Abstract Gourmet

Photo courtesy of Mel at Masala Lover who was nice enough to try this recipe out.

Another old old recipe I made a while back. I copied it straight from the original source (which has since dropped off the internets), but from memory i think i bumped up the amount of tumeric and basil, and added a touch more coconut milk. This is really nice served over some steaming jasmine rice… So rich and creamy…

Basil Chicken In Coconut-Curry Sauce

Ingredients:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast h, alves (1 pound)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1 large red onion, chopped (1 cup)
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and finely, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil or cooking oil
1 can (14-oz.) unsweetened coconut milk
2 tsp cornstarch
3 tbsp snipped fresh basil
1 tbsp finely chopped gingerroot
1 small red onion, cut into wedges (optiona, l
1 fresh basil leaves (optional)
1 hot cooked rice

Instructions:

Rinse chicken; pat dry with paper towels. Cut into 1-inch pieces.
Place chicken in a medium bowl. In a small bowl stir together the
salt, coriander, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, chili
powder, and turmeric. Sprinkle over chicken; toss to coat. Cover and
let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes or in the refrigerator
for 1 to 2 hours.

In a large nonstick skillet cook and stir chopped onion, garlic, and
jalapeno in hot oil over medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Remove,
reserving drippings in skillet. Add about half of the chicken. Cook
and stir for 2 to 3 minutes or till chicken is tender and no pink
remains. Remove chicken from skillet. Cook the remaining chicken, as
above, adding additional oil if necessary. Remove from skillet.

Stir together coconut milk and cornstarch. Carefully add to skillet.
Cook and stir till thickened and bubbly. Add chicken, cooked onion
mixture, snipped basil, and gingerroot to skillet. Cook and stir
about 2 minutes more to heat through. Serve over rice. Garnish with
red onion wedges and fresh basil if desired.

  basil, chicken, curry, recipe

Filed by Matt at 12:00 pm under Eating In, Recipes 7 Comments (228 views)

Importing some old old posts from another blog I seem to have forgotten about… I did end up making these and now I’ve merged the recipe into my standard operating procedures for mashed potato… Which is always nice.

Another recipe i plan to make soon… Gourmet Comfort food… mmm tasty :) Colcannon Potatoes

A traditional Irish side dish also known as Bubble and Squeak. Our version is updated with green onions and parsley.

* 8 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
* 1/4 cup white vinegar
* 3 teaspoons kosher salt
* 1/2 cup 2% milk
* 1/4 cup unsalted butter, cubed
* 1 pinch white pepper
* 1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg
* 3 cups finely sliced savoy cabbage, steamed until tender
* 2 green onions, thinly sliced
* 2 tablespoons chopped parsley

1. Place potatoes in a large pot, cover with cold water and add the white vinegar and 1 teaspoon of salt.

2. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer until completely tender, about 25 minutes. Test that potatoes are done by piercing them with a fork. They should be tender.

3. Drain potatoes in a colander and let them steam-dry for 3 minutes.

4. Heat the milk in a small saucepan.

5. Place potatoes back in pot, add warmed milk and mash. Tip: Use a food mill or potato ricer to get the creamiest results.

6. Mix in butter, remaining salt, white pepper and freshly grated nutmeg.

7. Stir the savoy cabbage, green onions and Italian parsley into the potatoes.

Nutrients per serving: 159 calories, 2.5 g protein, 8.6 g fat, 19 g carbohydrates, 2 g fibre. Excellent source of vitamin B6.

Serves 8

  cabbage, potato, recipe, savoy

Filed by Matt at 11:55 am under Eating In, Recipes 2 Comments (165 views)

Just a quick list of some of the food blogs I read on a daily basis (or whenever they post something).

The Food Palate - by Deborah - Sydney, Australia
The Stone Soup - by Jules - Sydney, Australia
Spice Blog - by Anthony - Perth, Australia
La Tartin Gourmande - by Bea - Boston, USA
Tomato - by Ed - Melbourne, Australia
Vicious Ange - by Ange - Melbourne, Australia

and some wine blogs:

Appellation Australia - by Cam, Australia
Basic Juice - by Beau, New York, USA
See, Sip, Taste, Hear - Collin & LA, Memphis, USA

I’ve found the trick is to steal a little bit from all of them…that way it always looks like I’m being original :) bom bom !

  blog, foodblogs

Filed by Matt at 11:45 am under Admin 6 Comments (184 views)

Every now and then my Irish / New Zealand heritage rears its ugly (hungry) head. I go walking through a butcher or supermarket and think, “That whole side of mutton looks pretty damn good”. Despite the fact that I don’t actually like mutton that much, and probably couldn’t even fit a full leg roast into my oven… the desire is still there.

Back in the day however, there was no trendy reason for lamb/mutton being a big part of our diet. We were living in rural New Zealand and my Dad was a shearer, and father of 5 children. You don’t need to be a genius mathematician to work out that pigeon & foie gras pies and wagyu beef medallions in a truffle jus do not go very far when you have 7 mouths to feed every night.

So lamb was the order of the day. Every now and then Dad would be given permission by one of the farmers he was working for to go out and kill a sheep, and he would take us kids along to join in the fun. Not everyones idea of a great family outing…but then I always remember having a good time, and learning a lot in the process about exactly where the food we eat comes from, and the sacrifice that gets made in the process. Check out this photostream on Flickr for an indepth look at the whole process from farm to table as documented by a chef who visited New Zealand recently.

Once Dad got it home and butchered up, it was Mum’s turn to take over. Whipping up chops, casseroles, and a lamb roast almost every Sunday that we children wolfed down with a fervency only a large Catholic family can, and a curtious “Thank you for the lovely tea” to Mum after the meal, before running as far as we could get away from having to do the dishes. Inevitably though… the call would come… “Arm yourself with a tea towel”… and it was all over.

So this dish is a bit of throwback to simpler times, to hearty meals cooking in one big pot on cold winters night, and to being in touch with the food thats on your plate.

How I made the stew

Cut up your meat into nice juicy chunks. Coat them in a bit of oil and season with salt and pepper, then brown them in a pot to seal them. When they are just brown on the outside. Throw in the leek, onion, garlic, and let it soften. when thats gotten a bit soft, pour in a swig or two of red wine, and let your lamb simmer away and absorb it. Then throw in a bunch of rosemary and let those flavours soak in too. Once thats done, pour in 500 ml or so of water. Enough to cover the meat and a bit more…
Then add your hard vegetables, the carrot, sweet potato, potato… Then add enough flour/cornflour to thicken the soupy stock into a hearty consistency. When you’ve got it roughly to the consistency you want, add a little more water and then turn the heat right down to just a smidge above a simmer, put the lid on the pot, and walk away…

The longer you leave this stew cooking now at this heat… the more tender and flavoursome the meat and veges are going to be at the end. So try to resist if you can.

In the meantime, you should be preparing your dumplings.

How I made dumplings

Now I am by no means a dumpling expert. This is a relatively new thing for me to do, so if anyone has some sure fire dumpling making techniques, then feel free to let me know. I bastardized a couple of recipes I found online and came up with this idea.

Soften the butter and then work it into the flour until its a crumbly consistency. Then throw in your chopped parsley, a little pinch of salt, and a splash of milk. You should now have enough moisture to work the flour into a reasonable dough.Add a bit more flour/milk to make the dough all nice and soft, and then your done. Now roll the dough out into little circles, place a knob of butter and a teaspoon of crushed garlic in the middle of the circle, and roll it up.

I made about 8 or so dumplings… but of course its easier to make more, just add more flour/milk. So now about 20 minutes or so before you want to eat your stew… Toss the dumplings on top of everything, and watch them bob along the surface, slowly cooking, and absorbing all those wonderful flavours.

I served mine simply over a mound of garlic mashed potatoes (incidently, one way to get mash potatoes really smooth is to use cream or double cream and to pass it through a sieve a couple of times after mashing), with some more fresh parsley and lots of pepper on top.

You’ll be downing a guinness and dancing like Micheal Flaherty before you know it.

  casserole, dumpling, lamb, potato, recipe, stew

Filed by Matt at 6:16 pm under Eating In, Recipes 9 Comments (244 views)

I smell a ransom note coming on…

From here: http://metaatem.net/words/

  flickr, fun

Filed by Matt at 6:40 pm under Admin 1 Comment (79 views)

I love olive oil. Extra virgin olive oil that is. I use it in virtually every dish I make. I marinade with it, I fry with it, I make into sauces, and I’d probably drink the stuff too if I had to.

So when I was sent a request a while back to try out some Njoi olive oil, and to say what I thought of it, I said yeah, sure ! Free stuff works for me… (whilst premising the acceptance with the clause that it would not necessarily be an endorsement, but a fully disclosed review of a product I’d been given). So that was all good, and Andrew (aka oil man), sent me 3 bottles of Njoi extra virgin olive oil.

The package turned up and I had:

1 bottle of regional New England
1 bottle of regional Greater Southwest
1 bottle of Njoi blue (a non region specific blend).

The first bottle I tried was the New England. It was a lovely light bodied oil with a peppery finish (pretty much what it says on the bottle), and went really well with the toasted turkish bread I was dipping into it. I would have loved to try more of it, but a minor mishap while I was packing up to move house meant that I smashed the bottle all over the kitchen tiles. I can confirm it makes a really great tile buffer though.

The next one I tried was the Greater Southwest (which is pretty large area when you take into account that it extends down from New Norcia all the way to Denmark) was less impressive in my book. It’s still got a nice smooth finish to it, and is perhaps more balanced than the New England, but lacks the finess that premium olive oil needs to stand out from the crowd. I did a mini experiment with some blind tasting of this oil, and the olive oil I use for cooking on a daily basis, Beaming Hill, using Sharon and Dan as guinea pigs. I asked the highly specific question of “which one tastes better”. Dan picked the Beaming Hill, while Sharon picked the Njoi. Inconclusive of course, but it shows that there was not a clear distinction between this wine and what is a cheaper extra virgin olive oil.

The Njoi Blue blend is one that I have tried in the past and really liked. It was actually one of the first premium olive oils I tried a few years ago, when I ran into the Njoi stall at the Perth Food & Wine Festival. It’s a nice medium bodied oil and is great for marinading and bbqing.

And so to the reviewing part of the post. Is this good olive oil ? Absolutely. Would I buy it on a regular basis ? Possibly. I am rarely frugal when it comes to spending money on quality food, but I go through so much olive oil, that I really do need something a bit cheaper for everyday use. This oil is great for special uses like dipping and sauces, and the odd salad. But I think I need something that can cater for the masses without breaking my bank balance.

If you’d like to try some of this oil, feel free to check out Andrews store where he can give you a good deal.

  australian, eevo, oliveoil, Review

Filed by Matt at 12:57 pm under Review | Add a comment (82 views)

I feel like a bit of a fraud making meals like this. It isn’t really cooking so much as arranging ingredients in a wok and applying heat. In saying that though, this is the kind of meal that started me off on my cooking adventures, when I was young and impetuous and carefree.

Back in those days (circa 1997), men didn’t cook at all. Certainly not ones that went to university anyway. So I would throw together my stirfrys with all the flair and extravagance of a young Ernest Shackleton, boldly trudging into the unknown (but with a cocky assurance that I’d be rewarded with rapturous praise if I managed to assemble anything vaguely edible onto a plate). My gratuitous use of peanut oil, and my willingness to embrace the exotic world of coriander, baby corn and bean shoots made all my meals an instant success. The world was my oyster sauce… and I squeezed it for all it was worth.

So here again is my homage to simple cooking. To getting people excited about making their own meals, and to preparing food in less time than it takes to get in the car to drive to McDonalds.

How I Made Mine
Fry the chopped chilli in oil by itself. This gives it a real kick, and will infuse your oil with capsaicin (the stuff that makes chillis hot). Fry the garlic now too, and when its soft, throw in the beef to get it nicely coated. Fry the beef until its just cooked, adding some red wine or sherry while its going for a bit of extra flavour in the meat, then take out of the wok.

Now fry your onion, capsicum, zucchini, and whatever else you’ve decided to use. When they are getting a little soft (but still have some bite), throw the beef back in, add in the egg noodles, toss it all around, splash in enough soy sauce and oyster sauce to get the flavour your after coating the noodles and veges, then toss through your coriander (cilantro for americans), and you’re done.

Then place in front of your partner/friends/family/cat, and wait for the praise you so richly deserve :)

  beef, chilli, noodle, recipe, stirfry

Filed by Matt at 2:39 pm under Eating In, Recipes 5 Comments (145 views)

Breakfast always seems to fall off my things to do list somewhere in between the second or third time I reach over to fumble over the snooze button on my alarm clock. It’s something I know I probably should be doing, but lack the motivation to bother with most days. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!”, “You’ll never have enough energy without a good breakfast!”, which is all very well and good, but then the rest of you are thinking… “Do cigarettes count as breakfast?”. (and yes, they do, but only if they’re menthol. Regular cigarettes are more your brunch type smokes, and a cigar would be a tidy lunch (Monte Cristo No 2 if you’re feeling gourmet).

Last weekend however, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. So I dragged myself out of bed at the ungodly hour of 11am, washed the sleep out of my eyes and started to get busy in the kitchen.

Now for me… breakfast has to simple. I’m not entirely coordinated at the best of times, and so I don’t really want to be performing intricate surgery with sharp knives while my eyes are still half gummed up with sleep (is it just me that it happens to btw ??).

A quick glance into the fridge proved fruitful. I had eggs. The backbone of society, and the most complete meal you will ever find that can be squeezed out of a chickens backside. The central element of the story in place, the rest of the meal all fell into place with a resounding thud… Omlette.

How I Made It
Directions were simple… I was still half asleep remember. This is my standard method for making an omlette, so if you have some additions or suggestions to make, then please let me know as I am nothing if not flexible.

Beat the eggs and mix in all the ingredients, season nicely with salt and pepper and add the milk, vinegar, cheese and mix again until its a relatively homogeneous looking mixture. In a pan, melt a little butter over a moderate heat, and then pour your omlette mixture in. Give it a bit of a shake to spread the chunky bits around, and then let it settle and wait til the base starts to set.
Once the base of the omlette has set enough, and its still a bit wet on top, transfer the whole pan into a warm oven (180 C). Then just leave it in the oven for about 5 minute or so and you are done. Take the pan out (careful of the hot handle) and place a plate over the top. Flip the pan and if you’re lucky it’ll drop out nicely onto the plate. I don’t do any other fancy flipping or shimmying of the omlette because I don’t know how, and at this point I’m starving and need protein.

Toast some bread, butter it up, slap the omlette on top, and Robert is your fathers brother.

This one was particular airy and fluffy, which was quite delightful. It went just nice with my latte as well, which whilst having some very dubious attempt at latte art done on top of it, was actually quite good, and may have been the last coffee I made on my Silvia before her boiler died (see next post).

The rest of the day was just as good, lying back on the couch watching downloaded episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential (which I somehow missed when it was on TV), and revelling in eggy gluttony. Can’t think of anything much better.

  breakfast, Coffee, egg, omlette, recipe

Filed by Matt at 6:25 pm under Eating In, Recipes 10 Comments (88 views)

My Sweet Rancilio Miss Silvia…Has died. I think i left the steam switch on without realising and now the boiler has run dry and fizzled out. All I get is cold (so very very cold) water running out of my group head, and that makes for pretty dire espresso (or rather, no espresso at all). I’m too distraught for a more eloquent account of the situation, but trust me when I say that having anthropomorphised her into an actual being, its quite distressing to see her so sick. I’ve rung a couple of service companies, one of them can’t even look at her until next week, and the other I’m slightly dubious of due to past experience, but seem to know what they are doing. It’s times like this that I wish I hadn’t gotten 8% in my first year electrical engineering exam at Uni. They were confusing times, damn you Kirchoff!

If anything I guess it does give me an excuse to try out French Press coffee on a more than passing interest level. Which also gives me an excuse to start roasting again as well. Single origin coffee is not generally designed for espresso. This depends on the bean of course, but most espresso nuts are of the opinion that a single type of bean does not have the compexity required to make a well rounded shot of espresso, however in a French Press, you can really bring out some of those unique origin qualities that make coffee from different countries taste so good.

I have given up on roasting for a while now, as I find my beans aren’t up to scratch compared to some of the commercial blends I get to try out, so whilst it’s an interesting learning experience, why try to reinvent the wheel basically.

Hopefully Silvia will be back up and running soon though, ready to greet me each morning with a warm smile and a hearty puff from her steam wand, and this madness will all come to an end.

Your thoughts and prayers for her are appreciated in this troubling time.

Update
Just got her back from the repair place, turns out that she had overloaded somehow, and all that needed to happen was to reset some overload switch/circuit inside. Which is kind of annoying in a way because thats something I should have looked for myself. Ahh well… I cleaned her off, removed the obligatory “serviced by some company” sticker that I had asked not to be put on, and cranked her up. All good, lovely espresso and great steam for milk. Gives me a chance to use some of my new Australian Fine China cups that I picked up cheap at their recent stocktake sale at Claremont Showgrounds, where I was manhandled by numerous old ladies stirred up into a bargain hunting frenzy by irresponsible spruikers wanting to clear an entire warehouse full of ceramics. It was like giving matches to a pyromaniac.

Anyway… situation is back to normal. Please return your seat to it’s original upright position.

  Coffee, Espresso, rancilio, silvia

Filed by Matt at 2:20 pm under Equipment | Add a comment (98 views)

Well the time has come for the Abstract Gourmet to pack up and move on.

No gentle reader… fear not… This website will continue, its just my physical space that’s changing.

Having recently moved into the category of Owner/Occupier’s Live in Houseboy, I will be packing up and moving to our new home, which is just down the road from here. It’s a nice little place with a great kitchen and a really sweet outdoor bbq area, which will do my creative juices no end of good.

There may be a little down time on the website during the move, but hopefully it will be smooth sailing, as my good mate Scotty Dog has offered me a temporary refuge whilst the internet access gets set up at the new place.

*UPDATE*

And i’m back… it’s taken a while, but finally got the new internet connection back up and running and the server hooked back up to the world… yay !

Here are a couple of photos of my new kitchen. I am loving the extra space and I’m finally cooking with gas ! It’s got a great range hood with some kind of jet powered extractor fan that sounds like it might suck the soup right out of my pots. Fortunately it has a low speed setting. The gas cooktop is great and not having to wait 15 minutes for my stove to get hot is a real plus.

We’re still in the process of getting everything set up, and I seem to be moving things from the left side of the stove, to the right, to the left, and then back again, trying to work out where I actually want it. But just having extra space is so nice. Sharon was very proud of one purchase, a little mobile kitchen island that we can chop things on, so we don’t get in each others way too much, which will hopefully lead to a happy kitchen for all.

More posts to come soon as inspiration should strike more regularly now that my creative juices are free to flow… err.. so to speak.

  home, moving

Filed by Matt at 2:59 pm under Admin | Add a comment (69 views)