International Dumpling Incident - Zwetschkenknödel

What I did on my holidays by Conor

Because I was so good I got to go to a far away place called Austria where the boys wear funny shorts and the girls have pretty hair. Mum says that there was a nice lady called Maria who used to live there but a dog bit her and she got stung by a bee so she doesn't live there any more. There is lots of nice food in Austria. I ate lots of tacos and corn and avocado and a nice green sauce called salsa verde (but you say it like verday). I liked the food so much I bought a cookbook to bring home with me but I think I got the wrong one cos it doesn't have any of that food in it.

When Penny announced the next International Incident Party (yes, it has been a month since the last one) was going to be dumplings, I saw this as an opportunity to try and right some of my culinary wrongs when I visited Vienna a few years ago. Sure, I spent every morning having at least a three course breakfast in the hotel, trying every possible combination of delicious local breads and cheeses and of course finishing off with a slice or two of torte, and my friend and I had two deliciously porky dinners at Siebensternbräu, but it seems like most other meals were eaten at a little authentic Mexican place we discovered and fell in love with. What's not to like about spicy, authentic Mexican food, cold beer and mariachi bands?

Well, what's not to like about it is that it's not terribly Austrian, and no amount of dancing around the Mexican hat can deny that I really dropped the ball with taking advantage of the local desserts. I ate no nockerln (soufflés). I missed out on Kaiserschmarrn (Emperor's Pancake). My first experience of eating the world famous Viennese Sachertorte was when I made it myself back in Perth using the cookbook that I brought back with me (though this had the bonus of me being able to pretend it was just like the real thing).

It was therefore an easy choice for me to decide upon which variation of the term "dumpling" I was going to run with. It wasn't going to be "a small ball of dough cooked and served with stew", "a Chinese dumpling filled with spiced minced pork; usually served in soup" or a "short, chubby creature". I was going to go with "a dessert consisting of a wrapping of dough enclosing sliced apples or other fruit, boiled or baked", and by Johann, I was going to make it from my Austrian cookbook!

Luckily for me, I had used this cookbook before and knew to read the recipe through thoroughly before getting started. I didn't want to have another Sachertorte incident, where I discovered that when they said "stir the chocolate into the cream" they actually meant "do NOT stir the chocolate into the cream listed in the ingredients - save this to serve with the finished torte and instead stir the chocolate into the creamed butter and sugar".

So, I will give to you the recipe as given in my cookbook, but will also give you my changes and suggestions as highlighted.

Burgenländer Marillenknödel (Apricot Dumplings) (I made Zwetschkenknödel (Plum Dumplings))

from Austrian Pastries and Desserts by Maria Wiesmüller

Ingredients

Dough

approx.1 lb potatoes, cooked / 450 g potatoes (I used Royal Blue, and didn't cook them before following step 1, which tells you to cook them)

pinch of salt

1/2 cup flour

2 Tb semolina

grated rind of 1/2 lemon (next time I'll use a whole lemon)

2 Tb butter, softened

2 egg yolks

Filling

approx. 1 lb fresh or canned apricots, pitted (I used 10 canned plums, which I removed from the juice and dried as well as I could using paper towel)

5-6 sugar cubes (I used 10 little "boondies" of brown sugar)

8 Tb butter mixed with sugar and just over 1/2 cup bread crumbs (8 Tb butter mixed with sugar? I ended up using about 75g butter and around 1 Tb brown sugar)

Method

1. Boil, peel and rice the baking potatoes. I peeled them, cut into smaller chunks, boiled until soft, then drained well and put the saucepan back onto the (turned off) hotplate briefly to get rid of any excess moisture before ricing them with my trusty spoon & sieve method.

2. Combine potatoes with salt, flour, semolina, soft butter and egg yolks (and presumably the lemon rind too, which doesn't make an appearance in their methodology) and mix in a mixing bowl to form a smooth dough. Let stand approx. 30 minutes. (Another recipe I've since read says you must use this dough immediately, but I left mine for the 30 minutes while preparing the plums)

Mmmmm..plum piles

3. Wash apricots and press out pits. Replace pit with half a sugar cube. I was using canned plums, which were filled with juice, and I wasn't sure how strong the dough would be at holding up against super wet plums so I tried to dry them as much as I could using paper towel. Sadly the plums were also incredibly soft, and lost most of their shape as I did this, try as I might to be gentle. So, I just pressed my little boondies of brown sugar into the centre of the pile o' plum and wrapped the rest around. The end result did not resemble lovely little plums with sugary centres but rather masses of soft plum with some sugar jammed in the middle. The Austrian equivalent of Donna Hay (Dönna Häy?) would not be amused.

4. Form a 2 1/2-inch-thick roll and cut into 3/4-inch-thick slices. Flatten each slice somewhat and place apricot in centre. Fold dough over fruit and roll to form a ball. I just grabbed little chunks of the dough, rolled them in my hands to smooth the outside then flattened them out, placing the plums in the centre, folding the dough over and then rolling to form a ball.

 

5. Gently drop the dumplings into 2 qt lightly salted water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes. I did not bother converting 2 qt water to something my metric brain understands but instead filled a large saucepan with enough lightly salted water to cover the dumplings. I then brought the water to the boil before gently adding the dumplings to the pan, cooking them for around 10 minutes. They were floating when I removed them.

6. Meanwhile brown the breadcrumbs in the melted butter. Remove dumplings with a slotted spoon and roll in bread crumbs. Dust with powdered sugar and serve immediately. Don't you love it when recipes say "Meanwhile...". It's like they're testing to see if you bothered reading ahead before getting started. I browned the butter and breadcrumbs (and mysterious sugar) in a frying pan, then removed the dumplings using a slotted spoon and place them in the frying pan, moving them around to coat them in the buttery crumbs. I then removed to a plate, dusted with icing sugar, and served.

Awaiting a dumpling craving, the little babies lie dormant

Given that it was 10:30pm by the time I finished these, and there were only two tired girls in the house, I cooked enough to photograph and then froze the rest uncooked. I'm not sure how well they'll go being cooked after freezing but I guess I'll find out when a dumpling craving hits. The leftover cooked ones I put in the fridge, and they were great reheated the next day.

My housemate and I were both happy with the late night result. The potato gives quite a firm yet spongy texture to the dough, the innards had a nice balance between sweetness and tartness, and the crunchy buttery crumbs added a real, hmmm, crunchy butteryness. The overall taste of the dough was really similar to pancakes cooked in butter. Delicious. My only regret is that the plums didn't exactly look the prettiest, so it is probably a good idea to use fresh plums or apricots if you can.

Please go and have a look at all the other dumplings, linked from Penny's round up, and finally may I wish a very big happy birthday to all the International Incident May babies - Divina Pe of Sense & Serendipity, Shirley of Enriching your kid, Pam of My Man’s Belly, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz and a super big happy birthday to Mardi of eat, live, travel, write who is celebrating her big 4-0 today and who I am meeting up with in Toronto in a few weeks! Happy birthday ladies!

Master Farter turns 1 (and so does something else)

Just over one year ago we had a new addition to our grizzled old family - my little nephew Alby was born. Alby is the first grandchild for my parents and my sister-in-law's parents, and his arrival was quite exciting for everyone - particularly as it was a somewhat difficult pregnancy and he came out to say hello to us all a little bit before he was fully cooked.

Luckily for him, a healthy appetite seems to run in our family and he's been growing like a champion since that day. He also managed to figure out the whole walking thing before his first birthday, probably in order to get himself to food more easily.

One of the highlights of my trip up to Geraldton over the Easter weekend was Alby's first birthday party. I was beaten to volunteering to make the birthday cake by my sister-in-law's mother, and a first birthday party is perhaps not the ideal environment for a baking showdown so I agreed to bring along some cupcakes. I soon got planning.

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International Pizza Pie Incident - Poached Pear Pizza Pie

After the success of our the Gnocchi Party organised by Penny of jeroxie (addictive & consuming) we decided to keep our party hats on and Lambrusco (the party wine, don't you know) flowing and throw regular International ____ Incident parties. We already have parties lined up for dumplings, noodles and tacos, though I'm not sure if spaghetti is going to get a run (sorry Axl).

First up though, is the International Pizza Pie Incident!

"Pizza Pie" is one of those American terms that confused me when I was growing up. I was also confused about:

• meatloaf (a loaf of meat? Everyone in books was always whinging when their "Mom" served them meatloaf so I figured it must be as crap as it sounds), 
• peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (jelly in a sandwich?! Surely that's just asking for trouble.. noone wants a lap full of jelly! - if you're not aware, jelly in Australia is what is referred to as jello in the US - we would call it a peanut butter and jam sandwich, and even then you have to admit it's kind of a weird combination, though not as messy as a peanut butter and jelly jelly sandwich), 
• all the different types of "candy" that Claudia in the Baby-sitters Club had stashed around her room (Ring Dings? Tootsie Pops? Ding Dongs? Sounds like a whole pile o' euphemisms if you ask me),
• and I always got a little alarmed when someone got a new haircut and ended up with "bangs".

Since growing beyond my Baby-sitters Club reading years, I have since discovered that "pizza pie" is just a longer, alliterated way of saying "pizza", though there are those crazy pie-like Chicago style deep dish pizzas that should come with a side order of defibrillator lubricant.

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Gingervitis and poppy seed teeth

Winter may well be coming, and thoughts are turning to slow braises washed down with enough red wine to bring a flush to your face, but please spare a thought for ice cream as the temperature drops. Too often it is neglected at this time of year, replaced by the sexy upstart churros or a seductively hot chocolate fondant.

Sure, you can argue that ice cream hogs the limelight through the summer, but this is all the more reason why it shouldn't be cast aside so readily - it's always a bad idea to burn bridges, and it won't be too long before you'll go crawling back to its clutches when the weather heats up again.

I for one intend to maintain a good relationship with ice cream over winter, and towards this end I made two different types the other day in my quest to find my ideal base ice cream recipe. After now having made this "Basic Vanilla Ice Cream" recipe from an old edition of delicious magazine, I think the quest may be over. Sure, it uses a lot of egg yolks but that just means more macarons later, right? The ice cream was rich, creamy, smooth and very easy to scoop though the downside of this is that it melted somewhat readily.

You can add all sorts of things to this basic recipe, and I added 25 g of poppy seeds, making sure I had a good stock of toothpicks around.

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The most popular of all slices

I've spoken before about my old faithful Australian Women's Weekly Cooking Class Cookbook and how it has served my Mum, my sister and I well over the years. One of the heroes of this cookbook is the Vanilla Slice, which I am sure my Mum has made over a hundred times since that magical day she first made them - I can picture her now, swaying along to the Bee Gees and getting cornflour all over her flares.

The Vanilla Slice is an Aussie classic, and is basically our version of a Mille-feuille. The name Vanilla Slice may not be quite as sexy as Mille-feuille, but it is infinitely more sexy than its nickname Snot Block. Can you imagine if we did call it Mille-feuille though?....

A hungry tradie strolls through the hanging plastic stripped door of his local bakery, winking at Gladys across the counter..

"Yeah g'day love, give us a Coffee Chill and two o' those milly fuelies"

A Vanilla Slice consists of two layers of puff pastry sandwiching a nice thick filling of vanilla custard and is finished off with icing (normally plain white or passionfruit) or a dusting of icing (powdered) sugar.

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It's a rocky road to brownie town

In the white marshmallow corner, William Dreyer, one of the founders of Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream Holding. In the pink marshmallow corner, George Farren of Fenton's Creamery.

Which of these likely lads actually invented rocky road ice cream? Dreyerists believe he created it in March 1929 by adding walnuts (later almonds) to his chocolate ice cream, then chopping up some marshmallows with his wife's sewing scissors and mixing them in too. Farrenists don't seem to have such a touching tale to back up their claims, but I'm inclined to believe them anyway as it is very difficult to believe a seemingly intelligent man who is capable of running a successful ice creamery would be foolish enough to cut up marshmallow using his wife's good sewing scissors.

Limited reading on the topic reveals the rocky road candy bar was later invented, but according to the candy bar makers it has nothing to do with the ice cream. Yes, just a kooky coincidence. I have not had one of these apparently very popular US candy bars, but I can barely contain my enthusiasm after reading on the Annabelle Candy website that it "literally melts in your mouth".

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Are we Amusé?

I'm a lucky girl. My eatathon of a birthday last week started off with a fantastic breakfast with friends at Greenhouse, morning tea was a Greenhouse donut and Lindt Chilli Chocolate, lunch was another fantastic meal at West End Deli in West Perth, the afternoon offered me a massage and coconut bubble tea, and then I was whisked off to a mystery location for dinner. I was told to dress nicely and was assured I didn't need to bring my hard hat or steel caps, so I was looking forward to a civilised evening.

 West End Deli lunch: "smoked salmon, eggplant and date chutney, coriander, brioche, poached egg" ($21) and "squid, cucumber, tomato, butter beans, oregano vinaigrette" ($19) 

(Before I continue, I have to get something off my chest... the menu at West End Deli actually said "vinaigarette", and not "vinaigrette"... not quite as bad as a misplaced apostrophe, but still irritating, particularly as it makes me think of Shane Delia pronouncing it "vinegarette" on Ready Steady Cook and Peter Everett blithely parroting him. Why don't menu writers use spell checkers? Why do I watch Ready Steady Cook?)

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Daring Bakers hit the Olympic snowfields

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

A very timely choice given the upcoming Vancouver Winter Olympics, Nanaimo Bars are a classic Canadian dessert and are named after their apparent birthplace of Nanaimo in British Columbia. As written on www.nanaimo.ca,

"According to local legend about 35 years ago, a Nanaimo housewife entered her recipe for chocolate squares in a magazine contest. In a burst of civic pride, she chose to dub the entry not "Daphne's Delights" or "Mary's Munchies", but "Nanaimo Bars". The entry won a prize, thereby promoting the town as much as her cooking."

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Re-Inventing the Lamington 2010

You'd be forgiven for taking us Australians as a bunch of tightarses. Our favourite biscuit is basically oats stuck together with butter and sugar, our favourite spread is something we need never fear of having to share with others when living overseas, we fry up a few onions, tomatoes and other basic staples and try and pass it off as chicken (albeit with a nomenclatural disclaimer), and one of our most beloved desserts is a way to use up old cake.

Yes, lamingtons. They're an Australian institution, along with the good old fashioned Lamington Drive. At least once a year my primary school would give out a Lamington Drive form to take home and bug (twist the rubber arms of) my parents and extended family members  for money to order lamingtons (and apple pies, for some reason) from some mysterious lamington and apple pie factory. We would then send in the form and money and patiently wait for that special delivery day when we would go home from school laden with piles of boxes filled with lashings of lamingtons, happy in the knowledge that our lamington greed was benefiting the P&F Association of the school to do... something... hopefully they weren't using the proceeds to purchase lamingtons for their meetings.

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Happy 80th Nanna!

I enjoy entertaining friends. Feeding them when they come around, I mean, not tripping down the stairs in front of them or having a perfect bite of food fall off my fork just before getting to my mouth when out for a nice meal together. Having said this, when my Nanna turned 80 last month it was just a little too soon after Mum's birthday extravaganza for me to think about cooking for more than a handful of people without breaking into a cold sweat and getting anticipatory aching feet. I was therefore very happy to hear that Nanna's birthday was going to be held at the Northampton District Bowling Club for a number of reasons - we would not have to prepare and clean a house for the event; we could enjoy bowling club prices for drinks; there might be some homemade jams and conserves on sale; and all the catering would be taken care of by the lovely old dears.

It had been quite a few years between mock chicken sandwiches and freshly made scones for me, so I skipped lunch in order to take full advantage of the bowling club fare on offer during the afternoon party. Skipping lunch would normally be an impossible task for me, but I was actually driving up to Geraldton through lunch time, had only packed some fresh fruit for the journey and didn't fancy a roadhouse cheese sausage or bag of chicken wing dings (I can't see a roadhouse 'treat' filled paper bag without hearing "if the paper turns clear, it's your window to weight gain!" in my head), so it was remarkably easy to pull off.

Just as well, as the old dears clearly knew how to put on a good old fashioned bowling club spread. I was also quite impressed with the restraint they showed with use of parsley garnishes, only going all out with it on the plates of assorted finger sandwiches. Even greater restraint was demonstrated on the doily front - I did not spy a single one!

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Degolicious Dining at Jackson's Restaurant

A few years ago I spent a weekend down south with three friends, which we spent eating Miami Bakehouse pies for almost every single meal, washing them down with copious amounts of wine, supplementing our diet with Cheezels, cheese and crackers, watching 80s movies and thinking the house we were staying in was going to blow into the ocean from the gale force winds battering the coast at the time. We had grand plans of walking down to the beach and getting some exercise in during our girly weekend, but the wind and the pies kept us safely inside.

(To go off on a bubbly tangent, this was also the weekend that I tried Golden Crumpet Toast for the first and last time. Don't be fooled by their website's claims of it being "a fun, convenient way to enjoy that Golden™ crumpet taste". If you think traditional crumpets are boring and inconvenient then you don't deserve to eat them).

On another weekend, I enjoyed my very first degustation experience with these same three girls, and with bellies full to bursting and spirits high (due largely to great company and only somewhat due to the paired wines) we declared that we would henceforth enjoy such an evening together on a semi-regular basis, when our schedules and bank balances could allow it. This fateful evening was so long ago that I can't even give you a ballpark estimate of when it was, and we didn't follow through on this declaration until last month.

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Daring Bakers turn Architects

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

Yay! Gingerbread houses! I feel like I've done my dash waxing lyrical about gingerbread in my recent Gingerbread Christmas Biscuits post, and I'm a little weary after the last day spent completely gorging on food and opening exciting presents, so I might let the pictures speak for themselves.

We were given a choice of two different gingerbread recipes, but for the purposes of this post I'm going to give you a different one that I can recommend if you are going to get architectural yourself. If you are just going to make gingerbread biscuits though, I'd recommend my usual gingerbread recipe instead.

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Aussing up Christmas

As I said before, this year's Christmas baking was a bit of a rushed job, and although I would have liked to try out a new Christmassy recipe, I just kept things simple and made a tried and true crowd pleaser. The final component of this year's Christmas baking parcels, making friends with the Fruit Mince Shortbreads and the Gingerbread Biscuits, was therefore really not at all Christmassy but totally Aus. Macadamia ANZAC biccies.

For those of my non-Aussie (not to be confused with "unAustralian") readers, the term ANZAC refers to Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and ANZAC Biscuits were first made during WWI by loved ones wishing to send treats to soldiers on the front line. This style of biscuit was made as they are quite sturdy and keep well, thus surviving the long journey to the soldiers.

Like most Aussie or NZ things, there is disagreement between Australian and New Zealand sources over where they actually first originated from. I think that given the name we should both claim them equally. I also think that Russell Crowe is totally from New Zealand, and Pavlova belongs to us.

I didn't realise this, but according to Wikipedia the usual protection that restricts the use of the term ANZAC without first obtaining permission from the Minister for Veterans' Affairs is generally excempt for ANZAC Biscuits "as long as these biscuits remain basically true to the original recipe and are both referred to and sold as ANZAC Biscuits and never as cookies". Well, I wouldn't dream of calling these cookies ('twould surely be unAustralian), but I'm a little concerned that the addition of macadamia nuts in my recipe might be seen as not remaining true to the original recipe. Macadamias are at least endemic to Australia. Please don't tell The Hon Alan Griffin MP (dobbing is totally unAustralian).

This recipe is very easy and quick and is always met with cries for more, you can't go wrong with it. The only thing I'd really recommend is to weigh the ingredients instead of measuring, as I find this always creates the perfect consistency, but either way you should get good results.

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Gingerbread you can catch

I didn't really like gingerbread when I was little, but whenever we went to Pizza Hut I begged and pleaded for a Gingerbread Man. I'd eat all the icing, and pick at the gingerbread, wishing there was more icing. Thinking back now, I'm not sure whether I didn't really like gingerbread, or if I just didn't really like Pizza Hut gingerbread. My days of thinking that Pizza Hut's all-you-can-eat was THE meal of choice for a special birthday celebration are long behind me, and I'm pretty sure that they don't even make Gingerbread Men any more, so this may forever remain one of life's mysteries.

Despite getting off to a rocky start, gingerbread and I now get along famously. Instead of taking me back to feelings of eating too much pizza and going overboard at the dessert bar (oh man I so badly wanted one of those in my house!!) it now makes me think of Christmas and Sweden and snow and glögg. I've had a hankering for glögg ever since the festive season kicked into gear, but it's just not doable in 35 degree weather. Beer is definitely winning out as drink of choice, but doesn't pair with gingerbread quite so nicely (even if it's ginger beer).

I first made this gingerbread recipe for Christmas gifts last year, evidence of which you can see in my blog header figure. I liked the recipe so much that it has now apparently made it into my Christmas gift recipe collection. Making these cookies is also a great antidote to all the food and booze sneaking its way into your system at this time of year, as rolling out the chilled dough requires the strength of twenty atom bombs for a fair bit longer than twenty seconds. If you're struggling with this, just let the dough warm a little more - warmer dough isn't as easy to work with once rolled, but you'll still get fine results.

Zoom go the stars across the table and into my mouth

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Fruit Mince Shortbreads

Ahh, yes, Christmas is almost here. You may be mistaken for thinking that I was taking an anti-Christmas stance, what with the distinct lack of Christmas themed posts on this here blog. Although I haven't exactly been prancing around the streets draped in tinsel and merrily singing Feliz Navidad, I'm no scrooge and my non-festiveness has merely been a matter of wedding fever having taken over most aspects of my life. I'm normally one of those annoying people who has their presents bought, if not also wrapped, with at least a few weeks to spare before the big day. This was definitely the case last year, as I had to have all the presents posted off to Australia from Canada with plenty of time to spare in case Quarantine took their sweet time rifling through the souvenir t-shirts, Turtles chocolates and zany (or possibly whacky or kooky, I can't quite recall) Japanese toys.

Now, although my present shopping is still not quite finished, I got my priorities right and my Christmas gift baking has been taken care of. Following the disorganised theme of my life right now, I was sitting on my couch watching Futurama on Wednesday night, relaxing after a particularly plankt-tastic day at uni, and I suddenly realised that my half-formed plan to take baked treats into uni on Friday was not going to happen unless I actually baked things on Thursday. A revelation, I know. This thought was then followed (at a leisurely pace) by the realisation that if I was going to make some sort of fruit mince something then I would need to start preparing the fruit mince on Wednesday night. I mulled this thought over for a while before it struck me that it actually was Wednesday night.

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Bali Day 1 - La Lucciola, bcco, Ku De Ta and Made's Warung

Oh Bali. Was I really there last week, or was it just a lovely warm dream? If I really was there, why did I come home? If I really wasn't there, why didn't someone wake me up if I was sleeping for 5 days?

Last Wednesday night my soon-to-be-married friend C and I jetted our way to Bali, leaving behind everything we'd been stressing over for the last few weeks and months and letting out a sigh of relief as we stepped out into the balmy Bali night awaiting us. It was after midnight by the time we arrived at our villa and had checked ourselves in, and luckily we're very good friends because (of course) they had stuffed up the booking and given us a romantic queen size bed instead of the two beds we'd requested. Too late in the night to fix the mistake, we tucked ourselves in and rested up for the fun we knew was ahead in the next few days.

The birthday girl holding her cake (I feel like I should mention that the original photo does in fact show her face... I'm not so food-centric that I would only photograph the cake)

The following day was C's birthday, and after sitting down at breakfast she was greeted with a rendition of 'Happy Birthday' and a mini chocolate mud cake which looked quite nice but then proceeded to slowly melt into the plate as we ate our breakfast. Although it is perfectly acceptable and indeed encouraged to eat cake for breakfast on your birthday, it was wrapped up and taken to the cool safety of our villa's fridge for consumption later that night.

Breakfast was slightly different each day, and this was part of what I had on my plate this morning...

Day 1 breakfast plate one - passionfruit, pawpaw, fried tomato, fried chicken, fried rice, roast potatoes and wholemeal bread.

Later in the morning we were picked up by C's friend Ch who took us to La Lucciola, Seminyak, for a relaxing birthday lunch. The setting here is beautiful, overlooking the beach, and the service couldn't be faulted. The menu offers modern Italian dishes, with daily specials, and C ordered the entrée dish of "fried zucchini flowers field (perhaps they mean "filled") with roast pumpkin, gorgonzola and pinenuts" (62 000 Rp), Ch chose the entree dish of "toasted panini of goats cheese, marinated eggplant, cherry tomatoes and almond pesto" (75 000 Rp) and I chose the main dish of "angel hair pasta with baby octopus, calamari, cherry tomatoes and pinot grigio" (96 000 Rp). Ch then ordered a lychee and lime juice (30 000 Rp), and after hearing that both C and I couldn't help but copy her.

La Lucciola, Seminyak

Lunch at La Lucciola

I was lucky enough to taste all dishes, and enjoyed them all. The zucchini flowers tasted really fresh, having obviously been fried in very clean oil. The panini was nice and crunchy on the outside with a soft centre. My pasta was cooked very well, had a generous amount of seafood, and the sauce was nice and light. The juices were also super fresh and exactly what we needed to help acclimatise!

Bali Catering Company (bcco)

Next stop on our journey was Bali Catering Company (bcco) where we needed to pick up two pumpkin pies that had been ordered by Ch. She used to live in Bali, and remembers these pies so fondly that she had to share the magic with us. You're probably thinking what I was thinking - "pumpkin pie? In Bali?" but I really need no excuse to enjoy pie, and Thursday was Thanksgiving after all. I was far less sceptical about the promised quality of this pie once we arrived at bcco, and I got to have a nosy around. They had macarons! And cannelés! And Illy coffee! And beef sausage buns!

Beef sausage buns aside, the pumpkin pie was as good as promised. Beautiful short pastry and a rich gingery pumpkin filling. Perfect to enjoy after a leisurely swim in the pool.

Happy Thanksgiving! Pumpkin pie from bcco

After a lazy afternoon we headed up to Ku De Ta in Seminyak, which was ranked #9 in the Miele Guide of Asia's Finest Restaurants, and really is a cool place to hang out. It spans two levels, with plenty of barstools, sofas and daybeds to recline on and watch the ocean while enjoying a cocktail or some food. We certainly enjoyed a cocktail or two (the passionfruit and vanilla mojito was divine) and found ourselves a comfortable spot to watch the sun go down. The perfect way to farewell our first sunny day in Bali.

Ku De Ta, Seminyak

After eyeing off other people's food at Ku De Ta, we were starting to get hungry, and Ch and her friend E took us to Made's Warung, Seminyak. As they explain on their website, "Made's Warung was established in 1969 and has become social eating and meeting venue for locals, expats and tourists alike. It has grown from traditional roadside warung into a cosmopolitan restaurant serving a variety of local and international food in Bali". It's a large, busy, vibrant place filled with hungry punters, and we were lucky that E had booked us a table.

Made's Warung top floor, and the front page of their menu

After checking out the front page of their menu, I could see that they really did cater for everyone. Be you a greasy drug dealer, a brainy doctor, a debonair dandy, trapped in the 80s, Paul Hogan, a very short woman or a hairy-chested computer geek, you will be welcomed with open arms. We left the ordering to Ch, and all ended up with various versions of Nasi Campur Special (55 000 Rp).

Nasi Campur Special (no beef)

This was my favourite meal of the whole trip, and was an adventure on a plate. Nasi Campur means "mixed rice" and is basically a serve of steamed white rice and lots of tasty stuff (such as sambals, tuna, chicken, curries, tempeh, tofu, cucumber, beans). I actually couldn't tell you what all the components of this particular version of Nasi Campur Special were, but I can say that it was incredibly, wonderfully flavoursome. The hot sambal (sitting on some cucumber in the top left) was really spicy, even for this chilli lover, and was about the only thing that I couldn't completely finish on the plate as by the time I'd made my way to it I didn't have enough non-spicy components left to cut through the mouth singeing heat. Luckily I had a delicious fresh pineapple and banana juice handy to put out the fire.

After getting back to our villa, C was kind enough to share her little birthday cake with me, and thus we concluded our first day in Bali how I intended to continue - with a big smile and a full belly.

Getting my goat at Palmerston Palace

Roll up, roll up, get your hairy rancid goat here! The perfect opportunity to catch up on late night infomercials, you'll be up all night with this little beauty! Reaquaint yourself intimately with your toilet bowl! Amaze your friends with shocking weightloss! Ever wanted to go vegetarian but just couldn't stop eating meat? This slimey little number will send you straight to the soy aisle!

I had some friends around for dinner last night, and was quite excited at the prospect of cooking goat for the first time. I've been meaning to get my hands on some nice spring milk-fed capretto from my local butcher for a little while now, but ended up buying a goat leg in Geraldton when I was there recently as it was on special, and quite a good price. The leg was frozen, so I took it out to defrost in the fridge the other day in preparation for last night's dinner. When I got it out to marinate yesterday morning, I was ill prepared for the horror that was to meet me. The vacuum seal wasn't sealed, so the blood had oozed out into the bag I had luckily placed it in. Not such a big deal, just a bit gross to deal with. I thought I detected a strange odour, but opened up the meat anyway and instantly wished I hadn't as my nose was assaulted with rancid fumes. Being unfamiliar with goat meat I thought for a second that perhaps this was just how raw goat smells, but on closer inspection the meat also had a lovely slimey sheen to it, and just to top things off it also had clumps of hair on it. Mmmmmmmmmmmm slimey hairy rancid goat.

Into the bin the slimey hairiness went, and to the internet I turned to try and somehow find a butcher than not only stocked goat, but was open on Sundays. A seemingly impossible task, and I expected that I would have to use lamb instead, but then I came across a stall called Poacher's Pantry at the Malaga Market so off I went to Malaga on a goat mission. Happily, when I made my way successfully through the gauntlet of bogans to Poacher's Pantry, I found 2 kilos of diced goat leg sitting next to the ostrich sausages. Sadly, I also discovered that this newfound source of interesting meats is soon to close down, but the upside was that the goat was 20% off. I wish I'd bought the ostrich snags too, who knows when an opportunity for cut price ostrich sausages will present itself again?

Home I rushed, now behind the eight ball in terms of dinner prep (although I possibly may have stopped off for some celebratory duck spring rolls at Phi Yen on the way home), but rejoicing in the fact that goat was still on the menu. This was particularly worth celebrating as I had been dorky enough to actually print off the menu.


The menu for the evening began with some lamb koftas that were left over from Mum's birthday party and had been patiently waiting in the freezer (uncooked) for a special occasion, such as to celebrate the sourcing of non-hairy goat. As with at the party, I served them with some raita, and couldn't resist a little mint garnish. Unfortunately I don't have a menu for the koftas as they were made by my sister who used a few different taste.com.au kofta recipes to come up with the final product, but I can share the raita recipe I used.

Raita

Ingredients
1/2 cup low fat natural yoghurt
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 Tb mint leaves, chopped
1/2 lebanese cucumber, seeded and finely chopped or grated

Method
Combine all ingredients, stirring well. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Lamb kofta and raita

I was lucky enough to receive a sample of Blu Gourmet Pearl Couscous from Liz at Haystac some time ago, and had been planning to serve it with goat reminiscent of the tasty (yet terribly bony and stingy on the meat) goat tagine with Israeli couscous dish I had at Bella Vista a few months back. The couscous came with some tasty sounding recipes, by Gabriel Gaté no less (oui oui!), but given that I would be using the couscous as a bed for the saucy goat dish I decided to keep the ingredients to a minimum and cook it with the wild porcini mushrooms that Evelyne sent me in her Montreal foodie exchange package.

I really liked the taste of this goat dish, but next time I would cut the root vegetables into smaller pieces (which I ended up doing this time). The meat was also much better after being in the cooker for four hours, so I'd cook it for at least that long as well. The sauce was also not quite as thick as I would have preferred, which I think would have worked better with the pearl couscous as opposed to something better able to sop up a runnier sauce (like normal couscous or mashed potato), but I did end up adding extra stock to the goat as I was using more meat than the original recipe so I would not do this next time.The couscous though was really great, and I loved the flavour and colour that the wild mushrooms added! I really like the texture of pearl couscous, and will certainly be buying it to try some of Monsieur Gaté's recipes, or coming up with my own.

Slow Cooked Capretto
Slightly adapted from the Goat Tagine recipe by Anna Gare from Best in Australia

Ingredients
Goat
2 kg diced goat leg meat (or whatever cut you like)
400 g sweet potato, cut into large chunks
2 medium parsnips cut into 3 or 4
2 medium carrots cut in half
10 shallots, peeled
5 Roma tomatoes chopped into quarters
Rind of a lemon and half an orange
2 Bay leaves
1 cassia bark (use a cinnamon quill if you can't get this)
600 ml chicken stock
2 cans chick peas washed and drained

Spice Rub
3 tsp Smoked Paprika pimento
½ tsp Allspice
1½ tsp coriander seeds ground
3 cardamom pods ground and husks removed
3 Cloves ground
1 tsp sea salt
3 Cloves Garlic finely chopped
1 Chilli seeds removed and finely chopped
10 g Ginger finely chopped
2 Tb Olive Oil

Garnish
Freshly chopped coriander or parsley
Lemon rind

Goat marinating, sauteing the vegies, browning the meat, all hanging out in the slow cooker

Method
1. Mix all spice ingredients together and rub over goat. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in fridge, allowing to marinate for 2 hours.
2. Add a little oil to heavy based pot or a large tagine & lightly sauté onions, potatoes, carrots & parsnip - put aside.
3. Lightly brown marinated goat, then remove.
4. Place sautéed veg back in pot or tagine or slow cooker & put meat & rest of ingredients on top (except chickpeas).
5. Pour over stock, cover with lid and cook on low heat in oven or stove top for pot/tagine, or in slow cooker on high for 3 hrs, stirring once or twice and adding drained chick peas in last ½ hr of cooking time.
6. Sprinkle garnish over top and serve to table in tagine if that's what you're using, or in a nice big attractive dish, or plate it up individually with something like the following side dish...

Slow cooked goat leg with wild porcini pearl couscous

Wild Porcini Pearl Couscous

Ingredients
25 g dried wild porcini mushrooms
1 1/2 cups pearl couscous
2 cups warm water
1 tsp olive oil

Method
1. Place the mushrooms in a bowl and cover with the warm water, leaving them to soak for 30 minutes to an hour, or until they have softened and the water has turned into a beautiful mushroomy stock.
(I learnt from this recent post that you may then want to squeeze the excess water from the mushrooms and rinse them in several changes of fresh water to get rid of any grit or sand. When saving the mushroom soaking water for later use, you may also want to strain it through a cloth or paper towel lined sieve to catch any grit in the water.)
2. Heat the olive oil in a medium sized saucepan and heat over medium heat until hot. Add the couscous to the pan and sauté until lightly toasted, around a minute or so.
3. Add the mushrooms and their stock to the pan, stir it all together and bring to the boil.
4. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes or until the water is absorbed.
5. Fluff couscous with a fork to separate the pearls, then taste and season if if necessary.
6. Serve with something delicious, such as slow cooked capretto!

Dried mushrooms, and their delicious reincarnation

Now, all these dishes may well be very tasty and interesting, but they were soon forgotten when it was time for dessert. If you have never made your own sticky date pudding, or had failures in the past, YOU MUST MAKE THIS DISH. I can still taste it now (she says, wiping the crumbs off her face from eating leftovers for afternoon tea).

The only downside to making this dish is having the voices of Gary, George and Matt continually talking in your head while you make it, as it's a MasterChef recipe. I was particularly channelling Matt when I was making the caramel for the almond praline. I resisted the urge to fashion a fetching cravat out of paper towel.


Sticky Date Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce
From MasterChef

Ingredients
Pudding
180g dates, pitted and roughly chopped
1¼ cups (310ml) water
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¾ cup (165g) firmly packed brown sugar
60g butter, softened chopped
2 eggs
1 cup (150g) self-raising flour

Almond praline
½ cup (110g) caster sugar
¼ cup (35g) slivered almonds

Butterscotch sauce
50g butter
1 cup (220g) brown sugar
1 cup (250ml) cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180˚C (160˚C fan-forced). Lightly grease eight (½ cup capacity) metal dariole moulds.
2. Place dates and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil over a high heat. Remove from the heat. Add bicarbonate of soda, stir until dates start to break down, set aside to cool, stirring occasionally.
3. Beat butter and sugar in a bowl using a hand beater, gradually add eggs one at a time, beat until light and fluffy.
4. Add date mixture, stir to combine. Carefully fold through sifted flour, divide mixture evenly between the eight moulds, until 2/3 full. (I really was not at all careful in my manner of folding through the sifted flour. In fact, I was pretty rough as it was quite lumpy with flour at first)
5. Place moulds in a baking tray, carefully pour water in tray until it comes up 1/3 of the side of the moulds. Bake in oven for 40 minutes or until golden and skewer comes out clean.
6. Meanwhile, for the almond praline, combine sugar and 2 tablespoons water in a saucepan over medium heat and cook caramel without stirring, swirling pan, until deep golden. Scatter almonds onto a baking paper-lined oven tray, pour over caramel and cool until set. Break praline into pieces.
7. For the butterscotch sauce, combine butter, sugar, cream and vanilla in small saucepan over low heat until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Bring sauce to the boil, reduce heat and cook for 5-6 minutes or until sauce thickens slightly.
8. To serve, invert the hot pudding onto a serving plate, top with butterscotch sauce and shards of praline. (and some ice cream... go on)


I'm off to Bali on Wednesday for a lot of relaxing and eating and drinking and massages and swimming and certainly no sunburning, no no, with my fabulous soon-to-be-married bestie C, so I shall see you all when I return (not sunburnt)!

Oh I can't help myself... just one more gratuitous pudding shot...

Ginnie Joan's Swanky Speakeasy

It was a hot day. It's always hot in Gero, and today it was blowing more hot air than the mayor on election day. I was sitting at my desk with a pitcher of melted ice, sweating like a hungry fat guy at a hot dog stand where there are only two weenies left.. and he’s third in line. The door squeaked on its hinges and I looked up to see her walking in, the kind of broad that could get a guy into five types of trouble.

"Ginnie Joan's another year old this year, but this time it ain't no ordinary birthday," she said, "We gots to celebrate this one with a bang, and I hear you're the girl to help us do it."

"So what if I am, doll face. I ain't got the time, and you ain't got the dough," I replied, wiping the sweat off my brow and looking around for fall to appear.It was hotter than a $3 radio at an all-night pawnshop but this dame was cool as ice. She reached into her bag and tossed two parcels across the desk before moving to the door, arching her back against the frame "There's plenty more where that came from. You've got two days to get back to me, and keep your trap shut," she said before slinking out.

I picked up the parcels, looking inside and groaning like a cheap plastic chair at an all-you-can-eat buffet. This broad had my number all right - wholemeal pizza dough and freshly made too. I poured the pitcher over my head before picking up the phone and admitting surrender.

When my sister first approached me with her idea of throwing a 1920s/30s themed party for our Mum's milestone birthday this year, I knew it was going to be a night to remember. If you want a cool party organised, just ask my sister (only, you might not want to ask her right now or she might punch your nose flatter than a pancake driving off a cliff). Contrary to the above gumshoe, I eagerly jumped on board and soon we were watching old movies for ideas (watching Kevin Costner in fast forward doesn't make him any less annoying), making many a list and madly emailing each other even more than usual.

Keep your greasy mitts off my Ginnie Joan dollars!

Before too long, invites were sent out to the lucky chosen ones, giving each guest a moniker to use for the evening, and some Ginnie Joan dollars to use in case they need to bribe their way in past The Enforcer (my brother-in-law).

The Enforcer's shift at the speakeasy began early, shifting and moving the usual furniture out of the way to make room for the hired tables and chairs, the "band" and the piano. The band were an unusually quiet lot, but they made up for it by looking the part, framed by red curtains and gold chandeliers. The band and curtains were made by the speakeasy's artist-in-residence, my sister, who also happens to moonlight as a fine little moonshine brewer.

Just some of Ginnie Joan's posters and magazine covers

A couple of pinboards covered in photos of Ginnie Joan throughout the years, and a few photoshop-dodgy-ed up posters later, and we had the swankiest speakeasy this side of Chicago.

The band for the evening, and some Ginnie Joan moonshine

The food preparation began weeks ago, with my sister and I making all the freezable items in advance and storing them safely away until the big day. My sister put in some mammoth baking days for this, and soon we had a chest freezer filled with tasty treats. Cooking the fresh food involved two pretty solid days of cooking before the party, and by Sunday we were knackered but it was totally worth it.

The party was fantastic, with around 60 guests in attendance. I was so impressed by the effort that everyone went to with their costumes! I would love to put up some photos of us all but I'm not so sure everyone would be cool with me sticking their mugs up here so you'll just have to imagine how awesome us ladies looked with our drop-waists and tassels and fishnets and feathers and the men in their dapper suits! I had bought myself a nice feather boa to complete my outfit, but ended up leaving it out in fear of a guest choking on any stray feathers (the mob doc was outta town that weekend).

The night's savoury menu at this lavish juice joint consisted of:

• Selection of cold platters and dips (which I largely forgot to photograph!!)
• Party eggs (also totally forgot to photograph!)
  
• Smoked salmon and caviar blinis (kinda forgot to photograph)
  
• Assorted sushi rolls
• Salt & pepper squid
• Lamb koftas with yoghurt dipping sauce
• Mini quiches - ham, cheese & chives and sundried tomato & feta
• Spicy chicken sausage rolls
• Spanakopita triangles (made with puff instead of filo... don't tell George!)
  
• Spicy pulled pork buns
• Butter chicken pastries
• Mini beef & Guinness pies

No recipes in this post I'm afraid, but perhaps I'll write some up in the near future.

Pastries being warmed, ready to go out on platters to the hungry masses

My only evidence of Party Eggs, and a Caviar Blini

Assorted sushi rolls

Salt & pepper squid, butter chicken pastries, my only evidence of the platters, spicy chicken rolls and the sundried tomato & feta quiches

Spicy chicken rolls, sundried tomato & feta quiches, lamb koftas, beef & Guinness pies and spanakopita triangles

The spicy pulled pork process - rubbed with spices, after being very slowly cooked, pulling it all apart to be put back in slow cooker with homemade bbq sauce, then making the buns!

Spicy chicken rolls, ham cheese & chives quiches, spicy pulled pork buns

We were serving for a good solid couple of hours, before people started admitting defeat and we thought we'd let them rest their bellies in readiness for dessert. The rest period included some entertainment in the form of The Godfather theme being belted out on the piano, and a skit including some of the town's hottest young flappers showing off their dance moves. While all this was going on, my sister and I busily finished off the final touches to the birthday cake we'd been working on for a couple of days by this stage, and arranging the other desserts (provided kindly by some of Mum's sisters) on trays.

In addition to that slice of beetroot chocolate cake that I bought at the Subi Farmers market last week and stored safely away in the freezer for our coeliac guest, the other desserts were:

• Date slice (no photographic evidence at all! Trust me it was lovely!) (thanks Aunty R!)
  
• Banoffee pies, with a twist (thanks Aunty S!)
• Chocolate and raspberry tarts (thanks Aunty T!)

A chocolate tart, and some banoffee pies (mmm gotta love a twist that involves Cherry Ripe)

Now, the birthday cake/s was a labour of love. My sister came up with the overall design, and then got to work making the key component - an incredible fruit cake (man it's a tasty cake... I was lucky enough to score a big chunk to bring back to Perth with me, and every day is a struggle to stop myself from eating the whole thing.) I meanwhile put myself to good use by sourcing all the icing paraphernalia from various cake decorating stores. Of course, there happened to be a statewide shortage in the ready-to-roll icing we wanted, but I just hit up Jimmy the shoeshine boy for the info I needed. For the right price, Jimmy could tell you were to find a needle in a haystack, and where it had been 'til now, and he sure as hell knew where in town had some o' that fondant. (The Yellow Pages and many phone calls may have also possibly yielded the same information).

The cake process began on Friday with the baking of around 70 cupcakes - chocolate in black paper, and vanilla in white paper. We then got onto decorating the fruit cake. Neither my sister nor I had ever used fondant before, so we were incredibly apprehensive and had visions of it cracking horribly as we tried to roll it on and having to cover up our mistakes with lashings of ganache or icing sugar or just doing the Charleston in front of it to distract people. After watching a few youtube videos to get the process clear in our minds, we got started and it ended up being remarkably straightforward! Luckily the cake was lovely and goopy with all the booze in it, so it was quite easy to get the surface nice and level by plugging any little holes with pieces of extra cake before we did the rolling, and before long we had a mighty fine looking fondantified cake.

Making and decorating the central fruit cake

The piano decoration on top of the white fondant layer involved a bit more work, and I was able to put my engineering skills to good use by drawing up a template to cut the black icing to. Once the black squiggle and black keys were in the right position, we made the lines between the white keys with pieces of licorice before adding some black musical notes, placing some ribbon around the bottom and high-fiving each other a few times.

The high-fives may have been a little premature, as we then spent the rest of the night decorating the cupcakes with alternating black or white fondant, and musical notes. We also decorated some cupcakes to spell out "HAPPY BIRTHDAY", and saved four in each colour to place some gold candles into.


So, while others were shimmying up a storm outside, my sister and I arranged the cake and cupcakes on the previously prepared cakeboard (made and painted by The Enforcer, I believe, and finished off with the musical score by my sister). It was while doing this that I thought that perhaps we should check if the board actually fit through the door. Mild panic ensued until The Enforcer used his rifle as a ruler and confirmed that it would indeed fit safely through the door. Candles were then lit and the cake made its way out to the lady of honour!


Following much gorging of cake and cupcakes and pies and tarts and slice, there was only one duty left of the evening... selling the post-dinner cigars and cigarettes...

Cigars? Cigarettes? Humectant 420?

Big cheers for my sister for organising one hell of a party, and very big thanks to all who attended and helped that classy broad Ginnie Joan celebrate her birthday in style! Happy birthday Mum!