Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Hazelnuts and chocolate are a match made in heaven!

Last weekend, Pete and I made two large batches of hazelnut praline. As I’ve mentioned previously, I never make this on my own, as hot sugar and I don’t get along. Pete’s detailed instructions for this process are here…

The darker of the two batches was chopped up into chunks…

…and stirred through a bowl of tempered Callebaut 811 (54% dark). This is the only time I use the 811 straight, as I find the sweeter chocolate balances out the dark caramel flavours…

The lighter batch of praline was blitzed up in the food processor and added to dark chocolate truffles. Our instructions with photos are here, and for this batch, I used the following ingredients:

• 300ml cream (minimum 35% fat)
• 500g Callebaut 811 (54% cacao) callets
• ¾ cup crushed praline (stirred through after the ganache is smooth)

I sprinkled a dusting of crushed praline over the finished truffles while the chocolate was still wet…

Finally, the easiest way to incorporate hazelnuts into chocolate making is by stirring Nutella through a batch of tempered milk chocolate! This blend is always popular, and can be used with feuilletine to create a “Ferrero Rocher” style chocolate or, as I did in this case, a two-layered treat.

I began by pouring a small quantity of tempered dark chocolate into the base of our mini tart pan liners. Once it had set, I topped it with Nutella chocolate (one part Nutella to two parts each of tempered milk and dark chocolate)…

Praline crumbs were scattered on top. It wasn’t my neatest work, but you can see the two layers of chocolate in the photo below…

It’s worth mentioning that the Nutella chocolate never sets as solidly as straight chocolate and will melt more easily, so it’s important to store it in a cool place.

Thank you to everyone who has given our chocolate tempering tutorial a whirl – you make writing these posts worthwhile! x

Turkuaz Motif have now closed their retail store, but can still be found at various Sydney markets (details below).

. . . . .

A quick post to let my fellow Sydney-siders know that Metin and Moya will be closing their Burlington Street Crows Nest shop at the end of January. They’re currently having a huge sale to clear out surplus stock, so if you’re after a bargain for Christmas, now is the time to pop in.

Long time readers will remember our earlier post on Turkuaz Motif, and it’s been over a year since our last visit. Thankfully, Stefanie left me a comment last week to let me know that they were closing (the building is being redeveloped), and Pete and I were able to pop in today. Metin and Moya will be keeping their market stalls, so the business continues to do well, but they won’t have a permanent shop for much longer.

The shelves are still packed with Turkish ceramics…

I hadn’t seen these hand-painted ceramic coasters before…

They now sell lamps as well…

Beautiful textiles fill a corner of the shop. We bought a tablecloth here last year…

I bought a few gifts, and a couple of large pieces for myself, including this gorgeous fish plate…

…and a traditionally patterned serving platter…

Coasters were only a few dollars each…

…and lovely Moya gave us this pot holder as a gift (and she made us both apple tea)…

Oh, and there were fezzes! Fezzes are cool, Doctor Who says so (Lizzy, I bought one for your Peter)…

I found this traditional Turkish hat with its jingly trim so irresistible…

…that I brought it home and wore it for the rest of the night. Oh go on, laugh, the neighbours all did!

I have no affiliation with the business, but Metin and Moya are genuinely lovely people, and I’m glad that their business continues to do so well. If you get a chance before January, do pop in and say hi (they’re more than happy for folks to just browse), or visit them at one of their market stalls.

Turkuaz Motif

Metin: 0413 638 591
Email: info@turkuazmotif.com.au
www.facebook.com/turkuazmotif

Friends often comment on how obliging our sons are when it comes to housework.

Big Boy and Small Man will cheerfully and without complaint take the rubbish out, stack the dishwasher, fold the clothes and clean bathrooms whenever asked. And the reason they’re so willing to help is because I’m not really fussed about when they do something – I’m just happy that it gets done.

For example, once a week, I dump all the clean laundry on the lounge in the living room, and ask Small Man to sort it out. At some time in the following 24-48 hours, he will put on an episode of Mythbusters, and fold a sofa’s worth of clothes into neat little piles. Similarly with the dishwasher, if I ask Big Boy to unstack, he might do so a couple of hours later, after he’s finished whatever he’s working on.

In an odd sort of way, this approach extends to our garden. We’ve never been overly concerned about neatness or planting to a schedule, but this year we’ve struggled to find time for anything beyond basic maintenance. Having observed more than we’ve tilled, we’ve been amazed at how the garden has evolved!

. . . . .

Perennial leeks are the backbone of our vegetable garden – they’re always around, and they make a wonderful substitute for onions (both regular and sprouting varieties). On the weekend, we moved the chook dome, and pulled these leftover leeks out…

Here are the babies that came with them! We gave a handful each to Maude and Bob the Builder, and at some point in the next few weeks, we’ll go out with a stick and drop the rest of them into the ground. They pay wonderful dividends for very little effort…

. . . . .

Eggplants have started coming up of their own accord; it will be a while before we know what variety they are…

. . . . .

Our red amaranth has been so glorious that we’re going to let some of the plants go to seed, and hopefully they’ll be all over the garden next year…

. . . . .

Our self-sown squash is sprawling into the adjacent bed…

…and (drum roll)…it’s a mutant tromboncino! I was so excited when the first fruit appeared…

. . . . .

Broccoli rabé has become a mainstay in our garden – the plants seed easily and germinate well, and this year, squillions of seedlings have come up by themselves. Purslane, our edible summer weed, is back as well…

The large self-sown broccoli rabé plants in the front bed are the healthiest we’ve ever grown…

. . . . .

We have sunflowers growing – a byproduct of the grain mix we feed to the chooks…

We haven’t had any for a couple of years now, so I’m eagerly waiting for the flowers to open. As the seeds were of a commercial feed variety rather than ornamental, it looks like the plants will produce lots of smaller flowers rather than one giant bloom…

. . . . .

I have no idea how the rainbow chard plants survived the chickens, but they did, and they’re now growing back with gusto…

. . . . .

We loved having fennel in our garden this year, so we’re letting the last few bulbs go to seed…

We always let some of the broccoli go to seed as well – that way we’re guaranteed to have volunteer plants next season…

Continental parsley grows tall and straggly as it gets older, but the flowers (like all the others) are essential for insects, and the seeds ensure a constant supply of self-sown plants…

. . . . .

Linda’s yellow cherries have been an absolute winner in the garden – we’re getting more than we can eat! The plants are wilt-resistant and relatively bug-free, which is amazing given the fruit fly problem in our neighbourhood…

. . . . .

Remember how excited we were about our snake beans earlier this year?

Well, we were holding off planting seeds until the weather warmed up, and lo and behold, a stack of seedlings came up of their own accord. So all we had to do was move the growing frame back into place…

We did plant these purple climbing beans, and they’re going gangbusters…

. . . .

Our mint has regrown in its pot after dying off earlier in the year…

. . . . .

I was all set to publish this post, when Pete pointed out a few more plants that I’d missed. Here’s an early morning photo of self-sown bok choy, and baby basil seedlings which are popping up all over the front bed…

And finally, our one and only lettuce at the moment – these small cos were prolific in our winter garden, but it’s getting a bit too warm for them now. Nonetheless, we haven’t planted any seedlings for ages, and we’re now eating the third or fourth generation of self-sown cos in our garden…

. . . . .

This approach to gardening isn’t for everyone.

Some people need order and tidiness to feel calm, and for them, a messy garden (or a living room full of laundry) would be unbearable. But it works for us – not only do we find it easy to manage, we’re also intrigued and excited by every new plant that appears!

Would you pay $30 for a chicken?

Normally I wouldn’t, not even for a live layer hen, let alone an eating bird, but in this case, I made an exception.  My friend Ella Dee recently ordered a Burrawong Gaian chook, grown by the lovely Beth McMillan whom I chat with occasionally on Twitter.

ED’s post sent me to Beth’s website, where I was happy to discover that her products are available in the Inner West. A visit to George at Dulwich Hill Gourmet Meats netted us a magnificent organic and free range 1.9kg bird. The first thing I noticed was the colour – Beth’s chooks are both pasture and corn fed, resulting in a rosy bird tinged with gold. Quite different to the white free range chickens we normally buy…

As you’d expect, there was quite a lot of discussion on how to prepare this bird, with both Pete and George adamant that roasting wouldn’t do it justice. We finally decided to gently poach it, and to use the fat and stock to make Hainanese Chicken Rice.

I’ve been making this dish for years, and have resisted posting my recipe in the past because it’s neither authentic nor consistent. Nevertheless, here’s a rough outline of how we make it at our place…

Step 1: Poach the chicken

I cook my chicken following a technique from Terry Durack’s Yum (for those who have been reading for a while, it’s the same method we use for our Simple Chicken Soup recipe).

Chicken and Stock:

• 1 large free range chicken
• 2 slices ginger
• 2 spring onions, coarsely chopped
• 1 tablespoon fine sea salt
• a mix of vegetable oil, sesame oil and fine salt, for brushing

1.  Wash the chicken, removing any loose fat and setting it aside for later. Place the bird, breast up, in a stock pot “just large enough to hold it snugly”, as per Mr Durack instructions. Add enough cold water to just cover.

2. Add the ginger, spring onions and salt and bring to a boil.  Simmer for five minutes, then turn the chicken over and cook for a further five minutes.  Now cover the pot, turn off the heat, and allow the chicken to continue steeping for 40 minutes. Check the chicken by inserting a skewer through the thickest part of the thigh – if the juices run clear without any hint of pink, then the chicken is cooked.

3. Remove the chicken from the stock and sit it on a rimmed plate (to catch the juices).  Brush over the oil mixture, and allow to rest.

Step 2: Preparing the Rice

• long grain rice, washed and drained
• vegetable oil
• reserved chicken fat
• 2 – 3 garlic cloves
• stock from poaching the chicken (see above)
• fine sea salt, to taste

1. Add a little vegetable oil to a wok, and then add the reserved chicken fat, and cook over a medium heat until rendered and crisp. Add the sliced garlic cloves and fry until lightly brown…

2. Add the rice and fry over a medium heat until well coated with the oil and fat…

3. Scrape it all into your rice cooker (we use the microwave) and add the appropriate quantity of stock. Here’s my mother’s tip: taste the stock after you’ve added it to the rice, and add a little bit more salt if needed – you want it to be just slightly too salty to drink as a broth.  Cook your rice by the absorption method until fluffy.

Step 3: Plating Up

1. With a sharp knife or scissors, cut the chicken into serving sized pieces. I can never manage with a cleaver, so my pieces are usually quite large – I remove the thighs, wings and drumsticks, then hack the remainder up as best I can. If you’ve never done this before, a pair of kitchen scissors makes the job easy.

2. We make a simple sauce to accompany this dish by blitzing a few cloves of garlic, some peeled ginger and a couple of spring onions in a small food processor, and then cooking the mixture briefly in a little vegetable oil. Season with salt to taste.

3. Serve the rice with the chicken, ginger sauce and soy. Enjoy!

So…would I buy a $30 chicken again?

Not on a weekly basis, but for a regular once a month treat, definitely. This was, hands down, the best chicken rice we’ve ever made. The minute I tasted the poaching stock, I knew the dish was going to be a hit. I was so happy to have five containers’ worth leftover for the freezer…

Beth’s chicken was very special – the meat was tender and richly flavoured, and the rice was aromatic and delicious. Big Boy wasn’t home that night, but Small Man declared it to be the best he’d ever tasted, and asked if we could save some for dinner the following night. Definitely a big hit!