Roasted Brussel Sprouts

I've been trying for a month now to get this post up! It's been rather difficult as most of my daytime activities since July 2nd have been seen through a sleep-deprived haze.

"Why?" I hear you ask.

It is because the French decided to have a big ole bike race in the middle of the night. You'd think they could have the decency to have it at normal hours, but no, it's on live in the middle of the night here down unda.

Now that it has been 5 days since the end and I've caught up on a month's worth of sleep, I can now devote time to this here food bloggie thingy.

BTW, Cadel Evans won the Tour de France. Just in case you didn't know.

Back to brussel sprouts.

Brussel sprouts are in season down here now so I've been eating lots of them. I used to just steam them, butter em up, and then eat them. Someone suggested that I bake em with olive oil and garlic. Hey, that works for me! Thanks Arvay!

They were very good, I quite like them that way. I then tried baking them with some other veggies at the same time and found that onions make a nice accompaniment.

I also used them in a couple of stir fries; again success!

But why not combine the two, thought I? Guess what? It WORKED!

ROASTED BRUSSEL SPROUTS

What you need for one serving as a side dish:

4 raw brussel sprouts, halved
1 thick slab of raw onion
2 cloves garlic (I used some that I stored in olive oil), thick sliced
olive oil
sea salt
splash of white wine
freshly grated parmesan
A fry pan that is oven safe (I recommend cast iron)

What you do:

Drizzle a bit of olive oil in your pan, heat it up, then add the brussel sprouts, cut side down. It should look something like this:

No, these aren't giant brussel sprouts, it's just a small cast iron pan!



When the flat side has browned, turn 'em over and add the onion and garlic. Like this, see?




Go ahead and give it a sprinkle of sea salt now. Or later, no worries either way.

Once the onions are just starting to cook



add a splash of white wine --around half a glass-- to deglaze the fry pan. Simmer till the wine cooks down.

Once the wine cooks down put the pan in a medium oven and cook till the garlic is just soft. This should only take 12 to 15 mins. When you take the pan out of the oven it should look something similar to this:




After plating, grate some high quality Parmesan over the top and enjoy!

Here it is as a side dish to Twice-Baked Potatoes:




And here is the obligatory closeup:




Don't forget that brussel sprouts are very healthy! In fact this entire side dish is just oozing with healthy goodness!

The Perfect Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Or sammy. Or sarnie. Or buttie. Or pieces. They all mean SANDWICH!

I don't think (yes, I'm sure you all know that already) that I've ever posted a sandwich recipe before as they always seemed rather intuitive to mean. I also didn't think anyone would be interested in a sandwich recipe.

Boy was I wrong. I sorta kinda let it slip (accidently of course) that I make a really good grilled cheese sandwich. So I now feel honour-bound to post my Perfect Grilled Cheese Sandwich recipe complete with the high quality pictures you've come to expect from me.

This is my basic, standard grilled cheese. I also make premium ones with various additions which I'll put on the end of the post, no worries.

The most important thing for making a grilled cheese sandwich is to have a pan or griddle that heats evenly and holds it's heat for a while. I recommend cast iron. Something like this:




If you don't have cast iron, then a thick bottomed stainless steel one will do, no worries. I don't recommend anything thin, but if you are used to that and can control the temp then it should work.

Some folks say white bread only for grilled cheese. I'm not one of them. I prefer wholemeal. I don't use multigrained bread for my grilled cheese sarnies as I don't like the taste of the multigrain bread to interfere with the toasty, gooey, cheesy goodness.

The basics needed for The Perfect Grilled Cheese Sandwich

2 slices of bread, white or wholemeal
2-3 tbsp of butter
4 slices of REAL cheddar cheese

The first thing you need to do is just slightly melt the butter. Just enough to soften it, but not enough to separate the butter. Have a look at the melted butter up at the top of this picture and you'll see what I mean:

Don't worry if your cheddar isn't white, but please don't use any of the "processed" stuff.

Spread the melted butter over one side of each bread slice. Make sure you get all the way to the crust as that is VERY important, trust me. What I do is spoon on a bit of the butter, then spread it around with the back of the spoon. Remember, you only want the butter to be *just* melted so it doesn't seep through the entire slice.




You should have put your frypan on the heat before you spread the butter, that way it should be just about ready by now. A low heat is to be used as you don't want the bread to burn before the cheese is melted. I've been known to turn the heat off completely for a few minutes and let the residual heat from the pan continue to toast the bread and melt the cheese.

Place one slice butter side down on your pan and cover EVENLY with the cheese. A common mistake is to have too much cheese in the middle. If you do that the edges will be dripping out onto the pan before the middle is melted. Just break up the pieces to whatever shape is needed to cover the bread evenly.

Now immediately place the other slice of bread on top, butter side facing up of course.

After about 2 minutes it'll be ready for it's first flip. The first flip is the only one that's hard as the cheese hasn't melted into the "top" slice to hold things together yet. I just lightly place my fingertips on the top slice as I quickly flip the sandwich.

If the fry pan is heating up too quickly at this point you can turn the heat way down or even off. This is the point I turn the heat off for 3 to 4 minutes and let the heat from the cast iron frypan take over. This lets the cheese melt evenly while not burning either slice of bread.

Don't worry if you need to turn the sandwich a couple more times in order to get both slices of bread evenly toasted. Besides, when the bread is evenly toasted it also means the cheese is melted through if you use a low heat.

The finished product should look like this:




And if you are sharing the sandwich with someone and you slice it, you'll notice the cheese is melted evenly throughout.




That's my basic Perfect Grilled Cheese Sandwich.

There are other things you can do. Some folks like to press the sandwich together. In fact, sandwich presses are very popular down here in Oz. Personally though, I don't like them pressed. But if you do want to press them you can, just don't let me catch you doing it with mine!

Additions:
salt
thin-sliced onion
minced garlic
thin-sliced tomato
shaved ham
various types of salami type meats
any type of pickled veggie

Salt: Some people sprinkle some salt on the buttered side of each bread slice before or after cooking. I've been know to do this, but mostly not.

Thin-sliced onion: And I do mean THIN! I don't like thick slabs of onion on the sandwich as it can (and will) slide apart as you eat it. Put the onion down before the cheese, that way the cheese will melt the onion onto the base slice so it doesn't slide apart as you flip it.

Minced garlic: You can spread it on the buttered side so the garlic toasts along with the bread, or on the inside if you really love that garlicky flavour!

Thin-sliced tomato: Again, very thin slices so the sandwich doesn't slide apart as you eat it. Use same as the onions.

Shaved ham: Same thing as the onion or the tomato.

Salami type meats. Cured meats are much denser than shaved ham so after slicing them I'll slice each slice into strips. That way when you bite into the sandwich you won't pull out a whole wedge of salami at once.

Pickled veggies. Ah yes. Pickled veggies. Obviously pickled cucumber leaps to mind, but pickled cabbage or pickled carrots go quite well. Pickled peppers too! Whatever pickled veg you choose to use, make sure it is drained well! Otherwise the pickle juices will seep into the bread and it won't be nice a crispy, toasty, grilled-like, crunchy texture. It'll be soggy instead and I don't like that --and neither will you I'd imagine.

I will get the seitan recipes up! I promise! I'm doing many different things with it so it'll be like 3 or 4 posts in one, lucky you!

Braided Bread Rolls

I'm sure many of you have been wondering why I haven't been posting food stuff lately. Well, I have a very good reason! I've been busy. Working on a project. What kind of project? I'll tell ya at the end of this post. Or you can just scroll to the end but you'll miss all the cool pics.

Braided Bread Rolls. These are very easy to make, look beautiful and taste even better. Plus they'll impress the heck out of whoever you are cooking for!

First you need to make a simple bread dough. Not difficult!

4 cups baker's flour
400 ml water (just over 1 2/3 cups)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp yeast
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil

Mix the dry stuff. Then add the wet stuff. Mix together, then knead in a bowl or lightly floured surface till it is dough.

Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the dough and let it rise in a warm spot for an hour. Punch the dough down, knead for a minute.

Ta-da. Simple bread dough. Your bowl should now look something like this:



Separate the dough into 9 somewhat, sorta, kinda-like evenly sized pieces. Something like this:




Now roll out each piece into a strand around 16" long. You'll end up with 9 16" long strands of dough. Here's what they look like. Oh, these are the same length, it's just the perspective distortion that makes the far ones seem shorter.




Here's where you get to braid them! Do 3 at a time. Lay out 3 strands parallel to each other and start by laying an outer strand over the middle, then the other other strand over the new middle. Like this, see:

If you aren't sure on how to braid just ask your mother, wife, sister, girlfriend, daughter, gay neighbor, etc. It really is easy to do. My wife showed me how.

Don't worry about finishing the end nicely, no need to. You should now have 3 bread braids and each one should look something like this.




You'll need a baking dish. I used one that's a foot square. Worked perfect. Olive oil the bottom and sides of the dish. Now lay each braid into the dish. As you stuff them in you'll understand why you didn't need to finish off the braid. Here is what you should have.


I also drizzled a bit of olive oil along the outer edges of the bread. Put it into a COLD oven, turn heat to around 180 C or 360 F. You want the oven to be cold so that the bread rises in the dish as the oven heats up.

Bake for 40 minutes or so. Or until it looks like this.




Let it cool in the dish for a few minutes. Put a plate on top, flip over, then flip back over onto a cooling rack. Ta-Da! Done and DONE!




I made it as a pull-apart for dunking in soup, everyone loved it. You can also separate it along the two central seams and the slice up each braid for rolls.

And it looks as good as it tastes!








Now then, since you've made it this far, I'll tell you why I've been busy. I'm working on a series of cookbooks. Yes, you read that right. The bloke who has no official culinary training nor any official writing training (except for the odd research paper in kolledge) is writing a SERIES of cookbooks.

Needless to say, this project has strained my last few remaining brain cells to the point where food blogging was neglected. But no more!

Next post will be how to make a meat subsitute out of plain ole flour so stay tuned mates.

Dave's Decadent Death By Chocolate Cake

So what makes this cake so special? I mean BESIDES the fact that I made it? Heck, it even uses a standard off-the-shelf cake mix as the Base! What make this special is the add-ons and various wonderful chocolaty "things" you do to this cake.

Like adding a bunch of chocolate drops to the chocolate fudge cake batter before baking. *drool*

There will be pictures, no worries. This is not one of my most photogenic creations, but it ranks waaaaaaaay up there on the taste scale! And the chocolate scale.

What you need:

One box of Betty Crocker Super Moist Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix
1/2 cup of chocolate melts -see the first picture

1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup raw sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 bar (375 grams or 12 oz) dark cooking chocolate
1 tbsp butter
1/3 cup of cream

You'll also need some sort of oven-like heating device, I'd suggest using an actual oven. Don't forget a cooling rack, and a LONG bread knife.


What you do:

Firstly, you'll want to make the cake mix according to the directions, pour it into a circular baking dish, but DON'T put it in the oven yet. This is the EXACT kind of cake mix you want:




Do you see those chocolate drops to the left in the above picture? You do? Good! Now take about 20 or 30 or them and carefully put them into the batter you've already poured into the baking dish. You want to insert them vertically so they don't float on the top. What happens when the cake is baking the melts don't fully "diffuse" through the cake so that when the cake cools you have a whole bunch of "nuggets" of chocolate throughout the cake!

When the cake is done --ALWAYS test it with a skewer, NEVER trust the time on the directions-- take it out and put it on the cooling rack. Let it cool for hours. You don't want any heat left in it at all.

Once it is completely cooled off, you want to slice the cake in half horizontally. Make sure you use a long, serated bread knife and don't be in a hurry. Remember, you'll encounter pockets of chocolate from the drops you put in the mix.




Now you want to make the chocolate cream! Add the 1 cup heavy whipping cream,1/4 cup raw sugar,1/3 cup cocoa powder to a mixing bowl and whip it up with you electric beaters till it's stiff.




Put 1/3 to 1/2 of the stiff, chocolate cream betwixt the cake layers thusly:

I'm sure you can figure out the process yourselves.

Oh, remember that bit of "icing" that came with the cake mix? Slather it around the sides of the cake, there will not be enough for more than that.

Next you want to slather on the rest of the cream around the top edge of the cake. Don't worry if it doesn't look all "showy" as all you really want is a lip so the sauce (next step) doesn't drain off.




Now put it in the fridge to chill of 30 mins or so.

Is it chilled yet? Good, time to make the chocolate sauce. You may note that this sauce has different amounts of butter and cream in it from my usual ones as I want this to firm up and almost harden upon cooling.

And no, you don't need a double boiler. A small, thick bottomed NON-COATED stainless steel saucepan works perfectly fine.

Add the last 3 ingredients into your saucepan. That'd be
1 bar (375 grams or 12 oz) dark cooking chocolate
1 tbsp butter
1/3 cup of cream
and put it on your lowest heat. Whisk everything together whilst everything melts together. This really should only take 3 mins at the most. Once everything is just melted, turn the heat off and continue to whisk for another minute.

Set the saucepan aside for 5 minutes or so till the sauce is partially cooled yet still pour-able.

Take the cake out of the fridge and slowly pour the chocolate sauce over the top. Put it back in the fridge. When the sauce on the top is firmed up (30 to 45 mins), then call it DONE!

Slice it and serve it!





Your taste buds will thank you for making this. Your waistline may not. You've been warned.

As a variation you can make more of the choc sauce and less of the choc cream and use the choc sauce as the layer betwixt the cake halves. I think I'll do that next time.

Baked Crab Cakes

I wasn't planning on making crab cakes last night. In fact, not for a while till fresh crab prices come down. But someone needs a crabcake recipe that has just a "hint of 'heat'".

That someone being http://twitter.com/#!/cheeriogrrrl

I had to use the fake crab stuff. I'm sorry. I really am.

And I'm also a bit sorry --well, not really-- that this is another recipe with no exact amounts. Why? Cus when I make crab cakes or fish cakes I never measure stuff. The amounts depend really on just how much leftover mashed or baked potato I have leftover and I eyeball the seasoning amount.

But at least this should point you in the general direction! And there are pictures to help you.

And these are baked. That means healthy.


Dave's crab cakes

What you need:

Some leftover mashed or baked potatoes
Volume of crab meat that's about 2/3 of the amount of leftover potatoes
half an onion
minced garlic
dillweed
capers
dried mint
sea salt
white pepper
olive oil
grated parmesan
breadcrumbs
cayenne powder


What you do:

Put the large chunks of crab meat, the chopped onion, and a bit of olive oil in a saucepan. Cook on med-high heat for a few mins. Turn off heat, add the minced garlic, give it a good stir.

These pics show the before and after process.


This is before it goes on the heat


This is after 5 mins on the heat with the garlic added, and everything then minced finely.




Now take 6 to 10 capers and chop them up. See, look: capers!




Add to a large bowl the leftover potatoes, the minced crab-onion-garlic, the chopped capers, sea salt, white pepper, dillweed, dried mint. This pic may help you with the relative amounts:




Mixing it all together is the fun part!




Form them into "cakes" around 2.5 to 3 inches in diameter




Since I'm baking these I don't need to dip the cakes into eggwash to get the breading to stick as I would have to if I deep-fried them, so that step can be omitted when baking them.

Time to make the breading. Breadcrumbs, cayenne powder, sea salt and freshly grated parmesan.




Carefully coat the cakes with breadcrumbs and put on a baking tray. Sprinkle whatever leftover breading you have between and over the cakes.




Drizzle a bit of olive oil over each cake and bake in a hot oven till tops are browned (around 12 minutes or so). Carefully turn them over, drizzle with a bit more olive oil and bake for another 12 mins or so. All ovens are different so keep an eye on them since you don't want the breading to blacken.

For serving them I made a quick parsley sauce and fried some chips (french fries for you US folk). Doesn't this look tasty?




If you have questions about relative amounts or anything else about these just ask away in the comments, no worries mates.

What would you make with...

The other day I came back from the shops with a load of really good, fresh veggies. I had a fair few ideas of what I was going to do with them too.

And then I thought, "Hangabout mate! P'haps some of me tweeterers may wanna give it a go?" So I put the list up on twitter and also mentioned a well stocked pantry plus herb garden, and asked what folks would make!

Unfortunately, I don't have many foodies following my tweets, so only 2 people gave it a go. One was braise some of the veggies then through it all into a quiche. Ummmmmm, not exactly what I had in mind. The other was stuffing the bell peppers with the chilli, put them and the rest of the veggies in a casserole dish, cover with cheese and bake. Not bad. But again, not exactly what I had in mind.

Remember, it's hard to get the meaning through in only 140 characters via twitter!

So how's about we try it here!

You may assume a very very very well stocked pantry and good garden goodies. This means things like garlic greens, wild onions, fresh herbs, potatoes, spuds etc can be used. Pretty much any kind of dried spice, dried herb, or herb mix you can think of can also be used. As far as cheese goes, just make sure you use ones that I've heard of as I usually have 7 to 10 different kinds of cheeses on hand at any one time.

And lastly, let's keep this meat free. Just cuz I feel like it.

And try not to go overboard on the pantry items. Fettuccine with a creamy cheese sauce and a few of the fronds from the fennel bulb sprinkled over the top ain't gonna make the cut! The idea is to see what you would make from this list that features the ingredients, not the accessories.

And here is the list of goodies you get to work with:

Brussel sprouts, red n green n yellow bell peppers, green beans, large fennel bulb w/stalks and fronds, button mushrooms, fresh juicy just-off-the-vine tomatoes, fresh thai chillis, 3 bok choys.

I came up with a dozen dishes I'd make off the top of my head, and then pared it down to 6 simple, tasty ones.

If you feel the need to help your knowledge a bit (cheat) by using cookbooks or the internets then you may, but you'll have to live with your guilty conscience. (I'm just joking of course!)

Obviously, there's no need to go out and get all this stuff, I'm just curious to see what other folks would make. Use the comments, it'd be nice to get into double digit comments so spread the url for this post around!

Soup Fritters

Yes, I can hear the collective head-scratching from all the way down in South Oz.

Lemme 'splain it to ya! Firstly you have to understand that I am the undisputed Iron Chef of leftovers. That's right, I am.

Now then, how soup fritters came about. I made some soup the other day by boiling the dekerneled corn cobs and the husks in a lot of water. Plus 2 bay leaves and a large sprig of fresh rosemary from the garden.

I then diced up a spud (potato), half a leftover onion, and the last 2 rashers of bacon from a kilo pack. Quick fried them all up, then added to the strained soup stock. Simmered till spuds were done. Salt n pepper to taste. Served with a fresh, crusty, pull-apart loaf.

Very tasty. We all loved it.

Surprisingly enough, there were a couple of cups left in the bottom of the pot the next morning. Obviously I wasn't going to toss it. I thought about having it for brekkie but then I thought that just perhaps I could make a nice side dish out of it.

But what?

*insert light bulb here*

I know! I'll put it in the blender to liquefy it, then add an egg or two, then add enough self-raising flour till it's a batter. Then I'll deep fry small spoonfuls of the batter! Instant fritters! Wonderfully flavoured too.

That really is all there is to it. No, I can't give you amounts as this is definitely a "seat of the pants" type recipe. But to help you out, I do have pictures!

First though, if you have over 4 cups of blenderized soup then definitely use 2 eggs.

Here is the consistency of the batter you are aiming for:




Now just drop a small spoonful into some hot oil. You don't need a deep fryer, a wok over some flame will do fine. And make sure you use rice bran oil for your deep frying! Very high smoke point and very high in mono-unsaturated fats. It deep fries food wonderfully well!

They'll swell up to around twice their size so don't crowd them. They'll also practically flip themselves in the oil once the submerged half is cooked! Here's a pic of a batch of the them deep frying after turning.




Once they are nicely browned all over and are just about done "bubbling" you'll want to remove from the oil and drain on paper towels. Like this:




Give em a little sprinkle with salt and ENJOY! When you bite into one it'll be soooooo nice, light, and fluffy on the inside. See, look!




I found they are also very nice sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon powder! Like savoury donut holes! Try it, you'll like it.