Understanding Benedict

In many places around the world it was Mother's Day a little while ago. Wifey and I had gone jolling the night before, and so the kids were away at Granny's house for the night (and, happily, for the following morning as well). So, being the fantastic husband that I am, I bought a bunch of roses and tried to make Eggs Benedict for my good lady for breakfast.

Now, Eggs Benedict has a reputation for being kind of snooty breakfast food, as well requiring a particularly experienced chef to not muck it up. The basic recipe is that you lightly toast an english muffin, layer some bacon on that, then a poached egg, then top with Hollondaise sauce. Aside from toasting the muffin, the rest of those steps are pretty tricky to pull off with Jamie Oliver flair and apparent ease.

Oh, and I had a hangover, so I forgot to take any photos, you're just going to have to trust me that it actually did look quite like this recipe, that I found at Country Living, City Style.

I wasn't actually going to describe the recipe in this post. The point of today's lesson is more about understanding how to balance a few simple flavours into a great meal.

You see, Hollondaise is pretty simple to prepare, but what is complicated is getting the ratio of ingredients to taste right. It consists of a few egg yolks, some salt, some lemon juice, and a fair amount of boiling butter. Oh, and some hot sauce of your liking.  The trick is that the boiling butter cooks the egg yolks slightly, and creates a super creamy texture and rich flavour. Then the sweetness of the butter / egg mixture is balanced with a some tangy lemon juice, and the whole lot is made a little more flavourfull with some salt and chilli sauce.

My attempt was completely edible, although I think  it was too tangy, and not chilli enough. I will try again sometime and promise to take photos then.

I'm babbling. Just remember to think about the balance of flavours when you're making this, and judge your quantities very carefully.

On a different note, clearly my cooking once again moved on to a completely new level of awesomeness with my newfound ability to poach eggs.

Warm Bean and Chorizo Salad

Quick post tonight because I'm still massively hung-over from last night. The hangover really called for something like a hearty lamb stew, but its a public holiday here today (election day), so there was no chance of heading off to the Super U to find some ingredients.

Instead what we had in the house were the ingredients for a bean and chorizo salad. This recipe has actually become quite a staple in our house, we probably eat in once every 2 weeks or so, and I always have to search for the recipe (which can be found here at mediterrasian.com).

It tastes nice.

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 onion, halved and sliced.
1/4 cup chorizo sausage, thinly sliced.
A punnet of green beans (haricots verts), topped, tailed and halved
1 tin of butter (cannelini) beans
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1/2 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 pinch of sugar
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley (which I actually forgot today)

Method
Fry onion for 5 minutes.
Add chorizo and fry for another few minutes, till it smells great and is staining the onions red.
Add green and white beans, and the water, put lid on and let cook for 5 minutes (the water steams the beans, so don't lift the lid to stir it because all the heat will escape).

While the steaming is underway, mix together 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil, vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper, paprika, and sugar in a small bowl.

Decant salad into a serving bowl; drizzle dressing over; sprinkle some parsley over.

This recipe doesn't actually make that much. Serve with a crusty roll and this recipe is enough to serve 2 for dinner; if you want to serve it as a salad at a braai then the recipe should be at least doubled.

Breakfast BLT Salad

The problem with weekend breakfasts is they tend to be ridiculously soaked in oil (think full english fried everything), or as sugary as possible (pancakes with sugar, honey, and maple syrup). Then a little while back I came across a salad that can be eaten for breakfast. It doesn't feel like health food, but also it doesn't feel like a heart-attack on a plate.

Also, it tastes great. (and the recipe comes from here at http://www.taste.com.au/)

 

Ingredients

250g cherry tomatoes

2tbs olive oil

1 garlic bulb

3 rashers of bacon (about 175g)

1/2 cup whole-egg mayonaise (if I wasn't feeling lazy this morning, this would be the perfect time to test out some homemade mayonaise)

2 tbs lemon juice

6 cups wild rocket

1 avo, thinly sliced

1 bunch chives, coursely chopped.

Method

Preheat oven to 250 degrees C

Cherry tomatoes on tray; drizzle with oil; season with S&P

Roast for about 8 minutes. Remove from oven, set aside to cool.

Wrap garlic in foil, and roast for 20 min until soft. Set asid to cool. Cut in half and squeeze out pulp.

Fry bacon. (Surely you can do this without further instruction.)

Place garlic, mayo, lemon juice in food processor, and process until smooth. (Curse Wifey for leaving the blender dirty from last nights soup (recipe to follow)). Season to taste.

Combine tomatoes, bacon, rocket, and avo in a serving bowl.

Sprinkle over some chives.

Drizzle over some dressing.

Awesomeness.

Leftover Lamb Pie

Right. So the Easter weekend is officially over. Everybody in the household is feeling shitty from eating way too much rich food and chocolate over the weekend - and a significant amount of liquor. What better way to cure everybody than to feed them MORE fatty lamb?

As usual the recipe comes from taste.com.au, but when it came to actually cooking it I found that the quantities of leftovers I had didn't at all match what the recipe said, so its pretty ad-libbed. I've posted my version below.

Once again, my cooking shenanigans have progressed to the next level of mastery - I used pastry! Granted, I didn't make the pastry, it was a roll of store-bought puff pastry. But to me pastry was another one of those mental blocks - looks complicated and technical and a little bit too organized for the king of ad-hoc cookery. I do, of course, feel like a little bit of a silly twat now that I've tried it and seen how simple it is to use. But that's why Life is a Journey, if we started off knowing everything then the whole trip would be a whole lot less trippy.

Stop talking crap Murray!

Leftover Roast lamb and veggie pie

Ingredients

Left over meat from 3 legs of lamb - chopped into bite-sized bits

Big bowl of left over roast pumkin

Big bowl of left over roast potatoes

Smaller bowl of left over green beans

Some leftover mint sauce

Just under a litre of beef stock

About 3 tablespoons Bisto

An Onion - chopped

2 cloves garlic - minced

Oil for frying

A packet of puff pastry

Method

Preheat oven to 200

Fry onion and garlic for a few mintues, till onion is transparent and squishy, but not brown

Add lamb and veggies.

Fry for a few more minutes to slightly brown/crisp everything.

Stir in stock and bisto.

Stir in some mint sauce (add sauce, stir, taste, repeat until awesomeness is achieved)

Bring to the boil, and then let simmer for 10 or 15 minutes.

Taste the stew. Awesomeness.

Spoon stew into a casserole dish (I think that's what they're called), till its about 5cm deep.

Roll out a piece of puff pastry and lay over the top of the stew. (I'm going to assume you know how to do this because I don't feel like writing it all out. Wifey had to teach me last night.)

If you happen to get 2 pies out of this mission (like I did), then you now is the time to clingwrap one of them and stick it in the freezer for one day in the future when you're no longer sick of roast lamb.

Poke holes in the pastry to it doesn't explode (the pie you're baking, not the one you're freezing). Brush with egg.

Bake for a few minutes until golden brown and delectably crispy.

Decide that I'm too tired to eat supper tonight, put pie in the fridge for lunch tomorrow.

Sleep like the dead trying to recover from whatever it is that's making me feel like this.

Successful Easter - Roast Lamb et al.

So despite my expectations, it turns out Easter lunch was actually really good, with lots of relaxing fun and good conversations had by all, and I managed to not be stuck in the kitchen the whole time, as everybody else pitched in to help.

For snacks (because I don't think I can spell Hors'd'ouvres) we bought a platter of Vietnamese spring rolls from our favourite Thai restaurant, Thaifoon. Granny-in-law brought fois gras on melba toast. Such a pity that the toast was stale, but no-one else seemed to notice.

We sat down to eat a palm-heart and smoked salmon starter from Wifey's aunt Maryvonne. Despite my oft-stated belief that palm-hearts are more like chopped up bits of wood than a supposed delicacy, on this occassion at least I was proved wrong.

Wifey sorted out the vegetables for the main course (roast potatoes, roast pumpkin, and green beans) which were simple and really good. Mother-in-law bailed me out of having to make gravy. I roasted (on the braai, of course) a few legs of lamb, and actually successfully made a mint sauce (first attempt for me, and I made it just before the guests arrived on the day - no opportunity to stuff up and try it again.)

France brought a collection of different desserts, and cake and such for after lunch.

Everybody thanked us for being such fantastic hosts, they all buggered off home, and I flopped into the sea to let my aching bones recover slightly.

Lots of beer, wine, champagne, wine, and a little coffee, were enjoyed by all.

We succeeded. Now I'm exhausted.

Anyway, the recipe ...

Herbed Roast Leg of Lamb (recipe from Epicurious.com, go look for it there)

Per leg of lamb, mix together ...

1/3 cup Dijon mustard

2 garlic cloves, minced, and mashed to a paste with 1/4 tspn salt

A lot of finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves, plus some for garnish

A lot of finely chopped fresh thyme leaves, plus some for garnish

1 1/2 tbspn soy sauce

1/4 cup white wine

salt and pepper.

Add 2 tbspn of olive oil in a stream, whisking, and whisk until it all becomes one.

Brush the sauce over the roast.

Marinate as such for the night.

I re-brushed the roast with sauce first thing in the morning and once during cooking.

Allow meat to return to room-temperature before cooking.

Cook on a medium to low braai, indirect heat, try not to open the braai lid too often, but also be careful not to burn at the beginning, or let the fire die at the end.

Drink beer while staring at the closed lid of the weber, and tell anyone who asks that you're busy, and can't help with the flowers right now.

I started the fire at 9. Put the meat on at 10 (although this might have been slightly too soon), and took it off the fire at about 12:30. Meat was cooked to well-done, but not overcooked. A meat thermometer would obviously be helpful in this regard, or next time I'll just cook for half an hour less.

Mint Sauce (from taste.com.au)

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup castor sugar

Put in pot.

Stir over medium heat for about 5 min. until sugar dissolves.

Bring to boil.

Let simmer softly for about 10 min., letting the liquid reduce by half.

Stir in A Lot of finely chopped fresh mint.

Let sauce cool to room temperature before serving.

This tasted wicked. I'm stoked.

Avo Season - Avo and Sardines on toast

The maid arrived on Sunday bearing a packet that marked the beginning of a new fruit season on the island. A shopping packet filled with about 6 massive, freshly picked and very enticing avocados.

Now, when I was a kid avos were one of those foods that I wouldn't touch with a barge pole. In the same category as broccoli or asparagus. Its only pretty recently that I've been giving them a try again. They're often refered to as a super-food, but I can't remember why right now. Suffice to say that you should eat more avos. Of course, avos themselves don't make their consumption any easier because you can't buy them ripe, and then once they ripen you've got to use them really quickly. So it clearly helps to have an avo tree nearby, that provides you with way more than you could possibly eat yourself.

The recipe dropped into my lap at a perfectly opportune time then. It was probably sometime last week that I stumbled across this recipe from locallemons.com. One serving of Sardine and Avocado Toast. Yes, as you are thinking now, my first thought was how digusting that would be. And that sardines and toast have a special relationship already, and don't need some fancy avo so that they can pretend to be "cuisine". But the recipe stuck in my mind until I was sure I wanted to try it.

Its also very easy to prepare lunchtime food, good for you, and rather yummy.

Brush some pita bread with olive oil and grill until golden and crispy.

Drain a tin of sardines, place in bowl, and mash them.

Scoop half an avo into another bowl, add about a tablespoon of lemon juice, some salt and pepper and also mash.

Spread the mashed sardines on the toasted pita.

Spoon the mashed avo over.

Drizzle a little more olive oil over the top of the whole thing.

Tuck in to the most unusual sandwich you've had in a while.

You can almost feel your body getting healthier by the second, and the last remnants of hangover from last nights shindig drifting away.

Put some Jack Johnson on the stereo, sit back and watch the catamarans come in from their Saturday cruise.

The Perfect Steak Marinade

I think I just achieved perfection! The perfect marinade for braai'd steak.

The recipe comes from a book I got a year or so ago - "Braai" by Biller, Storkey & Kay (Struik Publishing).

Heat a little (15ml) olive oil in a frying pan.

Add a chopped onion;

2 cloves chopped garlic;

15ml chopped fresh ginger;

1 seeded and chopped red chilli.

Fry gently until softened.

Add 340ml coke; 180ml tomato sauce; grated rind of 1 lemon; 30ml lemon juice; 15ml whole grain mustard; 30ml white wine vinegar.

Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Sturing pretty often.

Let cool.

Pour about 250ml of the sauce over the steak, and reserve the remainder for serving.

Refrigerate the marinading steak, covered, overnight (or from Sunday morning until the braai on Sunday afternoon.)

Braai steak, on the beach, with lots of beer or rum for refreshment, good company, sunny weather, kids frollicking in the waves, palm tree swaying peacefully overhead.

Heat the reserved sauce thoroughly before serving with steak, maybe a tuscan salad, and undoubtedly a few beers.

My camera battery is dead now, so no photo's of the sauce, but I'll charge it and take some photos of the beach and braai'ing process later.

Quick Beef and Bell Pepper Stir-Fry

Ahhh, it's time to relax...

I make this recipe all the time, but have to search for it on the net every time I do.

It comes from simplyrecipes.com and, aside from a little bit of prep, is supremely quick to cook. This is how long stir-fry should take to make.

It's a really refreshing salad type of taste - not too saucy, not overcooked. And (in case you care), peppers are packed full of Vitamin C and anti-oxidants, so its good for you too.

Goes like this ...

Ingredients:
Steak (say, 500g of sirloin)
Salt and pepper (freshly ground black pepper, of course)
1 large clove of garlic
Olive oil
2 medium bell peppers (capsicum), one red, one green, sliced into 5mm strips.
Half an onion, sliced lengthwise (root to top)
A dozen cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Method:
Take the steak.
Season well with salt and pepper on both sides.
Rub a clove of crushed garlic onto the above steak.
Wrap in clingwrap, then pound the meat until its quite thin (say 6mm thick)
Leave steak wrapped up while you do the rest of the cooking.

Cook rice or noodles.

Heat some olive oil in a large wok on high heat.
Add onions and peppers, and stir fry until just tender (really only for a minute or two)
Add tomatoes and cook for another minute.
Remove veggies to a bowl and keep warm.

Unwrap the steak and slice into stir-fry sized pieces.

Heat another 2 tbsp of olive oil, until shimmering, but not quite smoking.
Add the strips of beef and let brown for a few seconds without stirring.
Cook for only a minute or two.
Then add the veggies back into the pan, and a tablespoon of worcestershire sauce.

Stir for a minute longer, and serve on a bed of rice or noodles.

Wicked.

Hoisin-chicken stir-fry with peppers and baby corn

I have found the secret ingredient!

Decided to make a recipe from Mediterrasian.com, because, despite loving making and eating stir fries, I've only got about 1 decent recipe for them.

This one called for Hoisin Sauce - and thankfully Chinese food and ingredients are one thing that you can find in wonderous variety in Mauritian supermarkets. I've never used Hoisin before, but as I cracked open the bottle the smell was amazing. This is clearly the stuff that they use to make the sticky-sweet-and-savoury coating for Peking Duck. I was instantly in love and will start experimenting with the stuff as soon as possible. Hmmm - imagine sticky basting sauce for pork chops on the braai - wicked.

Anyway, I wasn't making pork chops, and Wifey has approved the dinner as one that I can make again - so it goes like this.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons hoisin sauce

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon water

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

2 tablespoons peanut oil

360g skinless chicken breasts - cut into thin strips.

1 1/2 green peppers - julienned.

420g can o baby corn - cut into pieces.

2 cloves garlic - minced (I got lazy and just sliced it thinly)

2 spring onions - diagonally sliced (I seriously need to start growing these - because it drived me crazy buying a whole bunch from the shop and then using 2, only to watch the rest go manky in the fridge) (So I sliced up a small onion instead)

Method:

Cook rice (actually I made noodles)

Mix together the hoisin sauce, soy sauce, water and sesame oil in a small bowl.

Heat wok over super-high heat, then add 1 tbspn peanut oil.

Add chicken and stir-fry till browned (DO NOT OVERCOOK - DON'T LET THE WIFE SEE HOW RAW IT STILL IS WHEN YOU TAKE IT OFF - JUST BROWN IT, SOME PINK IS ACCEPTABLE, IT'S GONNA COOK A LITTLE MORE LATER - THIS IS THE SECRET TO TENDER STIR-FRIED MEAT - I bet Salmonela's not that bad anyway.)

Remove chicken from the wok and set aside.

Add the other tablespoon peanut oil and stir fry green pepper for 2 minutes.

Add corn and garlic and stir fry for 1 minute.

Add spring onions and stir fry for 30 seconds.

Add sauce mixture and chicken and stir fry to combine.

Serve over rice (or noodles)

The great thing about stir-frying is that, aside from prep'ing the vegetables, the actual cooking time is really quick. If you boil the kettle to cook the noodles as you switch on the wok, then the noodles are ready about the same time as the rest of the meal.

Thai Chicken and Pumpkin Curry

Writing another one before I've actually eaten it - looks pretty good though.

This one comes from http://www.taste.com.au/

1. 
   
   A little veggie oil
2. 
   
   1 tbsp Thai red curry paste (good to have in stock)
3. 
   
   6 green onions, thinly sliced (can anyone tell me what a green onion is? I've used spring onions)
4. 
   
   750g chicken thigh fillets, cut into 4cm pieces (I've used about half this amount, there's only 2.5people eating in my house)
5. 
   
   420g Heinz condensed Cream of Pumpkin soup (which I actually found in a shop in Mauritius, who would have thought!?!)
6. 
   
   165ml can light coconut milk (readily available in Mauritius)
7. 
   
   1 lime, juiced (K, i'm not actually a good cook, I've substituted a few squeezes of lemon juice.)
8. 
   
   500g desiree potatoes, cut into pieces (what's a desiree potatoe? Also I just washed mine, didn't peel them like I was supposed to.)
9. 
   
   1 cup fresh coriander leaves, to serve
10. 
    
    1 cup fresh mint leaves, to serve
11. 
    
    Steamed Jasmine rice, to serve
12. 
    
    I added some chopped pumkin to the curry, and I'm about to add some frozen peas, that way we actually get a bunch of veggies with our supper.

Heat oil over medium-high heat.

Add curry paste.

Cook, stirring for a minute.

Add onion and chicken.

Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, to brown the chicken.

Stir in the soup, coconut milk, lime juice, potatoes, and pumkin.

Bring to the boil.

Reduce heat to medium-low.

Simmer for 25 minutes, or until 'taters are tender.

Serve over rice, sprinkle coriander and mint over.

Ingest.

I'll let you know how it turns out. Maybe I'll even add a photo.

Chicken Cacciatore

Right so I wasn't supposed to be cooking tonight. Life is slowly returning to a new normal (baby gets fed A LOT, so Wifey is pretty busy), so when we were planning our dinners for the week we included Mac'n'cheese, and Hong Kong Chicken - both Wifey specialities, that would have got us enough supper until after Friday night. However, Wifey isn't feeling well, and in her defense, she really is spending an insane amount of time being a milk cow, so there's not much time left for her to cook.

So I got home from work today and had to quickly start searching for something to cook. The freezer only consisted of chicken pieces, chorizo, pizza bases and frozen veggies (and ice cream). A quick internet search found Chicken Cacciatore at simplyrecipes.com, which I amazingly had all the ingredients for.

1. 
   
   Chicken pieces (recipe says 3.5 pound chicken cut into pieces, I used 5 chicken legs (drumsticks and thighs still combined)).
2. 
   
   Olive oil for frying
3. 
   
   1 cup thinly sliced onions
4. 
   
   2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced.
5. 
   
   Salt and pepper
6. 
   
   1/3 cup white wine (I actually decided to measure this out, because I reckon I normally put too much in, but it turned out to be quite a lot.)
7. 
   
   1 tin of chopped tomatoes (supposed to be 2 cups of peeled and chopped tomatoes - as if I have time for that.)
8. 
   
   The possibility of adding mushrooms or chopped veggies to the stew.

Method:

1. 
   
   Heat olive oil in a large frying pan on medium heat.
2. 
   
   Add onions and cook until translucent.
3. 
   
   Push onions aside (next time I'll actually take them off, they burnt a bit.)
4. 
   
   Add gardlic and chicken pieces, skin-side down. Cook until skin is golden brown, then turn pieces over and brown the other side.
5. 
   
   Season the chicken with salt and pepper, on both sides.
6. 
   
   Add wine, simmer until reduced by half.
7. 
   
   Add tomatoes, simmer, cover skillet with lid slightly ajar.
8. 
   
   Cook the chicken in the liquid, turning and basting a few times.
9. 
   
   Cook until tender, about 40 mintues.
10. 
    
    If the stew starts to dry out, add a few tablespoons of water.

Consume, with rice and steamed frozen veggies.

Meal becomes part of the cookbook because its made with easily available materials.

Chicken Parmigiana

In addition to the newfound ability to whisk egg-whites, this week had another great discovery. A mind-bogglingly delicious recipe from ThePioneerWoman.com for Chicken Parmigiana. What follows is pretty much a copy from that blog - there's quite a process to go through.

Simple ingredients, a fair bit of hard work, and gorgeous and wonderous meal at the end of it.

I'm definitely going try this for a dinner party one day.

Ingredients:

1. 
   
   4 - 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and pounded flat.
2. 
   
   1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3. 
   
   Salt and pepper
4. 
   
   1/2 cup of olive oil
5. 
   
   2 tablespoons butter
6. 
   
   1 medium onion, chopped
7. 
   
   4 cloves garlic, minced
8. 
   
   3/4 cup wine - red or white
9. 
   
   3 14.5 ounce cans of crushed tomatoes (not sure how big an ounce is, so I just used 3 cans of crushed tomatoes.)
10. 
    
    2 tbspns sugar
11. 
    
    1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
12. 
    
    A lot of grated Parmesan
13. 
    
    Thin Linguine to serve

Mix flour, salt, and pepper together on a large plate.

Dredge flattened chicken breasts in flour mixture. Set aside.

Heat olive oil and butter together in a skillet over medium heat.

When  butter is melted, and oil/ butter mixture is hot, fry the chicken breasts until nice and golden brown on each side, about 2 to 3 minutes per side.

Remove chicken breasts from the skillet and keep warm.

Without cleaning the skillet, add onions and garlic, and gently stir for 2 minutes.

Pour in wine and scrape the bottom of the pan, getting all the flavourful bits off the bottom.

Allow wine to reduce down by half, about 2 more minutes.

Pour in crushed tomatoes and stir to combine.

Add sugar and more salt and pepper to taste.

Allow to cook for 30 minutes.

Cook linguine.

Toward the end of cooking time, add chopped parsley and give sauce a final stir.

Carefully lay chicken breasts on top of the sauce and completely cover them in Parmesan.

Place lid on skillet and reduce heat to low. Allow to simmer until cheese is melted and chicken is thoroughly heated. Add more cheese to taste.

Place cooked noodles on a plate and cover with sauce.

Place chicken breast on top and sprinkle more parsley.

Serve with a smile.

Battered Fried Fish

I'm feeling too lazy to waste the afternoon on a blog post or two, so this is my attempt at being succinct. I achieved an amazing feat of epicurean prowess last night by seperating egg whites, then beating the  whisking the whites until they formed "stiff peaks". I realise that peope who bake do this all the time, but for me it was a first, of which I am truly proud. I have achieved the next level.

The recipe itself was nothing like healthy, except that it was fish, but it definitely was tasty.

And yes, I  forgot to take photos again.

The recipe from http://www.myrecipes.com/ is supposed to be for healthy baked fish - but my broken oven only allows me to make deep fried stuff, so the recipe is a little bit butchered to suit my needs.

Beer-Battered Fried Fish

Ingredients:

1. 
   
   1 cup multi-purpose flour
2. 
   
   1/2 tsp pepper
3. 
   
   1/4 tsp garlic salt
4. 
   
   2/3 cup beer
5. 
   
   2 large egg whites
6. 
   
   2 cups of dried breadcrumbs
7. 
   
   1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
8. 
   
   600g white fish flesh (supposedly cut into 1 inch strips, which I've just seen in the recipe now)

Take a big bowl, insert flour, pepper and salt.

Mix.

Insert beer.

Mix.

"Beat egg whites with a mixer at high speed until stiff peaks form."

"Gently fold egg white mixture into flour mixture." (Fancy hey?)

In a seperate shallow dish, mix breadcrumbs and parsley. (Note: I had just washed the parsley before I chopped it up, so it stuck together in clumps, which is not good, try to get it the parsley dry first)

Take a strip of fish, dip in flour mixture, then dredge in breadcrumb mixture.

Deep fry for a few minutes per piece of fish.

Note that fish cooks QUICKLY in hot oil, and I reckon you want the oil pretty hot. I was really sliding a piece of fish into the wok (wok used to use less oil), nipping outside, taking 2 drags of a cigarette, then a swig of beer, then back inside to flip the fish (I also only had enough oil to cover half the fish at any one time). Repeat the process for each piece of fish.

Serve with deep fried chips (once again, because the oven is broken), and a lemon wedge (important). Maybe in future I'll put a slice of cucumber and a lettuce leaf on the plate so there's at least some for veggie served (does tomato sauce count?).

Breakfast pancakes

Right. So I do realise that a pancake recipe is nothing like the high-class gourmet cooking that gets a blog noticed. I will keep this in mind, and, one day, if I do find a recipe for something fancy that's actually achievable, I will let you know. But there's a key word there - achievable. Let's get things straight from the start - I'm a novice cook - as I write this, I am cooking a curry which involves browning the meat, adding the cook in sauce, and letting simmer. I check on my curry and its stuck to the bottom of the pot. This is the kind of cook I am. It's also the point of the blog as a whole - I like cooking, and slowly I'm getting better at it, and I'd like to take you on that adventure, and hopefully get you to cook better while you're reading it.

Perhaps I should explain a little - I'm 29. When I met my fantastic wife to be, I was deep inside being an architecture student, which I did for 7 years. That amount of time being a student prepares one for a life of cooking 2-minute noodles, and toast, and otherwise eating every kind of fast food available. Then, one day, I fell in love with this girl. Now, a couple of years later, I find that one of the two of us has to cook dinner every night, and to be fair, that makes it my turn once every 2 days. There's only so much toast you can eat, before you figure out how to cook sausage and mash.

Then I slowly figure out that its actually nice and relaxing to come home from a hard days work and dance around the kitchen for an hour. And that it's not too tough to make food that actually tastes like I know what I'm doing. And it's nice to try new stuff and learn to be good at something new.

Anyway, I digress. The point above is that this blog is for people who are just moving on from toast. And to show those folk, that the jump from toast to a "roast chicken with roast pumkin and baby spinach salad with slivered almonds and a honey and balsamic dressing", isn't actually such a big jump. And if I can do it, then pretty much anyone can.

Anyway, [ENOUGH STORY MUZZA, COOK SOME FOOD!!!]

I don't do baking. I know making pancakes isn't really baking - but to me, it involves sifting flour and fairly precise measurements, which makes it baking. Also I've never tried making pancakes before, and they seem to me like some exotic, hard-work, kind of breakfast food. But this morning I give it a try.

Firstly, I found a recipe for wholewheat pancakes with blueberry and maple syrup. But then I went shopping and obviously blueberries and maple syrup have never come anywhere near Mauritius. Same goes for wholewheat flour (OK, I lie, I didn't look for wholewheat flour). And I've been putting off making it since about Tuesday.

So this morning Vicki was pestering me about when the pancakes were going to cooked and I gave in. But I went for simplicity. I did a quick search and found a recipe at allrecipes.com/recipe/good-old-fashioned-pancakes/ as follows:

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  1.5 cups all-purpose flour
  
  
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  3.5 tspn baking powder
  
  
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  1 tspn salt
  
  
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  1 tbspn sugar
  
  
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  1.25 cups milk
  
  
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  1 egg
  
  
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  3 tbspn butter, melted (How the hell do you measure out butter tablespoons?!?!)
  
  

In a bowl (duh?) sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Mix together the milk, egg and melted butter. Make a well in the dry mixture, and pour in the wet mixture. Mix until smooth.

"Heat a lightly oiled pan over medium-high heat. Pour the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot."

I ended up making bigger pancakes (closer to 1/2 a cup of batter each), but otherwise they were great. Best topping we came up with in the moment was brown sugar, lemon juice and cinnamon, but you know you can top it with whatever the hell you like.

Quick, easy, cheap and tasty - all the criteria to remember a meal and use it again and again. And everybody (even the 3-year-old) thought they were great. Definitely one for the cookbook.

Things that aren't recipes - and steak for dinner

I'm starting writing this entry with a few topics to write about, but none of them fleshed out in my mind. To summarise, I might end up writing about:

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  A healthy diet. What exactly does this mean and how do I plan to implement it in my daily life?
  
  
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  The Art and Science of the Braai Vleis. Its not actually that complicated, but there are quite a few techniques that make life easier.
  
  
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  I fell in love with a 700g, inch-thick, slab of Angus rump steak the other day. So tonight that is going to be braai'd, encrusted in pepper with a creamy mushroom sauce(no recipe yet), with grilled aurbergines (also no recipe yet) and baby potatoes in garlic butter and herbs (no recipe, but can probably be ad-libbed).
  
  

So what to write about?

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[KingMuzza wanders off to the fridge and contemplates a beer]

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OK, forget eating healthy. Lets talk about cooking meat.

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Ah fuck it - I'll write something later.

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[about 4 hours later]

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Right, the braaivleis. So I got a hunch that the aubergine was going to be a disaster, so instead we're getting the same pumkin salad from the other night, and garlic and herb potatoes, plus the steak.

Tonight probably isn't a good night to talk about my health food plans for my family when I've got 700g of saturated fat and LDL cholesterol sitting next to me, waiting to be charred black for extra flavour.

Instead lets talk about fires. A chimney starter is a wonderful little gadget. It looks like a 5 litre paint tin, open on both ends, with a conical wire grill on the inside. You put a piece of firelighter (or scrunched up newspaper) under the cone, fill the top with charcoal, and apply flame.  The design gets flames and oxygen to the coals much quicker than if they were in a little stack in the braai, and so they light far quicker. 10 minutes later (once its flaming nicely, if you leave it too long you'll find you've got no charcoal left) you tip it into the braai, spread the coals out into the desired shape, and top up with fresh coals if there's not enough. The new coals now light pretty quickly, mostly due to peer pressure.

Tonight the plan is to sear the steak by placing it directly over very hot coals for a few minutes, and then transfer it to indirect heat where its insides can cook slowly (Wifey doesn't understand why dripping juices from the middle of a steak is a good thing). At the same time, there's a tray of pumkin and potatoes, roasting on the indirect heat, they should be cooked by the time the steak moves to the indirect heat. The veggies need a lot longer to cook than the steak does, so they're already on, but hang on, I'm getting ahead of myself.

To implement the above cooking plan, I've put a coal divider in the centre of the braai. I poured coals into one side, and have left the other side empty. You generally want a bed of coal 1 - 1.5 coals deep. Brickettes these days will burn evenly for a long time (as opposed to the natural type charcoal of my father's days, which burnt out really quickly). These days you can still cook something an hour or two after the braai is ready, although probably not perfectly.

[Kingmuzza jumps up to check the coal temperature]

Right, so conventional wisdom says that you should be able to hold you hand about 10cm above the coals for about 4 - 5 seconds, then the thing is ready for steak, or that the coals should be coated in a thin layer of grey ash. Now this is pretty relative - I have weenie hands (I work in an office, not on a farm), and it obviously depends on what you actually want to cook. Steak is easy because you want it to go onto a high heat and cook quickly (char the outside but leave the inside nice and juicy. I'm afraid it just comes down to experience.

On a sanitary note (assuming you're a beer-swilling male like myself) - once you've had raw meat sitting on a plate, that plate goes into the washing. Its really gross (and you'll catch a funky disease) if you put the cooked food back onto the same plate. Even if it does mean double the dirty dishes later.

Now - earlier I  brushed the steak with a little oil, then coated it in a lot of salt and pepper. Everything takes on a braai flavour when it's cooked on a braai (who would have thought), so if you want any other flavour to shine through, then you need to make it strong. The oil helps to stop the steak sticking to the grill. Also, take the meat out of the fridge and let it get to room temperature before you chuck it on the fire, this means that it doesn't need to cook for as long to get the inside cooked to your liking (which means that the outside is nicely crisp and brown, and not the colour and taste of charcoal).

That said, the steak starts off sticking to the grill, and if you don't want to tear your meat apart you should leave it without moving it until its charred enough to no longer be stuck. You need to respect the steak, let it cook without your constant interference.  I have a theory that when you see pink juices oozing through the top of the piece of meat, then its time to flip it (assuming medium-rare). I've yet to see any scientific studies to verify this though.

[Muzza checks his steak, flips it even though its still stuck to the grill]

Next you need to realise that direct heat cooking requires constant attention (Indirect cooking is pretty much fire-and-forget). So at some point you figure that the bit I wrote above about the meat not sticking to the grill might not work in every circumstance. In fact, I managed to turn it at just the right time - edges of a little blackness, and blackness on the grill marks, but otherwise a rich dark browny-red colour, and it wasn't torn to pieces at all by scraping it off the grill.

Personally, I recommend Seether, My Chemical Romance, Audioslave and Breaking Benjamin as perfect braai music, but each to their own.

I also lied about giving the steak any indirect heat time. I reckon after the second side has browned nicely then the meat is done. When you take a piece of meat off the braai you then need to let it sit somewhere warm and pleasant for 10 minutes. The meat relaxes, and the moisture which has been heading towards the centre of the meat during cooking, now edges back toward the crust. The meat also carries on cooking during this time (so avoid slicing it open to show the lady that its ready - she'll freak and make you cook it longer).

While the steak is resting and recovering from its ordeal, I made a mushroom sauce.

• A big blob of butter
• Half a tin of mushrooms, sliced. (We don't get fresh mushrooms in Mauritius)
• Two cloves of garlic (roasted whole with the veggies, then crushed into the pan for the sauce)
• A few sprigs of fresh thyme.
• About a double shot of red wine
• About 100ml of cream.

In a small pot, softly fry the butter, mushrooms, garlic and thyme.
Once the mushrooms are soft, butter has melted, and thyme smells delectable, add the wine.
Simmer slowly, reducing until the wine is almost gone.
Add the cream and again simmer slowly to reduce until you get the desired consistency.
Add some salt and pepper for good luck.

Serve over the steak, on a bed of garlic and herb potatoes, with a roasted pumkin and spinach salad as a side.

Mmmm, happy tummy once again.
Just a bit of a pity that I was so busy writing the bloody blog post that the steak was a bit overdone. Concentrate next time Muzza!

And I took photos so the blog starts to look like a real blog.

Veggie Soup

My sneaky plan to get my family to eat healthier culminated tonight in a vegetable soup. I've never tried making soup before, but my cooking skills have been getting better. I stumbled on this recipe at Mealsmatter.org - for Italian Bean & Grain soup. Shopping in Mauritius can be tough - there's really not that much variety in the shops, and I thought I'd be able to find everything in the recipe, so tonight I gave it a try.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil for frying
• Some carrots - finely chopped
• Some onions - finely chopped
• Some celery - finely chopped
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
• a handful of fresh basil - finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic - minced.
• 1 can of tomatoes (undrained)
• 4 cups of chicken stock
• 1/2 cup of Farro or pearl barley
• 1 can of cannellini beans, rinsed
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Some grated Parmesan

Preparation

• Heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onions, celery, carrots, garlic, herbs. Cook for a little bit (3 - 4 minutes) until things start to soften.
• Add tomatoes and stock.
• Increase heat and bring to a boil.
• Add barley and beans, and season with pepper.
• Once it returns to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 40 minutes - until the barley is soft.
• Sprinkle each serving with cheese and serve with a bread roll.

I'm impressed. My mother used to make veggie soup when I was a kid, and this tasted exactly like that. Of course, I am a very amateur chef, and so I forgot to put the garlic in until I added the beans. Also I couldn't find pearl barley - so I tried it with durum wheat (which I've also never eaten) - but that turned out to work perfectly. I think durum wheat (or perhaps pearl barley) is the secret ingredient to make vegetable soup taste like its supposed to. It also helps bulk up the meal enough that one helping of soup and I was done. Oh, and I don't know what Cannellini beans are - so I bought a tin that said "Haricots Blanc" (white beans).

The plan is to get us to eat vegetable full vegetarian meal about once a week. I say vegetable full, because mac'n'cheese hardly counts towards boosting our nutrition. The problem is the perception that vegetarian food isn't going to fill the tummy, or taste good. I proved both counts wrong last week with a potato and chickpea curry, and tonight with this veggie soup.

Stoked.

And I wrote my first blog post - 2 gold stars for KingMuzza. Now, on to the weekend...