EuroStew: Mirepoix, Lardons & Booze

Long time no write. I really need to get into the swing of doing this properly. Well, let's try starting again!

A manly, rustic, hearty, lumberjacking, headcracking stew.

I'd like to say that this is a rustic French stew or an Italian classic or something. I suppose it is, in the sense that it's a few bits of meat with lots of fresh veggies and some basic seasonings. It works really well just by itself or served with polenta, rice, pasta, bread or loaded into vol au vents.

I've called it EuroStew because it's got a little bit of French, little bit of Italian, probably something else from another country I don't know the origins of. The basis is a Mirepoix (in French) or Soffritto (in Italian). Basically a mixture of onion, celery and carrots although my proportions are slightly different from the traditional 2:1:1 ratios for Onions, Celery & Carrots. I tend to go 2:1:1 Celery, Onion & Carrots, browned in olive oil with thinly sliced garlic. It also has port wine in it rather, than some weak little shiraz or other red wine. It has FORTIFIED red wine. Take that, vin du tableau!!

This freezes pretty well and since it's loaded primarily with vegetables including the lean proteins of the beans, it's quite healthy (providing you don't serve it with piles of cheesy potatoes or a bucket of pasta).

Ingredients (makes 4-6 portions, depending on serving size)

• 200g lardons (diced thick bacon)
• 200g stewing beef (diced)
• 3 cups diced celery
• 1.5 cups diced onion
• 1.5 cups diced carrots
• 1.5 cups sliced mushrooms
• 2 x 400g cans peeled tomatoes
• 1 x 400g cans 5 bean mix (or white beans)
• 1/2 cup tomato paste
• 1/2 cup port wine
• 4 cloves garlic
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Black Pepper
• 1/2 tsp Ground cumin seed
• Sprig fresh time
• Sprig fresh rosemary

 Method

1. Make sure three veg are finely diced to approximately same dimensions (for even cooking). Reserve celery leaves for end of cooking.
2. Add oil to hot pot, add half of sliced garlic.
3. When oil is good and garlicy (garlic has started to turn brown), add bacon and beef. Sautee until good and brown.
4. Remove meat from pot and remaining garlic.  Then add celery, onion and carrot mixture to pot. Lightly brown in beef and bacon juices.
5. Return meat to pot and add tinned tomatoes, port wine, tomato paste, leaves stripped from rosemary and thyme, and cumin.
6. Simmer on low for about an hour as meat tenderises and liquids reduce.
7. Drain beans from can and add to pot. Simmer slowly for another 45 minutes.
8. Add mushrooms and simmer for 15 minutes.
9. Finally, add shredded celery leaves, stir through, season with salt/pepper to taste and then serve.

Cooking Notes

• You may need to add some water depending on how much liquid reduces away during the simmering stage. Don't allow to get too dry, but you don't want it sloppy wet either.
• Serving suggestions : Shave some Parmesan or crumble some Feta over the top.
• Goes so well just by itself and served with crusty, delicious bread.

Kyuushoku Series : Red Lime Curry with Ginger Rice

Kyuushoku, also known as "spew-shoku" or simply "The Shock" by native speaking English teachers in Japan, is the Japanese school lunch. Introduced as part of post-war reconstruction during the modernisation of Japan, it was designed to ensure that the future of Japan (the children) would have at least one good meal a day. Well, good in the sense that it at least resembled a nutritionally sound meal for young people.

Different kinds of kyuushoku. 1950s and 1927s on the right.
I think it's legislated that kyuushoku must make
economy airline food look like Heston Blumenthal
is up the back of your plane cooking up a storm.

It still continues on today, and is generally prepared in a master kitchen centre and trucked out to the different schools served by that centre. A centre can serve a number of junior high school and elementary schools, and they will usually send out a bread item or rice item (carbohydrate), some kind of soup or stew (vegetables & proteins) and another item such as a piece of fish or gyoza or a hanburger patty (vegetables & proteins) and to round this repast off, some fruit or yoghurt. And ALWAYS a carton of milk.

Well, school has resumed and I am still without my kitchenware. I've been struggling by with my $8 frypan from the supermarket and 2-3 pyrex bowls but today I snapped and bought a proper microwave rice cooker. Basically, a microwave pot with a close fitting lid, inner rack and a steam release valve, it allows you to steam vegetables or meats or produce delicious rice!

As a celebration I thought I would share with you some of my own school lunches. One benefit to teaching is the regular allotted breaks and meal times - make it easy to keep to a diet and being busy and on your feet all day can discourage snacking. But when you sit down to lunch, you want something that will keep you going until you get home in the evening but won't make you fall asleep during the afternoon classroom fade.

I like rice meals for this because, although the rice has a high glycemic index the rest of the meal consists of proteins and vegetables that are low GI - the net effect of which is that you don't feel especially sleepy after eating. They're not particularly heavy to eat and because the portion size of the rice is small in comparison to the rest of the meal, it's just a good healthy meal. I usually have a piece of fruit with lunch as well which leaves me full up.

I usually get 5 portions out of these recipes - 4 for the freezer for lunches and one for dinner. And they only take about 20 minutes to knock together too. First up is a delicious Thai-style Red Lime Curry.

It uses a red curry paste, but it doesn't come out red. ILLUSION!!!!

Ingredients (makes 5 portions)

• 3 tbsp Red Curry Paste
• 1 Large Onion
• 1 440g Can of Chickpeas
• 1/2 tbsp Olive Oil
• 1 tbsp Butter
• 1 tbsp Minced Ginger
• 2 Limes (juice only - fresh is best)
• 125g Beef/Chicken
• Pinch each sugar, salt, cracked pepper
• 2 cups medium grain white rice
• 4 cups boiling water (for rice)
• 2 cups boiling water (for curry)

 Method

1. Finely dice onion.
2. Finely slice beef and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Rinse rice thoroughly, then add the juice of one lime and the minced ginger to rice. Mix thoroughly.
4. Add boiling water to rice and microwave for 10 minutes.
5. Heat olive oil in non-stick pan and add red curry paste when hot.
6. Fry off curry paste for about a minute, then add onion. Cook until soft and translucent.
7. Add chickpeas (including liquid from can) and 2 cups boiling water.
8. Simmer for 10 minutes or until liquid amount is reduced by half.
9. Roughly mash chickpeas with back of spoon, then add beef.
10. Wait for liquid to reduce by half again and add juice of 1 lime.
11. Add butter just before serving.
12. Serve over rice.

Cooking Notes

• Fresh lime is soooooo much better than bottle juice. Don't use the plastic stuff - it's just naaaaasty.
• If using fresh limes, just roll them with a little pressure on the bench before juicing. You'll get a larger amount of juice from them.
• You can leave out the butter if you want, but this meal is just so low in oil and fat generally that I reckon you can get away with adding the butter. It makes the chickpeas creamy delicious, and because of the acidity of the lime juice it doesn't feel oily or heavy.
• Lime & Ginger rice is awesome. It smells so heavenly when cooking. If you're doing something with a coconut curry, try lime & ginger rice. Thank me later. Actually, no thank me now. Before you get so damn popular you don't remember who to thank.

Japanese Curry Mix

Well, again that was a long time between updates. I've moved to fantastic tropical Cairns to take up a new teaching position and that comes with a few fringe benefits. Apart from a 5 month "Wet Season", a beautiful selection of restaurants and and amazing scenery, there is bucket loads of insanely fresh produce here!

It's truly a cooking pleasure garden! Unfortunately, thanks to the Brisbane floods, all of my stuff (including the beautiful appliances and granite mortar/pestle I was gifted for Christmas) has been MIA and I've only just found out that the moving company was trashed in the floods (along with my stuff).

Sucky. So I've been living out of a microwave, tupperware, a few pyrex bowls and an $8 frypan I bought in the supermarket. One thing that is absolutely awesome about that combination though, is that I can make curries!

I particularly like Japanese curry, but I don't like the the fat it comes with when you buy it in blocks.  Japanese curry comes in two forms - powder (karee-ko) or blocks of "roux" (ruu). A roux actually comes from French cooking and is that standard mixture of fat & flour, such as flour & butter with a little milk to start a white sauce for a bechamel or mornay sauce, or flour added to fatty meat juices to make gravy.

OM NOM NOM NOM IN YOUR FACE EAT NOW!

Japanese curry roux is the spice mix combined with flour and a fat (usually palm oil - Satan's salad oil) and portioned in blocks which you add to the meat and vegetables the curry is based on. Each one of those blocks contains 110 calories, and 70 of those calories are fat!

So I preferred to buy the S&B Curry Powder when I was living in Japan (which is sooooo versatile) but it's very hard to come by in Australia. The one time I've found it in a specialist Japanese food store, it was a tiny tin with a big price tag. And it's not just about the fat factor, the powder is much more versatile - try tossing popcorn or fries through a tablespoon of the curry powder, or combine it with crunchy peanut butter to make a satay paste. So I began to investigate how to make my own. 

This curry is made from maids who are terrible at
making curry - the ultimate form of karmic justice.

Maki over at Just Hungry has a great recipe for a Japanese Garam Marsala she dug out of an old Japanese curry book, as well as a good breakdown of the S&B Curry basics (translated from their Japanese website). However, it's not a specific recipe. Allow me to present you with my recipe for a proper Japanese Brown Curry Powder.


Ingredients (makes 3/4 Cup Powder)

• 5 tbsp Ground Coriander Seeds
• 2 tbsp Ground Cumin Seeds
• 1 tbsp Ground Tumeric
• 2 tsp Ground Ginger
• 2 tsp Mustard Powder
• 2 tsp Ground Fenugreek Seeds (sub for 1 tsp dried leaves, ground to powder if needed)
• 1 1/2 tsp Ground Black Pepper
• 1 tsp Ground Cinammon
• 1/2 tsp Ground Cloves
• 1/2 tsp Ground Cardamon
• 1/2 tsp Ground Dried Red Chillies

 Method

1. Combine all spices and store in an airtight container.
2. Drink lots of beer (Optional - can be substituted for hard liquor if after 10am).

Cooking Notes

• You can make it from whole spices if you want, but you'll have to measure the spices AFTER you grind them and toast them. Use fresh storebought ground spices, store the mix in an airtight container and it will be excellent!
• When using it, create your own roux with flour and butter (or oil of your choice) and add the curry powder. Or thicken your curry with lentils (for more protein & fibre) rather than with flour and butter.

TexMex Party : Puerco Pibil

Wow - that's been a really long time between updates. I've just finished an intensive year of full-time post graduate study and thankfully am now finished and graduated. Soon I'll be bringing you even more delicious food adventures as I move to a new part of Australia for my new job, where amazing produce springs abundantly from the earth in a Magician's Nephew Narnian-style orgy of variety and quality.

But more about that later. First we need to look at this post's recipe. My friend Viv and her husband Rob do likey the cooking parties, and Viv is particularly awesome at Mexican food and shares my desire to indulge in Southern American (as in Southern North American) gluttony. We decided to do the TexMex thing so I could make some Puerco Pibil, as demonstrated by Robert Rodriguez in his 10 Minute Cooking School feature on the Once Upon A Time in Mexico DVD.

Johnny Depp will kill you if you make it TOO good.
That's what he does - he restores the balance.

Puerco Pibil is a slow-cooked pork dish that originates from the Yucatan area of Mexico. The primary flavours are a succulent blend of the earthy-spiciness of Annatto seed with cumin and allspice, garlic and the citrus tang of orange and lime. It is incredibly moreish and really delicious.


Now, I'm writing this recipe to suit Australian grocery so it's not exactly the same as his - I've swapped some things around based on some extra reading I did on the traditional dish and on what was possible for me to actually get in supermarkets. Plus there were limes for $1.48 a KILO. As opposed to usually price of $3 each.

One thing you WILL need. You MUST get Annatto seeds to make your Achiote spice mix, or else this dish will not work. The only source I found in Australia was Herbie's in Sydney who does mail order through his website. Really cheap and worthwhile, but get a few packs.

You should be damn careful with your spice mix too - I now have a clear plastic blender and white accessories stained reddy/orange/yellow thanks to making this dish. Annatto seed is the all-natural origin of E160b, which makes your cheese and margarine deliciously yellow. It will stain your stainless steel sink if you're not careful. And your fingers. And your hands. And your clothes. And children. And dog. And cat. And tiles and floor. Just watch this stuff and handle it like radioactive crazy.

Okay - here we go!


Ingredients

• 2.2kg Pork shoulder (boneless - I just got a roast at the supermarket)
• Small Bulb of garlic - at least 8 good cloves worth
• 1/2 Cup Orange Juice
• 1 Cup Fresh Lime Juice
• 1/2 Cup White Vinegar
• 2 Hot Red Chillies
• 5 tbsp Annatto Seed (about 60-70g)
• 2 tsp Cumin Seed
• 2 tbsp Salt
• 1 tbsp Black Peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp Cloves
• 8 whole Allspice OR 2 tsp ground Allspice

 Method

1. Hack pork into 2" cubes. A good sharp knife is essential. Dump all pork into jumbo ziplock bag.
2. Grind up all your spices into powder, or as near powder as possible. Will require either coffee grinder dedicated to spices only, Mortar & Pestle (big size), Jamie Oliver Flavour Shaker. None of which I had at the time, so I used my little pulse blender I use to make Dukkah and things. You want to get everything broken down as much as possible, but don't worry if you end up with a few not-fully ground seeds.
3. De-seed and chop chillies roughly. Leave more seeds in for more heat.
4. Add all liquids, spice mix and chillie to blender.
5. Peel bulb if garlic and add to blender.
6. Blend the crap out of everything - you want liquid red with no chunks of anything.
7. Pour over meat into ziplock bag. Try to remove as much air as possible from ziplock bag. Slip filled ziplock bag inside another ziplock bag for safety. You don't want this stuff leaking in your fridge.
8. Marinade for two days - turn regularly so that all meat gets covered well.
9. Preheat oven to 150 celcius.
10. Get a large, heavy oven-proof pot and line it with 4-5 long pieces of baking paper. There should be enough paper left so you can fold over the tops to fully enclose your meaty deliciousness.
11. Carefully empty out the contents of your ziplock treasure chest into the baking paper pocket. Fold down the baking paper and tuck in the edges.
12. Take a piece of aluminium foil and and lay it over the top of your paper parcel, then tuck and scrunch it in at the sides. Put the lid on the pot.
13. Cook for 3-4 hours at 150 celcius, then remove and serve with rice or in soft tortillas

Cooking Notes

• The traditional recipe calls for banana leaves to wrap the meat in for roasting. We couldn't source them easily so we went with the baking paper method, which also helped with cleanup. Bonus!
• You don't need to worry too much about a thermometer and testing your meat temperature. 3-4 hours at 150 will be fine for slow cooking your meat, any any nasties should have died anyways after being bathed in acidic orange and lime juices and vinegar with salt for two days during the marinading process.
• When I made this the first time, I only included 1/2 a chilli worth of seeds, which was JUST enough for the touch of heat but mellow enough for all to eat. I don't think this dish is better served by turning it into a chill-heat pissing contest.

Oh, and the rest of the menu included soft tortillas, homemade guacamole, Spanish rice, jalapenos, Chill con Skippy (carnes de Kangaroo) and a bucket-load of Tequila.

Mochi Bacon

Japan is currently undergoing a massive heat-wave - that's summer for you - but I'm still kind of freezing a bit here in Brisbane. After feeling homesick for a summer festival, I thought I would look at one of my favourite summer-goes-well-with-cold-Kirin-type foods.

I first had this at an izakaya and instantly loved it. I began to notice it more on menus here and there, and I had to add this to my repertoire of stuff I've ripped off from places I like. For those unaware, mochi is basically just sticky rice, pounded to the point of ridiculousness. Here is a video showing someone making mochi at home with a home-mochi-pounding-appliance :

Now they're using it to begin the process of making daifuku or something similar, but essentially you end up with a gigantic sticky mess of glutinous gluten where all the grains have been ground together. It's really sweet and it's nothing but rice! Of course, my recipe doesn't require you to own a cross between a garbage disposal and ice cream maker - we use dried mochi.

The best thing about this is the saltiness of the bacon matches SO WELL with the sweet creaminess of the mochi - here's how we go about it.

Ingredients

• Wooden/bamboo skewers
• Bacon
• Dried mochi (Asian food store - comes in a big bag of individually wrapped little blocks about the size of a matchbox)

 Method

1. Soak the skewers so they don't burn.
2. Cut the mochi up into small pieces, rectangular like - roughly the size they will be in the centre of the bacon.
3. Put the mochi into a flat dish containing hot water - I use a casserole or baking tray.
4. Cut up your bacon - I get 3-4 to a regular Australian rasher, or two to a tiny Japanese processed one.
5. Remove mochi from water, shake off excess, wrap bacon around mochi and impale on skewer. Put 2-3 rolls on each skewer.
6. Grill over coals or in toaster oven or under regular grill - be sure to turn.

Cooking Notes

• Be careful not to burn your mouth on molten mochi or stab yourself making skewers.
• You really need to soften the mochi - the dried stuff is too hard to stab the skewers through.
• If you can get fresh mochi then even better! Just roll it into little sausages and use that instead.
• Mochi is consumed mostly during new years - it is very chewy and soft. Old and young people die as a result of airway blockages. Beware!

Caffietini

I like a delicious Martini. Mother's ruin with a hint of vermouth - when I say hint, I mean a mere salute of the bottle to the glass. This is something special. Homemade coffee infused vodka (which is a dynamite gift) in a Martini with a special twist.

 First of all you need to make the coffee vodka.

Ingredients

• Bottle of vodka (700-750ml - cheap stuff is fine for this)
• 1 Tbs White Sugar
• 1/4 cup Coffee Beans

 Method

1. Have a shot or two to make room for the beans.
2. Crack beans between two tablespoons - we don't want to crush them, just split them open so the vodka can get in there.
3. Add beans and sugar to the vodka
4. Shake it and leave it for at least a few hours, but the longer the mooooooore coffee flavour you get. No longer than a week though - otherwise it'll end up too bitter.
5. Using a funnel and coffee filter paper, filter out the crushed up beans.
6. All done!!

Now you have your delicious vodka, you'll need a recipe for the Caffietini!

Ingredients

• 2 oz Coffee Vodka
• 1/2 oz Rosso Vermouth (Red, sweeter stuff than regular)

 Method

1. Add vermouth to chilled glass, swirl to coat.
2. Add coffee vodka
3. Garnish with a few whole beans

Notes

• I know there's a whole load of vermouth in here vs the classic Martini, but the red vermouth really works with the slight bitterness of the coffee vodka.
• You can shake your vodka over ice or stir it if you want, but you'll get a watery cocktail. I keep my vodkas in the freezer for a straight up cold one.
• The sugar is important in the recipe - it gives the oils in the coffee beans something to bond to when the vodka dissolves them out.

 

Crispy Camembert with Raspberry Kimchi Sauce

I just had to revisit this recipe on the new blog - it's been up over at Nibbledish since Nibbledish was OpenSourceFood. This isn't a hopeless grab at generating blog content though; I really love this recipe and it's the very tail end of winter so it's the last chance to do a really wintery tsumami type dish.

Otsumami is really just a Japanese kind of hors d'oeuvres (horses-doovers in my house). It's a little something to munch on with a drink and they can run the gamut from sweet to savoury, simple to complex. Things like edamame, dried squid, stick cheese, nuts, crackers, smoked meats - anything that goes well with beer.

This recipe goes well with ANYTHING, but the best part about this is the sauce - the sweet acid of raspberry with the slight chilli-garlic kick from the Kim Chi cuts through the creamy Camembert perfectly, and the hot crispy outside of the panko crumb crunches deliciously as the cheese oozes out.

Ingredients
Serves 4 people (2 pieces a serve)

• Camembert cheese (1 round)
• 1 Egg, beaten
• Flour
• 1 Cup panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
• Canola/Vegetable oil for frying
• 1 Tbs Mirin (Cooking sake)
• 1 Tbs KimChi base
• 1 Tbs Raspberry jam

Method

1. First, cut the camembert into wedges then put into the fridge to firm up whilst you make the sauce. This will mean it still retains its shape in the frying process.
2. To make the sauce, combine equal parts mirin, kimchi base & raspberry jam in a small saucepan.
3. Heat until all the jam is melted. Mix well to combine, simmer very lightly for a minute or two to reduce. Allow to cool.
4. Remove the cheese wedges from the freezer. Roll in flour, dip in egg yolk and roll them in panko.
5. Deep fry for 2 minutes or so, until just the golden side of golden brown.
6. Drain on paper towel for a moment then serve with sauce on the side.

Cooking Notes

• If you can't get your hands on panko, regular breadcrumbs work fine but the panko is really flaky and crispy and much nicer in my opinion.
• When I make these for parties, I set up a little assembly line and serve them up hot - they do not keep well if you fry up a bunch then try to keep them warm in the oven.
• Make sure not to crowd the fryer and make sure your oil is REALLY hot; the egg wash will flash-fry and seal the cheese inside and then you'll avoid getting oily cheese.
• If you live in Japan, try this with that "stick cheese" you can buy in the otsumami section of a convenience store. It's entirely weird but a nice change-up.