roast pork musing.

so being on a bit of a meat freeze I havent really had much opportunity to continue to experiment with roast pork. Though i have been carefully collating information about it, which i will share here 

http://www.applepiepatispate.com/main-course/crackling-pork-belly/

http://www.atablefortwo.com.au/2010/01/04/crispy-roast-pork-belly-siew-yuk-%E7%83%A7%E8%82%89/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/apr/15/how-to-make-perfect-crackling

Unfortunately i didn't get lots of time to prep but I did try three extra tips which are noted in teh above articles. I think my attempt this time closely resembles no. 4

1. vinegar + heavy salting like old, try to air then used fridge to try and do something similar

2. Scalded, applied five spice, resalted with much bigger salt cystals, reaired. The salt crystals is an extension of the ATFT technique, but i went even bigger, so the pieces could be knocked off afterwards. Too much salt is a bad thing.

3. Apply heat and eat. 

It was again, very good, but this could be just due to the fact that it was super fresh. I think the salt helped really recoup the fact the skin wasn't dry enough, it also evened out the blistering a lot more. Ultimately, I still would like to try to brine first, then air the skin till its super dry and then use the salt technique to try and get that smaller blistering. It seems the application of five spice latter doesn't affect the flavour of the meat negatively so that will save some hassle later. 

2 2 1 1

So my endeavours in the land of pizza have been changing over time, for faster and more efficiency dough making. Not that i don't like kneading, cos actually i do but there is something about whipping up pizza dough in a couple of minutes which is very appealing. So I've reached a nice recipe which will be my goto for quick pizza fixes.

2 2 1 1

2 cups of flour

2 tablespoons of salt

1 cup of warm water

1 tablespoon of sugar.

1. combine flour and salt

2. combine water sugar and of course yeast which i didnt include but no yeast no pizza

3. Let yeast activate then pour slowly into flour and combine slowly.

4. Keep doing this until dough reaches a thick and sticky consistency, too runny add more flour, looks dry and not coming together add more water. add some olive oil as well if you like =)

5. Sit on countertop for 16-24hrs.

6. Resize into individual 4 dough balls and coat in olive oil and stick in freezer. Leave one which you gently fold once or twice and let sit for 30 minutes.

7. Use to make awesome pizza!

used this for base (http://goo.gl/aPak)

骨香兔 (gǔ xiāng tù)

It was a hit!! i've never had my food mistaken for bought food which was quite a compliment i must say. Another one was "this rabbit tastes like kfc". All went as planned and I think i hit all the little things that make a dish a "dish".

So the reason this is on my list of top 5 chinese dishes is because of the wonderful differences in textures between fried boney parts and sucking remnants of flesh of it to the smooth sauteed chicken. Also the sautee should be subtle and only offer just enough flavour to compliment the somewhat blander fried chicken. Anyways, you should go try it, if you're reading?

Things to improve on would be to go easy on the meat, when flash frying, really just flash fry and dont leave it in there for too long and also work on the fried parts to be crisper. Things that really worked was the ginger, the rice wine and surely the brine.

So I'll break it into the three parts, the prep, the fry and the saute.

The Brine

Some recipes have asked for the brine to brought to a boil and the cooled before adding the meat. No time for that nonsense. I used three primary ingredients water, salt and vinegar (3L, 1/3 cup, 1/3 cup). On top of that i fried off some garlic bay leafs, coriander seeds and szechuan peppers to add to the brine. Some recipes call for frying off onions and so on, it seems to be such a waste. The meat was added and placed in the fridge for the day.

What was interesting after the time in the fridge it was actaully changing colour as the vinegar was starting to cook the meat. Perhaps vinegar should be left out. what is to note that rabbit a sometimes tough meat if overcooked but the brining surely imparted flavour and gave me a larger margin for error

The Fry

Very simply pat dry the meat after the brine. I didn't want to use egg but i ended up going that way, for some reason it gives me a crisper fry. The batter was almost equal parts corn flour, flour, salt and chilli powder and some baking powder (something i read said this made it crispy). Simple combine and fry, no tricks here, apparently tastes like kfc =)

The saute

This turns out to be the most finicky part.

1. Bring water to boil and add salt
2. Flash fry the rabbit flesh pieces (these were also preseasoned). Save oil for the frying mentioned above.
3. Meanwhile, add broccolli flowers and snow peas to the water
4. Fry off diced garlic and thin squares of ginger (big enough that people who dont like it can pick it out and thin enough that if you unknowingly bit into it it wouldnt fill ure mouth with that overpowering ginger flavour.. this worked a treat)
5. Add onions and soften.
6. Strain off the broccolli and snowpeas set aside
7. Add capsicum and baby corn and when they are softened add the brocolli and snowpeas.
8. Add splashes of rice wine to help soften everything up, add the meat as well
9. Prepare the sauce which comprised of oyster and soy sauce. Careful on the oyster because it can get very overpowering. Add pepper and corn flour and stir.
10. Once the rice wine has somewhat reduced, add the sauce and stir till it thickens.

So to plate combine fried parts with the saute toss lightly and plate. Gosh it was one of the most finicky dishes i've done in a while with three pots going, blanching, frying, straining and stirfrying. In the morning i had it for breakfast with half an avocado and that was quite a win as well.

interesting interesting. perhaps this is a blog revival.

Crispy Rabbit with sauteed Chicken and Veggies

so i haven't made this yet but its all going to be a bit rushed tomorrow so I thought i should write it down first so i know exactly what ingredients i need, and why not here in this dusty blog. *blows off dust* *coughs*

So first, brine the rabbit and chicken thighs, in salt... and cinnamon? maybe jsut salt since i have no cinnamon, ah HA a workable brine recipe found. 

"In a mixing bowl, stir together cold water, vinegar, salt and peppercorns. Place rabbit loins in liquid and allow to stand 1 hour."  bay leafs and thyme sounds good. Another recipe seems to say bring it up to the boil but i have no time for that, I'm sure if i roast/fry up whatever it is first before putting it in the water it'll be fine. Since also i dont have much brine time I'll probably put more salt in it 

So i'll need at least salt, bay leafs, garlic, vinegar for the brine.

Next step i suppose will be putting the cuts into the brine. Try and fillet big meat pieces off the rabbit carcass but leave enough meat on the bones for delectable frying.

So broccolli, snowpeas, cabbage, carrots, capsicum, baby corn and onions with the rabbit and chicken meat, in a light soy and oyster sauce stirfry, with plenty of garlic and ginger (maybe). 

delectable rabbit bones will involve a batter which of flour cornflour salt and baking powder blend. cayenne pepper would be good if i can find any. Just a dry coating and into the oil, so I need canola oil.

hopefully I can get all that done in 40 minutes? *fingers crossed*

so things needed

canola oil, vinegar, salt, bay leafs, garlic, capsicum, snowpeas chicken thigh, rabbit meat, cayenne pepper. 

thanks for listening and.. yeah it sounds kinda crazy. 

Salmon Ceviche

Inspired by Gordon Ramsay and a conversation about cooking with lemon juice, apparently it is called denaturing.

So it can be done. Following Gordon Ramsay's recipe i added a lime juice and instead of coriander i used dill which was awesome. It pretty much to taste so the proportions are not important =) Gordon's tip for slicing salmon by freezing it for 10 minutes really worked as well.

I think I could have stuck to the 10 minute time for soaking, but it was more 30-40 minutes but still the texture was chewy and soft at the same time. It was very interesting to see the salmon change colour as if it was actually cooking probably would have changed less if i kept to the time limit. mmmmm. i wonder.

Fast, yummy and interesting! a new winner.

So i used it to make a salad (a major weakness for me).
Rocket, little tiny tomatoes, crushed macadamia nuts, peach, nectarine, parmeasan cheese and the lemon dill salmon. Good times.

my first congee. looks right? =)

with much more flavoursome condiments. YUM.

Cu Cai Carot Chua (Pickled Carrot Strips Recipe)

This is the 2nd time I've done this after making it very successfully to accompany chinese roast pork. Not having pork rolls much these days I miss the vinegarised carrots so I decided to see if i could make them myself. So drawing from the following sites I kinda made my own combination which seems to work for me.

http://fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=45679
http://www.vietnamese-recipes.com/vietnamese-recipes/salad/pickled-carrot-strips.php
http://southeastasianfood.about.com/od/starterss4/r/carradishpickle.htm

Ingredients
2 giant carrots
1 cup of water
1/2 cup of vinegar (apple cider vinegar or something)
4 spoons of sugar
3 spoons of salt
3 cloves of garlic (very finely diced)
2-3 chillis (very finely diced)

This is all combined in a bowl. Combine all the ingredients before dicing / slicing the carrots as they change colour when exposed, so you can bypass this if its the last step.

I really want to add turnips and shallots/onions into the mix for the next batch, but otherwise very happy with this, will try to always keep a bowl of it marinating in the fridge.

long time no post...

upcoming...

fish in foil on the barbie and fish in that miso paste thing on the barbie.

"best stew ever"

using this as a base: recipe 1 and then the following 2 3 4 5 for inspiration. I enjoyed recipe 1's simpleness. Time was short and i was hungry so off we go.

Ingredients
4 Lamb chops, trimmed deboned and diced (save bones save some fat (dice finely))
2 sebago potatoes (fist size, diced chunky)
3 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1cm pieces
5-6 stalks celery, thinly sliced
3 cloves of garlic (crushed and divided into 2, gives flavour hit)
1 whole onion peeled
750ml reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon italian herbs (when i say teaspoon i mean a good sprinkle)
3 teaspoon freshly ground pepper (when i say 3 teaspoons i mean a very generous portion)
A HEAP of dried parsley
1 teaspoon tarragon (same as italian herb)
1 egg
flour and water

Worthy additions that i did not have around
# 3 large leeks, white part only, halved, washed and thinly sliced (had no leeks but
# 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
# bacon or pork belly slices

Cooking Directions
1. Prepare and combine all ingredients in pot. Add water to cover all ingredients.

A smarter way would be to leave the potatoes out and add them in about 45 minutes into cooking time. However sebago potatoes seem to do well in soups. While cooked all the way through they maintain their shape and texture. The potatoes are somewhat the highlight of this soup. If more care was made in the prepartion of the lamb through seasoning and flavouring, the lamb would have been more prominent.

2. Taste and season
3. Simmer for 1.5hrs on low heat
4. Dissolve 2 tablespoons of flour into water and add to soup in portions. Give time for soup to get thick before the next portion.
5. Repeat step 4 until desired thickness is reached. I do not like it too thick. Watery but not too watery =) I know that doesnt help, do it to your liking.
6. Scramble an egg and add to it, mix through. Why? chinese chefs do it, i like the way it looks.
7. Serve with cracked pepper.

Apparently its super yum as acclaimed by my french roommate, "best soup he's ever had". I think thats A BIT exaggerated, probably qualify that with "... that was not bought at a restaurant". I found it very enjoyable. The more then usual pepper and celery seem to make it very wintery and well the potatoes were very very good. Sebago all the way. Oh also diced up little bits of lamb fat or garlic give surprising boosts to the profile

A surprising success! I'd improve it with leeks, thyme, bacon and less lazy lamb preparation.

it's 11 and im hungry

chilli and garlic spaghetti with tomatoes
ahhh very aromatic and yummy. Simple and satisfying, perfect for when your hungry and stuck for ideas. No meat means no defrosting =P

Only try this if you know the tomatoes you have are fresh and awesome in flavour. Wont work otherwise.
1. Prepare onions (as fine as you can),  garlic (sliced to thin strands), chilli (i used 1, wasnt enough fire) and diced tomatoes.
2. Start pasta going (use plenty of salt in the water)
3. Use a bit of oil and fry up the garlic and chilli on medium heat. Wait till garlics are very brown.
4. Throw in finely diced onions and a little bit of oil. Brown.
5. Add a few dashes of paprika to colour, maybe a little cayene pepper.
6. Mix and take off heat. By now the pasta is done, drain and throw into the onions.
7. Mix thoroughly and add generous amounts of fragrant quality olive oil.
8. chuck in diced tomatoes, swirl around a little to absorb the residual heat.
9. Serve with a good load of cracked pepper. If done right, the spaghetti will be salty enough and no extra is required.

u can't go wrong with this one. =P

mango chicken

so it's been a while, it's not that i havent been cooking. Well perhaps slightly but nothing interesting of late besides my attempt at lamb shanks.

so mangos are in season right now, prices are still slightly inflated. Got myself a box of pretty sweet mangoes for $16 for 12. They were very ripe and sweet if not slightly bruised. Bowen mangoes seem to be the thing up here, feel firm smells sweet $3 for 2 (exxy).

so mango chicken as inspired by:
http://www.abc.net.au/nsw/stories/s703970.htm
http://thaifood.about.com/od/thairecipes/r/mangochicken.htm

They take a somewhat thai approach, unfortunately i dont have fish sauce or lime juice so I took it another way. The second recipe looks very interesting though.

Mango Sauce
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 knob of ginger
2 chillis (one sliced one crushed)
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1.5 teaspoons kecap mecap
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons sake
1.5 diced mango (Save 1/2 mango for step 5)
some shallots or leeks


1. Process
2. Place on heat and simmer with leeks or shallots
3. Remember to taste and adjust (lime or pineapple juice, fish sauce are good additions that i didnt have around)


4. Take off heat and wait till almost serving time.
5. Add chunked mango, continue to simmer for 2 minutes

Fried Chicken:
2 chicken Maryland
Small amount of flour/corn starch

1. Heat work with 0.5cm of oil (or more)
2. Classic chinese preparation. Use chicken maryland or chicken thigh and chop chunkly, bones and skins are good.
3. Douse with sake.
4. Salt and pepper generously


5. Toss with flour


6. Fry a few at a time, to make sure oil stays hot
7. Once they are done put to side to cool
8. when rice is ready, heat oil and refry all pieces together
9. Throw into mango sauce and toss. Serve with rice


done
(was a little 2 sweet, use less mangoes next time)

Lunch Planning

So now that i'm back.. its back to the grind. In efforts to cut expenses and increase my "range" i figured i actually need to plan ahead of what i'm gonna cook during the week, particularly lunch. Too often i get lazy and just buy my lunch. It's not that big a deal but its a way to save a few bucks here and there and have fun at the same time. I remember this really good sandwiches i had with andrew in sydney for $7.95 down in this little corner shop, somewhere near circular quay.

If i could make something like tht for lunch.. i wouldnt be complaining. The sandwiches were a cut above the rest because of the meats they prepared + a good dressing on teh salad in the sandwich. There must have been other details which i've left out which i'll have to steal next time i'm down in sydney..

but yes for the week..WRAPS
Mon - raw salmon + strawberries + rocket/salad/smoked cheese (yeah i knew weird.. but... mmm)
Tues - skirt steak with garlic/coriander/parsley + capsicum + rocket/salad/smoked cheese
Wed - fried potato + pork mince (with cumin + coriander + cayenne pepper + oregano)  + rocket/salad/smoked cheese + dice tomato salsa + smoked cheese
Thur - salmon in miso +  shallots + rocket/salad + jap mayo
Fri - spicy chicken + shallots + coriander + fried eggplant + rocket/salad

done. now, when will i get time to cook it? =P

brocolli + bacon pasta sauce

So to continue my experiments with pasta sauce, i created another cream based sauce. These are slowly becoming one of my regular recipes as cream sauces require comparatively must less maintenance and cooking time.

Ingredients
1 Stalk of broccoli
3 Rashes of bacon
50-100g of mince meat
1/2 onion diced
1 stalk of leek finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic
Double cream
(Serves 3 perhaps or 4)
Cheese of choice (mozzarella, goats cheese, if you like that sorta thing)
Method
1. Start up boiling water and add salt. Cut up broccoli bits and place into the boiling water. The broccoli should get fairly soft.

2. Meanwhile dice the onions leek and garlic.

3. Start up a pan on medium heat, add oil and fry up the garlic first then to that add the onions and leek. Cook until soft. Place the bacon and mince in and cook on high heat until the bacon bits are quite crisp.

The following steps in unnecessary but probably would speed things up. After your down with the leeks and onions, take them out of the pan and put aside. Now fry up the bacon and meat, then add the leeks and onions back in. (that should be faster, but more work)

4. While the pan is going, your broccoli should be ready. Drain water away and blend the broccoli until its quite fine, but not complete mush.

5. Once the bacon bits are as you like it, chuck on the broccoli (slowly, as your stalk of broccoli might somehow be twice the size of the one i used). So add slowly to the mixture until its quite green. Basically you don't want it to be so much broccoli that there isn't enough bacon and mince to go around.

6. Add cream until its reaches a gluggy consistency, then add a little water until it's just slightly more watery then the consistency you would expect for a pasta sauce. Add a chicken stock cube (i think if you want you could add lemon or a little vinegar at this point) mix and taste. Add salt and pepper as needed.

7. Simmer. As a last step add a loose handful of cheese in. Not too much or it will make the sauce all gluggy.

Done =D

Id recommend starting the pasta (spaghetti is good for this sauce) right after the brocolli is done. If your feeling lazy you could probalby reuse the water from teh brocolli to do the pasta =P

Gordon Ramsay's scrambled eggs

Soemthing i saw on tv a while ago which i filed away for when one day i actually would wake up early enough to cook myself a hot breakfast. Since ive started polyphasic sleep i've tended to be quite hungry so a big breakfast is extremely satisfying, after soldiering through the midnight munchies.

Ingredients
1/2 onion
chunk of butter
3 eggs
2 dollops of cream
2 rashes of bacon

1. Preparing the egg mixture. Very uncomplicated, combine eggs cream and mix. Add a bit of salt and pepper to the mixture to taste.

You realised you just tasted raw eggs and cream, which is kinda gross. I actually dont add to taste, i add cos everyone does, and Gordon did as well.

2. Get two pans, one on high heat and one on medium heat. Throw the bacon bits on high heat with no oil (bacon makes its own greasy oil). Throw in butter and onions onto medium pan.

3. Onions should be "sweating" and not browning. After they've "sweated" for a while (3 minutes) Throw in the egg mixture and put the heat down a little. Gordon didn't do this, but who doesnt like onions?

4. Apparenlty Gordon reckons scrambled eggs is all about texture so whats important is to control the heat of the pan to make sure the eggs dont cook too quickly and get too solid. BLAH BLAH

I dont have "mhad fire skills", i just tend to mix vigourously while taking the pot on and off the pan in imitation of Gordon. I compensate for my lack of skills with throwing in a good load of parsley and a little bit of mint. I believe chives would be pretty good to, if you had it around.

Just keep mixing it until it gets to slightly less then the texture u want. Gordon reckons it'll cook a little as it sits, although generally it doesnt sit long enough over here for that to happen i think.

5. Bacon is probably done before the eggs unless you turned the heat down to try and get them both to finish at the same time. I suggest that you do that, just so you dont have cold bacon to go with your warm eggs.

7. Plate it (cracked pepper) and eat it, and goto work. Probably could go the extra mile and get bread, rub garlic on it, butter and toast it, without increasing your cooking time. Unfortunately we dont keep bread around the house.

I think i manage to do the whole thing in around 18 minutes, and ate it in around 2 =)

steaks and sides

Carrots + corn + cheese

This somehow just worked, i klinda pulled it outta my arse, but who knew carrots could taste this good. I decided to slow cook the carrots to make it really sweet and carrotty. To do this, i used a good scoop of butter and carrot slices on a low heat with the lid on.

The carrot seemed to steam + fry slightly in the heat. after about 20 minutes they were pretty soft, sweet and yummy =) To taste i added Herbs de Provence, a collection of herbs from France.

To add to this, corn from a can and a good chuck on herbed goats cheese. Sweated this a bit more till the cheese melted and voila =D a great side to any steak. yeah for carrots.

Steaks

$20/kg Eye fillet sliced thickly. I took a lot of care to make sure i was going to do this right, so after lots of internet research here is the steps i used.

1. Let steaks come to room temperature
2. Pepper steak, do not salt. Apparently salt draws moisture out of the steaks.
3. Preheat the pan to a high temperature
4. Sear the steak on one half of the pan for 30 seconds, salt generously.
5. Then switch to the other side of the pan. This makes sure teh other side of the pan is hot.
6. Now stick it in an oven/broiler at 160 for about 5 minutes to get a nice steak.
7. Make sure you check after about 4 minutes to makes sure the steak is to your liking, then guage how long to leave it. The timing changes due to thickness and how you like your steak.

There are two ways for this, ure four fingers can be used to determine the wellness of a steak. Put your finger to your thumb and then press down on the fleshy part of your palm, this corresponds to how your steak should feel as you press it. Goes, rare (pointer finger) to well done (pinky). Another way (from iron chef) is earlobe, cheek, tip of nose and i forget the last one. Who wants steaks well done anyway? =)

So yes, thats my steak experience. For a $6 (350g) peice of meat, it required a lot of careful work but it was well, well worth it. Soft and juicy, same went for the carrots =)

sorry no pictures, but well.. use ure imagination.

Roast pork - chinese style

So here we go, standard recipe and standard preparation. Nothing fancy to see here except a good solid base recipe to start.

The hardest thing was actually finding the meat to do this recipe. I searched high and low, far and wide to find a place that would actually sell pork belly. But i could not track it down at all. (woolies and coles never stocks it, thats about as far and wide as i got) So i asked around a few people at work..


Turns out to westerners, its sold as Pork spare ribs ($9.99/kg). They cut it up into nice thin little strips but i asked if they had a good slab of it outback. Score! 1kg of pork belly with a good score of bones.

Took it home, and began the first step of preparation. Firstly salt THOROUGHLY. It's a big huge chunk of meat, if you dont adequately salt it, each individual slice wont have much flavour. Apply vinegar all over the pork. I'm not sure which one of these two should go first. Then find a nice sunny spot on ure verandah and leave it in the sun for the entire day while you climbing in the glasshouse mountains. Now if the glasshouse mountains are not reachable from your area, you may use the Blue mountains, or any other hilly area to substitute.

I know this goes against all instinct, meat must be in the cold for sure? but in the sun? yeah i agree with you, but i think the salt and vinegar help preserve the meat, at least for the day. My friend, the biltonger, coats his meat with vinegar, dries off with a towel and hangs it up to try for a week, so trust the vinegar =D

Now the rind of your pork should feel nice and hard, rub in copious amounts of chinese five spices. I like to add in cayene peppers and sezhuan peppers to the mix to give it that extra *POW*. Blast it in a broiler for about 30-45 minutes and your done.


yum yum.

make sure you season ure meat well.. and use proper salt, otherwise u get weak tasting pork.

finally. bbq pork time!

=D

capsicum and onion linguine

I'm not very good at pasta and basically if it's not a tomato base i got no idea what to do. So i thought i'd challenge myself with a cream base this time. It turned out quite well actually and i was very happy with it. Perhaps it could be improved with a dash of cheese, or white wine. I had neither in the kitchen unfortunately.

anyways here how i did it.
1) Blend 1 capsicum, 0.5 big onion, 1.5 chillis, paprika, salt and pepper, 3 cloves of garlic, olive oil.
2) Fry up some anchovies until soft.
3) Fry up the blended mixture until it changes from the dark red of capsicum to a more orange colour.
4) Add spices, i used mint and parsley. More italian ones such as oregano, thyme or tarragon would be good substitutes
5) Add butter and cream and simmer.
6) Add salt and pepper to taste

yum =) served with a side of mustard coated pork.. i need my meat =)

getting funcy...

so to add your conventional red curry recipe.

try adding honey, vinegar, soy sauce and mandarin skins. =) interesting =)

though if you are to add bamboo shoots, dont be like me and just chuck em in, make sure u wash them first or perhaps par boil them first, cos they give a certain smell to your dish if you dont.

Very undesirable...

Aunty Winne's recipe

*yawn* this was great fun. Although it seems to have turned out too sugary. I tried to downsize the ingredients for 1kg of eggplants. Oh well, still taste pretty good and fairly close to the real thing. Was very yummy with my egg noodles the next day =)

i'll know better next time.