Canapés

Did you catch me on ABC New England today, talking canapés? It's always a laugh chatting with Kel & Anna about food, but this week even more so, as I can hardly call myself an expert on the topic. Nor on French pronunciation or translation. But we went there!

I got a bit confused between hors d'oeuvres and canapés. We use French terms a lot, particularly with respect to cuisine but the meanings get a little lost. Hors d'oeuvres means "apart from the main work" and refers to starters or appetizers. And then sitting under that, canapés are a TYPE of hors d'oeuvres, designed to be eaten in one bite, and usually decorative.
Traditionally Canapés have a base of bread, crackers, toast or pastry with savoury toppings. The word comes from the French word for couch, which is a reference to the fact that the garnish sits on the base the way we sit on a couch. Cute, huh?

We talked mini quiches, chicken satay sticks, pork belly and small bites on Asian soup spoons. And I provided three recipes.

Blinis

1 cup plain flour, sifted
1 Tbsp caster sugar
3 tsp baking powder
Pinch salt
180ml milk
1 egg
25g unsalted butter, melted

Combine ingredients, whisking until smooth. Spoon batter into a hot, buttered frying pan, aiming for 50c piece size blinis. Cool completely on paper towel.
For toppings, smoked salmon, creme fraiche and chives is always popular. Otherwise soak dried figs in sweet sherry (16 halved figs to 60 ml sherry) for 2 hours. Top blinis with mascarpone, figs, jamon (or prosciutto) & chervil.

Trout Rillettes


We had a discussion about what Rillettes actually are and Anna hit the nail on the head when she suggested "like pate". Trout Rillettes with wasabi mayonnaise are a favourite canapés amongst my in laws, who buy pre-made Rillettes from Sydney's Brilliant Food. Locally we can buy Arc en Ciel trout and use the following recipe:
1 smoked trout, flaked
1/2 cup creme fraiche
2 lemons, zested & juiced
1/4 cup finely chopped dill
Mix together ingredients. Serve in savoury tart cases or in lavish biscuits, topped with a little wasabi mayonnaise.

Pork Larb

My final idea is a little less traditional when it comes to canapés: pork larb. I've seen lately a lot of hors d'oeuvres morph into "roving entrees" at weddings and events. More substantial items that can still be eaten standing up so guests can continue mingling over drinks. Things like sliders and noodle boxes. Pork Larb is great because it can be largely prepared the day before and looks fantastic. I blogged about this recipe a few years ago, so head to the back catalogue for my run down and a link to the recipe.

Semolina for breakfast? And a crumpet recipe

I'm not an egg eater. Quiche or frittata is as eggy as I get. This presents a few problems at breakfast time. You know, first world kind of problems. There might only be three items on the menu that don't feature eggs. In actual fact, when you're as indecisive as I am this is probably a good thing.

Needless to say, going out for breakfast doesn't always set my world on fire. Cooking something nourishing and comforting to start the weekend does. Sometimes this is as simple as a cracker cup of tea and a piece of good sourdough, thickly spread with butter and home made jam. In winter I exercise my love of porridge and in summer I feel very virtuous with a bowl of oats, yoghurt, fresh fruit and a little milk.

I've had a funny little recipe cutting in my "yet to cook" pile. It's been there for as long as I can remember. Back when Matthew Evans used to write his column in the Good Weekend Magazine. Evans precedes his recipes for Honeyed Breakfast Polenta and Breakfast Semolina with the following:

"Tell me a joke and sing me a song, stroke my brow gently and cuddle me along. It's the weekend today, with comforting food, so let's have a slow brekky to get me in the mood."

Isn't that lovely? I feel like it's Saturday morning already.

This morning I was talking all things breakfast on ABC Local Radio with Jennifer Ingall and Anna Moulder. What a great excuse to finally exercise this recipe cutting. I made the Breakfast Semolina, with pale yellow semolina and full cream milk. It came together quickly and was so white. I expected a stodgy gruel; but, when eaten hot, it was creamy and mild. I added the suggested rosewater and pistachio and substituted quince jelly for the raspberry jam.

Would I make it again? Probably not. Did I gain some satisfaction out of a warm bowl of creaminess and the ticking off of another "yet to cook" recipe? Yes I did.

I also made crumpets. I'm seeing a lot of crumpets at the moment. In magazines, on instagram and in conversations with friends. If you've got an hour up your sleeve they're super easy. I'd go as far as saying easier than pancakes. By complete coincidence, the recipe I used was another Matthew Evans gem, this time from SBS Feast magazine (polenta also made an appearance - the same recipe, this time with salty caramelised pears).

What I love about these is they taste fantastic straight out of the frying pan, but they're also just as good toasted the next day. You could even try adding a little cinnamon to the mix.

My tip? Once the crumpets are looking dry in the pan and ready to turn, the crumpet or egg rings should lift away easily, so you can easily flip.

Recipes and/or links below. Have a great weekend everyone.

Breakfast semolina

1L full cream milk
pinch salt
130g semolina
Quince Jelly or your favourite jam (raspberry was recommended)
A few drops of Rosewater
A handful of pistachio nuts, roughly chopped

Warm milk, salt and semolina together in a saucepan and slowly bring to the boil, stirring continuously. Reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to stir for a few minutes until you get a smooth, thick consistency. This can come together quite quickly.

Serve into warmed bowls. Drip rosewater, scatter pistachios and dollop jam.

Sweet polenta with salty caramelised pears
Find it here.

Crumpets with whipped leatherwood honey butter
Spot it there.

The real four ingredients

Often the simplest recipes are the best, and four ingredients really is all you need. Not the four ingredients of the cookbook fame, with all their preservatives, flavourings and packaging, but the pantry staples that your great Grandmother would recognise. 

Eggs, cheese, salt and pepper for an omelette. Flour, baking powder, butter and milk for scones. Lemons, eggs, sugar and water for a lemon pudding.

Sure, the recipes aren't always low in sugar, salt or fat, but they're made from real ingredients with no nasties.

Since the birth of the twins, I've found myself relying on my mother-in-law's currant loaf more than once if I need to whip something up quickly. It's easy, can be frozen and relies on ingredients commonly found on my shelves. Although I confess, last time I made it I put out a desperate call to family up the road for some currants. I can happily report I am now restocked.

Janet's Currant Loaf

1 cup currants

1 cup caster sugar

1 cup warm tea

2 cups self raising flour

Place fruit and sugar in a mixing bowl and pour tea over. Let stand one hour or more. Stir flour into mixture and pour into a greased, lined bar tin. Bake in moderate oven for 1 hour (try 160).

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I love the flavour the tea imparts and I'm keen to try it with earl grey, or maybe a strong smokey blend. Serve fresh with a little smear of butter... If you can bear to break with four ingredient traditions.

Feeling dippy

I have a confession: when it comes to hors d'oeuvres, I'm the scoffer who eats more than their share. Especially now I'm a breastfeeding mumma - although there's quite a few mums amongst my friends who are either pregnant or have babies younger than mine, so I'm rapidly losing my excuse.

Not only do I eat a lot, I also find nibbles rather expensive. I do love a delicious wedge of European cheese, but it's a treat kept fairly rare by my budget. What DOES fit in my budget are canned chickpeas. And what can you make from chickpeas? Hummus.

This is a recipe I've been making for nearly ten years. I'm really sure how authentic it is, but it's quick, easy and feeds a crowd. What's more, apparently it's quite low in fat.

3/4 cup (150g) dried chickpeas* or 450g canned chickpeas (I use canned)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 garlic clove, quartered

1/4 cup tahini (available from supermarkets)

1/4 cup lemon juice

Pinch cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon coarsely chopped flat leaf parsley

Drain cooked or canned chickpeas and reserve 1/3 cup of liquid. Using a stick blender (or food processor), blend chickpeas and liquid with salt, garlic, tahini and lemon juice. Top with cayenne pepper and parsley to serve.

*If using dried chickpeas, you'll need to soak them overnight and cook them.

I find the hummus tastes richer if it's prepared some time in advance, to allow the lemon and garlic flavours to develop.

You can use hummus on pides, with grilled kebabs or on roast lamb. However I serve it as a dip with lavish or Turkish bread, and carrot and celery if I have the time to chop. It forms part of my "holy trinity of easy dips to please a bbq crowd"' with Stephanie Alexander's guacamole (reproduced here: http://nickcancook.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/stephanie-alexander-guacamole.html) and her basil pesto (see  http://www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au/uploads/09_resources/kg_recipes/Yrs5_6_BasilPestoRecipe_WEB.pdf).

Weekend porridge

Recently I wrote about the demise of my breakfast routine after the birth of my gorgeous twins. I can now report that normality is returning. This is fortunate because it's porridge season and I love a warm bowl of porridge on a Saturday or Sunday morning. It's like waking up to a big warm tastebud hug. Sometimes we get all fancy and make a five grain mix that includes triticale and rolled rice, but I'm equally happy with plain old oats and an unhealthily large topping of brown sugar.

How do you cook your porridge? I have become quite habitual with my method, which I learnt from that King of Sydney breakfasts, Bill Granger. It goes a little like this:

Oats soaked in an equal quantity of boiling water for ten minutes then cooked with an equal quantity of milk, stirring over medium heat until thick and delicious.

1 part oats + 1 part boiling water + 1 part milk = 3 parts chilly Saturday morning deliciousness

What's your winter weekend breakfast ritual?

Autumn salads and other seasonal delights

Autumn is such a lovely time of the year in Tamworth and surrounds. The days are often sunny, the nights snuggly, which means it's still warm enough for salads but you don't need to think twice about turning on the oven.

Last week I was fortunate to speak with Kelly Fuller and Anna Moulder from ABC New England North West about autumn eating and just a few of the lovely things in season right now.

You can catch the conversation on SoundCloud.

Or read on for a few of our ideas.

Rocket, pear & Parmesan salad

Photo: Courtesy of www.cheesematters.com.au

This is a classic and well known combination for using pears, but there's one rule of thumb to ensure you get it right: use the best extra virgin olive oil and Parmesan that you can afford (and find).

Ensure your rocket leaves are washed and dry, then toss in just enough EVOO to make then glisten. Thinly slice a just-ripe pear - you want it to be firm enough to hold its shape - add to the rocket and top with shavings of Parmesan. I find a vegetable peeler is the best way to shave from the block.

If you're a texture freak, you can also sprinkle with toasted pine nuts.

A word on extra virgin olive oil

Don't save that expensive bottle or gift for a special occasion. EVOO is not like wine. Its flavour intensity will decrease with age, so fresh is best. Look for oil that tells you on the bottle what year the olives were harvested. Depending on the region, harvest is usually completed from April to June.

Nutty salads

Not many of us are familiar with using chestnuts, myself included, but they are in season. Not just for roasting over the fire in an idyllic nod to the northern hemisphere, they can also be chargrilled and added to a salad of leaves, pancetta and croutons.

Walnuts are also in season and when it comes to salad that can mean one thing for many people: Waldorf Salad. No longer a slimy mix of walnuts, celery, grapes and apple glooped in mayonnaise, add radicchio, witloaf and celery leaves for an updated classic.

Check out Gourmet Traveller for these and other autumn salad ideas.

Mushrooms

Wild mushrooms are also in season right now. If you can find someone who knows what they're looking for you might be able to convince them to accompany you on a foraging exercise. Otherwise, keep your eye out at markets for pine mushrooms, which are large, with a bright orange underside. Super fleshy, simple slice and sauté in butter. Don't be alarmed, they will "bleed" orange as you slice.

Also look for porcini powder, available all year round, maybe even in supermarkets now. Sprinkle into mushroom risotto or pasta for extra richness, or coat lamb fillets before grilling.

We also covered pomegranates, Jerusalem artichoke (also known as fartichokes) and chickpea salads. Here's the super simple chickpea salad I mentioned (hint: I used olive oil instead of ghee, I also skipped the spring onions as I had none).

Mourning breakfast

There's a lot of things I miss about my pre-twin life. And my mum friends assure me that it's ok to miss stuff and no, it's not a cause for mummy guilt.

I miss the usuals, like going out for a coffee on a whim, but it's the little things that have surprised me the most. Like breakfast. I didn't think my daily breakfast routine was extravagant. Weetbix with fruit, a piece of Vegemite toast on bakers delight sliced wholemeal (jam if I was feeling extravagant), a good cup of tea and a digital newspaper at the breakfast bar with my husband.

Seasoned mothers will laugh at my naivety, but this is rarely possible now. Instead I scoff down cereal on the loungeroom floor during "playtime" and only manage a cup of tea if someone turns up later in the day and makes it*. I didn't think this was a part of my life that would be impacted on. Just another one of the little sacrifices we're thrilled, genuinely thrilled, to make.

*to be fair, Sam does offer. It's just that the drinking is as time consuming as the making.

Chocolate cake

Following on from last week's post about my burning desire to cook now I have NO time, I am convinced the internet is deliberately playing on this and my insatiable appetite for the sweet and calorific.

I've just started reading blogs for the first time since the demise of Google reader. On day one of setting up Feedly this chocoholic delight popped into my feed. Sour cream chocolate cake via The Kitchn. My ambitions peaked when I remembered there was sour cream in my fridge, but the miniature humans were too busy feeding for such folly.

And then, the very next day I saw this on Instagram, courtesy of Vee who posts the most amazing photos of her Welsh Terrier, Bear, at veeandbear. Surely the similarities in appearance are no coincidence. The universe wants me to bake ridiculously decadent chocolate cake. Or, at the very least, eat it.

Leela Cyd, creator of the sour cream chocolate cake puts forward a very good cause for baking your own birthday cake, and relishing the experience. It's a lovely read.

When it comes to celebrations, Stephanie Alexander's whiskey and raisin chocolate cake has been a favourite of m
ine in the past, winning me over with its richness and its ability to feed a crowd.

Do you have a go-to chocolate cake recipe for celebrations?

Not just a humble muffin

What would you cook if you had all the time in the world?

For so many people, life gets busy and we stop making time for the hobbies we enjoy, squeezing them out with work, home and social commitments. It's not until life takes a dramatic turn that you realise how much time we used to have. Sam and I frequently reflect on this, asking "why did we take all our spare time for granted at uni", or "remember how little we HAD to do on the weekends before we bought a house".

So here I am, 6 weeks after the birth of our beautiful twins with a feeling of déjà vu. I am itching to cook elaborate dishes now that I have no time, and wishing that I'd tried all those new recipes before the munchkins came along.

Instead, I settled for baking some very basic banana muffins. Pouncing on an overripe banana and a rare quiet twenty minutes. They might not be elaborate but there's certainly something soothing about cooking basic wholesome food using ingredients you have at home.

They're not bad with a cup of tea, either.