Showcasing In My Kitchen, October 2020

 

I've been going to make Golden Syrup Dumplings  for MR. HRK for a while now, definitely one of his faves, and when I saw Maggie Beer make a guest appearance on journalist Annabel Crabb's  recent TV show, "Back in Time for Dinner", broadcast on the ABC here in Australia over four Tuesday nights,  I couldn't put it off any longer. I've made Golden Syrup dumplings a  few times in the past, always delicious, but I thought I would try Maggie's recipe this time. Yes I'm quite a fan of Maggie Beer, show me someone that isn't.

Watching this series was quite nostalgic in a way for our age group as we found ourselves reminiscing over  the various pieces of kitchen and garden equipment that we remember from our childhood days. Not during the wartime era I hasten to add, we definitely weren't around then or even thought of, however by the 1950's and the 1960's some of those old Aussie things, now vintage, were still around in some homes.

Something I found interesting during the 1920's episode of "Back in Time for Dinner"  was the revolutionary appearance of canned food in the kitchen pantry in the 1920s and the excitement that caused for the woman of the house. Offal was still a readily available and popular choice for meals, and we even ate our fair share of it, but suddenly the housewives were creating a plethora of meals out of canned meat, canned fish, and canned fruit and vegetables. There was no disgrace in serving a meal out of a tin, and it's still ok if it's baked beans, sardines, tuna, salmon, or spaghetti. Now it seems there is no disgrace in serving a meal out of a bottle, although as you know if you read my posts regularly, I like to mainly cook from scratch now that I have the time. However pantry staples such as tinned food are still important as an economical and  time saving resource. As well as all of the homemade jams, chutneys and pickles in my pantry, I keep a good stock of tinned tomatoes, chick peas, corn, pulses, sliced beetroot, sardines, tuna, sliced apples, pineapple pieces, and condensed milk as a minimum. Does that sound like your pantry these days?

No bully beef or Spam in sight though, as were the staples in the wartime era. After the First World War, attention turned to manufacturing food for the population, instead of the soldiers. Post War in the 1920's, the Ad man arrived, and gas ovens, couches, lino floors, new household appliances, and tinned food, sparked up everyone's lives. Let's not forget the glamourous Flappers either, it was party time.

Along with the tinned food innovation,  came the humble can opener, and some subsequent kitchen accidents, as these weren't easy appliances to use. The old can opener was really sharp, and a warning to watch your fingers came with it. I would have hated that can opener, and I can remember it still being around in kitchens in the 60s. This a photo of the one in the show. 

Then along came this one, a slight improvement. I remember trying to wrestle with this one in my Mum's kitchen. They seemed to go blunt quite quickly.

When the electric can opener appeared, in the 70s I think, it was revolutionary and everyone had to have one to make life easier. We still laugh when remembering that Mr. HRK and I received four  electric can openers for wedding presents in 1977, that's how popular they were. They were all the same, and yellow if I remember correctly,  and we know where in Rockhampton our young friends went to purchase them. It was at Millroys, a much smaller version  of Myer today, no clothing though that I remember. The electric can opener looked something like this, I don't have fond memories of that one either.

Thankfully now, most of the cans are ring top making life a lot easier. However I wish cans of condensed milk still needed to be opened with a can opener as boiling a can with a ring top to make caramel always worries me, even though I have had no disasters as yet. Touch wood! Which raises the question my friends, do you still have a can opener in your kitchen, or do you prefer an electric one or do you use one at all? I like my hand operated can opener, an easy one to use and occasionally I still need to use it.

Enough reminiscing, let's cook some dumplings, requiring no can openers. When I have cooked dumplings in the past, I have placed them in the frying pan to cook with the simmering sauce just as we sat down to eat the main meal, and they were ready when we finished eating. Although I always checked them after 20 minutes. However if you like a long interval between the main course and dessert, just slide them into the sauce as soon as you finish your main course. How you do it,  could depend on whether you are eating with your family, or entertaining guests. Golden syrup has been around in kitchen pantries for a long time, definitely since the 1940s anyway, and these dumplings have been a very economical and popular dessert through the decades.

Golden Syrup Dumplings, this recipe originally by Australian cook and chef, Maggie Beer

Ingredients for dumplings:

1 cup self raising flour

Salt to taste

20g  butter

1 egg

50 ml milk

Ingredients for Golden Syrup Sauce:

1/2 cup golden syrup

3/4 cup brown sugar firmly packed

30g  butter

2 cups water

METHOD:

• Sift the self raising flour into a bowl and add a pinch of salt.
• Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs, and then add the whisked egg and stir to combine.
• Slowly add the milk and mix gently until the dough just comes together and resembles a scone mix (do not over work the dough or it will be tough instead of light and fluffy.) Set aside.
• Combine all sauce ingredients into a large frypan. Bring to the boil to amalgamate before reducing heat to a gentle simmer.
• Flour your hands and roll the dough into the size of a twenty cent piece. Smaller dumplings will absorb more sauce.
• Slip the balls off the baking paper all together into the syrup. Cover the frypan with foil to form a tight seal and cover with the lid. Cook for about 10 minutes before turning them over to cool for another 10 minutes on the other side. (Turning them over is optional.)
• Remove with a slotted spoon and serve with the remaining sauce and a jug of runny cream or ice-cream or even custard. Whatever you prefer. The dumplings will steal the show anyway.

Where would we be without this Golden elixir called Golden Syrup

There is reference to a version of Golden Syrup being produced at the Spiller's Sugar Plantation here in Mackay, North Queensland, in 1868. Outback shearers and station hands bought their golden syrup in 70lb. (30 kg.) tins, naming it "Cocky's Joy". Small farmers in Australia were also called a cocky in the first half of the 20th century. Cattle farmers were called cow cockys. Golden syrup was much easier to transport in tins than jam and often used as a substitute for butter on their damper. Who doesn't love Aussie damper with Golden Syrup, especially over a campfire? This  Golden Syrup story reinforces what a culinary icon it still is in our kitchens. Mine is in a plastic bottle here but I generally buy it in a decorative tin. 

What is the most valued appliance in your kitchen my friends? I would have to say mine are my Kitchen Aid, and our Rancilio Coffee machine and coffee grinder. The slow cooker and pressure cooker are great as well, we are lucky aren't we?

I like to collect  pretty milk and water jugs, which I use so I thought I would share a few of these with you.  I also love these beaded jug covers which are very useful. I inherited these, and still use them although I wish I could crochet as a couple are in need of a little repair. 

This past 12 months of living with the pandemic, has meant that some of the survival skills needed during the 1900's to 1950's as discussed in the show have been needed in our own homes. Simple home cooking, growing our own food, making our own coffee, avoiding supermarkets when we can, and just general resourcefulness have become a saviour during difficult times. Resourcefulness and resilience is surely in our DNA if we tap into it.

I've written this post as part of the In My Kitchen series hosted by Sherrys Pickings. It is worthwhile dropping over to her posts if you haven't already.
 

Warmest wishes

Pauline

                   

Sherrys Pickings

How to make Aussie Campfire Damper in a Camp Oven, simple and rustic

The weather in the Tropics started cooling down recently, so we went camping in the Great Outdoors. To make a damper in a Camp Oven, there first needs to be  a roaring, crackling evening campfire, which then burns down overnight to a bed of glowing, red hot coals. This can take all night, although someone might need to add a little more wood to the fire around three o'clock in the morning, so that it doesn't burn out. That would be a travesty, as we were depending on those perfect hot coals to provide the setting to make a bread damper for morning tea.

We're home now after an enjoyable camping holiday at Blencoe Falls and Murray Falls in Far North Queensland, followed by a road trip to Cairns and Cooktown.  One of the highlights of the trip for me was breaking in their new cast iron Camp Oven with Shannon and Dan and experimenting with making  a campfire Damper. Mr. HRK and I have both made damper  a long time ago when he was in the School Army Cadets and I was in the Girl Guides, the technique is still much the same, not that I can remember much about way back then LOL. When we camp, we enjoy the luxury of very comfortable and warm beds, great sleeping bags, comfortable chairs, a good if quite antique BBQ stove and a great tent. We also have a very good car frig so we can take a lot of food with us, which often includes pre-prepared frozen meals which only require reheating in a pot. Breakfasts are cooked from scratch, after all an Aussie brekkie of bacon, eggs, tomato, toast and perhaps sausages are a must. 

This is the view of the river beside our campsite, very easy to enjoy.




We set ourselves a challenge to cook a perfect damper by the end of the camping trip. We had four days and made four dampers and were very happy with all of them really, but the last one was as close to perfect as we could get.

When you work damper too much, all of the air is pushed out, and the damper becomes dense.The perfect damper is golden and crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and dripping with melted butter and golden syrup. However you might prefer honey, maple syrup, or your favourite jam. The first two were made with 1 cup of plain flour and 2 teaspoons of baking powder, as I had run out of SR flour,  however they didn't rise as much as I hoped. We purchased some self raising flour at the very good IGA supermarket in Cardwell, on the way to Murray Falls,  and that made all the difference. I don't think the baking powder, which was fresh by the way, was dispersed through the plain flour enough to act as a rising agent. It needed to be sifted through. So from now on, Self Raising flour it is.

Damper Ingredients:

2 cups SR Flour
Pinch of salt
Water

Let's make Damper:

• In a bowl, add 2 cups of self-raising flour and a pinch of salt
• Slowly add water from the jug and mix gently with a wooden spoon until the ingredients start to combine and form a dough
• The dough now needs to be mixed together, not kneaded. Using your hands, yes your clean hands, cup the ingredients in your hands, and slowly work the dough until you get a nice round damper shape.

Shannon and I are making the damper in our outdoor and very happy camp kitchen.

Mix. Don't knead.

• Place the damper onto a lightly floured trivet covered with foil and put the lid on the camp oven.

Cook for about 20-25 minutes in hot coals, not a fire.



(Heat beads could also be used if you needed to. If using heat beads, a rough estimate would be to use around 10 heat beads on the bottom and 14 on the top of a 9QT camp oven. )

Our first damper is ready to eat and it's pretty good. It could have been slightly browner though.

The second Delicious Damper we cooked was left in the pot longer, and was crispier on the outside and quite fluffy inside. It was all eaten. This quantity was enough for the four of us for morning tea,

Hot Damper delicious with Golden Syrup

Mr.HRK loves camping and is having a wonderful time in his camp chair beside the beautiful creek eating hot damper, smothered with Golden Syrup.

Now the real fun begins. The men decided that perhaps the coals needed to be hotter with a little flame as well and that we should leave the damper in the pot a bit longer to crisp up more. I was filled with scepticism, however it was soon forgotten as we went swimming in the beautifully clear but chilly creek open to the public which flows from Murray Falls. I could smell the damper before I saw it and knew it was charred on the outside, which can be how damper turns out in the best scenario. I think this charred damper reminded Mr. HRK of his school cadet damper days, and not to be deterred he scraped off the burnt bits, and surprisingly the inside dough tasted amazing. 

Slightly burnt but still delicious

So we had four attempts at making damper, all with slightly different results, but all delicious. We made another one after the burnt offering the day before and it was as good as it would get. Everyone agreed that a camp oven, on a bed of hot coals, with hot coals scatted over the lid and cooked for 25-30 minutes, yields the best results. Just increase the ingredients to feed a crowd of campers. Damper definitely needs to be eaten hot on the day of baking.

Beautiful Blencoe Falls

Blencoe Falls, in the Girringun National Park,  is one of the most stunning waterfalls in Australia, plunging 90 metres to the waterhole below, and then cascading a further 230 m to the bottom of Blencoe Gorge. It is located off the Bruce Highway, 110km south-east of Mount Garnet, and 90km north-west of Cardwell. We turned of at Cardwell in North Queensland and drove for two hours up the Kirrama Range Road through lush tropical rainforests, where we saw lots of small waterfalls escaping from the forest and an echnida on the road.

This is the view from the Kirrama Range lookout to the Coral Sea, overlooking lush sugarcane fields and farmland. 

Blencoe Falls, a wonderful sight following tropical rain

It's time for a picnic lunch of wraps, ham and salad, overlooking the Falls.

Majestic Murray Falls in Girramay National Park

Murray Falls, located about 30 minutes by car North of Cardwell, look carefully for the sign, is a cascade waterfall on the Murray River. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage listed Wet Tropics, on the Cassowary Coast. This was our second camping spot, and we loved it. The swimming in the clear mountain river below was chilly but invigorating and relaxing.

The river flows over naturally sculpted granite, which become very slippery. Trees and native plants  can be seen growing out of the granite.

Mesmerising.

The walk up to the Murray Falls Lookout is very easy on an established walking path. Signs implore everyone not to climb over the railings onto the rocks or enter the water. Quite a few people have lost their lives attempting to climb over the rocks to swim around Murray Falls

Did I mention the Cassowary Coast in the Wet Tropics where we were? Look for the blue in the photo below and you will see the Cassowary, a large flightless bird native to New Guinea and the North Queensland Wet Tropics. Yes we saw one. It is an icon but a sadly endangered species. We don't have many good photos of this very large native Australian bird as to get too close is to risk your life. He visited our campsite at Murray Falls each morning at Breakfast time and again for Dinner, hoping to be fed. To feed them is to risk a fine of $3,000.00 and also to risk your life as their large claws are lethal. Thankfully when we waved our arms at him and  told him to leave he left without too much resistance. I found our car was a good refuge when he came too close. However he is a beautifully coloured bird and it is still a thrill to see them in the wild. A tourist at the campsite next to us was holding a burger bun and thought she could have a game with him, however the Cassowary saw the bun and her as purely a food source and it very nearly ended badly. Dan to the rescue, and he rushed over and shooed the Cassowary away, after the very frightened young lady had already thrown the bun at the big bird.

Here I am contemplating the tranquillity and beauty beside the clear creek running off Blencoe Falls.

I hope you enjoyed reading about our camping escape into the Wet Tropics as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you. Have you ever seen a Cassowary in the wild and do you enjoy camping?

Thanks for dropping by,

Pauline

A quick batch of Aussie Damper Scones

Care for a delicious scone? When I am short of time, and need to use up  tubs of cream and sour cream and various vegetable bits and pieces my fallback position is to make some favourites, a batch of scones, a slice and perhaps a quiche. It's a public holiday here today, for People's Day at the Mackay Show. We have no inclination to go out into the mayhem of Public Holiday traffic even though it is a beautiful and sunny day. Must be getting older and wiser. So I'm doing some cooking.