everyday experiments with food
This is a tasty and simple quiche.
The recipe is from Delicious magazine and is here.
I made Maggie Beer’s Sour Cream Pastry instead (with added thyme leaves).
We had been given the eggs from a friend so they were local and fresh.
It’s great so try it.
[Shortly after taking the photo, the quiche slid off the wooden tray onto the floor! Thankfully it was still on the metal pie base and landed face up! The pastry was a bit of a mess, but otherwise fine.]
Here’s my middle eastern chicken with flatbread. I’m on the hunt for good but simple flatbread recipes, and this recipe from Gourmet Traveller did the trick. I did however add twice as much water, and then had to add more flour and yoghurt to compensate! Nevertheless, I’m standing by the recipe!
The chicken recipe came from The Lebanese Kitchen by Salma Hage and is for Chicken Sharwama.
Cut chicken breast into strips and soak overnight in a mixture of 3 tbsp malt vinegar, juice of 1/2 lemon (maybe 2 tsp?) and 3 tbsp water.
The next day toss it in Lebanese seven spice seasoning, add some salt and pepper. You can buy the seasoning or make it yourself. Hage’s spice mix is as follows:
5 tbsp ground allspice
3 1/2 tbsp pepper
3 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
5 tbsp ground cloves
4tbsp ground nutmeg
4 tbsp ground fenugreek (coriander is an alternative)
4 tbsp ground ginger
The recipe says to bake the chicken strips at 200C for 30 minutes. I thought that this would dry them out and it did – I pulled them out of the oven early. Next time I’d just sear them in a pan.
The chicken is served on some baked veg with home-made baba ganoush and saffron-cumin rice cooked in chicken stock.
Pine nuts, pomegranate seeds, some chard from our garden, a slice of lemon and yoghurt. A great combination.
I have a goal of becoming a bun gun. That’s right, a dumpling king. It’s going to take years of practice so I might as well get started. Neil Perry’s Spice Temple is my guide. It has a great array of different kinds of dumplings with recipes for dough and filling. The other night I made these northern-style buns.
The filling is made from pork belly braised in a kind of master stock and then shredded and mixed with reduced cooking sauced, thickened with potato starch. The recipe said to simmer for 20 mins but mine took closer to 90 mins to become soft.
But this post is all about the bun itself. The recipe requires Hong Kong flour. I had no idea what this was, and after some research, found out that it is low in protein, lower even that 00 flour, but that would be a good substitute. However in the baking section of your supermarket, you will hopefully find this Lighthouse brand flour for Cake, Sponge and Steamed Bun! Yes! I’m sure that there is actual Hong Kong flour is Asian supermarkets, but this will do for now. You’ll note that it is self-raising flour.
Making the buns
The recipe is as follows and supposedly makes enough for 30 buns. I made half the quantity as there are only two of us.
500g or 3 1/2 cups of flour
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp dried yeast
300ml warm water
Sift flour and sugar into a bowl.
Dissolve yeast in water. Stir into the flour and mix together. Knead on the bench for 10 minutes (or put it into the bread machine as I did.)
Wrap in cling film and rest for 10 minutes.
Punch down the dough and knead for another five minutes.
The recipe says to divide into golf-sized balls. I made 16 that were smaller than golf balls. How big is a golf ball these days anyway?
Roll out each ball to 10cm diameter. The recipe said to fill with 2 tablespoons of filling, but my amount was more like 2 heaped teaspoons.
I’ve not had lessons in how to make these things. I should look on Youtube. Anyway I pull up the edges and then try to crimp/fold around the diameter and then at the end twist the top together. They’re not perfect but they’re OK. Leave them for 5 minutes to rise a bit….
Today should be the Australian Rules Football Grand Final – it is always the last Saturday in September. Thanks to COVID-19 and a late start to a shortened competition, the Final is going to be a month late.
Nevertheless, why not still make Grand Final Sausage Rolls. Eat some today and freeze some for next month! It’s a Win-win (unlike the actual game)!
Here’s the recipe that I made up today. It’s pretty good.
750g pork mince
2 eshallots (or 1/2 onion) diced finely and sauteed
1 grated carrot
4 tsp garlic
1 tbsp + 1 tsp freshly, coarsely ground fennel seeds (measure after you grind them)
1 tbsp cracked black pepper
1 tbsp sea salt
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 – 1 cup fresh bread crumbled
4 sheets puff pastry
1 egg for brushing
Sesame seeds