Colleen's Lemony Night

The Lemony Theme of February's Dinner was a tantalising taste of the spring and summer to come. We''re still battling the cold, snow, sleet, hail (all in one day today) but the Lemon dishes were zesty and warming! The AH Allerhande featured lemons as their monthly theme, quite apt after the illustrious Eattalkcook Club had announced the same!

Menu (Photos to follow)
Appetisers
Cheesy Lemons with basil oil and chilli (Clare)

Starters
Calamari with lemony mayonnaise & fresh lemon wedges (Colleen)

Palate Refresher
Lemon Sorbet (Clare)

Mains
Spring Vegetable and Lemon Rice(Colleen)
Chicken Tajine with preserved lemons (Kelly)
Lemon Chicken Parcels (Alison)

Desserts
Lemon Slice (Alison)
Lemon Meringue (Monique)

Miscellaneous info
Nicky and Mascha not attending

Cheesy Lemons, Lemon Sorbet, Preserved Lemon Chicken Tajine

Thanks for a great night Saturday Colleen&Fellow eat talk cook clubbers!!
Here are my recipes: (Clare)

CHEESY LEMONS WITH BASIL OIL (Donna Hay!)

4 lemons, halved
1 cup (100g) grated mozzarella
1 cup (200g) ricotta
½ cup (40g) finely grated parmesan
½ teaspoon chilli flakes
sea salt and cracked black pepper
1 cup basil leaves
¼ cup (60ml) olive oil


Preheat oven to 200ºC (390ºF). Remove the flesh from the lemon halves+ and discard. Place mozzarella, ricotta, parmesan, chilli, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix well to combine. Spoon into the lemon halves and place in a baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes or until the cheese is golden. Place the basil and oil in the bowl
of a small food processor and process in short bursts until well combined. Drizzle over lemon halves to serve. Serves 4.

LEMON SORBET

You will need for 4 servings:

Thinly peeled rind and juice 3 lemons

6 oz. loaf sugar (I used castor sugar)

1 pint water

1 egg white

Put lemon rind into saucepan with water and sugar. Warm over a gentle heat until sugar has dissolved, then boil rapidly for 5-6 mins. Cool. Add lemon juice and strain into a 1&1/2 pint container. Freeze for about 1 hour or until almost firm(In fast freeze drawer-if you can still stir it like liquid it needs longer before you add egg white or they will float on top!) Remove from freezer and mash so that no large lumps remain. Fold in stiffly whisked egg white, cover closely with double thickness foil and refreeze.

To serve: Allow to thaw a little in refrigerator for 3 hours before serving.

Preserved Lemons & Chicken Tajine

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken, skin removed, cut into pieces
• 2 large white or yellow onions, very finely chopped
• one small handful of fresh coriander, chopped
• one small handful of fresh parsley, chopped
• 2 or 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped or pressed
• 2 teaspoons ginger
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon turmeric (or 1/4 teaspoon Moroccan yellow colorant)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled (optional)
• 1 handful green or red olives, or mixed
• 1 preserved lemon, quartered and seeds removed
• olive oil
• 1/4 cup water, approximately

Preparation:

Prepare the Chicken

Remove the flesh from the preserved lemon, and finely chop it. Add the chopped lemon flesh to a bowl along with the chicken, onion, garlic, cilantro, parsley, spices, and mix well. Marinate in the refrigerator for several hours or even overnight.

To Cook the Chicken

Add enough olive oil to the tagine to coat the bottom. Arrange the chicken in the tagine (flesh-side down), and distribute the rest of the marinade all around.

Add the olives over the chicken. Add the water to the tagine, cover, and place on a diffuser over a medium-low heat.

Gently simmer (lowest setting possible) for 80 to 90 minutes, and then turn the chicken over so that it's flesh side up. Cover the tagine again, and allow the chicken to finish cooking until very tender.

Turn off the heat, and let the tagine to cool for about 10 to 15 minutes before serving. Moroccan tradition is to eat directly from the tagine, using Moroccan bread to scoop up the chicken and sauce.

Happy Chinese New Year!

We had a dinner for 4 adults (and 2 kids) with this much food. Burp! The photos might just be appreciated :)

February's Theme

Hi Fellow Foodies

I have trawled the web and finally found a suitably foodie quote using the word LEMON. Here it is:

“Huge lemons, cut in slices, would sink like setting suns into the dusky sea, softly illuminating it with their radiating membranes, and its clear, smooth surface aquiver from the rising bitter essence.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

So, to continue....the theme for the next eattalkcook meeting is Lemons.

I have given some thought to my dishes and will definitely have calamari served with lemon mayonnaise and fresh lemon wedges, I will serve this as a starter. I would also like to make a spring vegetable and lemon risotto as part of the starch. Please feel free to add your dishes so that we can feast in what will soon be true eattalkcook tradition.

xx Colleen 

Brown Beer Beef Stew aka ''Stovers''

OK, I finally got to posting the stovers recipe. I promise to be quicker next time. I do have a good excuse: I've been in Barcelona this past week on a business trip. Of course, it wasn't all work and no play. I took the opportunity to try some yummie tappas food while there. The local cured ham and calamari still being among my favorite finger foods, and I burned off the calories afterwards at the company clubbing shindigs (3!) (incriminating pictures on facebook for those who are interested ;-)

Here's how I make the stovers:

ingredients:
2 chopped onions
1kg stew beef, diced
~50g butter
laurel, thyme, pepper, salt
1 slice of bread
mustard
1 bottle of brown belgian beer (I prefer Grimbergen or Leffe)
a dash of vinegar
a scoop of (straw)berry jam

how to fix it:
- Saute the onions in the butter.
- Sear the beef cubes on all sides in the onions mixture.
- Add the herbs, pepper & salt
- Add the bottle of beer to just submerge the meat. If needed, add some more beer.
- Add a dash of vinegar
- Cover the slice of bread on both sides with mustard and put on top of the meat. It will soak up the liquid and disintegrate during the cooking process.
- Cover and simmer for about 4 hour, or till the meat is tender
- Just before the end, add the scoop of jam.

The stew is best served with brown beer of course !
Enjoy

The 'How Your Food Obsession Began' Tasting Menu

We came, we talked, we ate= in summary, it was a success!! It was a great feeling cooking a small dish and knowing that it was a part of a much bigger and better meal. I love talking about food, not just how it tastes, but the personal, cultural and historical past of food traditions.

The 'How Your Food Obsession Began' Tasting Menu

Appetizer
Stuffed chicken wings (China-Thailand- Kelly) recipe

De-boned chicken wings stuffed with vermicelli, carrots, spring onion and pork mince. Steamed then lightly battered and deep-fried. Served with a cucumber sweet chilli sauce- a nice contrast with crunch! Stuffing things with this kind of filling is common in chinese food, adding the vermicelli and the cucumber dipping sauce is a Thai thing. Deboning chicken wings is fun to do once in a while, about every 4 years I get the urge to do this recipe again!

Mum used to eat out and then would mull over it for days until she could actually try and recreate the dish.

Starters
Australian Pumpkin Soup (Alison- recipe)

A myriad of pumpkin soup variations have been invented- but the Australian classic is my favourite. The browned Bacon and onion base gives a richness and heartiness that is so full of flavour. This is Alison's mum's 'cooks this when the kids are home to visit' dish. All mums have those dishes and no one cooks it better than mum does... what will be your dish?

Mains
Steamed egg & rice (Malaysia- Kelly) recipe
(no picture taken) Oops, but perhaps it's better this way. This is one of those dishes that is not so photogenic and one of those dishes that you don't cook for 'company'. Silky smooth steam egg with a filling of marinated minced pork with white rice that tickles your tongue in contrast. This is a dish my mother made often as one of 3-4 dishes for dinner. Dinner was always a mini buffet, a variety of textures and flavours.

Palate Refresher
Blood Orange Basil Granita recipe

Something tangy to refreshen and ready the taste buds for the coming onslaught...

Mains Continued
Stovers (Belgian brown beer-beef Stew-Nicky) recipe

An old-time Belgian classic that originated as 'poor people's food' but now (as many of these things are) served in commonly restaurants. This is an amazing stew that is punchy and definitely a masculine character (as I was typing this I had to warm up the leftovers for a nibble :) The dishes which require long, slow cooking used to be reserved for the cheapest cuts of meat, but now represent the opposite: if you've got the time to do it, that's a luxury.

Pap en Sous (South Africa- Monique)

Continuing in the tradition of dishes that are not cooked for 'company' Pap en Sous was served. A humble dish with African origins with a sauce with a chutney base. We should share these dishes more often as it's not so much the taste (although the tangy stewed tomatoes and onions were a perfect foil for the smooth pap) but the memories that are embedded in them: we return home for just a bit when eating :)

Stoofperen & Rabbit Stew (Netherlands- Mascha)

Sweet Stoofperen/Stoofpeertjes are a beautiful accompaniment to hearty stews, and they brought along gorgeous rabbit slowly stewed in white wine and and mixed mushrooms (kind of a Jennifer Aniston-Brad Pitt pearing :Pun intended: she's lovely and multifaceted but he's a Star). The pears turn a beautiful pinky red as they are cooked (pigments in the pear turn red in acidic conditions) and were beautifully fragrant with vanilla. This recipe is from Mascha's granddad and he always cooked it for special and festive occasions. Unfortunately, he passed away last year but thankfully passed the recipe in time to his granddaughter. To continue the tradition at Christmas, Mascha went shopping and dutifully picked up a box of potato starch, as Granddad had instructed....what should be on the back of the potato starch box, was Grandad's traditional Stoofperen recipe!

*must try the witches soup recipe with my kids too!*

Sweets/Desserts

Pavlova (England- Clare) recipe

This pavlova was reminiscent of the first pavlova I ever tasted. I don't really remember that pavlova, but I do recall that pavlovas eaten in recent years never lived up to the image of that pavlova that I held on a pedastal. This was 'my' perfect (and I know there are different versions of perfect) enough crispy-shell-to-marshmallow-innards-ratio, magically chewy base, no smelly egg smell, loads of fresh fruit to relieve from the sweetness every now and then, fresh white pristine cream. Pavlova is one of those simple recipes that often stymie the most hardened of cooks. Some 'traditional cooks' don't really experiment with the new-fashioned sushi/stir-fry/rosé lamb trends but who needs to when you can perform alchemy and make pavlova. This is Clare's mum's recipe and was the beginning of further food adventures for Clare.

Dangerous Chocolate Fudge (South Africa/England - Colleen; Recipe)

The nail in the coffin for the evening; a wicked chocolate fudge- that magical crumbly, melty, almost brittle texture and sweetness and caramel flavour that coats your tongue. This is not just any fudge, but one that burned 6 year old Colleen and left a scar for a lifetime on her hand. Scar? More like a Love bite!

Next month's evening has already been planned: Colleen's Night of the Lemons (title to be revised!). Stay tuned!!!