Archive for the 'Food' Category
Beat This.
Been a while since I did a recipe, so try this one for Texas Chilli. A work in progress.
Base
500g Diced Beef
500g Ground Beef
4 or 5 cloves Garlic
1 Large Onion
1 Tablespoon Oregano
2 Bay Leaves
1 Tablespoon Paprika
2 Tablespoons Hot Chili Powder
1 Tablespoon Chicken Stock Powder
1 Cup of water (or stock)
Spice Dump.
1 Tablespoon Hot Chili Powder
1 Teaspoon Black Pepper
1 Teaspoon White Pepper
1 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
2 Teaspoons Cumin
1 Tablespoon Tabasco
What we want to do is cook up some meat in onions with a base of chili and paprika until we have a sort of chili tasting thing. Then we will amp it up with additional spices until we have lift off.
Lightly fry the onions and garlic in some oil, throw in the meat and brown it. Add the stock, the oregano, paprika and 2 tablespoons of chilli powder. Add the cup of water and bay leaves and stir. Reduce heat to low so that it just bubbles. Leave for an hour stirring occasionally.
Now make the spice dump.
Mix up the chili powder, cayenne pepper, cumin, white pepper and black pepper in a small bowl. Taste the base – which should be reasonable – but certainly not hot. Add a teaspoon or so of the spice mix and some of the tabasco and re-taste. Is it hot enough – or are the spices starting to be too overpowering – Yes? then you are done. No? then in about 10 minutes time repeat the previous tasting and adding more of the spice mix.
It’s cooked when you are.
Serve on corn chips, with cheese and I add sour cream – although purists will consider the previous to be the sacrilegious work of a big woos – they eat it straight.
Notes.
It really needs Jalapeños but hard to find at the moment – although I may try the bottled ones.
Care with the cumin – I previously tried a tablespoon rather than 2 teaspoons and it overpowered the chili.
You could double up on the spice dump mix if you like it really hot. I found this to be okay – slight nose dribbles and chilli sweat – but certainly not blow your head off. So if you really like it HOT – double up this mix and you can push it further up the decibel scale – a couple of teaspoons at a time. CARE!! as you amp up the heat you can easily destroy the whole pot with too much spice. Not in the sense of too hot – just that the underlying taste of spice will dominate. Eat a teaspoon of the raw spice mix to see what you will end up with if you use too much. Blechhhh!
Also needs Masa Harina flour, but trying to get that in Australia is non trivial – BTW if you want to try something else apart from Masa Harina flour – which is a sort of South American flour that has been specially prepared, don’t use what Australians call corn flour – because that is what the rest of the world calls corn starch and is better used in non newtonian fluid experiments than actually being eaten. Also don’t use maize flour – because yes Masa Harina flour uses maize but that is about it. So either get the real thing – or serve with corn ships – which are made of Masa Harina flour.
Taste Test: F’ing wonderful – tastes great with a nice after taste that goes on pumping capsaicin and various other capsaicinoids into your system a long time after your last mouthful.
April 20 2009 | Food | 3 Comments »
An Adventure With Cous Cous
Have you seen that Ainsley Harriot guy’s Cous Cous packets. He is another in the Jamie Oliver vein, but black and cool. Ainsley looks like he just crawled out of a club, while Jamie looks like he just crawled out of a pub….
Anyway Ainlsey’s prepackaged Cous Cous is great stuff, quick and easy, tasted good and not bad for a couple of dollars. The trouble is a whole packet of cous cous large enough for many meals is the same price as his prepared ones. Being out of work and somewhat broke at the moment I figured bargain, I can do that and save some money as well.
So off I trot to buy a packet of Cous Cous that only ended up costing a few hundred dollars, thank you to the kitchen appliances section in the wrong store….
Like I said, absolute bargain.
Browsing the interweb you will find mentions of Roast Garlic and Mushroom Cous Cous. Being blokes we don’t need a recipe, the name sounded good so let’s see what we can do.
- Fry up about 3 or 4 medium mushrooms in butter with one shallot. By the way blokes a shallot is a small onion with an expensive name. If you can’t find them use a small onion. Also the usual caution for the back shed fixated, scrape off the last weeks toast and Vegemite from the butter before using. You won’t get away with the crunch in this one… Season the mushies with a little pepper and salt and perhaps a dash of Olive Oil.
- When the mushies are cooked add 1 clove of roasted garlic and half a cup of water.
- Bring it to the boil and add half a cup of Cous Cous. Stir the Cous Cous until the liquid disappears, take off the heat and cover for a few minutes. Finally you can stir through some butter (minus the bread crumbs..)
- Add some parsley for colour, and serve
This ended up making a soup bowl sized serve. Enough for a meal for one or sides for two.
Taste Test: Pretty damned good and only took a couple of minutes. This cous cous stuff is faster than noodles. It’s a keeper.
To Roast Garlic
To roast garlic, grab a garlic “head”. That’s the bulb like thing with all the little garlic’s stuck together on it. Cut about a centimeter of the top off with a sharp knife. You may need to rotate it a bit because of a stringy core in the middle. Squeeze off some of the loose papery skin if you like.
Tear off a square of alfoil, large enough to wrap the garlic in and sit the garlic bulb thing – which must have a name, but nothing I can think of makes sense - in the middle. Add some olive oil, pepper and salt. Scrunch the foil over the top and put it in a preheated oven at about 175 degrees C for 35 minutes. Or easier, do what this guy does.
January 18 2009 | Food | No Comments »
The Quest For The Perfect Pasta?
I was in Adelaide over xmas and had the pleasure of a small taste of home style Pasta Putanesca at the Italian family run Marryatville Pizza Bar. Damned good, but slightly different to mine. The Anchovies were stronger and the Garlic less pronounced.
So following on from my earlier recipe we I will conduct some nefarious experiments to see if I can copy it.
Experiment 1
- 12 anchovies
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon dried chilli
- 1 tin tomatoes
- 1 small splash balsamic vinegar
- a dozen olives chopped
- 2 teaspoons capers
- basil
As before put the water on for the Pasta in a large pot. As an old Italian girlfriend of mine used to say “Use a big pot with lots of water. The pasta has to swim you baccalà”.
A splash of olive oil in the water tends to stop the pasta sticking by the way. While you are waiting for the water to boil fry the anchovies and 2 cloves of garlic in say a third of a cup of olive oil till the anchovies break down. Add the chilli and then add the tomatoes, splash of balsamic, capers and olives. Let this simmer while you finish cooking the pasta.
When the Pasta is cooked add the last clove of garlic finely sliced and a couple of basil leaves. Let this finish simmering for a minute or so while you drain and plate the pasta. Finally add the sauce.
Serves 2.
Result.
OK this was good. No garlic sweat, it had enough chilli and did have an after taste of anchovy, but it was still not “fishy” enough. Can”t figure it. Perhaps the garlic is swamping the anchovy? Must think.
Igor! Fetch more anchovies.
January 01 2009 | Food | No Comments »
The World Best Pasta.
This one is a good one, but not for the delicate. It is a massive hit of strong flavours. The perfect food for blokes. Given it’s rumoured history as being a Pasta Sauce that was used by Italian working girls to entice in the men I can well understand why it worked. The combination of a hot blooded woman and this sauce is a lethal weapon.
You will need Good Olive Oil, Garlic (lots of), Chilli Flakes (lots of), Capers (lots of), Anchovies (lots of), Kalamata Olives (lots of), some Basil , Balsamic Vinegar optional. See what I mean about robust flavours. To hold this massive hit on your senses together you will need some tomato’s, I find a tin of those Italian Roma Tomato’s (without herbs) is fine. If you use fresh three or four will do. As a guide to the garlic about a whole bulb will do it.
To start, fire up a small pot on the stove on a medium heat, pour in some olive oil say a third of a cup, enough to form a layer we can fry the Anchovies and Garlic in. When the Olive oil is hot enough to fry, throw in about a dozen Anchovies and give half a dozen cloves of Garlic a whack with the flat of a knife to partially crush them and throw them in. Stir this until the Garlic and Anchovies fall apart.
Right about now your kitchen will be emitting enticing smells that is probably luring randy Italian males from miles around. These girls new their stuff. If like me you are not of the shoe fixated gender and don’t want a kitchen full of horny males attempting to grope the cook – bolt the door.
Having secured the premises, or thrown out the red light and welcome mat as the case may be, throw in about a half a teaspoon of Chilli flakes – more is good, give it a bit of a stir for a couple of seconds, lower the heat and add a tin of Tomato’s or a few fresh ones halved or quartered, doesn’t matter as it will all break down anyway.
Add about a dozen Kalamata Olives, whole works fine (mind the pits) or you could tear them up and discard the pits, finally add a couple of teaspoons of Capers, perhaps a splash of water if you need it and optionally a splash of Balsamic Vinegar. Simmer this down until you have a rich sauce. Probably about 30 minutes – needless to say don’t burn it!! I normally start the pasta and find by the time the pasta is cooked, the sauce is ready. I use a pot big enough for the pasta to swim in which takes a bit to heat up.
Just before you are ready to serve, add a few more cloves of chopped Garlic, tear up a couple of Basil leaves and add them and simmer for a couple more minutes.
For the pasta I run with a normal size spaghetti, this is a good sauce and in this case it is all about the sauce, the Pasta is just there to give the sauce something to stick to. But if you are going do it, may as well do it with style, I toss the pasta in some butter before serving. Normally I would toss the pasta in butter and garlic and perhaps some herbs, but in this case we have enough garlic to guarantee you will get to sit alone on the 8:45 North Shore line out of Town Hall for the next week or so. You could serve with some parmesan if you like. I like some crusty bread to soak up any sauce that is left.
Oh yes this will serve two with perhaps a bit left for Ron. Later Ron that is.
Enjoy.
P.S Variations On A Theme
Ok so you liked that sauce. As a variation you could drop the tomato’s altogether. What you would have is the Anchovy and Garlic base into which you would throw in the Capers, Chilli and Olives without worrying about simmering down the passata, which of course you would not have not having any tomato’s. Pretty much just heat the water for the Pasta, make the Anchovy and Garlic base, bring the the heat down and toss in the rest while you cook the Pasta. In fact you could do this one with butter and olive oil – just be careful not to burn the butter.
If you do this use a thin pasta and perhaps toss some parsley in for colour. You could also use those tiny Red Italian Chilli’s finely sliced, which with some Parsley and hunks of Olive and Capers hanging off the Pasta would look pretty good imho.
Late Edit: Just tried the latter without the tomato’s and it’s a lick the bowl clean ripper. In the end I added a quarter of a cup of water to cool off the oil before adding the butter and simmered it down with a little oregano – no basil, but did add a splash of balsamic vinegar. Now I have a huge satiated grin on my face, have broken out in a chilli sweat, stink like a garlic farmers goat and have merrily managed to get sauce from arsehole to breakfast time.
Late Late Edit: Have tried the latter a couple of times now, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I am tending towards toning down the quantities to simply end up with a Pasta coated with all sorts, so make the pasta and in the mean time simply fry up some garlic (not as much) in butter, slice up some red chillis (need the colour), dice some olives, tear up some anchovies, throw in some capers and some herbs. Toss the pasta in the concoction.
Definitely in the experimental basket.
Happiness is a clean plate.
November 22 2008 | Food | No Comments »
Imperiosus Quest Pro Pizza Perfectus
The quest that is starting to look like something put together by the same guys who bought you “The Quest for the Holy Grail”, but hey what do you expect for nothing.
And yes I went a little crazy with a language translation tool. Try this one
‘r ‘n ymerodrol hymchwil achos ‘r pizza heb bai
Anyway on to important stuff like um well pizza.
As background to this, I had the good fortune to grow up in Adelaide, South Australia, a place that was heavily settled by Italians and Germans. This means amongst other things such as pretty women, good fashion, great beer, fine wine, cheeses, metwursts and olive trees, that I grew up spoiled by perfect pizza. But Adelaide has no work and like many others I wound up in Sydney, New South Wales a place with a pretty bridge, a great harbour, lousy roads and absolutely the worst pizza in the world. Except in Leichhardt for obvious reasons.
Seeing I couldn’t buy it I figured I would have to make it, so came up with the following which will form the basis of my entry into the above.
The Target
What we want to end up with is a thin pizza with bubbles in the base that pushes up the topping, it should have a crunch, but not be a biscuit. It also has to be soft enough so that you know it’s bread. You should be able to fold it without breaking.
The cheese needs to be runny but yet have a tang.
The topping should have strong flavours with traditional Italian ingredients. There is no room for wierdness on pizza, this is serious stuff. Who ever thought of putting BBQ sauce or Tandoori chicken on a Pizza……
It should be served hot enough to burn your mouth, yet at the same time taste even better after a night in the fridge,
The Bottom Bit
Yeast
To make the base of the Pizza we are going to start a month or so before we start cooking. Thats right at least a month although a year or so would be better if you are also making the cheeses and sausage.
Get yourself a tall jar and some cheese cloth. Fill the jar with about a third flour and a third water, give it a stir and put the cheesecloth over the top with a rubber band. Leave it on a bench. Now every day for about a week pour about half down the sink and top it up again with a half half mix of flour and water. It doesn’t have to be stirred very much, lumpy is fine. At the end of the week you can put it into the fridge and every couple of weeks feed it again. By the way, this is very acidic so do not use metal implements. Stir with wood or plastic please!!
What you have done is created a sourdough base. You have actually made your own yeast. Here is a link to an interesting page. This can also be used to make sourdough bread, pancakes and all sorts.
The Base
It’s the day before Pizza day, so armed with yeast we are going to make a base, Grab your starter from the fridge. It probably will have a layer of dark coloured liquid in it. Have a smell – yep that’s alchohol, it’s what keeps the thing fresh. Its called hooch actually and won’t hurt you. Give it a stir and pour half into a large bowl, feed what is left and put it back in the fridge for next time.
Into the starter put a couple of cups of flour, perhaps a splash of good olive oil and some salt. Don’t be stingy with the salt!. Cup your hand out, pour some salt into your hand, not a pinch here, not a bucket either but a good tablespoon thereabouts. A bit of sugar may also help the yeast rise, this is up to you.
Add some warm water and start stirring, It’s not pancake mix so don’t use too much. Once you have enough so that it all hangs together in a gooey lump, throw it on a floured board and start kneading. add a little more flour as you go and knead knead knead until you have a dough that stretches out when you pull it.
Put it in covered bowl and let it rise over night.
The Top Bit
The Sauce
The tomato base, the passata. There are a couple of ways of doing this. You can either head off to the grocer and grab a pile of Roma tomatoes, or head off to the supermarket and grab some tins of those Italian ones. Lesson here. Do not use cheap shit!!. Pizza is serious stuff. Do not ever use tomato sauce, ketchup, tomato soup or any other short cuts. Use good ingredients. Also do not use tinned tomatoes with various herbs in them, they always have too much herb which dominates the tomato.
If you have grabbed tomatoes from the grocer throw them in a pot with a little water and simmer them down into a rich paste. If you have the tinned variety do much the same. Throw them in a pot over a low heat and crush them down. In fact using tinned tomatoes is quicker and I find the result just as good. If you like you can add a small splash of balsamic vinegar here and perhaps a couple of leaves of basil. Not too much – we want tomato with a hint of other flavour, not the other way around.
The Cheese
In an ideal world I would make the cheese and the salami myself, but alas I have to use the grocer. So head off and grab some good mozzarella and parmesan. If you can find an Italian delicatessen that sells bocconcini in those little tubs grab them. Thats fresh mozarella guys – it’s the same thing. So grate, chop, thinly slice or otherwise pulverise the mozarella until you have something you can spread out. It doesn’t really matter becaase you are going to melt it anyway. Do the same with a little of the parmesan. The parmesan will add the tang, the mozarella the gooey bit.
Other Stuff
- Kalamata Olives – Optional
- Anchovies – Optional
- Dried Chilli Flakes – Optional
- A Good Salami – A Must Have
Pizza Day
Ok so Pizza Day (my birthday, the 8th of April in my kitchen) is finally here, If you have done things right there should be a delicious doughy smell starting to fill your nostrils.
You will need a HOT oven with a pizza stone. What we want to do is essentially fry the pizza as well as bake it. So either invest in one of those pizza ovens with a stone base, get yourself a pizza stone or alternatively you can actually use a large fry pan on the stove. If you use the latter you may need to push it under the grill for a couple of minutes to melt the cheese at the end. Whatever you have, turn it all on.
Once you have all the hot things warming up, lay out all your ingredients now. We want to do this fast. If the tomato soaks into the thin base sitting on the bench top you will end up with a soggy mess.
Here We Go
Grab the dough and give it a final knead. Not too much because we want to keep the gasses that have caused the dough to rise in the bread. Pull off a large hunk and roll it out. Thinly, Yep thin, really thin, can you see through it? well that’s too thin, throw it back and start again. Late edit here: How thin? a few millimeters what we don’t want is something that is going to rise up to be an inch thick. So a few millimeters thick will rise up to maybe half a centimeter or so.
Now lay out the dough – which should be roughly circular onto something you can use to slide it off. Perhaps a wooden board dusted with flour. Note I am not using a pizza tray here. This is going to go straight onto the cooking surface. You can use a pizza tray, but you will need to slide it off the tray onto the surface at some point.
Pour on some of the sauce and spread it out, if you are using olives and anchovies and chilli, sprinkle them on now. Be quick because that tomato is starting to soak into the base. Don’t worry about nice geometric arrangements here, we want rustic, just throw them around. Then sprinkle on the cheeses, how much is up to you, I normally cover the base so you can still see some tomato. Finally add a few slices of the salami and a drizzle of olive oil. The salami has to be on top of the cheese because we want it to get slightly crunchy.
Quickly now slide it onto the cooking surface. (or if you are using a pizza tray put the tray on the surface) and wait. Keep a close watch to make sure the top doesn’t burn, this will take some practice. If you have done things right you should see the base start bubbling up.
If you are using a pizza tray lift up an edge to see if it is cooked enough to hold together. If you can lift the edge without it collapsing then you can now take out the pizza – slide it onto a board and then put it back in the oven.
After a few more minutes look look to see the color of the base. When it is starting to darken – and may actually be quite dark in a couple of places, you are done so take it out and put it on a board. if you have been using a frypan, now is the time to slide it under the grill for a couple of minutes to finish melting the cheese.
Thats it! Cut it into a few slices.
Enjoy.
By the way if you can actually figure out the languages I have used above and have worked out that I am really saying something like “An elephant rides in a teapot” or some such absurdity – please let me know the correct translation.
November 02 2008 | Food | No Comments »
