Honey and Mustard Fruits

I don’t very often make my own preserves and pickles. However once in a blue moon, I don’t mind. Amusement more than anything is usually the reason, as opposed to abundance of an ingredient, which was the motivation for making such concoctions in past times.
This one is based on Italy’s famous “mustard fruits” and I found the recipe in Stephanie Alexander’s multi-coloured striped cookery bible: "The Cook's Companion".
The flavour and texture are different to the commercially available product. It’s a pleasant balance of sweet, sour and pungent components.
I know it is probably the wrong time of year to be posting this recipe (late winter here in Australia). I had actually made this a few months ago, and I had forgotten all about it. Readers in the northern hemisphere may find it of use though. Better late than never.
This bizarre condiment goes well with roasted game meats, pork, and sausages. It is also a good accompaniment to a simple and lovely boiled dinner.

Components
130g dried apricots
130g dried figs
1 cup honey
250ml mild white wine vinegar
1 tbsp yellow mustard seeds
1 tsp mustard powder
½ tsp salt

Process
Cover both fruits with boiling water. Allow to soften and cool for 1 hour. Strain the water from the fruits and keep 60ml. Discard the remaining liquid.
Place the honey, vinegar, mustard, salt and reserved liquid into a saucepan. Simmer gently for 5 minutes.
Add the fruits, cover and simmer until the fruits are soft, about 15 minutes.
Ladle into a hot sterilized jar and store in a cool and dark cupboard.
Leave it for a few weeks for the flavours to infuse and develop. Refrigerate after opening.

Tangelo Chiaro-Oscuro

Pork with Apple Sauce

I love reinventing old dishes. Pork and apple sauce is one such dish. This version is far superior in flavour than the traditional version and a lot quicker to make too. Its one of those dishes you can put together swiftly and easily- perfect for when one isn’t particularly in the mood to be performing fancy tasks in the kitchen.
My favourite cut of pork is neck, otherwise known as scotch fillet. It is full of flavour and extremely juicy and tender. Buy it in one big piece and cut into steaks yourself.
I never cook pork until well done. I think it is absolutely revolting and very old fashioned cooked that way. I like mine seared on the outside and cooked medium, so the meat is tender within.

Components
250ml bottled apple juice (not freshly juiced)
1 clove garlic, whole but crushed
¼ cup brown sugar or maple syrup
Fresh thyme or rosemary
Pinch of chili powder
500g pork neck, cut into steaks
Sea salt
Fresh black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

Process
Combine the apple juice, garlic, sugar (or maple syrup), herbs and chili. Add the pork steaks and allow to marinate for about an hour or so, at room temperature.
Remove the pork from its bath and pat dry with paper towels. Reserve the marinade. Smother the steaks generously with olive oil and season them salt and pepper.
Heat your char grill until it is scorching hot. Cook the pork steaks on the grill until cooked to your liking. Allow the cooked steaks to rest a few minutes before serving.
In the meantime reduce the reserved marinade, until thickened and somewhat syrupy.
Pour over the pork steaks and serve with duck fat sautéed potatoes.
Steamed broccolini tossed with hazelnut oil makes a good accompaniment too. Serves two.

Beef Braised in Red Wine with Potato Puree

If I had to choose one dish that perfectly symbolizes winter, this would be the one. Not a winter goes by without it making several appearances at my table. It does mutate a little each year though, usually by adding a little dash of something new or by the exclusion of one element or another. You know, to represent the “zeitgeist”. Similar to the way fashion evolves each season. This year I chose to add orange juice and cassia bark (to the braise) and finely chopped orange zest and parsley (to sprinkle over at the end)
Essentially it is the same as Coq au Vin. If you would like my recipe go here. Substitute well-marbled beef for the chicken. Oyster blade steak is the best in my opinion for braising and stews. The meat in marinade pictured below is so completely marbled it almost looks like wagyu.

Obviously the cooking time will be longer. You will know when it is ready- the meat will fall to pieces with the gentlest of touches.
As I mentioned earlier, it is good to add a little something extra to give the dish an individual character. Cubes of pumpkin or sweet red peppers instead of mushrooms and pickling onions make a pleasant change. Or you can vary the flavours by adding spices- cardamom, chili, cumin, and paprika. Port can be substituted for red wine. The list is endless and limited to your imagination. And I would leave out the chicken livers when doing the beef version.
Moving right along. Please don’t think that I pipe my potato puree into pretty rosettes on a regular basis. I did it for the photo. The only other time I have done it was for a dinner I cooked for a friend. I must have been desperate to impress. Oh dear- very desperate indeed!
And yes. In my house it is called “potato puree”. Not mash. I cannot stand to eat English style mashed potatoes- stodge, stodge and more stodge.

This how I have done mine for years:
For two people you will need 500g floury potatoes. I use Toolangi Delight (pictured below) - an Australian variety with a white flesh and purple skin. Peel the potatoes, cut into large chunks and steam until tender. Pass them through the mouli (the disc with the smallest holes) into a clean saucepan.
Add a splash of milk, cream and a generous amount of cultured unsalted butter. I have never measured these amounts, so I am guessing about 50ml of each. Add also 1 tsp of cumin, plenty of fine sea salt and freshly ground white pepper. Place over a gentle heat and stir like crazy until all the elements are well combined and the mixture is hot.
You can adjust the consistency by adding more or less milk. If you are making the puree ahead of time (and I often do) put it into a microwave proof bowl and cover with cling wrap. It reheats successfully in the microwave- just give it a stir every minute or so.
Following this method your puree will be light and fluid in texture, with a delicate, rich flavour.

Foul Guinea Fowl

Game birds are my favourite meats to eat- especially pigeon and pheasant. I was looking forward to roasting and eating a guinea fowl, of which I had been planning for a time. Guinea fowl I had never eaten, and to my dismay and I hate to admit, I found this particular bird insipid, dull and flavourless.
As most roasted game birds are usually a bit on the chewy side when it comes to the legs, I wasn’t too bothered. However, I found the breast meat bland and the skin thick and tough. Mike agreed, and we were both disappointed. Luckily the King Edward potatoes I had roasted on the side kept us from hunger.
To my understanding the bird was correctly cooked. I marinated it with fennel seeds, garlic, juniper berries, olive oil, rosé wine and shallot. I laid slices of pancetta over the breast to protect the flesh and roasted it for 20 minutes in a scorching oven. Half way through cooking, I removed the pancetta slices to allow the bird to brown nicely. The meat was pink (as it should be). I allowed the bird a 20-minute rest before serving.

Have any readers had similar experiences with guinea fowl?
Did I do something wrong, or are those qualities the nature of the bird?
Maybe I purchased a dud bird?
I would love any suggestions as to how to how to prepare a more succulent and appetizing bird.

Any ideas?

Ikean Meatballs

Mike and I went shopping at Ikea a few weeks ago.
I know “the snob” in some readers may be thinking “how cheap”. I don’t care if you are thinking that. I love Ikea- they do have good-looking, low-cost items for the home.
Anyway, I couldn’t help to take a wander through Ikea's Swedish food store, and I bought a Swedish cookbook, as well as other food items.
Swedish food is something I know absolutely nothing of. So I must admit, I am finding it rather strange, but certainly exciting- a cuisine of apples, cabbage, cream, lingonberries, potatoes, pickles, meatballs and sausages (I am sure there is more to it than that but that’s what is in the book).
The obvious recipes to try were the meatballs (of which there are several in the book).
Me being me, I have changed the recipe in a few ways (Ilva, I hope I haven’t deferred too much from tradition):
Firstly, by using a lot less cream- my first attempt produced a rather “sloppy” meatball mixture. Certainly in this case, less is more.
Secondly, I did not know what “rusk” was, nor could I find any. When I did the research, I discovered rusk to be a sweet bread/ biscuit. I substituted with plain sweet biscuit crumbs.
And thirdly, the sauce (similar to French veloute) I made separately- instead of cooking with the meatballs.
To accompany the meal, you are meant to provide lingonberry preserve, pickled cucumbers and boiled potatoes. I made a simple potato salad, rather than boiled (boring) potatoes as suggested in the book. I kept all the elements separate, so one could take a bit of this and a bit of that.
It all worked rather harmoniously.


For the meatballs- sweat a small amount of onion in butter for 5 minutes. Steam and roughly mash 2 small floury potatoes. Combine with 450g minced pork (or veal), 1 free-range egg, 1 Tbl crème fraiche and 50g of biscuit crumbs (the plainest biscuits you can find). Add a few drops of water if the mixture seems dry. Season with plenty of allspice, nutmeg, sea salt and white pepper. Form the mixture into largish meatballs (I like big balls). Cook very gently in plenty of butter until golden.
For the sauce- stir together 100ml crème fraiche, 200ml real stock and 1 Tbl flour. Bring to a simmer, always stirring and cook gently for about 15 minutes. If the sauce becomes lumpy (like mine did), simply pour through a sieve. Season with plenty of white pepper and nutmeg.
As you can see, these Ikean meatballs are straightforward to prepare. Mike and I ate them all for our dinner. I wish we hadn’t eaten them all, so I could have some now!

Acquacotta

The first time I made this soup was about 6 or 7 years ago. I followed the recipe to the letter from one of the River Café cookbooks. Nowadays when I prepare this dish I don’t refer to the book. In fact it has transformed over the years from their original formula (a bit like me).
The beauty of this soup is in the simplicity and that it doesn’t require stock, like most other soups do. Traditionally you use plain water instead. That’s why it is called “Acquacotta”. It literally means “cooked water” in Italian.
Mike and I adore this soup. It really is a feast. The poached egg makes it complete. It is also a fabulous hang over cure. When I was a single guy, I remember coming home after a night out on the prowl, desperate, dateless and very drunk. This soup tasted heavenly at 6am in the morning. Of course I didn’t make it from scratch at the crack of dawn (and in such a state of inebriation). I had the soup in the fridge, ready to go. All that was needed was to heat the soup, toast the bread and poach the egg. Even when I am blind drunk I can put together a good dish! Of course it tastes just as good without the hangover.

This is how I prepare my Acquacotta (enough for 4-6 serves):
Soak about 50g of dried porcini in boiling water.
In the meantime chop into 1cm cubes- 1 large red onion, 2 medium peeled carrots, 4 celery stalks and 200g swiss brown mushrooms.
Strain the porcini through a tissue lined sieve and reserve the liquid. Rinse the porcini pieces under a tap of running water and ensure all the grit is removed.
Place all your chopped veggies and a few spoonfuls of olive oil into a soup pot. Cover the pot and sweat the veggies for 30 minutes. Add a couple of fresh bay leaves and some chopped fresh rosemary and parsley too.
Open a tin of Italian tomatoes (400g) and crush them to a rough puree. Add the tomatoes with their juice and porcini liquid to the softened vegetables, and enough water to make a soupy consistency. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Simmer for 30- 60 minutes, the longer the better. Adjust the seasoning and correct the consistency by adding more water if it needs it. Not too thick, not too thin. Somewhere in between is right. Just like Goldilocks liked it…
Toast slices of dense crusty bread. I like to use my char grill, but a regular grill will suffice. Whilst the bread is toasting, poach one egg per serve (free range or organic please). Have ready a peppery and intensely flavoured green olive oil to drizzle.
For the final construction, watch my visual demonstration.



Until next time…