Dumpling and Prawn Soup

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

This recipe is all about having a comforting bowl of steaming dumpling soup within thirty minutes. So given that it also about time and maximum flavour, picking fresh and good quality ingredients is crucial.

For this recipe I use an organic Blue Swimmer Crab stock from The Stock Merchant. You could use any stock you like, but I like the unique fresh taste that comes from using crab.

You can also add any flavour of dumpling. I use a simple pork dumpling because I don’t want the flavours to compete in the bowl, I want a harmonious dish that comforts and nourishes.

500ml crab stock
100ml water
16 pork dumplings
200g fresh prawns, peeled and veined
3 spring onions, chopped into 5 cm lengths
2cm fresh ginger, julienned
1 small bunch coriander, washed
1 red chilli, finely sliced
1 tbs soy sauce
Black pepper, freshly cracked

Place the crab stock, ginger, soy sauce, fresh cracked black pepper and half the amount of chopped spring onions in a large pot and bring it to a boil for 10 minutes.

Add the dumplings and prawns to the pot and bring the stock back to the boil. Simmer for a further 10 minutes or until the dumplings and the prawns are cooked.

Serve the soup in generous bowls and scatter the soup with the remaining spring onions, chilli and coriander.

Madeleines au citron

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

Recently, I was given an antique French madeleine baking tray. I wish I knew its story, where in France it came from and who cooked with it. It’s marked with years of culinary love and attention and has clearly made many batches over the years. This tray doesn’t sit in the cupboard with the other trays and tins, it sits in my bookcase of cookbooks with a rightful reign of authority.

Madeleines are light delicious buttery sponge cakes that are always baked in a madeleine tray to give them their synonymous scalloped edge and shell-like shape. More often than not they are citrus or vanilla flavoured.

My recipe is based on Ginette Mathiot’s ‘the Art of French Baking’. Ginette was the Nigella Lawson of French home cooking. Writing her first cookbook in the 1930s, she went on to publish volumes of cookbooks that are still used today. Her recipes are simple and accessible which sets her aside from many of her counterparts.

In my recipe, I add lemon glaze to the scalloped edge of the madeleines, but you can dust them with icing sugar if you prefer. You can also replace the lemon zest with orange, lime or you can use vanilla seeds.

125g butter
125g caster sugar
150g plain flour
2 eggs
1 lemon zest
pinch sea salt

Melt the butter and set it aside for 10 minutes to cool.

Whisk the eggs for at least 5 minutes until they triple in volume and are a very pale yellow colour. Continue to whisk on a high setting and add the castor sugar in a slow steady stream. Finally add the lemon zest.

Sift the flour over the egg and slowly drizzle the butter down the side of the bowl and add the sea salt. Fold the mixture through until the batter is smooth.

Cover the bowl with cling film and place it in the fridge for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Half to three quarters fill the madeleine tins with the batter.

Place the trays in the oven and cook for 8-10 minutes. The cakes should be evenly golden. Remove the madeleines from the oven and the tray and place them on a cake rack to cool.

For the glaze, which is optional, combine the juice of a lemon with about 4 tablespoons of icing sugar until it is smooth. Use a pastry brush to lightly brush the glaze over each scalloped edge.

Hot Cross Buns

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

I’ve written about Hot Cross Buns before, but since then, I’ve leant much more about bread making. So my recipe has changed dramatically following more practice.

The first major insight for me was to make the dough as wet as possible. I think it is Lorraine Pascales who suggests ‘the wetter the better’ and I for one am utterly convinced this is the best way to go. When you first make the dough, it seems to be a ruined sticky mess, but keep kneading for ten minutes as vigorous as possible. If you are not feeling warm from the exercise, you’re not kneading hard enough. It’s the next lesson that seems to cast a spell on the bread, transforming from something of a lost cause to a soft and smooth dough.

Leave the dough to sit on the bench or ten minutes, uncovered and untouched; as if you were distracted and had to attend to something else. When you go back to it, the flour will have absorbed the excess moisture and the dough will be smooth and elastic. Keep kneading for another ten minutes and you’re done. I picked up on this point from Dan Lepard in his book ‘The Art of the Handmade Loaf’ and have become a complete convert.

Buns
700g strong or ‘OO’ flour
180g dried mix fruit
200ml milk, tepid
100ml tepid water plus 100ml tepid water
80g chilled butter, grated*
80g brown sugar
10g sea salt
1 egg
18g dried yeast
1 tbs ground ginger
1 tbs cinnamon
2 tsp allspice
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tps allspice
zest of half orange (optional)

In a large mixing bowl, add all the dried ingredients, except the dried mix fruit. Be sure to place the salt to one side of the bowl and the yeast to the other. Add the egg, milk and 100ml of tepid water.

Mix together until all the ingredients are roughly combined. Turn the dough on to a clean bench top or work surface. Don’t flour the surface. Start to knead the dough and add a third of the final 100mls of water. Continue kneading and adding water until the dough is sticky and almost too difficult to knead. The dough should be wet

Continue kneading the dough. Don’t add any flour to the mixture. Keep kneading for at least 10 minutes. The dough will start to form a smooth consistency. Use a pastry scraper to bring the dough together if needed. Leave the dough to sit untouched for 10 minutes, after which recommence kneading and add the dried fruit. Continue to knead the dough for another 10 minutes. Take a small ball of dough and stretch it out to form transparent window. You should be able to see the shadow of your finger through the window. The more you can stretch the dough without tearing, the better. If the dough tears with the slightest tug or it does not stretch very far, keep kneading.

Wipe a clean bowl with a small amount of vegetable oil. Place the dough in the bowl, cover with cling film, and place in a warm spot to rise for at least two hours. Try to keep it out of breezy areas. The dough should easily double, if not triple in size.

Punch the air out of the dough and divide it in to twelve equal portions. Gently shape them into the familiar shape of a round bun. Place them on a lined baking tray, evenly spaced but not touching. Place the tray in a large plastic bag and return the tray to the same warm spot to prove for another hour. The buns should have risen into a small smooth bun shape.

Preheat the oven to 210°C and prepare the mixture for the white cross.

White Cross
80g plain flour
40g caster sugar
2 tbs water

Combine the ingredients into a smooth paste. Pour the paste into a zip lock lunch bag and cut the corner of the bag to for a small diameter hole, approximately 0.5 cm.

Using a sharp knife or blade, score the tops of the buns in the form a cross. Pipe the cross mixture across the top of the buns in quick singular moves.

Place the buns in the oven and bake for about 20-25 minutes. While the buns are backing, prepare the sticky glaze.

Sticky Cinnamon Glaze
1 egg beaten
4 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp water
1 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

Whisk the ingredients together to form a smooth even mixture. Set it aside, ready to brush on to the buns with they are cooked.

When the buns are ready, they should have the familiar toasty brown colour and should sound hollow when gently taped on the bottom. Remove them from the oven and place them on a cooling rack.

Brush the sticky cinnamon glaze across the tops of the buns and let them cool completely.

*I know grating butter seems the most absurd thing to do, but it works. It’s a great way out when a recipe calls for softened butter only to realise it is as hard as rock on the fridge. As soon as you take it from the fridge, use a cheese grater and grate the butter over the dried ingredients. This way you don’t have to melt it. If you add melted butter to the mixture it can destroy the yeast.

The Healthiest Chocolate Tart

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

The very thought of making a chocolate tart with avocados and without using dairy products would never have occurred to me until I was watching Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s TV series ‘River Cottage Veg Every Day. On it he showed Laura Coxeter’s Raw Chocolate Ganache Tart. I was absolutely transfixed by the recipe and had to try it to see what it tasted like.

The base is more chewy than crunchy but you could swap it for a biscuit base if that’s what you’re looking for. But make no mistake, this is a rich desert and a small piece will go a long way. Which is what makes this tart so interesting. Let me reassure you, this is decadence without the guilt. It is smooth, velvety and indulgent. And I for one did not think it was possible. This chocolate tart is most certainly worth a go and I promise it is an excellent talking point.

Making this tart is akin to kitchen wizardry. Watching the seemingly incongruous ingredients come together is so exciting.

This is my version made with Macadamia nuts and I have removed the coconut oil and coconut sugar that appears in the original.

250g macadamia nuts
300g dates, pitted*
2 tsp sea salt
4 ripe/soft avocados
200g pure cocoa powder
1 vanilla bean, seeds only
300g brown sugar
1 tsp sea salt

For the base, place the macadamia nuts, pitted dates and sea salt in to a food processor and blitz for several minutes until it forms a ball.

Press the mixture in to a tart or flan tin of your choice and place it in the freezer until later.

In the food processor, blitz together the avocados, cocoa, brown sugar, vanilla seeds and sea salt Make sure the mixture is even and smooth.

Pour the mixture on top of the macadamia and date base. Smooth the surface and return it to the freezer for a least 6 hours.

You made need a kitchen blow-torch to release it from the tin. Slice in to small wedges and serve.

* Occasionally there is an odd dated that will have it’s pip inside. Rather than let the blade of the food process find it, potentially ruining the mixture, I chopped all the dates in half for my only assurance. Sadly, no matter the brand, there is always one on the batch.

Café Baloo Grilled Aubergine

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

Food, scents and music are irrevocably linked and leave romantic etchings in our soul. One of my personal etchings, comes from a long time ago, from a café in the Russell St Melbourne called Café Baloo. I have such deep and very fond memories of ducking in there to eat the most astounding food I had ever tried. Thinking back, this Café had a remarkable impact on me. It was food like I had never had before and it had a sound that has stayed with me ever since.

The very second you stepped in the café, the smell, the sound and the spicy hum of the room, provocatively pulled you in. There was a glass cabinet filled with freshly cooked vegetables, grains and pulses. From the roof hung braids of garlic, chili and other flotsam and jetsam. Foreign movies were projected on to a small wall space with the sound turned down so that you could hear the jazz falling from the small speakers like smooth honey.

One evening, a good friend of mine, Judy, asked the wait staff what music was playing. And after another delicious dinner, we left to find the albums in the local music store. Even today, when I listen to Ronny Jordan, I am instantly transported to a belle epoch with a rousing hunger for their food once more. Sadly, those days have moved to the dusty but comforting halls of memory, but I still remember one of the vegetables served. It was a grilled eggplant served with the grated Parmesan cheese, the dried variety that is sprinkled from glass shakers.

2 aubergines
100g dried grated Parmesan Cheese
Sea Salt
Vegetable oil

Slice the aubergine into thin slices approximately half a centimeter wide. Lay each of the slices out on a board or plate and sprinkle them with sea salt. Leave them for about half an hour.

With some kitchen paper towel, pat the surface dry to remove any excess fluid drawn out by the salt. Brush each side with some vegetable oil.

Heat a grill until it is white hot. Cook each side of the aubergine until it is well caramelised and soft.

Remove them from the heat and place them on a serving plate. Sprinkle with generous amounts of Parmesan Cheese and serve. Perfect with other anti-pesto food

San Chow Bow

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

Many years ago a friend came for dinner and bought me a terracotta pot filled with Vietnamese Mint. At the time I’d never heard of this type of mint, let alone tasted it. But when I did taste it, it was instant love and I have never been without it since. It’s not as versatile as other more traditional herbs such as parley and basil, but when it’s time to use it, it brings the dish alive. I love its subtle aromatic warmth and its very obvious Asian flavour.

The thing I love most about this dish is the fresh, crisp flavours of the lime, ginger, coriander and my favourite herb, Vietnamese mint. The green aromatics are not just garnish strewn across the top; they are key ingredients that add herbaceous depth to the original dish.

Traditionally, San Choy Bow is served in lettuce cups, and there is no reason why you could not do the same. But my version is served more as a salad. There are some that think iceberg lettuce should only be served to rabbits and on most occasions I would agree. But with all rules, there are exceptions, and here is one.

500g chicken mince
½ iceberg lettuce
2 large spring onions, finely sliced
1 red capsicum, finely diced
80g unsalted cashews
1 red chili, deseeded and finely diced
1 tbs ginger, freshly grated
1 garlic clove, freshly grated
1 lime, zest and juice
1 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs dark soy sauce
1 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs chicken stock
1 tsp cornflour
1 tsp cracked black pepper
1 tbs rice bran or peanut oil
1 small bunch of fresh coriander, washed and dried
1 small bunch of fresh Vietnamese mint, washed and dried.

Combine the lime juice, zest, garlic, ginger, oyster sauce, soy sauce, chicken stock, brown sugar and cornflour in a small bowl. Whisk until all the ingredients are well combined and smooth. Set it aside.

Add the oil and peanuts to a cold wok and place it on a medium heat. Let the cashews toast as the oil comes to heat. Remove them from the wok and set them aside.

Heat a wok or large pan on a high heat. Add the oil, followed by the red capsicum, chili and spring onions. When they are soft, add the chicken mince and toss.

When the chicken is cooked add the sauce and mix through. Remove it from the heat immediately. Continue to mix the sauce to ensure all ingredients are evenly combined.

Place a generous layer of lettuce on each plate followed by a good amount of the chicken mixture. Finally scatter a good handful of coriander and Vietnamese mint.

Shortbread

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

There really is nothing better than homemade shortbread and it’s astonishingly better than store-bought, no matter the brand. As much as I love a chocolate biscuit, a piece of crumbly buttery shortbread wins hands-down each time. Perhaps it’s my love of butter.

It is surprisingly easy and fast to make. I promise you can have it from pantry to a cooling rack in 30 minutes and there is not a lot to it. Given there are only a few ingredients; it does pay to buy good quality butter.

The sprinkling of caster sugar on top of the shortbread is where you can add flavour. I use a homemade vanilla sugar but you can use any flavoured sugar, such as cinnamon or lavender. It’s remarkably easy to make your own vanilla sugar. I have a large jar of caster sugar with a few vanilla beans spiked through and left to infuse. I top the jar up with more sugar when it starts to deplete and occasionally add another vanilla bean. I don’t remove the previous beans, instead I leave them to continue adding the depth to the sugar.

400g plain flour
275g unsalted or salt reduced butter, chilled and diced into cubes
¼ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. sea salt
2 tbsp. caster sugar, plain or flavour infused

Line a 30cm x 20cm baking tray with grease proof or baking paper. Preheat the over to 180°C

Blitz the plain flour, butter, baking powder and sea salt until you have course breadcrumb consistency. Tip the crumbs into the prepared baking tin and press down into the edges and corners. Use a small rolling pin or an even edged glass jar to roll across the top to ensure a flat, even surface and to ensure the crumb is pressed down firm.

Use a sharp knife to very lightly score the surface into even shaped pieces, such as 2cm by 5cm fingers. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until it there is a very light golden colour.

Remove the tray from the oven. While it is still hot, use a sharp knife to cut along the scores made earlier. Sprinkle with the caster sugar and leave the shortbread to cool completely in the tray.

When it has cooled completely, remove the shortbread from the tray. Be gentle when removing it, because it will be brittle and crumbly, just the way good shortbread should be.

Squid and Prawn Linguine with Lime and Basil

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

The lightness in this dish comes from the Asian inspired flavours and the very obvious lack of a thick tomato or creamy sauce. The squid and prawns are cooked quickly so that the squid is meltingly tender but it is the lime that is the star of the dish. I wring the lime out so that each and every last drop makes it in to the dish. It would not even be too much to add the zest as well.

The squid should hit a hot pan and be off the heat in one minute. Any longer, and it will be like a rubber tyre. You could certainly add unshelled prawns to this dish for a dramatic touch, but I feel doing so can diminish the squid and throw the dish out of scale. And the whole point of pasta is comfort. I don’t want to be ripping through prawns when a bowl of comfort is served.

200g fresh or dried linguine pasta
200g fresh squid, scored and sliced into 2-3cm squares
100g fresh raw (uncooked) prawns
1 lime, juice (the zest is optional), plus 1 extra for wedges to serve
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 red chili, deseeded and finely chopped
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tbsp. olive oil
Sea salt
Black pepper, cracked
1 small bunch of fresh basil leaves, roughly torn
2 tbsp. pasta water (reserved from the cooking)

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and when it is rolling, add the pasta. While the pasta is cooking, prepare your ingredients and have them ready to go.

In the final few minutes of the pasta cooking, place a large pan on the heat. Toss the squid pieces in vegetable oil and add the garlic and chili. Leave them to sizzle for 30 seconds then turn them over and cook for another 30 seconds. Remove the squid from the pan and set the pieces aside on a plate. Add the prawns to the pan and cook them until they are the familiar coral pink. At this point, the pasta should be cooked. Remove the pasta and the pan with the cooked prawns from the heat.

Reserve 2 tbsp. of the pasta water. Drain the remaining water from the pasta. Add the pasta to the pan with the prawns. Add the squid and half the torn basil. Don’t place the pan back on the heat. The heat from the pan, pasta and water will be enough to keep the momentum going. If you return the pan to the heat, you’ll scramble the egg yolk

Add the egg yolks and reserved pasta water and sea salt to season. Work quickly to toss the pasta so that the egg does not scramble. Add the lime juice (and the zest) and continue to toss the pasta

Serve the pasta with the remainder of the torn basil scattered across the top. Drizzle the olive oil across the top.

Season with liberal amounts of cracked black pepper and a wedge of lime.

Warm Roasted Vegetables

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

As a child, I don’t recall being forced to eat vegetables, although there was very little point in protesting at the time. Oddly though, I do love vegetables as much as I love any meat. Roasting vegetables are one of my favourite ways of serving and eating them.

There is nothing difficult about this dish at all; it is quite literally a case of chop, roast and serve. You can prepare this dish well ahead of time and serve it warm or you can serve it hot, straight from the oven. And there are no rules, you can pick and mix the vegetables to suit your taste. Just keep in mind the texture of the vegetable and the time in the oven.

I like to roast the vegies with plenty of garlic and rosemary. I think the woody aroma of the rosemary is the perfect accompaniment but other woody herbs such as thyme work equally as well. I also leave the skin on the vegetables, particularly pumpkin. Most people remove the skin, but you can cook and eat it despite popular thinking. There is plenty of flavour and texture in the skin and it helps to keep the structure of the pieces.

1 butternut pumpkin
1 gold sweet potato
1 purple sweet potato
4 parsnips
4 carrots
1 large eggplant (aubergine)
4 onions
1 garlic bulb
10 sprigs or stems of fresh rosemary
Cracked black pepper
Sea salt
Vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Roughly chop all the vegetables into the same size and toss them into a large baking tray.

Season the vegetables with generous amounts of pepper and salt. Add a good glug of vegetable oil and add the rosemary. Toss the vegetables to make sure they are all coated.

Turn the vegetables every half hour to ensure they cook evenly.

Roast the vegetables for about an hour and a half until they are soft and caramelised.

Serve with a good handful of freshly torn parsley.

Pan Roasted Chicken Breasts with Preserved Lemon Sauce

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Monsieur Wag

Cooking chicken breasts can be fraught with dry danger. There is a very fine line between moist and tender, and dry and tough. In other recipes, I use chicken thighs because the brown meat is always moist and it has a much richer taste. But, when I do cook the breast meat, I opt for searing heat on the stove and then into the oven for the bulk of the cooking. This way always gives me a moist and tender fillet.

I begin by letting the pan heat up to searing hot and I never add oil to the pan. I massage a very small amount of oil into the flesh and leave it at that. Even though chicken breasts are very lean, there is a small layer of fat just under the skin, which is drawn from the flesh during the cooking. I would recommend avoiding skinless breasts, there is a discernable difference.

I use vermouth in this sauce because I love the way it complements the chicken and the lemon. But you can use a dry white wine if you have it a hand. And the best thing about making the sauce it that it forces you to let the chicken rest for a good while. Letting the meat rest is crucial for a moist tender dish. You can of course omit the sauce or change it completely to suit your tastes.

2 Chicken fillets with skin on, and brought to room temperature for ½ hour
1 quarter segment of preserved lemon, very finely diced
1 tbs dried thyme
1 spring onion (scallions), sliced very finely
50-60mls extra-dry vermouth
30g butter
Sea salt
Black pepper
Vegetable oil

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C

Rub the chicken fillets with a very small amount of vegetable oil, and season with sea salt, freshly cracked black pepper and the dried thyme.

Place an ovenproof pan on high heat, and allow it to reach smoking hot. Place the chicken fillets on the hot pan with skin side down. Add the preserved lemon and leave the fillets to sear without turning them. When the skin is a nutty golden brown, turn the fillets over and place the pan in the hot oven. Set the timer for 7 minutes.

After the first seven minutes, turn the chicken fillets over, at which point the skin side should be face down and continue to roast in the oven for further 7 minutes.

Prepare a plate with aluminum foil.

Remove the chicken from the pan and place them directly on the foil and wrap them tightly. Leave them to rest for a final 7 minutes.

Place the pan on a medium heat and deglaze the pan with the vermouth (or dry white wine). Add the spring onions and continue to stir. When the vermouth has reduced by half, add the butter and reduce the heat. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve the chicken fillets and spoon the sauce over the top. Serve with vegetables or salad.

MONSIEUR WAG

Home food from my kitchen

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