Archive for the ‘back to basics’ Category

Cancel your plans people! We’re staying in! No gallivanting about the town because tonight is a hearty, meaty pasta night. It also happens to be another (yes! another!) occasion on which you can impress friends and relatives alike with your by-now-superior pasta making skills. “Oh, its so quick & easy to make” you will say, nochalantly, as you dish it up. “I mean, there’s the cooking time for the ragu and the drying time for the pasta” you will clarify “but you’re not doing anything during that time, are you?” And you will throw back a glass of red and look oh-so-classy. …continue reading beef & zucchini ragu on pappardelle

So you’ve bought a heap of milk, simmered with buttermilk, skimmed, drained, salted and dried. And now you have your very own, home made lump of ricotta. You’ve made one batch and eaten the lot in pancakes, on toast and with fruit. You’ve made another batch and given it away to friends. And now there’s more of it. “What to do now?” you think to yourself. Well try this. Introducing one easy recipe that can be used in a variety of situations and circumstances. It won’t do much for you when you’ve got a leaking toilet, a sick rabbit and an exam the next morning, but it’s a great thing to have in store when you have people on their way over for a “quick bite”. Especially if those people know you as the-one-who-makes-good-things-for-eating.

spinach, sans stalk

spinach & ricotta mix

ingredients:

one bunch of english spinach
100g pine nuts
200g ricotta
100g mild, melty yellow cheese (I used a fresco pecorino)
1 egg
salt & pepper

method:

1. There’s no two ways about it. Spinach is a gritty, dirty vegetable. So you’ll have to clean it up. Best way? Pull all the leaves apart and rinse them. Done that? Now stick the rinsed leaves in a colander and put the colander in a bigger bowl of water. Now soak, turning the leaves every once in a while. When you pull the colander up and out of the bowl of water, you’ll see all the dirt you almost missed. Eeeeyeurgh!

removing the stems

2. We only need the leaves for this recipe, so cut the tough stalky bit away. This may take a while. It is also a little tricky, so don’t get too caught up trying to remove all the veins. Getting rid of the central stalk should be sufficient. You can feed this bit to your bunny. Or boil it up with carrots etc for a vege stock.

spinach pre-cooking

3. You should have about 350g of spinach once they’re all sans-stalk. Shake each leaf lightly and put it in a pot. We don’t want them dripping wet or totally dry. If the water clings to the leaf, it gets to stay with the leaf.

spinach post-cooking

4. Put the pot over a low heat and stick the lid on. Check it every couple of minutes. It’ll end up looking much smaller than it did when you first started with it. Turn the heat off when the spinach is cooked all the way through.

spinach: squeezed & chopped

5. Let the spinach cool for a little while and then squeeze as much moisture out as you can with your hands. This will be hot, so please be careful. Nothing worse than hands that smell like spinach that are also burnt.

6. All squeezed out? Great. Now chop it up roughly. It likes it rough. Plus it’ll get minced later on.

pine nuts: pre-roasting

7. While all this is happening, perhaps when you’re waiting for the spinach to cool, or maybe after it’s all chopped, toss your pine nuts in a pan over low heat. No butter/oil/fat ok? Just nuts. Good? Good.

pine nuts: post-roasting

8. Toss them around every once in a while. After a couple of minutes, you’ll start to smell lovely nutty smells. That’s the oil being released. And you’ll have to watch carefully from this point on. Toss Toss Toss. Check. Squish. When the nuts have a lovely brown (but not burnt) exterior and squish easily between your finger & thumb, they’re ready. So pull ‘em off the heat.

grind ‘em up!

9. It’s all easy going from here. Toss the pine nuts in a food processor and whiz til they’re broken up a bit. Not too fine – we want to be able to feel them when we’re eating.

whizzwhizzwhurrrr!

10. Next, the two cheeses and the spinach. Go whirrrrrrrr! Again, not too fine, just until the cheese is broken up and happily distributed amongst the carnage.

add the egg

11. Finally the egg. For binding goodness. Again, just til its incorporated.

the finished mix!

12. And we’re done! This mix can be packed up into an airtight container and frozen, or used fresh from the processor. “Used for what?” you ask. For many things. Really! Things such as filled pastries and pastas and… oh, I’m giving the game away aren’t I? You’ll just have to wait & see

I was never really a cheese person. I mean, c’mon. I’m Malaysian. Not French. Not Italian. Up until I was in my mid teens, the only cheese I ever knew was the type that came singly wrapped in plastic. And it wobbled when you shook it. (And again, for effect) Wobbled. We would, on occasion have some sort of grated yellow on a lasagn-esque meal. And I’d tried the grated yellow powder on my pasta at the Pizza Hut all-you-can-eat buffet, but found it, well, a little nasty. Oh, and up until a little while ago, lactose played havoc with my body. So no cheese for me.

And then, one otherwise unmemorable day, I had some brie. I think I took it for politeness’ sake. “Some brie for you?” “Oh, er, sure. Thanks.” And all of a sudden, there was this sweet yet salty, creamy, bitey flavour permeating my unaccustomed tastebuds. “Oh… Hey… Yum!” And so it began.

Now, by all accounts, cheese can be a tricky pain-in-the-behind to make at home. It often involves tricky-to-find ingredients. Like rennet. It can also involve spending long periods of time waiting. And waiting. And waiting. So I’ve started simple. With a “ricotta”. Inverted commas because it isn’t really a ricotta, but can be used in lieu of one. Ricotta, you see, is made from the whey (as in curds and whey a la Little Miss Muffet) that is poured off when making other cheeses, like mozzarella. Because it’s made from the run-off, the yield for ricotta is fairly low. I am not the type to deal with low yield. So a cheat’s version it is! And simple too. Oh, so simple.
I’ve made two versions. One plain, one beautifully (and tastily) spiced. Recipes used here are adapted from 101 Cookbooks.

ingredients ready to go

Plain Ol’ “Ricotta” Cheese
Yield: approximately 230 grams

Ingredients:

250ml buttermilk
1 Litre milk
A pinch of salt

Equipment:

Non-reactive pot
Sieve
Tea towel or handkerchief
String
Normal ladle
Ladle with holes in it (I used a hot pot ladle)
Thermometer
Bowl

Method:

1. First things first. Make sure you have everything that you’ll need. This will save you much panic later when you are running around your kitchen, dripping teatowel in hand, yelling “String! I need some string!” and causing yourself to grey prematurely.

2. Got it all? Good. Now tip your milk, buttermilk and just a pinch of salt into your pot and heat gently. Stick your finger in and taste it. This is how your cheese will taste. So if you like a saltier ricotta, add a touch more.

all the ingredients in the pot

3. Heat the mixture slowly. It will, for a while yet, look like nothing is happening. But keep with it. And stir gently, scraping along the bottom from time to time.

4. Check the temperature. Still nothing? That’s ok. Because when it hits 65C, you’ll suddenly notice that your liquid is thinner and lumpier than before. Keep stirring though. That’s right. Stir Stir STIR!

65C: starting to come together

5. The curds will now be coming together and becoming more prominent. Is it time yet? No. You have to wait until the temperature-hits-80C-and-almost-there-wait-and-YES! Turn the stove off and let it sit for five minutes while you prepare for the next step.

6. Here’s where you set up your straining device. Place a sieve over a bowl. Now line said sieve with a tea towel or men’s hanky. Why the gender discrimination? Men’s hankies are bigger. Ok? Ok.

my trusty straining device

7. Using your normal ladle, carefully press down on the surface of the cheese – you don’t want to break the layer, you just want to collect the liquid it’s sitting in so you can discard it. If you’re a deft hand, you can try to carefully pour the liquid out of the pot here. I’m not a deft hand. Not at all.

scooping the curds out

8. Got most of that liquid out? Good. Now using your ladle-with-holes-in-it, slowly scoop up the curds and place them in your straining device. Keep going until you’ve caught all the curds. (Hint for the uninitiated: curds = lumpy white bits that will form your cheese). This will get hard near the bottom, so try draining as much of the liquid off as you can again and then going for the last few floaty bits.

my super techy dripping device

9. Grab the corners of your tea towel / hanky and pull them together to form a cheese-containing sack. Tie around the middle like a Christmas Pudding and hang it over the bowl from a convenient height. I used my cupboard handles for this job.

10. Drain the cheese for about 10 minutes, or until the tea towel stops dripping profusely. When you open it up, you’ll see a mass of cheese inside. Hoorah! Carefully group it together with your hands and place it in a container to cool. As an optional extra, use a teacup to mould your cheese into a nice little shape before packing it up. Just try not to push down too much, as this will squeeze the moisture out of the cheese and make it hard.

11. Voila! You now have a lovely curdy cheese for eating with pears on toast. Or, for using in one of a number of recipes, some of which will be posted here, and soon!

cheese and pears – yummo!

Lovely Spiced “Ricotta” Cheese

All you need to do is add ¼ tsp mixed spice and the zest of a lemon in with your milks in step 2. This version is lovely and fragrant, without being sweet.

Recipes using this mixture include one times deliciously moist cake. Coming soon.

Some things are just too easy to take for granted. Pasta comes from a packet. Or, if you’re feeling fancy, from the cooler section of that uber-cute deli down the road. Bread comes in a plastic bag. And, sometimes, where the sales are on and the mood strikes, in a brown paper bag from the supermarket. If you’re nearby, and it’s open, it might come as a baguette from the Vietnamese Bakery. And then there’s cheese, which, if you’re of Asian descent, is usually something seen as a bit “other”. A little pricey. A little too good at inducing that horribly crippling lactose-intolerance-stomach-ache. To be bought from the supermarket. To eat melted. Only melted.

Which got me thinking. I’ve made pasta. Numerous times. I make cakes and biscuits on an almost never ending cycle. What’s stopping me from trying the other stuff? The food that pops off the shelf and into the trolley without a second thought. Which is how I ended up here. Making cheese. And bread. And other things yet to come. It has been, expectedly, time consuming. But also rewarding.

Over the next couple of months (or so) I’ll be making recipes for items I like to call Back-to-Basics. And, so you aren’t stuck with a whole heap of pasta and no-one to play with, I’ll post up a couple of variations, mixes and meals that can be made using said Basic. If I remember to, I’ll stick a link to all of the Back to Basics (and associated recipes) on this page – so bookmark it if you feel the urge to do so.

*deep breath*

This is gonna be fun

Back to Basics – Index

(note: Links will be made active & added as recipes are posted. )

Basic: Fresh Lemon Rind Pasta

Mix it up:
Ricotta & Spinach Ravioli

Make a Meal of it:
Smoked Trout Linguine
Beef, Zucchini & Mushroom Ragu

Basic: “Ricotta” Cheese

Mix it up:
Ricotta, Spinach & Pine Nut Mix

Make a Meal of it:
Ricotta & Spinach Ravioli
Ricotta & Spinach Pastry Parcels
Ricotta, Hazelnut & Lemon Cake
Always Perfect Pancakes

It has been far too long between drinks, dear friends. Or, perhaps, the time it has taken for this post to appear is due to the distance between drinks being far too short. And when the distance between drinks (both of the physical and metaphorical straint) is being punctuated with dinners out, dinners in, weddings, celebrations, commiserations, sickness, health and rain, all I really want to do is sit. Big, fat bowl of pasta in one hand, fork in the other. Pepper and a squeeze of freshly cut lemon at the ready, where possible. Even better if said pasta involves a certain honey smoked friend we have come to know as Mister Fish.

lemon zest pasta

This pasta is wonderfully light in flavour, despite the richness of the smoked trout, the cream and the cheese. The family? They loved it. Over ate and then sat on the sofa watching that dancing show whilst clutching their stomachs. It does taste better when straight from the pot, as fresh pasta has a tendency to soak up all its surrounding goodness when fridge’d post-intermingling. Which is not necessarily a bad thing – I had this for lunch the next day and it was fan-tastic. A squeeze of lemon to freshen it up and a bit of salad on the side to counteract the cream’s impact on my hips.

the inimitable mister fish

smoked trout linguine

ingredients:

one recipe fresh lemon rind pasta
one honey smoked trout (250g)
knob of butter (thumb sized)
300ml fresh cream
50g fresco pecorino (cubed)
50g fromage blanc (crumbled)
half a bunch of chives
one lemon (for squeezing)
salt & pepper

method:

1. Make your pasta first. The rest can be done while it’s hanging out to dry. Not making pasta? Well, I guess you could take it out of the packet at this stage. That would be a good start. It will not make you feel as accomplished, but it will do for now. Also, chop your chives. And your cheese. This will save you time (and ensuing panic later).

prep at the beginning: a lifesaver!

2. Have you dealt with a whole smoked fish before? Delightful isn’t it? Well, sort of. Once you’ve wrangled the little mister (or is it a miss?) out of its vaccuum sealed pack, you’ll have to rip the skin off and start removing the flesh. Easiest way to do it? Slide your fingers down the middle and then slowly ease the flesh off the bones, watching for any that may come off with the meat. You’ll be able to remove these later when pulling the fish apart.

separating the flesh from the bones

3. So go on! Get all oily and fishy smelling. Pull that sucker apart! Do not (as I may have done) absentmindedly answer your phone during this task. It will smell like fish for a while. And by a while, I mean a week.

mister trout loses his backbone

4. So here is the part where you get saucy. Put your butter and cream in a pot that is big enough to hold all your fish plus the pasta. Let the butter melt into the cream. Mmmmm, yellow specked fatty dairy produce.

mister fish gets saucy with the cream

5. Now toss your fish into the cream and heat gently. The idea here is to allow the smoky, fishy flavours to infuse into the cream. Altogether now, “Ahhhhhh!“

pasta boiling away happily

6. Is your pasta cooking? Well the time is now! Lotsa boiling salted water. I use a deep frying basket, because it’s just easier that way. Pasta in basket, basket in water, a swirl with the chopsticks and voila! 30 seconds later, it can be drained and tipped into a lightly olive oiled dish in one quick movement. Do this in batches.

cheesy goodness being added

7. While you’re cooking the pasta (or immediately after if this is too tricky) toss the cubes of pecorino into the creamy mix and stir til they melt in. This will thicken the creamy sauce, without making it too cheesy and stringy.

8. Melted goodness? Check! Cooked pasta? Check! All that needs to be done now is a quick season (salt and pepper shakers ahoy!) and a swift handful of chives into the cream mixture.

pasta’s done. now where’s that fish…

9. Toss the (now cooked) pasta into the creamy sauce mix and stir it around happily. There will only be enough “sauce” to just coat the pasta. So keep tossing til each strand is well coated.

10. All you need to do now is serve it. Crumble your fromage blanc over the top. A good squeeze of lemon over the top of each serve (just before eating) really lifts the flavour from “yeah quite good” to “wahoo! party in my mouth!” Loveit.

lick your lips, help your hips!

recipe notes:

Cheese varieties too confusing? A mozzerella will do nicely in place of the pecorino. It won’t have as much bite, but will build the sauce in a similar fashion. Add some parmesan to it for flavour if you’re going down this route. A crumbly fetta will do nicely in place of the fromage blanc.