Cultured French butter, unpredictable yet so special

The butter we get here in Australia is nice, good flavour and good consistency. Not to mention great to,cook with, but the traditional,cultured butter of France and the old days, is the most splendid of things and the simplest thing to make with the main ingredients being patience and cream.

They key to good butter is great cream, and the fresher the better so if you have a local dairy or a farmer who will part with some of their liquid gold always go for that option, but, if like me, you are just starting out and want to give it a try, then get single cream ( unthickened with no additives) from the supermarket along with some natural yoghurt

To make 250 gms of butter you will need

• 500ml single cream
• 2 tbsp of natural live yoghurt ( or buttermilk from a previous batch)

Now the first part is simply about time and sterilisation. I use a jar with a clasp on it for convenience but you can really use any container that will hold all the cream you want to turn to butter. Make sure you sterilise this properly. I use the Milton sterilisation tablets and some cold water to rinse it out afterwards. This part is really important because you need a clean place for good bacteria to grow.



Next add your cream and yoghurt to you container and stir so it is combined properly, then close the lid and leave at room temp (approx 20 degrees c) for 12 hours. In this time the bacteria will grow and slightly thicken and sour the cream, don't worry this is what we want because is will give your butter all it's flavour.

Pour all this cream into either a buttern churn or a mixer with a paddle. I have the advantage of a mixer with a cream whipping attachment, it's very fast but doesn't allow a lot of buttermilk to come out while it is churning. Either way on slow allow this to churn, it will first turn to whipped cream, then as the butter fat particles start to group together it will start to turn yellow and then you will notice it will split, continue to mix until the butter clumps together.

Put all of this into a bowl and drain all the buttermilk into a sterilised jar and keep for making the next lot of butter, or buttermilk scones.

Chill the mix and once cold start to compress and get rid of all the buttermilk out of the butter.



Keep cool and it will last in your fridge for about a week... If it lasts that long!



Have fun!

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Desserts, everything is sweet

Not being a masterchef fan, the idea of sharing something i found on a masterchef contestants blog is hard for me. But here i am.

Kylie Millar was a contestant in the 2012 Masterchef Australia and her desserts and her passion for them is intoxicating, And its great to see that she has continued ofter the show to meet and work with some of my favourite chefs from all around australia

But looking at her work i am absolutely amazed at the quality and i wish i had the patience and the skill in pastry as she does, Dont get me wrong i can make pastry but as a chef i have always been the one slinging the pans and working the grill.... or yelling the orders and making the decisions... But Dessert.... yeah it aint my strong suit.

Please check out her Article at http://kyliemillar.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/life-is-sweet_3.html and show her some support on twitter @kyliejmillar

Cheers

Marscapone.... Why have a bought you all these years

I am a sucker for marscapone cheese ( yes it is a cheese) and for years I have bought it for different uses, the most popular of which is tiramisu. BUT NO MORE.

I recently come into possession of a book explaining just how easy marscapone was to make and although I was a but sceptical to say the least I gave it a crack and can I say.... WOW! Not only was it simple it took no time and the results are incredible. It has a beautiful consistency and the flavour is rich with a slight tart note.

So onto how to do it! And the best part is you need nothing fancy except a digital thermometer and even then you don't really need it you can tell the cream is at temperature when it is starting to steam and just before it starts to boil but it is always nice to be precise.

To make enough for yourself make this single recipe it will make about 450gm worth, and you can always multiply the recipe depending on how much you are going to need, if using in another recipe start this one 24 hours before to give the marscapone time to set.

 

What you will need

500ml single pure cream, make sure that if you buy it from the supermarket it is pure cream and doesn't have any thickeners or other additives.

1/2 tsp of white vinegar ( I used white wine vinegar one time but if ound the flavour really lingered and wasn't really good for desserts but was fine in savoury dishes.)

 

Heat your cream over a double boiler to 92 degrees C.

Add your vinegar and stir for a minute to make sure it is all combined

The cream will start to slightly separate and curdle, it may not be totally noticeable but the cream should thicken to a coating consistency ( that's where it coats the back of the spoon/spatula evenly and doesn't run off... Check out the pic below.)

Take off threat and allow to cool for 20 mins.

Strain through cheese cloth, or if cheese cloth is unavailable I use clean chux dish cloths ( make sure they are new and not that manky one that has been on the sink for the last 2 months)

Place in the fridge overnight to drain over a bowl.

Once strained place in airtight container and use within 3 days

 

 

If you want to make vanilla marscapone add a scrapped vanilla bean to the mix while bringing the cream up to temperature, and remove the bean before adding the vinegar.

 

Now I know what your thinking... ARE YOU SERIOUS... Yes I am it really is that simple

I used it in a dish of peas, speck, chicken leek and pasta tho their night and it was superb! Have made tiramisu with it yet, but once I do I will let you know how it goes.

Try it and let me know how you go or what you make with it! Happy to share people recipes on here for everyone to try!

Until next time!

 

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Our food wastage lives

Watched this movie yesterday, it is amazing to think that the life we live now has such a large wastage component.

Please watch it and see why i believe in having a small garden and teaching the next generation about food and how to be more self sustaining is crucial to the world.

Until next time!

Pickle for your thoughts?

I have to say... I love pickles

And even more then eating them I like making them, it was something I learnt while working in a restaurant with a emphasis on making everything we possibly could so when it came to our plough mans we made as much as conceivable, pickles, bresaola, fresh cheese, pickles eggs and our extremely special ciabatta.

Pickles are something that are so simple that the idea of buying them just seems strange to me now, although I am known to buy the odd jar of pickled jalapeños as a tv snack.

 

I make 2 different pickles that I totally love, zucchini and onion, and the recipes for both is relatively similare. To begin with prep your veg so that they are even sizes. This will make sure that all of it will pickle at the same time and you won't have some that are finished and some that are still going. I then put all my veg into sterilised jars and make sure it is in there nice and tight.

The second part is the pickle liquor, and this is where you can have some fun! For the zucchini I like to give it a picalily style pickle with coriander seeds, turmeric and cardamom. For the onion I spice the pickle up with a bit of star anise, chilli and more coriander seeds. The anise with the onions is really amazing and the slight aniseed flavour gives it a really full mouth feel.

To make the pickle base I simple heat a litre of white wine vinegar and as it gets to a simmer I add sugar until it is slightly sweet but still has a lot of bit from the vinegar. You can interchange white and red wine vinegar depending on what you want to do, in fact any vinegar will be good depending on what you want to pickle. Pickled eggs in a raspberry wine vinegar is a revelation!

With the pickle made and all your ingredients in your jars simple top the jars up with the pickling liquor and store in the fridge, allow at least a week for the pickle to impart all its flavour and then enjoy with cold meats or on their own with a couple of beers!

 

Please remember to tell everyone if you like my posts and please leave me a comment if you try and like the recipes!

 

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Fungai, growing and preserving

Who doesn't love mushrooms? Well a few people, but me personally I love them, and I really wish I had the skills to go foraging for them myself but I just don't, so on my journey of growing as much as I can, I have gotten a grow your own mushroom kit from a local hardware store.

To begin with... These are not a instant thing, it takes about 3 weeks for them to start to pop up, and if the temperature does anything silly in that time (goes up or down dramatically) the they will stop growing, it's really frustrating! But despite all this I have had some success and even dried some for use in some of my favourite dishes such as risotto and casseroles.

Drying food is a very simple process, especially with a lot of us having reverse cycle air conditioners and fan forced ovens. Depending on what you want to dry will depend on the process. For mushrooms it's as simple as slicing them evenly and leaving them on a perforated tray near the air cond to dry out... And it creates quite a good result with minimal effort. One of the other things I have tried is a instant more poix by drying carrot dust, celery and onion until all were in powder form. This works well for slow cooked meals but doesn't give enough to be a meal base on its own.




Try doing this with anything, if our house isnt warm enough a oven on the lowest setting with the door slightly ajar will work well too.



Try t out and let me know.

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French radish's and the joys of growing

For anyone who hasn't grown a vegetable ( or anything really) the idea of starting a vege garden is quite daunting and can stop you from even starting. For me the idea was great but I just couldn't bring myself to take that initial step of plating my garden.

Eventually I got over it though

I now have 3 things growing in my little garden boxes, French breakfast radish, mustard cress and garlic. And I know I know it may seem like a strange group of things to start with but trust me, if you start in spring this will energise you to start growing some more useful stuff. I also have some simple herbs growing on my window sill, just basil and parsley, but they are satisfying and I enjoy the natural flavours that you just can't seem to get from the store bought stuff.

If you want to start growing I would suggest going and finding some heirloom variety plants that are quick growing, this will make it easier for you to get the motivation to continue.This brings me to my radish's, I finally got to harvest a few small ones this morning, and can I say, they are incredible! These lovely little things are oblong in shape and sweeter then there cherry cousins, and it is said that the French eat them sliced on bread for breakfast. I just love to eat them like grapes, in a big bowl with nothing else, but they are also good with hummus or in a simple salad of rocket with a simple vinegarette and some crispy pork belly.

Probably the most important thing about these little beauties is you don't need anything special to grow them, just be patient, I planted them about 2 months ago and although they are ment to grow in about 24 days these have taken quite a bit longer, but now that the lovely Tasmanian spring wether is here they are growing so fast it's hard to keep up.

 

Now all I have to do is find a good way to preserve them. S if you have any ideas please let me know, although I don't expect them to last that long the option to store some of these beauties is just to tempting.

 

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Bread and butter... Oh the simple Pleasure

There is nothing quite like fresh bread and butter, what's even better is when you make the bread and the real cultured butter yourself.

Fresh bread isn't something that should be feared, and you don't need a mixer or any special ingredients to make it work either, although a mixer would be nice. The entire process only takes a couple of hours and the result is amazing, you get a lovely sweet crusty loaf of bread that would be great on the tables of any restaurant let alone on your own table with freshly made cultured butter. And trust me, you haven't had butter until you have made and eaten your own cultured butter, I will add the recipe for this later on, but it is so ridiculously simple that you will wonder why you have never had it before.

But back to the bread. I have made a lot of bread, in restaurants and at home and I always come back to this recipes because of its simplicity and the fact that it can be made really easily in a couple of hours. The trick with it is to use shopping bags to make your own little proving chamber.

 

 

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup warm water (30-34 degrees c)

• 1 tablespoon of active dried yeast

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 tbsp sugar

• 1 tbsp butter

• 1/2 cup milk

• 3 cups all-purpose flour, approximately

 

Preparation:

1. In small ramekin, add the warm water and sugar. Sprinkle dry yeast over water and stir slightly. Let sit for 10-15 minutes or until yeast starts to bubble.

2. In a small sauce pan, add milk and butter and heat until warm to the touch.

3. In large stand mixer fitted with dough hook, mix in first 2 cups of flour and salt on low speed. Add milk mixture and then yeast. Begin adding last cup of flour gradually, until dough begins to form and starts moving away from the sides of the bowl and clinging to the dough hook.

4. Turn dough out onto floured board and knead, adding small amounts of flour. You will knead the dough an additional 8-10 minutes until it is soft and smooth, not sticky. If you add too much flour, your dough will be heavy and dense, causing gluten to form.

5. Spray large bowl with non-stick spray and place dough in the bowl, turning once to coat. Place you shopping bag over the top and tuck underneath the bowl. Let rise in a draft-free spot for one hour. If your oven has a proofing feature, this is a great place for the first rise. Also, do not leave it rise on a sunny spot on your counter or it will form a crust and won't be as good.

6. After the first rise, take dough out of the bowl, place on a floured board, and punch down slightly. Shape dough into loaf and place into a greased pan. Cover again with plactic shopping bag and let rise again for 30-45 minutes.

7. During the second rise, preheat your oven to as hot as you can get it. Place the bread inside and throw a splash of water on the bottom of the oven to create some steam. Bake for 45 minutes until the loaf is brown. If bread is browning too quickly before end of baking time, place a piece of tin foil over top and continue to bake. In the last 5 mins, throw in some more cool water and close the oven, this will allow the crust to become lovely and chewy.

8. Remove bread from oven and take it out of the pan to cool on a rack. Bread should also have a golden hue on the bottom. You can also test doneness by tapping the bottom of it slightly with your hand—you should hear a hollow sound.

 

Eat with butter or make sandwiches, you can even add rosemary, thyme, cheese or anything into this recipe, just make sure you do it after the first rise.

I will add the butter recipe in the coming days, it's really beautiful with this bread and is well worth the effort.

 

Please share my site with your friends and let me know how you go!

 

Happy baking

 

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Trouble with cheese

The trouble with cheese, is the lack of people willing to show you the basics... You are relying on what you can read and what you can figure out through trial and error.

Or my first attempt I used a farmhouse culture and commercial rennet and followed every instruction I could find, only problem being the cheese hoop I bought wasn't deep enough, so when it drained and was ready to age it was so thin that it dried out and was more like Parmesan rind then a simple cheddar. Next I tried a recipe from a well known tassie trio who have made farming cool again, and I used natural yoghurt as a starter and followed the recipe to the letter, I even drained the Chesse for longer then I needed to, but as soon as it went into the brine it fell to pieces... Fail Mach II.

Luckily I did have the whey left from the second cheese so I decided to start probably where I should shave to begin with, a simple ricotta. Texture and flavour were great and it was so simple that you would actually o through and make either it or paneer over and over again. If you want to give this a shot try this recipe out.

 

Ingredients

4 ltrs whey ( if you don't have whey, just use non homogenised milk and make paneer)

1 tbsp salt

200 mls of white vinegar

 

Heat you milk or whey to 60 degrees c slowly over a low flame, add your slat and stir to combine.

Continue to heat to 92 degrees c and add vinegar

Take off heat and allow to sit for 1 minute, the curds will float to the top, if you are using whey use a slotted spoon and put the curds into muslin cloth ( or a new chux is also good) if you are using just milk drain through a muslin cloth and allow to drain and cool.

 

This ricotta will last a couple of days in the fridge but I guarantee it won't last that long.

 

 

Let me know if you try this out and how it goes!

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