Monday, April 28, 2014

TV Inspiration - Rye Buttermilk Punch


Over the last year or so, I’ve become more and more of a Rye Bourbon drinker. It started with drinking Manhattans and has sort of developed from there. So when Lance and I started watching the new season of Justified with all their bourbon drinking, I bought a bottle to enjoy alongside Raylan Givens. Add to that the half bottle of buttermilk I had leftover from making this honey and buttermilk bread and I had the idea for a cocktail brewing. 


Have you ever had a Brandy Milk Punch? It’s one of the official cocktails of New Orleans and is a sweetened milk-based cocktail, similar to an eggnog without the egg. It’s pretty delicious and deceptively potent. I thought I’d make a Kentucky inspired version with the distinctly Southern ingredients of Rye and Buttermilk. Add some maple syrup for sweetness and you have what was for me the perfect cocktail. I must say though, I am a huge fan of buttermilk. I don’t know many Australians who would drink buttermilk, it’s usually reserved for cooking with. But it is quite a sour, tangy drink as it is cultured. It’s like drinking thinner unsweetened Greek Yoghurt. Which I love. So I love buttermilk. So whilst I love this cocktail, my husband thinks it could do with some extra sweetening. He doesn’t really like yoghurt at all though. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it! Like the Brandy Milk Punch, it is deceptively potent. So, take it easy on them. Rye isn’t hugely common at bottleshops Perth. My pick is Hogs 3 Bourbon, available at most Dan Murphy’s and extremely reasonably priced. If you can’t find it, you can use your favourite bourbon.



 Rye Buttermilk Punch(makes 2 drinks)120mL rye bourbon (such as Hogs 3) (4 shot glasses)240mL buttermilk (8 shot glasses)60mL maple syrup (2 shot glasses)Icenutmeg In a large glass or jug, mix the rye, buttermilk and maple syrup together and whisk until frothy. Pour into old fashioned glasses filled with ice cubes. Dust with nutmeg and enjoy!




Thursday, April 24, 2014

Fusion Food - Curried Mango and Black bean Pizzarepa.


Ok, let me preface this post by saying I know this whole thing sounds weird. Even when I was putting this dish together in my mind, I wasn’t 100% sure it was going to work. But it does. The original idea was born out of two things; one, what weird random things are left in the fridge (remedied this weekend gone after a hugely successful visit to the farmer’s markets). And two, Lance making an offhand comment that he thought I would’ve made something a bit more interesting with a few of the mangoes from our tree, like a curry. This was after about a week of mango salsa and tacos. So in my mind I’m picking up and rejecting ingredients and flavours and just the general ‘idea’ of what to cook for dinner. And I came up with this. So a Mexican-Cuban-Indian-Italian pizza. Fusion food at it’s most-fused!

I somehow settled on wanting pizzas. But I didn’t have any pizza bases, or Lebanese breads with which to make them. So I immediately went to making my own. But a lot of recipes for pizza dough are yeast driven, and I didn’t want to wait for it to proof. When I thought of arepas. These are flat breads made out of cornflour the same kind as you use for tortillas. I also remembered the half tin of black beans I had in the fridge leftover from tacos a few nights earlier. Add a little mango, a little curry powder (I went the lazy route and used a pre-made curry powder blend – feel free to mix your own). A little cayenne for an extra kick, then grilled chicken, sliced mushrooms and some cheddar cheese. The black beans I used were actually pre-seasoned frijoles, so in the recipe I’ve just put salt to taste for if you use plain cooked black beans which are so much easier to come across in Perth. And the saltiness also depends on what is in your curry powder, if you use a pre-made mix.

This sauce made more than required for the pizzas.



Arepas
(makes 2 individual size pizzas)
1 cup corn flour (masa lista)
1 cup warm water
¼ tsp salt
oil to fry

Curried Mango and Black Bean Sauce
½ tin black beans
1 mango
3 tbs curry powder
¼ tsp ginger
½ tsp cayenne
¼ tsp turmeric
Salt to taste

Toppings
2 mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 chicken thigh, grilled, then sliced
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
Baby kale leaves, olive oil and lemon juice to serve

Mix all of the arepa ingredients together, knead until a smooth dough forms, the set aside for 15 minutes.

Mash the black beans and mango together in a bowl until completely combined, add the curry powder, extra ginger, cayenne and turmeric then check for seasoning. Salt if needed, or add more cayenne or spice if desired.

Preheat the oven to 180C

Heat a tbsp of oil in a frypan to medium-hot. Divide the arepa dough into two, and roll each into a ball. Place between two sheets of baking paper and roll out to form a disc just under 1cm thick.

Carefully place into the hot pan, cook for 2-3 minutes or until golden on that side. Flip over and sprinkle arepa with black pepper. Cook for a further 3 minutes or until golden.

Slide onto a lined baking tray and repeat for the second arepa.

Spoon and spread the curried mango and black bean sauce, then layer the ingredients and sprinkle cheese on top. Pop in the oven for 15 minutes or until cheese is golden and melted.

Serve topped with baby kale leaves, a drizzle of olive oil and a wedge of lemon for squeezing.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Breakfast of Champions - Coffee and Mango Chia Pudding


You’ll remember I was coffee-soaking oats for breakfast a while back. I still do that. It’s still delicious. You should still do it. (And incidentally, with these colder Autumn mornings, you should cook your oats in coffee). But my feeds were full of chia puddings, and so was my pantry so I thought I would just slightly alter my work breakfast of choice. Our mango tree was amazingly prolific this season. At final count we got 56 (!!) mangoes, so I knew that this would be an ingredient. Mango and coffee match really well even though at first thought they might seem odd together – the smoky bitterness of the coffee complements the sweetness of the mango. The ginger and cinnamon just round out the flavours and create quite a complex flavour profile. I don’t have a lot of sweet foods in my diet – I naturally crave salt – so the sweetness of the ripe mangoes was sweet enough for me. But feel free to add honey or maple syrup to sweeten things up.

I also eat mine with plain greek yoghurt for the same reason, substitute with a sweeter style yoghurt, or even cream or coconut cream for a more decadent breakfast. And finally, you can substitute whatever crunchy add-ons you have. I’m currently addicted to bee pollen. I first had it when I went to Germany around 16 years ago and am so glad it’s fairly readily available here now. I often just sprinkle some on nut butters on fruit toast, or on top of smoothies. Divine


 
Coffee and Mango Chia Pudding
(one serve)
¼ cup chia seeds
1/3 cup cold-brewed coffee
1 mango, finely diced
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ginger
Dollop greek yoghurt to serve
Toasted walnuts, coconut and bee pollen to serve

Mix the chia seeds, ginger and cinnamon (I shake it in a jar). Add the coffee and mango, stir well. Leave to sit at least 15-30 minutes for the chia seeds to swell. Add more coffee if it looks like some of the seeds didn’t turn gel-y. (I usually make this before bed and take it to work in the morning)

Serve with yoghurt drizzled with your crunchy add ons
 

 

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Easter Treats - Chocolate Halva Spread


Sometimes you grow up eating something that you don’t realise isn’t common to the people you hang around with. One of those things for me is halva. We used to get halva mainly on full-family trips to the Nanna Shop or Kakulas as dad was it’s biggest fan in our family and he’d add it to our baskets. But it wasn’t until I was a bit older and telling someone about it and they had never heard of it that I realised it wasn’t a common food in Perth. If you’ve never had it, it’s a bit hard to describe. It’s a sweet that is made from processed sesame seeds and it’s texture is completely unique. It has a sort of ‘gritty’ texture that goes sort of chewy in your mouth like nougat as you eat it. When you cut it, it is almost sandpapery sounding. It’s only mildly sweet and has that lovely nutty flavour of sesame and this makes it perfect for cheese platters and the like. We would get two main flavours, just a plain one and chocolate. This was my favourite, as the chocolate is swirled through the halva in a marble pattern. It looked awesome, and tasted awesome.

I don’t eat halva that often now I don’t live at home, but occasionally I get nostalgic cravings for it. I saw a recipe for halva spread on the My Name is Yeh blog, I immediately got a craving. Then vowed to make this for an Easter present for my parents. This is a perfect spread for hot cross buns. I also love it spread on these chocolate hazelnut crackers from Alejandra’s Always Order Dessert. Traditionally, our family has Pasha on hot cross buns at Easter (an almond, lemon and vanilla cream cheese spread which is currently a secret family recipe), but this year I had to have two hot cross buns - one of each!
 
I used unhulled tahini, as the flavour is a bit milder which suits this sweet spread.



Chocolate Halva Spread
Adapted from My Name is Yeh
1x 385g jar of unhulled tahini
2 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup honey
½ tsp fine sea salt
2/3 cup dark chocolate chips


Pop the chocolate chips in a bowl and microwave in 30 second intervals until melted. Set aside.

Pour the tahini, honey and sea salt into a bowl and mix with a hand mixer on low speed until well combined. Take 1/3 of the mixture and put in a new bowl. Add the melted chocolate and blend until combined.

Alternate spooning the ‘plain’ halva and the ‘chocolate’ halva into jars to make a layered pattern.

Spread on toast, these chocolate hazelnut crackers or hot cross buns!
 

Monday, April 14, 2014

Veronica Mars(hmallow) Movie Snacks - Gingerbread Marshmallows, Pumpkin Maple Marshmallows and Rum & Raisin Marshmallows


After the success of my “Much Ado About Joss Whedon” movie afternoon, I decided to have another at-home cinema experience when the new Veronica Mars movie was released. Last time we arranged various couches upstairs to create a two level cinema that seated 6. This time we went bigger and moved more couches upstairs to create a 10-seat, 2 level couch cinema. I was pretty stoked with how it turned out! It made lugging furniture up and down stairs totally worth it! Obviously such an occasion also requires snacks. And there was a quote in the original tv series about Veronica being a marshmallow (which was then echoed in the movie’s kickstarter package, and the movie)…so what a perfect excuse to experiment with making marshmallows.
 
Gelatin is something that has always freaked me out. Most of my cooking is in a pinch of this, dash of that sort of style, and from what I gathered, you can’t do that with gelatin. It’s much more scientific than that in order for it to set. So it was with trepidation I approached marshmallow making. I looked up a whole bunch of recipes for marshmallows before cutting and pasting the common elements together and working out that it’s actually super, super easy. The only thing you do need is to have a candy thermometer to ensure you get the sugar part to the right temperature. And a standmixer. I made the first batch gingerbread flavoured, because, well, I like gingerbread. That turned out so easy that I immediately cleaned out my bowls and made two more batches. Pumpkin maple (with candied bacon) and rum and raisin. These were in honour of the fact that the screening day was also my brother’s birthday and he enjoys all of those things.

The basic idea of making marshmallows also makes it really easy to adapt the flavours. Take cold liquid of pretty much any description (alcohol will require more experimentation as that affects the gelatin) and add powdered gelatin. Boil sugar, water and a liquid sugar to 130C. Pour together and blend until really fluffy, try to spread it out without covering yourself and the kitchen in marshmallowy goo. Then throw icing sugar all over your entire kitchen dusting them! If you try any new and exciting flavours, let me know!

But this is an awesome and easy sweet and non-chocolate Easter treat to gift. Or if you want a chocolate-y Easter treat to gift, maybe my Bacon Bark or the chocolate Salami I made for Easter last year?

 


 
Gingerbread Marshmallows
Liquid Mix
½ cup water
1 ½ tsp ground ginger
1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 clove
pinch nutmeg
23g gelatin

Sugar Mix
1 ½ cups brown sugar
150mL golden syrup
½ cup water
¼ tsp salt

Dusting powder mix
(enough for all marshmallows)
1 cup icing sugar
½ cup corn flour

Chopped candied ginger for decorating

Add the spices and to ½ cup of hot water and leave aside to steep until it’s completely cold. Remove the clove.

Line a lamington tray or baking dish with baking paper or cling film. Make it big enough to overhang on all sides. Spray with oil to prevent sticking.

In your standmixer bowl, put the cold spice liquid and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Leave to stand.

In a medium saucepan with tallish sides to cope with the bubbling, combine the golden syrup, salt, sugar and ½ cup of water. Cook over a medium heat and stir gently to dissolve the sugar. Raise the heat and boil until it reaches 130C on your candy thermometer. Keep it moving by swirling the handle, but don’t stir. When it reaches 130C, remove from the heat.

Attach the whisk to your standmixer and turn on low, mix the gelatin mixture for 1 minute, then turn the mixer up a bit faster and slowly drizzle the hot sugar mix down the side of the bowl with the mixer still going. Don’t let it touch the whisk. Increase the speed to medium/high and leave it to whisk until the mixture is pale and fluffy and looks like really sticky meringue. This will take at least 5 minutes. As it whisks, it’ll have bubblegum looking strands pull away.

Pour the mix into the lined pan and use a spatula to smooth the top. I sprayed oil on the spatula to help it not stick. Sprinkle candied ginger on top, then dust with the dusting mix generously on top. Set aside to set, it’ll take around 4 hours.

In a baking try, dust a layer of dusting mix, invert the tray and tip out the marshmallow onto it. Cut up the marshmallows and dust all exposed sides. Shake off the excess and store in airtight containers in a cool dark place. Should last around 3 weeks. If you live in a humid area (such as Perth where it’s April and still 35C), store in the fridge.

Pumpkin and Maple
Liquid Mix
½ cup pureed pumpkin
2 tbsp water
½ tsp ground cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
23g gelatin

Sugar Mix
1 cup white sugar
½ cup dark brown sugar
150mL maple syrup
½ cup water

Dusting mix
3 rashers bacon
1 tbsp maple syrup

Finely dice the bacon then fry until crispy in a pan. Pour off excess oil, then add a tbsp maple syrup and cook for a further 3 minutes. Set aside to cool, spreading out on a plate to prevent it from sticking too much.

Line a lamington tray or baking dish with baking paper or cling film. Make it big enough to overhang on all sides. Spray with oil to prevent sticking.

In your standmixer bowl, put the pumpkin puree, 2 tbsp water and spices. Using the whisk attachment, blend for 1 minute until well combined. Sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Leave to stand.

In a medium saucepan with tallish sides to cope with the bubbling, combine the maple syrup, sugars and ½ cup of water. Cook over a medium heat and stir gently to dissolve the sugar. Raise the heat and boil until it reaches 130C on your candy thermometer. Keep it moving by swirling the handle, but don’t stir. When it reaches 130C, remove from the heat.

Attach the whisk to your standmixer and turn on low, mix the gelatin mixture for 1 minute, then turn the mixer up a bit faster and slowly drizzle the hot sugar mix down the side of the bowl with the mixer still going. Don’t let it touch the whisk. Increase the speed to medium/high and leave it to whisk until the mixture is pale and fluffy and looks like really sticky meringue. This will take at least 5 minutes. As it whisks, it’ll have bubblegum looking strands pull away.

Pour the mix into the lined pan and use a spatula to smooth the top. I sprayed oil on the spatula to help it not stick. Sprinkle candied bacon on top, then dust with the dusting mix generously on top. Set aside to set, it’ll take around 4 hours.

In a baking try, dust a layer of dusting mix, invert the tray and tip out the marshmallow onto it. Cut up the marshmallows and dust all exposed sides. Shake off the excess and store in airtight containers in a cool dark place. Should last around 3 weeks. If you live in a humid area (such as Perth where it’s April and still 35C), store in the fridge.
 


Rum and Raisin Marshmallows
Liquid Mix
½ cup water
2 tsp rum essence
1/3 cup raisins
23g gelatin

Sugar Mix
1 ½ cups white sugar
150mL golden syrup
½ cup water

Dusting powder mix

Add the sultanas and rum essence to ½ cup of hot water and leave aside to steep until it’s completely cold. Puree until a combined raisin moosh.

Line a lamington tray or baking dish with baking paper or cling film. Make it big enough to overhang on all sides. Spray with oil to prevent sticking.

In your standmixer bowl, put the cold raisin liquid and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Leave to stand.

In a medium saucepan with tallish sides to cope with the bubbling, combine the golden syrup, salt, sugar and ½ cup of water. Cook over a medium heat and stir gently to dissolve the sugar. Raise the heat and boil until it reaches 130C on your candy thermometer. Keep it moving by swirling the handle, but don’t stir. When it reaches 130C, remove from the heat.

Attach the whisk to your standmixer and turn on low, mix the gelatin mixture for 1 minute, then turn the mixer up a bit faster and slowly drizzle the hot sugar mix down the side of the bowl with the mixer still going. Don’t let it touch the whisk. Increase the speed to medium/high and leave it to whisk until the mixture is pale and fluffy and looks like really sticky meringue. This will take at least 5 minutes. As it whisks, it’ll have bubblegum looking strands pull away.

Pour the mix into the lined pan and use a spatula to smooth the top. I sprayed oil on the spatula to help it not stick. Sprinkle candied ginger on top, then dust with the dusting mix generously on top. Set aside to set, it’ll take around 4 hours.

In a baking try, dust a layer of dusting mix, invert the tray and tip out the marshmallow onto it. Cut up the marshmallows and dust all exposed sides. Shake off the excess and store in airtight containers in a cool dark place. Should last around 3 weeks. If you live in a humid area (such as Perth where it’s April and still 35C), store in the fridge.