Mademoiselle Josephine Bones

As some of you may know, I’ve been somewhat busy these last few months getting our new eatery Josie Bones up and running. She is now mercifully open, so you can probably expect a few restaurant related posts in the near future. Our first night was last night, and a lovely night it was. I hope to see more of you coming through the doors in the near future – we have a superb range of beers (no seriously, our beer guy James has done an awesome job) and the food is pretty damn tasty too. I’ll be hidden away in the kitchen for the next few weeks but please stop buy, say hi, and try what we have to offer.

Josie Bones is at 98 Smith Street, Collingwood. Be there or be hexagonal.

Part Deux – Mr Ed edition

So there’re been quite a furore lately about the sale of horse meat in Australia. As it happens, the butcher who has been authorised to do so is a good friend of mine, so on a recent trip back to WA, we dropped in to see Vince Garreffa who kindly gifted us 2 kg of shoulder and 2 kg of mince.

I think the controversy around horse has been blown way out of proportion. That the butcher and restaurants selling it have been picketed seems ridiculous considering there is a long established industry of horse meat exportation in Australia. As long as the horses are slaughtered in as humane a fashion as possible, as with any animal, I see no problem. I believe most people’s repugnance comes from the perceived ‘cute’ factor of the animal, that we have a ‘bond’ with horses that we don’t have with cows or sheep or chickens. Try looking into a cow’s misty eyes and tell me you feel no bond. How about a baby chicken or a duckling? And what the hell do we think lamb is? It’s a lamb! It’s unbelievably adorable! But I suppose that’s hard to tell once it’s stamped and packaged on the shelves of the supermarket. That being said, I have no problem with those who avoid eating a product because of supposed mental hurdles, as long as they don’t attempt to hinder me, and those like me, who like to try new and interesting things. Besides, the more controversy over the product, the more popular it becomes – I believe it’s now completely sold out.

Anyway, rant over; we braised the shoulder in amber ale in the wood-fired oven for about six hours. We ate it for lunch the next day with roast cauliflower and quinoa salad, a few Dubbels and raging hangovers. And it was ridiculously tasty. To be honest I wasn’t expecting all that much, but it was incredibly delicious – a bit like venison, a bit like veal, and a lot like horse. The best part was of course all the horrific puns we were able to make, “I’m feeling a little horse”, “I’m champing at the bit to get into it”, “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse” and constant singing of the Mr Ed theme song were just the tip of the terrible, terrible iceberg.

So hungry I could eat a horse

The recipe for the horse shoulder can be found here.

But what to do with the horse mince? I don’t buy a lot of mince, preferring to make my own if the need arises, so I was at a little bit of a loose end as to what to do with it. After some discussion about “flavour profiles” and “fat content” we narrowed the choices down to ragu, burgers and sausages. Sausage demonstration now over, we were lunch-hungry and went with burgers.

I caramelised some sliced onions in butter and brown sugar, and fried off some chopped onion and garlic for the burger. The mince was combined with the fried onion and garlic, chopped parsley, a large dollop of German mustard, an egg, plenty of salt and pepper and, after finding the mixture far too wet, some dried breadcrumbs, before letting them sit in the fridge for about half an hour to get the “meat proteins” and “flavours” going. Usually I go by the rule of thumb to add some fat to the mince, as with any sausage type mixture, but we discovered last minute we had no pancetta, so none went in.

The best burgers, barn-none...

Cheap burger buns were lightly toasted, slathered with caramelised onions and more mustard while the burgers were cooked, covered with slices of smoked provolone (more on this soon), then topped with a little butter lettuce. A little lightly spiced relish would have lifted it into the stratosphere, but it was near perfect as is (and turns out it didn’t need that pancetta after all).

A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says, "why the long face?" ... (I ran out of puns)

If you’re in Perth, I’d highly recommend a visit to Mondos to give horse a try, if for nothing else than a new experience. For the rest of the country – you’re missing out, suckers!

Bits and Pieces part. 1

I have a whole lot of half-finished, less than erudite posts floating about on my computer at the moment, and in the interest of moving on to the next thing, and showing little Eat And… some love, I’m just going to post them all in a row. Naturally, first off is the oft-promised, and very late truffle post.

Fun guys

Given the nature of much of my work, I have to work seasonally out of season – as in, I write about the gloriousness of Autumn food in the middle of Summer, when it’s well nigh impossible to find a celeriac anywhere. This meant that by the time Autumn actually rolled around, I was a wee bit tired of it all. However there’s one thing that never fails to revitalise my excitement for all things cold weather because it’s just not available before then – funghi! Of all descriptions!

A cabinet full of Gallic deliciousness

My local purveyor of all things green and tasty, Vegetable Connection started it all this year with their first shipment of chantarelles and fairy rings. Yes, I know it’s a bit naughty to be buying French mushrooms in the middle of Australian mushroom season, but I am not yet friends with a forager (if you are, or know of one, please be my friend, I’ll treat you right, bribe you with treats and wine) and the really exciting varieties are not easy to find, though I’ve since unearthed some pines and slippery jacks at the Vic markets. One smallish bag later (they ain’t cheap) we had a mushroom ragu on fresh pasta (similar to the recipe I cooked on Delish, which can be found here), and simple buttered chantarelles on crusty sourdough toast (Babka is my favourite) the next day. For my money, the simpler the better when it comes to sexy mushrooms, though we did go ever so slightly more complicated with a rather lovely dish of crispy skinned chicken maryland, soft polenta and sautéed mushrooms (cooked in the rendered chicken fat, naturally).

Sadly, I forgot to write the (albeit simple) recipe down

The other pride of Autumn/Winter popped up at the same Vic market stall in the form of black truffles. They’ve seemingly been everywhere this season, with a really good showing from the Australians. I’ve seen Tasmanian, Ottway, Manjimup and a few others, as well as the French Summer truffles, which naturally are not as pungent.

Finally, a legitimate excuse to use this picture

Again, we kept it simple with our little baby, just keeping it in a jar with some rice (to retain all the moisture) and eggs (to infuse). Eggs and truffles are one of those simple, sexy flavour combinations (I have eggs infusing with truffle oil as we speak), and it is incredible how much of the flavour seeps into the eggs in the jar. Toast, butter, soft boiled truffled egg and a few shavings of truffle and I am a happy lady indeed.

The first time I tried the real thing I was amazed by how subtle the flavour was, compared to the aroma (or should I say, odour – eu de smelly sock as some might say), and how incredibly different from the fakey oils it is. I’m not a huge fan of the oil, but it does have its uses. And no, they’re nowhere near as expensive as you might think. This one cost us about $40, but we used it every day for almost a week and then preserved the rest in butter.

Part Deux: Eat Harder coming soon.

Procrastibaking

I’ve been procrastibaking a whole lot lately. I have a heck of a lot of work to get done, and instead I find myself daily in the kitchen elbow deep in dough making more sweet treats than any one girl could ever eat by herself, or with the help of a friend – or shouldn’t anyway, I’m having a fair crack at it though. No wonder my winter blubber coat isn’t going anywhere fast.

I am admittedly a terrible procrastinator; in that I am terrible for the amount I procrastinate, not that I am terrible at it. I am, in fact, very, very good at procrastinating; it is unfortunately one of my great skills in life. And my favourite way to do so is to bake. Baking at least gives you the slight feeling that you’re accomplishing something, like all your time wasting at least will end up with a tangible result. Hours on Facebook won’t get you anywhere, but baking ends up in treats! Besides, as a very smart man once said, “baking is science for hungry people”. Too true sir, too true.

Raw ginger piggies, marching to their doom

After the snickerdoodles of last week, I have baked again on three separate occasions. In fact it might be more, but I only remember three – sugar rots your brain as well as your teeth children! Come to think of it, there really is a high proportion of baking posts on the old Eat And so far. I promise next post to talk on something that is not sweet, nor baked. But baking just makes me feel so happily domestic, like I’m wearing a cute apron, surrounded by puppies, getting fat and happy cooking sweets in the kitchen of my country estate, ready to call my strapping man in from the fields for a cup of tea and a biscuit (or more likely an aperitif, or at least a café corretto – this idyllic country daydream goes nowhere without alcohol).

First baking foray was madeleines. Anyone that has been in my presence for at least a minute knows of my intense love of Cumulus Inc.’s madeleines filled with lemon curd. They’re little! And warm! And baked to order! You can have breakfast dessert! What’s not to love there? So after finally procuring a madeleine pan, it was time. And damn, these things are easy. And delicious! I suppose I always thought that they’d be a wee bit more difficult just because they’re so damn tasty, but no, it’s like making a sabayon and stirring the rest of the ingredients in. I went with plain ones with a little lemon zest for a lift, but next time it’s passionfruit curd for my own version of Cumulus.

I actually made these twice with the same mixture. I just refrigerated it overnight and baked another batch the next day, and they turned out just as good – slightly crisp on the outside, buttery and soft on the inside – though the dough itself was able to be rolled, it had practically solidified.

I had wanted to cook the Saffron and Pistachio cake from Damien Pignolet’s French. I adore this cake. Manfriend and I refer to it as crack cake. It calls to you from the kitchen, enticing you to slice off another sliver, just a tiny bit, oh and a bit more why not, every time you walk past. It’s beautiful. But after walking to the shops to get pistachios (which I later found were already in the pantry), I discovered there was no saffron. No saffron! And without saffron there can be no saffron cake, so it was not to be.

Instead I turned the page and made Lemon Syrup Cake instead. I had a bag of lemons begging to be used so it was quite serendipitous really. Simple lemon syrup cake is one of my favourites – I love the way the tart syrup soaks into the top layer of cake making it slightly gooey after it’s sat for a while. I always eat it hot with lashings of extra syrup. It’s a winner.

And lastly I was requested to make some Ginger Beerpigs. These are based on the Ginger Beermen recipe from manfriend’s upcoming book (due out late October, how’s that for a free plug), but we finally found a cookie cutter in the shape of the noblest animal, the pig (surprisingly hard to find – a rhino or a giraffe is common, a pig not so much) so pigs it was to be. The recipe is similar to gingerbread but has the addition of stout for a bit of depth, and of course I up the ante with double the spices. I can’t help it, I love spices. No recipe for this one I’m afraid, you’ll have to buy the book! (And I know I’m biased, but it’s actually completely awesome. If I wasn’t assured a free copy, I would be first in line at the shops, that’s how good it is. And free plug finished).

Cooked ginger piggies, waiting for the eating

Now of course there are far too many delicious treats in the house, so I might have to quit procrastibaking and get on to the work thing. Cash flow projections here I come! Though there is a Salted Butter tart that I’ve wanted to try…

PS Don’t worry, truffle post is still coming, I’ve just been procrastinating from that one as well. And what does something that smells like old socks have on sweet baked treats anyway? Well as it turns out, a lot, but shhhhhh shhhhhhh let’s not talk of that…

Madeleines

Makes about 18

They were gone before I could photograph them

2 free range eggs

¾ cup caster sugar

185 g unsalted butter, melted

1 cup plain flour

Zest of 1 lemon

Icing sugar, to serve

Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease the your Madeleine pan with melted butter or oil.

Place the eggs and sugar in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk continuously until the mixture is pale and has doubled in volume.

Remove the egg mixture from the heat and stir in the melted butter, then carefully fold in the flour and lemon zest. Spoon into the pan and bake for 12 – 15 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack and serve dusted with plenty of icing sugar.

Sneaky Doodles

I know I promised truffles, but this little gem has been making me laugh and mmmmm for a few days now so I couldn’t resist. I’m so fickle – the truffle has been finished for no time at all and already I’m moving on to bigger and better. Or bigger and… I don’t know the right adjective, help me decide at the end?

It all started when manfriend received one of those ‘recipe a day’ type emails from one of the myriad he subscribes to but never reads. Obviously this one he did because I heard him giggle quietly from behind his computer. One word: Snickerdoodles.

I am innately attracted to anything with a name that is fun to say – snickerdoodles, pfeffernusse, baba ganoush, scrumpets – so I desperately wanted to make some just for the chance to yell “snickerdoodle” at any given moment.

Before the great snickerdoodle event of 2010, I admittedly didn’t know what these sweets actually were. The name suggested to me something like a Mars bar slice, but based instead on Snickers. I was interested to find out that they’re essentially a variation on a simple sugar cookie, but spiced with a good whack of cinnamon.

Now for the historical part (if something called a snickerdoodle can legitimately have a history): snickerdoodles (also know as cinnamon sugar cookies, or snipdoodles – which conjures up something slightly less pleasant than the common name) have actually been around since the late 1800s – there I just proved myself wrong within one sentence. They’re thought to be of German or Dutch decent, and my reliable source (thank you Wikipedia) believes that the name is in fact a bastardisation of the German Schneckennudeln, which apparently means “snail noodles”. See, these things are ridiculously entertaining. It is also suggested that the name is in fact a creation of total whimsy in the New England tradition of fanciful cookie names. Note to self: research New England fanciful cookie names. The original recipe calls for cream of tartar as the leavening agent, though modern recipes (and my recipe) use baking powder to similar effect.

So simple to make, but surprisingly delicious. Every time I walk through the kitchen I’m vulnerable to a snickerdoodle attack and invariably come back to my computer munching on one, usually having forgotten whatever it was I went into the kitchen to do.

Having these around has led to a myriad of different permutations of the name, my favourite of course being ‘sneaky doodles’ which again has led to some jokes that I won’t repeat here at this time.

These little cookies won’t blow your mind with awesomeness but they’re certainly worth baking just for the excuse to say snickerdoodle.

Snickerdoodle!

Sadly not my picture - we ate them all before I could take one.

Snickerdoodles

Makes about 24

115 g butter

150 g caster sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

180 g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

35 g white sugar (don’t use caster sugar – you want that slight crunch from the sugar granules)

1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Cream together butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla and beat thoroughly. Gradually add the sifted flour, baking powder and salt and combine completely.

Combine sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Roll balls of the cookie dough in the cinnamon sugar mixture and place on a tray lined with baking paper.

Bake for 10 – 12 minutes then allow to cool on a wire rack.

Beware of snickerdoodle attacks!

A Taste of Things to Come

My somewhat infant blog has sadly been wasting away while I’ve been off in Perth/doing TV/taking time off/writing other things/eating too much/drinking way too much/generally being lazy/working on a super secret project that I am bursting, bursting to tell everyone about, so partially to whet some appetites and partially to commit me to writing it, here’s a little teaser of what my next proper post will be on:

A weekend of treats ahead.

Wanky, expensive and super stinky I know, but who can resist?

See you next time!

The one in which she apologises for her absence and makes ammends by an overlong post about Woman’s Weekly cookbooks… then makes biscuits.

Look, I know I promised another Easter weekend update. But would you believe it, I completely forgot to take photos? And what’s a blog post wanking lyrical about food without pictures? I’m sure nobody is going to hold me accountable for not keeping promises considering nobody reads this blog yet, but we’ll all be sorry when somewhere down the track I discover that in an alternate reality, the second Easter piece was the one to become the crux of what I built my fame and fortune on. Let’s just hope I never meet this alternate reality self just so I don’t have to curse the heavens and my father’s wine cellar that conspired to make me too distracted (read: tipsy) to remember the picture thing.

So why not just skip to the next public holiday in line? ANZAC day, naturally (on a separate note, is ANZAC still an acronym and thus has to be capitalized, or is it now just a word, either way I can’t be arsed with the capitals no more). Anyone who follows me on twitter (all 32 of you – I’m catching up with you Ashton Kutcher!) will know about my recent discovery of a treasure trove of Woman’s Weekly cookbooks in my mother’s kitchen. These have been hidden away for several years in favour of the more “contemporary” tomes like Neil Perry and Karen Martini, but reading them again was an experience in equal parts hilarity, disgust, and surprise at how little things change.

The Cooking Class Cookbook fell firmly into the latter category. I’ve put my name on it and will steal it as soon as the memory of me laughing hysterically at these books has faded from my mother’s mind. It’s not exciting by any means but for good, classic cooking it’s all there. Why buy a new cookbook telling you how to make old favourites when you can buy an old one that tells you how to do it right, and tells you how to do everything.

Hilarity was mainly reserved for the little gems that are The Dinner Party Cookbooks Part 1 and 2. These really exemplify the photography and styling prowess (or lack thereof) of the WW team back in the day. There is a lot of loud placemats, and rubber plants, and unnecessary tableware. Empty space was obviously a sin in the Woman’s Weekly of the 70s and 80s. More is more people!

Naturally the last category is disgust (though this baby could fall into hilarity just as easily). The Complete Avocado Cookbook. Because we all need a cookbook specifically on avocados, that versatile fruit, best served hot or cold. My mother claims vehemently that this one belonged to my late Grandmother, and I’m inclined to believe her only based on a merciful lack of hot avocado in my formative years. My favourite recipe is this one:

It’s an avocado, seed removed, stuffed with cheese and other things, sealed up, peeled, crumbed and fried! Isn’t that special? I have the full recipe for this one, if anyone is interested… I feel a strong urge to actually cook this, but then again I am fascinated by the completely naff.

Of course, no old Woman’s Weekly cookbook collection would be complete without the king of books, the revered Birthday Cake Book. This one is going straight in my suitcase. I’m tossing up between the white rabbit and the castle for my birthday this year. What’s your favourite cake?

To bring this trip through bad taste and nostalgia back to my original point (ANZAC, sorry Anzac day), I did of course make Anzac biscuits yesterday. And I did of course use an old WW cookbook for the recipe. It’s ridiculously simple – equal parts flour, oats and sugar, a bit less coconut, and enough melted butter and golden syrup to wet it all. I like to go a bit overboard on the golden syrup as I like a chewier biscuit so I’ve adapted the original recipe. Let’s just say I don’t have a picture because there’s none left – it’s a tried, true and ridiculously over-styled recipe. Happy Anzac day.

Anzac Biscuits

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup plain flour

1 cup caster sugar

¾ cup shredded coconut

125 butter

4 tbsp golden syrup

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tbsp boiling water

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl Melt the butter and olden syrup in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Combine bicarb and boiling water and add to the butter mixture. Stir the butter mixture into the dry ingredients and bake in a slow (150°C) oven for about 20 minutes.

Yumminess ensues.