On Sunday we ate this dish of hot smoked fish fillets and spiced rice for lunch, however it is also perfect eaten for breakfast with the addition of softish boiled eggs. Or you can take it up a notch for an easy Sunday night dinner by adding some thawed frozen peas, some more spice or curry powder if you like, and serve it with mango chutney or a relish. Easy peasy! It's a riff on my Friday Night Special, which is a family favourite, still very fishy, and is made on canned tuna or salmon.
Vietnamese cuisine is one of our favourite styles of cooking, and whilst we enjoy eating out occasionally at a very good Vietnamese restaurant here in Mackay, it is also very easy in this tropical weather we are still experiencing to place all of the ingredients for the Char Sui Pulled Pork into the slow cooker, set it for 8 hours, make a delicious Wombok salad to accompany it, cook some rice, and eat in the comfort of our own home.
"IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT THE FOOD"
(Monday Morning Cooking Club, 2017)
Perfect for morning tea and for dessert as well, I adore baking and eating this plum cake. The cake batter after beating, has a light and fluffy creaminess to it, and then when taken out of the oven, the tart yet sweet cooked plums taste heavenly in this nostalgic style of cake. Surprisingly, it is also delicious eaten cold out of the refrigerator, in fact that is how Mr. HRK prefers it, with thickened cream on the side of course. For dessert we prefer it with ice cream.
Serves 14-16 (18 at a stretch)
180 g (6 1/2 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
345 g (1 1/2 cups/12 1/4 oz) caster (superfine) sugar
4 eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
300 g (2 cups/10 1/2 oz) self-raising White Wings Flour (A good quality flour must be used)
12 medium plums, or 25 sugar plums, halved and pitted
Icing sugar (confectioner's sugar), for dusting
double cream or ice-cream, to serve
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 deg. C (350 deg. C/Gas 4)
Line a 33 x 23 cm (13 x 9 inches) rectangular baking tin. Leave an overhang of baking paper up the sides of the tin to make lifting the cake out easier. (I bought a new baking tin from Woolworths supermarket just this morning ($11.00), to cook this cake in as my other one this size is very old and has other uses now in Mr. HRK's man shed!)
Cream the butter and sugar in your electric mixer on quite a high speed, around 6 on my Kitchen Aid, until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs to the mixture, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract and lemon zest.
By hand, use a large spoon to fold in the flour gently until just combined.
Now spoon the cake batter into the lined baking tin and spread it evenly with the spoon. Lay the halved plums cut side up in rows on top of the batter, trying not to press them into the batter.
Bake for 1 hour, and test after 45 minutes by inserting a skewer lightly into the centre of the cake. It should come out clean when the cake is cooked. It took exactly 1 hour in my oven. Even though it was browning nicely on the surface, it still wasn't cooked through at 45 minutes.
Cool the cake completely in the tin, and lift out using the baking paper. It is much easier to cut into slices when cool.
I made this for afternoon tea yesterday when my group of friends came to play our weekly game of Mahjong. I dusted slices with icing sugar and we ate it with some thickened cream. For dessert, I would serve this warm or cold with ice-cream, and with more fruit on the side if you like.
This cake should keep well in a tin for up to 4 days in a cooler climate, however in the North Queensland tropical heat that we have been experiencing when I baked this, I store leftovers in a covered container in the refrigerator. Reheat gently if you wish in Winter, but as I said above, it is also delicious cold. Needless to say, the leftovers didn't last long this time.
Hope, my Mother, was also a very good cook, particularly sweets, which I really appreciate now, and she loved to serve good food within the confines of our budget, so my love of cooking and eating good food is definitely genetic. If you are reading my blog and this story, I think you must love quality food with traces of nostalgia as well. Is your love of food genetic or acquired and is there a nostalgic element to some of your cooking?
Happy baking,
Pauline
Ingredients:
2 cups Rolled Oats
1 cup Plain Flour
1 cup desiccated coconut
1/2 cup brown sugar
125 g butter, chopped
1/3 cup Golden Syrup
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 1/2 tablespoons plum jam or other type of jam
Method:
Preheat your oven to 180 deg C./160 deg. C. Fan forced.
Grease and line 2-3 baking trays with baking paper, depending on their size. This recipe makes 20-24 biscuits. Mine fitted on 2 large trays, 12 to a tray.
Pour the dry ingredients i.e. oats, flour, coconut and sugar into a large mixing bowl.
Choose a medium sized saucepan, and add the butter, syrup and 1/4 cup water to the saucepan and stir over a medium heat until the butter is melted. Take the pan off the heat and add the bicarb of soda. The mixture will foam up which is great. (If it doesn't foam up, the bicarb of soda is probably old and past it's use by date. It needs to be replaced.)
Add this foaming mixture to the dry ingredients and stir well to combine and integrate all of the dry ingredients. This will result in a wet, quite sticky mixture.
Wetting your hands and shaking off the excess moisture might help with the next step. Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls and place, 5 cm apart on trays.
Press each ball down slightly with a spoon to form 5 cm rounds. Then create an indent in the middle of each biscuit by using the end of a wooden spoon or your thumb.
Fill each indent with 1/2 tsp of jam and bake for 15 minutes or until golden. I might have just added close to a teaspoon of jam in some of mine, oops, but that's ok. They tasted very good.
Place the biscuit trays on cooling racks and leave for 10 minutes before carefully removing the biscuits with a large knife onto the cooling racks to finish cooling and firming up.
I like to bake biscuits during the week so that I always have something sweet and delicious on hand, do you? These biscuits were perfect to eat on the same day I baked them, however by the following day in the tropical weather they had slightly softened even though I stored them in a covered container. I put them in the frig and they firmed and crisped up again. So I would suggest that during Summer, when they have cooled, place them in a lidded container and store them straight away in the frig.
It's hard to believe, but next month it is actually Anzac Day on the 25th April. The way time is flying it will be here before we know it. Here is my Anzac Biscuit recipe if you want to start practising in advance, however in the meantime, these Jammy Crumbly biscuits are definitely a riff on the traditional Anzac and will suffice.
Best wishes,
Pauline
It's March already, and as I start to write this, the tropical heat has been replaced by rain showers today, as Cyclone Niran builds up off the Far North Queensland coast to a Category 3 and keeps us all guessing as to her next move. These systems are so unpredictable and still seem to keep the meteorologists guessing, despite all the technology at their disposal. One minute they are intensifying and moving out to sea, next report it is stationery and could track south. So we will see. I have a well stocked pantry, however many times living here on the coast we have burst into action fortifying our property as the cyclone approaches, only for it to wave to us as it passes down the coast further south. However the winds and rain from this cyclone have already annihilated valuable banana plantations up North costing the industry millions of dollars.It's tough being a farmer. P.S. A week later, life took over for a while, and thankfully for us the cyclone has moved East and is now a very destructive Category 4-5 over New Caledonia. They are in our thoughts as they battle this dreadful storm.
I brought these orchid flowers inside when they bloomed a few weeks ago. This is my Cattleya Bowringiana Orchid, a very old species which my Mum originally gave me. The Cattleyas are showing signs that they will flower in the next couple of months, and I'm really looking forward to that. I hope to have some flowers to show you over the coming weeks. With the weather starting to cool down slightly, I hope to start some gardening again in a few weeks.
February was a quiet time for us, with Mr. HRK having sinus and septum (nose) surgery two weeks ago, and thankfully he is starting to feel a bit better now. Recovery hasn't been pleasant. So leading up to this and up until now I have been cooking the kind of meals he loves, which is just good old fashioned cooking. I don't have many photos to share but we really enjoyed this dish of Cottage Pie, although my Mum always called it Shepherd's Pie due to her Scottish origins I suppose. Cottage Pie is made from minced beef, and Shepherd's Pie traditionally is a base of savoury minced lamb. Both are delicious. The topping is creamy mashed potato, and lots of it. I often add a layer of seasoned sliced tomato between the mince and the potato.
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| Crumble waiting to be added as topping for the apple |
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Ready to pop in the oven |
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| A baked rice pudding, straight out of the oven |
So this weekend My Kitchen activity has focused on bread making and experimenting and researching as we stay quietly at home until Mr. HRK feels a lot better. Our house has been smelling like a bakery, not hard to take at all.
These are photos of my first attempt at cooking my first sourdough loaf in my new bread pot.
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| An improvised oval banneton for proofing |
I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event, that was started by Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 13th of the month. Or just head over to her blog to read more In My Kitchens.
Best wishes
Pauline
I like to have fresh cake made for the weekend, such a treat don't you think to eat cake on Sunday with a nice coffee, and this one ticks all the boxes. No icing on this one though, just sifted icing sugar, but you could ice them if you really must. This recipe, was adapted from a school recipe book in Western Australia by Matthew Evans, of Gourmet Farmer fame. These aren't fancy cakes, they are low cost country style apple cakes, moist and crumbly, and taste even better the day after they are made. Matthew Evans lives in Tasmania where apples are plentiful, and I always have apples in the fruit bowl and walnuts in my freezer staying fresh, so it is easy to make this cake. Apples and walnuts should always be together.
Granny Smith green apples are the best kind to use for this cake. Those of you of my generation might remember Roger Miller's famous song "little Green Apples, from his 1968 album "A Tender Look at Love", which he wrote for his wife. It has been covered many times by various artists and even though I have to say it wasn't an actual favourite of mine, the song bounced into my head as soon as I started thinking about green apples.
"God didn't make little green apples
And it don't rain in Indianapolis in the Summertime
And when myself is feelin' low
I think about her face aglow and ease my mind"
And if that's not lovin' me, then all I've got to say, .........
Written by Roger Miller. 1968
My 4 year old grandson living in the Falkland Islands is invited to a lot of birthday parties, in fact in Stanley it seems that everyone in the class is invited to every birthday party always held at a large venue in the town with jumping castles etc, so that means a lot of parties and a lot of cake. Because the population there are basically British, and we know they have a sweet tooth and love cake, well they do in the Falkland Islands anyway, (hope I'm not generalising too much), I am told there is always a predominance of cake over savouries and healthy food, at the children's parties. Some of the parents, including my son and his wife worry about the amount of cake the children are eating, and when I made this cake I thought this would be the perfect kind of cake for a children's party. Sweet enough, or the sugar can be halved, and there is plenty of fruit in the mixture. That's what I told myself anyway as I ate a second slice. It could be iced and decorated and still be much healthier than a bought one.
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| Ready to be iced if you wish. |
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| Dusted with icing sugar This recipe will make 2x20 cm cakes and this time I made a loaf cake and a round one, I have also made a large 23 cm cake, and a couple of muffin size cakes which can be frozen. Whatever works for you will be fine. |
Ingredients:
6 large apples, or 8 small, preferably Granny Smith or some other sour variety
200 g (1 cup) demerara or raw sugar (or use a mixture of brown and caster sugar)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
few drops vanilla extract
125 ml (1/2 cup) Extra Virgin Olive Oil
200 g very fresh walnuts, broken up
250 g (2 cups) self-raising flour
pinch salt,
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice or baharat
Icing sugar and thick cream to serve
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 180 deg. C. Grease and line two 20 cm round cake tins or use loaf tins.
This is a sit down job. Peel and core your apples. Cut and dice into pieces the size of a 5 cent piece.
Place the apple into a large mixing bowl and add the sugar, eggs, vanilla, oil and walnuts.
Sift in the flour, salt, and cinnamon, and stir to make a smooth batter.
Divide the batter between the tins, then bake for 40 minutes. Test to see if it is cooked by inserting a skewer into the mixture and if it comes out clean, voila the tins are ready to place on a cooling rack.
Cool the cakes in the tins for a few minutes, then turn them out onto your wire rack to cool.
To serve, dust with icing sugar and serve with a dollop of thickened cream or yoghurt.
I hope you are enjoying a relaxing weekend, wherever you are.
Warm wishes,
Pauline
Who doesn't love a fritter, whether it's vegetarian or loaded with corned meat, or in the form of a rosti, a bhaji, or a potato cake. They are all based on the same theme, crunchy on the outside and delicious on the inside.What a wonderful surprise these fritters were, considering they are made with chickpea flour, and are gluten free, dairy free, and egg free, which isn't something I normally think about, so you can just about make them for everyone without needing to worry about any culinary issues. These are perfect for a meat free Monday dinner.
I purchased some chickpea flour from the supermarket especially for this recipe, after I had watched a cooking segment on the ABC News Breakfast programme (Australia), where Alice Zaslavsky, resident chef, presented them to the hosts Michael and Lisa and of course they were devouring them on air, how unkind, although they probably don't have time for brekkie before the show. They looked delicious and made me just a bit peckish, I hadn't eaten brekkie either by then. Alice didn't actually cook them on the show, however there is a video on ABC Everyday of her making them, and I felt I needed to give them a try in my kitchen.
Chickpea flour (or besan flour) whilst being free of gluten, acts like egg when you add liquid to it. In this recipe the liquid from the zucchini after it rests with salt, is enough to bind the flour. As Alice said, the water you drain out of your chickpea tin can also act as a common plant-based egg replacement if necessary, aka aquafaba. The ratio of vegetable to flour is perfect in these fritters, however if you want to add more vegetable such as peas or grated carrot you can.
Let's Cook some fritters:
Ingredients:
Makes 10 - 12 fritters
400 g (3-4 medium sized ones) zucchini
100 g (1/2 a small one) Spanish or red onion
1 teaspoon salt flakes, plus extra for sprinkling
1 cup (110 g) chickpea (besan) flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons olive oil
Method:
1. Use the grating function on your food processor to coarsely grate the zucchini and the onion, or do this using a hand held grater. I don't have a good relationship with graters so I avoid them whenever I can, but if you are ok with them use the coarsest teeth on your grater.
Sprinkle a teaspoon of salt flakes on top of the grated zucchini in a largish bowl and stir through the salt, mix it all up and let it rest for 5 - 10 minutes. It should get really juicy, as the zucchini releases all those lovely juices which binds the chickpea flour together.
2. Scatter the chickpea flour on top of the zucchini mixture, either through a sieve or by mixing it with your fingers to sift out any lumps. Sprinkle in the baking powder. Stir all of this together with a spatula and it should start to come together to form a ball of batter in your bowl. If it is still too wet to come together, slowly add another tablespoon of chickpea flour until it binds together.
3. In a frypan, add two-thirds of the olive oil (2 tablespoons) and when it starts to heat up, or "shimmer" add heaped tablespoons of the mixture into the pan, but not too closely together or it will be difficult to turn them over. They should be sizzling slightly. After putting the mixture in the pan, flatten each fritter slightly with your spatula or egg flipper.
4. As the bases of the fritters start to cook they will become golden and crispy, and that is when you flip them over using your egg flipper and a spoon. Cook both sides, drain them on a kitchen towel on a plate, and whilst still hot, sprinkle lightly with salt flakes. Keep warm in the oven until they are all cooked.
The fritters will keep well in a covered container in the frig for 4-5 days, or an extra batch can be frozen, thawed out overnight and then reheated. I haven't done this, but Alice says to "whack'em in on a lined tray, crank up the oven to 160 deg.for 10-15 minutes, because by the time the oven's heated up, the middles have too."
Add some frozen peas or corn to your vegetable combination. Just thaw them by pouring some boiling water over 1/2 cup of either, drain and add to the mixture. Other vegetables can also be used such as grated sweet potato, carrot, pumpkin or beetroot, how versatile is that?
Or add some spices such as smoky paprika, cumin, or curry powder, depends on what mood you are in, and what your gut tolerances are. Surprise your family by adding something different each time.
Thinking of all our friends overseas and in Australia who are still in lock down. Stay safe, the vaccinations can't come soon enough can they?
Happy cooking and delicious eating,
Pauline
