Food
Things worth eating
New Book
I’ve also just acquired a copy of On Food and Cooking : The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. This pleases me greatly.
[Which will fit in nicely on my reference shelf with Larousse Gastronomique, the Conran cookbook, Stephanie Alexanders A Cooks Companion, the first of the Alton Brown books and Cookwise]
“Black Risotto”
At least, the plan was for black risotto. Instead of using the usual Arborio or Carnaroli, I went with Black Glutinous rice. What resulted was a sweet, slightly crunchy risotto; with a deep burgandy colour. This time around, I flavoured the risotto with chicken.
Black Risotto (serves 2)
1 small red onion, diced finely
1 clove of garlic, crushed
2 chicken thighs, diced
1 shot glass of cointreau
2 handfuls of black glutinous rice
1 cup homemade chicken stock (In my case, it’s much richer than store bought; so I dilute it)
3 cups water (aproximately)
Sweat the onion and garlic until aromatic; then add in the chicken. Saute until the chicken browns a little. Add the rice, and stir until the rice is glossy. Carefully add the cointreau, and stir until it evaporates. Lower the temperature, and add about a cup of stock+water. When that addition of liquid has been absorbed; add another cup of liquid. Repeat this step until the rice is tender.
Toffee, Round Two
This is toffee made using the recipe in Cookwise; but with a little bit of chicken getting the toffee really dark, and sprinked with cocoa nibs.
It’s kinda like deconstructed chocolate. I guess. A little bit.
Mille Feuille
Mille Feuille has to be among my favourites to cart out of the kitchen – it’s… impressive to look at. Usually, Mille Feuille is made with puff pastry; however the recipe I use (http://www.cuisine.co.nz/index.cfm?pageId=27734, uses filo/phyllo instead.
I understand that the name Mille Feuille roughly translates to “Thousand Layers”; and also that one can make a savoury Mille Feuille, traditionally using fish.
This appeared in Delish, back in the day; so if you read Delish then, this is nothing new. I was just poking about in my web stats and noticed Mille Feuille was something people were finding on my site, via search engines
Pizza
We had pizza tonight. Simple pizza. Good pizza. We resurrected a wholemeal pizza base from the freezer, with mushrooms, sliced chicken thighs and proscuitto (and the all important tomato base and mozzarella cheese)
Cured Salmon
Here’s a picture of some salmon (Ooh, and the method I used) I cured on Sunday. The colour of the photo is suprisingly close to the actual colour of the salmon – it was extremely bright.
Oh so very red.
This is salmon, which I cured.
The cure was made from…
Zest of 2 limes
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup sea salt
2 tablespoons of sugar
The zest of the lemons and limes was chopped up extremely finely; then mixed with the sugar and salt. I then rubbed the cure over the salmon; then wrapped it in foil and a zip-top baggie and left it in the fridge with a bit of weight on top. After a couple hours, I took the salmon out and patted it dry.
Yesterday, it ended up getting smoked; which was awesome.
Afghans
(Not to be confused with the dog of the same name )
200g softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1/4 cup cocoa
2 cups cornflakes
If you wanted to go the whole way; you’d also want chocolate icing and walnuts.
Whatchawannado is this: cream the butter and sugar until it’s all fluffy. (But not like a bunny. Bunnies are fluffy in a completely different way.). Then, you want to sift the cocoa and flour together so that it’s all unlumpy and interracially combined. (I’m sure people used to have wars about that kind of thing.)
Anyway! You want to stir the floury-cocoa (or is it cocoa-flour?) into the fluffy buttery stuff (but not fluffy like bunnies). And then, you want to fold the cornflakes into the buttery-sugary-cocoay-floury stuff.
Personally, I’d be tempted just to eat the cookie mix at this point.
Oh, but. If your following the recipe; you want to put mounds of the cookie-stuff onto a greased tray, and cook for about 15 minutes at 180 degrees.
And if you’re really making afghans, rather than just biscuits with cornflakes… when the afghans have cooled down, ice them with chocolate icing, then decorate with a walnut.
Chocolate icing goes like this…. Sift 2 cups of icing sugar + 1 tablespoon of cocoa into a bowl; and add 1/4 teaspoon of softened butter and just enough water to get it spreadable. To that, add about a 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla essence.
Barbecued Mushrooms
Mmmmmmushrooms!
These were seasoned with crushed garlic, sea salt, white pepper and toasted sesame oil; which my lovely and charming partner then cooked on the barbecue.
Fudging About
Who’s the best cow-orker ever? I’m the best cow-orker ever. Behold, part of the fudging process.
Take 2 cups of sugar and three tablespoons of dutch-processed cocoa and combine them. Add a 1/2 cup of milk and a couple of knobs of butter; then heat gently until everything has melted and dissolved. Boil until it smells chocolatey, then add about a shot of cointreau. Wait a few minutes, then beat the crap out of it until it loses its shine, then pour into a tray.
neato.co.nz 