Category Archives: Food Glorious Food

Godambah or stuffed roti

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I’m convinced every country has their own version of a stuffed pastry. They differ in names, they differ in flavours, but essentially it’s the same kind of thing, a little bit of vegetables or meat thrown between  some pastry or bready outside and then cooked. Quite often frugal in ingredients, seasonal and easy to use up what ever is going on in your fridge….and so far, I like them all.

England has the pastie.

Italy has the calzone.

Eastern Europe has the pierogi.

Japan has the gyoza.

India has the samosa

South America has the empanada.

Australia has the pie

and

Sri Lanka has the godambah, or stuffed roti.

Street food at it’s best. I ate these in Sri Lanka teamed up with a feisty chilli sauce, and usually wrapped up in yesterday’s news. An easy food to eat while you wander around.

I hadn’t made them up until now, as roti and I were not friends. As  much as I had tried, I just couldn’t master the little buggers. Then I caught sight of this cookbook lying idly on its side waiting for a good page flipping.

Bingo…oh big bingo! Loved it.

 Stuffed roti, along with a whole lot more goodies to be cooked on other days. Now there is nothing I like better than Sri Lankan food. Every thing about it speaks to my senses. Visual, taste, smell it’s all there. I’d made curries before and Love Cake but it was now time to give the Godambah a crack.

For the original recipe please see here. For how I did it, see below.

Vegetable Godambah

* adapted from Sri Lankan Flavours– Channa Dassanayaka

Roti

2 1/2 (375g) cups plain flour

1 (250mls) cup water

1 tsp salt

Mix ingredients together, and let rest, covered for a couple of hours. Give it a quick knead and divide dough into 8 balls. Roll balls on a pizza tray (or something stainless steel.) Then store in a well oiled bowl. The oil  is important to get the right consistency when rolling out the roti.

Get a ball, and spread out dough with your finger tips, pushing out to a rectangular shape. Place a good sized spoonful of mixture in the middle and fold up. Then fry each side until golden.


Roti Mixture

a couple of slurps of vegetable oil

1 onion diced

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sambal olek

Fry until fragrant and then add potatoes, carrots and 1/2 cup peas.

(Use what ever  vegetables take your fancy, and incorporate mashed potatoes in there to firm up the mixture. I used…)

3 steamed potatoes- mashed

1 steamed carrot- diced

Once all parcels are cooked up, serve with some chilli sauce.

* Roti can be cooked up as a flat bread as well and served with a curry. Just fry quickly in an oiled fry pan or wok.

Cashew Chia Date Roll

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My local deli has these lovely dried fruit rolls that cost a whole bunch, look lovely and don’t have a whole lots of ingredients in them. So I decided to see if I could do a version. An easy snack, or pre-dinner nibble with some cheese.

Cashew Chia Date Roll

2 tbls chia

1 tbls water

100g raw cashews

150g dried dates

Combine the chia and water together , leave for 5 minutes to soak in. Blitz all ingredients up in a small hand held blender. (This was a bit of a pain as it kept sticking, but keep at it.)

Scoop the mixture on to some cling film and then roll it into a log shape. Store in the fridge, and slice as needed.

eggs two ways- Frugal Friday

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Eggs are always a quick and easy thing to prepare. Cool or warm weather, these little fellas are easily adaptable to what ever your taste buds fancy.

For warmer weather or an easy lunch try and egg salad. Dictated by what’s in season, what’s in the fridge and pretty much what you fancy eating.

Egg Salad

boiled eggs

lettuce

celery

walnuts

parmesan shavings

olive oil

Baked Eggs

In a baking dish add some tomato passata or left over pasta sauce. This one was a eggplant and zucchini pasta sauce. Make some slight hollows and crack the eggs in. Bake at 200 until golden. If you like your eggs still runny, bake until just the whites are cooked. Serve with some crusty bread.


red food dye? I don’t think so

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He was scampering that was for sure. Up and down the hall with an obvious focus to those little feet. He caught me watching him and seemed to push away the raised eyebrow look and what are you up to question on my lips. I couldn’t hear anything that I shouldn’t be and he really was quite busy. So I left him to it. Back and forth, back and forth. Scurrying like a little bug, taking huge bundles 4 times his body size and wrangling it to his chosen destination.

Little Monkey was building a castle. He called out, declaring he was ready now, and in I went to inspect the wall building. Foundations looked a little shonky, brick work was a little sloppy, but there he was sitting on top of his castle, pleased as a 3 year old would be…sitting on top of his castle. Every cushion, pillow, blanket, soft anything had been dragged in and utilised. Just perfect for a mama to make a flying leap on to….

Now if you are the kind of person that likes looking into what you are eating or what your kids maybe eating, you may have looked up red food dye before. You may have also heard, that just like my little cushion carrying bug of a son, red food dye can be made from a certain bug… Or it could also be made from a coal tar derivative. Either way, these days I don’t particularly want to ingest anything that is fire engine red unless there is a really good reason to.

So with that in mind I was mighty annoyed to get a jar of tandoori paste home a while back. Only to find out, that one of the main ingredients was red food dye!

Not a tomato ingredient in there. All that lovely red was thanks to some good old red food dye. I was annoyed, as I would never normally buy a jar like this but was feeling generous as I had been at some great farmers markets and was seduced by all the lovely food stuffs around me… the seduction however, had not carried over to the tandoori paste I had just bought home.

Surely I could make something that wouldn’t give me the heebie-jeebies just looking at the colour?

Let’s give it a crack…

Tandoori Paste

In a pan add

a couple of slurps of vegetable oil

diced onion, knob of ginger, and a couple of cloves of garlic

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp yellow mustard seeds

2 tbls tomato paste

salt to taste

chilli to taste

fry it all off for a couple of minutes, until fragrant. Then whizz to a smooth paste with a hand held mixer.

*******

Now authentic? Perhaps not, but I think a whole more so than a jar full of red food dye, and salt.

 I cooked this up with the obligatory chicken and yogurt dish, but I also had some left over and sourdough on the go. So Tandoori Flat Bread it was.

Just the thing to go and snack on while sitting on top of a castle.

cannoli time

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 Cannoli had been on my ‘to do’ list for a couple of years now. Those tasty little Sicilian pastry desserts, with a crispy outer shell and sweet soft goodness inside. Ricotta, mascarpone, custard fillings…mmm, there is a lot to like about cannoli. A whole lot.

Now when the lovely Joanna from Zeb Bakes sent me some cannoli moulds, well it was a sign, wasn’t it.

It was time….it was cannoli time.

But which recipe to try? On the internet there were so many to choose from, I couldn’t decide, so after reading about twenty different recipes, it was back to hack baking again. I played. Maybe not the wisest choice considering they were supposed to be a little tricky, but my choice none the less. So, below is how I did it. These are not perfect. They’re good, but not perfect. They need tweaking, so they will definitely be made again.

The pastry was good, (smelt fantastic with the marsala in it) but I didn’t get that complete crispness that I was after. I’m not sure if it’s because I didn’t deep fry them, only shallow fried them, and I did have a bit of trouble getting the right temperature of the oil to cook them in. Or it was the pastry after all?

I liked the mixture inside, (it’s mascarpone right, and we’re friends from waaaay back.) The jam added was a little taste tweak, which worked. I would have added some lemon zest as well, but was all out.

Next time though.  And yes, there most assuredly will be a next, cannoli time.

 

Cannoli

Cannoli dough

400g plain flour

125g butter

85g (1/2 cup) icing sugar

125mls marsala

1 egg

In a food processor, pulse icing sugar, butter and flour. Until it looks like bread crumbs. Tip out to a bowl and add marsala and beaten egg. Mix, and bring together quickly with one hand. Form a ball, cover in cling wrap and pop in the fridge over night.

Next day, roll out in circles as thin as you can get without tearing, cutting circle sizes to fit cannoli molds.

Lightly oil cannoli molds with vegetable oil, (just the once is all that is needed.) Wrap the dough around and cook in oil until golden. Pull mould out while still hot/warm, (as if it’s cold it will get stuck.) Allow to cool on a rack.

Ricotta mixture

250g ricotta

250g mascarpone

85g (1/2 cup) icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 heaped tbls strawberry jam

Whip it all up, for a minute or two and then pipe. One side and then the other.

Only pipe the mixture just before serving. Dust with icing sugar.

Unfilled cannoli shells will last for about a week in an air tight container.

how to make butter and yogurt- Frugal Friday

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I think every blogger who ever dabbles in food posts, has done a how- to- make- yogurt and/ or butter at one time or another. Just to add to the lovely collection- here’s my way.

How To Make Yogurt 

What you will need-

kettle, yogurt thermos, yogurt container, powdered milk, 2 heaped tablespoons old yogurt, water, measuring cup.

Time it takes- do it in the time it takes to boil the kettle.

Fill your kettle up and turn it on. Take 2 heaped spoonfuls of bought yogurt (like the end of the tub), add a little water to mix it, it’s now runny and set aside.

 Fill your yogurt container half full with water.

 Add one and a half cups of powdered milk. No need to shake it down and fit as much as you can, just roughly 1 1/2 cups. Mix it with a spoon and add your runny yogurt mixture. Mix again and fill the rest of the container up with water. Lid on, give it a good shake.

 Kettles boiled. Fill it up to the top of the plastic thingy inside. Place your yogurt container in with the lid on, add the thermos lid and leave it (don’t peak) for 8-12 hours. The longer you leave it the tartier it will taste. (I’ve forgotten it for 24 hours and it’s still fine.)

*******

Once, about every six weeks I refresh the batch with a packet of the ready to go yogurt mix you can buy (which is just add water and shake.) I find it keeps the cultures stronger, and more likely to keep it at a thicker Greek style yogurt consistency, (which is what we all like.)

$20 for the yogurt maker, and each litre of yogurt I make, works out to be about $1.50 a batch. I then add any of our homemade seasonal jams to sweeten the yogurt. Dead easy. You are saving a whole bundle of money, no more plastic tubs and you don’t have the usual paragraph of ingredients that’s in a lot of yogurt today.

How To Make Butter

In a mixer, pour in a carton of cream. The best you can buy, (not thickened cream). Whip it….and keep whipping…

 Keep it whipping until it starts to look like this. The liquid will start to separate, which is then able to be drained off. Add a pinch of salt (to taste) and keep squeezing out that excess moisture using a spatula against the side of the bowl. You don’t want any of that moisture in there. Once it is all drained off it can be shaped into what ever shape you need.

Next time you see one of those fancy pancy butters imported from countries far far away, you can have a little chuckle at the thought of spending that much money on butter and then go home and make it yourself. Again, dead easy.

Now where’s the bread to go with it?…

Illumination, disgrace and some Chocolate Honey biscuits

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I can’t go in to my kitchen around two o’clock in the afternoon.

Far too scary.

At that time all I find is filth and disgrace. Twelve o’clock is fine, three thirty is fine too, but two o’clock…uh uhh.

You see, that’s when the afternoon light hits everything. Hit’s the bench tops, the stove top, the top of the fridge, the cupboard doors, it even fills up the tiny crack between the oven and the benches. So what does it show? It doesn’t show, it illuminates every crumb, finger print, and sloppage humanly possible.

At 9am, when the shadows are still discreet, I think I have a clean kitchen. I think I have a lovely clean kitchen. But come two o’clock and the thruth is revealed. The bare and honest truth.

If I have the unfortunate task of going in to said kitchen at this time, I usually do two things.

One, walk briskly out, muttering that’s disgusting, (obviously too disgusting to do anything about it.) Or two, I start cleaning.  Not enough to actually fix the problem, (because that clearly, would take hours and hours) but just enough to take away the time from what ever else I should have been doing.

So that’s why there can’t be any kitchen happenings at that time. Three thirty I can go back in there, and start hauling food around again.

(Which is well timed actually… as from three thirty onwards it’s the bathroom I have to avoid. Shocking illumination in there then.)

Chocolate Honey Biscuits

150g softened butter

150mls honey

150g melted chocolate

450g plain flour

1 tsp vanilla

Mix all together. put through a piping bag with a wide nozzel, (or simply roll them.) Bake at 180C for about 20 minutes.

(See here for my original honey biscuits)

Almond pesto- Frugal Friday

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Pesto is one of those dead easy, whiz it up and away you go kind of meals. The only thing that stops me is pine nuts. Yes, I love them, they are delicious. However I can’t source any local ones and they are really quite expensive. Swapping the pine nuts to a cheaper and more local nut works just as well though.

I’ve made it with pecans, walnuts before and for this one it was almonds. Blitzing whole almonds in a blender (skins on) then adding 2 bunches of fresh basil, some grated parmesan and some great local olive oil. It’s an accompaniment to lots of dishes. It never lasts long in this house, but this amount will give a good sized jar, which I just top up with some extra olive oil, and then keep it in the fridge.

Eat it stirred through pasta, a little chopped up chilli and extra parmesan.

Mixed with rice, baby spinach, and crumbled fetta.

Or simply on some toasted sourdough, bruschetta style.

Dark Chocolate Espresso Brownie Parfaits

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Something odd happened recently. I had read a post from the delightful Rufus’ Food and Spirits Guide on brownie parfaits, and how there had been some brownie lurking in their freezer to make these up. They certainly looked delicious, but I have NEVER had brownie in my freezer, and probably wouldn’t be having any in there in the near future. Idea pushed aside….

Several days later and I wanted to bake something to take to an important meeting full of important people, as a little thank you. What to bake?….How about brownie? (See the brownie seed had been planted.)

I wanted to make dark chocolate espresso ones, and started baking the afternoon before…. Oh snap, crackle, pop. No eggs! But it’s too late, I’d already done everything except for add the eggs.

Bugger…

Hmmm, ok, eggless brownie seems to work (after a quick scan of the internet) let’s cross eyes and hope for the best. Baked, cooled, cut….and crumble. Loads of crumbles. I think with the high cocoa content I was using with the chocolate (72%) combined with the no eggs, it just wasn’t going to happen.

But, said crumbly brownies would be perfect for say…parfait? Which is how I came to have brownies in my freezer.

A frantic call out to Mr Chocolate for eggs on the way home from work and I made up the brownies again in the evening. This time lowering the cocoa solids percentage (50%) and adding the eggs….ahhh, much better. No crumbles, and everyone at the meeting the next day happily emptied the brownie container, leaving a smattering of satisfied crumbs.

Dark Chocolate Espresso Brownie Parfaits

Layer your glass with brownie (eggless and 72% chocolate or otherwise)

Add mascarpone layer (250g mascarpone, 2 tsp vanilla, 1/4 cup icing sugar, a splash of milk- whisked together)

Thinly sliced strawberries

Eat with enthusiasm and a small spoon.

* I’m not sure that this actually fits in to the definition of parfait, but the alternative was to name the Dark Chocolate Espresso Brownie, layered Mascarpone and Strawberry Thing….

…parfait it is.

Dark Chocolate Espresso Brownie

250g dark chocolate (50%)

250 butter

60mls espresso coffee

2 tso vanilla

200g brown sugar

150g plain flour

50g s/r flour

4 beaten eggs

In a pot, gently melt the butter and chocolate. Turn off and add the vanilla, coffee and brown sugar. Cool a little, then add beaten eggs and fold through flour. Mixture is runny. Pour into a greased, lined baking tray, (23cm-ish) Bake at 180C for approximately 30 minutes.


Red Lantern

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Can you guess where I had lunch?

My belly is full, my mind content and my taste buds happily reliving each dish…

Red Lantern.

Now I don’t do restaurant reviews, so this is a plead. Please go there, the food is truly wonderful.

I was really happy with going to Aria last year, but I have to say Red Lantern, you have taken my heart. A restaurant that has two feet firmly planted in the ethical, sustainable, organic eating arena while staying within their Vietnamese origins.

A cosy table for two tucked away in the corner. Let me have one eye on the other customers, seeing what they were ordering. While keeping the other eye on Mr Chocolate making sure he didn’t take any more of the melt in your mouth chilli salted squid than he should be.

It was also really lovely to see Luke Nguyen taking plates out to tables and explaining dishes to customers. Taking the time out to explain one particular dish to me and then coming back to show what he had meant about the cooking process, with said dish in hand.

Food was beautifully presented, tasted wonderful and I’ll be thinking about those dishes for a good while to come.

 Muc Rang Muoi- chilli salted squid

 Banh Tom- rice cakes with tiger prawns, caramelized pork and pork floss

 Goat Curry

 Dessert tasting plate- Coconut Creme Caramel with Strawberries, Sesame dumpling with Black Sesame Icecream, Black Sticky Rice with Caramelized Pumpkin and Coconut Cream.

Table for two next week?….Yes please.

******

Red Lantern

545 Crown Street

Surry Hills, Sydney

(o2) 96984355

Golden Syrup Ginger Puddings

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Winter has drawn to an end, and along with it the need for heavier, warming desserts after dinner.

Eeeek, hang on a second… I’d barely got started! I had mental puddings lined up, still waiting to be made. Hold off blossoming flowers, sit tight warming day time temperatures… there are puddings to be made. 

I wanted to make something without a whole lot of hassle, and not crazy, crazy sweet. (If you want to up the sweet, put more golden syrup in the bottom.) Easy to quickly put together and heats well over the next few days… or eaten cold in the middle of the night when hunger knocks on your door...*ahem*

Golden Syrup Ginger Puddings

200g softened butter

100g brown sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

2 beaten eggs

2 cups of flour (300g)

1/2 cup yogurt (125mls)

handful chopped uncrystallized ginger

Cream butter and sugar, add beaten eggs and remaining ingredients. In ramekins, a couple of spoonfuls of golden syrup (depends how sweet you want it) and then spoon pudding mixture on top. Place ramekins in a tray full of water in the oven. Water should come about half way up the sides of the ramekins. Bake at 190C for about 40 minutes, (cooked when a skewer comes up clean.)

just how hot is hot?

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I did a post at the end of summer on my tiny gas metre box garden. Nothing flash. Just a few pots of greenery that keep me centred. The chilli plants happily flowered and grew, they even got through the Noah’s Ark of winter rain thrown at them. Then they turned red, actually they are still turning red. Slowly changing from subtle green, to come on- I dare you red.

Now when I planted these little fella’s I wanted something a little feisty. The packet said hot, actually it said piccante. It was an Italian heirloom variety. So anything labelled piccante, and I have high hopes.

Not gaspingly, oh for the love of god, find me a river and submerge my firey mouth.

 But, hey…Oooo, yep, that’s a bit hot right there.

Something like that anyway.

So they have been turning red, and I’ve slowly been collecting them on my kitchen window sill. A little fiery red mountain growing. Each day I wonder, just how hot they are.

these look like a completely different variety, but I'm sure they came out of the same packet.

Blueberries are also flowering. Last season there was just a tiny handful of flowers that seemed to take six months to actually develop the fruit. This year with quadruple the flowers, I’m hoping the fruiting doesn’t take quite so long.

Rosemary is also happy. I just have to remember not to remember it. It’s never happy when I give it too much love and attention. Neglect, and the odd whisper of I’m still watching you, and it seems to thrive.

There are some other pots as well that look empty, but have sleeping seeds in them. What’s in there though and I wouldn’t have a clue. I planted them one evening and then got rushed inside. Distracted for the next few days, I never quite made it back out to write what I had planted and where. So now, wouldn’t have a clue what was in there.

Never mind, who doesn’t like surprises….especially the plant kind.

Now, speaking of surprises, I think it might be time to find out just how hot that chilli really is…

Just how hot is hot?