By Request: Tarte Tartin, v.3

Well, I seem to have cracked it on the third attempt. This is what I did with my long weekend.

This one is sticking together fairly well, was easy enough to cook in my new non-stick, oven-proof pan. The pan might have been a key, it’s a “flash as” one from the Warehouse (of all places), and I’ve been using it for almost everything for a week or more.

There still needs to be a little work on getting the caramel just right, this one wasn’t right and “split” into toffee and butterscotch.

But if you’re wanting a decent dessert? I can declare this the most delicious thing I’ve made in ages.

 

By Request: Tarte Tatin – 2nd Attempt

I think this about says it all, really.

Too much caramel, and the dish I used was too deep. Lesson learned.

 

By Request: Tarte Tatin

Well, Idiot/Savant put in a request for a Tarte Tatin a few weeks back, and I thought I’d give it a go.

First try? Not so great.

The caramel hasn’t really worked. Ideally it would sit high on the apples and form a delicious layer.

Also, the apples are way too soggy. Will cook for a few minutes less next time, and use the crunchiest apples possible.

Finally, I used a cast-iron skillet for the cooking, but didn’t clean it properly. You can faintly taste garlic or something in the butter.

That said? Chef Du Plunge and I ate about a quarter of it before Second Chef got home!

 

How to make chicken and vegetables with Oyster Sauce

She’s been a long time between drinks of water here in the food front, but so many people refer to Second Chef and I as “foodies” I thought I’d better not let the side down. To be honest, this recipe was shot before Chef Du Plunge was even born! The evidence is the use of asparagus, which has been out of season for many, many months.

But we can’t disappoint, and here it is.

Oyster Sauce is a wonderful ingredient you should be able to buy at your local supermarket. If you can’t, then any self-respecting Asian market will have it. The great thing about it is that it’s so easy to use, as we’ll see. Basically you just add it to your dish at the right stage, and heat it.

And what could be easier?

I’ve also flagged this as a vegetarian meal (even though oyster sauce contains “oyster extracts” – whatever the hell that means), because the chicken is entirely optional. I like it, but you can just as well survive using a decent firm tofu.

So here’s what you’ll need.

• The aforementioned oyster sauce
• Vegetables, preferably seasonal. When we photographed this recipe asparagus and capiscums where in, and good old broccoli too. You can and should also use Asian vegetables like bok choy, not for the authenticity, but because they’re relatively cheap and very nutritious.
• Dried fungus, or, fresh mushrooms. They go well with the oyster sauce. Dried fungus or mushrooms can also be bought cheaply at your local Asian grocer. They’re a good dry food to store in case of emergency.
• Egg noodles, as above.
• Chicken, tofu, or neither.
• A wok. A frying pan just doesn’t cut it.

And we’re off!

 

I been waiting so long baby…

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but I finally got my way.

Careful over the jump, it’s not suitable for children, but it’s sooooo damned nice.

 

Tips for good cooks

In the grumpiness stakes there is nothing that annoys me quite as much as not calling things what they actually are, for fear of upsetting someone.

Listener has easily achieved the ringing of the annoying bell with the following page, from the March 21-27 edition of the “current affairs magazine”.

The list purports to display 25 “Secrets and Shortcuts of good cooks”.

The trouble is, only a few are actually for cooks, and the majority of these things are actually secrets of good husbandry, or what they call in the vernacular, house-wifery.

But instead of getting picky about why or why not this is husbandry and not cooking, I thought I’d run over a few secret of cooks.

1. Keep your knives are sharp as possible. Dull knives are more dangerous, and will give worse cuts
2. Keep your implements handy. If you’re freaking out looking for a spatula in the drawer while something starts to burn, you’ll end up with no spatula and no dish
3. Read a recipe before you start cooking. You should only be referring to it to remember the tricky bits while you cook
4. Practice new or strange recipes on willing victims before plating it up for guests (god knows how many times I haven’t followed my own advice on this one). Hungry dishwashers are easy to replace if you poison one
5. Switch on the oven as a first step. If you’re waiting for that thing to get to 180 while your batter starts to split, you’re sunk
6. No kitchen is ever too small. If you’ve run out of space you’re either too ambitious, or too messy
7. Speaking of which, clean up after yourself as you go. That way, when things fall to pieces at least you know which bits of the meal you can actually save (and not have to decide if the mess the roast has fallen into has made it inedible)
8. Plan how you’re going to assemble a meal before you even start. There will be a sequence you need to follow to make it efficient, hassle-free, and delicious
9. Too many cooks spoil the broth, unless you have rapport
10. Mise en Place, or “Prep”, is the most important thing you’ll ever do. Carefully lay out each part of the meal as you intend to cook it. Cut vegetables and keep them in separate bowls for example. DO NOT start cutting or peeling garlic after you’ve put the onion in the pan…
11. Fresh is always best
12. Chopping boards, keep them wood. Wooden boards have the right amount of give, and hardly ever turn a knife like those awful plastic ones
13. Chopping boards, never ever wash them in detergent. A strong blast of very hot water and a metal scrubber (like a goldilocks) is all you’ll need. Plastic boards are proven to harbour all kinds of bacteria, while a good wooden board, treated right, is relatively sterile
14. There is a difference between social, and obsessive or gourmet cooking. Make sure you own up to which you’re practising.

And that is the world according to Che (will add more when I remember them…, or when people point them out.)

 

How to shuck an oyster

Originally I wanted to call this post “what I did on my holidays”, but the “how to’s” seem to draw in more Google traffic!

And what we did was go to Dunedin in the extremely sunny Otago and, among other things, gather seafood! Yay! Kaimoana!!

What we have here is two buckets of bluff oysters, and two of the local cockles. Awesome. Actually… do the kids even say “awesome” any more?

Now, cockles are easy, you just cook them the same way as mussels. But that’s another post. Oysters though… Oysters are tricky. Fortunately I’ve had to shuck dozens, and dozens, and dozens, and dozens while working in service.

So! All you need for this is two things: a decent oyster knife, and an oyster!

I should come clean and state that I’m not certain that these were *actual* bluff oysters. They did however live in the shallows of a local bay though, and we collected them at low tide. Naturally this was a lot of fun, involving freezing cold water, leaky gumboots, a boat trip, and a lot of scrabbling about.

So here’s what you need to do.

 

How to make sweet, semi-dried tomatoes

I got an special request from Idiot/Savant the other day to post a recipe for semi-dried tomatoes. Luckily this is something I saw in the restaurants, and I know it’s easy as. It’s also extremely Frugal.

If you want a particular recipe shown in a step-by-step, just give me a yell and I’ll see what I can do. Within reason. Par-boiled yak might exceed by meagre skills…

In this case I used about 2ish kilos of tomatoes costing about $4, and 1kg of Rock Salt costing $1.50 (I used the rock salt twice, in two “shifts”). The real expense was probably running the oven for four or five hours. So all up we can assume this cost us about $6 or $7?

What I got from this was several hundred grams of semi-dried tomatoes. Considering that the “gourmet” tomatoes in the supermarket cost $7 for a smallish cryo-vac of 250g, this is a good deal.

Here’s what you’ll need.

• A kilo of Roma tomatoes. You can use any tomatoes, but Roma are the best because of their low acidity. They’ll end up sweeter and generally just, plain, extremely delicious.
• A matching weight of rock salt. This is generally pretty cheap.
• Fresh herbs, especially Thyme.
• A decent sized, sterilised jar to store them in.
• A large amount of oil, vegetable oil is ok, olive oil is best.

And that’s it. We’ve been tucking into these on bread, with cheese. But you can eat them in a myriad of dishes.

 

How to clean a Squid (or cuttlefish)

Squid are one of the most amazing creatures in the ocean, they’re smart, they’re curious, they can camoflage themselves, and… they’re extremely delicious. Which is probably why Russell Brown’s friend Kerry pestered me to put up this post! Kerry, apologies for this taking so long, seafood was kept of the menu by Chef Du Plunge.

A further great thing about squid is that with the decimation of the world’s stocks of predator fish (like tuna), squid are abundant. It’s therefore our illogical duty  to bring balance to the force, and eat many, many squid.

Cuttlefish are a closely related species that differs mainly in the arrangement of the swim-fins. In Melbourne I learned cleaning these things on cuttlefish, but the difference isn’t too great.

So, what do you look for in a squid? The one pictured is from Moore Wilsons and cost a whopping $3.30. As you’ll see, it’s easily enough to be the protein in a meal for two.

What you’ll need is about half a kilo of squid, a sharp knife, and an apron. This is a messy business.

The thing to look for when selecting a squid or cuttlefish is the colour around the swim-fins. If it is too yellow, and not a translucent white, then the animal has been frozen and defrosted too long. This makes it risky, and less tasty. Also, if you’re cleaning the squid and the gut stinks, and I mean *really* stinks, then it’s probably bad. Take my advice and cut your losses now.

Back in the kitchens the squid was sometimes so fresh its skin still shimmered through different colours… poor, delicious little blighters.

And we’re off!

 

How to make Steamed Pork Buns

Somewhere on the web there will be a recipe for making the BBQ pork buns, but who has time for that just at the minute? A man needs sustenance though, and you can buy these buns by the 8 from the Waitangi Markets for about $8. That’s some good snacking.

Now you could just micorwave these things, but where is the fun in that?! Plus, microwaving always creates an unevenly warmed bun. Which I always find is a bit of a tongue-burning minefield…

I’m making two of these, in these handy little bamboo steam baskets from a local “Asian” market.

This literally takes five minutes, and the buns come in different varieties, including red bean (i.e. vegetarian)