mountain masala

Chocolate and Red Wine

I was invited to set the weekly food challenge for a Facebook group to which I belong, so I suggested cooking with red wine and chocolate (you know, actually putting them in the food. So I got home from Tasmania on Saturday and made a mess in the kitchen on Mother's Day making this at home... (Got up the next morning, cleaned up the mess, and flew to Brisbane...)

A mole is a Mexican sauce, and a chocolate chilli sauce with chicken is a Mexican thing. I looked at a number of recipes and then adapted one from Gordon Ramsay (the one in Canberra)

Here's my adaptation

2 litres of chicken stock
400g shallots
2 cloves of crushed garlic
2 sprigs of thyme
1 bay leaf
2 tsps black peppercorns
2 tsps raspberry vinegar
1 bottle red wine
40g dark bitter chocolate
4-5 dried Ancho chillies
8 garlic cloves

Cut open the dried chillies and remove seeds. Toast on a hot, ungreased pan for a few seconds each side. Add hot water and redydrate for 30 mins. Toast unpeeled garlic cloves in the pan until blackening. Drain chillies and puree with garlic in a food processor. If you don't have dried Mexican chillies, you'll have to experiment with fresh chillies or dried. Just remember to add them later in the reduction process below, otherwise the whole thing will be far too hot.

Saute shallots and garlic in a small bit of butter. Add thyme, bayleaf and peppercorns and cook until softened. Deglaze pan with raspberry vinegar and then pour in wine. Add chilli and garlic puree. Boil until reduced to about 100ml - syrupy in consistency.

Add chicken stock and boil until reduced by 3/4 to about 600ml. Pour through a sieve. Return to pan, add the chocolate and stir until melts. If needed, thicken with a little cornflour. Do not allow to boil.

Masala Recipes

"The Age" online has three masala recipes in it today - find them here.

Coconut Pork

I'm part of a Facebook group that occasionally sets food challenges, and last week's was to cook with a coconut product. Apparently coconut is a very healthy food. Clearly as you'll see below I decided to add unhealthy things to it... I just want to say that I dont cook like this every night...

BBQ Pork Belly with Rum, Lemongrass and Coconut

This recipe comes from Masterchef's Adam Liaw's cookbook "Two Asian Kitchens".

You'll need 1 kg pork belly. Score the pork diagonally on the underside. Slice into 3-4 cm strips, then cut off the rind.

Mix the following together.

150 g palm sugar, chopped
200 ml fish sauce
200 ml dark soy sauce
6 stalks lemongrass, white part only, thinly sliced
100 ml dark rum
6 french shallots, sliced thinly (I used 1/4 large brown onion)
6 garlic cloves, minced
60 ml sesame oil
1 tbsp ground white pepper

Bring the above marinade mix to the boil and simmer for 15-20 mins until reduced by half. Then add 125 ml coconut cream.

Marinate the pork in the mix for at least 2 hours.

Roast pork or cook on a BBQ (as I did). Meanwhile strain the marinade. Take 3 cups of marinade and simmer for 3 mins, then allow to reduce by half. Add 2 tsp cornflour mixed with water to thicken.

Serve pork with sauce and fresh coriander. I also served sweet potato slices, jasmine rice cooked with coconut milk, ginger slices, coriander roots, kaffir lime leaves and garlic cloves. And pork crackling, slivers of red chilli and zucchini on the rice...

Coconut Apple and Quince Crumble

This is a standard apple crumble with a few changes. I chopped fresh coconut in a food processor and then dried it in a hot frypan - stirring until it was about to brown. Some went into the cooked apple, which was then topped with some home made quince jam. Some went into the crumble topping which also included brown sugar, panko crumbs and some rolled oats (which are an essential part of any apple crumble topping!) On top is shaved fresh coconut, toasted in the oven. The combination of fresh coconut and quince made this a nice change from one our favourite desserts. And the individual serving thing looked good! 

Chicken, Orange and Apricot Tagine

OK so I'm still on a cooking roll. Here's the Moroccan Chicken, Orange and Apricot Tagine from a couple of nights ago. I made up this recipe and here it is! Serves 4 people.

Ingredients

1 medium brown onion, cut into wedges
4 cloves garlic, peeled and bruised *or halved)
1 x 3 cm piece of root ginger, peeled and sliced thinly
1 cinnamon stick
chicken pieces  (on or off the bone, just vary the cooking time)
moroccan spice mix (you can make your own but on this occasion I used Masterfoods)
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced diagonally
1 tsp crushed or chopped chilli
1 cup dried apricots
1 tbsp orange zest
1 orange, sliced
2-3 tbsp honey
handful of fresh coriander, chopped
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts or slivered almonds
yohgurt
couscous
orange blossom water

Mexican Chilli-Beef Soup

I adapted this excellent soup from Rick Bayless' "Mexican Kitchen", my main Mex cookbook.

Roast 1 medium brown onion and 1/2 head of garlic in oven. Dice onion and remove garlic from cloves.

Cut 750g-1kg rump steak into cubes. Brown in pan.

Put 2 litres beef stock, steak, 1/2 of the garlic and 1/2 of the onion into a soup pot with 1/2 tsp salt, 3 bay leaves, a big pinch of cloves, 1/4 tsp ground cumin and 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 1 hour.

Rehydrate 2 dried Ancho chillies in warm water for 30 mins. Puree with the rest of the onion, garlic and 1 x 400g can of diced tomatoes. If you don't have access to Mexican chillies, you'll have to work out what other kind of chilli to use. Just bear in mind that its soup and too much chilli will overpower the whole dish.

Slice 2 chorizos thinly and saute. Dry on paper towels to remove excess oil.

After 1 hour, add chilli mixture to soup pot, along with 2 diced carrots and another 400g can of diced tomatoes. Simmer for 10 mins. Add 2-3 potatoes, peeled and cubed. Simmer for 5 mins.

Add 2 zucchinis, cubed, the cooked chorizo, 1/2 can corn kernels (or better still - 2 ears of corn sliced to 2cm thickness), and a handful of chopped coriander leaves. Simmer for about 8 mins.

If the soup seems a bit thin, add 3 tsp cornflour mixed with water.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream on top (we didnt have any) and a wedge of lime. Very excellent.

Pork Noodle baskets and Asian Omlette

OK, this is the Last Post on food for a bit... Plenty of leftover pork from last night which will keep us happy for days. So I decided to try something that I'd seen in.. wait for it... the Women's Weekly Chinese Cookbook! We still have a lot of this series from the er... 80s?... and use them all the time!

Step one was to make noodle baskets. I spent years looking occasionally for these little wire baskets on a stick and then discovered them at Marion in January when we were house-sitting at Seacliff. The recipe said egg noodles but we just had cheap chow mein noodles. whatever.

Cook them, put them on a wire rack to dry a bit. DON'T try to dry the noodles with a paper towel beacuse it sticks! Place them between the two little baskets and deep fry them. It took a little while, but I've learned a new party trick. Before the party, not at the party.. ("Hey, lets go and deep fry some noodles...")

I'm also reminded how countries like China which have many people living a subsistence lifestyle use simple ingredients like wheat, water and oil, and time, to make food that we consider fancy (this is one of the things about food that interests me - including the fact that many of our exotic herbs and spices are cheap and everyday for them...) I do love the "foodie" setting on the Hipstamatic iPhoto app...

Red Asian Pork

Here's the third in my series of cooking posts for the past week. You can expect this to decline as I spend most of the next 6 weeks travelling the country. I guess that means travel and winery pics instead...

I bought a shoulder of pork on sale and made Red-Cooked Pork Hock from Kylie Kwong's "Recipes and Stories". I love her books although to be honest I havent made too many recipes from them yet. However I have fallen in love with a "masterstock" like the following. The recipe is for a 1kg fresh (not smoked!) pork hock, but I had a 3 kg shoulder so I cut it into 3 pieces.

Place the following stock ingredients into a large pot, bring to boil and simmer for 20 mins.

2 litres cold water (I used chicken stock which had been half price at the supermarket. Usually I make my own). Because I had more meat I had to add more water.
1 cup shao xing rice wine
1 cup dark soy sauce
1/2 cup light soy sauce
2/3 cup yellow rock sugar
6 garlic cloves, crushed
10 ginger shards (I have no idea what this means so i added about 8 slices fresh ginger root)
3 medium green spring onion stems, cut in half
1/4 cup shitake mushroom pieces (Kylie has a more complex thing about making braised, dried Chinese mushrooms - go buy the book...)
1 tsp sesame oil
3 whole star anise
2 cinnamon stick
1 medium piece dried orange peel (I used 2 'medium'... 3-4 cm pieces of fresh orange peel)

Place pork in the stock, cover the pan and bring it to the boil. Simmer it for 2-3 hours until very soft. Add more water if you need to keep the meat covered.

This stuff is fabulous hot or cold. We had it with steamed rice and steamed veg.

Pumpkin Soup

Yeah, its a bit of a rush of food posts. It was that kind of week. Our pumpkin harvest is just coming in, so there'll be a few pumpkin recipes. This recipe is actually for Pumpkin and Lentil soup, but the twins are allergic to lentils (as well and chickpeas and other stuff), so we're denied a whole range of vego food. The recipe is therefore adapted - from "Bill's Basics" by Bill Granger. I changed some stuff...

Place the following in a large baking tray, cover and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 1 1/2 hours.

1.5 kg butternut pumpkin, peeled and cut into 3 cm chunks
750 g tomatoes, quartered (I guessed the quantity)
6 garlic cloves, peeled (I just cut a whole head of garlic in half and threw it in)
3 carrots, quartered lengthways
1 large brown onion, peeled, halved then quartered (optional - not in original recipe, but added for flavour and texture in lieu of the lentils)

Drizzle with 1/4 cup olive oil and then sprinkle with the following spice mix - 2 tsp ground cumin, 2 tsp ground coriander, 2 tsp paprika, 1/2-1 tsp chilli powder, 1 tsp garam masala, 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp sea salt and 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper. ( the garam masala and ginger were my additions...)

Remove from oven. Take out the onion and chop it finely. If you used a whole garlic head like I did, remove it and squeeze out the cooked garlic paste.

Mash the rest of the vegetables in the baking tray with a fork. Place in a pot along with the onion and garlic. Add 1.25 litres chicken or vegetable stock and bring to the boil.

If you want to add lentils, add 180g or 3/4 cup now and simmer for 15-20 mins. Add extra stock if needed but the soup should be chunky.

Serve with a dollop of yoghurt on top and a sprinkle of sumac (or a bit of lemon zest).

I made some pizza bread to accompany it.

And then made quince jam that night, but that's another story...

Orange and Date Cake

On Anzac Day I attempted another Orange Cake, this time with dates and walnuts and a syrup that you pour over the top when it comes out of the oven. It was from the Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts. I've never really made desserts or cakes. This is about my fourth cake ever, and I think this book will be a regular source of recipes. The Moosewood Books are excellent.

Sift together 3 cups plain flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp bicarb soda.

Cream 1 cup butter at room temp and 1 1/2 cups sugar. Add 3 eggs, one at a time as you continue to beat.

To the butter mixture, add dry ingredients, one-third at a time, alternated with 1 cup milk (they say buttermilk), half a cup at a time.

Then stir in the following - 2/3 cup finely chopped dates, 2/3 cup chopped walnuts (or pecane), 2 tbsp orange zest. 1 tsp pure vanilla extract.

Pour into a buttered and floured cake time and cook at 180 degrees Celsius for 35-45 mins.

While it is cooking, mix 1/2 cup fresh orange juice, 2 tbsp fresh orange zest, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract.

When you remove the cake from the oven, prick it all over with a toothpick or skewer and pour the syrup over the top.

Mine sunk in the middle a bit, but it was really yummy with some cream. Yvonne actually made some chocolate sauce to go with it too....

moroccan chicken with figs

moroccan-spiced chicken breast, butternut pumpkin (spiced with cumin, coriander, cinnamon and brown sugar), baked leek (overcooked), sauted zucchini, honey-lemon figs and a dollop of yoghurt. pumpkin and zucchini from our garden. one day the figs will be too.