Tastes – Red Branch Chronicles

Beef Cheeks

I love to eat out. It is a simple pleasure. It does not have to be done every day or even every week but whenever it is done, it should always be a time of satisfaction and pleasure and not simply an excuse to stuff my face. I like to have something that I could not prepare at home either because it is too difficult technically or because I had never heard or even thought of that particular dish before. The worse thing is when I get a meal that is inferior to what I could prepare myself at home. I wrote previously about a simple potato dish – a potato terrains – that I had recently in a small restaurant on the river and how I attempted to recreate it at home. Certainly not technically difficult – just something I had never thought of before.

Similarly, when I first came to Australia, I had never eaten octopus (never having been to Greece in my previous wanderings) until I was introduced to it in a small basement restaurant (sadly no longer there) near where I lived at the time. The beauty of it at the time – the early 1990’s – was that octopus was as cheap as chips. Main stream restaurants hadn’t cottoned on to it as a gourmet lure and I could buy a kilo of fresh octopus for less that five dollars. Jump to todays’ prices and it will be more likely fifty dollars plus a kilo.

So when I came across slow braised beef cheeks served with grilled broccolini, peas on royal blue mash and red wine jus in a local pub recently, I ordered it impulsively, not 100% sure what beef cheeks were but imagining some type of a stew.

Instead, it was a meltingly tender slab of beef served on mashed spuds, with greens and gravy. Absolutely gorgeous. Rich and thick and flavoursome the beef was moist and succulent. What more could I say? This weekend I determined to replicate a cut of meat I had never heard of, having previously shied away from things like pigs trotters, chicken feet, ox heart, lung and brain.

What was amazing was the price – the local butcher had an entire area of a shelf display of neatly presented beef cheeks and yes, he assured me, yes, that is exactly what they are, the cow’s cheeks – that’s why they come in pairs, one from each side. And, as the cow basically spends its life chewing, the muscles in the cheeks are quite well developed and that is why slow, gentle cooking is demanded.

Right, thinks I. This will do nicely. Getting a few more culinary tips from the butcher – always a good source about how to cook meat – I picked up a few more items and went home to prepare Beef Cheeks a lá traditional!

I give the cheeks a good rinse in running water and then patted them dry with a paper towel and snipped off any unnecessary fatty or gristley bits before dropping them into a large snap-lock bag with flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

Seal the bag and I gave it a good shake coat the meat. I shook off excess flour and transferred the beef to a plate. Next, heat a tablespoon of oil in a large non-stick pan over a medium high heat and brown the two floured cheeks on each side for approximately 3 minutes before removing to a plate again.

I generously deglazed the pan with the red wine and poured the liquid into a casserole dish.

Another splash of oil in the pan before adding the chopped onion, garlic, carrots, reconstituted mushrooms, bay leaves and Swiss chard stalks to the pan, stir cooking for a few minutes until golden before adding a cup of beef stock, one Tbs. of sugar, two Tbs. of tomato paste and a handful of thyme leaves I had left over from something else.

I simmered everything gently and then poured some of the onion and carrot mixture into the casserole dish with the scrapings from the deglazed pan. The two beef cheeks lay snugly on top and I covered them with the remaining onion and carrot mixture.

Bang on a lid and I jammed the casserole dish into a preheated oven at about 160 degrees and cooked for two hours or so before ‘turning the cheeks; and giving them another two hours. After 4 hours the cheeks should be tender enough for a fork to pull the meat apart. If not, continue to cook for another hour. The cooking time will depend, of course, on the size of the cheeks and the breed of cattle.

Once done to your liking, Remove the beef cheeks for the cooking liquid, then set aside and keep warm.

Someone mentioned to me a few Wednesday ago that I should not eat meat that particular day. A quick look at the calendar confirmed that it was Ash Wednesday, the traditional start to the Lenten period before Easter, something I have completely ignored for years. As a child I always had to ‘give up’ something for Lent, perhaps sugar in my tea or jam on my bread or biscuits, lollies and cake, that sort of thing. Later on in life it was something like abstaining from alcohol or stopping smoking or similar nonsense to that. Needless to say, that was all in my youth and I have not given Lent or abstaining from anything any notice whatsoever for the last couple of dozen years. Anyway, as I say, someone mentioned it to me and on the spur of the moment I decided, voluntarily, to give up drinking red and white wine and all spirits – gin, tequila, vodka, Bacardi, whiskey, Bundaberg rum – until Easter Sunday.

Unfortunately, that put me in a bit of a quandary that weekend as I bought more beef cheeks to slow cook but unlike the recipe above I was unable to use any red wine due to my new abstemious phase.

Rooting around in the cupboards, I came across garlic and ginger, soy sauce, star anise, cardamon pods, cinnamon quills and an old bottle of Chinese cooking wine (not made from grapes, so it fell outside the proscribed items). Right, thinks I, I’ll have a go at an Asian style approach to slow cooked beef cheeks.

As before, I washed the cheeks thoroughly and then snipped off any redundant fatty bits. I shaved strips off a knob of ginger the size of my thumb as well as long peels from a large orange with a potato peeler and then squeezed the juice into a bowl with the minced garlic, added ½ cup of soy sauce, ¼ cup of the Chinese Cooking wine (Shan Xing), a couple of star anise, 3 small cinnamon quills, the cardamom pods and 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar to balance the saltiness of the soy sauce and gave everything a good stir before dumping the beef cheeks in and mixing everything around.

I covered the lot with cling film and left it in the fridge to marinate over night.

The next day, I turned on the slow cooker, heated a pan with a splash of olive oil and quickly browned the drained beef cheeks for 3 or 4 minutes per side before tossing them into the slow cooked with the rest of the marinade and a cup of water.

For good measure, at the last moment I threw in a handful of small dried chillies and set the slow cooker to do its magic. Obviously, the chillies are optional but I like a bit of fire with the beef. I actually gave them 4 hours before fishing the cheeks, almost falling apart, out and reducing the cooking sauce down in a small pot over a high heat.

Serve with a potato mash, rice or cous-cous. Tonight couscous with chopped green beans and tomatoes. Gorgeous.

Cannelloni

I stopped of at an Italian cafe nearby recently and had an excellent coffee – a macchiato – and then spoiled myself with one of Tony Soprano’s* favourite treats, a chocolate filled cannolli – a hard, crunchy, flaky pastry tube filled with a succulent chocolate – Nutella? – filling

Inspired by all things Italian, I decided to try my hand at something more savoury today and opted for baked Cannelloni but when I fished out the box of dried cannelloni tubes, most of the tubes were broken, cracked and cockroach nibbled and in disgust I threw the lot out, along with another (already opened) box of dried lasagne sheets. I know they say that it is a poor man who can’t support a mouse but I draw the line at cockroaches – and in my dry foodstuff pantry too!

So, for the first time ever, I bought soft pliable sheets of fresh pasta from an Italian deli down the road, as well as a tub of Ricotta cheese. I had fresh spinach at home, actually probably about a week old, as well as grated cheese and shaved parmesan along with a variety of nuts and a vague memory of spinach and ricotta cannelloni.

I remember when I was in Naples – Napoli 1980 or thereabout – I fell in love with these pasta tubes stuffed with luscious, voluptuous fillings. I don’t know if they were a speciality of the region but I rarely came across them elsewhere in Italy. Anyway, back in the day as it were, I remember them being served with two sauces – white and red while the pasta tubes nestled in the white, creamy sauce lavishly sprinkled with grated nutmeg and then topped with a rich tomato sauce and melted cheese. I also remember the hassle of trying to fill the pre-bought hard pasta tubes (so much enjoyed by my unwanted house guests), shoving the mixture down the tubes with the end of a spoon or with two chopsticks reversed so the blunt end could press the filling – sometimes with beef or pork minced meat – and spilling more than I could cram into the tubes. The obvious answer was to use a a pastry bag and funnel!

Anyway, I am sure that somewhere over the last few decades I have cooked my attempt at Canelloni and with two sauces. I don’t remember the filling but it was probably spinach and ricotta and that is what I decided to do tonight. But not quite, because I wanted to do other things and I wasn’t prepared to make my own red and white sauces so I took a few shortcuts. And then, as I was getting the spinach and the cheeses out of the fridge, there was packet of my old standby – Serrano Ham, sliced ever so thinly – so I thought I would throw that in as well.

The spinach was a bit sad looking, I admit so I gave it a good soak in cold water before spinning it dry and chopping it finely. It looked a lot sadder then, I have to say.

A couple of cloves of finely minced garlic, half the tub of ricotta, a handful of pine nuts and some shaved parmesan, a fresh egg, a good dash of freshly ground pepper and a good hard mix with a fork took care of the filling.

The fresh pasta sheets were designed for lasagne and were much too big to use for cannelloni so I cut each sheet into quarters, and put a wafer thin slice of Serano on each square, followed by a dollop of the spinach & ricotta mix and rolled up the contents into an open ended tube.

Instead of the, I think, traditional white bechemal sauce the cannelloni would be rested in before being covered with the savoury tomato and cheese sauce, I opened a jar of commercial pasta sauce – Tomato and Basil, I think – and poured a bit into an oven proof dish before laying the filled cannelloni, seam side down, in the dish. A sprinkle of cheese and the remains of the bottled sauce spooned over the top. Into the oven form about 25 – 30 minutes at 175 degrees.

A fresh sprinkle of Cheese a few minutes before taking out of the oven.

Gorgeous – the ham melting into the pasta, the spinach and ricotta lushious on the tongue

The Sopranos – an HBO TV Serial from a good few years ago concerning Tony Soprano, his family and associates. While purportedly in the ‘waste disposal’ business, in reality, Tony, the family man, is an unscrupulous Mob boss heavily involved in prostitution, enforcement, loans and much more. A super tv show, with stellar performances from all the cast, including Tony’s aged mother, – a withered harridan whose main purpose in life seems to be to make everyone’s else life a living hell.

A quick and simple fish dinner

Fish, along with everything else seems to have jumped in price. Here in WA, with several thousands kilometres of coastline and an incredible range of seafood, prices seem to vary between 60 to 70 dollars per kilo for fish fillets. I remember … God! When I first came here in 1992, fresh local octopus off Rottnest Island was less than $3.50 a kilo. Now, you are lucky to find it for $40!

I bought some fish a bit cheaper today – Silver Perch (another name for some type of snapper fairly abundant around here but what’s in a name?) – at just over $60 a kilo. (Actually, I only bought 300g.)

Rather than flouring the fillets and frying or grilling or even baking them in a fish pie, I opted for sprinkling some Mediterranean flavourings on the fillets before wrapping them in slices of Seranno Ham (my new go-to favourite ingredient)

and then gently frying them in a little olive oil for about 4 minutes a side, so that the ham is approaching crispness while the fish inside is still moist and succulent. Of course, you could use good old salt and pepper, or anything else you like – fresh herbs, dried chilli, and so on, endless permutations!

I served it up with baby, baked potatoes and a (ready-bought) Asian style salad. I didn’t know a dressing was included so I made my own – 1 spoon of olive oil, one of soy sauce, one of sesame oil, (two spoonfuls would have been better but that was all I had), 1 spoon of Mirin or any white vinegar, and a teaspoon of sugar, mixed and then shaken thoroughly in a jar.

The fish was superb. Moist inside, flaking on the fork and almost (!) crisp on the outside. A winner for a gorgeous Friday night dinner – even though it includes ham!

As it does, thinking of fish brought couplets to mind, where things just go naturally together,

Fish n’ Chips, (d’you want vinegar with that?),

Rock n’Roll,

Tomatoes n’ Basil,

Bangers n’ Mash,

Peaches n’ Cream

Rags n’Bones

Salt n’ Pepper

Any others spring to mind?

Potato Terrine

I’d heard of terrines, of course, compressed dishes of fish or meat, usually served cold and an apparent staple of French cuisine but I don’t remember ever having one. Recently, however, I visited a new, for me, restaurant down on the river between the two traffic bridges. More of a place to sit and enjoy a drink I felt, while watching life on the river flow past, as the menu was a bit limited and portions were small – more tapas sized than a main meal. I ordered the pulled lamb with the potato terrine and while the lamb was tender and tasty, I was blown away by the slice of potato terrine – a rectangle the same size and thickness of my middle and index fingers together. I have never had anything like it before – it was gorgeous. Ever so slightly crisp on the edges, the slice of terrine with its layers of thinly sliced potato cooked in some type of creamy sauce was an absolute winner. So here is my third attempt at mastering this dish – my first try was adequate, my second one fell apart (I didn’t overlap the layers of potato sufficiently) – I’ve learned from my mistakes – and this, my third attempt, has made up for past errors but can still be improved upon the next time, while adding my own little twist.

Here’s what I had –

a kilo of russet potatoes, washed but not peeled

250 ml cream

salt and pepper

butter

a fresh rosemary sprigs, leaves picked

3 large cloves of garlic, minced

100g Serrano ham

a rectangular oven dish or a loaf tin

grease-proof paper

tin foil

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Place cream, minced garlic, salt and pepper and the chopped rosemary leaves in a small bowl and stir.

Scrub the potatoes, and use a mandolin, if you have one, to slice the potatoes finely. Use a knife if you have to. I used an old late 1960’s Moulinex food processor, liberated from my mother’s kitchen back in the eighties, to cut almost a kilo of spuds into almost transparent slices and quickly dropped them into the cream mixture.

Very lightly butter your dish or loaf tin. I use a low rectangular glass dish. If you use a loaf tin, only fill it about halfway, unless you want loaf size slices of the terrine. Then line whatever you are using with grease-proof paper leaving considerable overhang on each side. You’ll eventually fold the paper sides over the top of the dish.

Build up the terrine in layers by taking slice after slice of potato and placing them into the dish. Spoon over the creamy stuff as you go but don’t drown it. Lay every slice down in the same shape and direction. Allow for overlaps and after every second or third layer, I put in two paper-thin slices of Serrano ham. A few tabs of butter here and there among the layers will later contribute to the firmness. Another few layers of potato and another two slices of the Serrano and so on until the dish is filled to the top. I used all but two of the kilo I started with and six slices of the ham.

Wrap the overhanging greaseproof over the top, then cover the top of the dish with foil. Bake for at least 90 minutes or longer. When you can easily poke a skewer, not through the tinfoil and greaseproof paper, but through the actual terrine itself, you know it is done to perfection.

Cover up again, remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 15 minutes.

Now, weigh down the dish, still wrapped in the greaseproof paper, until you can put the dish, weights and all, in the fridge for at least an hour – preferably over night! The more you wait and weigh it, the more solid it becomes! House bricks are ideal, if you have a few clean ones handy. Otherwise, use whatever you have, tins of beans, bags of rice, barbells, whatever.

Remove from the fridge and bring to room temperature for around 15 minutes. Carefully remove from the dish, unwrapping the paper and unveil a solid block. Tidy it up the sides if necessary, revealing one perfect rectangle, layers exposed.

Heat a pan, and add in any fresh herb – thyme, marjoram whatever – and a crushed garlic clove to the pan for extra flavour. Then cut rectangular slices of terrine and slide them into the pan. Cut side, flat side down? Up to you! Fry gently for about a minute a side as it can burn easily!

Place the finished slices on some kitchen paper to absorb any oil and sprinkle with cracked black pepper, a pinch of coarse sea salt. Super as breakfast with a poached or fried egg. Use it as an accompaniment to any meal, hot or cold. A dab of chutney or a smear of chilli jam, hmmm, a spoonful of sauerkraut?

Brussel Sprouts 1

Brussel Sprouts – so called apparently from their cultivation and abundance in the Low Countries – look absolutely amazing on the stalk. They look so … well, manly! They are a good source of fibre too apparently. 100g of cooked sprouts contain 3.5g of fibre, the same amount in 100g of cooked lentils!

I must admit it is not a veg I ate a lot of and when I did, as a child, it was at Christmas, along with the turkey, ham and the spiced beef and the trimmings, roast potatoes, peas and steamed broccoli, with semi-waterlogged sprouts overcooked in a pressure cooker, soggy but buttered up with salt and pepper and made vaguely presentable.

On the spur of the moment, I bought a 500g bag of sprouts recently and decided to try my hand at preparing them in different ways. This recipe uses the microwave and I decided to use just half for this Savoury Brussel Sprouts recipe.

Wash and peel the sprouts. Remove any withered or discoloured outer leaves until you have a small hard core sprout. That probably reduced my 250g down to less than 200g. (I didn’t bother to weigh and check).

I make a deep X cut in the base of each stem and tossed them into a microwave dish with a cup of water and gave them 3 minutes on high power.

While the sprouts were getting nuked, I chopped up red onion (a brown one, if you have it, is fine too) and a few generous slices of bacon, also chopped.

When the microwave dinged, I checked the sprouts – I didn’t want them soggy, but feel free to give them another minutes if you like them a bit softer. I like them a bit ‘al dente’.Otherwise, strain and set aside.

In the same microwave dish, I tossed in the bacon, the onion, the dried herb, (I used oregano but anything you have can be used instead), and a generous lump of butter, covered the lot with a lid and gave it another 4 minutes on high, stirring half way through the time.

Add the drained sprouts to the onion and bacon mix, stir well, add a sprinkle of black pepper and nuke on high again for about 2 minutes or until the sprouts are done to your liking.

Gorgeous.

Pasta and Beans

I haven’t gone shopping for ages for various reasons – lousy weather (Perth is in the middle of winter and while usually mild, this year’s temperatures seem to be much lower than usual), bunged up leg, lockdowns, pandemic – and instead of the usual weekend indulgences of monstrous roasts and endless leftovers, I decided to just use whatever I could find in assorted cupboards, pantry and fridge. I didn’t realise I had so much – tins of this, packets of that, spices and herbs galore, veg, celery cunningly wrapped in foil-lined bags to preserve their crispness (I didn’t do that, of course), carrots, a capsicum and some tired French beans in a damp brown paper bag.
I remember eating something similar, – no, not the paper bag but ‘Pasta e Fagioli’ in a basement lunch restaurant in Milan somewhere near Via Manzoni back in the late 70’s – similar anyway, in the sense that tonight’s dinner (and tomorrow’s as well by the look of things) has pasta and has beans (tinned, admittedly) in it too. But after that, I am sure my pasta and beans will have no resemblance to anything a Milanese restaurant could come up with.

Anyway, here’s the stuff I came up with. A 500g box of pasta shapes, (I used about half), an onion, a few carrots and sticks of celery, a handful of tired green beans, a green capsicum, garlic, ground Coriander, Fennel seeds, a tin of Borlotti beans and a tin of whole tomatoes and a bag of shaved Parmesan!

I cooked the pasta in boiling salted water for a few minutes less than the suggested time on the box and while that was simmering away and filling a cold kitchen pleasantly with steam, I sliced the capsicum and the carrots, not too thinly, diced the celery and chopped the onions and the green beans. I heated some olive oil in a large frying pan and sautéd the lot with a good spoonfull of the Fennel seeds and the remains of whatever ground Coriander remained in the jar and gave everything a good stir.

I drained the pasta and threw it back in the same pot along with the tin of drained Borlotti beans and put the lid on to keep it warm while I continued sautéing (messing, stirring and tossing) the veg. Next I tipped in the tin of toms and poured a cup or two of water and two large spoonfuls of tomato paste (it came in a handy foil packet), along with a stock cube over the veg and brought the pan to a gentle simmer.

At this stage i realised I was going to need a bigger pot to hold all the pasta and beans along with the full pan of veg and spices. Anyway, I found a larger pot, gave everything a stir and let it simmer for a few more minutes until both carrots and pasta were ‘al dente’.

Then in the garden, braving the cold for Basil and Parsley. Finally, a deep dish, freshly torn Basil leaves and Italian style parsley, shaved Parmesan awaiting the result.

Gorgeous!

A few flakes of Parmesan and a pinch of pepper. I particularly liked the mild aniseedy flavour the Fennel gave the mix. Would go particularly well with a robust red wine (but I have just launched myself, for my sins, on Dry July!)

Slow-Cooked Lamb & Potato Rösti

It has been almost a year since I posted anything. I have no idea why I stopped posting the usual medley and I certainly can’t say I was too busy. If anything I have had more time on my hands over the last year than I have ever had. Between Covid lockdowns and a reverse shoulder replacement – if you would credit it, where my right arm, instead of ending in a ball which fits snugly into the socket on my shoulder, now holds the socket while the ball is screwed into my shoulder blade – which took quite a while to recover from and then further major surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles tendon on my right leg which involved another 14 weeks of very restricted movement. So for nearly eight months I have been house bound, sitting around on the back deck, reading, dozing, listening to music and doing bugger all else while the garden and the rest of the world go to wrack and ruin. Thank God for fantastic West Australian weather! No chance of me catching Covid, I can tell you, restricted to the back deck and unable to swim, drive or walk anywhere. And then, last night in bed, of all places, I was imagining a succulent lamb roast for the long Labour Day weekend here in Perth so here goes for my first blog in nearly a year.

I love lamb in that I feel it is the most free-range of all meats, unlike poor old cows herded into dusty feed lots and fed with minced pig brains or some such muck, or wretched battery chickens cooped up in appalling conditions, or gross sows rolling over and suffocating their squealing piglets. No, lamb, for me is the essence of good red meat and I like to envisage lambs romping and skipping over the springy turf. (God, the temptation to use ‘gambolling’ to describe the wooly little brutes frisking about in sun drenched meadows was almost overpowering!)

Recently however, whenever I roasted a leg or a shoulder – sometimes with garlic and sticks of rosemary and cinnamon pushed into knife stab holes, sometimes slathered with anchovies which dissolve in the roasting, other times coated in spices, honey, nuts and yoghurt – it has turned out tough and not particularly good – I ate it anyway, of course. Perhaps it is my gas oven, maybe the door is not a complete seal or the temperature gauge is not working or else, God forbid – it is me and my cooking methods? But how can you go wrong with lamb?

Anyway, after another disappointing roast last weekend – tasty but tough and chewy – I decided to try a new approach and I fished out my ancient Slow Cooker, acquired from David and Elaine B (Hi Guys wherever you are !) when they were leaving Brunei Darussalam to return to the UK in the mid eighties. For the most part, I have only used the slow cooker for things like corned beef and an occasional chunky veg soup and each time, this battered but venerable, 35 year old appliance has worked wonders so I decided to try slow cooking my rolled, boneless half leg of lamb.

First up was to throw a tin of tomatoes, a generous few slugs of Shiraz, a few stalks of rosemary, a good splash of balsamic vinegar and a decent spoonful of smooth Dijon mustard and a whole head of garlic, with just the tips cut off, into the crock pot, aka slow cooker, and left the lot to heat up while I browned the meat in a wok. A bit messy and splashy but it began to smell lovely as the fatty outer layer of the roast began to brown. Gorgeous smell. I tipped the meat into the slow cooker on top of the gooey mix of tomatoes etc, put on the lid and planned to leave if for at least five hours.

Unfortunately, I knocked the wok with the hot oil onto the kitchen floor, giving the worn jarrah floorboards a slippery sheen, nearly breaking my other leg as I slithered across the floor. Note: Be careful when browning a roast in a wok!

Next up was the Swiss style potato dish – Rösti. I used three peeled potatoes – any type of spud will do for this dish and I just picked up the first few spuds I saw in the market this morning. I grated the spuds coarsely and then roughly squeezed the excess water out of them. I ended up with about four or five handfuls of grated spud which I tipped into a bowl, along with half the grated white onion.

Into that, I added a good teaspoon each of ground black pepper, sea salt and dried Italian herbs, along with a bit of melted butter.

More butter and a good splash of oil into a frying pan and let it get really hot before I tipped the grated potato and onion mix into the pan and smoothed it out as best as I could with the back of a wooden spoon. I didn’t bother to stir or shake the pan, I just left it on high for about 10 minutes before carefully tipping up one edge of the stuff to see if it was browning nicely on the bottom. It was, so I carefully placed a large cutting board over the pan and flipped it over and then slid the rösti back into the pan so the other side could get browned.

While all that was happening, I turned off the slow cooker, fished out the lamb, practically falling apart after nearly six hours, and forked it apart with two forks. I poured the juice from the crock pot into a small saucepan and brought it back to the boil to reduce down and then stirred a spoonful of cornflour to thicken it.

The rösti slid out of the pan onto a cutting board and made a satisfying crunch when I cut into it with a pizza cutter. The pulled, tender, succulent and juicy lamb piled on top of the rösti with a velvety smooth, rich, meaty sauce, a side dish of steamed spinach (and the rest of the bottle of Shiraz) made an excellent dinner.

Disclaimer

Looking over the above, while every word is true, I have to admit my photography has room for improvement. My only excuse is greasy hands, a slippery floor and an Iphone 6 with an annoying habit of turning itself off!

Ingredients:

Lamb leg, rolled roast, 1,25kg, Tinned tomatoes, Balsamic vinegar, Red wine, (Shiraz), Dijon mustard, Garlic, Rosemary

Rösti, 3 spuds, 1/2 onion, mixed herbs, salt & pepper, Butter & oil

A ‘Pick Me Up’ for Hard Times

There is something about Easter and chocolate, isn’t there? Cadburys apparently made over 477 million chocolate eggs and probably the same amount of chocolate bunnies and I am sure Lindt and other manufacturers did something similar. In Belgium, the self proclaimed chocolate centre of the world (!), chocolatiers were declared essential workers in an otherwise locked down economy and chocolate bunnies were adorned with white chocolate face masks. Easter alone here in Perth without family, grandchildren and friends for lunch was no excuse for not indulging myself so I decided to treat myself to a slow roasted leg of lamb, creamy mashed potatoes and minted peas followed up by a fancy dessert.

Nearly a quarter of a century before – yes, really that long ago – two of my students were junior chefs from the Italian part of Switzerland and one night during a Sinners and Saints party at my place, they made a tiramisu and scribbled the recipe down which I recently discovered among old papers.

Anyway, for those that don’t know (or care), Tiramisu (Pick me up, in Italian) is a light, coffee flavoured dessert and is as classic an Italian dish as Spaghetti Bol, or Pizza Quattro Staggione or Saltimboca or … whatever.

I had tried the recipe a few months ago when I was having my son and daughter around for a Sunday lunch but it was a complete disaster, everything curdled and the resulting mess was soggy and unappetising. This time would be different, I swore, and the secret? Seperate the egg yolks from the whites and beat each separately! Simple as that!

OK, Ingredients first

5 eggs – all I had left in the fridge as my chickens have taken a break from laying
500g mascarpone ( a light cream cheese, similar to Philadelphia but much nicer)
6 dessertspoons of fine caster sugar
double shot of espresso coffee
l packet of Savoiardi sponge (lady) fingers
a scoop of Nutella
a double shot of Tia Maria coffee liqueur
a bar of dark chocolate, melted
…and a dusting of cocoa powder on top

First off, make the coffee. I made a double espresso and then ‘cooled’ it down by adding a double shot of Tia Maria. Next, separate the eggs, and place the egg whites in one bowl, and the egg yolks in another. I broke each egg into my hand and sort of dribbled the albumen from hand to hand and plonked the yolk into another bowl. I wasn’t able to keep them completely separate as I managed to leak a spot of yolk into the whites making them very difficult to beat, according to what my mother used to say!

Add 3 dessertspoons of sugar, whizzed in the blender to make it extra fine, to the egg white bowl and use an electric beater to whip the egg whites to stiffish peaks. Hopefully, after a couple minutes of whipping, the egg whites will start to thicken, in my case, barely, because of the drop of yolk, but I didn’t want to over whip the whites.

Set the stiff egg whites aside, and switch over to the egg yolk bowl. Add 3 more dessertspoons of sugar to the egg yolks and beat this for a couple minutes, until it goes from bright to a pale yellow.

Mix in the mascarpone and the Nutella (I used all that was left in the jar, but use as much as you want, and then mix thoroughly with the electric beater again before gently folding in the stiff egg whites, as slowly as possible.

Place the espresso and the Tia Maria (use any spirit your like – Sambuca, rum, brandy or nothing at all) in a small bowl, and then dunk each of the sponge fingers in the coffee and booze mixture for literally a second or two or the biscuits can become too soggy, (I like to see a dry core inside the finger when I break it in two), and lay a layer of them in the serving dish. Then pour a layer of the mascarpone mixture to cover them. Lay another layer of biscuits on top of that and cover again with the mascarpone. I threw the broken bits of dark chocolate into a small bowl in the microwave to melt and then dribbled the melted choc over the creamy mixture before adding a finely sieved spoonful of raw cacao powder over the lot. Bang it into the fridge and leave it for a few hours to sets as this lets the layers soak into each other and allows the mascarpone cheese and everything else firm up.

When cut into squares later, it should be fairly set, certainly not runny or goopy (like my first disastrous attempt).

Cheers!

Dublin Coddle and other Irish Staples

Well, it is that time of year again – Saint Patrick’s Day – March 17 – and for those who don’t know, Saint Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, who, it is believed, brought the Christian faith to the far flung western isle 1,588 years ago.

Celebrating everything Irish all over the world with parades, music and food, this year the Irish Government has formally cancelled all parades and public gatherings in the interest of public health and safety due to the coronavirus pandemic. A similar thing happened nineteen years ago when the annual parade was cancelled due to the outbreak of the highly infectious foot and mouth disease.

As usual, St. Patrick’s Day occurs halfway through the Christian Lenten period before Easter – a time traditionally when many practising Christians would voluntarily give up something – as kids it might have been lollies, sweets and candies, later as adults, cigarettes, milk in the tea or coffee, alcohol and so on. But then along comes St. Patrick’s Day (yippee!) and all bets are off. Recognised by the church as a holy day of obligation, the feast day had a special dispensatory clause which allowed all fasting people to resume their ‘vice’ for that day only – hence the widespread popularity of the day which led to widespread drunkeness and debauchery in some cases! Not that I know anything about that, of course.

Anyway, in honour of my country’s patron saint, I have decided to cook some traditional Irish food – Dublin Coddle and Irish Soda Bread which, when eaten together and washed down with a Guinness is about as Irish as I can get in this scary, pandemic time.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day 2020 to everyone!

Dublin Coddle

Ingredients

I kg. Good pork sausages	2 Tbsp. Of oil	450 g bacon rashers, roughly chopped
2 large onions sliced thickly	2 cloves of garlic, crushed	2 carrots sliced thickly
4 large potatoes, sliced thickly	Black pepper to taste	Chopped parsley
Bunch of fresh herbs – rosemary, thyme, sage	375 (at least) ml dry cider	3 Tbsp. plain flour

Method

Put the flour into a strong plastic bag and season with salt and pepper. Cut the sausages into thirds and then dip into the seasoned flour.
Heat the oil in a thick-based pan and quickly seal the floured sausages in the hot oil for about three minutes. Remove and set aside.
Soften the onions and crushed garlic in the oil for a further 5 minutes.
Put the sausages, chopped bacon, onion and garlic in a large pot with the sliced potatoes and carrots. Tie the herbs together (use any herbs available or in, desperation, use ½ tsp. of mixed, dried herbs) and cover the lot with the dry cider.
Bring to a point of boiling and then reduce the heat to a very gentle simmer for at least an hour, or until the vegetables are cooked but not mushy.
Serve in deep bowls and garnish with chopped parsley. Accompany with draught Guinness and homemade soda bread.

(serves 6)

Irish Soda Bread

Spread generously with butter and thick strawberry jam, Irish Soda bread evokes childhood memories of summer when the weather was so hot that the tar on the road would bubble. We’d put used ice-pop sticks into the tar and then chase each other around, trying to smear the tar on each other, knowing that whoever got smeared would be in trouble with their mum that night. Anyway, I digress…

Ingredients – Basically divided into two types – Wet and Dry ingredients.

Dry

3 cups of wholegrain flour	1 cup of plain flour	1 level tsp. of Bicarb of Soda
½ tsp. of Salt	1 tsp. of wheat germ*	1 tsp. of crushed bran

WET

1½ cups of buttermilk (500 ml)

2 Tbsp. Of oil.

1 egg

Method

Sieve together all the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Go easy on the Bicarb of Soda – less is more in this instance! By sieving the ingredients, a finer mix is achieved as well as adding air to the mixture. * I didn’y haver any wheat germ so I used two teaspoons of chia seeds instead.
In a separate bowl, mix all the wet ingredients.
Add the wet to the dry. The mixture should be fairly sticky, so mix using a a flat bladed knife or a wooden spoon initially and then use your hands to make a smooth dough.
Turn it into a greased baking tin to get a loaf shape, or more traditionally, shape the dough into a flattish round shape and then make a deep cross cut in the dough. Sprinkle with a handful of plain flour and put in the middle tray of the oven (gas 200) for about 55 minutes.
Turn out onto a wire rack to cook. Eat while still warm if possible.

(serves 6)

Quiche (Lorraine?)

I haven’t had a quiche for literally decades – one of my friend’s girlfriends used to make delicious ones – so on a whim I bought a smoked salmon quiche at a trendy and fashionable market recently. God, it was worse than awful in that it put my wife – who had never had a quiche before – right off the whole idea of the dish, when I suggested making one for the weekend.

I decided to do it from scratch, making my own pastry and only adding cheese and a few shallots to the traditional Quiche Lorraine which is made only with bacon, eggs and cream/crème fraiche.

This was no longer going to be a quiche lorraine in the purist sense because of the cheese and two shallots I found in the cupboard that I wanted to use up. I am neither French nor in Lorraine and as far as I am concerned, national dishes are allowed to develop once they escape from their country of origin.

For those who have no idea of what I am talking about, a quiche is an open-faced pastry pie with eggs, cream and lardons or bacon cubes. Of course there are endless variations with onion and garlic adding a more savoury flavour while added mature cheddar or a gruyère can be called, to keep the French flavour, a quiche au fromage, if you like. Add spinach and it becomes a quiche florentine, chuck in a few tomatoes and it becomes quiche provençale, throw in a handful of mushrooms and it is a quiche aux champignons.

Shocked by the amount of cream used in this recipe – the ultimate in cooking extravaganza? – I must admit it is not something I often use or buy. On the rare occasions when I do, for a luxurious Irish Coffee or some special occasion, I would feel vaguely guilty. But I remember, as a child, we always used to have cream, along with butter and eggs and potatoes and buckets of milk and it was all considered healthy. However, you can, if you like, use milk instead but you will be missing out, I assure you, on the rich succulence that only cream can provide.

So, to work! I threw the flour, the cubed butter and the egg yolk into my aged food processor and dribbled in four spoonfuls of cold water as the processor grunted and heaved its way through the dough. I bundled out not quite coarse ‘breadcrumbs’ onto a floury board and gave it a bit of a knead before forming it into a rough ball which I wrapped in cling film and put in the fridge to ‘set’ for thirty minutes or so.

Using a wooden rolling pin, (I immediately thought of Andy Capp’s wife, Florrie, her hair in rollers, behind their front door, tapping a rolling pin meaningfully into her hand as she waited for her sot of a husband to come home) I rolled the pastry out as thinly as I could before lifting the sheet up carefully and draping it over a round baking tin.

I trimmed the edges of overhanging pastry and squashed a sheet of baking paper down on top of the pastry, filling the entire tin. I didn’t have any baking stones so I used a handful of rice and spread that evenly over the baking paper before putting the lot into a 180 degree C oven for about 10 minutes. After that, I removed the paper and rice – didn’t spill any, either! – and put the pastry tin back in the oven for another ten minutes.

While that was baking, I chopped up two small shallots and tossed them into a pan with a spoonful of oil – I had no more butter, having used it all for the pastry. After the shallots softened a bit, I tossed in the cubed bacon and stirred it around for a while before leaving it for ten minutes or so.

Just in time I remembered to take the pastry tin out of the oven – a lovely golden hue and a slightly darker crust – and left it to cool slightly.

While the bacon and shallots were braising, I broke four eggs into a jug, added the leftover white from the first egg and then spooned in a substantial glop of the crème fraiche, although I actually used some type of cooking cream, and then several generous glugs of fresh cream and a good pinch of freshly ground nutmeg before giving it all a good whisk. By that time, the bacon bits and shallots were ready so I tipped them out onto kitchen paper to drain a bit and grated up two large handfuls of gruyère. Scattering the bacon mixture and the grated cheese into the empty piecrust, I poured my eggy-creamy mixture on top of the lot, filling the piecrust 3/4 full.

I pulled out the oven rack and gently lowered the nearly filled pie tin down before topping it up with the rest of the creamy egg sauce. That way, I didn’t slop any on the floor while banging the lot into the oven at 180 degrees C.

I took a look at it after about 20 minutes and it looked gorgeous but still runny so I gave it another ten minutes. Even then, it was still soggy in the middle so I put it back for a further 15 minutes, took it out and, third time, it seemed perfection … until I tried to get it out of the baking tin. Note to self: next time use one of those baking tins where you can push up from beneath the bottom.

Using a spatula and a wooden spoon, I managed to heave it out, almost unbroken, onto a plate and then … what’s the word for ‘heaven’ in French?

Hmmm, what am I going to do with the leftover fresh cream? Maybe … a coffee?

Ingredients (for the pastry)

175g / 6oz plain flour

100g / 4oz cold butter, cubed

1 egg yolk

4 spoons of cold water

Ingredients (for the filling)

150g bacon bits (or lardons if you can get them from a deli)

2 small red shallots, chopped finely,

50g / 2oz Gruyère

200ml / 7 fl oz cream

200 ml crème fraiche or cooking cream

4 full eggs plus the white left over from the yolk used in the pastry

Pinch of ground nutmeg.