Bacon bone soup

It’s been a little longer than normal since my last post, but with work being crazy busy at the moment, and me going ever so slightly mental over the upcoming Visa Wellington on a Plate, The City Market: Pecha Kucha presentation, nothing like deadlines to bring out the best in you, maybe. But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and the pressures are slowly abating, plus I’ve got four days to unwind, de-stress and really put my thinking cap on.

In my ever humble opinion, and I know the better half very much disagrees, nothing beats split pea and bacon bone soup, rich, salty, thick, soupy goodness that warms the very soul on a dark winter's night. However as I mentioned, the better half ended up being tortured with the luscious aromas of simmering bones and split peas, and boy did she let me know she was not happy, a pity too, seeings as I made a five litre batch, oh well more for me, and anyway it was her fault for buying me a 16 litre stock pot for my birthday, what was I meant to do?

The quantities in this recipe is for a rather large batch soup, but should scale down (or up) pretty easily, and if you don’t have access to bacon bones a bacon hock should suffice. I know the vegetable quantities are rather vague, I didn’t take very good notes on this one, but just add to your own tastes.


1.5 kg Bacon Bones
4 cups Green Split Peas
1 Large bouquet garni of fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, oregano etc)
1 Tbsp Caraway seeds
4-5 Juniper berry
3 Bay leaves
Even quantity of Celery, Carrots & Onions diced
5 Litres Water

Get a pot with enough water to cover the bacon bones on to boil. When the water is at a roiling boil, blanch the bacon bones for 3 minutes, to remove any excess salt. Drain.


Add everything to the pot and bring to a simmer, cook for 2 hours.

Now the next part is a bit tricky, probably a lot easier in smaller quantities, you need to remove all of the bones. So with a combination of straining and scooping, remove all of the bones to a bowl, ready to have the meat picked off. You’ll need to let the bones cool down a little before you attempt to pick them over, so while you wait, return everything else (apart from the bouquet garni and bay leaves) to the pot and with an immersion blender, purée the soup. When the bones are cool enough to handle, pick the meat off and place back into the soup, discard the bones. Taste and season.

Serve it up nice and hot with some crusty bread, even better, crusty bread slathered with garlic confit. Unless you’re going to make it through five litres of the soup, wait for it to cool, portion it into containers and freeze.



Head over to Urban Harvest and check out my Pan Roasted Brussels Sprouts recipe.

Dosa

It was Shrove Tuesday not too long ago and I had a great and rather obvious idea to have pancakes for dinner (as is the tradition). But I wasn't content with stuffed crêpes, no, I was going to make Dosa (a crispy Indian pancake), not that I had any idea how to make them, or actually what they were made of, so the research began.

I read a lot of recipes, and methods and realised that I wasn't going to be eating Dosa for dinner that night, in fact not the next night either, you have to soak lentils and rice, then grind and ferment them. I came up with what I thought was a good set of quantities from reading multiple recipes, and then I came across a page called The Perfect Dosa Recipe, I didn't end up following the recipe from that site, but it was an invaluable source of information.


In a bowl put one and a half cups of rice and one teaspoon of fenugreek seeds, fill with water and cover. In another bowl place half a cup of urid dal, fill with water and cover. It's important to soak them separately as you want to grind them separately. Leave the rice and dal to soak overnight, or eight hours.




Drain the rice, retaining the soaking liquid. Transfer the rice to a blender and blend until completely smooth, it'll take a while, you may need to add some of the soaking liquid to the blender, but try not to add too much. Once blended pour the puréed rice in to a bowl. Repeat the process with the urid dal and then pour in to the puréed rice.


Add about one teaspoon of salt and mix together with your fingers, it's very important to use your hands (clean) as apparently the warmth of the hands will kick start the fermenting process. Once thoroughly combined cover and leave to ferment overnight.


The mix should have increased in volume and the texture should almost resemble marshmallow.

Now I defer completely to The Perfect Dosa Recipe for the method of cooking them, it looks simple, but I struggled, there were a lot of 'practice' dosa made. The gist of it is, thin the batter down with some water, you need to be able to pour it, but it shouldn't be runny. Then in a hot pan with a few drops of oil in it, ladle in about quarter of a cup of the batter and using the back of the ladle spread it around the pan in a circular motion (the bit I struggled with), and then drizzle a little oil around the edge of the Dosa. Cook until the bottom of the Dosa is golden brown.


I stuffed the Dosa with a aloo masala (dry potato curry) and served with some coconut masala on the side for dipping.

Pork hock with lentils

Well I may of mentioned there would be a break from pork related posts, apparently I was incorrect or at least two posts count as a break. This was a very last minute dish, a I have nothing out for dinner, I have no idea what to cook, and staring blankly at shelves in the supermarket without a clue, and then I saw it, and Sophie screwed her nose up and proclaimed "it looks like a foot with its toes cut off". So rather egged on, the pork hock was bought.

Being a week night and knowing that this cut takes time and I didn't have hours to wait for it to slowly braise, the pressure cooker was bought out, but you could do this in an oven, just multiply the cooking time by about three.


Along with the pork hock (not to be confused with bacon hock) place in the pressure cooker some celery, fennel seeds, caraway seed (lovely pumpernickel flavour that pairs so well with fennel and pork), peppercorns, mustard (dijon), onion, carrot, 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of red wine. Cook on high pressure for 45-50 minutes.

While the pork cooks, cook some puy lentils with half an onion and some bay leaves, when tender drain and set aside. Very finely dice some carrot and shallot (brunoise).

When the pork is cooked remove it from the cooker and wrap firmly with some foil to keep it from drying out. Strain the liquid into a pan and reduce until it is thick (about quarter to a third of a cup) put the lentils along with diced shallot and carrot into the pan and toss.

Unwrap the pork and pull off the meat, trying to keep the muscles whole. I recommend having a bowl of cold water or the tap running as the meat will be hot and there is a lot of hot fat, so rinsing your fingers periodically helps.

Finally place a nice heap of the lentils in a bowl with chunks of the melt in the mouth meat on top, drizzle with any left over liquid from the lentils and if you have thyme flowers handy, which probably isn't likely, garnish the dish with them they add a great anise kick.

Urad Dal, Flat Bread and Bhaji

Urid Dal Curry
Get a pot of water on to the stove with a couple of cups of Urid Dal lentils, an onion cut in half and a couple of bay leaves (do not add any salt as this will toughen the lentils and inhibit their cooking). Bring the water to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the lentils are tender, but not mushy.

While the lentils are cooking get the rest of the curry ready. Toast in a dry frying pan some cinnamon, cloves, nigella (onion seeds), a dry chilli or two, fenugreek seeds, coriander seeds, and cumin seeds. When all the spices are fragrant and toasted transfer to a blender with some fresh chilli, garlic, grated ginger and an onion peeled and quartered. Pulse the blender to form a rough paste.

Fry the paste in a little oil until the onion has softened and it has started to caramelise, tip in the drained lentils and stir through, add a couple of chopped de-seeded tomatoes, half a cup of water, and half a cup of coconut milk, simmer until thick, season with salt. Stir through some chopped coriander and serve with bread or rice, or both.

Flat Bread
I just use my basic bread dough, find the recipe here, and follow the pita bread instructions at the bottom of the post.

Onion Bhaji
Peel and slice a couple of onions in half and then in to thinnish slices, place in a bowl and cover with milk, let the onion slices soak for about half an hour.

Drain the onions. I cheat here and use a pre-made masala mix, but you could make your own, add a generous spoon of the masala to the onions and enough chickpea flour (gram flour) to coat the onions, you may need to add a little water to form a batter, but there should be enough liquid left on the onions.

In a heavy based pan add about a centimetre of neutral flavoured oil (I use grape seed oil), when the oil is up to temperature (you can test with a cube of bread) add a spoonful of the onion mixture to the oil and fry for about 2 minutes per side, take care when turning the bhaji not to splash yourself with oil.

Photo post part 2

Roasted Chicken drumsticks with fennel/potato salad and glazed carrots

Sliced fennel

There are heaps of photos in this post so you'll have to click continue to see them all...

Lentil Salad and Roast Beef

1 Cup of Puy Lentils
1 onion finely diced
1 carrot finely diced
1 Cup of Stock
mustard
salt and pepper
white wine vinegar
herbs (I used parsley and basil)

Cook the lentils in boiling water for about 15 minutes, until they're almost cooked (You can add things like onion and garlic to the water, but not salt or acid as they will toughen the skin of the lentil).

Drain the lentils, and in the pan I used to sear the beef, soften the carrot and onion, once done add a splash of the vinegar and let that evaporate off.

Add the lentils to the pan and toss through the vegetables, then add the stock and let it simmer and reduce down till there is almost no liquid left.

Take off the heat and pour the mixture to a bowl then add the herbs and mustard and stir through, season to taste, I always like to add a little extra vinegar at this stage too.