admin - Craig Cooks

Blue Cheese

October 2, 2015 by admin 1 Comment

So my cheese making is well and truly under-whey… (sorry, it had to be said.) Just made my fourth batch of feta, and experimenting with different brands of milk. We’re lucky to have four dairies in our region that sell non-homogenised milk.

I’ve also made one batch of camembert which went fairly well. Here is my first attempt at blue cheese. The cultures are from Mad Millie but we buy them in Hahndorf at the Udder Delights Cheeses Shop, with whom I did my cheese-making session back in February. But I also have supplies from GreenLiving Australia….

Pears with Rosemary-Honey Ice Cream

August 1, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Simple and worth repeating.

Poached Pears
Beuree Bosc pears poached whole in 1 litre of water and 750g sugar, one split vanilla bean and one cinnamon stick.

Rosemary and Honey Ice Cream
Recipe at Epicurious. Excellent.

Plus
Glace ginger slices from a packet (Buderim of course)
Fresh ginger sliced, caramelised in a pan with sugar and Sevenhill tokay
Tokay sugar with some extra water to make a syrup
Toasted walnuts
Rosemary sprigs

Passionfruit Semifreddo with Blueberries

July 28, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

This dessert is a take on a dish by Ashleigh Bareham on Masterchef 2015. The recipe was online but seems to have been taken down, so I’m glad I saved a copy. Here’s my version.

Passionfruit Semi-freddo
Scoop the pulp from 4 passionfruit and strain the pulp. Keep the liquid.
Whip 250ml cream to soft peaks.
Whisk together 110g caster sugar, 2 eggs plus an egg yolk.
Place in a bowl over a pan of simmering water and whisk until the mixture thickens and doubles in size. (I don’t think I’ve managed to achieve this yet…)
Gently fold the mixture into the cream with the passionfruit juice. Pour into moulds and freeze.

Ashleigh made a chocolate mousse with 110g dark chocolate and 3 e.g. whites. I made a chocolate ganache. It was a bit cold when I tried to serve it so it looks lumpy.

Candied Chilli
Boil 110g sugar and 125ml water. Add i red chilli, finely sliced and cook for 2 minutes. Drain.

I served mine with a disc of grated chocolate (next time I’d use hazelnuts with something), blueberry syrup, fresh passionfruit and blueberries, and pieces of pear caramelised with some sugar and tokay.

Quite tasty. Very sweet. If I could just work out the whisking I’d be happy.

Slow-Cooked BBQ Pork

June 9, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Recently I cooked Ray Lampe’s “Competition-style Pork Butt” from his book “Slow Fire“. I have several BBQ books and this is the first time that I’ve cooked from this one. Ray does well to explain the basics, but also has some great-sounding recipes such a “smoked maple-brined pork chops”. The book has a range of dry spice rub and BBQ sauce recipes.

Ray’s recipe is for an 8 lb pork butt. I had a pork shoulder which was slightly under 2 kilos. (insert jokes here…)

The recipe starts with injecting the pork with a marinade. Thankfully I have a syringe that I bought in the US few years ago. Here is Ray’s recipe. Cook up the ingredients for 5 minutes, stirring often.

1 cup apple juice
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup salt
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp soy saue
2 tbsp hot sauce
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper…