancakes with glazed white nectarines that I had bookmarked as a recipe to try! Though I had no white nectarines, I thought the peaches would be close enough and so I decided to give it a whirl.

I did have to tweak the recipe a little as I don’t think the writer intended it to be made with unripe fruit, but in the end it worked out fine and I had a stack of gorgeously fluffy pancakes with some soft, syrupy peach segments to sit atop like a golden-pink crown of fruity goodness. I’ve no idea how many calories this may contain, but I suggest that you save it for a weekend breakfast of indulgence…perhaps with a dollop of ice cream on the side?

Buttermilk Pancakes with Glazed Peaches
(adapted from February 2007 edition of Australian Gourmet Traveller)

Ingredients
4 ripe peaches
80g pure icing sugar
Juice and zest from 1 large orange
2 tbsp Grand Marnier

Optional: Icing sugar, vanilla ice cream or creme fraiche to serve

Buttermilk pancakes
150g self-raising flour
50g pure icing sugar (not soft icing mixture!)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs, seperated
310 mL buttermilk
2 tbsp vegetable oil
20g unsalted butter

1. Sift together the flour and icing sugar and set aside. Whisk together the egg yolks, buttermilk and vanilla, then pour into the flour and whisk together to combine.

2. Beat eggwhites till you have soft peaks, then use a large metal spoon to carefully fold them into the pancake batter. Set this aside for now.

3. Peel the peaches and cut them into segments (eighths if you have large fruit, sixths if you have small). Combine the sugar, orange juice, orange zest and Grand Marnier in a large frying pan and bring to the boil.

4. Cook syrup for 1-2 minutes or till it is slightly reduced and syrupy, then add the peaches and cook them for 1-2 minutes on each side till they are softened and glazed. Remove the peaches and add 2 tbsp water to the syrup, reduce the heat to low and stir the water through till the syrup has dissolved into the water.

5. In a seperate frying pan or griddle, heat half the butter and oil over low-medium heat and fry 1/4 cup of the mixture at a time, cooking each side for 2-3 minutes or till golden brown.

6. Once the pancakes are done, serve them with a few wedges of glazed peaches on each plate, drizzling with the syrup. Serve with ice cream or cream fraiche if you want a little more decadence

[tags] fruit, peaches, pancakes, buttermilk, recipes, breakfast, dessert[/tags]

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Attack of the sweet tooth

March 24, 2007 | 467 views

in Candies & Sweets,Nuts & Seeds

What on earth are these gooey, sticky little morsels? Read on to find out

What a thing to have a sweet tooth. Anyone who has a sweet tooth knows what it’s like to have a craving for the sweet and sugary, to bite into something that clouds the senses in tooth-achingly luscious decadence. Unfortunately, sweets are rarely ever bought in my household, and through years of mental brainwashing by my mother, even now I endure an internal battle of epic proportions every time I’m walking through the supermarket and happen past the candy and chocolates section.

Even if I have a craving, I usually end up walking away and scowling at myself (so if you ever see me walking around the supermarket with a frown on my face, it’s because I haven’t been able to bring myself to buy a treat for the abuse my brain keeps dishing out in my mother’s voice – “NO! BAD CANDY! CALORIES CALORIES CALORIES!”), which has meant that many a time I’ve been left with my sweet tooth unsatisfied.

This is what it looks like, when a sweet tooth cries
(Yes, I know that my drawing skills are akin to those of a 5y0, however this is the best I can do!)

With the purchase of my candy thermometer last year, I thankfully do not have to put up with many temper tantrums from my sweet tooth, as my fridge now usually contains marshmallows, peanut brittle, honeycomb, or chocolate-covered pralines. My ma isn’t too happy about this development (I’ve lost count of the number of times she’s looked me in the eye and cursed my name while chowing down on any one of the aforementioned sweets), however seems to have fewer reservations about these home-made treats than their store-bought counterparts. However, there’s one problem.

Variety. Or the lack thereof.

You see, there’s only so many times you can have chocolate covered nut pralines, and despite how wonderful they are, the sweet tooth starts complaining. And don’t tell me you don’t know what that’s like – any craving is akin to a temper tantrum in that there is no logic, no rhyme nor reason, it must be satisfied and satisfied now.

My mind wandered back to my failed chewy caramels attempt. That would be a GREAT candy to have in the repetoire, but I still felt a little disheartened from my caramels complete and utter refusal to harden up. I browsed food blog after food blog looking for more candy recipes but my mind was stuck on making caramels, and till I did, no other candy was going to satisfy either mouth or mind.

By the powers of honey and walnuts combined, we have walnut honey caramels!

Just when I thought all was lost, the April edition of Australian Gourmet Traveller came to the rescue! Having taken out a subscription to this wonderful magazine at the beginning of the year, this month’s edition had landed on my doorstep yesterday afternoon and I dropped what I was doing to paw through it’s pages, my eyes hungrily devouring one glossy picture after another. Oh, so many delicious looking treats! And then, I saw it. A double page spread on the walnuts with a little breakout box that contained a recipe for walnut honey caramels!

Guess what I did next?

Well, I’d like to say that I raced off to the kitchen to make these divine bites of honeyed heaven, but unfortunately I had neither walnuts nor honey in my pantry, and with the rain pouring down as if the skies had broken apart, I needed a lift to get to the grocery store.

Cue image of me gnashing my teeth for the next 4 hours while waiting for my pops to get home with the car.

After finally making it to the shops at 10pm, I raced around like a bat out of hell, careening around corners with my trolley, eyes popping out of my head till at last I could hold my coveted bag of walnuts and tub of honey to my chest. I may or may not have let out a gutteral “my preciousssss”, at this stage, I’ll leave that up to your imagination! Managed to get back home without falling apart from my nerves, and immediately set up the kitchen for my assault on caramel-land.

*content sigh*

They’re good. They’re good enough that me, my sister and my ma braved the straight-off-the-stove mixture in order to devour some immediately. Not exactly a candy that you can give away as they never completely harden, but storing them in your fridge keeps them relatively firm and also means that can only really have one at a time (hah! Portion control!) as once removed they do begin to go a bit soft and melty. The next time I make these, I am making a double quantity so I can really pack in the nuts and turn them into little bars And trust me – there will definetely be a next time!

Walnut Honey Caramels (from April 2007 edition of Australian Gourmet Traveller)

Ingredients
360g (1 cup) strongly flavoured honey (such as leatherwood)
250mL (1 cup) thickened cream
400g (2 cups) unsalted roasted walnuts
Zest from 1 orange

1. Lightly toss together orange zest and walnuts in a bowl and set aside. Line 2 large baking trays with non-stick baking paper.

2. Heat honey and cream in a 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 for 20 minutes or till mixture reaches 125 degrees C (firm ball stage).

3. Pour walnut mixture into the caramel and stir well to combine, then place tablespoonfuls of the caramel nut mix onto the baking trays. Refrigerate till set, then place into an airtight container that has been lined with non-stick baking paper. Only store in single layers, making sure to place a sheet of baking paper between each layer of candy.

4. Store in the fridge and dip in every now and then for a caramelly, nutty bite

The sweetness of these candies is a lot milder than with caramels made with sugar, and since they’re made with honey the flavour seems to have more depth and smoothness to it. Unfortunately, you do need a candy thermometer or know the different stages of sugar-cooking as since this is boiled with cream from the outset, it can’t be eyeballed for colour. These days you can get a candy thermometer for fairly cheap from baking specialty stores, so I’d highly recommend getting one as I think it’s a very worthwhile investment

[tags]walnuts, candy, honey, caramel, recipe, cooking, sweets[/tags]

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My life, as told by a bowl of soup

March 21, 2007 | 1,161 views

in Korean recipes,Stews, Soups & Salads,Vegetables & Vegetarian

Every culture has it’s traditions, and though I may have grown up here in Australia, my mother brought many of these traditions over from Korea, and so they became a part of my life and identity. One of these traditions is the serving of ‘Mi-Yok Guk’ (seaweed soup). The soup is high in nutrients and believed to help induce breast milk in women who have given birth, as well as helping the body to recover and stimulating the mind, so you can see how this soup has grown to become a staple in most Korean households.

You could say that this soup has founded my family and kept it growing over the years – at every single birthday, we could wake up to the smell of this rich broth bubbling away, and we would start the day with a bowl of this goodness filled soup in the hopes that it would keep us nourished and give us a good start to the next year of our life. After my sister and brother were born, family friends would bore down on us, bringing tubs and tubs of the stuff to keep my tired mother fed and help her to get her strength back. And on those many nights when I had to stay up late whilst studying, more often than not my mother would suddenly turn up in my doorway, bearing a steaming bowl of this soup to keep me going through the night, kissing me on the forehead before going back to bed.

It is definetely an acquired taste and therefore may not be for everyone, but this soup is a part of me, and I hope that one day I’ll be able to make it quite as well as my ma does

Traditional Mi-Yok Guk (seaweed soup)

Ingredients
30g dried seaweed for soup **
60g flank or sirloin steak, sliced into thin strips
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp Asian sesame oil
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp instant beef stock powder (can replace with dashi)
1.5L water

** There are many different kinds of dried seaweed on the market, and when buying to make soup, make sure that you’re buying the kind used for this sort of soup. It’ll be cheapest and most readily found at Korean grocery stores, double check with the cashier to make sure you’re buying the right thing! Alternatively, you can access an online Korean grocery store for the goods

1. Soak the seaweed strands in warm water till they have become soft and supple, then discard the soaking water and set aside the seaweed for now.

2. Heat a large pot over medium heat, then add the sliced steak, garlic and sesame oil and sautÃ© till the meat has browned nicely. Add the soy sauce and seaweed and sautÃ© for another minute to make sure that the meat and seaweed are taking on the flavour from the garlic and soy.

3. Add the water and stock powder to the pot and stir to make sure that the powder has dissolved, then bring to a vigorous boil. Boil for about 15 minutes, then put the lid on and reduce the heat to a simmer and leave for another 30 minutes, or till the seaweed is very soft and the liquid has turned slightly milky and thickened.

This is my entry for the “Nostalgia” event that I’m running! If you would like to take part but haven’t got a post together yet – not to worry! The deadline is this Friday the 23rd of March so you’ve still got a bit of time yet

[tags]nostalgia, korean food, korean cuisine, traditional food, korea, seaweed, health food, soup, broth, recipes[/tags]

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Baby, I need your carb-lovin’

March 15, 2007 | 794 views

in Cheese & Dairy,Pancakes & Fritters,Rice, Noodles, Pasta & Grains,Vegetables & Vegetarian

“WHO THE HELL MOVED MY ARBORIO RICE?!”

I growled as I continued pawing through the endless stream of plastic packages in the pantry, searching for the elusive bag which contained these short, stumpy, pearly, carb-a-licious grains. After one heckuva long day where nothing seemed to go my way, I had dreamt of making risotto all the way home and as soon as I’d stepped through the front door, it was the only thing that I could think about.

Even now, I’m not quite sure why I had this particular hankering – I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of risotto and I certainly did not want to eat it, I just needed to make it and till I had, I knew that my poor soul would feel unsatisfied.

My searched picked up in pace as my desperation increased a notch – there is nothing quite like the feeling when you’re looking for something that you need and that you know you have, but cannot find. That particular brand of panic should have it’s own name…perhaps it already does and my scattered self just can’t think of it?

The mountain of foodstuffs being emptied from the pantry started growing into a small mountain behind me, and certainly it looked as though the pantry had swallowed my upper half as I started crawling inside it to try and find the key ingredient to my risotto-making. I felt the tears start to form when suddenly, I spotted the package hiding behind my dusty old espresso machine!

HAHAHA! BWAHAHA! Score: Ellie – 1, Pantry – 0!

Emerging triumphant with my little package of arborio rice in clutched tightly in hand, I threw everything back into the pantry and skipped merrily to my kitchen bench where everything else I required already sat, anticipating being turned into a nice basic risotto. I chopped my onion, heated my stock, and stirred stirred stirred to my heart’s content, grinning like a maniac as the little rice grains started releasing their starch, becoming fatter and softer, and the liquid around them thickened up to a delicious creaminess.

And then I suddenly realized that I had a pan full of risotto and no desire to eat it (clever, aren’t I?)

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight…

Suddenly glad that I’d decided to only make a 1/2 batch, I dumped it unceremoniously into a dish, threw some plastic wrap over the top and chucked it in the fridge, telling myself that I’d worry about it later. I’m not a fan of waste, so it would have to be used, but how?? I retired to my room and pulled half my cookbooks off my shelf to start sorting through them, and then a vague niggling thought made me reach for ‘The Cook’s Book’ (my regular readers know how much I LOVE this bible) and flip through to the ‘Grains & Rice’ section. My normally pathetic memory had come through and nudged me towards the idea of risotto cakes, which is a wonderful way to use up any leftover (or, in my case, uneaten) risotto that you may have!

This isn’t really a recipe, as I think almost any risotto would suffice, but just in case you don’t have a risotto recipe, I’ve included a basic one that can be used to make these wonderful bundles of carb-a-licious heaven

Sundried Tomato & Mushroom Risotto Cakes

Ingredients

Basic Risotto
500 – 600mL chicken or vegetable stock
1 tbsp good olive oil
50g unsalted butter
1/2 onion, finely diced
150g arborio rice (or any other risotto rice)
50mL dry white wine
50g parmesan cheese

To make Risotto Cakes
1 quantity of chilled risotto (any non-chunky risotto is fine, to the amount specified above)
80g semi sundried tomatoes, extra oil squeezed out and chopped up
300g mushrooms, roughly chopped
50g unsalted butter
200g mozarella cheese, grated
1 1/2 cups breadcrumbs (panko breadcrumbs if possible)

1. Heat stock in a saucepan till barely simmering.

2. Heat oil and half butter in a wide, heavy-bottomed saucepan, and add onions and cook till softened.

3. Add rice and stir to coat the grains well with the fat.

4. Add wine and boil, stirring constantly till absorbed. Add ladleful of simmering stock and stir till absorbed, and repeat till the rice is tender but still retains a bite (this does not mean undercooking the rice! It should not be chalky in the middle!). This should take roughly 15-20 minutes for this quantity.

5. Stir in remaining butter and parmesan, season and remove from heat. Cover pan and leave the risotto to rest for 2 mins before serving. For the risotto cakes, place this in a container in the fridge to cool completely before moving on…

6. Sautee the mushrooms in the butter, then set aside to cool. Once cooled, toss through with the chopped sundried tomatoes and cheese and set aside for now.

7. Divide chilled risotto into 8 equal sized balls (about halfway between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball).

8. For each risotto cake, cup a ball in your hand and use your hands to shape a hollow in the middle. Place a tsp of filling in the middle, then gently mould the rice over the filling to encase it completely, then shape the ball into a small cake/patty.

9. Roll the cake in breadcrumbs till well coated, repeat with all cakes till the batch has been made.

10. Heat olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat, then fry the cakes for about 4-5 minutes each side, or till golden brown and crisp. Drain on a kitchen towel and serve.

For those of you planning to take part in my Nostalgia event, please remember that the final deadline for entries is next Friday, 23rd March I’ve received a couple of utterly fantastic entries so far, and can’t wait to see what other entries may be in the pipeline! If you’ve written up a post but forgotten to send through an email – please do so, otherwise I won’t be able to find your entry and include it in the final roundup!

Finally, thanks to Doodles from Peanut Butter Ettouffee for letting me know that the folk over at the Herald-Tribune (her local paper) have written up a nice article about the Nostalgia event

[tags]recipes, risotto, food, patties, cheese, rice, vegetarian [/tags]

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Smells like home

March 11, 2007 | 335 views

in Bread & Pastry

There is something to be said for the act of baking your own loaf of bread. Sure, in this day and age when there are artisan bakeries and loaves enough to supply all (or a Baker’s Delight product if you’re used to that supermarket flavour), why would anyone bother going through the time-consuming motions of baking a loaf of plain bread?

The only answer I can offer is that the bread tastes significantly different, having come from the fruit of your labours. The smell of the yeast, the warmth from the oven and then having the brown loaf cooling on your bench before you can slice off a thick piece, toast it, give it a few lashings of butter and consume it? There’s is an amazing sense of delight and accomplishment from this act, and enjoying your own bread with a cup of tea is a lovely relaxing way to end the whole process

For all of my baking, I’m still relatively new to yeast and I’d never ever tried making my own loaf of bread till this fateful day. I don’t know what prompted it, but I woke up that morning and the air smelled…right. Something about that morning told me that it was finally time to attempt this hurdle, so I set off to the kitchen with ‘The Cook’s Book‘ in hand, mouth set in determination and anticipating the journey ahead.

Though the book recommends that you fresh yeast, I’ve no idea how to get a hold of the stuff so I had to adapt the recipe to dried instant yeast, but it still worked a treat and thrilled my family who consumed half the loaf the instant it left the oven. The crust is deliciously crunchy, the interior soft and fluffy, and the bread freezes quite well in case you and your family and quite as carb-hungry as me and mine

Simple White Bread

Ingredients
5g dried instant yeast
350g water at around 22 degrees C
500g strong white flour, plus extra for shaping
10g sea salt
Olive oil, for kneading

1. Stir the yeast, 50g of water and 15g of flour together and leave for 10 minutes.

2. Ad the activated yeast to the remaining water, salt and flour and mix together to make a soft, sticky dough – make sure that everything is mixed together well and there are no lumps of unmixed flour. Cover this with a damp cloth and leave for 10 minutes to rest.

3. Lightly knead the dough:

To knead a yeast-risen bread, the book recommends using an oiled rather than a floured surface, and instead of a constant 10 minutes of kneading it recommends a series of brief kneads with rests in between.

3a. Take 1 tsp of oil (olive, corn or sunflower) and rub it onto your work surface in a large circle. Also rub about 2 tsp oil over the surface of the dough. Scrape the dough out onto the oiled surface.

3b. Before starting your knead, wash and dry the bowl, then rub the inside and your hands with a little oil. Set the bowl aside.

3c. Fold the dough in half towards you. It should be extremely soft and sticky at this stage.

3d. If you are right handed, use your left thumb to hold the fold in place whilst using the heel of your right hand to gently but firmly press down and away through the centre of the dough to seal the fold and stretch the dough.

3e. Lift and rotate the dough clockwise a quarter turn. Repeat the folding, pressing and rotating about 10-12 times, stopping before the dough starts to stick to the surface. Place the dough in the oiled bowl, seam side down, and cover with a cloth and leave for 10 minutes.

3f. Repeat previous step another 2 times, remembering to rub a little more oil over the dough after each 10 minute rest if it has become too sticky.

Cover the dough with a damp cloth and leave for 30 minutes before giving the dough one final knead, then rest for a further 30 minutes before shaping.

4. Oil and flour a deep 12cm x 19cm loaf tin, then cut the dough into 2 equal portions, round them up then tuck them in side by side into the tin. Cover with a cloth and leave to rise at room temperature (around 22 degrees C) for 1- 1.5 hours, or till the dough is almost double in height.

5. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. Uncover the loaf, mist with water and dust lightly with flour. Place the tin on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 15 minutes, then drop the heat to 190 degrees C and bake for a further 30 minutes or till the bread is done. To check whether the loaf is done, remove from the tin and sharply rap the bottom with your knuckles – it should feel lightish and make a hollow noise when rapped.

6. Once the loaf is done, remove from the oven and rest for a few minutes before taking it out of the tin and cooling on a wire rack. Once mostly cooled, slice yourself a piece, butter it up and enjoy!

There may seem to be quite a few steps, but all I’ve done is outline every step of the process so there is no guesswork required This turns out a perfect loaf every time, and you may find that it begins to make a regular appearance in your home!

[tags]recipes, bread, loaf, baking, home-made[/tags]

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