Parmesan Grissini

It has been a little while since my last post, and I think these grissini are the perfect way to break the drought. This recipe is from Made in Italy: Food and Stories, the quite lovely book by Giorgio Locatelli. For me, Italian breadsticks are a promise of something more... an introduction to a leisurely meal in the shade on a sunny day, happy days with a cold glass of beer and an idle nibble on a grissini or two or three. It's not really a serious entree, just something to do while you unwind and wait for the real food to come along. 

And just as appealing is the impressive spectacle that these 40cm long, hand made beauties create. Knobbly, twisted golden brown sticks with a rustic untamed appearance that cannot fail to impress. A glass filled with these grissini in the centre of the table is indeed a beautiful sight and for this reason alone it is worth firing up the Thermomix and to start baking.

Parmesan Grissini

Ingredients

75g ungrated parmesan cheese

50g unsalted butter

200g whole milk

1 Packet of dried yeast

375g bakers flour

10g sea salt

Method

Chop the parmesan into walnut sized cubes, place into the Thermomix bowl and grate on speed 10 for 4 seconds

Transfer the grated parmesan into a bowl and set aside

Rinse out the Thermomix bowl and dry

Place the butter in the Thermomix bowl and chop on speed 5 for 2 seconds.

Melt the chopped butter at 90 degrees on speed 1 for 2 minutes

Add 200g of whole milk and your Thermomix bowl temp should be registering 37 degrees

Add your packet of yeast, flour, salt and parmesan. Stir on speed five for 3 seconds

Now knead the mixture on interval setting (the wheat symbol) for 4 minutes. 

Turn the dough out onto a clean surface and stretch into an A4 sized rectangle

Work your way over the entire surface of the dough making deep indentations with eight fingers at once.

When the surface of the dough is covered with indentations, fold it in half  turn it ninety degrees, stretch it out to an A4 sized rectangle and repeat the indentation making process again.

Place the dough in a bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and leave in a warm place for 30 minutes.

Turn on your oven now to 200 degrees.

Repeat the dimpling and folding process and leave to rise in the covered bowl again for another 30 minutes

Cut the dough in half and roll each half out into a large rectangle about 30cm or more on its long side.

Slice this rectangle of dough into 1cm wide strips, 30cm in length.

Now roll the strips one at a time on the work surface with your hands to form long thin sausages

Press down on one end to create a flattened spoon shape.(I don't know why)

Place on a non stick baking tray, big enough to accommodate your rather long breadsticks and rest them for 10 minutes.

Bake for ten to fifteen minutes until golden brown, keep checking them.

The result is truly magnificent, these grissini are totally impressive. Serve a bunch of these standing in a glass and watch them disappear.

Giorgio Locatelli says these breadsticks make great breadcrumbs, but we have never had any left over. 

Fennel and Tomato Gratin

I just made a Thermomixer's Fennel and Tomato Gratin, I didn't get a picture because it went too quickly. There is something about a dish with cheesy breadcrumbs on top that is a formula for success don't you think? The family give this one a big thumbs up. So jump over to Thermomixer's blog and get the recipe, then go and buy some lovely bulbs of fennel. If you have never tried fennel bulb before, this is definitely the dish to start you off. And it is a very quick one to put together, even better!  Thank-you Thermomixer 

Makowiec: Poppy seed roll

What should you do if a loved one has a poppy seed prominently caught between their teeth in public? I have always thought it best to let the person displaying the offending poppy seed keep talking until a natural pause in the conversation, then gently let them know about it. No big deal. However there are those who believe that allowing a loved one to appear in public with a poppy seed caught in their teeth for a minute or two, is itself a big deal. What to do? I shall have to consult the Ita Butrose book of etiquette for the final opinion. This is something you too will need to be clear about, when you share this Polish poppy seed roll with your loved ones. 

Makowiec (pronounced mak o vee ets) is traditionally made around Easter and Christmas, a kind of celebratory bread/cake made from brioche dough rolled up with a sweet and spiced filling of poppy seeds. The texture and colour of the filling are unusual, it is the sort of thing my mother would say tastes like squashed up ants, but pay no attention to her because this is quite delicious. This recipe may read like an epic, but it is really quite simple and well worth the effort, it makes two rather large rolls, but I can tell you they won't last long, they certainly don't around here.  The method is still a work in progress, submit your criticisms or refinements and I will endeavour to streamline the process.

Makowiec: Polish Poppy Seed Roll

Ingredients

Filling

500 g poppy seeds

110g sugar

100g butter

50g raisins

120g almonds

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

90g honey

1 egg white

1 beaten egg

Dough

330g milk

30g sugar

650g Bakers flour

80g Butter

10g Salt

1 Egg

1 Sachet Dry Yeast

Method

Boil your kettle then pour the hot water over your poppy seeds and let them soak for 20 minutes

While your poppy seeds are soaking, start making your brioche dough (taken from the Thermomix cookbook) 

Place cold milk and sugar in the in the Thermomix bowl and heat for 5 minutes at 60˚on speed one.

Add flour, salt, butter, egg and yeast to the Themomix bowl. Mix to combine for 10 seconds on speed 7

Set dial to closed lid position. Knead for 3 minutes on interval speed (wheat symbol)

Remove the dough and place in a bowl covered with clingwrap and allow to rise in a warm place whilst you make the filling. 

*Most recipes for Makoviec don't prove the dough first, so it is not necessary to let the brioche dough expand to twice its size. 

Clean your Thermomix bowl and move on to the filling

Line a colander with a clean teatowel and pour your poppyseeds in to drain.

Bundle your poppyseeds up in the teatowel, squeeze the excess water out of them and empty the seeds into the Thermomix bowl. It will be a miracle if you don't get poppy seeds all over the kitchen.

Add 110g of sugar and 120g almonds then grind for 1 minute on speed 10 at 90˚, stopping once or twice to scrape down the sides of the Thermomix bowl if necessary. 

Add the rest of the ingredients to the Thermomix bowl except for the egg white and the whole egg. Process a further minute on speed 10 at 90˚, you may need to stir with the spatula or stop a few times to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

You should now have a relatively smooth black paste. 

Empty this paste into your Thermoserver or a large mixing bowl and put to one side. 

Eggwhite: When beating eggwhite it's important to clean and dry your Thermomix carefully making sure it isn't hot from the washing water. 

Insert the butterfly attachment and leave the measuring cup off to allow greater aeration 

Put your eggwhite into the Thermomix and mix on speed 4 until there is no more liquid left in the bowl, the eggwhite is stiff and forming peaks. 

Gently fold this beaten eggwhite into the poppyseed paste with your spatula.

Back to the dough.

Divide your dough into two balls

On a floured work surface or preferably a silicone mat, push and stretch the first ball into a square about 30cm by 30cm. 

Spread the rectangle with poppyseed filling about a centimetre thick leaving a centimetre strip down the right and left sides unspread.

Fold the spread dough into thirds by bringing the top third of the dough down toward you, sandwiching the poppyseed filling, then bring the bottom third of the dough up over the whole lot

Moisten and seal the ends of the resulting roll and place on a large baking tray lined with nonstick baking paper. As you transfer the roll to the baking tray, turn the whole thing over so that the weight keeps it all closed during baking.

Beat up  the whole egg in the Thermomix on speed four for 5 seconds and brush the top of the roll with beaten egg. 

Now go back and make the second roll

Bake for 20 minutes at 200˚ C or until golden brown and sounding hollow when tapped on the base. 

Cool on a wire rack and slice to serve

Cashew Nut and Vegetable Stir Fry

Neil Perry says that "the art of stir frying is the art of organisation". Yep that would be right and there's my problem. Why do so many things in life have to revolve around being organised? I think I would be much happier if the art of mild to moderate chaos and disorder was more highly valued in society. Sure I can be organised, I just need a little more time than ordinary people to get things that way. So the fast art of stir frying demands something from me that I can find difficult to give. Thermomix to the rescue!

It's one of those things that seems unlikely-the Thermomix stir fries vegetables?  This isn't 'authentic' stir frying, the action isn't frenetic, the oil isn't overheated, there is no smoke, you can't taste the sizzling Wok in the finished product and for some people this might be a disappointment. However if you want to taste the vibrant flavour of vegetables simply cooked without overheating and to stir fry without being the master of organisation then this is for you. 

With this dish you need to chop the vegetables by hand, rather than by Thermomix, so that you get nice textures and shapes that encourage the vegetables to cook at a similar rate

Wombok however can vary in texture, from fine and lacy at the top, to more solid and chunky as you reach the base of the cabbage. The finely textured tips of the leaves require less cooking and so I add them to the Thermomix in the last two minutes of stirfrying. 

The choice of vegetables nuts and sauce are up to you, use this recipe as a starting point and move on from there. If I am feeling like meat, I marinate chicken breast in honey, soy and oil then cook in a pan while  the vegetables are stir frying.

Cashew Nut and Vegetable Stir Fry

Ingredients

30g Macadamia oil (olive oil will do if that's all you have)

1 Garlic clove

2 pieces of ginger the size of a 20 cent piece

50g Red capsicum cut into batons

200g Broccoli cut into florets

15 Snow peas sliced on the diagonal into thirds

250g Wombok (chinese cabbage) shredded

1 Dessertspoonful of Oyster sauce (Housewife brand)

Raw cashews

Basmati or jasmine rice

Method

Set some rice cooking on the stove or cook it in the thermomix and keep separately in the Thermoserver until ready to serve.

Start with a clean, dry Thermomix bowl. Add garlic and ginger to the Thermomix bowl and chop for 5 seconds on speed 7

Scrape down the sides of the bowl with your spatula so that the chopped garlic and ginger are all down the bottom on the cooking surface of the Thermomix

Add your oil and saute on varoma temperature for 3 minutes

Then add all of your vegetables except the wombok and cook for 6 minutes at 100 degrees, reverse and speed soft(that's the spoon symbol) 

You may not believe that the vegetables are going to circulate down to the cooking surface and up again, but they will. Try not to spend all of your time gazing into the Thermomix

After 6 minutes, add the Wombok cabbage and oyster sauce, cook for another 2 minutes at 100 degrees reverse and speed soft (spoon symbol). 

Watch the Brocolli to see when it has become the vibrant green that signals perfectly cooked. You may have to stop early or add another couple of minutes to the cooking time to get it right.

Aim for slightly under, rather than over cooked, remember the vegies will continue to cook slightly as you serve them up. 

When you are happy, pour the stir fry over a bowl of steamed rice and sprinkle liberally with raw cashews.

Sticky Black Rice

There's a book called the Spiritual Nutrition and the Rainbow Diet where the author Gabriel Cousens says that you should try to eat all the colors of the rainbow every day. Activate your base chakra with red food, the solar plexus with yellow, some other one with green, the next with pink, some other ones in between and then the crown chakra with purple food. I love this way of looking at nutrition, but not all purple foods can be equally spiritual. I just can't see myself walking into heaven with an eggplant in my hand. However, I am totally willing to believe that I can eat my way to Nirvana with a big batch of sticky black rice. Well maybe two or three batches. Because it's not really black is it, I'm sure it's purple, in that burgundy kind of way. So put the purple cabbage aside for a moment and accelerate your spiritual growth the Indonesian way.

Get your glutinous rice, pandanus leaves and palm sugar from the Asian supermarket. Despite its name glutinous black rice contains no gluten, I am absolutely sure. Pandanus is a strappy leaf, the Asian equivalent of vanilla, that imparts a pleasantly sweet fragrance to the rice, you can leave this out if you like, but it is worth chasing up in the freezer or fresh at the market. Palm sugar is sold in compressed cylinder shaped blocks, you can substitute dark brown sugar if you like. 

Are you worried about the fat in coconut milk? Well the fats in coconut aren't as unhealthy as we have been led to believe in the past, just don't overdo it.  There are some nasty coconut milks out there that are worth avoiding, I use Ayam brand,  certainly don't go with light coconut milk, it contains things that are unhealthy despite the light label, always check the ingredients. 

For me a cinnamon stick is preferable to ground cinnamon, not only because the flavour is better, but also because you can fish it out at the end and suck it clean, YUM. Is that disgusting? Sorry, I love cinnamon.

Sticky Black Rice with Coconut Cream

Ingredients

280 g  Glutinous black rice 

110 grams palm sugar 

750 g water

2 pandanus leaves

1 cinnamon stick

3-4 slices of fresh ginger size of 50 cent piece

270 ml can coconut cream

Method 

Remove the measuring cup (MC) 

Place a medium sized bowl on top of the Thermomix and set your scales to zero

Weigh 280g of glutinous black rice into the bowl,  cover with water a leave to soak overnight.

The next morning discard the soaking water, it will be a spectacular bergundy. 

Bash your palm sugar with a rolling pin or something heavy to break it up and weigh 100g into the Thermomix bowl.

Pulverise the sugar on speed 9 for 5 seconds

Add the soaked black rice, cinnamon, ginger and pandanus leaves (knot the leaves into a ball so that you can get them out easily after the cooking is done)

Add 750g of water

Cook in reverse at 90 degrees for 60 minutes, speed 1.5

At the end of the hour the mixture should be thick and soupy, transfer to the thermoserver and stir in the coconut cream. 

Fish out the pandanus, cinnamon and ginger replace the Thermoserver lid and allow the rice to cool.

Or pour yourself a big bowl and enjoy warm 

Transfer the leftovers to the fridge where it will set. 

Serve with sliced banana, mango or papaya.

Serves 4

Field Mushroom Sandwich with Garlic butter

Cold clear days in early Winter take me back to my childhood when we would spend entire days tramping across the paddocks of my Auntie's farm collecting field mushrooms. We would each have our own bucket and it wouldn't take all that long to fill them.  So back at the farmhouse, our load would be cooked into an evil smelling black stew that adults devoured enthusiastically.  But not the kids. What kid could eat anything that smelled so awful? I must have collected thousands of those mushrooms and never ate one. Since then, I have developed a taste for fungus, but sadly the farm and my aunty are both long gone. My parents tell me, you can't buy mushrooms with flavour like those ones we collected, but at the moment you might find large organic Swiss browns that go really well in this sandwich.

Garlic Butter

To cook the mushroom you first need garlic butter, make up a batch and keep a jar in the fridge at the ready, where it will keep for a week or so. Once the butter is made, other than the field mushroom sandwich, garlic bread is a simple and popular snack for adults or kids to prepare.  Just split open a bread roll and spread liberally with garlic butter, wrap in foil, leaving a little opening in the top to let the steam out. Bake at 200 degrees for 20 minutes. 

Ingredients

5 cloves of garlic peeled

100g unsalted butter chopped into two or three pieces

Small handful of parsley

Pinch of salt to taste

Method

Make sure your Thermomix bowl is dry. If you have just washed your Thermomix it is a good idea to briefly pulse on turbo to flick residual water out from beneath the blades.

Place garlic in the Thermomix bowl and chop for 10 seconds on speed 7

Add parsley and chop again for 10 seconds on speed 7

Scrape down the sides of the bowl with the spatula

Add butter (there is no need to bring it to room temp) and salt. 

Chop/mix on speed 5 for 8 seconds.  

Transfer the resulting butter to a jar or roll it in baking paper now it can be kept in the fridge or freezer

Field Mushroom Sandwich

I can't pretend that this is my idea, I have to acknowledge The Domestic Goddess herself, Nigella Lawson. A great meaty vegetarian lunch or light evening meal that is simplicity in a sandwich and just a little bit decadent (but you would expect that from Nigella wouldn't you?). This is something that is really worth trying. If you can't get field mushrooms, use the biggest Swiss Browns you can rustle up. 

Ingredients

Large field mushroom per person

1 dessert spoon of garlic butter per person

Seed mustard

Lemon

Roquette

Turkish bread or bread of your choice

Method

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees

Remove the stalks of the mushrooms and spread a dessert spoon of garlic butter evenly over the underside. 

Place the mushrooms buttered side up, in an ovenproof dish and bake in the oven for at least 20 minutes at 200 degrees (the longer the better I reckon)

When the mushrooms are almost done, spread your Turkish bread with seed mustard

Place a mushroom on the bread, squeeze lemon over it and put some roquette on top, close the sandwich then go ahead and eat it. 

There's not that much butter, you have to try it.