Tra-Dish-onally

 Traditions – those time honoured rituals that can put a big smile on your face and make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, or conversely scowl and fume with obligation. They can have been around for thousands of years or just a nice recent habit that kept going. On the whole, I love A Tradition – something that you often get to do only once a year, which reminds you of the fun times you had doing it in previous years. Some are outdated, some don’t correspond to our hemisphere and some we’ve just adapted for the obscurest of reasons, and some are just, well, Tradition.

 It was Easter the weekend just passed; four days with lots of traditions (some more strictly adhered to than others)

Tradition: we catch up with friends (Mr and Mrs Frenchman) for dinner.

 This lovely tradition has been happening since the early Getting-to-Know-You days of our friendship; in fact I think it was our third or fourth dinner together that we caught up on Good Friday, because I happened to mention that I cooked homemade Hot CrossBuns. Which became that dinner’s dessert. And I think we've caught up every Easter since; 4 days off means 3 nights to catch up, plus there is usually a baby sitter or two available. So it was our turn to host this time. But what to serve?

  I do love the planning stage of dinners. You can start in one cuisine and end up totally in another. I usually start with a dish or a theme in mind and go from there, but this time I had Nothing. Nada. Not even a half inkling. Maybe is the working-full-time thing, where I am cooking less during the week plus being a Bit Worn Out, but I hadn’t the vaguest flash of inspiration. I thought maybe something pork? but that was only because I had seen a few recipes using it recently. Plus it was a white meat…

Tradition: don’t eat red meat on Good Friday.

 Ahhh That religious tradition. This was one I strictly adhered to throughout my childhood – you would always have fish fingers or I & J fish fillets for dinner on Good Friday. As I got older and realized where the tradition came from, I took great joy in eating hamburgers, or spaghetti bolognaise or steak on Good Friday. But this year, it seemed like a good source of inspiration (or madness).

 I would make Fish Tacos. Again.

 Whenever I have a recipe fail (read here if you need a reminder), I always feel I need to go back and Get It Right. Prove that I am the Domestic Goddess that I like to think that I am. So this one had been bugging me for a while, and if Good Friday wasn’t a good day to cook fish then I didn’t know when was!

 Right – so Tacos. Which makes me think of Mexican. And the Tapas Feast that wasn’t. I had the same dinner guests which meant they would have a chance to try the dishes they missed out on (except the pulled pork tacos), such as sherry glazed chorizo and chickpeas and patatas bravas. And now we had a Theme (sort of)

 Dessert is always tricky in Mexican meals, so I decided to ignore that and just cook something yummy. The latest Delicious Mag had a chocolate dessert sections so I had a short list of about 5 to choose from. But I ended up going with the Baked Doughnuts (with whiskey chocolate glaze). Possibly because all the proving and rising of the dough reminded me of hot cross buns, possibly because of the chocolate whiskey glaze (so Easter but so Adult), possibly because I figured I could make non-glazed ones for the kiddies to munch on. But mainly because I had this picture staring at me from benchtops for a week or two

You want to eat them, don't you?!?

 Plus, being doughnuts, this was a dessert that was more …..hol(e)y 

 And I was interested in making Baked doughnuts, as one of the reasons I am reluctant to make traditional doughnuts more often is the whole Frying in a Large Pot of Boiling Oil thing. Which I really should get over as I have about 4 or 5 yummy looking recipes to try.

 Right so mains and dessert sorted, just appetisers/nibbles to organise. Well, that was easy.

Tradition: we start our dinners with bubbles and cheese.

Champagne is a no-brainer. I think most of my celebrations and parties officially start when the cork is popped. Cheese is a Let’s-Be-French tradition that we have heartily adopted (though our hearts probably don’t appreciate too much d’aphinois).

So menu sorted, ingredients purchased and a day off to get it all sorted.

Tradition: I will forget at least one ingredient.

  So this time, it wasn’t a Forgetting, rather than an Assuming – that the ice cream we had in the freezer was vanilla, when in fact it was Cookies and Cream, which is quite yummy but might just be a bit too much chocolate for some. But where to buy ice cream on Good Friday when all the supermarkets are closed? I had hope my local petrol station/mini-supermarket would have some small tubs but alas they didn’t so we switched to cream for dessert. No biggie.

 The chickpeas were another story. Now in my defence they were on the shopping list, just put it down to shopping on the Thursday Before Good-Friday (when people at supermarkets are mental!!) by Mr DG (the artist formerly known as Hubby). Luckily I had two small tins in the cupboard for use in salads, so it just meant a smaller batch, but as it was a Side dish that was ok.

 Not sure what happened to the fresh coriander, I think that was me. But luckily the dried stuff worked ok.

Tradition: The new recipe I try will be almost perfect (but not quite).

 Common hostessing lore suggests you never cook a new recipe when throwing a dinner party. I use dinner parties to try out new recipes! Which as readers will know, usually turns out ok. But more often than not there is something that could be improved. The doughnuts were going along swimmingly, rising and proving. I didn’t have a 3.5cm cookie cutter for cutting out the holes so had to freehand it. The glaze was all made and I was preparing to dip them. However I don’t think I let the glaze cool quite enough as it was still a bit runny, which mean they weren’t as picture perfect as the cover. Still tasted quite yummy, if anything it meant there was more glaze to dip your doughnut in (which is never a bad thing).

 

"Mmmmmm ... double glazed.."

 So all things pre-prepared as much as possible, guests arrived,, champagne popped and cheese munched on while I cooked the dinner. Learning from my mistake, I had the frypan in med-LOW (not med-high) for cooking the fish and had plenty of olive oil in the Good Frypan (the one whose non-stick base hasn’t been scratched and worn away). And the tacos turned out great! My only Point of Improvement would be to not “flour” them until just before cooking (the recipe calls for throwing your pieces of fish into a mix of flour ad spices to coat them). The flour did become a bit like a paste on some pieces, which thankfully didn’t increase their sticking to the pan-ness.

 So with nicely cooked fish, some yummy salsa and sour cream, and tapas side dishes, out Mexican feast was ready to consume.

Front-back: Fish, tortillas, salsa, lettuce, sour cream, patatas bravas
(& sauce) and sherry glazed chickpeas

 Followed up by yummy doughnuts (for those that still had room), it marked another delicious Easter feast....

Not as pretty as the picture but still yum

... even if the glaze slid off and it was cream not ice cream on the side.

What traditions do you like to follow (or ignore)?

Down Mexico Way

 So after my last blog, lamenting that I had been unable to organise a Mexican Feast; I was able to rectify this at the weekend! A dinner catch up with friends was a good excuse to look through my To Cook list, and right at the top was ‘Easy Does it – Tapas’ in the November Delicious magazine; four great simple recipes for your Spanish feast. The two that caught my eye were ‘Sherry-glazed chickpeas and chorizo' and a ‘Patatas Bravas’; the latter I had tried when I went to my first real proper Spanish Tapas restaurant recently; and the former reminded me of a dish from The Black Toro. So, straightaway, I had two dishes and the beginnings of a Spanish Spread.

 To round out the selection, I thought I would take a second try at tacos (click here to reminisce on my first ‘mis-adventure’). I had a “proper” Taco recipe from the Lonely Planet “Street Food” book; which had the filling as mince meat cooked with a bit of salt and pepper. Authentic, I'm sure. Just not very Dinner-Party-esque. Then there was a Lime and Prawn taco which showed promise (except for them wanting prawns with the tail still on – how is that a good thing when munching through a hand held taco?!?!); but it did require canned black beans. I'm sure I could have sourced them, but didn’t have that much free time for scouring my local gourmet food stores and delis. Then I remembered a shredded pork taco recipe that I had stored for a while, because every time I looked at the first set of instructions (that included “cook for 1 and a half hours”), I put it back. Now I am well aware of the benefits of long preparations (my 4 hour slow cooked lamb is testament to that), but for tacos, it seemed like too much work. But then, what is a dinner party if not an excuse to faff about in the kitchen and boil a piece of pork for 90 minutes?!?!  Plus it meant I could finally open the can of Chipotle* chillies in Adobe that I bought a while back for alllllll the Mexican cooking that I would use it with (but hadn’t gotten  around to using yet).

 She kept looking at me every time I went into my spices section,  “ Why haven’t you used me yet? You're just afraid of my Guatamalaness” (with apologies to Hank Azaria)

 And with that , main course was sorted. Throw in some salsa and nacho chips (with carrot and celery) for nibbles and all we needed was a dessert.

 Now, as much as I love Mexican, I have always found the desserts a bit tricky. The Black Toro are quite liberal in their interpretation (last time I had a 'deconstructed peanut butter cheesecake', which I’m sure the conquistadors munched on as they travelled to The New World); though I am looking forward to trying their Crème Catalan. “Jamie’s America” has a chocolate mole tart, which has an amazing spice mix (including cinnamon and chilli) sprinkled over the top, but I’d already made that before. Having the Lonely Planet book out reminded me of the Pastel de Belem (Portuguese Custard Tart) I had earmarked. I know that Portugal is not really a neighbour of Mexico, but I figured as there were a lot of Portuguese speakers in South America, I could probably get away with it.

  I started making the tarts the night before the dinner:  Son 2 has been sick that week and I wasn’t quite sure what sort of mess and time-consuming-task the following day would bring  (Kids always add an extra degree of randomness and uncertainty to your plans!). First step was making a custard from scratch, which I was familiar with from making ice cream. However, this custard had a tablespoon of flour in it, which sped up the thickening process no end! In fact I did end up with a slightly lumpy custard as I didn’t get to stir it as regularly as I should have (reading a bedtime story between stirs is probably not something I’ll repeat next time). The tart cases were made from puff pastry, which the receipe suggested to buy a block and roll out to 0.1 inch thick. I figured my sheets of frozen puff pastry already in the freezer were about 2.5mm so I would go with that! It was all going along swimmingly apart from the actual baking; which seemed to take much longer than specified (15 mins at 150°C). I’m sure they were "cooked" by 15 minutes, but the pastry was not golden (as the instructions specified), nor was the custard browned like the picture illustrated. So another 15 mins (done in 5 minute increments, checking them each time and increasing the temp) got it looking much more like in the book.

  Dinner party morning starting with the boiling of the pork, followed by the cooling of the pork, followed by the shredding of the pork! There was the roasting of the garlic and tomatoes for the chipotle sauce, followed by the all-important Opening of the Chipotle Can. The receipe suggested adding the (3) chillies one at a time and tasting as you go “until you achieve the heat level you require”.  I added two, and nearly singed several layers on skin off my tongue! So I stopped there. And then fished out the pieces of chilli skin that had not blended in! Argh!! So they were as spicy as everyone had suggested! It is tricky as the actual chillies can vary in size, and I’m guessing the amount of sauce that gets added in is also a factor. I could only hope that once it was added to the pork that it would lower the spice rating a bit (and be grateful that my mum wasn't one of the dinner guests!).  Preparations also included par-boiled the potatoes for the bravas, as well as making the sauce to go on top.

 By this time it was beer o’clock and so we opened a few Coronas to assist with the cooking process (with lime for me, lemon for Hubby), and went on to the fourth stage of pork preparation – the frying of the cooled shredded pork! (for so much faffing, this had better taste amazing!). While that was thickening (after the addition of the tomato sauce and some raisins (Raisins? Yes raisins. Not what I would usually associate with pork, but I kept an open mind for the first-time cook through), I fried up the potato for the bravas, as well as cooking up the chorizo. And with the sour cream, aioli and (homemade) salsa and guacamole already of the festively decorated table, we were ready to roll.

 Except our dinner party had slightly decreased. Guest 1 had an impending work assisgnement and was staying home to work on that. Guest 2 had arrived (with her beautiful 3 month old daughter), had a sip of champagne, and then spent the next 45 minutes tring to settle said child who had gottten a bit upset at missing a sleep and being handed around to everyone! (what was I saying about Kids and Plans?!?) So they went home home, leaving Hubby and I with a rather large feast between the two of us. To which I immediately thought of what we could use as leftovers for another dinner (hooray! Another night off cooking!!). But only after savouring THIS dinner.

Tacos, with our special Chilean wine (which we will save for another time)

 I'm happy to report that adding the pork and rasisins did dial the chipotle sauce down a few Scoville units, and made it very super tasty; so all the faffing was worth it. It would be a great recipe to work on through the day, or even cook the pork the night before.

 The Patatas Bravas were great as well; a nice mix between wedges and roast potatoes that will be a great starter or side dish. I'm not sure what to do with the yummy tomato sauce; we seemed to have a lot of that left over ....

All that was left of the chickpeas and chorizo!

 And the chorizo dish was just amazing. It took about 10 minutes to cook and was easily the yummiest dish of the night (it went straight into Hubby’s top 10). Which just goes to show that more time and effort doesn’t always mean better (especially when kids are involved!).

 And after polishing off a few extra serves of that, there wasn't much room for the Pastel de Belem, which we brought out as part of a family lunch the next day. The custard was delicious, but there seemed to be a bit too much pastry. This may have been because I didn’t have it thin enough, or I left too much of a “lip” and the top of the tin. Might just have to make them again to work it out....

 So with the weather finally warming up over here, I look forward to a long summer of tapas inspired meals (and lots of Coronas with lime). But for now, I’m off to find all of those Chipotle recipes to use up the rest of the can! I’m pretty sure I have a grilled corn with chipotle mayonnaise, but lets see what other latino gems I can unearth.

 Salud!


* I am never sure if its Chip-pot-lay or Chip-pottle (as in bottle). I will have to check with my friend who speaks Spanish.  Although she still might be laughing from when I ordered the Jamon (hard J)  croquets rather than the “hamon”.

Other Fish to Fry ... or Bake ... Or Grill...

  For the past few months I have been working on an area of my culinary repertoire that has been sorely under-represented; a Cooking Fear (if you will) that needed to be faced up to Like a Man (or like a Domestic Goddess at least)

  Fish.

  So simple, so complicated.

  Over the years, I have had many friends who raved about how simple and easy and tasty it was to cook Fish; especially those trying to lose weight  be healthy. But it was not a thing that I ever entertained the thought about cooking, or even ordering in a restaurant – I was always more of a chicken or pork or pasta girl. As with much of my cooking style, this lack of aquatic appreciation started in childhood. My mum doesn’t like Fish. Hence she never cooked it. I mean, we had Fish Fingers of course (topped with cheese and bacon pieces on special occasions) and graduated to the frozen I & J oven-bake Fish fillets in later years. But that was it.  The only other Fish that I was exposed to was the ubiquitous tuna or salmon casserole bake (with the nausea inducing white sauce and weird odour) seen at Pot Luck style dinners, which wasn’t  anything that was going to inspire a young girl to change allegiances. I liked prawns, but didn’t like shelling them myself (too many oozy slimy bits that made your fingers stinky); I couldn’t see the appeal of oysters (salty grey and disgusting), never liked smoked salmon and our budget didn’t stretch to lobster. Plus there was always that fear inducing aspect of swallowing one of the minuscule tiny bones that evaded your careful inspection and getting it caught in your throat and choking or getting a punctured lung (or something equally as dramatic); I don’t like my dinners with a Side order of Trepidation.

 Plus, the actual past-time of Fishing seemed like a HUGE waste of time. Why stand around on a river bank/pier or sit in a boat for hoooouuuuurrrrrrrs on end in the hope that you MIGHT catch something that MIGHT be big enough not to be thrown back and MIGHT feed you that night, when you could have guaranteed fun riding the four wheeled motorbike or making sandcastles or swimming and getting sand who knows where? Very inefficient.

 Slowly but surely, I have come around.

 In my younger casual-worker days, I worked across from a Fishmonger who would sell containers of crab meat and prawns (with a thoughtful container of Thousand Island dressing) which would get me through shifts without a meal break. Then when sushi became all the rage, I quite enjoyed the salmon and Fish pieces (sans wasabi!) before sliding back to the California rolls (you could eat them chopstick-free!). As a working girl, I was introduced to the famous fall-back lunch (“… but I thought YOU were going to get bread for sandwiches!!”) of canned tuna on crackers. But it was a work conference in Darwin that has had the most influence: I defy anyone who has tried a fresh Thai-influenced barramundi curry to not be convinced about the delicious versatility of Fish.

  All of this Fish knowledge was coming to the fore as all of the health benefits kept resurfacing;  it lowers cholesterol, it helps with arthritis, it’s good for avoiding depression etc etc.
 But where to start? There are SOOOOO many different types and cuts of Fish (blue rockling grenadier flathead flounder fillets steak tails boned skin on off – argh!!!) and ways to cook it  (pan fry, deep fry, bake and grill) that it was a bit daunting to work out what to cook First.

 Sticking with the Do-What-You-Know school of thinking, I decided on Fish Tacos (Mexican is So Hot Right Now).  I had two recipes and decided to pick the best bits from each in regards to the salsa and salad options, but both recipes called for Firm White Fish Fillets (500g or 4 x 180g). Me, a Fish Cooking Virgin so to speak,  having no idea of what to buy or ask for,  just went to the Fish section at my local Coles and looked in hope for some sort of Fish that I might recognise. I think I ended up with flathead fillets, which seemed to be quite expensive for the amount of Fish I took home. Which wasn’t very much.  Hmmmm, perhaps I should have bought by weight not number…..

 Never the less, I soldiered on. We were having a Mexican themed dinner, so while my friends sipped on watermelon margaritas and lageritas (a Corona with a shot of tequila and some lime juice – be careful, the tequila likes to sit on top of if the beer so that first mouthful can be a bit potent!) I warily approached my first Fish-cooking endeavour.

 Which was a bit of a disaster.

 In hindsight, I think had the pan too hot or not enough oil (or both) – the Fish pieces stuck to the frypan, the flour covering flaked off everywhere and it was a rather unappetising-looking mess. It tasted OK (as most things would when topped with sour cream and pico de gallo salsa), but I had rather under-catered with the amount of Fish I had bought, and so each of us had two tacos with about 2-3 small cubes of Fish. Nice, but not enough to soak up the beer and tequila. Thankfully the Tres Leches cake (meaning “Three Milks”, which are used in its cooking) brought by my girlfriend was a  delicious (and solid) and chased away the hunger pangs.

 So an inglorious start to my Fish-Cooking Crusade.

 And so it got quietly put to the Bottom of the Pile while I cooked and experimented (more successfully) with other things.

 Then I received Donna Hay’s Simple Dinners which had a Fish/Seafood section. I usually gloss over these sections, but the pictures made me stop and look, and even made me think – I could Eat That.  And it was around this time that Hubby’s cholesterol reading was a bit high, which then made me think – We should Eat That.

 And so I bravely waded back into The Deep.

 First up was ‘Miso Grilled Fish’. It seemed pretty straight forward (marinate and grill) and I got to buy some new ingredients from my cute local Asian grocery store. After the failure of the first Fish Purchase, I thought I’d try the local Fish shop, in the hope that Someone in the Know would advise and guide me.

Nope.

 Me: “Hi, I’ve never cooked Fish before and I need firm white Fish fillets. What would you suggest?”

 She: “Ummm… I don’t know, what do you feel like trying??”

 Not helpful!! I also had a minor freak out at handing over $14 for two Fish fillets (I had better not leave half of this stuck on my frypan!) but I had heard that Fish was Expensive.  I had another minor freak out during cooking as I couldn’t tell when the fillets were cooked through (and I didn’t want to ruin and waste this precious Fish!) but I did the sneaky (and I’m sure big culinary no-no) of Cutting it To Check. And it was delicious.  And light. And healthy (served with a side salad). And a Success. Hooray!

 Next up was Salmon Teriyaki Noodles (from Delicious Magazine), which was a big step for me as I wasn’t even sure that I liked salmon! I figured that the sauce would help if I wasn’t a big fan of the taste, and I could always eat the noodles and veges. With a pep talk from my salmon-loving girlfriend (Don’t overcook it! Put a saucepan lid over your frypan to help it cook through!) combined with a bit of info I gleaned from Huey’s Cooking Adventures (which just happened to be on the TV in our waiting room when I was waiting for a fax) I felt I had the skills to make it work (or at least not totally destroy it).

 I purchased pre-packaged salmon from Coles so I knew I had the right weight and the right cut. I had enough oil in the pan this time and so only a few little pieces stuck, and it was only at the thickest part of the fillet that it wasn’t totally cooked through when I took it off the heat, which I remedied by popping those pieces back in the middle of the fry pan for a few minutes before mixing it in with the rest of the noodles. Sneaky!!

 Again – delicious. Again light and tasty (and healthy) – and I like salmon! Double Hooray!!

 To go in a different direction, I chose Crispy Fish Sliders (from Simple Dinners) next. This was more of your traditional batter-and-fry type of Fish dish, which I thought was a good skill to acquire, just in case anyone ever caught Something and expected me to cook it for them. It was a very simple batter, quite amenable to becoming a beer batter which is good to know.

 I had issues again with the oil/frypan combo, so a few of my fillets ended up in little pieces rather than whole fillets; I may not have had my oil hot enough when I started cooking (damn electric cooktop!). And still with the sticking to the pan thing! I might need to invest in another good quality non-stick frypan….

 Still, once the Fish was in a roll with some roasted garlic aioli and lettuce, it was yum and it didn’t matter whether there were Fish fillets or pieces.  So three from three (and one very pleased Hubby).

 Last on my To Try style of Fish cooking was a stew – Spanish Fish Stew (again from Delicious) to be precise…. which was quite nice and simple to cook (throw the Fish pieces in the flavoured liquid and simmer for 5 minutes) and no chance of it sticking to a tricky frypan! I think I might grow to like that cooking style…..

 So it now gives me great pride to state that I Can Cook Fish.

 And I will continue to Cook Fish! Like a sesame crusted salmon … or a Thai-style baked Fish … or a Fish Curry … or Popcorn Shrimp! (I know it’s not really “Fish” but it sound so yummy).

 Bring It On.