Daring Cooks June 2012- Cannelloni

The finished product - a terrible photo but it was delicious 

Manu from Manu’s Menu was our Daring Cooks lovely June hostess and has challenged us to make traditional Italian cannelloni from scratch! We were taught how to make the pasta, filling, and sauces shared with us from her own and her family’s treasured recipes. 


Every time I make pasta from scratch I get halfway through and swear I will never do it again, and this time was no exception. I have made ravioli a couple of times and also fettuccine and while it was fun, I always felt that the results didn't justify the effort. However, I had never made cannelloni before before and after eating this I was impressed and amazed. I will be very immodest and say honestly that this was the best cannelloni I have ever eaten. The texture was perfect, soft but not too soft, with a gentle bite to it. The handmade pasta combined with two classic sauces and baked up on a cold autumn night made for a fantastic meal that we shared with my Dad. 


I used the host's Cannelloni Di Carne recipe which you can find here. The only thing that I did differently was to follow the instructions in Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (my favourite Italian cookbook) for making pasta dough by hand. She instructs you to knead for a "full 8 minutes" until the dough is "as smooth as baby skin". So I set the timer and kneaded away. It seemed like a long time and if I hadn't been timing I probably would have stopped after about 5 minutes. But I noticed after around 7 minutes there was a significant change in the consistency if the dough - it became  smoother and more supple. 


The most tedious part of making pasta is the rolling, rolling and re-rolling and that is the point at which I curse myself for forgetting that I swore never to do this again. (Coincidentally a few days after making this I saw in Aldi an electric pasta roller and actually thought that is not such a crazy idea.) But it is also awkward and time consuming to boil the pasta before filling it with the meat sauce. Plus you have the make the meat sauce and the cheese sauce and then bake the completed product. Fortunately I lucked out with a patient and happy baby on this particular day and the end result was really spectacular. 


Many thanks to Manu for this challenge (and to Marcella), I can no longer say that its not worth making your own pasta. 

A collage makes this look much easier than it was

My faithful assistant, also used to assess smoothness of the dough

The Daring Cooks' May 2012 - Bouef Bourguignon

Our May 2012 Daring Cooks’ hostess was Fabi of fabsfood. Fabi challenged us to make Boeuf Bourguignon, a classic French stew originating from the Burgundy region of France.


This was a great challenge for me just at the moment. Firstly the weather is turning colder here in Sydney, so a lovely beefy stew is pretty appetising. It also makes 6 portions, so I could use it to add to my stash of frozen dinners. I recently discovered that it is a good idea to not cook dinner from scratch on the same day I clean the house - it only took me 5 months of staying at home to work that one out. 


The version of Boeuf Bourguignon suggested by the host is what I would call elaborate, in that it required the beef, the onions and the mushrooms to each be cooked separately and then combined together. The recipe is based on one from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which it goes without saying does not steer you wrong. So I was happy to follow the copious instructions, although I did note that there is a BB recipe in Stephanie Alexander's The Cooks Companion, which is also very reliable, and quite a bit simpler.  


My execution of this recipe provides a good illustration of my life at the moment. I spent most of the morning weighing, peeling and chopping the various components, in between feeds and naps and cuddles. Then I popped the meat in the oven and headed out to playgroup. It was supposed to cook for 3- 4 hours, which is roughly how long it takes me to walk to playgroup, play and walk back. But it was a lovely sunny day, the playgroupies wanted to stay longer than usual and I was the only committee member there, so I had to wait until everyone left. Then little mister fell asleep on the walk home and as decent naps are rather hard to come by for us, I was reluctant to go inside and tend to the BB until he woke up. So by time I got to it, it had been stewing away for 5 hours. There was not much sauce left and the meat was falling apart but it was far from ruined, so I was happy. 

Rather fortuitously I had leftovers of two delicious starchy sides to serve with the BB. Some parsnip dumplings left over from this recipe. And some leftover swede and potato cake leftover from this recipe. (Just quickly, isn't the internet amazing? Is there are recipe that you can't find a link to these days?)


So a few hours later, after our bath-feed-story-bed routine, it was nice and simple to reheat, add some veg and there we had a pretty amazing dinner. 


I can't recall now, but it is likely that we got about three quarters of the way through the meal before being summoned to the baby's room for a little more settling. "I'll go", "No, I'll go", "No its okay, you finish your dinner." Life is good. 


A big thank you to Fabi for hosting this challenge. I will think of you on housecleaning days in the coming weeks when I am eating delicious Boeuf Bourguignon for dinner without having to lift a finger.  

Daring Cooks' December 2011 - Cha Sui Bao

Our Daring Cooks’ December 2011 hostess is Sara from Belly Rumbles! Sara chose awesome Char Sui Bao as our challenge, where we made the buns, Char Sui, and filling from scratch – delicious!

Okay, so this is possibly going to be my dodgiest post ever. I completed this challenge back in late November but stupidly I didn't do my post before our baby was born (!) on 8 December. Since then I have been um, kinda busy. But I have to post to prove I did it and besides, this was my favourite DC challenge yet.  I love to eat BBQ pork buns but had never made them at home before, and both versions I made were excellent. 
I first made the recipe as suggested by the host, cooking the BBQ pork on the BBQ (duh!) and steaming the buns. Then, as I was a lady of leisure on maternity leave, I also made a version of David Chang's famous pork buns, which are like a cross between Char Sui Bao and Peking Duck pancakes. 
Thank you for the challenge Sara, I loved it. 

The inside of the Char Sui Bao with Tom enjoying one in the background 

The BBQ pork on the trusty Weber BabyQ 

Char Sui Bao pre-steaming 

My Momofuku-style pork buns. We visited David Chang's new Sydney restaurant Seiobo for Tom's birthday in October and these buns were served as part of the 14 course degustation

The Daring Cooks November 2011 - Cooking with Tea

Sarah from Simply Cooked was our November Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to create something truly unique in both taste and technique! We learned how to cook using tea with recipes from Tea Cookbook by Tonia George and The New Tea Book by Sara Perry.

For this month's challenge I took up smoking. I'd had the idea of using tea leaves to smoke food floating around in my head for awhile, I can't remember where I picked it up. So when this challenge was revealed and the only requirement was to make something savoury with tea, I knew what I wanted to do.

I googled tea-smoked chicken and it came back with hundreds of recipes and suggestions, but many of them were based on a mixture of equal parts tea leaves, raw rice and brown sugar. The traditional approach is to use a foil-lined wok but I wanted to try it in our barbecue.

I have described my method and ingredients below, but it really extremely flexible and could be used in any sort of salad, or sandwich or ramen or pasta or whatever. The result was some perfectly cooked and very tasty chicken pieces, but the smoke flavour was very subtle and the tea flavour was non-existent. I think it would need a longer smoking time (at a lower temperature than I could achieve in our barbecue) to develop more flavour.

Tea-smoked chicken summer salad

For the chicken

4 skinless chicken thigh pieces

Salt

Pepper

1/4 cup tea leaves

1/4 cup uncooked rice

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 cinnamon stick crumbled into pieces

Lightly season the chicken with salt and pepper and set aside.

Preheat your barbecue on high for around 10 minutes.

Choose a robust baking tray and wire rack that will fit inside your barbecue.

Wrap the tray on both sides with a double layer of foil.

Combine the tea, rice, sugar and cinnamon and spread evenly inside the tray.

Place the tray inside the barbecue and wait until it starts to smoke

Place the chicken on the rack and then put the wire rack over the tea mixture in the barbecue.

Turn the heat down to low, close the lid of the barbecue and leave for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes I checked the temperature using a digital thermometer with a probe and it was good to go.

For the salad (to serve 2)

2 smoked chicken thighs, shredded

1/2 cos lettuce, shredded

1 bunch asparagus, blanched and sliced

1/2 ripe avocado, sliced

1 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered

Combine all the ingredients in a salad bowl and dress as desired. I used just a little olive oil and balsamic.

The Daring Cooks October 2011 - Moo Shu

The October Daring Cooks' Challenge was hosted by Shelley of C Mom Cook and her sister Ruth of The Crafts of Mommyhood. They challenged us to bring a taste of the East into our home kitchens by making our own Moo Shu, including thin pancakes, stir fry and sauce.

I was intrigued by this month's challenge. We eat lots of Chinese and go to lots of Chinese restaurants and I have never heard of Moo Shu. I don’t think it is a thing in Australia. But I love pancakes of any description, so I was keen to give it a go. In fact on the day I made this I also made pancakes for breakfast - a truly excellent day.

So this challenge had three components – pancakes, filling and sauce. The pancake dough was easy to work with and I found I could roll it very thin, but I was not completely happy with the results. In short, the pancakes were hard. I found they were only pliable enough to wrap after a short zap in the microwave. A minute or so in a steam basket would probably have the same effect. Also the favour was quite bland. Next time I would follow the suggestion of some of the other Daring Cooks and add salt to the dough.

The stir-fry was very simple to prepare, but I had never used wood ear fungus before, so that was fun. It is amazing how much it puffs up when re-hydrated and I loved the unique rubbery texture. I still have most of a bag of dried fungus in the cupboard so I am on the lookout for ideas to use it up.

When it came to the hoisin sauce recipe I was very sceptical. Why would you make your own hoisin sauce, especially with inauthentic Chinese ingredients like peanut butter and honey? But I am a (mostly) obedient Daring Cook, so I gave it a whirl.

The overall effect was a perfectly tasty dinner, but for me it didn't quite have the wow factor of other challenges. I would love to try Moo Shu in a good Chinese restaurant and see how it compares.

Thanks to Shelley and Ruth for introducing me to something new. I especially enjoyed reading about the history and etymology of Moo Shu.

Appam and Curry - The Daring Cooks Challenge August 2011

Mary, who writes the delicious blog, Mary Mary Culinary was our August Daring Cooks’ host. Mary chose to show us how delicious South Indian cuisine is! She challenged us to make Appam and another South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with the warm flat bread.

I am always excited when a new challenge is revealed, but I was especially excited when I saw this one. I have a connection with Sri Lanka because my father was born there and my grandparents lived there as tea-estate managers for many years. Also my sister lived in Colombo for a time in 2006 and I visited her there. I have many good memories of the food, but my absolute favorite thing was the egg hopper - also known as appam!

I made the appams, the beef curry and the carrot dish as suggested by the host. You can find all the recipes here. I also made a pol sambol from a recipe by Charmaine Solomon and a chilli sambol. This was one of the best meals I have had in a long time. The variety of flavours and textures was wonderful and everything tasted very authentic.

I saved some of the batter for next morning and made an egg hopper. I wouldn't usually go for chilli sambol at breakfast, but this was brilliant and also very satisfying.

And look - this is a picture from my trip to Sri Lanka in 2006. You can see an egg hopper with pol sambol and chilli sambol in the background, and I think probably a fish curry in the foreground. How good is it that I am able to recreate such amazing food at home? Thank you so much host Mary, this was my favourite challenge yet.

Homemade Noodles - Daring Cooks' Challenge July 2011

Steph from Stephfood was our Daring Cooks' July hostess. Steph challenged us to make homemade noodles without the help of a motorized pasta machine. She provided us with recipes for Spätzle and Fresh Egg Pasta as well as a few delicious sauces to pair our noodles with!

I have committed the cardinal sin of the food blogger. I forgot to take a picture of the completed dish. Ooops. We had friends over for dinner and I was quite stressed about the ravioli falling apart/sticking together/getting soggy/going cold. So you'll have to take my word for it that the spinach and ricotta ravioli you see above was cooked and served with a most delectable ragu and lashing of parmesan cheese.

Our host suggested that as an extra challenge we look for noodles from our own cultural background. I couldn't think of any particularly Scottish or North American noodles, but I did use my late Grandma's pasta machine to make the noodles.

I used two recipes from Marcella Hazan's Essential's of Classic Italian Cooking - Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli and Ragu Bolognese. This is one of very favorite cookbooks and has never ever failed me. The noodle making process was quite tricky and my ravioli were all different shapes and thicknesses. The end result was far from professional but it tasted good. I think I will let the pictures I did take tell (most 0f) the story. They don't show me swearing or cursing my decision to make ravioli or begging Tom for an extra pair of hands, but you can use your imagination.

Thanks to Steph for this challenge. I am sorry that I didn't get around to making spatzle because that looks really fun, but I intend to try that soon.

Healthy Potato Salads - Daring Cook Challenge June 2011

To be honest, I was disappointed when this months challenge was revealed. Potato salad?!? What is so daring about that? Also it was a competition to come up with a recipe, which I am not very good at. Oh well, I thought, I'll make a couple of potato salads, we'll eat them, I'll post and then we can move onto next month. So I turned to some of my favorite cookbooks for healthy potato salad inspiration.

The first was Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Everyday. I am one of the legion of fans of Heidi's natural food-focused blog 101 Cookbooks and in her new book I found a recipe for Broccoli Gribiche. Her description in the head-note - Think French-dressed egg salad, meets potato salad, punctuated by plenty of broccoli - had my mouth watering and the end result was terrific. The dressing is a gribiche sauce - hard-boiled egg, vinegar, mustard, capers, shallots and herbs. So its healthier than mayo, but with that nice vinegar tang you expect from potato salad.

So far so good. The second recipe I tried was from Karen Martini's Where the Heart Is. Karen Martini is not known for healthy cooking. Even I have been known to gasp at the amount of fat and sugar in some of her recipes, but I cook them a lot and they are always super tasty. We had some dill left over so I was drawn to the Warm potato, Dill, Caper and Mustard salad. The vinegar, mustard and lemon juice dressing is added to well-boiled potato when they are still hot. The end result was a lovely creamy texture, once again without mayo. Win.

So after two successes, I deciding to get daring and come up with my own healthy potato salad. I loved the texture of the baked potato in the first salad I made. And I have been mad for this tahini salad dressing the past few weeks, so I knew I would use that. Then I just brainstormed for other ingredients that are healthy but totally delicious, and came up with avocado, edaname and beetroot.

I gotta say, for someone who doesn't make up her own recipes very often, I killed it. This was a seriously yummy salad and it is about as healthy as they come. I actually proud to submit my baby to the competition and I hope someone out there will try it and like it as much as we did.

Ingredients

4 medium potatoes, skin on, cut into 2cm cubes

1 Tsp olive oil

2 beetroots

1 avocado

1 cup frozen edaname (soy beans)

2 Tbs tahini

1 Tbs lemon juice

2 tsp dijon mustard

1 tsp soy sauce

Directions

Heat oven to 180

Wrap beetroot together in foil and seal well. Place on a tray and roast in oven for 1 hour.

Combine potatoes with olive oil in a baking tray and season well with salt and pepper.

Roast potatoes in oven with beetroot for around 45 minutes, stirring several times.

Cook edaname in boiling water or microwave for around 2 minutes and drain well.

To make dressing, combine tahini, lemon juice, dijon and soy sauce in a jar with a lid and shake until creamy. You may want to thin it a little with hot water and shake again.

Peel and dice the cooled beetroot and the avocado. Combine the cooled potatoes, diced beetroot, edaname and avocado in a bowl and drizzle over a generous amount of tahini dressing.

You can stir the salad at the point if you like, but the bossy beetroot will turn everything pink.

Ceviche and Papa Rellenas - Daring Cook March 2011

Kathlyn of Bake Like a Ninja was our Daring Cooks’ March 2011 hostess. Kathlyn challenges us to make two classic Peruvian dishes: Ceviche de Pescado from “Peruvian Cooking – Basic Recipes” by Annik Franco Barreau. And Papas Rellenas adapted from a home recipe by Kathlyn’s Spanish teacher, Mayra.

I made this challenge when we had friends over for dinner. These friends in fact gave me my first ever taste of ceviche many years ago, so I knew they would not baulk at the raw fish. Also as a half-Chilean family, they were good critics of the papas rellenas, which seem to be common in a number of South American countries.

I followed the challenge recipes to the letter, and also made the suggested accompaniment, salsa criolla. You can find the recipes in the Daring Kitchen archives here.

The papas rellenas took me a long time to make. So many steps, so many pans, so much mess! I had particular trouble putting the potato through my mouli and I may have taken the name of the Daring Kitchen in vain at one point. But all was forgiven when the lovely golden orbs came out of the frying pan. They simply delicious. Our guests gave them the thumbs up, but suggested they could be improved with a slightly more saucy filling.

After my adventures with the papas, I was relieved that the ceviche was so quick and easy to make. Unfortunately it came out a bit tasteless and the texture was a little rubbery. I am clueless when it comes to buying fish, so I probably didn't make a good choice there.

I was sceptical about the salsa crilloa, but it was delicious and matched perfectly with the papas.

Thank you to our host Kathlyn - I really enjoyed this challenge and I hope I will get to sample more Peruvian delicacies in the future.

It was lovely to share this meal with friends, but it did mean that any hope of decent food photography went out the window. The picture above is the best I got and it doesn't even show the lovely interior of the papa! So to make up for that I will share a picture of the cutest of our dinner guests. She ate a whole papa, what a star.

Soba noodles and tempura - Daring Cook February 2011

The February 2001 Daring Cook challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl. She challenged the Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She had various sources for her challenge including including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com and itsybitsyfoodies.com

Horray for a challenge where the host lives in the same hemisphere as me! After cassoulet last month and some very hot weather in Australia, I was more than ready for a challenge recipe that did not require the oven to be turned on and even included an ice bath.

I liked the idea of making my own soba noodles and looked around for a recipe. The internet is so cool. Within seconds I was watching a soba master preparing the noodles in a wonderfully traditional way. This involved 100 per cent buckwheat flour, a giant rolling stick and a special cutter. But a soba master I am not, so I decided to use an 80:20 buckwheat:wheat ratio and a pasta maker to cut the noodles. I did try some that were hand-cut but they came out very much like wet cardboard.

The other component of the challenge was tempura. I had never made it before and was nervous but it was fantastic! I followed the challenge recipe exactly, including ice water, extra ice in the batter and an ice bath. I don't have a deep fryer so I used a wok and a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature.

I "tempura-ed" zucchini and sweet potato - both lightly steamed in the microwave, and firm tofu - well pressed and carefully dried. I took heed of the advice to flour the pieces before dipping them in the matter and that did help the batter to stick. I was also glad of the advice not to let the batter color too much as I think this helped it not taste overly oily.

I served the noodles cold with the traditional Mentsuyu dipping sauce. I topped them with sliced spring onion and some sushi sprinkles.

Thank you to Lisa for the excellent challenge. I had fun making my noodles, I was very proud of my tempura and the meal was super yummy.

Summer Cassoulet - Daring Cook Challenge January 2011

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Or turn down the heat.

Our January 2011 Challenge comes from Jenni of The Gingered Whisk and Lisa from Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. They challenged the Daring Cooks to learn how to make a confit and use it within the Traditional French dish of Cassoulet. They chose a traditional recipe from Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman.

I so wanted to be a good little Daring Cook and rise to this challenge. I love the idea of cassoulet, with its intricate parts and interesting history. But I have to be honest and say that in the midst of a steamy Sydney summer, I couldn't think of anything I wanted to cook less than a cassoulet.
I toyed with the idea of a vegetarian version and got started by making the garlic confit. This was easy and smelled divine.

But I couldn't find gluten flour for the veggie sausages and somehow a vegetarian cassoulet didn't feel right.

Then, just when I was thinking I would sit this month out, inspiration struck.

BBQ season is in full swing right now in Australia which always means lots of left over sausages. So I decided to make a summer cassoulet incorporating the garlic confit and some really good quality left-over pork snags, plus some bacon to up the pork factor. I used tinned beans to save cooking time and replaced the breadcrumb topping with thin slices of toast, so it didn't have to be baked.
And? It was DELICIOUS. Way better than I expected and definitely the best thing I have ever made without following a recipe.

Thank you to hosts Jenni and Lisa for such an amazing challenge. I am sorry that I wimped out on the full monty and promise to make it up to you when winter rolls around down here. But I am also glad that I wimped out, because I really loved my summer cassoulet.

Summer Cassoulet
1 tbs olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
2 rashers of bacon, diced
1 fresh bay leaf
2 fresh tomatos, chopped
2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
15 cloves of garlic confit (see below)
2 cooked left-over BBQ sausages, preferably high quality pork, chopped into small pieces

1. Place oil, onion, carrot, celery and bay leaf in a large pan over medium heat, and cook, covered, for around 10 minutes, stirring sometimes, until the veggies are softening.
2. Add bacon, stir and cook uncovered for a further 5 minutes.
3. Add tomato, stir and cook uncovered for another 5 minutes.
4. Add the beans, garlic confit and sausage pieces. Stir gently, trying not to break up the garlic and beans too much.
5. Turn the heat to low, replace the lid and leave to cook for a further 20 minutes, checking sometimes and giving a gentle stir.

Serve with salad, a thin and crispy piece of toast and, if you choose, a refreshing ale.

Garlic Confit
(adapted from here Saveur magazine)

Olive oil
1½ tsp sea salt (if using table salt, use ½ the amount)
10 whole black peppercorns
5 sprigs fresh thyme
60 garlic cloves, peeled and 1 bay leaf

1. Preheat oven to 150°C. Put ingredients in a pot adding enough oil so the garlic is submerged. Cover pot. Bake until garlic is golden brown and tender, about 1 hour. Let cool.
2. Transfer mixture to a glass jar; cover surface of oil with plastic wrap. Cover jar and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.