Australians all let us rejoice!

Today is Australia Day.  A day when we celebrate all that's great about our wide brown land.  The opening line of our national anthem (that's the first line in the title, in case you're not an Aussie) tells us to rejoice, to be happy, to celebrate and who can argue with that!  Our anthem comes in for a bit of criticism every now and then, particularly the word girt, which just means surrounded and is an apt description considering Australia is an island.  A few years back, Adam Hills, an Australian comedian put it out there that it's not the most inspiring anthem, but I think it really is when you actually consider the aspirational nature of the lyrics.  The melody though, leaves a lot to be desired and this is where I wholeheartedly agree with Adam Hills.  He decided to sing the lyrics to an entirely different melody, that of Jimmy Barnes' 'Working Class Man'. You can sit back and enjoy that rendition here!!!

There are many Australia Day traditions - a backyard bbq with your mates, beach or backyard cricket, listening to the JJJ Hottest 100, dunny races, cockroach races, I could go on.  However, all that aside there are many more options food-wise than 'throwing a shrimp on the barbie'.  And who calls them shrimp in Australia anyway - prawns is more like it.  We love our lamb, particularly on Australia Day, as well as anything else on the barbie.  There's also damper, which has it's origins with our stockmen, swagmen and drovers, cooking it up over the coals of their campfires as they moved around the country. When it comes to sweets though, we will probably argue forever with our Kiwi cousins about the origins of the Aussie pavlova - hands off it's ours.

But Aussiest of all is the humble lamington. The lamington has many stories associated with it's invention, most of which centre around my state of Queensland and Lord Lamington who was the state's Governor from 1896 - 1901.  Over the years there have been many different flavours and fillings in lamingtons, but for me you just can't go past the original light fluffy sponge cake, covered in a chocolate coating and then sprinkled with coconut.  Only one word for it - yum!  The recipe that follows is a little on the lighter side (well the cake at least) and this was the first time I've made it. The cake itself was only about 2.5cm high (think lamington fingers from the supermarket) - as high as the sides on the lamington tin.  I cut the cake into 12 pieces (each about the size of a playing card), which meant I had a lot of the chocolate sauce leftover.  If you cut your lamingtons smaller than mine, then you may need all the sauce, otherwise consider a half batch of sauce or double batch of cake.  It wasn't as messy as I thought it could be, you just need to be organised. 

Happy Australia Day!

Lamingtons
4 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 cup cornflour

1. Place eggs and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and beat with electric beaters until thick and creamy (about 10 mins).  You are looking for a pale yellow colour and for the mixture to be about 4 times the original volume.
2. Gradually add the sugar and beat until the sugar has dissolved.  You can test this by rubbing a small amount of the liquid between your thumb and finger and it shouldn't feel gritty.
3. Sift the flour and cornflour together.  Gently fold flour into egg mix, until just combined.
4. Pour mixture into a greased and lined lamington tin (16 x 26cm).  
5. Bake at 180C for 20 minutes or until golden.  
6. Remove from oven and allow to cool in tin for 5 minutes.  Then, remove from tin and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.  Remove paper and slice to desired size.

Chocolate Sauce
150mL boiling water
1/2 cup cocoa
275g icing sugar
lots of dessicated coconut

1. Combine cocoa with boiling water. Stir until smooth.
2. Add icing sugar and stir until smooth.

ASSEMBLY

1. Place coconut into a wide bowl.  Place a tray under your wire cooling rack (to catch the drips).
2. Skewer a piece of cake with a fork.  
3. Hold it over the sauce bowl and spoon the sauce over it until it is completely covered. Allow excess to drip back into bowl.
4. Then hold over coconut bowl and spoon coconut over.  Shake off excess.  Place on wire rack until they are set.
5. Refrigerate or eat!

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ABC meals

In an attempt to get my co-cook and co-blogger back actually writing blog posts, we've chosen an #abcmeals theme for the next at least 26 weeks, give or take a few here and there.  The idea is that we work through the alphabet in order, and the dishes we cook need to have their main ingredient starting with each week's particular letter or we get creative and name them starting with that letter or if we get desperate from a country/town/area of that letter.  Some letters are going to be harder that others - I'm already thinking about x!

The other challenge I have set for myself is to see if I can source most of what I need for the meals I prepare from my local farmer's market, local seafood market (not that I cook too much seafood, I just don't like it that much), local bakeries and local fruit shops.  I want to know that my fruit, vege, dairy, bread, meat and seafood is made, produced, grown, caught or baked in the local area (or at the very least is from within Australia).  I want to support my local businesses, even if it costs a bit more.  After all if we stop doing that then the big supermarkets will definitely take over and many more local businesses, local producers and farmers will cease to exist, robbing us of the choice.

Okay, off my soapbox now and onto the letter B.

You may be wondering why are we starting at B?  It came about as I had some nice fresh beetroot, it was the second week back of our Wednesday night dinners (b is second in the alphabet) and Andy had cooked the first week and his name starts with A... Flimsy I know; we may come back and actually do 'A' ingredients after 'Z'.

My dinner - buns, beef and beetroot.  The first course was beautiful fresh duck buns, made less than 1km from my house by the wonderful chefs at a local restaurant, Embassy XO.  They have a stall at my local farmers markets and each week I try not to buy duck buns, and I also try not to buy a pork belly sandwich for breakfast either.  Sometimes I'm not successful - depending on your view!!  The duck buns were just steamed and served with a dipping sauce.  I did my usual dipping sauce of equalish parts of kecip manis (sweet), oyster sauce (salty), lime juice (sour) and sweet chilli sauce (hot, sweet).  And we ate them with our hands.

For main course beef fillet (from the markets) with beans, braised leeks and red wine and shallot sauce.  The recipes for the sauce and leeks are below.

Finally, I finished with beetroot cakes.  I haven't included the recipe as I wasn't really happy with them and am looking for a different recipe.  They were tasty enough, drowned in melted dark chocolate and with a dollop of cream on the side, but I can do better and will post when I do so!

Red Wine and Shallot Sauce
250g golden shallots, slice (these are the small onions, not the long green ones!)
4 tablespoons olive oil
cracked black pepper

2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 sprigs rosemary
100mL balsamic vinegar
400mL red wine
400mL beef stock
1 - 2 tbsp butter

1. Saute shallots with olive oil over high heat for about 3 minutes, or until a light golden colour. Stir often, so shallots don't burn.
2. Season shallots with pepper.  Add garlic and rosemary. Continue to saute and stir for another 3 minutes.
3. Add vinegar.  Cook down until vinegar is almost evaporated and it is syrupy.
4. Add wine. Cook down until reduced by two thirds.
5. Add stock and bring to the boil.  Allow to cook down again till reduced by about two thirds (about 250 - 300mL remaining).
6. Remove rosemary.  Add butter.  Add any steak juices too before serving.

Sauce recipe adapted from BBC Good Food 

Creamy Braised Leeks
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
1 leek, white part only, finely sliced
60mL dry white wine
120mL double cream
salt and pepper

1. Gently saute onion with olive oil, until softened but not coloured.
2. Add garlic and cook for one minute.
3. Add leeks and allow to cook 1 - 2 minutes, until beginning to soften.
4. Add white wine and simmer for 2 - 3 minutes. (Make sure you have a glass of wine yourself.)
5. Add cream and simmer for a further 2 - 3 minutes, until slightly thickened.
6. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

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A little bit of France ... Je suis Charlie

Hi everyone, finally I'm back and ready to tackle 2015. Rose and I have had a relaxing yet busy holiday and have both cooked our first OITC meals for the year. During the course of last weeks dinner (mine) we decided to take on the "alphabet" this year. As we decided this challenge during the meal, my meal had absolutely nothing to do with the alphabet except that we ate it at "Andy's".
My 3 course dinner included a Prosciutto and Celeriac Verrine, Truffled Chicken with Champagne Sauce and a Sticky Plum Pudding Cake.

PROSCIUTTO and CELERIAC VERRINE

1 small celeriac peeled
1 Granny smith apple
juice of a lemon
1/2 cup of whole egg mayonnaise


2 tsp of dijon mustard
2 tsp of wholegrain mustard
100 ml creme fraiche
1 small red onion
12 thin prosciutto slices
watercress to garnish
 I used mandoline slicer to slice the celeriac and the apple into fine matchsticks . Tossed it in a bowl together with the lemon juice to stop it from browning. Seperately in a bowl i combined the mustards with the mayo and creme fraiche. I folded in the celeriac and apple with the onion. Meanwhile i grilled a couple of slices of prosciutto under the grill to crispy it up.
I then divided up the celeriac mixture into serving glasses, crumbled up the crispy slices of prosciutto and then twirled the remaining slices of prosciutto into spirals and placed them on top. Garnished with sprigs of watercress.

TRUFFLED CHICKEN WITH CHAMPAGNE SAUCE

3 leeks white part only sliced
60g unsalted butted
2 cups of chicken stock
4 chicken breasts skin on with wing bone attached
1 tbs olive oil
1-2 tsp truffle oil
Steamed baby veges to serve

Champagne sauce
20g unsalted butter
1 tbs plain flour
1 garlic clove
100 ml champagne or other sparkling white wine
sprigs of thyme
1/2 cup of pure thin cream
1/2 chicken stock

Preheat oven 180 deg C. Grease 8 cup baking dish. Place leeks in prepared baking dish and dot with 30g of the butter. Season then pour over the chicken stock. Place sheet of baking paper over the top then bake for 30 minutes or until tender. Remove from oven.
Meanwhile rub the chicken with some of the truffle oil and let sit and season. Heat remaining 30g of butter and olive oil in fry pan over medium heat. Cook the chicken, skin side down first, for 3 minutes on each side or until golden. Place the chicken on top of the leek mixture in the baking dish and return to the oven and cook for a further 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, drain off 100ml of liquid and reserve. Set chicken aside loosely covered with foil.
Champagne Sauce: heat the butter in a frypan over medium heat, add the flour and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Add the garlic, Champagne, thyme, cream, stock and reserved liquid, gently whisking until smooth. Simmer for 2-3 minutes until slightly reduced. Season to taste.
Thickly slice chicken. Divide leeks amongst plates top each with the sliced chicken and drizzle with Champagne sauce and truffle oil. Serve with steamed vegetables.
If you are rich enough or lucky enough to get your hands on some real truffles, go for your life and stuff a few slices under the skin of the chicken breasts, The one shop here on the coast that sells truffles had run out over the Christmas period.

STICKY PLUM PUDDING CAKE

This should really be a sticky date cake but I bought a packet of Prunes instead of Dates. It worked out nicely so here is a sticky prune cake.

1 cup of Pitted Dates (or prunes)
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
50g of unsalted butter
150g dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup toasted walnuts chopped
vanilla ice cream to serve
STICKY SAUCE
400ml thickened cream
110g dark brown sugar

Preheat oven 160deg C. Grease and line the base of 24cm cake tin.
Place dates (prunes) in a saucepan with vanilla and 1 cup of cold water and bring to the boil over medium to high heat. Remove from heat and add the bicarbonate of soda. Cool slightly before transferring into food processor to whizz to a smooth paste.
Beat butter and sugar in mixer until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each egg. Add date (PRUNE) mixture, then fold in the flour with the baking powder. Transfer mixture to cake tin, then bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
Meanwhile for the sauce, combine both ingredients in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally for a further 10 minutes or until smooth and thickened.
Serve with sticky sauce and ice cream sprinkled with walnuts.