I made this to complement the pork chops. This is the first time the sauce turned out well. The flour and the simmering process are the critical bits. The recipe is not cast in stone; vary ingredients to achieve optimum result. I used Swiss brown button mushrooms.
Mushroom sauce
Ingredients
Butter – 1 tbsp
Chicken stock – 1/2 can
Mushrooms – half a box, chopped
Flour – 1 tbsp
Salt and pepper to taste
Steps
1) Heat up butter and stock to a boil
2) Turn down heat, add mushrooms
3) After about a few minutes, add flour to coagulate sauce. Stir to break up clumps of flour.
4) Let sauce simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste.
5) When appropriate viscosity is reached, remove from heat and serve.
The chicken I used did not provide enough juices to make a proper sauce, so the meat was slightly dry. Ate it with pita and lettuce, with button mushrooms sauteed with butter. Luckily there was enough mushroom sauce to complement the chicken.
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ROASTED CHICKEN
Ingredients:
1 chicken, about 1.5kg
1 large or 2 medium onions, cut into chunks
1 large carrot, peeled and cut
30g salted butter, softened
2 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper, paprika or other spice seasonings
1 lemon
180ml white wine or chicken stock
20g salted butter, cold
Steps:
1) Preheat oven to 200 deg C
2) Cut off neck and feet of chicken. Rinse chicken thoroughly and leave to drain until it gets to room temperature
3) Sit carrots in the middle of a roasting pan. Scatter onions on the pan.
4) Pat chicken very dry with paper towels. Gently separate the skin from the breast meat using your fingers. Do not tear the skin.
5) Slip half the softened butter in between breast meat and the skin, massage to spread the butter of the whole breast area.
6) Mix salt and spices in a small bowl. Rub half over the cavity of the chicken and half on the outside. Cut lemon in half and put into the cavity. Rub the rest of the softened butter all over the chicken, then sit other bird on the carrots, breast side up.
7) Roast about 1 hour and 10 minutes, until chicken is golden brown. Check after 1 hour. Wriggle the drumstick. If it moves easily, the chicken is done. If the juices run clear, the bird is ready. If roasting a smaller bird, check after 50 minutes.
Remove roasting pan from oven, move the chicken onto a large plate, set aside to rest 10-15 minutes. Add the carrots to stock pot if making stock.
9) Place the roasting pan with the onions on the stove over medium high heat. Pour in the wine or stock and bring to a boil. Using a wooden spoon, scrape up the brown bits on the bottom of the pan. When the sauce has reduced slightly, add cold butter. Swirl it around the pan, stirring constantly to make sure the sauce comes together. When all the butter has been incorporate, taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste. If sauce is too tart, add a little sugar. Pour into a bowl.
10) Carve chicken, and stir any accumulated juices into the sauce. Serve chicken with sauce on side.
Light but not tasteless. Too unexotic for me. I prefer something more bitter. The lack of gas is good though.
My first reaction was “whoa”. It is thick, dark, very dense and fibrey, almost like a soft biscuit. The flavour is amazingly thick with a lingering taste of beetroot syrupt. The wiki entry said it is usually eaten with rich stuff like caviar and smoked salmon. Sadly I had to have it plain.
Filed under: diary, food | Tags: pork, pork chop, pork chop recipe, recipe
200908
This turned out very well. Simple, unpretentious, and most importantly, delicious. The trick is in timing: the meat must be cooked just nice without overcooking. The meat is the mainstay of the dish, so it must be done properly. Personally my mantra is to cook less when in doubt. After all meat can be eaten rare. Serve with English mustard sauce and a glass of wine. Remember to remove the unsightly garlic before serving.
Simple pork chops
Ingredients
Pork chops
Cracked black pepper
Salt
Rosemary
Garlic, crushed
Butter
Olive oil
Steps
1) Heat pan, medium-high heat with olive oil.
2) Sprinkle and rub salt and pepper onto both sides of chops.
3) When oil is heated, lower heat to medium and place chops on pan together with garlic and rosemary.
4) After one minute, add butter and melt. Use spoon to repeatedly pour butter with garlic and rosemary over chops.
5) Check chops – meat is cooked when it can be pierced with a fork with some resistance but not tough.
6) Turn heat to high, sear chops to golden brown on both sides.
7) Serve.
200908
Saw NZ mussels sold at Fairprice, so I bought it. A simple dish, I just hoped that I added more butter to create a creamier sauce. I did everything through feel, so no exact measurements.
Mussels
Ingredients
Mussels / White wine / Shallots / Butter / Garlic / Parsley / Cracked black pepper
Steps
1) Melt butter and add shallots and garlic in pot. Saute.
2) Add mussels, drown in white wine.
3) Cover for 5 minutes.
4) Garnish with pepper and parsley. Serve, preferably with crusty bread.
Filed under: diary, food | Tags: Archipelago beer review, Archipelago Explorer, Archipelago Explorer beer, beer
130908
This is bought from DFS after my return from Vietnam. Exclusively bottled for DFS, apparently, and I don’t see this sold on the shelves of supermarkets.
The colour is appetising; a golden hue with minimum gas and froth. Purportedly infused with Asian spices like Indian coriander and Chinese Ba Jiao and lemon zest, I am sadly unable to discern their individual tastes. Still, the beer remains highly drinkable, smooth and has light body. Not too bitter and not too bland, but not to the point of having no character. A fun drink in the late afternoon lull. Which actually doesn’t help things because the alcohol makes me drowsier in the heat.
Filed under: diary, food | Tags: baguette, baguette recipe, baking, recipe
130908
It tastes like one, but doesn’t look like one. I baked flat baguettes today.
The key to this recipe is the water. I think I added too much water to the dough at step 2, and this resulted in a more flaccid dough that doesn’t hold up its shape well.
At any rate the product is extremely edible, with a strong taste of butter.
I baked a huge round bun with this. The secret to baking good rye bread is the addition of caraway seeds. It brings the flavour to another dimension. This time, I stiffened the dough with rye flour instead of white, and used less yeast to get a firmer bread. Also, I am baking more intuitively now and hence the rising time stated is not the actual amount of time I took.
Have you heard of alcoholic bread spread before? I am going to eat the bread with blueberry and PORT jam. Yes the best of both worlds, combined.
Rye bread
Ingredients
2 cups rye flour + more to stiffen dough
2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup molasses
5 tbsp butter, in bits
1/2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp caraway seeds
1 packet dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
6 cup flour (variable)
STEPS
1) Mix all ingredients except for flour, yeast and lukewarm water in bowl. Leave to cool.
2) Mix and dissolve yeast in separate bowl with lukewarm water at 50 degrees.
3) Add yeast mixture to rye flour mixture when it is cooled.
4) Add flour gradually and mix, until a stiff dough is formed. Use rye flour when white flour is finished.
5) Knead for 10 minutes.
6) Cover, leave to rise till doubled.
7) Punch down the dough, cover, leave for 30 minutes.
8 ) Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
9) Grease bread pan, shape dough and place on pan.
10) Bake for 40 minutes.
Filed under: diary, food | Tags: baking, recipe, rye bread, rye bread recipe
I have a grand total of three loaves to savour this coming week: one tomato parmesan, one rye bread made from prepared mix, and one homemade rye bread. The caraway seeds in the mix really imparted an added fragrance and dimension to the bread; I need to find them soon. The rye bread I made myself had a strong sweet smell due to the molasses used.
Going to eat them with apple baked ham, honey-baked ham, Dijon mustard, blackberry jam and honey!
Rye Bread
INGREDIENTS
2 cups rye flour
2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup molasses
5 tbsp butter, in bits
1 tbsp salt
1.5 packet dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
6-6 1/2 cup flour (variable)
STEPS
1) Mix all ingredients except for flour, yeast and lukewarm water in bowl. Leave to cool.
2) Mix and dissolve yeast in separate bowl with lukewarm water.
3) Add yeast mixture to rye flour mixture when it is cooled.
4) Add flour gradually and mix, until a stiff dough is formed.
5) Knead for 10 minutes.
6) Cover, leave to rise till doubled.
7) Punch down the dough, cover, leave for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
9) Grease bread pan, shape dough and place on pan.
10) Bake for 40 minutes.
Filed under: diary, food | Tags: baking, recipe, wholemeal bread, wholemeal bread recipe
This turned out very well. The bread is soft yet dense, and packed with flavour from the butter and wholemeal grains. I have two loafs that I am going to eat with tomatoes, Virginia ham and blackberry spread, washed down with orange juice or soya bean milk depending on my mood. The dough is significantly wetter than that of white bread: wholemeal flour needs more water.
190708
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Baked my first loaf of Swedish Rye Bread today. I don’t know if I baked it properly because the end product was a hard and dense bread that was full of flavour. Not that it matters because I love breads that are hard and dense. This loaf will last me till Vietnam… I am going to eat it with mustard, ham and cheese together with Florida’s orange juice and soya bean milk!
210608
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It feels odd to chance upon a gem of a quote in a baking recipe book but I guess the process of creating food and the making of a choice regarding what to it is itself infused with the creator’s perspective on life. Brillat-Savarin said, “tell me what kind of food you eat, and I will tell you what kind of man you are.” Our choce of what to eat is an expression of our own worldview and attitude to life.
200608
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A landmark day: I made my first ever loaf of bread today! Actually it is two loafs. The bread was pretty dense; it reminded me of chiffon cake. Next time I should let it rest for longer to get a less dense bread. The taste was there though. It is definitely better than the average Gardenia or Sunshine crap we get. My sister remarked that the bread is slightly too salty; I will add less salt next time.
Filed under: current affairs, diary, food | Tags: comment, David A. Kessler, David Kessler, review, The End of Overeating
Humans are creatures of habit, and once automated behaviour is programmed into our subconsciousness, we stick with it regardless of its ill effects on us. David A. Kessler in The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite argues that overeating has its roots in the practices of the food industry and natural consequences of modernisation.
People overeat because we are primed by our surrounding environment to do so. Kessler suggests that it is more nurture than nature that percipitates binge eating. Food today is readily available, and served in large portions that encourage overeating. Food comes in all sorts of fancy packing and “new” flavours that encourage people to buy and sample them. Kessler vividly uses the metaphor of the “purple cow”: a person will not bat an eyelid at an ordinary cow, but the sight of a purple cow excites and intrigues.
More damningly, Kessler opined that the food industry has been consciously producing food products that encourages overeating and make consumers want to have more and more, in a bid to earn profits. According to Kessler’s research, the tools are sugar, fat and salt – that is in essence the three elements that trigger off an orgy of overeating. Add more sugar, more salt and more fat, in the right “magic” proportions, and you instantly get a product that the masses go crazy for.
I can see how this is practised in my immediate life. Potato chips come in all sorts of flavours, and they are amazingly salty and not to mention, fried in oil. Fast food are largely all fried and laden with salt – from french fries to old Chang Kee curry puffs. And fast food chains “innovate” by periodically offering new selections made using the same methods.
Reversing a culture of overeating is not easy. The method of adding more salt, sugar and fat takes advantage of deeply-ingrained primal instincts in humans. Our ancestors are programmed to be deeply attracted to high carbo, high salt and high fat foods because of their harsh environment where rich sources of fat and energy are scarce and survival necessitates that a person should gorge whenever he finds food. Obviously the modern human does not require this primeval instinct anymore, but the problem is that we still have this inbuilt mechanism deep within our brains.
The essence of what Kessler propose we do to combat the evil of overeating is consciousness of instinct and active denial of the influence of instinct. We have to know that our brains are telling us to eat and actively decide not to take up what our instincts tell us to do. Easier said than done, that is for sure.
Yet what sets us apart from mere animals is our capacity to deal with our baser instincts to promote the greater good or achieve a more important personal goal. The dominance of will over instinct can and should be the status quo.