Unseasonably seasonal ice cream…and a competition!

April 4, 2011 | 478 views

in Cheese & Dairy,Events,Frozen,Fruit Flavour

So, it’s finally happened. Summer (or the pathetic excuse for a summer that we in Melbourne had over the past few months) has waved au revior and departed, leaving in it’s place blustering winds, ice-cold mornings and shorter days.

Despite the lack of heat this summer, there was a part of me that was somewhat eager for the colder seasons so I could put on my soup apron and get into the long simmer samba, full of stock and comfort foods which light a fire in your belly which warms so steadily that eventually you feel toasty from your head to your frostbitten toesies.

However, now that the cold has actually arrived, I find myself longing for light salads with acidic dressings, barbeques and ice cream.

Yes, you read that right. Ice cream.

As I’ve only recently come into possession of an ice cream maker, after getting it for myself as a Christmas present, there was about a month where I was making ice cream and sorbets at such a frantic rate that there was little space for anything else in our freezer. It became such a problem that I was actually handed a blanket ban from making any more frozen custards by the maternal figure, and thus the ice cream maker sat in the corner and began to gather dust.

Two months on, the family has finally almost finished all the ice cream that I made (there’s only about a cup of green tea ice cream and strawberry frozen yoghurt left), so this weekend I decided to roll up my sleeves and throw myself into an icy wonderland of sugary bliss. With pears being so magnificently in season now, I went for a stunning roasted pear, cinnamon and pecan praline ice cream.

As far as I’m concerned, this is by far the best ice cream that I’ve ever made. Bar none.

Because I’m an insane person (and also because I tried taking photos of my creation way too late tonight), the recipe is going to have to wait till I get a chance to take some better food porn-y shots, but I’ll leave the photo above up as a teaser. The fact that it’s currently 12:30am on Monday morning and I have to get up in 5 hours kinda has something to do with that too – so let’s keep this short and sweet!

In keeping with my insanity, Kitchenware Direct have offered to give one of my Australian readers the below ice cream maker – so you can be a crazy person who makes ice cream in autumn/winter like me! That’s right folks, your own gorgeous 2L Cuisinart Stainless Steel ice cream maker, so we can be unseasonal ice cream makers together!

 

So, how do you win this hot (or cold??) piece of kitchen sexiness?

With Easter around the corner, all you need to do is make or create a dish that makes you think of Easter. Sure my ice cream has nothing to do with Easter, but Easter for us here in the Southern Hemisphere is in Autumn, and pears are an autumn fruit!

See how loose that connection can be? ;-)

If you’re a blogger who is based in Australia and want to take part, all you need to do is:

  • Blog your ‘Easter’ dish (nope, it doesn’t have to be a recipe you’ve created, just anything that makes you think of Easter…sorta!)
  • Provide a link back to this blog post
  • Email me with a link to your post

To non-blogging readers out there in Australia, it’s pretty much the same deal!

  • Make your ‘Easter’ dish (it can be as loosely related to Easter as you like! See my example!)
  • Email me a photo, the name of the dish and why it reminds you of this time of year

How easy can it get? And to up the ante, if you’re a twitter user you can double your chance of winning this ice cream maker by simply tweeting the link to this post!

The draw closes at midnight on Monday 18th April, so what are you waiting for? Go on and get cracking for your chance to be making your own ice cream for Easter! :)

For those of you who don’t care about the ice cream maker and just want the recipe to this ice cream? I’ll try and get it up by tomorrow :P

{ 13 comments }

When cultures collide: Jja-jang myun & tang su yuk

March 28, 2011 | 3,039 views

in Korean recipes,Pork,Rice, Noodles, Pasta & Grains

In the cultural triangle that is China, Korea and Japan, there are a lot of similar dishes that each country does in their own way.

For example – China have a gazillion and one types of dumplings, Korea has mandu, and Japan has their gyoza.

In Japan you have sushi (so many kinds), and in Korea we have our kimbap.

And the Korean versions of Chinese zhajiang mian and sweet & sour pork is jja-jang myun and tang su yuk – two staples of Korean take out that anyone living there is veeeeeeeery familiar with.

There’s something to be said for a country that runs on convenience. It’s a different sort of convenience to the U.S., where you can buy things like pre-diced onion and pre-crumbled mince (really??). The sort of convenience you get in Korea is the sort where you can have hand-made dishes such as these delivered piping hot to your apartment door within 30 minutes – and the plastic dishes and cutlery can just be left outside your door when you’re done, to be picked up by the eatery who will wash and reuse it.

It’s the sort of convenience which means you never really need to take your dry-cleaning out, because they pick it up and drop it off all from your apartment.

It’s the sort of convenience which means that almost anywhere in the cities, you can get a bowl of piping hot noodles, soup and fish cake (called o-deng) at almost any time of night from one of the many ‘fast food restaurants’ (fast because they make simple dishes very quickly, not because it’s shit like KFC or McDonalds), for a very reasonable price.

While I have actually blogged my mother’s recipe for jja-jang myun before, one of my lovely readers requested a recipe for tang su yuk (Korean sweet & sour pork) so it made sense for me to blog the two dishes together since they are usually ordered and enjoyed alongside each other. Whilst both dishes originate from their Chinese equivalents, the way they’re made in Korea very much reflects the way that we do things and the flavours that we enjoy.

Living in Australia now, it means that when I’m feeling lazy and like I can’t be bothered for dinner, I resort to things like bruschetta or toasted sandwiches (or even just cereal). But when I make this dish then it takes me back to when I was back in Korea, sitting on the floor and surrounded by my siblings and cousins, all of us slurping these rich, saucy noodles, chatting and laughing with black bean smiles.

Do note that the recipe below makes a RIDICULOUS amount of sauce (about a large wok-full) and will serve abut 6 adults. You could halve if if you must…but the sauce freezes really well, so any leftovers can be put into zip lock bags in single serves and reheated in the microwave whenever you feel like fast food, Korean style :)

Jja-jang myun
(wheat noodles in sauteed black bean sauce)

Ingredients (makes enough sauce for 5-6 serves)
2 large carrots (approx 1.5 cups of diced carrot
2 medium onions (approx 1.5 cups diced onion)
2 medium potatoes (approx 1.5 cups diced potato)
500g lean pork (approx 1.5 cups diced pork)
2 cups diced cabbage
1 tbsp grated ginger
3-4 cups water
salt & pepper, to taste
2/3 cup jja jjang (Korean black bean paste) *
2 tbsp potato starch, stirred into 2 tbsp water
2 packets wheat noodles

If you want to add zucchini (which I often do), reduce the amount to 1 cup diced potato and 1 cup diced carrot and add 1 cup diced zucchini – leaving out the core which will become stupidly mushy once cooked and water the sauce down.

* Please, for the love of all things holy, do NOT substitute this with Chinese black bean paste. This is like substituting paprika powder for Korean chilli powder. Sure, they’re both technically chilli powder, but they are NOTHING alike and cannot be used as a proper substitution.

And if you happen to be someone who substitutes Korean chilli powder with paprika?

You make baby Jesus cry **.

(** This is not meant as an insult to anyone who believes in the little baby Jesus. It’s just an expression of THE SHEER HORROR YOU HAVE CAUSED ME)

1. If you haven’t already (seeing that I kinda specify this up there ↑), then please dice your carrot and onion into even pieces that are no more than 1cm x 1cm big (obviously none of us are crazy vegetable chopping machines who can ensure every diced piece is the same…but you roughly want them to be the same size so they cook evenly)

2. Do the same to your potato and pork (in case you have a non-existent memory like I do, this means to dice the potato and pork like you did the carrot and onion, trying to keep the size of the potato like the carrot, but the pork a bit larger since it shrinks when cooked.

It’s a good idea to rinse the potato under cold running water to wash off the starch on the surface. Trust me.

As an aside, is my memory really that bad?

I’ve managed to forget my own birthday twice so far (and I’ve not yet passed 30), and I regularly forget my age and need to work it out by subtracting the current year from 1982.

I’m kinda wondering whether I need to be microchipped in case I ever forget how to find my way home…

3. Season the pork with the ginger, salt and pepper and massage it in with your hands. Set it aside to marinate for about 10 minutes, then make sure that you have all the components of the dish ready to go!

4. Take your washed potato and stir fry it in a wok till BARELY cooked through (you need to be able to pierce it with a fork, but it can’t be soft or mushy). Set the potato aside and do the same with the carrot.

OR

If you ignored my instruction to rinse the potato (or just have a bad memory like me), try cooking the potato, curse loudly as the starch catches on the pan and causes burning. Wail loudly and curse the deities for their cruelty, remove the potato from the wok and mutter under your breath as you zap it in the microwave for a few minutes to cook. Then saute the carrot and set aside with the potato.

5. Saute the onion in your wok till it just starts to become translucent, then add your pork and brown it with the onion. Once the pork is nicely browned, set this aside with the potato and carrot.

6. Add your cabbage to the wok and saute till it becomes translucent, then add the other veg & pork to the wok and stir through to combine.

7. Add your Korean black bean paste and stir through to ensure it’s combined evenly, then slowly pour water over the top till water completely covers the other ingredients. Put the lid on (while using a wooden spoon to leave a gap to stop the mixture boiling over) and simmer till the liquid is reduced by half.

Add the potato starch mixture and stir through then simmer whilst stirring occasionally, till the liquid has thickened. Serve with thin wheat noodles (if you can’t buy fresh Korean wheat noodles, then fresh wheat Singapore noodles can suffice) and some cucumber cut into thin matchsticks.

This dish is also usually served with:

  • Dan mu ji: Yellow picked daikon radish, cut into thin slices
  • Kimchi
  • Raw onion, cut into small pieces and dipped into raw Korean black bean paste

I don’t know if it’s just my family, but whenever we ordered or made jja-jang myun, it was an unspoken rule that we would always order a plate of tang su yuk (Korean sweet & sour pork) to be enjoyed alongside it. Korean sweet & sour pork is very different from the Chinese version – our pork is cut into long strips and covered in a light, thin coating of egg white and corn starch instead of a heavy batter. The sauce should also be almost clear with a very pale golden hue to it – no blinding orange sauce here!

Tang Su Yuk
(Deep-fried pork in sweet & sour sauce)

Pork Ingredients
500g lean pork loin (you can also use a lean cut of beef or chicken thighs)
2 tbsp grated ginger
1 egg white
1 cup potato starch
Salt & pepper, to taste

Sweet & Sour Sauce Ingredients
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1 cup water
4 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp Korean soy sauce
2 tbsp potato starch mixed into 2 tbsp water
1 medium carrot, peeled and sliced
1/2 medium onion, peeled
1/2 medium red capsicum, deseeded
1 small thin-skinned cucumber
5 pineapple rings

1. Cut your pork into strips about 1cm wide and about 5-6cm long (this is a rough guide, and is just about cooking time and easy of eating).

2. Season the pork with the ginger, salt and pepper, then massage it in. Then, beat the egg white in a bowl and add the pork, mixing to make sure the egg white evenly coats the pork.

3. Add the potato starch to the bowl of pork and stir to mix through. The pork should look dry so if there are still ‘wet’ patches (that aren’t dry and starchy), add more potato starch and mix through again.

Heat some oil in a pot or wok to about 180 degrees C and cook the pork till golden brown, then drain thoroughly.

4. Cut the carrot into thirds (purely to make it easier to maneuver), then cut little wedges out along the edge so it goes from a circle to some sorta flower-ish shape: ↓

5. Once the carrot is done, cut into slices, then cut the rest of the ingredients:

  • Cut the 1/2 an onion into quarters
  • Cut the capsicum into pieces about the same size as the onion
  • Slice the capsicum into slices about the same width as the carrot
  • Cut the pineapple rings into 8ths (cut into quarters then halve each quarter)

6. Saute all the veggies (except the cucumber) in a small pot with a little oil just to slightly soften, then add all the remaining ingredients (except the starch) and bring to a simmer. Stirring occasionally, once the carrot is mostly cooked (you want it softened but still to retain some crunch), stir in the potato starch mixture and stir continuously till the liquid is thickened.

Once the sauce is done, immediately pour over the pork strips and serve alongside your jja-jang myun :)

For those of you who waited all weekend for me to post my ice cream maker competition…I’m sorry! I just completely ran out of time! However, I’m hoping to put it up by the end of the week so bear with me…please? :)

{ 30 comments }

5 years on…and traditional Korean noodles

March 21, 2011 | 3,853 views

in Korean recipes,Poultry & Eggs,Rice, Noodles, Pasta & Grains

I realized this week that this marks the 5 year anniversary of this little ol’ food blog of mine.

5 years.

That’s pretty much the longest relationship that I’ve ever had (yeah, my track record with romance isn’t exactly stellar…but that’s for another time!)

When I look back, it’s been a pretty interesting 5 years. When I started this blog back then for a university social media assignment, I had been reading food blogs for a few months and it seemed like the scene was still fresh and new. I could count the number of well known blogs on my fingers, and thought that I would love to start my own! Of course, when we were tasked with starting a blog at uni, I suddenly had opportunity and could legitimately devote time from the rest of my studies to starting this project.

I was so incredibly proud of my efforts back then – I even bought myself a brand new Olympus point and shoot camera to enable me to take pictures (though I knew absolutely nothing about photography), and at the end of the semester, when the project scored top marks, I was so absolutely pleased with myself.

Looking back at my first few posts, I quite literally cringe at how bad they were and how utterly abysmal my photography was. Part of me wants to tear them down, but part of me likes the idea of keeping them up just as an indication of just how far I’ve come from those early days….

Reaching 5 years seems particularly monumental considering that 2 and 1/2 years ago, my (then) web host accidentally destroyed my entire blog whilst upgrading their databases. Everything. Every post, every link, every comment, every picture – it was all lost to a 5gb size bunch of babble. Everything that I had worked on to that moment had disappeared.

It almost destroyed my desire to blog – and even managed to destroy my will to cook for a week (there was a lot of toast and cereal involved…)

However, with a little support from friends and readers, I slowly started to rewrite all my posts and eventually got almost all the recipes back up! And thankfully I’ve been going strong ever since :)

Anyway, in celebration of my blog’s birthday, I thought I’d run through a few POSITIVE memorable moments for this blog of mine!

Firstly, the list of the top 5 most viewed posts:

  1. Our authentic family recipe for Kimchi (so tasty that my Momma gives OTHER Korean ladies tips on how to make it!)
  2. Home-made English muffins (trust me, they’re worth the effort!)
  3. Beautiful Dutch baby pancakes
  4. My mother’s recipe for Korean Spicy Fried Chicken (move over KFC, you ain’t got nothin’ on this!)
  5. My step by step tutorial for making fondant animal heads (perfect for topping a cake or cupcakes!)

Then there’s the list of the top 5 most commented entries:

  1. My peanut butter beef stir fry (and Bessemer giveaway!)
  2. My step by step tutorial for making fondant animal heads
  3. My favourite recipe for simple lemon cupcakes
  4. Beautiful panna cotta and honey jelly
  5. Alice Medrich’s peanut butter & choc torte with strawberry sauce

Over the past five years, if there’s one thing that you’ve asked for, it’s always been for more of our traditional Korean family recipes. For someone who mostly cooks and eats Korean food at home, there is a real lack of family recipes here – something that I’m going to share more of this year!

It was actually a new year’s resolution…but I guess you can tell that hasn’t been going far too well :)

(Does ANYONE ever manage to keep their new year’s resolutions? Seriously? Anyone at all??)

Anyway, in keeping with that (failed) resolution – here is a recipe from my maternal grandmother. This dish is about as old school Korean as you can get; delicate hand-made noodles floating in a lightly fragrant broth and topped with silky spicy poached chicken. And this, served with spicy salted cabbage (or kimchi, if you have it!)


Hand-made noodles in chicken broth

Ingredients for the broth/poaching
1 medium-sized raw chicken – skinned, cleaned and rinsed
1 thumb-size piece of fresh ginger
12 cloves fresh garlic, peeled
1 tbsp black peppercorns
2 whole spring onions, cleaned and sliced in half
5-6L water

Ingredients for the noodles
4 cups plain/all-purpose flour + 2 cup flour for kneading/dusting
2/3 cold water

Ingredients for marinated chicken meat
1 tbsp gochugaru (Korean chilli powder)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp fish sauce
Salt & pepper, to taste
1 spring onion, chopped

Ingredients for spicy salted cabbage
1 medium-sized Chinese cabbage
1/4 cup salt
1/2 cup gochugaru (Korean chilli powder)
2 tbsp fish sauce
6 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp toasted sesame oil

1. Place the chicken in a large pot then add the remaining broth ingredients. Fill with water till the chicken is covered, then place the lid on, turn the heat on LOW and simmer for 30-40 minutes, or the the flesh falls easily away from the bones.

2. Remove the chicken to another bowl, strain out the other ingredients and return the stock to the pot and set aside. Allow the chicken to cool, then pull the meat off the carcass in small pieces. Discard the bones and set aside the shredded chicken meat for now.

3. Mix together the 4 cups of flour and water into a sticky dough, then scoop out onto a floured surface. Sprinkle an additional cup of flour over the dough and knead in. If the dough is still sticky, slowly incorporate the final cup of flour till the dough is smooth and no longer sticky or tacky.

4. Cut the dough into quarters. Take one quarter, roll out to about 2mm thick on a floured surface, then rub flour onto both sides and fold up into a ‘roll’ (from one side to the other, with each fold about 5cm wide)

5. Cut the roll into pieces 3-4mm wide, then lightly and gently spread them out onto a tray, making sure that you’re working with enough flour so that the noodles don’t stick to each other.

6. Repeat the process with the remaining balls of dough, till you have a tray full of noodles. Bring a pot of water to the boil, then blanch the noodles in the water for a few seconds (making sure you constantly stir with your chopsticks to prevent the noodles from sticking. Drain the noodles in a colander and set aside for now.

NOTE: This step is not entirely necessary, but I like to follow it because it part cooks the noodles and washes off a lot of the flour that coats them. If this excess flour is still clinging to the noodles when they are added to the stock, it will thicken the soup up a lot and also mute the flavour of it.

7. Separate the cabbage leaves then slice into long strips diagonally. Toss the salt through till evenly distributed, then set aside for 30 minutes or till wilted. Rinse the cabbage strips off under running water, then squeeze out as much water as possible (without crushing the cabbage) and set over a strainer for another 30 minutes.

8. Place the strips into a large bowl and toss through with the remaining ingredients, making sure it’s all thoroughly mixed together.

NOTE: You can skip the salted spicy cabbage and steps 7 & 8 if you like, and just serve the noodles with Kimchi, however traditionally this dish is served without kimchi and with this side dish instead.

9. Mix the shredded chicken meat with the marinade ingredients (gochugaru, garlic, fish sauce, salt & pepper and spring onion) and set aside. Then bring the stock back to the boil and add the noodles. Once the noodles are floating at the surface, they are cooked and the meal is ready to be served!

9. Working quickly, serve the noodles in separate bowls, then top with some of the chicken. Serve with the spicy salted cabbage in small bowls so that each diner is within reach of it, and enjoy!

This recipe is one that (according to my mother), my grandmother would make all the time in the colder months. She would often make incredibly large amounts of this dish, then invite all the neighboring families over to enjoy in the fruits of her labour. To me, this is what taught my mother to appreciate slow cooking and home made food – and is such an integral part of my appreciation of food and family to this day.

So this post is dedicated to my incredible maternal grandmother, who is no longer with us, as well as my amazing mother. Thank you for being such wonderful women who taught me to appreciate the simple pleasures. This blog would not exist without you.

{ 49 comments }

Cheese & Chive Scones

March 14, 2011 | 3,173 views

in Quickbreads & Scones

There’s a lot to be said for living with others. Particularly if it involves cooking for them. I know a lot of people will say that “oh no, my family aren’t picky and will eat every damn thing that is served to them”, but I know many others will agree with me in saying that sometimes menu planning can be a righteous pain in the arse.

Firstly, I present to you the case of my mother.

Having grown up on a deer farm in rural South Korea after the Korean war, she is incredibly “old school” when it comes to Korean cuisine. Everything should be done by hand and as true to the old ways as possible. It’s probably a good thing that she’ll never meet David Chang of Momofuku fame, or there’s a real chance that she’d box his ears and tell him off for messing with traditional recipes. In her words “what do you think you can do that hasn’t already been perfected by your ancestors??”

Don’t try to talk to her about fusion cuisine. I speak from experience.

Despite this, she has an odd love of sweet cornbread served with jam, as she recalls this being something she received at school during lunchtimes, an offering from the local U.S. army base, so to her this is as much a part of her childhood as is bibimbap or hodduk. And now, after 20+ years in Australia, she’s now also developed a bit of a taste for Western and European cuisine, but is incredibly particular about what she will or won’t tolerate.

Then we have my darling kid sister. She’s actually not as particular as our mother is, but there is still a clear list of foods which are not approved for mastication. She will generally tolerate them if she must and if their flavour can be hidden, but if given a choice she will run a mile. This, unfortunately, includes onions, seafood, and anything that remotely resembles a legume.

All I can say about this is that every time I serve her a bowl of chilli con carne y frijoles, I become equally mesmerised and infuriated by watching her meticulously eat AROUND every kidney bean that might be hiding in the mix.

Last, but not least, is my little brother.

My little brother, who is one of the absolute joys of my life, and yet very clearly insane.

The picture to the left is just a demonstration – invited to a fancy dress birthday party last year, he decided that he would like to go as a character from some computer game, who happens to be a burly, hairy, RUSSIAN wrestler.

The burly my brother could pull of pretty well, but the hairy? Tends not to work so well when you’re from Asian stock. After he enlisted me to assist, the best that we could come up with was to buy some fake fur, cut it into shapes and glue it to his actual body.

Thinking back now, I’m thinking that double-sided medical tape would probably have been a better option, but that’s always the case with hindsight, isn’t it?

I warned him that when it came to fur-removal, that he’d probably want to saturate the fur to try and dissolve the glue that we’d used…but no, in his drunken wisdom, the fur was literally TORN from his body later that night.

Aside from that, because of his obsession with building muscle mass, the diet he maintains most days barely registers as food:

  • green beans sauteed with garlic and lean mince with a little pepper
  • tinned tuna on a plain/undressed salad
  • egg white omelettes
  • and a daily breakfast which comprises of protein powder, water, raw oats, a handful of blueberries and a handful of almonds.

I tell you, it makes the cook in me WEEP!

Taking the above into account, this means that when I’m cooking for the family, I have to try and bear all their restrictions in mind or at least make a few options that will appease them all. Other times, I throw in the towel and think “damnit, I’m going to make whatever the hell I want!” and end up having to give half the food away because I’ve cooked enough for the entire family yet I’m the only one who will partake!

To be honest, when I decided to make these cheese & chive scones, I thought that this would very much be a case of the latter. Chives were not going to please my sister, due to their being from the onion family. The high cheese and butter content was sure to be a deterrent as far as my brother was concerned. And as for my mother, she still struggles with the concept of savoury scones, after only coming around to sweet scones in the past few years.

To my surprise, the family adored these golden beauties, and they went down wonderfully well paired with a hearty spicy pumpkin soup! My brother enjoyed them so much that he wolfed down two in a row and declared them to be “savoury deliciousness!”

Golden, cheesy and perfectly tender, these are wonderful for the chilly weather that is approaching us here in the Southern hemisphere. But even if you’re up north where the days are getting longer and the sun is getting warmer, there’s no reason that you couldn’t still make these – perhaps served with an unholy lashing of butter and a slice of cold ham :)

Cheese & Chive Scones

Ingredients
300g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
150g grated cheese (I use Tasty)
30g freshly grated parmesan
80g cold unsalted butter, diced
250mL cold buttermilk
2 tbsp chopped chives
1 tbsp dijon mustard

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Put the flour, baking soda, salt and butter into a food processor and blitz it a few times to bring it all together. If making this by hand, then whisk together the dry ingredients, then rub the butter in with your fingers till the flour resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

2. Then add the remaining ingredients, but set aside about 1/4 cup of the grated cheese and quickly bring it all together (whether in the food processor or in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon). Work quickly and don’t overmix – it’s alright if the mixture is a little undermixed because working the dough too much will result in tough, flat scones!

3. Pat the dough together into a large round about 2cm thick, then dust your scone-cutter with flour and cut out rounds. Place them on a baking tray close together, then brush the top with milk and sprinkle with the reserved cheese.

4. Once the oven is nice and hot, place the tray into the middle and bake for 15 – 20 minutes or till the scones have risen and are golden brown on top. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool slightly, and serve warm with some lightly salted butter.

So, my dear readers – how about you? What strange dislikes or requirements do you find yourself working with when you cook for your household? And how do you work around them?

{ 43 comments }

Strawberry frozen yoghurt

March 6, 2011 | 2,150 views

in Frozen,Fruit Flavour

 

 

There’s something sublime about strawberries. Especially ones that you’re nurtured in your own garden – watching the flowers slowly unfurl , the bees as the hover about from one to the other, then the petals drop off and the large yellow centres become heavy and swollen – turning from yellow, to green, before they slowly colour to a ravishing red.

I’ve never seen alpine strawberries for sale here in Australia, so I became determined to grow my own to experience the flavour for myself. They actually turned out to be incredibly easy to grow (though they had to be grown from seed), the only problem being that the birds loved them just as much as I did and I ended up losing over half my crop over the summer to the sweet-seeking crows and magpies that frequent my garden.

 

 

I ended up resorting to picking my alpine and regular strawberries from my plants while they were still blushing into full colour and allowing them to ripen on my window sill, but unfortunately once they had ripened I wasn’t sure what I should do with them so I ended up collecting them one by one into a little zip lock bag in the freezer.

Looking at my freezer the other day, I noticed that the storage bag was so chock-full of strawberries that it could no longer be closed. Not a bad thing, since the strawberry harvest has been rather low this year and it’s been longer and longer between ripe berries during this rather spiritless summer.

 

 

Now that summer is officially over and we’ve moved on into autumn, I find myself wistful for the summer that we didn’t have. The long lazy days of sunshine where it’s too hot to do anything other than lie under a big tree with a book and Mr Woofy napping next to me. The sort of weather that makes everything drowsy – even the bees as they bumble from flower to flower seem to do so at half the speed. Turning on the gas on the cooker inside the kitchen seems to infinitely increase the temperature so more and more dinners take place outside, something cooked on the barbeque where the heat can escape into the air.

Even though there are all-year and winter varieties of strawberries, for me there’s nothing better than a summer berry which has come to full ripeness under the rays of the summer sun. When I bite into a berry like this, it always makes me feel like I could close my eyes and imagine the heat of the day when this berry was plucked, as its juices run down my chin and are wiped away with the back of my hand.

 

 

So, in order to pay homage to the summer that we did not have and to take full advantage of the flavour of my home-grown berries, I decided that I wanted to use them in a way which would deliver the taste without any sort of adulteration or composition. No, I wanted the only flavour to be pure 100% strawberry.

Taking advantage of my recent purchase of David Lebovitz’s ‘The Perfect Scoop“, I used it and all the ingredients that I had on hand to ensure that I could churn out this fabulous strawberry frozen yoghurt without a single salvaged berry going to waste!

(Note – the only reason I adapted David’s recipe is because of what I had on hand, and the fact that I wanted to use all my strawberries in one hit!)

 

 

Strawberry Frozen Yoghurt
(Adapted from “The Perfect Scoop” by David Lebovitz)

Ingredients
500g fresh or frozen ripe strawberries
150g caster sugar
250g full fat natural yoghurt
1 tsp freshly-squeezed lemon juice
2 tbsp Pimms No1

1. If using frozen berries then allow to thaw but collect the juices as they run out. If using fresh berries, roughly chop the berries and toss with the Pimms and sugar and stand for about an hour or till the strawberries have become softened.

2. Puree the strawberries with the yoghurt, strawberry juice and lemon juice. If using frozen berries, also add the sugar at this stage and puree till the mixture is as smooth as possible.

3. Push the mixture through a fine sieve to remove any seeds or bits, then chill in the fridge for an hour before churning in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

 

 

The one thing that you need to keep in mind with homemade ice cream or frozen yoghurt is that it freezes much more solid that commercial products because non-commercial machines usually aren’t capable of beating as much air into the mixture as commercial ice cream makers.

The best way to overcome this is to allow the container with your home-made mixture to sit out of the freezer for a few minutes till it’s soft enough to scoop…then you can scoop it up into serving bowls, or even into some cones and allow yourself a giggle or two as you lick the melting frozen yoghurt which runs down your hands :)

{ 10 comments }

Page 9 of 60« First...7891011...203040...Last »