Category: Meat

18
Feb
2016

The Dishiest Dish – Pizza Rustica Con Bietola

categories: Books, Chard, Dish of The Week, Dishiest Dish, Pastry, Podcasts, Prosciutto, Savoury Pies and Tarts, TV

“Hey mambo, mambo Italiano hey, hey mambo mambo Italiano
Go go go you mixed up Siciliano
All you Calabrese do the mambo like-a crazy”

This week’s dishiest dish has us going to Abruzzo for a Pizza Rustica con Bietola. AKA a savoury tart with chard . But Pizza Rustican con Bietola sounds so much more Italian and glamorous doesn’t it? And it will have you dancing the mambo because it is super tasty!

The recipe comes from Made in Italy by Silvia Colloca which was my choice when we did Italian in the Tasty Reads book club a few months ago.

Before I looked inside this book I had my hater face on. As if some B grade actress was going to have any cooking chops – and bear in mind the Claudia Roden book was one of the other selections. This was going to have to be pretty damn impressive to rival that!

Then I started flicking through and ye-es there were several pictures of Silvia looking both incredibly beautiful and impossibly thin. But it was also filled with what looked like some fabulous recipes and things that were not run of the mill. And everything I have made to date has been delicious.

This has included:

Calimari with Tomatoes and Wine
Woodsman’s Chicken
Herb Frittata with Goat’s Curd
Noodles with Zucchini Blossoms and Saffron Sauce
No Knead Spelt Pizza with Soppressata and Potatoes
Pasta Strips with Slow Cooked Goat Sauce

So, this is proving a pretty solid choice. Yay me! Well, really yay Silvia! But you know, I write a blog and it doesn’t get much more totally self obsessed than that so I guess yay me is valid.

Six Week Challenges – Update

I am still on my 6 weeks of no alcohol although I did take last weekend off! Saturday night we were having lobster – OH. MY. WORD. So good!!!! And there was no way on God’s green earth that I was not having a glass of sparkling with that! And Sunday we went out for a Valentine’s Day dinner to our favourite local Greek restaurant. And again – it would have been churlish not to have a glass of vino! But on the whole it is going well . I haven’t really missed it. I also haven’t felt many of the supposed benefits – weight loss, sleeping better, greater productivity etc.

I have been struggling with the daily meditation. I don’t think I have found the perfect time to do it. In the mornings I am usually too rushed and if i try to do it at night I fall asleep. Two places it did feel “right” were one day I did it as soon as I got home from work so it was a bit of a chance to decompress. The other was one morning when I had parked m car at the station, i just stayed in it and did my ten minutes there.

My new one, started February 15th is a flexibility challenge. Every day I will do a short workout designed to improve my flexibility. I am using the program from Fitivity. I have only done a couple so far and they have been fine but a bit boring. I’m sure they will get more challenging as I progress!

I have been thinking of more that I can do over the next few weeks /months:

No processed food
No sugar
Yoga everyday
No Candy crush
Journalling everyday

Are all on the list.

Reading

Room – Emma Donoghue

I have had this book on my To Be Read shelf for YEARS. And finally now I have taken the plunge and have started it – simply because I want to have read it before I see the film. I am probably 2/3 of the way through and I think it is very well written. There are certain parts that I have found quite confronting and other parts that have annoyed me but once I start reading it I find it difficult to put down. I am still having some problems with starting picking it up and starting it each day though…..

Room - Emma Donoghue

The Apologist – Jay Rayner

This is my current audiobook. Marc Bassett is a merciless restaurant critic. One day a chef commits suicide by roasting himself in his bread oven, leaving Bassett’s review taped to the outside. And so begins his career as the apologist.

I am not very far along with this but I am enjoying it so far.

Watching

My Kitchen Rules

I can’t help myself. I am utterly addicted to this. And the commentary on Flawless Vision.

Listening

I Know What You’ll Read This Summer Podcast.

I have only listened to one episode of this but they hated Girl on The Train almost as much as I did so it’s definitely worth another listen.

Room 101

From time to time I’ve decided to list a few pet peeves on here. Things that I would like to see banished to Room 101. Starting with:

Gluten Free Everything

When you label your bread, cakes and cookies gluten free you are doing a good service for those people who cannot tolerate gluten. When you label products that would never have contained gluten in a pink fit “Gluten Free” you are indulging in a cynical marketing ploy. STOP IT. I swear I saw water labelled gluten free recently. It made me want to break things.

Quinoa

Has no one else noticed how bad this smells as it is cooking. I made some the other day and the smell of it made me gag. I”m never cooking it again.

Cooked.com

I took out an annual subscription for cooked.com. This, for those of you who may not have heard of it is kind of like a netflix for cookbooks. Does anyone else have one of these? Do you find it useful? how long have you had it. Does it help you to choose which cookbooks to buy or do you not buy them anymore? I have not actually cooked anything from the site yet. I guess I’d better start! Stay tuned!

Kitchen Nightmares

I had one kitchen nightmare this week. I was all set to make Vitello Tonnato for bookclub only it was a new style “healthy” VT. So, instead of that gorgeous tuna mayonnaise, my tonnato was made out of tofu, anchovies and parmesan cheese. And it was rank! I have never been one to complain about the smell of parmesan cheese. I remember even in primary school when people would say “Yuck, it smells like sick”, I always thought they were nuts. This abomination of a tonnato not only smelt like but tasted like vomit. It was so bad I couldn’t even give it to the dogs.

Now though, I am craving a proper old school Italiano Vitello Tonnato. It’s a shame Silvia’s book does not have a recipe. However, The A-Z of Cooking does. There will be 1970’s Vitello Tonnato on here very soon. I just have to allow the memory of the horror that was that tofu tonnato to subside a little!

What Silvia’s book does have is this recipe for Pizza Rustica con Bietola. I am obsessed by those words. I keep repeating them in an increasingly bad Italian accent! If you would also like to become obsessed with this lovely tart here is the recipe:

This week I am looking forward to cooking…nothing. Because I have been really busy and not done a single bit of menu planning. However, we have a new Tasty Reads book so I might crack this open and give something a whirl.

Oh and this is is my new favourite you-tube. I have watched it about a million times since I found it.

What was the best thing you’ve made this week? What are you looking forward to cooking? Have you read anything interesting? I would love to hear from you!

Have a wonderful week!

Happy cooking.

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09
Jan
2016

Frikkadels – The Danish Girl Goes To Sri Lanka

categories: Books, Dill, Minced Beef, Movies, Sri Lanka

I am reading The Danish Girl for book club. I am not that far into the book – so there are no spoilers here for anyone who may be concerned but there was a part very early in the book that blew my teeny mind and most likely not at all for the any of the reasons you might be thinking!

Here is the passage:

Even with his eyes closed, standing shirtless in front of his wife felt obscene. It felt as if she’s caught him doing something he had promised he would avoid – not like adultery, but more like resuming a bad habit he’d given his word he would quit, like drinking aquavit in the canal bars of Christianshavn or eating frikadeller in bed”

– David Ebershoff, The Danish Girl

In Sri Lankan Burgher cooking, we have a delicious meatball called a Frikkadel. The name was too similar to the frickadeller found in The Danish Girl for me not to undertake some extensive research. (Otherwise known as googling the word Frikadeller.) And yes, they are pretty much one and the same.

Knowing this also helped to fill a gap in my knowledge about these meatballs. I have long wondered why they are flavoured with dill which is not used that much in Sri Lankan cooking. But it is used a lot in Scandinavian Cooking. Mystery solved!

I cooked some ages ago and never got around to posting them so here are my Friikkadels.

Sri Lankans would not normally eat frikkadels in bed but they would be quite commonly handed around at a drinks party as a “short eat” which is what we call finger food.

Here is the “official” description from the delightful ( but totally demented) Daily News Cookbook, a bastian of Sri Lankan Cooking.

“The term “short eats” was originally used to describe the dainty sandwiches, dry cheese or other savoury biscuits, potato chips and miniature sausages accompanying the drinks at sherry or cocktail parties which usually began at six o’clock in the evening and lasted for a couple of hours at the most….

The chief requisite of short eats is that should appeal to the eye as well as the palate; but they must also be easy to eat – that is, small enough to be conveyed to the mouth with the fingers or, at the most, a small wooden pick”

My frikkadels were eaten as short eats with a dollop of date and tamarind chutney and a garnish of coriander. However, the best, best, best way to eat your frikkadels – better than a short eat or even in bed is as part of a lampries.

Part of a what you ask? One day, when I have an infinite amount of time on my hands I will make one for you. And your minds will be blown by the awesome deliciousness of them. It’s unlikely to happen in the foreseeable purely because of the seven billion things that need to be included. For the lampries is a little pack of many items of Sri Lankan delciousness. Traditionally this would be cooked and served in banana leaves but nowadays alfoil is also used. The lampries contains:

Ghee rice
Lampries Curry – made with chicken, lamb beef and pork. I know it sounds mental but it’s so good!
Frikkadels
Brinjal Pahi – which is an eggplant pickle
Coconut Sambal
Prawn Blachang – which is a dried prawn pickle type thing. Ish.

Now do you see why I will most likely never make this myself? Not only do you need to have all of those things. But they all have about twenty ingredients each. To make lampries tis a labour of love. Which is why we buy them frozen. The best are straight from the kitchen of a little old Sri Lankan lady. Next best is from your local Sri Lankan cafe or restaurant.

And here is one that I ate at The Dutch Burgher Union when we were in Sri Lanka last year:

My favourite way of eating a lampries is to eat one of the frikkadels first. Then the rest. Then the second frikkadel as the very last thing. Kind of like the cherry on the top!

Frikkadels came to Sri Lanka from the Dutch who borrowed them from the Danes. There is also a South African version also via the Dutch. Frikkadels can also be found in many other countries of Northern Europe. This is certainly the little meatball that could!

Frikkadels

Print Recipe

Delicious Sri Lankan /Dutch / Danish meatballs

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

500g minced beef – do not use the leanest type, you need a higher fat content to keep the frikkadels moist
1 large red onion, finely chopped
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
a piece of ginger about the same size as the clove of garlic, grated
1 tsp black pepper
juice of 1 lime
a large pinch of ground cloves
a pinch of cinnamon
a pinch of grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
2 sprigs of dill, finely chopped
2 eggs
1 cup of bread crumbs for coating
Oil for frying, ideally coconut but peanut will do

Optional Ingredients

Lime wedges to serve.
Coriander leaves to serve
Chutney or sweet chilli sauce to serve

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Separate the eggs.
Mix the minced (ground) beef, onions, ginger, garlic, pepper, lime juice, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg dill and salt thoroughly with the egg yolks.
Form into balls the size of large marbles.
Beat the whites of the eggs with a fork just enough to break them up but without frothing.
Dip the balls into the eggs whites then roll in the crumbs so they are well coated.
Heat the oil in a deep pan until boiling then fry the frikkadels a few at a time.
When cooked through they should be crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside.
Keep hot, draining on kitchen paper.
Serve with a wedge of lime, chutney or as part of a lampries.

Why not try some at your next party? Or in a lampries? Or even in bed?

The Danish Girl does not open here until the end of the month. Have any of you seen it? What did you think?

Have a fabulous week!

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30
Oct
2015

Old Bay Oyster Sliders

categories: Octoberfest, Old Bay, Oysters, Saffron, Sliders, Starters

Maybe it’s because it’s Halloween week but here I am with another thing, actually two things that scare me. Batter and deep-frying. Because I made Sliders. And not just any sliders, Oyster Sliders. And not just any Oyster Sliders but Old Bay Oyster Sliders!

Ooooooohhhhhyeeeeeaaaahhhh!!!

Can I just say that these were as good as they look?

Start off with some mini brioche…..hmmm..now where would you find some of them? And toast them up.

Whip up some aioli ( I had this saffron and roasted garlic aioli from something else I had made), but any aioli or even mayo would be fine. But the saffron makes it look so pretty!

Choose your vegetables. I used lettuce, carrot, red cabbage and red onion.

Don’t forget the pickle! I used a pickled jalapeno but a dill pickle would also be fine.

Next up a tempura style batter loaded with Old Bay! Heat some oil, drench your oysters in the batter and drop into the hot oil. These only need a minute or so to cook. Drain on crumpled paper:

And assemble.

Now, you have to promise not to laugh or judge me too harshly…(oh wow does that make a third thing that frightens me, in this post alone?) but I made my first ever gif.

Ok, deep breath, here ’tis…

Eeek….if anyone’s left after that, here’s the recipe!

[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:23]

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

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23
Jan
2015

Drunk Food – The Meat Pie Floater

categories: Adelaide, Australasia, Meat Pie, Soup

I guess each culture has a food they like to eat when drunk. The Brits for instance love a curry when they are five sheets to the wind. Closer to home, we in Melbourne like nothing better than a kebab or its Greek cousin, the souvlaki. Ahhhh….greasy meaty goodness wrapped in pita bread…deeelicious whatever you call it. There was also a spate, back in the 1990’s of mobile hot dog vendors but they were a passing fad. Nothing beats the 3:00am drunken kebab. Not in this town anyway.

So ubiquitous is the post pub/club kebab run that I assumed it was a national pass-time. Oh, so wrong. A few years ago I ventured across the border into South Australian territory for a wedding. Post-wedding we ventured into the casino and post-casino we ran into one of the weirdest instances of drunk food I have ever seen. Which of course, in celebration of the month of crazy and Australia Day (January 26th) I am going to replicate here. We’ll return to that in a moment.

But first, Adelaide. It’s a weird place. City of Churches and bizarre serial killings. And before anyone from South Australia gets their knicks in a knot. It is true. Dexter said so.

And…the very second I typed Adelaide and serial killers, the little app that I have that tells me about related content brought up an article on a body found in a wheelie bin. You can fool some of the people some of the time South Australia but the internet will not be fooled. I on the other hand….did I say I lived in Melbourne? I meant Sydney. Or Perth. Yeah, Perth. It’s even further away and in the opposite direction. Yep, I definitely live in Perth. Just in case you are thinking about crossing any boundaries with your serial killer ways, take a leaf from the Village People and Go West.

But I digress, we’re here to talk about food. Australian food to boot. The picture above shows one of the classic legendary Australian dishes. The Meat Pie. Second possibly only to the Vegemite Sandwich as THE Australian dish.

We love to eat our meat pies with a bit of….and now here’s some Aussie slang for you….a bit of “dead horse”. And no, not in that ooky, literal European way. “Dead horse” is Australian rhyming slang for tomato sauce. That would be ketchup to my American friends.

And in ~~Melbourne~~ Perth this is how we eat our pies. Just as pies. With ketchup. Lovehearts optional.

And, if we have soup…lets just say a rather hearty pea and ham soup. We have it like this. Just soup. Maybe with some crusty bread. Or a crouton.

Let us now return to the street outside the Adelaide casino at 3:00am.

The BF had gone over to the van to get us each a kebab. He came back empty handed and shaking his head. “It’s not kebabs. It’s pies and soup.”

“Ewww…who wants soup at this time of night. But I’ll have a pie. ”

“No, it’s not pies and soup. It’s pies IN soup”

I honestly did not believe him. Until I wandered over to take a look.

And sure enough….pies in pea soup…..

This is drunk food in Adelaide. Seriously. Loveheart optional.

And if you don’t believe me, here’s some independent confirmation.

I told you they were freaky over there.

I would love to tell you that I tried this and despite all my ~~Victorian~~ West Australian prejudices it was awesome.

Except it wasn’t.

It wasn’t as repulsive as I thought it would be. But it was definitely a whole that was a lot less than the sum of its parts. And nowhere near as good as a kebab.

Maybe you need to be drunk to enjoy it.

If you want to try this delight for yourself, you can find a recipe for a Beef and Shiraz Pie here. I have used this recipe before and it is a beauty, however I just bought the ones I used for this. I made the soup though and it was really good. I subbed in chorizo for the more traditional ham and it made the soup super tasty! Recipe below.

I am looking forward to a long weekend celebrating Australia Day. Just not with a meat pie floater….

Have a great week where ever you are!!! I would also love to know what constitutes drunk food in your neck o’ the woods. Drop me a comment….

Pea and Chorizo Soup

Print Recipe

A delicious hearty take on a pea and ham soup – a classic winter warmer

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

1 tbsp olive oil
3 chorizo sausages, removed from their casing and diced
2 carrots, peeled, diced
2 sticks of celery, peeled, diced
1 onion chopped finely
2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
300g green split peas
2litres cold water
Salt and Pepper

To Serve

Warm bread rolls or a meat pie and sauce

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Rinse the split peas under cold running water until the water runs clear. Drain.
Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the chorizo and cook until the meat is browned. Add the carrots, celery, onions and garlic and cook, stirring occaisionally, until the onions are softened.
Add the split peas and water. Bring to the boil over high heat.
Reduce heat to medium low and simmer, covered for about an hour or until the split peas are cooked.
Allow to cool slightly then process the mixture to your desired level of “chunkyness” either using a stick blender or by processing small batches of the mix in a blender.
Season with salt & pepper.
Serve with warm bread rolls if you are normal or with a pie and sauce floating in the centre if you are not.

Notes

I like my soup fairly chunky so I usually only put about a third of it in the blender.

02
Jan
2015

The Potato Salad Roll That Rocks!!!

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, Potato, Potato Salad, Prosciutto, Retro Cookbooks, Salad

I think this recipe is awesome!

Sadly, I am currently alone in this.

But I have a dream. And that dream is to bring the potato salad roll to the world.

Hmm,so I guess I can cross that one off the list and bask in the smugness of a goal for 2015 achieved. And it’s only January 2nd!!!!

But before we get to the Potato Salad Roll…

I’m sure better bloggers than me really think about the messages they want to send when they post their first post of the year…you know, those super organised people who have a theme and a word for the year? And the first post reflects that dream and vision?

I wish I was one of those people. I really do. Because I pretty much know everything I’m going to write about this month and believe me…if we were going to run a theme around January, it would have to be supercalifragilisticexpialidociouslly insane.

Although…maybe getting the crazy out at the start of the year is a good thing. Maybe by the end of the year I’ll be ever so high-brow and Julie and Julia-ing the Larousse Gastronomique…

Yeah, I doubt that too. But you never know…I do own a copy….

And the highly observant of you will notice that it is also still in it’s plastic wrap….

So…the potato salad roll. Hands up how many of you thought this would be potato salad in a bread roll?

Yep, that would be about all of you. Because that would make sense. But remember when I said this month was going to be all about the crazy stupid? I don’t even know where to start with this but they say a picture paints a thousand words so, world, here is the potato salad roll…

Yeh, it’s kind of a Swiss Roll of Potato Salad. Except without the jam. Not even I’m that weird.

Basically, it just a potato salad rolled into a log with the dressing on the outside.

Which in no way explains the absolute spontaneous hatred my family felt for it when I brought it for Christmas. The comments ranged from “What the fuck is that? ” to “Who laid the big white poo in the middle of the table?”

I tried to explain that it was potato salad. Comments ranged from

“Not in my world”

To:

“No. It’s not. Potato salad looks and is, delicious. That looks like a big white poo”.

And then there was:

“Why can’t you make normal potato salad? Are you on drugs? I saw a documentary on people taking ice…do you have a problem with methamphetamines?”

I saw the exact same documentary.

There was a man injecting himself in his penis because “it was the only good vein he had left”. ‘

I made a slightly off beat potato salad.

I’m struggling to find the connection.

I was the only person who ate the potato salad roll on Christmas day which was a real shame because despite it’s rather unconventional appearance it was a damn good and tasty potato salad.

On Boxing Day, I made a roll within a roll by wrapping part of the original roll in prosciutto and the same people who has scoffed at the original roll could not wolf it down fast enough.

Go figure….

Potato Salad Proscuitto Rolls — Potato Salad Prosciutto Rolls

It was kind of nice to end the year with a badly written retro recipe. It’s been a long time between drinks for one of them.

First line. Prepare the gherkins, parsley, pimento, eggs and onion…

Onion? What onion? Would that be one of those special invisible onions that don’t appear in the ingredient list? And what I am I supposed to do with my half a cup of diced celery? Use it to pelt my ungrateful family to death?

Despite the shortcomings of the recipe, I am utterly obsessed with the idea of the potato salad roll. I already have two more versions in my head which I will make and post some time in the future. Maybe I will make 2015 the year of the Potato Salad Roll….huh…maybe I am, albeit unwittingly, one of those people who have a theme. And a vision.

I mean, yeah, I totally am. This was all planned. Months in advance….

I will be spending my week preparing my potato salad roll vision board.

Have a fabulous one whatever you do!!!

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