Stock

Well, I felt like the proverbial Domestic Goddess as I put my tired self to bed last night! As well as the requisite chicken korma for dinner there was a steaming loaf of freshly baked seedy bread and three litres of stock. Allow me to explain...

Over the last four months I have been collecting up chicken bones and scraps in the freezer for a day when I would have enough to make stock. (I realise this sounds completely gross.) However I did not account for the fact that by the time I had enough bones the weather would be heating up and not ideal conditions for boiling up massive stock pots on the hob! With yesterday’s cold snap, I though I best seize the moment and get on with it. 

The first time I made stock I really enjoyed the process, chunking things up, throwing them in a pot and simmering away. The result is so delicate, it’s a whole different product to the powdered stuff, it actually has flavour rather than just salt. You find yourself getting really selective about what to cook, you don’t want all this effort to go to waste! Where’s a recipe for a nice clear soup, or a subtle risotto? Something where you’ll really notice the difference.

I usually make the stock “recipe” in Nigella Lawson’s “How to Eat”, just because it was the first stock I ever made and I’m comfortable with it. Last time I made Maggie Beer’s Golden Chicken Stock from “Maggie’s Harvest” which was also delicious. But this time I didn’t feel up to roasting up all the ingredients in the oven first, and besides I didn’t have any vegies to roast! So I hit the Delicious magazines and found the recipe for a stock we made last year when making Chicken Korma Pies. The ingredients list was short and sweet and that won me over.

approximately 2kg of chicken bones 

2 leeks, white part, roughly sliced

3 bay leaves

1 tsp salt

4 cm of fresh ginger, sliced

4 cloves of garlic, crushed with the flat blade of a knife

Don’t bother peeling the ginger or garlic, put all ingredients in a big stock pot, cover with water and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer for an hour. Remove from heat and strain immediately into a bowl. I strained it through one of my husband’s hankies which removed all the murky muck that usually accumulates in the bottom of the bowl. Put in the fridge.

The next day remove the solidified fat from the top, (I’ve kept this and put it in the freezer to make dumplings with) and scoop into plastic bags or containers and freeze. I usually make 1 or 2 cup sizes so you can easily get what you need for a recipe.

Christmas Pud

This weekend I am making a Christmas pudding. It’s a task I approach with trepidation as my last Christmas pudding was a complete disaster. Let’s just say it’s an unpleasant task digging for $20-worth of $2 coins in a mouldy Christmas pud...

But for all that, I am looking forward to it and hoping that this year it will be much better. This year, for example, I have taken the recipe of an only recently-desceased-relative-by-marriage, who was still making this pudding well into her eighties. I consider it a tried and tried and tried and true recipe!

I have also bought a set of antique silver pudding charms to add to the mix, a very excited purchase on rubylane.com though I hasten to add, these were NOT an impulse buy as I have been on the lookout for a set since I bought “Nigella Christmas”.

So the fruit is soaking, charms at the ready, and off we go!

500g sultanas

375g raisins

3 tabs brandy / whisky (we had brandy in the house)

1/2 cup orange juice (I bought an orange and squeezed this fresh because orange juice is not something we keep in the house. Are you starting to get the picture?)

250g butter

250g brown sugar

rind of one orange

rind of one lemon

4 eggs

1 cup plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp mixed spice

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

2 cups fresh breadcrumbs

Mix fruit, orange juice and brandy and leave to soak overnight. Mine’s been soaking for two nights so far, I don’t think it matters, when I make a fruitcake I soak it for a week.)

Put a large saucepan of water on the boil. Cream butter, sugar and ring, add eggs and stir in fruit, dry ingredients and breadcrumbs. Line pudding basin with a glad bag and place pudding mixture in this. Leave a good three inches before tying up bag very securely. Place the basin in the saucepan. Make sure to keep checking that the boiling water comes up to three quarters the height of the bowl at all times. Simmer, covered, for five hours.

Mousakka

*Be warned, this is not a “genuine” Mousakka, the real one has Aubergines in it which I can’t stand.

When I first read this recipe I was really worried about the combination of flavours, each in any other dish wouldn’t have bothered me, but mint with tomatoes? Upon tasting, I found it surprisingly familiar and comforting. The mint isn’t overpowering and it’s something I can easily imagine my whole family eating, though we have never eaten much in the way of Middle Eastern cuisine.

Mint is another herb I have tended to shy away from, I think it’s because growing up we had mint and violets in every corner of our garden (That’s the thing with mint, if requires strong discipline) and yet my parents never used it in cooking so I grew up thinking it was nothing special. When we moved into our new place a lot of my herbs died from neglect in those busy moving days, which dramatically reduced my scope for culinary experimentation. Imagine my joy when I wandered into the garden one dewy morn and saw some cheeky mint peeping under my fence from the neighbour’s yard.

500g minced beef (heart smart, naturally)

3 cloves garlic, minced

a handful of mint leaves, finely chopped

400mL passata

200g Greek yoghurt

2 zucchinis

Brown the mince in a casserole dish over medium heat. Add the mint and garlic and stir for a few minutes then add the passata. Cook this over a low-medium heat, uncovered, until the sauce has reduced right down.

While your sauce is reducing, slice the zucchinis into long thing strips and grill for a couple of minutes, until they’re nice and floppy, but not falling apart. I do mine in a George Forman grill, but you could easily do them in a non-stick fry pan or under the grill.

Stir the yoghurt through the mince sauce and then layer the meat and zucchini in a shallow dish like a lasagne. Bake in a moderate oven for about 20 minutes, then serve.

Tonight I’m serving mine with Lebanese bread and honey carrots.

Vietnamese Shaking Beef

No, I have no idea what the name means either, my only inkling was that it might be something to do with the speed of the cooking, the beef is still “moo-ing” when it’s done.

Being on a diet, you never quite get used to the deeply pitying stares of your colleagues, especially when it really has been an education for my senses! I’ve never really been a fan of ginger before this diet but now my tastebuds positively dance when they see fresh ginger in a recipe. I find it amazing how refreshing and punchy fresh ginger is, and yet dried ginger lends itself so well to sweetness. It really is a versatile ingredient and I’ve started making sure we always have fresh ginger in the house now.

400g lean beef, cut into 1cm cubes

2 tabs soy sauce

1 tab oyster sauce

4cm piece of ginger, grated

black pepper

4 garlic cloves, grated

a few coriander leaves to garnish

Mix soy sauce, oyster sauce and ginger and marinate beef in it for 30 minutes. Heat up a wok and fry the garlic, when it is just beginning to brown throw in the beef and stir over high heat until it is sealed on all sides.

Serve with a sprinkle of coriander.*

*Okay, because the diet is no-carb I don’t say “and rice or noodles” but obviously it would be perfectly natural for you to do so.

Apple Pie

So, curiously and almost devilishly soon after starting our diet we sat down in front of the telly and channel-surfed to “Britain’s Best Dish”. That’s the thing with diets, the moment you make the pledge to eat less, somewhere someone seems to conspire to make you eat more. Anyway...

I have a terrible sweet tooth and a weakness for desserts and the way the judges raved about John Blenkinsop’s apple pie gave me a desperate compulsion to make it. I printed the recipe at work and stashed it away, ready for the point when we reached our goal weight.

Finally, the day had come, and I put together the pie to finish off our Asian-Spiced Pork Belly dinner. I was not disappointed, read on:

filling
900g of Granny Smith apples (peeled, cored, chopped into about 12ths, placed in pan of salted water to prevent from turning brown until ready to use. I say 12ths because I like it chunky and homespun, with still a little bite in the apples. Go smaller if you want it more stewed.)
3 tsp quince jelly
lemon juice
caster sugar
(Quantities of quince jelly, sugar and lemon juice will depend on the apples used so make sure you taste the filling before putting it in the pie.)

pastry
250g self raising flour
85g lard, cut into cubes
85g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
200mL sour milk (2-3 days in warm kitchen. Weird I know, hey I don’t make the rules...)

Vanilla ice cream to serve

Drain the water put apples in pan over medium heat and add quince jelly and part cook for about ten minutes. Add the lemon juice and sugar to taste. Drain and set aside to cool.

Put flour and fat into a food processor bowl and stick in the freezer for 20 minutes. This helps to stop the pastry overheating when you work with it and stops the fat melting into the flour. Blitz the mixture to rub the fat into the flour. Add the milk slowly, just enough so that the pastry comes together.

Dust the work surface and rolling pin with flour and put on 2/3 of dough. I rolled this pastry out once and then patched it together in a springform tin. The original recipe has you rolling it out, and folding it up a few times, which I think would actually be an ok idea as the pie crumbled when I served it (though it tasted magnificent!) I was just nervous about doing this because my kitchen was so warm from baking the meat and overworked pastry dough is tough and boring, but I think this dough would actually take a bit of abuse.

Put the apple onto base leaving clear edge around and brush with sour milk to ‘glue’ the lid on. For the lid, roll out the remaining pastry and lay on top, along with any other off-cuts of pastry (what else are you going to use it for? And the more pastry the better, I say!) Shave off some more butter with a potato peeler and dot this on top of the dough. Glaze top with sour milk and sprinkle with sugar and give a couple of jabs with a fork so steam can escape.

Place in oven for 35 - 45 minutes at 210 degrees Celsius until the pastry is a rich, golden brown. It is important not to under cook the pastry.

I served this with whipped cream which was wonderful (especially after having no cream for five weeks!) but next time I make it I want my hot piece of apple pie with freezing-cold-rock-solid-vanilla ice cream.