I like breast...lamb's breast.

And you thought I was being dirty!

Lamb's breast (also called lamb ribs/riblettes in the US) are a very under used cut of lamb. It's cheap, but very fatty, so can be a bugger to cook.

There's all sorts of recipes for braised or boned breast, but not too many for bone-in, roasted. I found this on the web when I was looking for recipes and, being oven roasted, I was all over it.
 

Ingredients:

3 lbs breast of lamb

1 tsp whole cloves

¼ cup honey

¼ cup lemon juice

1 tsp salt 

Method:

Preheat oven to 325°.

Place lamb breasts on rack in shallow roasting pan. Bake 1 hour and 45 minutes. Drain off excess fat. 

 

Combine cloves, honey, lemon juice and salt; then pour over lamb. Bake about 20 minutes more.

I served the lamb with braised cabbage and slow roasted vegetables.

Slice the cabbage as thick or thin as you like. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a medium sized saucepan over medium heat, add the cabbage, cover and turn heat to a lower setting. Stir the cabbage after a few minutes to ensure it gets coated in the butter. Keep stirring the cabbage every few minutes until it it soft, then take the lid off the saucepan and allow it to "dry" on a low heat, stirring every now and then, until there is some colour on the cabbage.

 

Slow roasted vegetables

Ingredients:

1 tsp sage

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp rosemary

2 cups cubed sweet potato

2 cups chopped carrots

2 cups cauliflower

2 cups cubed parsnips

2 cups cubed potato

2 cups cubed butternut

Method:

Preheat the oven to 325F (160C).

Peel the sweet potato, butternut, potato, carrots and parsnips and cut into cubes.

Cut similarly sized pieces of cauliflower.

Place all the veggies in a large roasting pan. Season with salt and pepper. Add herbs.

Roast at 325F covered in aluminum foil for 30 minutes. Stir vegetables.

Cook another 30 minutes. Stir vegetables again.  

Place back in the over, uncovered this time - checking every 10 minutes until done (should be fork tender).

So there you go. It takes a while to cook, but is very much worth the effort.

A word of caution, the lamb breast is VERY fatty as it consists of layers of meat and fat. You will have to remove the layers one at a time if you don't want to eat the fat.

This dish is not for the health conscience, unless you only have it about once every 6 months or so.

Enjoy!

Matt 

Super sweet tooth only...Banoffee Pie

I've been wanting to make this for a while, but for some reason or another, I haven't until now.

This recipe is for a Banoffee pie. It is a super, super sweet dessert that's main ingredient is condensed milk. I remember back in Australia, we used to get condensed milk in a tube and just eat it that way. I also remember my Grandpa and Nanna using condensed milk in their cuppa tea. Anyway here is a wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banoffee_pie if you're interested in it's history.

There's actually two ways to make the "toffee" part. One is to put the can of condensed milk in a saucepan of water and boil it for about 3 hours, making sure the can is covered with water at all times.

The way I made it is actually much easier and takes quite a lot less time.

Ingredients:

395g can sweetened condensed milk
75g butter, chopped
½ cup (110g) firmly packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup
2 large bananas (460g), sliced thinly
300ml thickened cream, whipped

pastry
1½ cups (225g) plain flour
1 tablespoon icing sugar
140g cold butter, chopped
1 egg yolk

2 tablespoons cold water

Method:

Make pastry.

Pastry
Process flour, sugar and butter until crumbly; add egg yolk and water, process until ingredients come together. Knead dough on floured surface until smooth. Wrap in plastic; refrigerate 30 minutes.

Grease 24cm-round loose-based fluted flan tin. Roll dough between sheets of baking paper until large enough to line tin. Ease dough into tin; press into base and side. Trim edge; prick base all over with fork. Cover; refrigerate 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C fan-forced.

Place tin on oven tray; cover dough with baking paper, fill with dried beans or rice. Bake 10 minutes; remove paper and beans carefully from pie shell. Bake a further 10 minutes; cool.

I cheated and use a store bought pie base, as I can get them for $1.50 each and I really don't think I can make it that cheap.

Lay out your ingredients so you're ready to go.

Meanwhile, combine condensed milk, butter, sugar and syrup in medium saucepan; cook over medium heat, stirring, about 10 minutes or until mixture is caramel-coloured. 

Stand 5 minutes; pour into pie shell, cool.

Top caramel with banana; top with whipped cream.

I have to admit using whipped cream from a can because I didn't have any thickened cream in the fridge. Just get a 600ml (pint) carton of thickened cream and beat with an electric mixer until it's stiff, adding a bit of sugar to taste.

This is NOT a dessert for those watching their weight (like me) but a little bit won't kill ya!

Enjoy

Matt

Recipes by request - Vanilla Slice

Yesterday I tried my hand at a recipe that I was asked to make by a friend on MUO.

This treat is found in pretty much all Australian bakeries and is derived from a French pastry called Mille-feuille, here's the wiki on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mille-feuille. The Australian version is topped with either passionfruit icing or icing sugar.

So, I looked around and finally found a recipe that didn't use custard powder, as one, I don't have any and two, I prefer to make custard from scratch because it's really easy.  Also, with this recipe, I didn't make the passionfruit icing because they are just about impossible to get in NE Ohio and I don't have any tinned pulp either...which reminds me, I have to go to the local Latin store and see if they have any.

Ingredients:

1 pkt ready-prepared puff pastry, thawed

icing (confectioner’s) sugar for dusting

3 cups (700ml) milk

60g butter

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

⅔ cup (150g) caster (superfine) sugar

⅓ cup cornflour (cornstarch)

½ cup (125ml) water

6 egg yolks

I've seen a few recipes that call for 8, even 12 egg yolks. The more egg yolks you put in, the more yellow the custard will be. At the end of the day, it's up to you, but don't use less than 6.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350ºF).

Place puff pastry sheets on baking trays lined with baking paper. Top each piece with another baking tray as a weight and bake for 35 minutes or until puffed and golden. Once out of the oven, if they are too puffed, cover with a clean tea towel and gently push down. Cool on racks. 

Or, you could do this the way I did, but won't do again, and put the puff pastry on a baking sheet, prick all over with a fork and bake for 35 minutes. Then, when you remove them, cover them with a tea towel and press them flat. I think the other way would work better. 

To make the filling, place the milk, cream, butter, vanilla and sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat and cook until hot but not boiling.

 

Mix the cornflour and water to a smooth paste and whisk into the hot milk mixture. Keep stirring, otherwise you'll end up with lumpy, instead of smooth custard.

Add the egg yolks and stir, allowing to simmer, for 6 minutes or until the mixture has thickened.This is REALLY important, because you have to cook the mixture enough to get the raw cornflour taste out of it. Also make sure you stir or whisk the yolks when you put them in straight away, otherwise your custard will be a bit lumpy with bits of cooked yolk in it.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Now, don't do what I did and start this later in the day, then go out somewhere and finish it the next day. The custard will set and the finished product won't look as good as it should. (BTW, I don't usually put something on here that didn't turn out perfect, but there's quite a bit of time involved in making this and I certainly didn't want it to go to waste because I don't know when I'll be making this again.)

Place one of the pastry sheets in a 20cm x 30cm slice tin lined with non-stick baking paper.

Spread over the filling and top with the remaining pastry. 

See what I mean about the custard not being the best it could be...you can't let get too cold before you assemble the Vanilla Slice. 

Refrigerate for 2 hours or until set. To serve, dust with icing (confectioners) sugar or passionfruit icing and slice.

To make passionfruit icing:

3 passionfruit, halved and pulp removed for use

Or, 2 tbsp tinned passionfruit pulp and syrup

1 tsp softened butter

1 1/2 cups icing (confectioners) sugar 

Sift icing sugar into a bowl. Add butter and passionfruit pulp and beat with a wooden spoon until combined.

So there you have it, if you don't make the mistakes that I did, you'll end up with a pretty much perfect Vanilla Slice.

If you've got a recipe you'd like me to try, just let me know and I'll have a bash at it.

Enjoy.

Matt

South East Asian Goodies - Vietnam Edition

I had a hankering for fresh spring rolls last week and I wondered what to make as the mail meal. I wanted to make another Vietnamese dish, so I trolled the net and found Luke Nyugen's recipes on the SBS website. (SBS is a TV station back home in Australia that shows a lot of multicultural stuff.) Luke is a Vietnamese Australian chef and he did a series of shows in Vietnam cooking his way around and exploring the culture. Here's a link to the website: http://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipeindex/RecipeByTVShowMain/536/1/noperpage/90

So, I found a chicken dish that I liked the look of and I knew I had everything I needed to make it...plus, it filled my Asian affinity I have.

First off, I started prepping the spring rolls because they were the most labour intensive...but so worth it. 

 Vietnamese Fresh Spring Rolls

Ingredients:

56g/2oz rice vermicelli

8 rice wrappers

8 large cooked prawns/shrimp, peeled

bean sprouts

fresh Thai basil

fresh mint

fresh cilantro

boston/bib lettuce

Vietnamese dipping sauce:

4 tsp fish sauce

¼ cup water

2 tbsp fresh lime juice

2tbsp sugar

1 clove garlic, minced

½ tsp sriracha sauce

Method:

Bring a medium saucepan of water to boil. Boil vermicelli for 4 minutes and drain.

Fill a large bowl with hot water. Dip one wrapper at a time into the hot water for 1 second to soften. Lay wrapper flat on a tea towel.

These are the wrappers you need to get:

In a row across the centre, place 2 prawn halves, a handfull of vermicelli, bean sprouts, basil, mint, cilantro and lettuce, leaving about 2” uncovered on each side. Fold sides inwards, then tightly wrap the rolls, beginning at the end with the lettuce.

In a small bowl, mix the fish sauce, water, lime juice, garlic, sugar and sriracha.

I actually bought the prepared fish sauce...it's the bomb!

Serve the rolls with the sauce mixture.

Next is the chicken, which is actually quite simple, but the flavour is absolutely fantastic.

 

Chicken cooked in ginger (ga ban kho gung)

Ingredients:

3 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp sugar
500g/ 1lb chicken, chopped into bite sized pieces
2 tbsp finely sliced ginger
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp finely diced garlic

1/4 chicken stock
4 spring onions (scallions), sliced into 4cm lengths
Pinch of cracked black pepper
1 long chilli, julienned, to garnish
Jasmine rice, to serve

Method:

Cut up the chicken, minced/grate the ginger and dice the garlic.

In a mixing bowl, combine fish sauce, oyster sauce, and sugar. Mix well, then add the chicken and ginger, massaging the marinade into the flesh.

Cover and place in the fridge to marinate for 20 minutes.

Bring a wok or saucepan to medium heat, then add oil and garlic, and cook until fragrant.

Turn the heat to high, then add the chicken, sealing all sides. Cover the chicken with the stock, pour in the remaining marinade and bring to the boil.

Skim off all impurities until clear (I didn't really have any because I used store bought stock, not home made.) and cover the pan. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add spring onions and cracked black pepper, stir and cook for a further minute.

Serve with jasmine rice preferably or white rice if you don't have jasmine.

To cook the rice, put the amount of rice you want to cook into a saucepan and rinse with water until the water is relatively clear. You will have to do this a few times to get the starch off the rice. 

Once you've got the water relatively clear, put enough water in the saucepan so that it covers the rice up to the first joint of your finger.

Next, bring the rice and water to a boil, then turn the heat down to a simmer.

Cook until the water has disappeared and there are "craters" in the rice.

Once you see the craters, cover the saucepan, turn the heat to low and steam the rice for 20 minutes. Take off the heat and leave covered to at least 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, fluff with a fork and serve with whatever dish you have. 

The rolls would be a hit at a picnic because if you keep them cold, the insides should stay crisp for a while...just don't let the rolls touch each other as they have a tendency to stick together. 

Enjoy.

Matt