Crêpes

I find making these things finicky and annoying but it is time to get over it. This is the recipe my wife recounts from memory and I write it down here so I won't forget. Apparently it is based on Julia Childs' recipe. As follows:

Ingredients:

• I cup plain flour


• pinch of salt


• 3 eggs


• 2/3 cup milk


• 2/3 cup water


• 1 tablespoon butter

Method:

1. In a large mixing bowl, add the flour and salt.


2. Crack in the three eggs.


3. Whisk the flour and eggs while adding the milk and then water. Whisk so as to prevent lumps forming in the batter.


4. Add the butter and whisk some more.


5. Place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.


6. Cook on a crêpe pan.


7. Mess it up 50 times and hardly ever get it right. At least that's how I do it!

Brioche

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="390"] I can't believe I made it myself...[/caption]

My most favourite breakfast is brioche with some  good quality butter and jam, with a good, strong black coffee. After much moaning and not-wanting-to-even-try-I-am-so-tired-why-me, my wife finally convinced me to make brioche myself (she has made it successfully many times), using our bread machine to mix the dough. The trouble with doing this at home with high-quality ingredients is that everything we make at home now is so much better than anything available locally, so going out is often a major disappointment. Not only do we get "fatitude" from rude service people, but the food is expensive and often not very good. Now the only "fatitude" I'll be getting is from all the butter in my home-made brioche :)

Ingredients:

• 260ml milk


• 2 eggs


• 180g butter (melted)


• 600g unbleached white bread flour


• 1 1/2 tsp salt


• 80g caster sugar


• 2 1/2 tsp easy-blend dried yeast

Method:

1. Mix ingredients together into a soft, gooey dough.


2. Leave to rise for 1 1/12 hours in bowl.


3. Transfer to refrigerator overnight to continue rising (minimum 7 hours).


4. Take out dough in the morning and knead slightly with flour.


5. Divide roughly into 9 parts and form into balls using the palms of your hands.


6. Place in a round, spring-form cake tin with eight balls around the outside and one in the middle.


7. Cover loosely with cling wrap and place a tea towel over the top and leave to rise for 3 hours.


8. Place in preheated oven for 10 minutes at 205 degrees Celsius.


9. Turn oven down to 190 degrees Celsius and bake for a further twenty minutes. It's a good idea to check with a bamboo skewer after the first ten minutes.


10. Let cool then eat!!

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="390"] Oh brioche I love thee...[/caption]

Scones Recipe

I found this laying about and thought I better add it. Anyway, this seems to work just fine each time!

Ingredients:

• 1 egg


• 4 tbps vegetable oil


• 2 cups milk


• 4 cups self-raising flour


• 1 tsp salt


• 1 tbsp sugar

Method:

1. Beat egg, oil and milk.


2. Add flour, sugar and salt.


3. Then the usual. I use a large champagne glass to cut them out into a narrow but tall scone.


4. A buttered and floured tray in a 230 degrees oven for about 10-12 minutes, egg glaze if you will...

Kangaroo or Goat Bourguignon

I've been experimenting with kangaroo (and today goat) to create an alternative to bœuf bourguignon. This is how I've been making it:

Ingredients:

• 500g kangaroo rump or diced goat


• Olive oil as required


• 1 stick celery (diced)


• 2 carrots (1 diced, the other sliced into rounds)


• About 10 eschalots (small shallot onions)


• About 6 cloves of garlic, chop half, just crush the others


• About 3 birds-eye chillies


• Fresh garden herbs (I used rosemary, oregano, sage and thyme today)


• 2 pontiac potatoes (more if you want to serve with mashed potatoes - I recently tried mashed yams successfully) chopped to bite size


• About 1 cup plain flour, slat and pepper and chilli (today I used smoked pimento powder with goat)


• About 250g button mushrooms


• About 500ml of a good red wine (today I used Sandalfords Shiraz 2011)


• Optional: chopped Swedes, turnips, or any other of your favourite root vegetables...

Method:

1. Prepare vegetables beforehand.


2. Add flour mix to a bowl and coat the meat generously in the flour mix.


3. On a medium heat, add a dash of olive oil to the pot then brown the meat in batches (resting the browned pieces in the upturned lid of the pot works best) so that the individual pieces are not touching. Turn the meat with tongs, and occasionally scrape the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon to prevent the flour from sticking and burning Leave aside once finished.


4. Add the eschalots then deglaze the pot with a splash of red wine. Add the celery, diced carrot, garlic, chillies and herbs, then a splash of water. Cook for about ten minutes or until the vegetables start to soften.


5. Return the browned meat to the pot, add the remaining vegetables (except the mushrooms).


6. Add about 500ml of the wine and a good dash of salt and pepper.


7. Bring to the boil, then cook for about 40 minutes on low heat - I use a diffuser. Scrape the bottom occasionally to prevent burning.


8. Add the mushrooms, salt and pepper to taste, then cook for a further 20 minutes on low heat.


9. Check again for flavour (salt and pepper).


10. Serve in a bowl with a spoon and some crusty bread as a side, or add mashed potatoes to the bowl before adding the stew.

Ma3moul for Eid al-Adha

This was our first attempt at making Ma3moul for Eid al-Adha. We borrowed from this recipe [click here].

We only used the date filling on this occasion. We used a wooden mould for the shape and the pattern (pictured).

It is difficult to get the size right - the thinner biscuits tended to have too little filling. Further, the dough needs to be quite dry yet strong enough to seal in the filling. We were certainly not disappointed, but next time we might try this recipe and see how it works out [click here].

Chicken & Okra

This is my wife's recipe for a quick, easy, healthy meal:

Ingredients:

• 1kg chicken thigh fillets (skinless)


• 2 onions (feathered)


• 6 cloves garlic (bruised & roughly chopped)


• 2 tins canned Roma tomatoes


• 3 x 313g packets frozen baby okra


• a dash of crushed chilli


• salt & pepper to taste


• olive oil as required

Method:

1. In a large pot, fry onions and garlic until translucent


2. Add chicken and brown. Add chilli


3. Add tomatoes and salt & pepper


4. Add okra and allow to melt down into pot


5. Cook for about 20 minutes and serve with rice

Garlic, Chilli & Lime Dressing

I was craving garlic so much that I thought I'd knock up some mackerel fillets with an ensemble of vegetables, but I wanted to add some garlic to the mix. We happened to have a whole stack of limes, so after searching the Net for options, I put together the following mix and it seemed to work well as a dressing for the veges:

• 5 tablespoons of fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons of raw sugar
• Juice from three limes
• 1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons of white wine
• 7 tablespoons of water
• 1 red chilli chopped rough
• 5 garlic cloves bruised and then chopped rough

I put this all in a 500ml Pyrex measuring jug and used the whizzie stick on super-low speed to whiz it all up, and then let people spoon it over their veges. It was so good I'll do it again!