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Bacon Slice

October 23, 2009 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

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Still playing with sweet dough, I baked these bacon slices from a recipe in Richard Bertinet’s Dough (have I convinced you to buy this book yet?  It’s bread-life changing..)

Step 1: Make up a batch of sweet dough.  You’ll only need half for this recipe, so use the remainder to make some pain viennois as I did, or fry it up into doughnuts. Or make a double batch of bacon slices…

Step 2: After the dough has risen for the first time, turn it onto a lightly floured bench and divide it into two.  Using just half the dough, roll it out to about 5mm (3/8″)  thick, then cut it into six 12cm (5″) squares.  Put the squares onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper.  Don’t worry if they’re not perfectly square – mine were a bit wonky but they still turned out fine.

Step 3: Spoon a tablespoon of béchamel sauce into the centre of each square, then fold the opposite corners in to meet at the middle.  Lay a piece of bacon over the top of each slice, then cover with another sheet of parchment (to stop it sticking) and a tea towel.  Allow to prove another 45 minutes.  Preheat the oven to 210C (with fan).

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Step 4: Brush a beaten egg all over the dough, then sprinkle a generous pinch of grated cheese over the top (Bertinet recommends Gruyère or Emmenthal, I used Picasso sheep’s milk cheese).  Reduce the oven temperature to 200C (with fan) and bake for about 15 minutes until puffed and dark golden brown.

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Note: Bertinet recommends making béchamel sauce with 25g unsalted butter, 20g plain flour and 150g full cream milk.  This makes enough sauce for six bacon slices.  The sauce doesn’t include any grated cheese, but it would have made a nice addition.  Season with salt and pepper before spooning it onto the dough.

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments »

Cool Thing #10: Bundt Pans

October 21, 2009 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

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Hello, my name is Celia and I’m a bundt panaholic.  It’s been three weeks, four days and eight hours since I purchased my last bundt.

It all started five years ago, when Maude bought a Nordic Ware daisy pan. We’ve both been collecting these magnificent cast aluminium pans ever since.  Surprisingly, our extensive collections have very little overlap – perhaps a culinary manifestation of the “I’m not wearing the same dress as you” phenomenon.

I don’t know how many pans I have, and I refuse to count them (trust me, it’s better that way).  These Nordic Ware and Wilton cake tins are heavy, non-stick and easy to care for, and priced accordingly.  That’s why I’m posting this now, so you can get your lists off to Santa in time.

Speaking of Christmas, my friend Janelle gave me this tree bundt a couple of years ago.  I adore the toy train set that runs around the bottom of the pan.  A light dusting of icing sugar “snow” over the pine trees is the perfect way to finish off the cake.

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This Wilton Belle bundt is the most versatile tin in my collection.  It produces a cake which is elegant and easy to slice, and because the design runs all the way down the side of the pan, it can be filled to different levels (which means it can accommodate a number of different cake recipes).

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A friend once baked a packet mix in her Wilton Queen of Hearts tin and  stunned her guests by turning out a magnificent looking cake. Presentation might not be everything, but in baking terms, it counts for a lot!

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This is my current favourite – a Heritage Bundt from Nordic Ware that Big Boy bought me for Christmas last year.  It reminds me of my mother’s  Marquesite brooch.

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Most of the cakes baked in these pans only need a dusting of icing sugar to dress them up.  Here’s the cake I baked for Dan’s birthday in my Nordic Ware Chrysanthemum bundt pan.

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Some bundt pan tips:

  • To grease the pans, spray the inside with a light vegetable oil.  I always use a canola oil spray – olive oil will stain the pan, as did a rice bran oil I tried recently.
  • Reduce your oven temperature by 10 – 20C, as these pans brown much more than regular bakeware.
  • Always wait at least 10 minutes before turning your finished cake out, to maximise your chances of getting the cake out intact.
  • Don’t wash your pan in the dishwasher.  The instructions that come with the pan always say to wash by hand only, but that didn’t stop me trying the dishwasher just once.  It was a mistake.
  • Buy a soft brush to clean out any crumbs stuck to the pan.  Pete found one in the auto department – petrol heads are very protective of their cars, and as a result they’ve come up with some very gentle cleaning tools.
  • Don’t overfill your pans – two-thirds full is about right.
  • Resist the urge to buy the teeny tiny holed pans, unless you’re planning to use them for jelly or chocolates.  I bought a petit fours pan with 24 small flower moulds, but it’s hard to get perfect little cakes out of it.  It’s great for agar jellies though!  Having said that, the six holed pans like the floral one in the top photo work brilliantly for large muffin sized cakes.

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Posted in Cool Things | Tagged , , , , | 30 Comments »

Sambal

October 19, 2009 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

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We recently had dinner at Sambal, a Malaysian restaurant in Sydney’s North Ryde.

I adore Malaysian food. The spices and flavours are so appealing to me that I could eat them for every meal of the day. I’m not sure if it’s the coconut milk, or the prawn paste or the tamarind, but just typing these words can make my mouth water.

The meal was made all the better because we were dining with Marty and Joyce and their ravenous offspring.  Pete and I lived with M & J when we were in our early 20’s and thankfully, joyously, very little has changed over the years.  Getting together for a meal with them is like dining with your wolf pack on a communal antelope – if you’re slow off the mark, you’ll go hungry.

There was so much food at dinner – which usually happens when we let Joyce order – but I only managed to take a few photos.  As with most Asian cuisines, the food was shared at the table, and when you’re eating with M & J, it doesn’t stay in a pristine, photogenic state for very long.  My pleas of “don’t touch it until I’ve taken a photo” went completely unheeded.  In the end I resorted to dragging the dish in front of me and defending it with a fork while maneuvering the camera with the other hand.

The photo above is of Gulai Tumis Fish – white fish cutlets cooked with okra in a spicy, tamarind sauce.  It has that wonderful sour assam flavour so unique to Malaysian dishes.

Belachan Chicken – which Marty kept referring to as KFC, in an attempt to induce the kids to eat it (they didn’t need any encouragement) –  chicken pieces coated with shrimp powder and deep fried until dark brown, then served with Worcestershire sauce.

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Kapitan Chicken Curry – this delicious, yet simple, chicken curry  was prepared with fresh herbs, coconut milk and a little lime juice. It was perfectly matched with Nasi Lemak, plain rice cooked in coconut milk.

Did you know that Nasi Lemak is a standard breakfast dish in Malaysia and Indonesia?  How cool would it be to have coconut rice and curry for breakfast every morning?  Sigh.  I would be a beached whale.

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By the time dessert arrived, everyone was slightly less starving, so I managed a couple of decent photos.

Ice Kachang is a large, impressive dish, but deceptively so, as the bulk of it is just shredded ice.  It also has black grass jelly, corn kernels, palm seeds and red beans, along with a generous splash of evaporated milk, rose syrup and gula melaka (palm sugar).

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And while Ice Kachang is probably my favourite, this Sago Pudding is a close second – the sago (tapioca) pearls are boiled until clear, then moulded. It was served with coconut milk and gula melaka syrup.  Doesn’t it look like a cluster of frog eggs?

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Sambal
Shop 7, 285 – 297 Lane Cove Road
North Ryde  NSW  2113
(02) 9889 7997 or sambal@iinet.net.au

Note: There is parking at the rear of the restaurant – turn in at the McDonald’s entrance and drive around to the back.

Posted in Food & Friends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Stardust

October 16, 2009 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

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Orion Nebula M42
© Peter Velez  2009

. . . . .

Did you know that we’re all made of stardust?

The molecules within us, the basic atoms that make up our bodies, are the residue of exploding stars millenia ago.

Here’s how David the geologist and astronomer explained it to me:

In the original big bang, the elements hydrogen and helium were created. Clouds of these elements eventually coalesced to form stars, where nuclear fusion took place, like in our Sun.

Fusion reactions eventually create “heavy elements”, that is, anything other than H (hydrogen) or He (helium). These sink into the centre of the star due to their greater density.

When the star goes supernova, which they all do sooner or later, these heavy elements are expelled into the void, where they eventually form planets, meteorites , comets and so forth. Since we are a product of our planet (Earth) and every atom in us comes from the planet, we are made out of once stellar material.

Look at it this way.

You get atoms from a carrot. The carrots atoms were once dirt. The dirt was once rock, the rock is made of heavy elements, all of which were once in the centre of a star.

Regardless of your “living” age, the atoms in your body are billions of years old.  When life is wearing me down and the day to day seems overwhelming, I find this thought comforting.

It reminds me of the enormousness and complexity of life, and of how little control I have over any of it.  It makes the things that I worry about seem trivial.

It reminds me to view the world with awe and wonder, and to ponder on our connectedness to all things.  I often wonder where the atoms that are me have been recycled from.

It reminds me to give thanks for the gift of being alive – and for the brief use of this stardust for the time I’m here.   And to focus on enjoying the time I’ve been given!

. . . . .

We are stardust…we are golden…billion year old carbon
And we’ve got to get ourselves…back to the garden

Joni Mitchell, Woodstock 1969

 

Posted in Musings | 4 Comments »

Chocolate

October 14, 2009 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

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It’s Spring in Sydney, and the mild weather is ideal for chocolate making. I love watching the shiny tempered blocks pop out of their moulds.

The large bar below was a birthday present for Tim, made from Belgian milk chocolate.  Once you learn how to temper chocolate, you’ll never be caught short for a gift again.  This gorgeous mould came from Candyland Crafts in the US and I’ve used it at least a dozen times, more than justifying the $1.99 I paid for it.

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A bowl of tempered dark chocolate (Callebaut 811, 54% cocoa) became a chorus of chocolate frogs, studded with roasted cacao nibs…

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…a cluster of plain dark chocolates in assorted shapes (each one small enough to be an acceptable accompaniment to morning coffee)…

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…and some very special truffles, filled with a caramelised white chocolate ganache.  The end result was reminiscent of a burnt caramel truffle.  I’d offer more detailed tasting notes, but Big Boy ate most of them while my back was turned!

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Trivia of the day:

Did you know that a group of frogs is known as a chorus, a colony or an army?  By contrast, the collective noun for toads is a knot.

Posted in Food & Friends, Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments »

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