Showing posts with label orange. Show all posts
Showing posts with label orange. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Fancy Brunch Canapes - Enoki Tacos with Orange Hollandaise

Fancy Brunch Canapes - Enoki Tacos with Orange Hollandaise

Most weekends, I try to do something a little different for breakfast. Oats is a work day food, so the weekend needs to be a bit more playful! That'll mean different things, depending on time, how much I need to do grocery shopping, how much I'm feeling the night before...that sort of thing. I woke up on Saturday hungry - but not knowing what I feel like. Lance is generally unhelpful when you ask him what he wants for meals. "Whatever you feel like making", is a fairly common response. I was at a loss for ideas, so I looked in the fridge for inspiration.

5 egg yolks that needed using fairly soon. Half a packet of enoki mushrooms. Half a packet of tortillas. Bam! Inspired. I would whip up a Hollandaise sauce, adding orange from the few ripe ones recently fallen from our tree. I'd sautee up the mushrooms with a few fresh herbs. And I'd make tacos. For fun and presentation, I cut mini tortillas out of the larger sized ones before toasting a little of the stale out of them. Like this, they make a wonderful canape. Elegant and simple. But you can be lazy and have normal sized tacos if that's more your speed. Or you can make your own smaller sized ones to start with.

Either way, start to finish, this takes around 10 minutes to make, and is a bloody delicious way to start the day, if I do say so myself. (Lance said so too, if that sways you!)

And if you are serving this for brunch, a glass of bubbles to drink with it certainly wouldn't go astray!
Fancy Brunch Canapes - Enoki Tacos with Orange Hollandaise
Fancy Brunch Canapes - Enoki Tacos with Orange Hollandaise
Fancy Brunch Canapes - Enoki Tacos with Orange Hollandaise


Orange Hollandaise Sauce

5 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tsp Tabasco sauce
1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
zest from 1 orange
6 tablespoons softened butter

Set up a double-boiler with a small saucepan with a few inches of water, and a glass bowl for the top that won't touch the water. Bring the water to a simmer while you whisk together the egg yolks until lightened in colour and thickened, about 2 minutes. Whisk in the salt, Tabasco sauce, orange zest and orange juice until well combined.

Place the glass bowl over the simmering water and whisk. The eggs will lighten and thicken to a custard like consistency. One tablespoon at a time, whisk in the butter, allowing it to fully incorporate before adding the next one.

Take off the heat, taste for seasoning - adding extra salt or Tabasco as required. Cover and set aside.
Fancy Brunch Canapes - Enoki Tacos with Orange Hollandaise


Enoki Mushroom Tacos

1/2 packet of Enoki mushrooms
small handful snow pea shoots
small handful of basil leaves
bunch of coriander, finely choppeed
1 spring onion, finely sliced
to serve
5 tortillas
Orange Hollandaise Sauce
smoked paprika for dusting

Heat a non-stick frypan to medium heat. Chop the bottom off of the enoki mushrooms and discard. Separate the clumps a little. If making mini-tacos, cut the enoki in half. Add the mushrooms and spring onion. Stir frequently witha wooden spoon, breaking the mushrooms apart more as you go.

When the mushrooms are wilted and browning slightly, add the basil leaves, coriander and snow pea shoots. Stir well to combine and take off the heat.

Serve the mushroom mix on a tortilla with a generous dollop of orange hollandaise sauce and dust with smoked paprika.
Fancy Brunch Canapes - Enoki Tacos with Orange Hollandaise
Fancy Brunch Canapes - Enoki Tacos with Orange Hollandaise

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Simplest of Sides - Orange Cinnamon Sweet Potato Smash

Simplest of Sides - Orange Cinnamon Sweet Potato Smash


This is the easiest side in the whole world. Ok, maybe not. But it is brilliant for those nights that you just want something quick to go with a grilled meat. Especially now the weather is warming up (41C/106F the other day) and you don’t want to put the oven on and heat up the whole house. All you need is a glass/pyrex bowl, a microwave, a fork and 6 minutes. The result is crazy flavoursome. I served this for the first time with Bourbon Molasses Braised Duck and it couldn’t have been a more perfect match. I will post that recipe very soon. But it’ll pretty much go with any meat except maybe seafood.

Because it is so easy, and not really something I've considered worth posting...I haven't been great at taking photos of said side. Sorry.

To make this vegan, substitute the butter with olive oil. Also, adding a few tablespoons of Greek Yoghurt instead of the butter makes a delightfully creamier version!


Simplest of Sides - Orange Cinnamon Sweet Potato Smash



Orange Cinnamon Sweet Potato Smash

3 small sweet potatoes
3 tbsp orange juice
Salt and pepper
½ tsp cinnamon
1 tsp butter


Scrub the sweet potatoes and cut into 3-4cm chunks. Place in a large glass bowl and add the orange juice and season lightly with salt and pepper. Cover the bowl with a piece of paper towel and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Check with a fork, if not quite tender, zap for another minute.

When done, add the butter and cinnamon and smash it all together with a fork to make a mash. Rough is fine, but you want to make sure the orange juice, butter and cinnamon are mixed through. Check for seasoning and serve.


Simplest of Sides - Orange Cinnamon Sweet Potato Smash


Thursday, September 11, 2014

Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco


Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco

Where do you stand on bone marrow? I know it tends to be a fairly divisive kind of food. Personally, I love it. Sucking the marrow out of the shank on a lamb roast is one of life’s joys (that I have to take turns with Lance on). It’s so rich and delicious. If you have a family that requires sharing the marrow, osso bucco is a perfect way of everybody getting some bone marrow, without forking out for just marrow bones and paying just for the bones. Osso Bucco is generally a fairly cheap cut of meat, as quite a few of the slow-cook meats are, but it is so delicious.


Traditionally, osso bucco is cooked in Italian style flavourings. Tomato and oregano and garlic. This dish is a little different in that it uses Asian style spices instead. It’s a bit sweet, a bit spicy and still totally rich and soul-satisfying in the way that all good casseroles should be. This is a prep and forget kind of dish, once you’ve got everything in the pot, it can be left alone to cook itself. Don’t let the longish list of ingredients put you off, they’re mainly flavouring ingredients that just get stirred together. The coriander gremolata adds a fresh hit against the richness. I wouldn't skip this. I've added a recipe for orange braised kale that goes well, but isn't necessary for the dish.


If you don’t like bone marrow, you can remove the bones and shred the meat into the sauce before serving. I did this for a dinner party and then Lance and I stood over the kitchen island and sucked out the bones.


I’ve also made this exact dish with a large cubed sweet potato in place of the mushrooms. Also worth doing.

 Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco
Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco


Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco

Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco


Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco

4 osso bucco
2-3 tbsp coconut flour (can sub cornflour)
Olive oil
½ cup rice vinegar
½ cup honey
½ cup rice wine (from Asian grocers)
1 ½ tbsp. five spice
1 tbsp ground ginger
2 red chili, finely minced
1 tbsp salt
1/4 cup raw sugar
1 tbsp oyster sauce
500mL water
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 capsicum, diced
300-400g button mushrooms, quartered.
Steamed brown rice


Coriander Gremolata
1 bunch coriander
2 tbsp hazelnut meal
Zest one orange

Preheat the oven to 150C


Season the osso bucco with salt and pepper, then dust in coconut flour. In the base of a lidded casserole or tagine that can go on the stove and in the oven, heat a layer of oil to medium high heat. Brown the osso bucco on both sides – around 3 minutes per side. Remove to a plate.


Add the onion to the same pot and cook the onion for 10 minutes, stirring often until caramelised. Add the garlic and capsicum and cook another 5 minutes, until the capsicum has softened. In a bowl, whisk together the rice wine, rice wine vinegar, five spice powder, ground ginger, oyster sauce, chilli, salt, sugar and water. Add this liquid to the pot and turn the heat up to high. Bring to the boil, then add the osso bucco back to the pot. Scatter the mushrooms around the osso bucco in the casserole. Add the lid, then put it in the oven and cook for 2 hours, or until the meat falls off the bone.


Meanwhile, pulse the coriander, hazelnut meal and orange zest in a processor, then put in a container in the fridge until ready to serve.


Remove the meat to a plate and cover to keep warm. Put the casserole back on the stove top and simmer the sauce on medium heat for 15 minutes, or until the sauce has reduced by half and is syrupy. Serve each osso bucco with some freshly steamed brown rice and a generous ladle of the sauce. Sprinkle the gremolata on the top.


Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco
Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco


Orange Braised Kale

1 orange, peeled and segmented
Juice one orange
¼ cup stock
2 tbsp butter
1 Tuscan Kale bunch


Cut the leaves off the ribs on the kale, then shred. Heat the butter in a frypan over a medium-low , then add all other ingredients and stir well. Cook, uncovered for 15 minutes or until the kale is soft, and the liquid has reduced to almost nothing.


Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco
Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco
Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco
Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco
Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco
Slow Cooker Love - Chinese 5 Spice Osso Bucco


Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley

Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley

With the exception of slow-cooked meats, it’s very rare that the meat is the main star of our everyday meals. If I’m BBQing or grilling meat, I tend to leave it plain and cook it well, then make salads and sides that shine. Or make a kick-arse sauce to go on it. That tends to be the same when you eat out as well. It’s *just* a steak (albeit a good quality one) until they add the mushroom sauce or pepper sauce or red wine jus. Partly at home, it’s a cleaning issue. And partly a timing issue. I rarely think ahead enough to marinade the meat before I cook it. But the acid and booze in this orange juice marinade only needs a small amount of time to make a big impact on the chicken. So you can marinade the meat for half an hour while you prep the veges and get the barley cooking. You then use the same marinading liquid to braise some kale and cabbage and bam! Flavourful dinner with zero wastage. Cook the chicken over a medium-high heat to get a nice crispy brown outer layer and still have the centre juicy.

The barley with greens still is kinda the star here, with it’s tart/sweet pops of cranberries, briny capers, crunchy cashews and sweetly braised greens – but the chicken holds it’s own without any further accompaniment if you served just the chicken. And that is a rarity in my household!

Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley


Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley

Marinade

Zest and juice from one orange
Thumb tip size piece of fresh ginger, finely grated
30mL dark rum
1 chipotle in adobo, minced
3 tbsp olive oil

3 chicken thighs
¾ cup barley
1 ¼ cups water
¾ tsp vegetable stock powder (or salt)
Olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalks celery, diced
½ bunch kale, ribs removed and shredded
¼ cabbage, shredded
2 tbsp dried cranberries
1 tbsp capers
¼ cup roasted cashews
2 tbsp minced fresh parsley

Mix all of the marinade ingredients in a glass or other non-reactive bowl add the chicken thighs, toss to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to marinade for 30 minutes. Drain the chicken, reserving the marinade.

In a medium size pot, mix together the vegetable stock powder or salt. Add the barley. Cover, bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook until the barley is tender, but still retains it’s shape and a slight ‘chew’ – around 25 minutes.

While the barley is cooking, heat a splash of olive oil in a frypan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook 10 minutes until softened and golden. Add the garlic and celery and cook a further 5 minutes or until the celery has softened. Add the kale and cabbage, stir it through to coat in the onion mixture, add the marinade and braise for 10-15 minutes until the kale and cabbage is wilted and cooked through.

Heat a second pan or a BBQ grill to high and add the chicken pieces. Cook for 5 minutes until nicely brown on the outside and half cooked through, then turn and cook on the other side for 3-5 minutes until cooked through and brown on the other.

Stir the cooked barley through the braised greens, take off the heat and stir through the cranberries, capers, cashews and parsley.

Plate up the barley, then place a grilled chicken piece on top

Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley

Monday, October 14, 2013

Overcoming Kitchen Fears - Crispy Roast Duck with Orange, Honey and Mustard Glaze



I love duck. The crispy skin, the moist flavorsome meat that stands up to stronger flavours than chicken. If I see duck on a menu, I will invariably order it. In fact, my husband recently went out to dinner and came home and told me he had to take me there because it had my ideal dish. We went, less than a week later because he was so excited for me to have it and he couldn’t have been more right. It was roast duck breast, with ginger and pumpkin puree on scallops and beetroot salad. You couldn’t get a more perfect combination of my current favourite foods in the one dish! Especially the duck and scallops. Love!

When I saw that a supermarket had whole ducks on special, I knew that it was time to try cooking it. Now, as much as I love duck, I’ve also been served a fair few bad duck dishes. It seems that duck is really easy to over-cook. And so I left my whole duck in the freezer for a while before I got the courage to actually try it. I read the cooking instructions on the back of the packet and then a few more recipes from the duck supplier’s website, and it all seemed pretty straight-forward. And from this, and the process of cooking it I learnt a few important things about cooking duck that are important. Number 1. Duck has a lot of fat just below the skin. You want most of this to render out – both to make the finished meat less fatty and to help the skin get crispy, not soggy. The best way to do this is to pierce the skin, so it can come out as it roasts. Number 2. This fat can smoke/spatter/be just plain dangerous. The best way to deal with this is to add liquid to the roasting tray, and put the duck in a rack up out of it. Apart from that, roasting the duck is pretty much the same as roasting a chicken. So don’t be scared! The added bonus of roasting a duck this way is that it creates an awesome duck stock and duck fat. Just pour the fat/pan juices into a container and put it in the fridge. It’ll separate into duck jelly below, duck fat on top. To make stock out of the jelly just add hot water.

I saw a catalogue which had the cookbook associated with Jamie Oliver’s new show teaching you how to use leftovers to maximize the cost savings of using up everything you buy. This roast duck was a good example of how to do this. Served as a roast the first night, I then shredded the leftover meat and heated it up in the leftover glaze/sauce and served it with pancakes the next night. The following night I used the stock to make a buckwheat risotto, and the duck fat is in my fridge for making duck fat roast potatoes.


 
Crispy Roast Duck with Orange and Mustard Glaze
1 duck
1 cup red wine
1 cup water
4 cloves garlic, peeled and slightly crushed

Rub
1 tsp sumac
½ tsp caraway seeds
Generous amount of salt
1 tsp black pepper
4 sprigs thyme

Glaze
2 teaspoons seeded mustard
4 tsp honey
¼ cup orange juice
1 teaspoons caraway seeds
1 tsp sumac
½ tsp salt

Prick the duck all over. Try not to prick it through the meat, you just want to open up the skin so the fat underneath can render out.

Pour a kettle of boiling water over the duck to tighten up the skin. Pat the duck as dry as possible using paper towels, then put it on a rack and stick it in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
 
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C. Pat the duck dry again with paper towels. Rub a few tablespoons of salt on the inside and outside of the bird. Mix the rub ingredients together, and rub all over the duck and a little inside the cavity. Fill the cavity with the remainder of the thyme sprigs and the garlic cloves.

Pour 1 cup of water and 1 cup wine in the bottom of a roasting pan with a wire rack and place the duck on the rack, breast-side up. You want the duck high in the pan so it doesn’t sit in the fat that renders out of it. Roast for about an hour. After an hour, when the bird has about 30 minutes left to go, make the glaze.

Add all of the ingredients to a small pot and simmer until reduced down to a sticky sauce. Baste the duck with the sauce, then return to the oven. Roast for a further 15 minutes, then baste again. After the remaining 15 minutes it should be ready, but prick the bird in  a thick part meat and if the juices run clear, it’s cooked through. Serve immediately so the skin stays crispy.


Sunday, September 22, 2013

Dilemma - Cauliflower Gnocchi with Burnt Butter & Orange Sauce with Hazelnuts, Lamb and Snow Peas



So after replacing our broken dishwasher a few months back, our fridge has decided to slowly stop working as well. I'm not sure why my whitegoods are all abandoning me! But the fridge has brought up a few issues that have been swirling around in my head. Firstly - do I transplant my time-machine of old invitations and post cards and take-out menus and magnets and a calendar from 2011 onto the new fridge, or start with a clean slate? The next issue relates to some frozen cauliflower.

See, we have two fridges - one outside 'drinks fridge' and the everyday fridge that's in the kitchen where it should be. This is so common in Perth where for the majority of the year you want your drinks cold. And plentiful. The power companies tell you that the old outside fridge is just a power-drain and not a good idea - and yet we can't give them up! I know that come December, that extra fridge space isn't 'extra', it's just space. Every inch of both fridges are full of watermelon and rockmelon and every colourful vegetable you can imagine and then you can try fit in some drinks. Maybe. I was telling an overseas friend that we had two fridges and she was blown away. It just seems so unnecessary in places that don't regularly get above 35C, I guess! On the opposite end of the spectrum, I visited Germany at Christmas time as a teenager and I was so delighted to see my host family chill their wine by placing it in a planter box outside the kitchen window. So novel and different to the way we live in Perth!

So our outside fridge is an old hand-me-down fridge and it has just the one setting - COLD! So now that our kitchen fridge has one setting too - OFF, everything has been moved outside temporarily. And it's frozen the cauliflower. I had two of them, because of a sale at the Nanna Shop, both froze solid. Well, what to do with frozen cauli? I love the crunchiness of fresh cauliflower. I love make cauliflower "rice" salads. I love using them with dip. I'm not a huge fan of soggy, fully cooked cauli. But I am not going to throw out two otherwise perfect cauliflowers. So I made soup with one. And cauliflower gnocchi with the other. The soup was a standard cream of cauliflower soup. Nice and simple. The gnocchi however. Oh. My. Goodness. Nutty and delicious. It's fiddly, but give it a go! So good!

To make the gnocchi, first you have to make cauliflower mash, then the gnocchi. Like you would a traditional potato gnocchi. I've split it up into different stages to make it easier to describe. The first night, I served it with this lamb and orange butter sauce, the next night with a simple Arrabiata sauce. Both were good! And I still have enough leftover gnocchi in the freezer for two more meals.


Cauliflower Mash
1 head, chopped into smaller florets
4 garlic cloves, diced
water to cover
big pinch salt

Put all ingredients in a big pot. Bring to the boil, then simmer until the cauliflower is tender. Approximately 30 minutes. Mash mixture, then put into a fine mesh sieve to remove all of the extra water. Allow to cool completely whilst draining.




Gnocchi with Spelt and Hazelnut
Cauliflower mash (1 think I ended up with 3-4 cups)
1 egg
1 tbsp salt
4 + cups wholemeal spelt flour
1/2 cup hazelnut meal

Combine mash, salt and egg in a bowl and mix well. Add the hazelnut meal and 1/2 cup spelt flour. Mix well, then add more flour 1/2 cup and a time until it comes together into a big ball of dough. I think all up I needed about 4 1/2 cups of flour for the amount of mash I had.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth.

Put a large pot of water with a big pinch of salt on to boil.

Cut the dough into pieces and roll out into a rope, and cut into pieces. I made mine around 1cm wide, 3cm long. Roll over a fork to shape the gnocchi. Repeat for all of the dough. I recruited my husband to help with this process.

About 20 pieces at a time, carefully drop them into boiling water. When they float to the surface, scoop them out with a slotted spoon and set aside in a bowl. Whatever you aren't using that night, freeze.

 


Burnt Butter and Orange Sauce with Hazelnuts, Lamb and Snow Peas
100g unsalted butter
big handful of hazelnuts (approx. 2/3 cup)
zest and juice of two oranges
20 or so snow peas, cut into 2cm pieces.
2/3 cup shredded roast lamb
Enough gnocchi for 2 people
lots of fresh cracked pepper to serve

In a frypan on medium-high heat, toast the hazelnuts until fragrant and darker brown. Set aside to cool, and when you can, rub between your hand to remove the skins. Roughly chop.

Put the butter into the same frypan, allow to melt and then swirl around as it  turns brown and nutty smelling. Add the zest and juice, mix around to full incoporate into the butter and add the gnocchi. Stir to coat and keep stirring for a few minutes. Add the lamb, stir it through, allowing it to heat through. Add the snow peas and cook until they soften slightly and turn brighter green.

Just before serving, toss through the hazelnuts.