Pizza dough, revised

With the death of my trusty Kenwood mixer, well not death but I need to order a couple of capacitors and get out the trusty soldering iron, I’ve had to revisit my trusty pizza dough recipe, I used to make a pretty standard 60% hydration dough but recently have been experimenting with the water content of the dough and have found nudging up the liquid content to 80% and adding about 5% fat, in the form of olive oil, has drastically improved my crust. I mentioned earlier, the trusty mixer is dead, and quite frankly I’ve become pretty lazy when it comes to kneading dough, I rely pretty heavily on it, and hey I broke a bone in my wrist so kneading is not that pleasant at the moment, excuses excuses, anyway this is my no knead method that doesn’t take 24+ hours but does involve a little more labour than mix and forget. It will require a good 3-4 hours of your time, but probably no more than 10 minutes of attention, the initial mixing, and then hourly folding, and by the end of it you should have a wonderful light puffy dough.

500 g flour
400 g warm water
25 ml Olive oil
5 g salt
2 g yeast
2 g sugar/honey

Stir together the water, sugar and yeast, let it sit until the yeast has bloomed and you have nice frothy mixture.

Mix together the salt and olive oil, make a well and pour in the yeast-water along with the oil. Set aside for 30-45 minutes, this will give the gluten a chance to hydrate.

After the dough has rested, and risen, probably about doubled, use a spatula to bring one edge up to the centre, rotate the bowl 90° and repeat until all four ‘sides’ have been folded over 3 or 4 times, let the dough rest for another hour and repeat. This is a long fermenting dough and the folding will be repeated 3 more times, about 4 hours rising time in total.

Pick off a lump of dough, roll thin, trying to use as little extra flour as possible, and cook in a very hot oven (250-300°C) on a pizza stone that has been preheating for 40-60 minutes until blistered and golden.

Onion Tart

This recipe was originally created for Urban Harvest, do go check out their website for some great produce and other recipe ideas.

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The key to this tart is taking your time with slowly, and I mean slowly caramelising the sliced onions over a low temperature, it’s not something that can be rushed, well unless you want to cheat, which I have to admit I did by using a pressure cooker, but it can be achieved in large pan on a stove on a very low flame and occasional stirring. For those who are curious and own a pressure cooker, it’s as simple as dumping the sliced onions, thyme and butter in the pot, bringing it up to high pressure and letting it cook for about 60 minutes, vent the pressure, remove the lid and then cook over a medium-low heat to evaporate off the liquid and enrich the caramelisation.

Caramelised Onions
1 kg red onions
Bunch of thyme
50 g Butter
Salt and pepper

Peel and cut the onions in half and then slice thinly, a mandoline is invaluable for this and will make quick work of it. Melt the butter in the pan over a low heat and add the onions and thyme, cover with a lid and cook very slowly, stirring occasionally. When the onions have melted down and started to colour remove the lid to allow the water to evaporate off. this could take up to an hour. Season and set aside to cool down.

An alternative method is to dump the the lot into a pressure cooker and cook on high pressure for 60 minutes, release the pressure manually. There will be a lot more liquid in the pot using this method so you will have to transfer it to a large pan (more surface area the better) and cook on a medium low heat until the water has evaporated. As above season and let cool.

Pastry
500 g white flour
250 g butter (unsalted), cubed
1/2 tsp Salt
Cold Water

It’s best to work with cold butter and work quickly when making the pastry. In a blender blitz together the flour, butter, and salt. When it forms a breadcrumb texture it is done. Tip the mix into a bowl and add about a tablespoon of cold water and start kneading it together to form a ball of dough, you may need to add more water. Wrap in cling-film and place in the fridge for at least half an hour.

Custard
4 eggs
500 ml of yoghurt
salt and white pepper

You want to mix this together right at the last minute, just after you have blind baked the pastry as you will need to steal a little egg white from the mix. Thoroughly mix together the egg and yoghurt, but take care not to incorporate too much air, season with salt and white pepper.


Assembling
Roll out the pastry to about 3mm thickness. Line a quiche tin with the pastry and trim off any excess. Place the tin in the freezer for about 15 minutes, this helps the butter to firm up and will help prevent shrinkage.

Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Remove the tin from the freezer and line the pastry with tin foil and fill up with rice (sacrificial rice sad to say, as you won't be able to eat it, but do store it so you can use it again to blind bake), cook for about 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven, and carefully remove the tin foil and rice, brush with a little egg white to seal. Place back in the oven for a couple of minutes to dry the egg white.

Remove the tin from the oven and reduce the temperature to 170ºC. Carefully make a layer of the caramelised onions and gently pour over the custard. Place back into the cooler oven and cook for 30–40 minutes, when it just starts to puff slightly near the center it is cook, it should still have a slight jiggle. Let the tart rest on the bench for 10 minutes or so, great served up with some greens dressed simply with lemon juice.

Mackerel Pâté

I’m quite surprised I haven’t posted this quick and easy little recipe before, it’s certainly been made plenty of times and is a great little spread for gatherings, or a smaller portion in a ramekin for a picnic. The latest version I changed things up a bit and added a decent portion of cream to the mix, which made for a lighter texture, but by all means if you’re scared of a little fat, leave it out, you will however end up with a more dense pâté.

300-400g Smoked Mackerel (about 2 packets)
50g Melted unsalted butter, plus a little extra to seal
250 ml Cream
3 Spring onions, roughly chopped
1 Lemon (juice and rind)
1 Tbsp Horseradish cream, if you have fresh add to taste
Parsley, to garnish

Peel the skin off the mackerel and flake it into a food processor, add the cream, butter, spring onions, lemon rind and horseradish. Blitz until smooth. Taste, season with salt, pepper and lemon juice as needed.

Transfer the pâté to a serving dish and smooth the top, decorate with flat parsley leaves and then cover with melted butter. Place the dish in the fridge to let the butter set, I like to leave the pâté at least overnight so the flavours can develop. Serve up with some good crusty bread and sharp white wine.

Soufflé

If there is anything that reality cooking shows have taught me is that the humble oft maligned soufflé is setting one’s self up for disaster and disappointment for what will be the inevitable deflated result. Ironically you have certain people screaming and shouting on their TV shows at some poor sap and their soggy mess, but in their cookbooks insist on how easy and foolproof their method is, mixed messages much? Any how, with a glut of eggs in the fridge and a need to use them up, I had to make something, and I am well and truly over frittata and baked eggs, I set my sights on the Everest of egg dishes, cheese soufflé, I guess rather disappointingly soufflé is not a hard dish to make and really not all that likely to fail, that is unless you really try.

Before starting making the base and whisking up the egg whites, preheat the oven to 190°C and grease a large ramekin(s) or soufflé dish with butter and coat with finely grated parmesan, then place it in the freezer.

Base
5 Egg yolks
300 ml Milk*
30 g Butter
1 tbsp Flour
110 g Cheese (I had gouda, and used the leftover parmesan from coating the ramekin)

* For the milk, heat it up on the stove and let it infuse with a bay leaf, clove of garlic, peppercorns and half a peeled onion, this will give the milk a nice savoury flavour.

While the milk is infusing, in a large bowl whisk the egg yolks until they have about tripled in volume and have turned a pale yellow colour. After the good arm workout, place a pot over a medium heat and melt the butter, you want to get rid of as much moisture as possible but be careful not to brown it, so once the foaming has subsided stir in the flour, you don’t want any colour just cook out the flour. Gradually whisk in the milk (strained) and gently cook until thick and smooth, don’t worry if it starts off a bit lumpy they should eventually disappear. Now the tricky bit, kind of anyway, and an extra pair of hands helps, whilst vigorously whisking the egg yolks slowly pour the béchamel into the yolks, once fully incorporated stir in the cheese, taste and season accordingly. Cover with plastic wrap right on top of the base to prevent a skin forming.

Whites
5 Egg whites
1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar

In an immaculately clean bowl whisk the egg whites with the cream of tartar to stiff peaks, the cream of tartar helps prevent over whisking and stabilise the foam.

Getting it all together
Take a spoonful of white and beat into the base mixture, this will help the rest incorporate, then in thirds carefully fold the rest of the whites in. Remove the dish from the freezer and place on a sheet pan, pour in the soufflé mix leaving a little headroom, place in the oven and cook for 25-35 minutes, however long it takes to cook leave it well alone for the first 20 minutes.

Potatoes baked with cream

I haven’t abandoned the blog, it’s been awhile since my last decent sized post, but not a whole heap of cooking or experimenting has been going on recently, time and other commitments keeping me occupied, and to top it all off, I fractured a tiny bone in my wrist which has ended up with my arm in a brace and the simple tasks of slicing or even lifting the smallest weights is painful and impossible. It certainly makes me appreciate the ease I normally have with even the simplest of tasks, like being able to successfully use a knife and not be menace with it, not knowing which way it’s going to slip because I can’t apply the right pressure. Thank goodness for the Mandoline I say! At least with this great little kitchen gadget I can still whip up one of my favourite comfort dishes, layers of thin potato and onion smothered in thyme infused cream and baked to a golden cheesy goodness.

There’s not too much to this, butter to coat the dish, floury potatoes, garlic (if you wish), onions, cream and thyme, with it being so simple I find taking the little bit extra effort carefully layering everything quite rewarding in the end result, a compact slice of cheesy potatoes rather than a sloppy mess.


Get some cream in a pot with the thyme and garlic and bring it up to the boil, remove from the heat and let the herbs infuse. Slice the potatoes and onions on the thinnest setting of the mandoline. Not too hard. Now carefully place a layer of potatoes in the bottom of a greased dish, having each slice slightly overlapping, next a thin layer of onions, and then season with salt and pepper. Repeat this until the dish is full or you have run out, make sure to end on a potato layer. Pour over the cream, it should cover the potatoes when pushed down. Cook in a 180°C oven for 45-60 minutes, cranking up the heat near the end to get a nice golden crust. Rest on the bench for at least 10 minutes before serving.


The miso egg yolk finally made it’s way out of the cure, and is dehydrating slowly in the fridge, I have a few plans for this amber gem, so do expect a post on that in the coming weeks. Also we’re heading up to the big little city for a long weekend, avoiding the easter crush though, and am looking forward to eating far too much, and quite excited to finally get to a few places I've been champing at the bit to try.

Miso cured egg

I've certainly posted my fair share of egg related posts, cured in salt, brined, cooked under pressure, slow cooked and this one is no different. I've been curious about using miso to cure food for a while but have never taken that next step beyond curiosity, in fact the idea for the whole thing had been sitting in my head for a good two years, ever since reading a post on one of my favourite blogs, Playing with Fire and Water, the author had written about Egg yolk cheese, the idea was intriguing and promptly filed to the dark recesses of my brain never to be heard from again, well until recently and then there was some rather frantic googling and trying to figure out where I saw the method.



The egg yolk is still encased in miso, sitting in my fridge just waiting to be released from it's fermented tomb, the egg was first cooked at 65°C for about an hour then placed in an ice bath until cool and the yolk carefully separated from the albumen. So I don't know yet what it's going to taste like, but my experience with salt cured yolks (which was cured raw) tells me it's likely to be pretty damn delicious, and miso really only makes things better, well most things anyway. So another week in the miso, and probably a few more weeks hanging in the fridge to dry out, I'm sure another post will pop up, I just need to figure out what I'm going to have with it.

Warm bean and citrus salad

This recipe was originally created for Urban Harvest, do go check out their website for some great produce and other recipe ideas.

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This is a great way to kill two birds with one stone, take advantage of the abundance of beans available at this time of year and utilise the citrus on offer. It’s not too complicated and definitely not time consuming to make, I used a variety of beans to profit from the various sizes and textures, but if you prefer green beans will do. The salad makes a satisfying light lunch or a ideal salad to accompany a BBQ, the weather giving us all an excuse to dine al fresco.

400 g Beans
2-3 Oranges
2-3 Lemons
Ewes milk feta
Olive oil
Dijon mustard
Mint (optional)

Put a pot of decently salted water on to boil. Pinch (or cut) the stem end of the beans off and discard. When the water is up to the boil, blanch the beans for about 4 minutes, you want them to be almost cooked, still have a good bite, as we’re not shocking them in ice water the beans will continue to cook once strained.

Peel the oranges with a knife and cut the segments by running the knife down each side membrane, or in other words supreme the oranges.

In a bowl combine 1 part lemon juice, 3 parts olive oil, a spoonful of dijon mustard and whisk together, the mustard helps emulsify the oil and juice together to create a homogeneous sauce. Season well with salt and pepper.

When the beans are cooked, drain off the liquid and tip into the bowl with the vinaigrette along with the orange segments, toss the beans and adjust the seasoning as necessary.

Arrange the beans on a serving plate, scatter some finely sliced mint over top, crumble over the feta and finish off with any remaining vinaigrette.

Hot Wings

It just happened that our national day fell on a Wednesday this year, and of course just by chance Superbowl Sunday, happened to fall on the Monday before it, so it seemed liked a good excuse to take a 5 day weekend (or is that a 2 day week?), plus who needs a reason to pull out the nachos, wings, and other Americana food and blob out in front of a 60 minute game that lasts 4 hours, not dissing, I quite enjoy the game. Anyway the plan was hot wings, I was thinking of my crunchy, spicy, deep fried wings, but as it always seems to happen best laid plans and all, someone tweeted a link to a recipe for Buffalo Wings by the Good Eats man himself, Alton Brown, these were oven baked and intriguingly steamed before hand, well that was going save me a lot of hassle deep-frying.

So, get a pot of water on to the boil, and load up a steamer with some chicken wings, set the steamer in the pot and let it bathe in the vapour for 20 minutes, it’s quite nice to add a few aromatics to the water, such as garlic and the like.

Set up a baking tray with a rack and line with paper towels, when the wings have steamed transfer them to the tray and refrigerate for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 220˚C, swap out the paper towels with baking paper and transfer the baking tray to the hot oven and cook for 20 minutes, then flip and cook for a further 20 minutes.

Toss the wings in hot sauce and serve, a finger bowl is a good idea. Alternatively, like the original recipe, you can toss them in a mixture of butter, garlic and hot sauce, which is nice, luxurious etc, but needless calories in my opinion.

Ginger Beer

I have well and truly caught the brewers bug, I’ve just bottled the fourth batch, three of which were traditional ales, for the fourth I decided to try my hand at a dry boozy ginger beer, perfect for a hot day, well it threw me a few curveballs along the way, mainly that I think the yeast I chose was a wee bit too efficient and my nice mellow 4-5% plan ran rampant to a killer dry spicy 8%, fortunately it doesn’t have that ‘alcohol’ taste you can get when with some higher percentage beverages.

The below recipe is for a 20 litre batch and for those interested in giving it ago but lack the equipment (fermenter, hydrometer and sterilizer) I’d advise to skip the $100 starter kits you can get at supermarkets and brew shops and buy the components separately it’ll save you a considerable amount of money, a fermenter (with airlock, thermometer and tap) will cost about $30 and hydrometer will set you back about $10. Go chat to your local brew shop and I’m sure the staff will be happy to set you up, if you’re in Wellington The Brew House in Newtown is excellent.

You should be able to buy all of the ingredients for this in a supermarket, the only iffy one is dextrose, but most larger stores usually have a little brew section near the wine and beer these days. Dextrose is used instead of common sugar (Sucrose) as yeast can convert it more efficiently.

10 Litres of Water for the boil
2 Kg Dextrose
1 Kg Brown Sugar
500 ml Lemon juice (and the rinds from the lemons)
Yeast (I used Vintner's Harvest CL23 Wine Yeast)


I imagine if you had a juicer it may be easier to tackle the ginger but I don’t, so in a blender with water in batches whiz up the ginger to make a coarse paste and dump the contents into a large pot (16 litre or bigger). Add the remaining water along with the lemon rind and bring to a simmer, let it bubble away for an hour or so until you have a very strong ginger tea and the pulverised ginger has given up its flavour.


Pour the liquid into the fermenter, using some cheesecloth to strain out the solids. Give the pot a quick rinse out and pour the liquid back into the pot and put on the heat. While stirring add the lemon juice, dextrose and brown sugar, bring to the boil. Let it boil for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile wash and sterilise the fermenter (follow the instructions on of whichever type of steriliser you have).


When the 15 minutes is up pour the liquid into the fermenter and top up to 20 litres with cold water. It needs to cool down to about 20°C before its gravity can be tested. When it’s finally cooled down, take enough liquid to fill up the hydrometer testing tube three quarters of the way up and test, it should read about 1.054, take a note of the result as this is the Original Gravity (OG) and will be used later to figure out the ABV (Alcohol By Volume). Stir in the yeast and put it in a not too cool dark spot for 2-3 weeks, I keep mine under the stairs and it’s a pretty constant 15°C.

The brew will be ready to bottle once the hydrometer reading has been constant for 2-3 days, which means the fermentation has stopped. I expected this brew to be ready after 10-14 days and have a Final Gravity (FG) reading of 1.014, I was very very wrong and it ended up taking 22 days at ended up at 0.992. To figure out what the ABV of your brew is use this formula: (OG-FG) x 131.25, so (1.054 - 0.992) x 131.25 = ABV of 8.14%.

When it finally stops fermenting it’s time to bottle, now you can syphon the brew off to another bucket with 130 grams of dextrose and then bottle from there, or if you want the quick easy method, use carbonation drops (most supermarkets will have in the same section as the dextrose, or get from a brew shop) which are essentially dextrose tablets, use 2 per 750ml bottle. Once you’ve had the pleasure of cleaning, sterilising and filling 25 bottles, store them in the same place you kept the fermenter and leave for 2 weeks, at which point the they should've carbonated and be ready to drink, if not don’t panic and just wait another week, it will happen it sometimes just takes a little extra time.

Pork and Fennel Meatballs

I love meatballs, versatile great little flavour carriers, great on rice, pasta or even in a bread roll, but I’m not talking about those abominations stuffed full of breadcrumbs and egg, no a decent meatball shouldn’t need any binders, get your hands dirty and knead the meat, that's all it should take for the minced protein to bind itself together.

Meatballs
Pork mince (500g)
Fennel bulb, finely diced and frilly fronds added too
Garlic, crushed
Paprika, salt and pepper

Sauce
Passata
Chorizo
Red Onion
Cannellini Beans

Knead the pork, fennel, garlic, paprika and salt together for a couple of minutes and then form meatballs, brown in pan and cook until about 50% done, remove and set aside. In the same pan, saute diced chorizo and red onion until the sausage has given up its fat and the onion has softened, season with some salt pepper and paprika, deglaze with a touch of vinegar and add passata, cook until quite thick and then add the meatballs to the pan, along with any resting juices, as well as a handful of cooked cannellini beans, cover the pan and cook until the meatballs are done. Really nice served on some steamed rice.