Tag: recipes

A signature dish

Unlike Ben, I’m sticking with MasterChef through thick and thin. Yes, the plate dropping incident was shark jumpingly contrived. Yes, George reminds me of the type of sports fan who throws “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” in to any pause in conversation, and yes, the product placement can be a little over the top, and yes, the contestants are all prima donnas who spout mangled sporting cliches about how this experience is life changing and elimination is but a small hurdle on the path to dream fulfillment… but it’s about food. So it’s compelling viewing.

Have you got a signature dish? What is it?

I like cooking curries. Some people have told me they like my Butter Chicken recipe, my wife has told me that the Beef Massaman I made this week is “my best curry ever”… so here’s my attempt to recreate the recipe for posterity’s sake… it’s designed to have leftovers – because curry is always better two days later.

Ingredients

  • Approx 400g of Rump Steak
  • A large onion
  • Crushed garlic (1 dessert spoon)
  • Two potatoes
  • One large tin of tomato soup, or a small tin of concentrate (plus an equal volume of water).
  • One standard sized tin of Coconut Cream
  • 100gm of butter
  • Curry Powder (to taste)
  • Turmeric (a pinch)
  • Cinnamon (a pinch)
  • Hungarian Sweet Paprika (two pinches)
  • Fish Oil (two teaspoons)
  • Brown sugar (a tablespoon)
  • Massaman curry paste (the type that comes in a jar)

Steps

  1. Slice the onion. Fry it on a low heat with the garlic, some olive oil and curry powder.
  2. Dice the potatoes, boil them till they’re soft.
  3. Mix the tomato soup, coconut cream, curry powder, paprika, cinnamon, and butter in a large pot. Keep it on a relatively high heat and stir until the ingredients are a nice smooth sauce.
  4. Add the onion and potato to the sauce.
  5. Add the brown sugar and fish oil.
  6. Mix the massaman paste in a frypan with a dash of olive oil. The jar probably says to fry it until you can smell it. Do that.
  7. Dice the steak. Add it to the frypan – coat the pieces liberally with the fried paste. Cook until the pieces are medium rare.
  8. Add the steak to the sauce.
  9. Simmer on low heat for 45 minutes.
  10. Serve with rice.

I’ll try following these steps again in a week or so to make sure I haven’t missed a step. But I think it’s all there. Tomato soup is a terrific base for cooking. I also use it in my Butter Chicken and Spaghetti Bolognese.

June 2, 2010

How to make Sizzler’s Cheese Toast (redux)

My “How to make Sizzler’s Cheese Toast” post is the second most visited post I’ve ever written. Given that it’s winter, and the toast is brilliant with soup. I thought I’d update that post with some pictures (and a slightly updated batch of instructions). Here’s a taste…

May 21, 2010

Pizza capers

One of the coolest things about moving to Brisbane was discovering Pizza Capers. They’re pretty expensive. But they do cool flavour combos. But if I was on about their pizzas in this post I’d have capitalised the C in the title.

We’ve been working on our homemade pizza skills recently, and I’m pretty happy with my bastardisation of a Pizza Capers creation.

Here’s the recipe:

  • Pizza dough (we make it in our breadmaker).
  • Jack Daniel’s Smokey BBQ sauce.
  • Chicken (marinated in said sauce – which also functions as the base), cooked first, of course.
  • Bacon, also marinated. Also in said BBQ sauce.
  • Mozzarella Cheese – in the lumpy form, not the grated form.
  • Potato sliced thinly, boiled first.
  • Sour cream – a drizzle on top.
  • Onion – somewhere in the piece.

Mmm. Delicious. But tangential to my actual purpose of posting. Firstly, I wanted to know what good topping options are out there. And secondly, it seemed an appropriate way to share this video. My next step in pizza making…

April 18, 2010

How to cook bacon like a real man

I promise this is my last post about bacon for at least a day… but you need to read this. If you want to cook bacon like a real man.

Have you got an old machine gun lying around? With about 200 spare rounds of bacon? Then you’re set. If you don’t, then go out now, buy one, and come back. This post won’t go anywhere in the meantime.

I’ve discovered a new way of cooking bacon. All you need is: bacon, tin foil, some string, and.. oh whats it called?… oh yeah, an old worn out 7.62mm machinegun that is about to be discarded, and about 200 rounds of ammunition.

You start by wrapping the barrel in tin foil. Then you wrap bacon around it, and tie it down with some string.

you then wrap some more tin foil around it, and once again tie it down with string.

It is now ready to be inserted into the cooking device. I ripped the tin foil a little bit getting the barrel inserted. that part of the bacon got severely burned by hot gasses.

After just a few short bursts you should be able to smell the wonderful aroma of bacon.

I gave this about 250 rounds. but I think around 150 might actually be enough. But then again I don’t mind when bacon is crispy. Ahh the smell of sizzling bacon mixed with the smell of gunpowder and weapon oil.

And the end result: Crispy delicious well done bacon.

Via Reddit.

March 31, 2010

Heaven on a plate

Gary shared this picture of my life… summed up as a dessert – which is kind of a metasummary – my life could be summed up as dessert anyway…

This, friends, is a glazed cinnamon donut with candied bacon bits, served with coffee icecream.

Thanks Gary.

March 31, 2010

How to cook bacon

How do you like your bacon? Crispy? Squishy with the delicious fatty bits? Chocolate coated? There are hundreds of ways to cook bacon, hundreds of ways to eat bacon, and hundreds of ways to serve it to your guests.

You could buy this recipe book.

Master the art of bacon bowls.

Or follow these easy tips.

March 22, 2010

Creme eggs benedict

Delicious. From This is why you’re fat.

Sliced doughnuts topped with brownie mix, melted Cadbury Creme Eggs and frosting, garnished with red sprinkles and served with fried pound cake chunks.

March 13, 2010

How to eat cheap steak, cheap skate.

If you’re not already familiar with this secret it’ll blow your mind/tastebuds.

I think I learned it from a segment on the today show – but this cooking site has diagrams so it’s much more scientific and believable. The key to making an expensive steak taste good is salt. The other secret is to buy the fattest cheap steak you can find.

Steak Recipe: Massively salt your steaks 15 min – 1 hour before grilling.

Notice that I didn’t say, “sprinkle liberally” or even “season generously.” I’m talking about literally coating your meat until you can’t see red. It should resemble a salt lick.

Let that meat be totally overwhelmed with the salt for 1 hour or less. Rinse, pat dry dry dry and then you’re ready to grill.

All of you who season JUST before grilling – this is what you are really doing to the meat. Did you know that? All the water comes to the surface and if you don’t pat super-dry, you’re basically STEAMING the meat. Plus, your salt just sits on the surface of the steak, leaving the interior tasteless.

You can thank me – and the orignal writer – later when you taste just how good salty steak can be. Salt really is the world’s most magical substance.

February 20, 2010

How “creatives” overcome creative block

Nothing sucks more than writer’s block. Well, actually, that sentence is clearly untrue. Being squirted in the eye with lemon juice hurts more than writer’s block. If I ever have writer’s block I just make an absolute statement and try to come up with creative exceptions. Here you try it – what sucks more than writer’s block – did someone say black holes?

Anyway. Here’s a fascinating article interviewing a bunch of creative people about how they get the creative juices flowing. Some good tips. The consensus seems to be that if you want to be creative you need to become familiar with the works of other creative people – or just branch out into a type of creativity you’re not being paid to produce. For the writer this might mean sketching.

One guy came up with this relatively delicious solution.

The solution to a problem–

Slice and chop 2 medium onions into small pieces.
Put a medium sized pan on a medium heat with a few glugs of Olive oil.
Add the onions to the pan, and a pinch of salt and pepper.
Chop finely three varieties of fresh chilli (Birds Eye, Scotch Bonnet & Green/Red).
Add the chilli’s to the pan, stir together and cook for eight minutes.
Add about 500g of extra lean Beef mince to the pan.
Stir in so that the Beef is coated and lightly browned (should take approx. 2 minutes).
Add salt and pepper.
Add Red Kidney Beans and tinned chopped Tomatoes.
Stir well.
Add a pinch of Cinnamon.
Cook on a low heat for approximately 20 mins.
–
Measure a cup and a half of Basmati Rice into a medium pan.
Add two and a quarter cups (the same cup you measured the Rice in) of cold water to the pan with the Rice.
Boil on a high heat until the lid rattles.
Turn down the heat to about half way and cook for eight minutes.
After eight minutes turn the heat off the rice, leave for four minutes (with the lid on).
–
Plate up the Rice (on the side), add the chilli.
–
Large glass of Red wine (preferably Australian or New Zealand).
–

Now the important problem solving part–
Take the plates & pans to the sink.
Run a mixture of hot and cold (not too hot) water.
Add a smidgeon of washing up liquid (preferably for sensitive skin).
Start washing up, the mundane kicks in.
The mind clears and new thoughts and ideas appear.
–
Enjoy a second glass of wine to savour the moment.

February 19, 2010

Will it Press

You’ve heard, no doubt, of Will it Blend – the ever popular viral marketing approach taken by Blendtech Blenders. Well, today, for a change of pace, I give you “Will it Press” an exercise in cooking everything with a sandwich press.

This is pretty similar to the Mars Bar Toasted Sandwich

And here’s a “pressed” breakfast…

Similarly – the Waffleizer uses a waffle maker to cook just about anything… Like Waffleburgers

DSC_0042

January 17, 2010

Chocolate fudge coated candied bacon = awesome

Bacon beer was cool. Bacon Jam sounded pretty great. But this one has to take the cake. Candied bacon by itself sounds like a taste sensation. Coat it with fudge and it’s just decadence.

Here’s how to make it.

December 10, 2009

World’s easiest scrambled eggs

I made the fabled “Espresso Machine Eggs” last night. Well, they’re not fabled. I’d been reading about people’s scrambled egg making exploits for some time. I thought I’d give it a burl.

Here are the steps involved.

  1. Buy an expensive coffee machine (one with good steam pressure)
  2. Put eggs (four) and milk (a dash) into your milk jug – I used my big one because I wasn’t sure how much egg spray there’d be. Give it a whisk.
  3. Steam the eggs like you’d steam milk.
  4. Serve with steak for the perfect lazy Sunday night dinner.

They were very fluffy. I’ll do it again.

Here are the photos…

December 7, 2009

Zombie juice sounds totally gross

If you’re hosting a zombie party and you really want some brain themed drinks then you could try mixing Irish Cream and Lime Juice… the result looks something like this…

If you want to make the result slightly more palatable you should follow this recipe.

November 22, 2009

Do(+d)g(-g)y patte

This patte should probably be served with pooper scoopers rather than biscuits…

“The grass is made out of Hummus covered in Parsley with sprigs of Chives sticking out. The Poop is made from Aubergine Pate with lots of Paprika Powder added to give it..uh, a ‘nice’ poop color. The flies are made out of Olives and Onions.”

From here.

November 1, 2009

My (not yet) famous Spag Bol

I’ve now been tagged in two memes. I’m a good sport when it comes to such things. So thanks Ali. I will use this opportunity to once again share one of my recipes with the world.

According to the rules of this “meme” I’m to pick an ingredient from Ali’s recipe and share a recipe that uses the ingredient. Luckily there are a few ingredients to choose from… I’m going to go with butter. Because that rules almost nothing out. And I’m going to share my recipe for spaghetti bolognese. It’s not quite a “from scratch” special – I could, given the inclination, probably use fresh tomatoes. But I haven’t yet. And I like this one a fair bit…

What you’ll need (I normally do a big batch of this because it’s just as good the next day, and the next, etc.):

Ingredients
(some quantities are estimates)

  • Spaghetti
  • 1kg Mince
  • 1 big tin of Heinz Tomato Soup (500ml)
  • 1 big tin of crushed/diced tomatoes
  • 1 jar of sun dried tomatoes
  • Lots of mushrooms
  • A carrot (grated)
  • 2 medium sized onions
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • Assorted herbs and spices (of an Italian bent)
  • 100ml of cream
  • Enough butter to lubricate the saucepan/wok, and nicely brown the onions and garlic

What to do

  1. Slice the onion, crush one clove of garlic, cook on medium to high heat with the butter.
  2. When the onion starts browning, add the mushrooms.
  3. Add the mince.
  4. When the mince starts to brown add the sun dried tomatoes (I normally add a little bit of the oil from the sun dried tomato jar/container too. Stir them through.
  5. Add the tinned tomato and tomato soup – tomato soup is great because it has a rich, slightly salty flavour. This mix is, in my opinion, better than any pasta sauce on the market.
  6. Cook your spaghetti while letting the bolognese simmer.
  7. Add the carrot.
  8. Add the cream, stir through, the sauce should be a goldy colour.
  9. Crush your other garlic clove and stir it through the bolognese. Add your herbs based on taste and personal preference.
  10. Your spaghetti should be ready soon – throw a piece at the wall to see if it sticks (remove any water from the spaghetti strand first).

Serve in a bowl with cheese.

The end.

I tag whichever four of you volunteer first.

We’ll probably be doing this with our cooking friend this week – let me know if you’ve got ideas for ingredients that I might not have considered.

September 7, 2009