ExPats

 Hubby pointed out to me a few months back, that in our group of friends, we have three couples where one half is from overseas and now living in Australia. “We should get them together so they can chat about it” say he. Brilliant Idea thinks me who will use any excuse for a dinner party-catch-up, especially a themed one. And so the ExPats dinner was born.

 And after much planning and co-ordinating of schedules it finally happened at the weekend.

 So what do you cook when you have and Englishman, Frenchman and an American come over for dinner? A little bit of “home” for each of them. Which I thought would be super easy when I had that flash of inspiration, but it turned out to be a bit trickier than I thought.

 Some parts were a no-brainer; my Frenchman friends loves Madeleines as well as gougeres (which are these lovely cheese puffs made with gruyere cheese), so they were first onto the menu. As it was scheduled for a cold weekend in July, I though Boeuf Bourguignon would be lovely and hearty (and not require too much last minute fiddling once my guests had arrived), and what goes better with beef but Yorkshire puddings?!?! Two countries down, America to go. I scanned through my well-thumbed copy of Jamie's America, but was a bit short on Inspiration, apart from Would You Like Fries With That??  I was leaning towards a Waldorf salad to counter the heavy beef and pudding, but then a girlfriend suggested Mac N Cheese. Admittedly a bit carb heavier than I would have liked, but I had cooked it several times before (which was something I was trying to do with this dinner – usually I will use a dinner party to try new recipes. But with 8 to cook for I thought I would be a bit sensible and Stick with What I Know) AND it was a Cook Earlier and Leave dish; also one of my criteria (I do so like to chat and drink with my guests once they arrive and not be stuck in the kitchen if I can avoid it!). So that was locked in until my American’s Wife sent me a list of Thing to Cook (“… but we won't come without bringing a dish... So you have to choose one of the seven options!) – bless her, she knows that I like to do it all myself! And wouldn’t you know it, but number one was “Yam/Sweet Potato Casserole (Mom's Recipe)”.

 How could I resist? Something I had only heard of an American TV shows made to an authentic American recipe!  (and something that I didn’t have to cook). So main course was set.

 Dessert was tricky more for the overabundance of choices – did I go for an English pudding like sticky date or jam roly poly? Could I go all gourmet and do Crepe Suzette? Or go the Apple Pie route? Madeleines were already decided as part of the dessert/with coffee course, and I had planned to make a New York Cheesecake for an earlier dinner then hadn’t eventuated so I still had a bit of a craving for that. But what to cook that was English that wouldn’t be as filling as a pudding? I figured after three courses we might not want something too heavy. Luckily I took inspiration from Wimbledon and chose scones with jam and cream. Simple but effective.

 So we were looking pretty good with two courses sorted, with lots of “here’s one we prepared earlier” components. Only entrée was causing issues. Can you think of a traditional English entrée? I couldn’t either. I googled it, I emailed my english friends all to no avail. Prawn cocktail was the only thing I could find, and I had already earmarked that for my American entrée as “shrimp cocktail”. In desperation I was going to open a packet of crisps, when I changed tack and decided to make pretzels as the American entree. I had enjoyed making them a while ago and thought I may have solved the Turning Them Over in the Pot of Boiling Water dilemma (solution: a wok skimmer – brilliant!!). So I grabbed some traditional American Mustard (ironically called “French’s) to serve them with, as well as some Baconnaise, which I had picked up the last time I was at my USA Food store  (which really deserves its own heading. It is bacon-flavoured mayonnaise, which is crazy enough and falls nicely into the Only in America category; along with cinnamon or dark chocolate flavoured peanut butter. But when we got it home and read the blurb on the back, it is also kosher and safe for vegetarians. How they get it to taste so deliciously bacon-y is beyond me, but it a revelation with hot chips).

So I had confirmation from all 4 couples (except for our Frenchman who had a late-planned trip to Paris) and began the Expats Dinner Cooking Timetable (which I had mapped out earlier in the week – did someone say OCD???).

 Friday night saw the marinating of the beef for the bourguignon and cooking the NY Cheesecake (which conveniently needed to be refrigerated overnight). Saturday morning saw the making of the pretzels (with its long rising periods) interspersed with making madeleines, scones and gougeres. The pretzels need a super-hot oven, so I baked them before lowering the oven to 160’c for the bourguignon.

 Then cleaned up and set the table (appropriately themed in red white and blue) and waited or my guests to arrive.

 I had instructed each couple to bring alcoholic beverages from their country of origin, so we started off with some lovely  English ales (at room temperature of course!) followed by an earnest discussion of the differences between English, Australian and American beer. While they all chatted about the long involved process that is organising a Spousal Visa and munched on gougeres and (extra thick) pretzles (as they had fallen apart easily last time I tried to make them thicker, but they rose properly this time so were very thick! Still delicious and fluffy but still not that distinctive pretzel look. Third time will be the charm), I assembled the prawn cocktail. As it was one of three entrees which would be followed by two other large-ish courses, I opted for a smaller version and did them in shot glasses. Which looked very effective.

But a bit fiddly to eat. I did try and source some small forks or the like and had toothpicks on hand, but to make it a real finger food I’d probably remove the tails on the prawns (so you could eat it all in one large mouthful if you were feeling reckless) of have some eating tools on hand. But I think everyone’s appreciation of how cool they looked overshadowed any problems with the eating. Phew!

 Main course brought about the anxiety of cooking Yorkshire puddings for an Englishman. I hadn’t thought much of it until chatting with my girlfriend who  mentioned she had “finally perfected her Yorkies”.

 She had been in England for 8 years.

 This was a sobering thought as this was one component of dinner that I had not made previously. Plus when I tried to find a recipe online, I realised that there are Many, with lots of variations. The first one I tried turned out too crisp and almost biscuity with a hard shell; not at all suitable for soaking up roast beef juices. Luckily the next one I tried was from my trusty PWMU cookbook, which is my Go To for all Old recipes. They were soft and fluffy and perfect – hooray! And the Englishman gave his thumbs up too. Score!

 Main course was also the debut of the yam casserole!! I had by this stage worked out that Americans called sweet potatoes Yams so I thought it would be a variation on mashed or scalloped potato. Which it kind of was but with an American twist: mashed sweet potato with a pecan nut crumble topping. And marshmallows around the edge. Baked in the oven.

 Only in America.

 I found it quite yum but we all agreed that it was very sweet (especially when drinking  lovely French Burgundy) and would probably have been suited better as a dessert. But still a great cultural exchange, and a bit of an insight into why they have pumpkin pie for desert on thanksgiving.

 So all in all, a fantastic night with some fantastic people from all around the world. I managed to use every mixing bowl in my kitchen (some twice), 5 different cookbooks (Delicious Sweet, Lonely Planet Street Food, A Little Taste of...France, PWMU and my own personal recipe book) and about 4 loads through the dishwasher. But not lose my cool or have chaos rear its ugly head which has happened before in the arena of Dinner Party Cooking.

 And it was hopefully a little piece of home for our ExPats, and feeling of You’re Not Alone.

Next up? A cocktail party from around the world. I have been wanting to make a Sazerac for ages (one more ingredient to go), my girlfriend feel in love with Champagne Soup when she was in France, and our American friend spent time in Brazil and can make a mean caipirinha. And the other countries we will have fun researching.

Cheers!

Fat is Phat!

 Another cooking “first” at the weekend, and this time it wasn’t an exotic Asian ingredient or a weird spice, but cooking with lard.

 Which brought up a few issues.

 Firstly – what exactly is it? I knew it belonged to the Olden Days Cooking Ingredients group, with things like dripping and suet. So I called my grandmother who, apart from being a fantastic cook in the CWA vein (she taught me how to make a fabulous lemon meringue pie, and her Yo Yo’s and apple slice are family get-together staples), always regaled me with stories of Sunday night supper of “bread and dripping”; very weird and exotic sounding to a 6 year old, and I could never shake off the image that they were eating candle wax drippings….

 However she was unsure, as she hadn’t cooked with it either. She knew that Dripping was animal fat but didn’t know what made it different from lard. So off to the other receptacle of culinary wisdom – Wikipedia. Apparently, dripping is traditionally beef fat, while lard is pork fat.

 Good to know.

 The second issue was getting my head around cooking with Lard. Brought up as I have been in a health and diet conscious time, the idea of using LARD!! did worry me a little. Wasn’t there a low-fat –low-cholesterol-healthier-alternative available? Was I going to end up looking like the Stay Pufft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters? Was I condemning us to early-age bypass surgery?

 However as I had cooked gnocchi carbonara the week before, with fried pancetta, a cup of cream and gnocchi fried in butter, I put it in the same “it’s not an everyday meal” category.

 Third was where to source it. I knew from the yearly articles on How to Make the Best Plum Pudding, that suet was the way to go and it usually had to be ordered specially from a butcher. Luckily for me, Lard can be found at your local Coles fridge section, right next to dripping and duck fat.

 Which did get me thinking about all of the different fats and oils that are around I n these health conscious times. Growing up, there was always a large bottle of Crisco vegetable oil in the cupboard which was used for everything (except roast potatoes, for which mum used a lard/dripping/meat fat combo that had been poured off from previous roast dinners and left t o solidify in a special crockery pot in the fridge). However as I went to put my packet of lard in the butter conditioner of the fridge, I had to move aside the copha (for chocolate crackles), the butter (for one of life’s simple pleasures;  fresh white bread sandwiches ) and put it in top of the ghee (for certain Asian dishes). Thankfully the duck fat sits on the top shelf or we would have been in real trouble.  And that’s without even looking at my Oils and Sauces shelf, which is comparatively simple at the moment with just olive oil (lite and spray versions), sesame oil (again with the asian cooking) and chilli oil (for dumplings). But it has been host in the recent past to macadamia and grapeseed oil (great for salad dressings) as well as peanut and sunflower oil (for frying). All this from a group that is technically not considered a Food. They sit up there at the top of the food pyramid thinking they’re important when actually its just because they don’t fit in anywhere else. They must have a great time in their therapy group.

 And speaking of therapy – what is with “Extra Virgin” olive oil, or EVOO as some (annoying) foodies call it. Isn’t being extra virgin like being extra pregnant – you either are or you aren’t? Sol was right – oils ain’t oils.

 But back to Lard. Why was I starting down this shadowy path which could end in deep fried Mars bars and Elvis style cooking?  Because of a new cookbook (why else?!?).

 Lonely Planet’s “The Best Street Food – where to find it and how to make it” had arrived in Husband’s store and make a very quick trip to my kitchen. It’s  great fun read with entries from all around the world: churros from Spain, Brik from Tunsia and breakfast burritos from USA (Australia’s contribution was  meat pie) as well as more exotic entries such as ‘walkie talkies” from Africa – which are boiled chicken heads and feet (geddit?)

 My first recipe tried was for choripans from Argentina, which were a chorizo sausage hot dog with a tabouleh-like topping. Delicious! But I had my eye on the Baozi from China, which are the steamed pork buns that were always my favourite at yum cha. So I took out my lard (“for perfect pastry and baking”) and set to it.

 It’s a weird substance; almost pure white, very soft and almost fluffy like. Not surprisingly, it reminded me of an episode of The Goodies where Tim ate scoops of this weird looking white stuff and subsequently got very fat. It had to be melted before mixing with the flour and yeast, and did take a bit of heating to melt. It didn’t seem to have any distinct flavour either way, and although my pastry wasn’t the “ fluffy white cumulus” that the book described, I think that was more due to there not being a step to activate the yeast (which I will try the next time I make them). However they still were delicious – the pork filling was sweet and savoury at the same time. Not exactly as I remember from the Tai Pan in Doncaster, but I think it is one of those recipes that the filling ingredients will vary from place to place and are passed on only to a Sacred Few. But I can add baozi to my praw and shitake dumplings and fresh spring rolls for the makings of a delightful asian banquet.

Pastry "circles" ready for their filling

Filled...

Crimped and ready for rising

Steaming...

Baozi!

 And as I had the book out (and a public holiday with not much else to do), I thoughts I’d give pretzels a go!

 Growing up, pretzels were the small chip-style things that were always “making me thirsty!” A few years ago the large baked pretzel stands started popping up, giving us a whole new take on The Pretzel. These were what I was hoping to make with the entry from USA. Their fat of choice was Butter, which was rubbed into the flour to make the dough, and then followed the usual rise, shape, rise, cook process of many baked goods; so deceptively easy to perform but very difficult to master! Being my first time I experimented a bit with the thickness of the dough rolls to work out what would hold their shape the best through the double rise-boil-bake process. They didn’t seem to be as elastic as I liked (but then I probably didn’t knead them for long enough) and I tried a few ways to flip the risen bagels over in the pot of boiling water with limited success. I remember visiting a 24hr bagel baker y in London many years ago and I recalled massive vats of simmering liquid with long wooden staff like utensils; much like the wash women of old used. But I could be remembering something completely different….

 However I did manage to get a few out of the pot and onto the cooking tray all in one piece; the thicker pretzels seemed to fare better but they all were a bit weak at the ‘twist points’.  A smattering of parmesan or Murray River salt for variety, and then baked in a super-hot oven. As you can see, mine didn’t have the smooth sheen of the ones in the shops, but they still managed to have the “crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside “ quality that the book extolled. Taking their advice, I ate mine with mustard on the side for dipping, as well as aioli, which I’m discovering goes pretty well with everything savoury!

Thick versus thin

boiling ... and falling apart

Pretzel flipping utensils - none passed the test

Post-boil prezel pieces, glazed and ready to bake

Out of the oven, looking vaguely pretzel-ish

Yum!

 So now I’m off to decide where in the world I will send my tastebuds travelling next…..