Cook A Long - Retro Food For Modern Times

26
Jan
2014

Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Rice? (Daring Kitchen Arancini)

categories: Cheese, Daring Kitchen, Italy, Spinach, Tomatoes

Ever made food where just looking at it made you feel happy?

That’s how I felt with the December Daring Kitchen Challenge. Just looking at these golden balls of goodness made me smile.

Yes, I did just say golden balls of goodness, and yes, I did have a little smirk as I did.

Sigh.

I so have the mind of a 12-year-old boy. And you know what? This whole post is full of stuff like that.

So, you know, take a moment….watch this clip from a British tv show called, I kid you not, Golden Balls, which appears to be a game show version of the Prisoner’s dilemma. (Yay, I knew that Philosophy major would come in handy one day! Stay tuned, next week…Baking with Nietzsche…)

Anyway, marvel at the British nuttiness of it all and come back ready to talk about arancini….

Golden Balls

Ok, I’m ready. Arancini.

January’s Daring Cooks’ challenge was a ball! The lovely Manu from Manu’s Menu brought our taste buds to the streets of Sicily and taught us her family tradition of making arancine – filled and fried balls of risotto. Delizioso!

These were super delizioso but believe me, you’re not making them in any sort of hurry. These babies need some time and devotion to the cause.

First you’ve got to make:

The Risotto

I’ll put the full recipe at the end. but this is actually a great risotto recipe.

What you end up with is this. How gorgeous is this bright yellow?

This lovely sunshiney yellow is well on its way to becoming my favourite colour. And mmmmm…butter….

Then you lay it into a tray to cool and then you make…

Golden Balls o’ Sunshine…

And you know what? You could stop right here and crumb these babies and they would be all kinds of delicious. But in the daring kitchen, we’re turning that flavour experience up to 11. Yeah. EL-EV-EN.

Starting With:

The Bechamel

Wow. has there ever been a bigger moment of cognitive dissonance?

Did you all just fist pump the air Eye of the Tiger style and then do a double take?

Bechamel? WTF? BlecHHHHHamel more like. Isn’t that the creepy white sauce that tastes like glue?

Bear with me..this one’s good.

You need to make it quite thick.

And finally:

The Filling

I chose to do a spinach and mozzarella filling. The recipe has a meat ragu version and a cheese version.

I didn’t get a photo of the sauteed spinach.

But it looked like sauteed spinach.

Trust me.

You make a hole in the Risotto ball and add the filling ingredients – sauce, cheese, spinach.

And close.

Word to the wise. Do the sauce first. I’ll show you what happens in a moment if you try to do the sauce last…

One of these things does not quite belong…guess which one of these was the one where I put the sauce in last?

See what I mean about this being a labour of love?

It’s not all over yet folks, now you gotta egg them, crumb them and fry them up.

Bet you’re thinking you can sit down and have a quiet bottle of vino and some valium now aren’t you?

Not so fast, Speedy. These are fabulous and you could quite easily eat them as is. Look at that oozy goodness….

Yep, oozy goodness from my golden balls…don’t roll your eyes…you were warned.

But remember when i said we were taking this up to eleven?

For eleven you need my spicy tomato relish (recipe below)

The arancini have a delightful crunch, then the aromatic risotto and the creamy cheesey garlicy goodness of the filling. The relish brings some heat and some tanginess. And that my friends is the five food groups covered.

Plus it has spinach so it’s good for you.

Like I said. Eleven.

Arancini recipe:

HERE

And just because I love you all, here’s the classic Spinal Tap clip about….

Eleven

Have a fabulous week, And what ever you love doing – this week, take it to eleven!

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17
Dec
2013

Rolling, Rolling Rolling…Stuffed Cabbage Rolls (Daring Kitchen & Spice Peddler recipe)

categories: Big 5 Pepper Steak Rub, Cabbage, Daring Kitchen, Lamb, Spice Peddler

I’ve been doing some wicked multitasking over the last few weeks – moving house has taken up just about all the time, energy, patience and sanity I had left…which, particularly in the case of the last two was not a huge amount to begin with.

So, how to get through the move, life in general, and a couple of cooking challenges for the month? Multitasking is how. November’s Daring Cooks’ Challenge had us on a roll! Olga from http://www.effortnesslessly.blogspot.com/ challenged us to make stuffed cabbage rolls using her Ukrainian heritage to inspire us. Filled with meat, fish or vegetables, flexibility and creativity were the name of the game to get us rolling!

The Spice Peddlers this month sent their Big 5 Pepper Steak Rub which consists of black, green, white, pink, Szechuan and Tasmanian pepper plus cardamom, garlic salt, nutmeg and cloves. This is a delicious blend which should by no means be limited to Pepper Steaks…although, having said that, it would be pretty great used like that.

So, the basic recipe for the cabbage rolls can be found here along with a vegetarian and a fish version which I am just itching to try!

I made some changes to the original recipe. I’m not a huge fan of pork so I used lamb mince as my meat of choice. I also added a teaspoon of the Big 5 Pepper Steak rub into the lamb mixture.

When I made my rolls, I had a quite a bit of the meat mix left so I made up some meatballs and lightly fried them up before adding them to the pan with the rolls. As I was frying them up, I also sprinkled more of the Pepper Mix into the pan so the meatballs picked up the pepper mix and got a kind of crunchy peppery coating on them. Delish!!!

Then into the oven with tomato sauce, another light sprinkle of the Pepper Mix and some salt to finish and a lovely hearty meal was had by all.

Perfect timing too because, whilst Melbourne’s weather cannot compare with the Ukraine, it has been an unusually cold summer and the cabbage rolls and a glass of red were the perfect accompaniment to a chilly night where we had to put the fire on! The warming spices in the Big 5 Pepper Rub were a perfect blend for this hearty and warming dish.

Stufffed Cabbage Rolls — Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

This wasn’t the quickest of things to make as it has many moving parts – pre-cooking the cabbage, and the rice, making the filling and the tomato sauce, then the baking all takes time. However, no single part is difficult and it is delicious and was as good, if not better when re-heated for lunch the following day

Also, I used half the quantity in the given recipe and, as you can see, it made a huge amount….

Meantime, i was inspired by this recipe’s Ukrainian heritage to have a look at some of the great old posters produced in the Eastern bloc…

I think this is the one that insprisred the Franz Ferdinand cd cover:

Last month’s Bloody Mary was kind of a hit so I’m going to be spending the new few days thinking about how I can incorporate the Big 5 Pepper Steak Rub into a cocktail…stay tuned!

Have a great week!

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15
Nov
2013

Ole, Ole Ole, This Soup is Hot, Hot, Hot (Daring Kitchen)

categories: Asparagus, Daring Kitchen, Eggs, Soup, Spain

Hola and Olé friends…and that’s the extent of my Spanish done!

Let’s talk about soup, baby….ok…I’m stopping with the bad music puns.

Right here. Right now.

Or..Maybe not…

Green Asparagus SoupOur November Daring Cooks’ hostess was Begoña, who writes the beautiful blog, Las recetas de Marichu y las mías. Begoña is from Spain and didn’t want to go with the more common challenges of paella or gazpacho, she wanted to share with us another very popular recipe from Spain that we don’t see as often called Sopa Castellana which is a delicious bread soup!

I chose the Green Asparagus version as not only is it my second favourite vegetable ( behind the far less exotic green bean) but also, currently in season here in the Southern Hemisphere..

Just look at how gorgeous it is!

And the soup was pretty awesome too…I love the combination of egg and asparagus and I also love a poached egg in a soup…so, so good.

And saffron in anything just makes it awesome!

Try it, it may just get you dancing just like this!

Have a great week!

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21
Oct
2013

Daring Kitchen Challenge – Indian Dosas

categories: Chickpeas, Daring Kitchen, Gluten Free, India, Vegan

One of the reasons I began this blog was to challenge myself to make new and different things – and so not only improve my skills but also my repertoire of dishes. Whilst this has been somewhat successful, the format I’ve chosen generally allows me to pick items that:

a) I am confident I can cook well,

b) Will look good in photos, and

c) I want to eat (mostly…I still shudder at the thought of that awful asparagus mousse)

So, what happens if you want to challenge yourself but take these safety nets away? Well, in my instance, you join the Daring Kitchen. Generally, each month members of this website are challenged to cook and blog about a recipe chosen by one of the members.

The only thing in my first month, which was October, in a “celebration” of past Daring Cooks and Daring Bakers challenges, Lisa challenged all of us to search through the Daring Kitchen archives and pick any one we’d like! The REAL challenge was picking which delicious recipe(s) to try!

And it was a real dilemma. For most people the choice may have been Cooks or Bakers, sweet or savoury. Not me, I’m way too shallow for that. My big quandary was:

Do I cook something I’m pretty sure I can pull off? Something that will look good in the pictures, and by default make me look awesome?

Or, do I stick to the spirit of the challenge and choose something that is going to test my skills and maybe fall flat on my face but learn something in the process?

The choice was therefore narrowed down to Gyozas or Croissants. I’ve made dumplings before, home much harder can gyoza be right? Croissants? Une toute autre histoire!!!

I was heading right down Gyzoa alley (shallow remember?) when I mentioned the challenge to a friend at work and we started looking through the past challenges. She chose the recipe for the Indian Dosas from September 2009. These are both gluten-free and vegan which is great because honestly, my range in both of those areas is limited. So, thanks Nadya, good choice!

First step was to make the pancakes:

These were not the super thin crispy dosas I have eaten in restaurants, mine turned out more the texture of crepes but they were still pretty tasty. And the difference in texture was probably more me that an inherent flaw in the recipe!

Then the chickpea filling…look at the amazing colours of the ingredients.. they are like a little rainbow of health and deliciousness!!!

This was also really tasty! So, so good…

Finally, there was a coconut curry sauce and some condiments to go with it.

Dosas with Coconut Sauce and Condiments 2 — Dosas with Coconut Sauce and Condiments

This was a great first challenge for me as this was probably something I would never had made otherwise. If you want the recipe…and you know you do….click below:

Daring Kitchen Indian Dosas (2023 update – link no longer works. Here is another recipe for Dosa)

I really liked the filling, and if I was too lazy to make the actual dosas or the sauce again (which I probably am), the filling would be super in some warm pita bread with some of the condiments and some yoghurt dip over the top. Hmm..that probably ruins both the vegan and gluten-free aspect of the dish but hey, I’m neither a vegan or a coeliac. It would stay vegetarian..and pretty damn delicious!

OMG, now I want that so much…I have some of the leftover mixture in my freezer…shame I’m already in my pyjamas, or I would be down at the supermarket right now snapping up flatbread and tzatziki like a mad woman…

I ‘m really looking forward to the next month’s challenge which is…it’s a secret…you’ll have to wait about a month to find out!

In the meantime, enjoy this great vintage Indian print…which I think has the Goddess of Food and the Kitchen, Annapurna,in the background…

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Category: Cook A Long

The Risotto

The Bechamel

The Filling