Showing posts with label banana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label banana. Show all posts

Monday, May 4, 2015

Showing Your Working - Healthy Espresso Jelly Sandwich Breakfast Cookie


Showing Your Working - Healthy Espresso Jelly Sandwich Breakfast Cookie


Sometimes I feel like presenting my cooking or recipes to people is like a Maths test. Not in the sense where x butter + y flour + z eggs and sugar = cake kinda way and people question my x, y and z’s. But in the sense that a question I get asked most frequently is – how did you come up with that? I’ve said that people refer to my cooking as quirky, rather than conventional and I feel like my little recipe pre-amble is my chance to “show my working”. So I try to present where my thinking starts, winds and ends up at the finished dish. I think a little background shows that it’s not quirky for quirky’s sake, there’s a lot of thought going into the flavour combinations, the textural elements, the overall nutritional content and purpose of the dish. So, on that note, this is my maths for what is a pretty novel, healthy and absolutely delicious breakfast. Something delicious enough to be a dessert, but healthy enough to start your day with, guilt free.


In order to beat the traffic, I get to work early and eat my breakfast at my desk while I check through my emails. It’s usually some form of oats with cultured dairy (yoghurt or buttermilk), fruit and nuts & seeds. Carrot Cake Bircher muesli is a firm favourite, but requires a bit more prep than I can usually be bothered with, so that’s more a once every few months deal. My most regular staple is cold-brewed coffee overnight oats. Caffeine + whole grain awesomeness in one bowl. Soak it overnight, then add some fruit (usually bananas, prunes or berries) crunchy nuts and/or seeds before eating. It is so good and portable….but you’re left with dishes. That’s absolutely fine at work, where there’s a kitchen to do the dishes. But I needed a no-dishes portable breakfast. Something still full of healthy whole grains, the fruit and nuts and….the coffee. All in one. Enter the breakfast espresso jelly cookie.

I decided to stick with the elements of my coffee oats and layered based on wanting different textures. So we have two different ‘cookies’, the bottom is a chewy oat and banana cookie – making up the oat and fruit content of my breakfast. The middle is coffee jelly. This idea came from using excess sangria jelly in my granola to delicious effect. And the top is a nuts and seed granola ‘cookie’ to emulate the nutty crunch of my topping on my oats. I threw in some chocolate because…well, why not? My palate is decided not ‘sweet’, especially in the morning, so feel free to customize by adding ¼ cup of sugar to the espresso jelly (I have my long blacks without sugar normally). The honey in the cookies is more than sufficient for me.

And, if you don’t need the portability, serve with honey whipped ricotta or yoghurt. (Or ice cream!!)

Showing Your Working - Healthy Espresso Jelly Sandwich Breakfast Cookie
Showing Your Working - Healthy Espresso Jelly Sandwich Breakfast Cookie


Healthy Espresso Jelly Breakfast Sandwich Cookies

(Makes 12 formed cookies)

Espresso Jelly

6tbsp ground coffee beans
500mL freshly boiled water
5 tsp powdered gelatin


Lightly spray a lamington tin with cooking spray. Put the coffee beans into a plunger and pour over the boiled water. Leave for 5 minutes, then plunge and pour into a bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin over the top of the coffee and whisk in until dissolved. Pour into the lamington tin and put in the fridge to set for at least 4 hours.

When set, cut into rounds with an egg ring. Chop the excess bits up and serve them with normal oats.

Banana Oat Cookies

3 small very ripe bananas
1 ½ tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp chia seeds
½ cup water
2/3 cup shredded coconut
1 2/3 cup rolled oats


Preheat oven to 165C

In a small bowl, mix the chia seeds and water and set aside to form a gel.

In a large bowl, mash the bananas until smooth, then mix in the spices and honey. Add the chia seed mix, stirring to combine evenly. Then add the oats and stir to coat.

Line a baking tray and lightly grease an egg ring.Place a few tablespoonsful of mixture into the ring and press in tightly with the back of a spoon. Gently lift off the ring, and form the rest of the cookies.

Bake for 10 minutes, or until starting to turn golden on top. Remove, gently flip over the biscuits and bake for a further 10 minutes, until that side is also golden. Cool for 10 minutes on the trays, then on racks.

Showing Your Working - Healthy Espresso Jelly Sandwich Breakfast Cookie
Showing Your Working - Healthy Espresso Jelly Sandwich Breakfast Cookie
Showing Your Working - Healthy Espresso Jelly Sandwich Breakfast Cookie
 

Chocolate Nut Brittle Biscuits

1 ½ tbsp. cacao powder
3 tbsp cacao nibs
1/3 cup pistachios, roughly chopped
1/3 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
1 cup pumpkin seeds
2/3 cup almonds, roughly chopped
1 tbsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp pepper
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp olive oil

Heat the oven to 165C

Mix the nuts, seeds and cacao nibs together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the oil, cacao powder, pepper, salt, vanilla, honey and oil. Make sure it is well combined. Pour the nut mix into the wet mix and stir to thoroughly coat everything.

Line a tray with baking paper, and lightly grease an egg ring. Place a few tablespoons of mixture into the ring and press it in tightly, pressing down with the back of a spoon. Gently remove the ring, and repeat for the rest of the mixture.

Bake for 15 minutes, or until caramelised and 'solid'. The mixture will spread a little, but still retain the basic round shape. Cool on the trays. Trim the edges to neaten your sandwiches.

Layer one oat cookie, espresso jelly then a nut brittle cookie on top. If you assemble, wrap and store in the fridge. They will last a few days. The cookies will last up to a week separate at room temperature in air tight containers. Store the jelly in the fridge.

Showing Your Working - Healthy Espresso Jelly Sandwich Breakfast Cookie
Showing Your Working - Healthy Espresso Jelly Sandwich Breakfast Cookie

Showing Your Working - Healthy Espresso Jelly Sandwich Breakfast Cookie

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Inauthentic Deliciousness- Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry

Inauthentic Deliciousness- Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry

When Lance and I were dating, he took me to an Indian restaurant in Vic Park. Both of us particularly liked the Mango Chicken Curry at our local Indian takeaway, and so it was one of the dishes we ordered that night. It was served up in one of those beautiful copper bowls, which was sat on a plate. I accidentally knocked the plate and threw Mango Chicken Curry all over me. ALL over me. Lance just shook his head and laughed. “I can’t take you anywhere!”


That story isn’t hugely relevant to this recipe, but I wasn’t too sure how to start this post and that story came to me. I guess it’s because the Mango Curry is a sweet, fruity and mild curry, and this is too. Lance isn’t a huge fan of banana (unless it is in a chocolate peanut butter smoothie), but he still really enjoyed the fruitiness it added to this curry. The secret is to use ripe, but still ‘hard’ bananas. You don’t want them to break down too much, or be too sweet. The rest of the flavours are just normal curry spices. I don’t know a great deal about cooking curries, I only know I enjoy eating them. So it’s in no way traditional, but it is incredibly flavoursome.


So, if you’re clumsy like I am, and you can’t be taken anywhere, at least you can still have a good curry

Inauthentic Deliciousness- Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry
Inauthentic Deliciousness- Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry
Inauthentic Deliciousness- Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry


Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry

2 tsp salt
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp pepper
1 tsp coriander seeds, ground
1 tsp cumin seeds, ground
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 brown onion, diced
thumbsize piece ginger, peeled and finely grated
1/2 butternut pumpkin, 2 cm dice
1 chicken breast, chopped into 2cm chunks
1 red capsicum, 1cm dice
1 tin coconut cream

2 firm but ripe bananas, peeled and cut into 2cm chunks
to serve
black rice
cashews
chopped coriander leaves
 Heat a large pot to medium heat and place the dry spices in. Cook until nice and fragrant – around 1-2 minutes. Add a good splash of olive oil, then the onion, garlic and ginger, stirring well to coat in the spices. Cook for 10 minutes until the onion is translucent.


Add the chicken pieces and stir to brown, 5 minutes. Add in the capsicum and pumpkin, the coconut cream and rinse the can out with water (about 3/4 of the tin), adding that to the pot as well. Stir well, then put the lid on and simmer 15-20 minutes until the pumpkin is almost cooked through. 


Add the banana pieces in for the last 10 minutes of cooking so they heat through, but don’t completely break down.

Check for seasoning, then serve with black rice and cashews and coriander leaves, if desired





Inauthentic Deliciousness- Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry
Inauthentic Deliciousness- Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry
Inauthentic Deliciousness- Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry
Inauthentic Deliciousness- Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry
Inauthentic Deliciousness- Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple

Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple

There’s a restaurant in Perth that sells dessert nachos. Whilst dessert pizzas are a bit of a thing these days, I’d never heard of dessert nachos before. Whilst I haven’t had them, the description was unsalted tortilla chips with fruit sauces (strawberry and mango if I recall correctly) that are designed to look like salsa and cheese. It sounds delicious, and it sounds like something I’ll definitely be wanting to try at some point BUT it got me to thinking – why plain tortilla chips? Why not flavoured? That could be a thing, yeah?

I decided upon trying my hand at chocolate tortillas. And then I decided I wanted to make dessert tacos, instead of nachos. If I’m making the tortillas fresh, I might as well eat them fresh, too, right? We don’t often eat dessert in my house. Occasionally there’ll be a bowl of ice cream, but more often than not if there’s sweets after dinner it’s just some squares of chocolate or something snacky like that. I just can’t be bothered making dessert for two of us, especially on weeknights. So the obvious next choice for dessert tacos was as a lovely breakfast or brunch spread. You surely all know by now that I love breakfast!

The fillings for the tacos were mainly based on things I had in the house already and things that work for breakfast. The combination of which would feel decadent, but not super rich. I wanted it to be basically a healthy breakfast. Knowing that I had two different types of homemade caramel sauce ready to go in the fridge (the caramel sauce from my pavlova and a homemade dulce de leche) the other accompaniments had to have minimal sweetness. Even the tortillas themselves had minimal sugar to keep them fairly neutral (but chocolatey!). Add Philly cream cheese for dairy, peanut butter, fresh banana, toasted walnuts, cacao nibs and a spiced apple mix and it made a pretty awesome DIY taco bar. My favourite combination was cream cheese, dulche de leche, spiced apple and walnuts. Feel free to add whatever other fillings you have on hand. Strawberries or blueberries would be amazing. Nutella to ramp up the chocolate factor. Cream and Ice Cream if you want to forego the illusion of healthy.

This makes a lot more tortillas than 2 people need for brunch. But the leftovers make amazing chocolate tortilla chips. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar!
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple

Chocolate Tortillas

3 cups masa harina
¾ tsp salt
¼ cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
2 1/3 cups warm water

Whisk together the masa, salt, sugar and cocoa powder until completely combined. Add the warm water, starting with the two cups and knead until it becomes a smooth, slightly tacky ball. Set aside to rest for 10 minutes.

Heat a pan to medium high heat

Grab two bits of baking paper about the size of a tray. Pick up golf ball size pieces of dough, roll into balls, then place between the two bits of paper and roll out with a rolling pin into a tortilla.

Gently peel the tortilla off the paper and place in the hot pan. Flip after 30 seconds, cook for 45 seconds (it will puff up), flip and cook for another 30 seconds. Set in a shallow flat bowl (or plate) lined with a clean kitchen towel and cover to keep warm.

Repeat for the remaining tortillas.

Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple


Spiced Apple

3 pink lady apples, finely diced
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Juice half orange
1 tbsp maple syrup

Stir the orange juice, maple syrup, vanilla and spices together in a small saucepan. Add the apple pieces and stir to coat. Place over low heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the apple has softened, but still holds it’s shape

Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced AppleBrunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Recreating Deliciousness - Coppelia Calamari with Tamarind Dressing

On my recent holiday, I ate a lot of Cuban. A lot. It started at Bar Pulpo at the Melbourne Airport. And it was good. So rare to get good food at an airport! But I was really impressed. It made the 5 hour plane delay bearable! Then in the states, I went to a restaurant in New York that was recommended to me - Coppelia. And even though it's been two or so months since I've been there, I still consider it one of my favourite restaurants. It's a funky Latin diner style restaurant with ridiculously good, well-priced food. We went to another 4 Cuban restaurants in our trip and loved every single dish. So I came back and wishlisted a few Cuban cooking books on bookdepository (but if you have any recommendations for other good Latin and Cuban cookbooks to add to the list, I'd love to hear). So you can look forward to Skamp's versions of other Latin dishes!
 
Lance and I both fell in love with Coppelia's blue cornmeal crusted calamari with tamarind vinaigrette. We are haunted by it, so I am trying to create an "at-home" version. We don't get plantains in WA (or if you know of a place they're available, please, please, please let me know!!!) so I substituted bananas. Here's a photo of their version:

 
 
I couldn't find blue cornmeal, but I already had some blue corn flour (blue masa), which I used for the flour for the dusting as well as in the coating cornmeal. I get mine from one of my favourite shops in Perth - Kakulas. Using masa for the whole dish makes it naturally gluten free, if that's an issue for you.
 
To make the tamarind dressing, firstly you have to make tamarind syrup. There's a recipe here on my Kale Tamarind Salad recipe. You'll see in the pictures of my version, that it wasn't nearly saucy enough compared to theirs. When I heated the sauce, it reduced right down, so this recipe is double.



My verdict on it's similarity? Well, it's not quite the same, but it's still delicious. But my memory might also be failing me. I think the best thing to do would be to go back to New York to re-acquaint myself with the original!
 
 
Calamari
200g squid rings
1 cup rice bran oil for frying
2 firm but ripe bananas, cut into 3cm chunks

Flour mix
1/4 cup blue corn flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

2 beaten eggs

Cornmeal mix
1/4 cup blue corn flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp ancho chilli powder
1/2 tsp chipotle chilli powder

Tamarind Dressing
16 tbsp tamarind syrup
8 tbsp red wine vinegar
4 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp cachaca
salt & pepper to taste

Have the flour mix, egg wash and cornmeal mix in three separate bowls, ready to go. Then an empty plate for the coated ring.

Dip each calamari ring in flour mix, shake to remove excess. Then the egg wash, shake to remove excess. Lastly coat with the cornmeal mix. Then coat the banana pieces in the same way.

Heat the rice bran oil in a wok or frypan - enough to create a shallow layer. Carefully splash a drop of water into the hot oil. If it sizzles, it's hot enough. Without crowding the pan, fry the calamari rings a few at a time, allowing to crispen and darken before turning over. It'll take a few minutes per side.

Place on paper towel lined plate and keep warm. Repeat with all rings until they're all cooked, then do the banana pieces, cooking each side until crispy.

In a separate pan, add all of the dressing ingredients and heat the pan to medium. Stir as it cooks for a minute or two until it reduces into a sticky sauce. carefully put the calamari and bananas in the sauce and stir to coat. Plate up, the drizzle the remaining sauce over the top.

Served here with a bean sprout, coriander, ginger and peanut salad.