The boys went out fishing the other day.  Sweet, fresh fish in the middle of winter.  Kahawai!!  Whilst the lads were busy doing their hunter-gatherer best, Alex and I were busy in thge kitchen preparing some bits and pieces for lunch.  She had a recipe for a particularly tasty pumpkin soup, so into the pot the requirements went (with a few additions, of course).  The result was as good as promised, light hints of curry and fresh veges.  Not a lot more to say, really, other than get out your stock pot and get in the kitchen. 

1 kg pumpkin
1 onion, diced
2 cm ginger, diced
1 L chicken stock
1 tin tomatoes
1 tin coconut cream
2 tbsp curry paste
2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
2 tsp cumin seeds
salt and pepper

1. Peel and chop pumpkin, put into large pot (stock pot is perfect). 
2. Add all other ingredients and simmer until the pumpkin is cooked.
3. Puree or mash - we mashed it, because the whizz stick was broken, and I think I preferred this, as it still had a few chunks left in it.  YUM!! 
4. Serve with toast, or cheesy buns. 

Honey, I'm home!

The man of the house comes home and the little lady (in her pinnie) has dinner burbling away on the stove.  Picture perfect, right?  Well, maybe if you're watching a 1950s sitcom rerun.  However, stranger things have happened.  Last night this was the picture in our kitchen, only I wasn't wearing a pinnie, I was about to open a beer (for myself) and the dinner burbling away on the stove was pink.  Sort of alters the stereotype eh?  However, dinner's dinner and ours was tasty, pink or otherwise.  Not to mention men wear pink now, with pride, so pink food?  Meh, no problem.  It's food. 

We were having chicken breasts last night, stuffed with crème fraîche and harissa.  In the past we'd used cream cheese, but as we had the fraiche in the fridge, seemed a good idea.  And it was.  It may actually have been better then when cream cheese was used, though tough to tell without comparing contemporaneously.  Suffice to say that either will be equally tasty.  So, all that was needed was something to accompany.  Risotto.  Not a typical side dish maybe, but I felt like rice, and we had veges a plenty to go into it.  What follows is what went into the pink risotto last night, though feel free to change any of the fillings.  Obviously don't change the rice, stock etc, they're kinda key. 

1 tbsp butter

1 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

small knob ginger, finely chopped

1 and a half cups short rice (aborio)

small glass white wine

1 L vegetable stock

3 small beetroot, peeled

2 leftover sausages, sliced

good dollop basil pesto

salt and pepper

1/2 cup cheese (I used edam)

1. On high heat fry onion, garlic and ginger in the butter, until softened.  Add the rice and stir to coat.
2. Pour in the wine (feel free to use more than a small glass, I just didn't want to waste too much!), allow to evaporate.  Once the liquid is reduced pour in the prepared stock. 
3. Reduce the heat to medium now, allowing to simmer away, but not letting the liquid disappear too quickly (the rice needs time to cook, though if you do end up with insufficient liquid and still-uncooked rice, just pour in a little water). 
4. With your vegetable peeler, peel slivers of beetroot (outer skin removed) into the pan.  When you stir it the whole thing will turn a fantastic pink!  Stir through the sausages (or sliced chorizo), pesto, salt and pepper (or whatever else you wish) and cheese.  
5. This can be put aside when cooked, to be warmed through again later, if you want to get it all ready, so you can relax before dinner. 

 

News of the World - chocolate update

This isn't actually a new recipe - it's an update (and I think an improvement) on the cake from last year's 'Procrastibaking'.  I was asked on Thursday night if I would be able to make a chocolate cake on Friday morning, for a 40th birthday - nothing fancy, just good ol' chocolate cake with chocolate icing.  Sweet.  We had chocolate sauce in the fridge (a la ice cream), so into the cake batter it went.  And the icing.  I wasn't sure whether or not it would make a noticeable difference, but it did.  I tasted one of the crumbs which stuck to the tin and chocolate sauce heaven.  So there you go - squirt a decent amount of salsa chocolata into your next festive masterpiece.  Extra extra...

maimai wonderland

Winter means different things to different people.  To some it means grey hibernation for a few months; for others it signals a season of skiing, apres-ski aperitifs and powdery goodness; to a number it means shooting.  Duck shooting, to be specific.  Now, I'm not a duck shooter - no one in their right mind would let me loose with a gun (not that I'm unwilling to learn how to use one, one day), but I am a friend of food.  So whilst to most of the lads duck shooting equals whisky, cold mornings and talking sh*t with the boys, to me it screams DUCK FOR DINNER!

A friend of ours, James, does duck shooting, hence the duck in the freezer.  Neither of us had ever cooked with duck before (to be honest, I've probably only eaten it once or twice, and usually in a red curry), but knew that it was a red meat, more like cooking a fillet of steak than a chicken breast.  KB marinated the pieces in red wine, soy and honey, with ginger, garlic and possibly some sesame oil.  Oh, and wholegrain mustard, that was key.  Really wicked tang.  Once he was ready to cook it the breasts were seared quickly in the pan, then transferred to an oven dish, to bake (not for too long though, you want it tender, not dried out). 

The duck was served on a bed of mashed kumara and carrot, alongside caramalised onions and stir-fried red cabbage.  On top was a dollop of beetroot and horseradish relish.  Combine in a bowl 2 tbsp horseradish, 2 tbsp balsamic, a glug of olive oil and 4 beetroot, grated.  Nom nom nom.  Give these a whirl - and if duck ain't in your purview, or you just don't fancy it, grab some beef, lamb or rabbit. 

PS: Entree was crayfish, hence the photo below... 

gary the banana

It must be a week for people to realise that they have bananas over-ripening in their fruitbowls.  I did a couple of nights ago and so decided to make some muffins to deal with that.  And Laura, of Hungry and Frozen fame must have too, given her latest offering (that combined with lack of sleep and a very active culinary imagination). 

I'm not a big muffin-maker, if I'm honest, 'cause they just don't generally do a lot for me.  But banana muffins (and blueberry) can be different.  The key to wickedly good muffins, in my humble opinion, is increasing the amount of fruit, compared to the recommended amount.  I mean, a recommendation is like a yellow light right?  A suggestion, yes?  The bulk of this recipe is from the Chelsea Sugar site, but with a few important variations - the banana quotient was increased, as were the chocolate chips.  A light dusting of sugar and mixed spice will lift any baking, and for some reason (maybe the extra banana, or the size of my muffin tins) I ended up with 18 muffins, rather than the 12 which I was expecting.  Score! 

Apologies for the lack of photographic evidence of these muffins - all 18 are gone.  They went like hotcakes, so to speak.  But surely that's evidential proof of their tastiness?  And I'm sure you can imagine what a banana-choc-chip muffin looks like.  Anyhoo, in the absence of a photographic hommage, I have Gary the Banana, a Paul Rangiwahia original.  Kia kaha in the kitchen guys! 

2 eggs

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1/4 cup oil (I used rice bran)

1 cup milk

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 1/2 cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

c. 1 cup chocolate chips

white sugar and mixed spice, for dusting (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius and grease/spray muffin tins. 
2. In large bowl mix the eggs, bananas, oil, milk and brown sugar together.
3. Mix in flour, baking powder and chocolate chips.  Don't over-stir it, just combine. 
4. Spoon into tins and bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden and a skewer comes out clean (in saying this, mine were still a little gooey in the middle, but that's just because of the amount of banana in there). 
5. Remove from oven, let rest in tins for a couple of minutes, then turn onto cooling racks.  They're really good warm, so make sure you eat one straight away! 

stuff you

Until last night I'd never made stuffing.  Roasted chicken, sure.  But stuffing?  No.  Stuffless chook.  Which is nuts, 'cause stuffing is the yorkshire pudding of roasted poultry.  And casseroles...  That's right, a totally different use for the tasty, doughy goodness.  We had a chicken casserole, which was topped with a layer of stuffing, then slices of cooked potato and finally grated cheese.  A winning combination.  And it was easy (as I'm sure many of you have realised years ago).  So stuff you, get in the kitchen! 

6 slices frozen bread

1 onion, finely diced

1 egg

1 tbsp flour

2 tbsp dried mixed herbs

salt and pepper

1. Chop the bread into little pieces, to make into breadcrumbs (a food processor will make this job easier, but then you do have an extra dish to clean.  Up to you). 
2. Mix in the onion.  With your hands work through all the other ingredients. 
3. Add a little water, to make the mixture into a doughy texture. 
4. Shove on top of a casserole (sausage, chicken, stew), or into a to-be-roasted chook. 

raving about ravioli!

I think ravioli is something most people really enjoy - pasta is a crowd-pleaser anyway, and add to the equation tasty fillings and you're on to a winner.  A couple of weekends ago KB and I had a wicked meal with family at Rain Bar at Papamoa Beach.  We both had terakihi on ravioli, with dill butter drizzled over the top.  It was fanbloodytastic.  One of those meals where you are completely silent for the whole meal, 'cause you've been so sucked in by the flavour that you haven't the brain capacity left to engage in conversation.  One of those meals. 

Anyhoo, it got us to thinking - why haven't we been making ravioli at home?  We have a garden full of herbs, we both love trying new combinations of flavours - surely these little parcels of taste would be the perfect foodject?  Yep, they were.  

Saturday evening we hit the kitchen, armed with flour, eggs, filling potentials and red wine (for us, not the ravs).  I got onto the pasta, while KB prepared two very moreish fillings.  I'll start with the fillings, 'cause you really want them to be sorted and ready to go either before you start the pasta, or be doing them at the same time, 'cause once the pasta's ready to go, you don't want it to dry out, you want to get the filling in and press the edges down while it's still malleable. 

Filling #1...

1. Finely (really fine) chop an onion, a knob of ginger, a cup of mushrooms - saute in some butter.  Throw in some fresh coriander and mint (shredded) and combine.
2. Transfer to a bowl and stir through sour cream - enough to get a consistency which will be stay together, but not be too runny.  Don't forget to add a couple of good grinds of salt and pepper too. 

Filling #2...

1. Finely chop pak choi (or bok choi) leaves.  Combine in a bowl with some capers and sweet thai chilli sauce (to get the mixture to stick together a bit).  Chop pieces of blue cheese - about 1 cm, they need to fit in the ravioli.  Salt and pepper. 

Pasta etc...

1. Put 2 cups flour onto a clean, dry surface (I use a large marble chopping board, 'cause it doesn't stick, but benchtop will be fine too, and probably easier for rolling - just make sure you've extra flour, in case you need to add a little more to the surface later on).  Make a deep well in the centre. 
2. Separate two eggs.  Keep the yolks, do what you like with the whites (maybe save them to add into an omelette the next day?).  Get another two eggs and beat them lightly with the two yolks (so, all in all, you have 2 eggs + 2 extra yolks). 
3. Pour the eggs into the well of the flour.  Pour slowly, you may have to pull some flour in to prevent the egg running everywhere, and then start pouring again.  Once all the egg is on the flour, pull the flour in from the sides, combining and kneading to form a nice smooth, elasticcy lump. 
4. Roll the pasta out as thin as you possibly can.  We got ours pretty thin, cut the circles out for the raviolis, then re-rolled and re-cut, to get them paper thin.  That's what you want, paper thin.  It takes time, and some serious arm power - I'd recommend doing this as a duo, so you've got some arm power-backup. 
5. Cut the sheets with circular cutters (we used a cookie cutter, about 10 cm diameter).  Reserve the scraps, to roll out again. 
6. Place teaspoons of filling in centre of half the circles and brush the edges with water.  Top with another circle and press the edges down with a fork, to prevent escapee-filling.  Place on a flour-dusted plate and set aside (make sure you dust the tops of the raviolis with flour, if you're going to double-layer them on the plate, 'cause otherwise they'll stick). 
7. Repeat process until you have used all your scraps and filling - we got about 20 raviolis, and they were pretty large ones. 
8. Boil a pot of water - not boiling too fast though, the agitation of the water might cause your ravs to break open.  I set it over a medium hob.  Put the pasta in the water and cook for about 3 minutes.  Take a bite of an edge, to check they're cooked enough for you. 

Nb:  If you're going to use meat in the filling, it is important to cook it first, 'cause the ravioli cook so quick that they're not in the water long enough to cook the fillings too.