Mac and Cheese Sliders

Mac and Cheese isn’t really considered healthy, and well it is pretty much starch with starch with cheese, so not really helping out with the 5+ a day vegetable intake that is recommended. So why not gild the lily and coat patties of Mac & Cheese in some tasty potato starch (instant mash potato), fry the little cheese pasta goodness and slide it into a soft bun with some hot sauce and lettuce. Why not indeed, a total carb overload, bread, pasta, flour based sauce, not at all bad for you, well not your taste buds anyway.

Macaroni
Cook to the packets instructions, I prefer the small elbow to the large. Take care not to overcook. Strain and dump into a large bowl. I think I used about 300 grams of pasta.

Streaky bacon
Slice up into little lardons and place in a hot oven until the fat has started to render out and crisp up around the edges, don’t make it too crispy otherwise you’ll have little bacon bullets in your pasta. Tip the bacon, fat and all, on top of the strained pasta and stir through.

Cheese Sauce
750 ml milk (whole milk please)
Parsley
Bay Leaf
Thyme
Peppercorns
Onion (peeled and quartered)

Place all of the ingredients in a pot and put over a low heat, allow it to gently simmer for ten minutes or so, be careful not to scald the milk. Strain into a jug for easy pouring.

Over a medium heat melt 3 tablespoons of butter and then stir in 3 heaped tablespoons of flour, stir until the flour has cooked through, make sure not to colour the roux too much. Pour in a portion of the milk and whisk until it has incorporated and begins to thicken, repeat until all of the milk is incorporated. Cook until thick, stirring often. If the white sauce is lumpy, don’t worry just keep stirring and cooking, the starch in the flour will eventually hydrate and the the sauce will become smooth.

Remove the pot from the heat and whisk in an egg, and two cups of cheese, I like to use a combination of strong flavourful cheese and good melting cheese.


Pour the cheese sauce into the bowl with the pasta and stir through making sure it is evenly coated, taste and season as needed.

Now you can spoon this into a baking dish, top with some crumbs and cook in a hot oven for about half an hour and you’ll have some tasty mac & cheese, or you could wait for it to cool and transfer it to some containers and place in the fridge. When the mix has set and is completely cold remove from the fridge and spoon into ring molds, pressing down with the back of a spoon to make little slider patties, carefully coat each patty in potato starch (instant potatoes).


Heat a good amount of oil in a heavy based frying pan and cook the patties until they are golden brown on each side, you could probably deep fry if you wish but I find shallow frying works perfectly well. Allow the patties to drain on some kitchen towels and serve in a slider bun with shredded iceberg lettuce and hot sauce.

Corn and chicken soup

Well I had caught this winters bug and found myself feeling rather sorry for myself and with a bit of time to kill, as well as some bugs, nothing does a better job than a hearty corn soup or a chicken soup. As I was not completely bed ridden, rather just inconvenienced to feel like a steam roller was trying to escape from my face, I mustered up as much energy as I could and put far too much effort into this chicken-corn soup, but it was worth it, the time taken to reduce the liquid down to a thick silky soup was well used to prepare a hot toddy or two to sooth my scratchy throat.


Measurements are volumetric for you today also, well in the two main ingredients anyway, one litre of stock, and one litre of corn kernels, the end result is about 700 ml of soup. It’s all rather simple to begin with, take a pot and add to it: two chicken thighs, a carrot, bunch of parsley, thyme, dried chilli, bay leaves, peppercorns, the green parts of spring onions and one litre of chicken stock. Bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer, cook until the chicken is cooked through and tender. Remove the thighs from the pot and move them to a bowl and cover with cling-film. Strain the liquid into a bowl and discard the solids, transfer the liquid back to the pot along with the corn kernels.


Frankly it’s winter and I used frozen corn, when the corn has warmed through use a stick blender to purée the mixture, pass through a fine sieve then the remaining solids through a fine mouli, the end result should be a smooth liquid free of kernel skins and a volume of about 1.5 litres, pour this back into the now clean pot and simmer until it has thickened and reduced, I ended up with 700 ml of soup at the right consistency. When the soup has thickened adjust the seasoning, shred the chicken thigh meat and add to the soup, bring it back to a simmer and serve with some spring onion garnish and a good drizzle of a quality chilli oil.

Whipped cream and kedgeree

I’ve posted about kedgeree before, but this time I’ve tried something a little different, this time I added a little garnish of savoury whipped cream to the final dish, yes whipped cream, the heat from the curry-fishy-rice melts the cream into its crevices and makes a heavenly sauce. It is a little odd at first look to see a quenelle of cream perched upon a very savoury dish slowly melting and mingling flavours, fresh lemon zest and parsley folded into the salted whipped cream does a great job of brightening the whole dish, and it doesn’t take long for your brain to get over thinking cream equals sweet.

Serves 2, with a little leftover for lunch.

2 eggs
6-8 cherry tomatoes, sliced into quarters
1 cup of rice, Basmati is good
1 tbsp of good curry powder or paste
Half a red onion, finely diced
1 red chilli, seeds removed and finely sliced
500g smoked fish, flaked into large chunks
1 lemon, zest and juice
1 tbsp butter
100–150 ml cream
Parsley
Salt

Put the eggs in a pot and cover with cold water, bring the boil and cook for 5 minutes, drain and run over cold water, set aside. One egg is diced and tossed through the rice, the other is sliced into quarters for garnish.

Cook the rice until it’s just barely cooked, we don’t want it too well done as it will turn to mush when stirred later. When cooked, spread out on a sheet pan and leave to cool.


Take a bunch of parsley (leave some for garnish) and chiffonade. Whip the cream with a good pinch of salt to soft peaks and fold through the lemon zest and parsley, place in a container and let it sit in the fridge while the rest of the dish is made.

Sauté the onion and and chilli in the butter until softened and the onion is translucent. Add the curry and cook until fragrant, be careful not to burn it. Toss the rice into the pan and carefully stir through making sure to evenly coat the rice, add the fish, tomatoes, lemon juice and diced egg and gently mix until everything is heated through.

Serve a generous amount in a shallow bowl with a couple of the egg quarters and spoon on a quenelle of the cream.

Cauliflower and Flank

Cauliflower sliced into quarters and tossed in Ras El Hanout with a little olive oil to help the spice mixture stick, placed on a roasting pan and cooked at 180ºC until the thickest part of the stem is tender (about 30-40 minutes). Then divided into bite-sized florets served whole and larger pieces passed through a mouli resulting in a coarse mash and then given a little body with some olive oil and seasoned.

Flank steak is simply seasoned with salt and pepper, roasted in a hot pan with an appropriate amount of butter (read: large amount), cooked over a high heat, constantly basted, turned every 30-60 seconds until it reaches a medium-rare temperature, then covered and left to rest for at least 10 minutes.

Salsa verde is made by finely chopping parsley, basil and capers together, then mixing in a bowl with some olive oil, cider vinegar and dijon mustard. Season with salt to taste.

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I had the pleasure of attending the Visa Wellington on Plate launch and this year looks like it's going to be a cracker so make sure to get in and book your place in the limited seat functions, and take advantage of the other great deals that are going to be around, I'll be found guzzling down oysters on Cuba St.

Mister rabbits last meal

Ambition and vision seemed to come into alignment, and as usual I probably went a little overboard on a dish for two, and maybe put in a few or more hours into it, just as well I like spending time in the kitchen I guess. I didn’t have a clear idea when I first saw Mr Rabbit inviting me to take him home from Moore Wilson as we madly dashed around the store on a rather freezing cold morning, rushing home to get a panel heater installed. Not so much a recipe as such, but more a list of what was what in roughly the order it happened.

Rabbit Broken down, loin removed, belly removed, legs removed and deboned.


Bones and scraps into a pan (pressure cooker) with baking soda, carrots, onion, caraway, juniper, peppercorns, thyme and parsley, 1 cup of water and 1 cup of dry suffolk cider, cooked on high pressure for 45 minutes, let to release pressure, strained without pressing the bones and vegetables.




Leg meat was cured in salt (2%), juniper and thyme overnight. Sous vide confit with duck fat for 4 hours at 70ºC. Roughly pulled apart and formed into a torchon, wrapped firmly in layers of cling film. Refrigerated overnight.


The leg “torchon” is sliced in half, and one half in half again, the intact half rolled in flour, egg yolk, panko crumbs, yolk and then finally crumbs again. Left in the fridge for at least half an hour.


Carrots peeled, sliced and cooked in enough water until tender, passed through a mouli, then a fine sieve, returned to pan and cooked with some butter until enough water has evaporated and a thick purée is left, seasoned.


Sauce, red onion, thyme, butter, cooked until the onion is tender and 1 cup of dry suffolk cider is added, reduced to 1 quarter, strained, 1 cup of rabbit stock added and reduced to 1 third of a cup, seasoned and enriched with a little butter to thicken and add shine.


Radish is sliced thinly then placed in an ice bath. Brussels sprouts broken down to individual leaves, blanched in boiling salted water then transferred to ice bath.


Leg quarters are seared on one side in butter and left to heat through. The crumbed half is fried in butter, spooning over the foaming butter to help create an even golden brown coating, drained on paper towels, and sliced in half on a bias just before serving.

Loin, pan seared and spoon with butter until medium.

Parsley and thyme picked over for garnish.

Plated with what one could call a skid mark of carrot purée, loin sliced in half, then the uncrumbed leg, crumbed leg, radish and sprout leaves arranges, and dressed with the rich sauce, and a scattering of herbs.

Venison and Beet Salad

It’s always a pleasure when you’re presented with a little wild fare, such as the beautiful venison filet the other half (now wife) came home with after a laborious day up in Masterton working on the farm. Equally as pleasurable is when a plan comes straight to mind what to do with such a tasty piece of meat. I set about making room in the fridge so the fillet could have a little room to age and dry a little. It was sliced in equal halves and one went straight in the fridge for a few days, and the other ended up in a bag with 1% salt (by weight), brown sugar, thyme, and juniper, to cure for 24 hours or so before being patted dry and joining its uncovered other half to dry and age a little, they ended up in the fridge for about six days.


The fillets were taken out of the fridge about half an hour before cooking, and a pan put on a high heat, with what one could describe as a f*#k tonne of butter, because butter makes the world better. When the butter had finally calmed down, stopped foaming and spitting, the uncured portion went in the pan, seared golden brown, rolled around in it’s butter bath, then the cured portion went in about half way before the other piece was cooked and bathed in buttery goodness, in total they got about 6 and 4 minutes in the pan respectively, which resulted a perfectly rare temp.


As the meat was put aside to rest, a handful of diced shallots and thyme were liberally tossed into the pan to soften and perfume the butter before a splash of red wine and stock, we’re talking about equal parts butter, stock, wine, so quite good for you and your arteries, and especially your taste buds. It was left to reduce to a thick rich syrup and finally sieved.


A simple salad of roasted beets, toasted hazelnuts, ewe cheese and rocket tossed in a little olive oil was the perfect partner for the oh so rich gamey meat, with the two distinct textures and flavours of the cured (left) and uncured (right), and not forgetting the ever so rich pan glaze that brought everything together. Now I just need to get my hands on more of the venison goodness!

Wings, version... I've lost count

The latest foray into the realms of the chicken wing was a wee while ago, and also not my own creation but rather Alton Browns rather delicious buffalo wings, which although had lovely crisp skin and lashings of butter-hot sauce-garlic awesomeness, they lacked what I truly desire when it comes to a hot wing, crunch. I really liked the method of steaming the wings, and refrigerating before baking, the steaming encourages the fat in the skin to render so when placed in the hot oven it runs out and fries/crisps the skin on the way, and the refrigeration tightens the skin, in my other methods I use the resting/refrigeration to help the starch in the coating to hydrate. I figured I could Frankenstein a few methods together and end up with the benefits of the steamed wing combined with that crunch I was missing, and maybe embellish with coating in an extravagant butter-hot sauce combo.

Ingredients
Chicken wings
1 part semolina flour
1 part potato starch
salt, chilli powder & coriander powder to taste

Get a pot of water on to the boil, and pile the chicken wings in steamer, set the steamer in the pot and let it bathe in the vapour for 15 minutes, it’s quite nice to add a few aromatics to the water, such as garlic and the like.


While the wings are steaming mix together the dry ingredients, then carefully remove the chicken and toss in the flour mixture. Arrange the wings on a rack on a sheet pan and refrigerate for at least an hour.


Preheat the oven to 220°C, place a sheet of baking paper below the rack and cook for 15-20 minutes, flip and cook for another 15-20 minutes.

To really gild the lily, and I highly recommend it, toss the hot crunchy wings in a mixture of melted butter, garlic and hot sauce, probably not that good for you but damn tasty.

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.