Moo Brew Dark Ale, Beef and Mushroom Pie

At the moment I am looking for recipes to stock the freezer with the impending little person arrival.  Why not a pie?  And my favourite pie is a stout and beef pie.  Here is my version.

1 kg of diced beef

2 tblsp of flour

2 carrots chopped

2 celery sticks chopped

2 onions diced

4 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1 bottle of Moo Brew Dark Ale

500 mL of beef stock

A bag of mushrooms, quartered

Herbage, 2 bay leaf, sprig of thyme, sprig of rosemary

Puff pastry

Put the diced meat in a baggy with the flour and coat.  Fry up the carrots, celery, onions and garlic.  Remove and put aside.

 Brown the meat with a knob of butter, being careful not to burn the flower coating, and put aside.  Deglaze the pan with the beer.  Let all the CO2 come out and reduce it a little to remove the alcohol.

Put all the ingredients back into the pot, along with the "Herbage" and the beef stock.  This will be quite "liquidy".  Bring to the boil and reduce the temperature to a very gentle simmer.  We want the liquids to evaporate and concentrate, the sauce to thicken and the meat to be tender (could be a few hours).  As soon as the sauce is thick and goopy, turn the heat off, and add the mushrooms.  Allow to cool, cover, and put in the fridge overnight.

The next day separate the frozen pastry sheets and allow to thaw.

This is what I didn't do but you should: If freezing the pie, line the pan with baking paper or bake in a disposable tin.

You will need to blind bake the pastry.  I used some beans that are kept for the purpose, but what I didnt use is baking paper to help remove the beans.  The blind bake will take about 10 minutes at 220°C

Once out of the oven put yesterdays filling into the pie.  Cover with pastry and bake until golden.

I pulled my pie out of the oven early as I will freeze it, then when it goes back in the oven, I can cook it to the right colour.

Why bake one when you can bake two.  Same time, only a tiny bit more effort.

Julia and Kevin Disagree Over Noodle Soup

Well, I don't actually know if they have ever talked about it, but Julia loves a pie:

and Kevin likes dumplings:

But the subtitle to this post amongst all this crazy, silly politics is:

Frozen Pho

Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup that I fell in love with while travelling there a couple of years ago.  And it is the perfect soup to freeze.  It is basically a clear, light beef stock, cooked with a few Asian ingredients.  What I have done this time is to make the broth/stock and freeze it.  When I want some Pho I can heat the broth, get my fresh ingredients and voila. I have seen Luke Nguyen's recipe in his "Secrets of Red Lantern" cookbook and it is very complex.  I prefer Charmaine Solomon's "The Complete Asian Cookbook" recipe and here it is:

3 kg of beef bones
500g of gravy beef
2 onions, sliced
thumb size piece of fresh ginger
stick of cinnamon
1 tsp of black peppercorns
salt

For this batch I could only find lamb rib bones

And I used 2 chicken carcasses, halved, instead of gravy beef

Spices

This is not a dark stock so nothing is fried of first.  Put all the ingredients into the pot, top with cold water, bring to the boil and very lightly simmer for a long time.  Recipe recommends overnight, but I did it for 8 hours.

There is one trick I learnt from the Red Bridge Cooking School in Vietnam and that is to get a pot of boiling water and blanch the meats before they go in, only for a few seconds, just to wash them

Pull the bits of used meat out with tongs and then strain into containers.

Now it is quite oily so put in the fridge overnight so the fat can be taken off when it solidifies.

Separate out into labelled containers and put in the freezer.

So what to do when you want to have soup?  That is for another time, when I next eat Pho.

But here is a link to Luke Nguyen's Pho Bo from the SBS website. Enjoy

My favourite mid week curry, Egg Curry

Whenever we are having a big week our favourite, quick, easy and tasty recipe is Egg Curry, or Anda Kari. This recipe comes from a favourite book of ours, The Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon.  Find this old book and buy it, Absolute Gold!

Anda Kari
serves 4-6
6 eggs
2 medium onions, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tsp ginger, finely grated
3 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cummin
1 tsp ground tumeric
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1 can of tomatoes (recipe calls for 2-3 ripe tomatoes, but this is quick and easy)
(Crushed or Chopped canned tomatoes? Read this)

Soft boil the eggs, you want them set so you can peel them but a little undercooked.  I recommend the Egg-perfect Eggtimer. Very handy.

While the eggs are boiling/cooling, prep the rest of the ingredients.  Heat some oil in a heavy based pan, fry up the onions, garlic and ginger.  Once a little coloured, add the spices and fry to "activate", then add the can of tomatoes and simmer gently for a few minutes.  Peel the cold eggs and pop them into the curry and turn the stove off.  The heat in the curry will set the eggs.

That is it.  We had this last night but threw some beans in and served it with grilled zucchini, yoghurt and diced cucumber, and rice.  Buon Appetite!

A Pictorial Ode to Bolognaise

With the "impending" only a few weeks away we have turned on the deep freeze and started to make a lot of cooked meals.  First job is to put in some Bolognaise.  And not just any, but 5 kg worth.


First start with a spotless kitchen and more importantly, clear benches

Suit up.

Peel carrot

Trim and wash celery

Peel onions

Peel garlic.  I love my garlic peeler, get one

Sharpen knife/ves

Meat. 4kg of blade roast.

Cut into long 2cm strips, then put in the freezer

I used a mandolin to help slice the carrots.  Very fast, very dangerous

Chop the celery

Finely slice the garlic

Dice the onion, mandolin helps a lot here

Use a large stock pot and fry pan

Fry onion, put in stockpot

Fry celery, put in stockpot

Fry carrots, put in stockpot

Take meat out of the freezer and mince

Fry meat in batches

Put it into the stockpot along with some beef stock and herbage.  Simmer it down until stock evaporates

Add the tomato gear and simmer until it reduces to the consistency

Allow to cool and fill LABELLED containers

But what to do with this now Bolognaise.

Found some of these funky looking mushrooms at Hill Street.  Fried them up tossed it into some warmed bolognaise and over the top of spaghetti.

Done.  Buon appetit

Chocolate Pasta - WTF?

This Blog is part of the Sweet Adventures Blog Hop - Death by Chocolate.  The idea is to post a recipe during this week and link it back.  

http://hungryaustralian.com/2012/01/15/death-by-chocolate/

Here is my entry, Chocolate Ravioli with Creamy Blueberry Filling.

WTF? you ask.  It is possible to make chocolate pasta.  Well I didnt think so, found a recipe and said game on, Challenge!

The recipe I have used is based on one from this book: Classic Italian

Don't ask how Chocolate Pasta is "Classic Italian".  Here is the recipe:

It is a little chocolate heavy, with a white chocolate filling.  I decided to make up my own filling based on Frozen Blueberries.

Instead of using cocoa powder for the pasta I used 75% grated Willies 100% Cacao and 25% of Droste Cocoa Powder.

Grate the Cacao:

Add to food processor the flour, icing sugar, cacao, cocoa and eggs

Bring it together

Roll into balls and cover. Stand for 30 min. (How do you like my chocolate balls?)

Now make pasta like you would normally.  At the beginning on the "1" setting, after each time through, fold into thirds, rotate 90°, and put back through the machine. Repeat quite a few times to build strength in the dough.  This is a pasta making trick I learnt of Maggie Beer

Roll it out probably until "8" on the machine.  I went to "6" and it was too thick

The blueberry, cream cheese and sugar filling, on the first try was a disaster.  Too wet.

Attempt at draining the filling, Fail.  The second attempt was much better.  Rough quantities are 3/4 cream cheese, 1/4 blueberries and enough sugar to sweeten

Here my expert wife is showing me how to form the ravioli.  A tip from her: paint the entire bottom sheet with beaten egg.  Makes it handier for joining

Place top sheet on

To get those perfect shapes, use a stencil, or up turned cup/saucer/bowl

Boil for 3-5 minutes (careful, they may stick to one another)

Voila. Chocolate Ravioli with Creamy Blueberry Filling.  This was dusted with icing sugar for the final photo.  Tip: If you want to do that, pat them dry first, the icing sugar dissolves in any leftover water.

Improvements:
thinner pasta
serve with a berry sauce
sweeten the pasta