Cheap Eats Melbourne '09 - arrives!

It has finally arrived! The Age- Cheap Eats Guide to Melbourne 2009.

Not a minute too soon (thanks to the global economic crisis) and with most of us glad for a surprise $10 dish that could make a 3 hat anywhere quiver in its boots.

I was lucky enough to be a reviewer for the '09 edition, so I'm as excited as anyone to see the book hit the stands... with my name in tiny little letters inside the front cover- I'll rub shoulders with AA Gill yet.

Epicure Article: The Age Cheap Eats 2009

Cheers, happy eating- and let's be grateful that, in Melbourne at least, we can still eat well without hocking the family heirlooms...

Cheap Eats 2009- Penguin books

Dancing the Oliebollen

Continuing on my quest to make all the Dutch treats that I remember from my childhood, I thought it might not yet be too late in the year to make another NY Netherlands specialty- oliebollen. 

It's a bit like a doughnut- only without the hole and filled with dried fruit- I can still remember the excitement that raced through my little veins when dad started dropping the doughy nuggets into the sizzling pan of oil and the yeasty bready smell that filled the kitchen as they drained and cooled on paper towel. I can even remember repeatedly burning my little pink tongue as I impatiently bit into hot oliebollen that had not quite rested long enough... and still I would go back for more. Even before we coated them in a dusting of sugar I would try and sneak them away, determined that I should pilfer the one that looked best from the stack!

I have been through several different recipes, but after finding something inherently wrong with all of them, I called my mum for the recipe we used when I was a child. I asked why I could not see mixed peel on any of the ingredients lists, and my mum laughed and happily advised me that the mixed peel was in fact our own family addition to this recipe. Our special little touch- mum even occasionally added red and green cherries which would stain the surrounding dough with their glace glory!

So this afternoon, my other half and I embarked on the the oliebollen dance, reflecting as best we could memories of my mum rolling the balls of dough and dad next to her at the stove, dunking and turning the frying balls of happiness with a waiting plate in hand.  

Oliebollen: Dutch doughnuts

Ingredients:

* I sachet dried yeast 

(about 7 grams or 1 teaspoon- granulated yeast is best as you do not need to activate it and just mix it in with the dry ingredients as per below)

* 1 cup of room temperature milk

* 2 1/4 cups of plain flour

* 2 teaspoons salt

* 1 egg (lightly beaten)

* 1 1/2 cups of mixed currents & raisins 

(this is where we add the mixed peel)

* 1 cooking apple (peeled, cored and finely chopped)

* oil for deep frying 

* caster sugar to coat

Method:

In a large bowl combine the flour, salt and yeast and mix thoroughly. 

Add the egg and milk and mix through. Then add the remaining ingredients of dried fruits and apple and thoroughly combine.

Leave in a warm place for around an hour or until doubled in size.  

Heat enough oil in a saucepan to deep-fry small balls of the dough. Break off portions of dough about the size of a golf ball. Then drop the portions of dough into the pan of boiling oil and fry until golden brown- remove using a slotted spoon and leave to drain on paper towel. 

Once they are dry and crispy, pile them all into a dish and rain sugar down onto them. Cover them liberally with sugar and serve. 

Just a warning- Dutch or not, I am up to my fifth one tonight! Happy New Year- even in February.

(Note: if you are not using instant granulated yeast you will need to activate it. To do this, simply sprinkle the yeast over 1/4 cup of the lukewarm milk and leave to activate, then just add it in when you would add the milk as above)

Storm in a coffee cup- the most dangerous cake recipe ever!

I am about to do you a great disservice. Really. If you love chocolate cake, but you have worked hard to give it a respectable place in your life, then stop reading here.

DON'T say I didn't warn you...

This e-mail recipe has been doing the rounds for a while now. But when it popped up in my in-box yesterday I thought- this time I'm gonna test the theory. 

The idea is simple- you are never more than 5 minutes and a large coffee cup away from fresh, hot, velvety chocolate cake. Honestly. Don't believe me? Just try it!

Ingredients:

* 4 tablespoons plain flour

* 4 tablespoons sugar

* 2 tablespoons cocoa powder

* 1 egg

* 3 tablespoons of milk

* 3 tablespoons of oil

* a splash of vanilla essence

1 large coffee mug

Method:

Mix all dry ingredients together in the mug really well. 

Then one by one add the wet ingredients and mix them thoroughly after each addition.

Put the mug in the microwave and cook on highe (1,000watts) for 3 minutes.

The cake may rise over the top, but don't let this alarm you.

Remove from microwave, tip onto plate and EAT IT!

It actually works and surprisingly for this sceptic- it tasted pretty good. So good in fact that I tried a different flavour.

Note: for a great lemon coconut cake, just replace the cocoa powder with desiccated coconut and a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice. YUM!

  

Happy eating and I accept no responsibility for what may happen now that you have access to chocolate cake whenever you want it! 

Vegetables are a many splendoured thing- Biodiversity, the freak in our food

This is my current article online at the wonderful website: I eat, I drink, I work.

If you are interested in the gene diversity of the planet and all the flavours that could slowly be slipping away from us, take a look.

 

Biodiversity, the freak in our food...

By: Jane de Graaff

Forgetting flavours

Oh woe is me- I sigh as I slump over the end of the couch. Thankfully the worst of it has passed, but I can tell you there is nothing quite as horrific as food poisoning- think the worst gastro you've ever had, and then multiply it by the armies of hell. Sadly the doctor tells me I will probably never know what the offending item was that made me sick- but henceforth I will harbour a secret resentment towards my once beloved leeks... wash them thrice and then scrub them down... but never, never trust them.

So after 3 days of dry biscuits and Hydralite to keep my salts and minerals up, last night I finally felt well enough to eat.

You can have anything you want Jane... anything (as long as its not meat, dairy or oily)! How about your favourite... custard tart? But what was this? I could think of nothing to tempt me? Nothing? How could this be? And then I realised that in the last few days I had actually forgotten what anything other than pain tasted like. 

So what's a girl to eat when her stomach is still in knots, but she yearns to be reminded of comforting flavours? 

The simplest answer was pasta with home made tomato sauce; over-ripe tomatoes stewed with olive oil and onion until they make a warm, soft paste. Has anything ever tasted sweeter? Certainly to my numbed palette it seemed like I was tasting for the first time.  

It suddenly struck me that for those people who practice fasting as a regular part of life, this amazing sense of flavour saturation and enjoyment 'like eating for the first time' must be an oft repeated joy. Perhaps this is a side benefit of fasting that I had never really taken seriously before? A renewed sense of joy in flavour and a reborn sense of wonder with simple food? 

Certainly, just this once (and long after the fact) I was able to recognise the silver lining of this cloud- forgetting flavours, only to rediscover them. 

Sigh-ing over spilt milk

Catching up on all my reading recently, an article posted by Slow Food Australia caught my eye. 

Milk on tap talks about a new machine out and about in Italy that captures the fresh milk of cows, keeps it at optimum temperatures and makes milk available for the general public who are unable to visit the farm direct but still want that 'fresh from the cow' experience.

The article, by Co-leader of Slow Food Perth, Pauline Tresise, goes on to specify that you can fill up your own bottles, the prices compete well with other milk sources in the market and after 24 hours the milk left in the refrigerated machines is used to make cheeses like ricotta. Sounds like a dairy dream to me...! 

All I can say is that as a home cheese maker who is finding it increasingly difficult to access appropriate and cost effective fresh milk, I can't wait until this sort of technology hits Australian shores. But until we relax our raw milk regulations still further, I wistfully marvel at the idea and contemplate yet again buying my own bessie to provide our dairy needs, or joining 'the Dairy  farmer wants a wife'- though I can't say my other half would be too pleased.

In the meantime, I'll just keep adding 'got milk?' to the shopping list, working with what we currently have available and dreaming of fresh milk raining from the sky. 

What's that Skippy?

Ok, i'll admit it... I'm conflicted. On many levels about many things, that's true- but in this instance it's mainly about kangaroos & Australia day. Why?

So many reasons- it seems a common theme amongst my peers to be more than a little nonplused about the idea of celebrating European settlement- to the point of referring to the public holiday as 'invasion day' and celebrating nothing but the JJJ hottest 100 countdown and the chance to take a day off work and swim...

I pondered all of this as I wondered what sort of food might be best for a day with so many question marks hanging over it, food would just be another one.

Really, what do you eat on invasion day? I thought long and hard about pavlova or some lammingtons, but was not convinced... too cliche? Should I boycott it all together and eat something from my other heritage- English spotted dick or Dutch speculaas perhaps? Should I be honouring the guardians of this lovely dusty land and serving bunya nuts and warrigal greens? A little too saccharine perhaps? Maybe just too PC. So the answer finally came clear- if it's such an uncomfortable day, why not go all the way?

A controversial meat for a controversial day- and what better than the national icon- Kangaroo- what's that skip? You say you're not really hungry??

It's a favourite question of mine- do you eat roo?? I've even been known to ask some vege/aqua-tarians in my time. After all, a sometime vegan friend went through a phase of eating nothing but plant matter with the exception of our bouncy friend- 'it treads more lightly on the land' you see- all well and good until she discovered that you still have to come to terms with the clubbing of pouch young when mothers are harvested... so there you have it!

Yes, it might be more gentle on the environment, and the harvesting process from the wild is designed to be as stress and cruelty free as possible, but no matter how you look at it, there will always be some kangaroo that does not meet the most humane of deaths... still hungry?

This is where I weigh up the debate- against the knowledge that in every animal harvesting process there are problems that need to be addressed- organic, free-range, abattoir, the questions on each type of meat you purchase always need to be faced squarely, how else would you find an answer you can stomach? We owe it to ourselves, if not the generous animals that help keep us. No morbid contemplation intended- just a feeling that being aware is a great thing.

So what did you do for Australia day? We went out of town to the glorious Heronswood House & Gardens at Dromana. We sat happily on the lawns under the shade of a pepper ash and guiltily ate our patriotic (?) lunch, then had a good poke at the heirloom vegetable selction that Heronswood has for display and retail. My dreams of planting a garden that will provide three courses from entree avocado to dessert ice-cream bean will yet be ralised I say! But in the meantime we wandered the luscious grounds with views to Rosebud beach and pondered the culinary uses of the Cardoon and the humour of the Dutchman's Pipe...

Happy Australia Day? I'm still trying to decide.

Kangaroo Burger:

Ingredients:

• 1kg of kangaroo mince (Woolworths/Safeway, Coles or IGA stock MacroMeats)
  
• 1 onion, minced
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon sumac
• 1 tablespoon tabasco

Method: Combine all ingredients, lightly oil a heavy based fry-pan and heat some olive oil. Form mince into patties and lightly fry for 2 mins on each side. Serve on fresh hamburger buns with iceberg lettuce, thinly sliced tomato, mustard and BBQ sauce. Great the next day, even better served as a pick-nick burger.