Native Limes -Part 2.

I thinking of other ways to use these interesting & tasty limes.
One idea i had was to make a dipping sauce, with the lime vesicles suspended in the sauce.
Well the idea was good, but I failed in the execution of it. I made the sauce to the right consistency, thick enough to coat the deep fried prawns we were having, but not too thick as to overwhelm the prawns. And added the lime vesicles.
So far so good.
But the sauce actually made the vesicles a bit slippery, so they all seemed to sink to the bottom of the sauce, and when I attempted to scoop them up with the prawns, they failed to adhere & slipped straight back off.....

So no recipe this time, and back to the drawing board to see what else I can come up with.

Paper Chef 38 - The Winner is...

I'm late
I'm late
For a very important date...

If you're familiar with the rabbit from "Alice in Wonderland" well, that sums up my week. Hectic. Busy. Tiring.
But I've done it.
As last month's winner of The Paper Chef, I've had the privilege & daunting task of selecting a winner. And it wasn't easy.
With four very interesting key ingredients, Figs, Mint, Anchovy & Polenta, I thought that there may be a scarcity of participants. But I was proven wrong... there were 9 eager participants with 11 very different recipes. Excluding myself as last months winner didn't make it any easier.
The contenders were:

• Murasaki from Samurai Viking Cuisine with her Fig Tart with Anchovies


• Amanda from Hunger for New Ways with Polenta and Goat Cheese Pizzettas with Anchovy creme fraiche


• Harini from Cleanplatter with with Minty Mediterranean Croquettes & Grilled olive polenta with minted fig chutney


• Mike (me) from Spikey Mikeys with a Fig Pizza-2 ways (excluded)


• Lori from Lori's Lipsmacking Goodness with double entry paper chef march Minted Fig Canapes & Fig and Olive Tapenade with Polenta Fries


• Janie from Musing RI, etc. with a Anchovy Mint Pesto Pork with Fig Cream Sauce and Ricotta Polenta


• Adrienne was next from Hungry Bruno with a Fig and Mint Meatballs with Anchovy Tomato sauce over Creamy Polenta


• Tanna from My Kitchen In Half Cups with Figs Anchovy Mint Polenta


• Laura from Tiramisu' with Anchovy Pate on Multigrain Crackers

Decisions.
I'll do the easy one first, The Peoples Choice Award goes to a first time participant:
Harini from Cleanplatter with with Minty Mediterranean Croquettes
Congratulations on being select most popular.

And now the hard choice.
The winner of Paper Chef 38 as selected by an esteemed committee of one (me) is another first timer:

Adrienne from Hungry Bruno with her Fig and Mint Meatballs with Anchovy Tomato sauce over Creamy Polenta.

Congratulations Adrienne
As winner Adrienne will be selecting the random ingredients, and her choice for the next challenge, and selecting the next winner.
So start submitting your ideas for ingredients to paperchef@gmail.com and challenge yourself.

Paper Chef 38 - Fig Pizza - 2 ways

With this month's Paper Chef ingredients there was a lot of scope for different combinations and recipes.

The ingredients were: figs, polenta, mint & anchovy.
At first glance you wonder what & how these ingredients will combine, but, surprising, they actually combined quite well.
After a glass or 2 of wine, I started thinking of what to do. My first idea was a modified Caesar salad with figs and polenta croutons. Next idea was a pizza with a polenta base, bocconcini figs & anchovy. Then Paul suggested a modified pissaladiere with figs melted in with the caramelised onion, again on a polenta base. Decisions!
In the end it ended up being a double pizza, but I'm still tempted to make the salad some time.

Polenta base:
1 cup prepared polenta
1 1/2 cup plain flour
7g (1 sachet) dried yeast
Salt
1/4 tsp sugar
Water

Sift flour, yeast, sugar & salt into a bowl. Add polenta & just enough water to make a dough. Knead until smooth & elastic. Leave to rise in a covered bowl till doubled. Roll out and use as needed.

Pissaladiere:
3 large onions finely sliced
3 fresh figs skins removed
Olive oil
1 tsp Dried mint
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
Fresh mint
In some olive oil, cook the onions, figs, dried mint & balsamic over a low heat until the onions have caramilised and most of the moisture has evaporated. Let cool.

Topping:

2 fresh figs cut into 1cm slices

anchovy fillets

2 bocconcini, sliced

fresh mint

tomato sauce

Roll out the dough to fit one large rectangular tray. One half was for the pissaladiere, the other was for the fresh fig.
I made a little dam out of some dough so the two different pizzas wouldn't run into each other.
Brush some olive oil on the base of the entire pizza. Spread the onion & fig mix evenly over half the base. Arrange the anchovy fillets in a diagonal crisscross pattern. Stud with the olives in the centre of each diamond.
On the other side spread the tomato sauce. Lay out the sliced bocconcini. Lay some sliced fig on top. I lightly pan fried the fig slices to remove some excess moisture. Lay some anchovy fillet across each fig slice.
Bake in a hot oven until the base is done.

Remove and sprinkle fresh mint over the whole pizza.

And enjoy.

Paper Chef 38 - The Ingredients

As Terry from Taste Adventures selected me as last month's winner of The Paper Chef, I have the privilege of selecting the four ingredients for this month's Paper Chef Challenge.
There were alot of ingredients to choose from, but the rules do state that it has to be three random ingredients & the fourth to be selected by the previous months winner (me!). So after looking at the suggested ingredients, and hoping like crazy that some certain combinations didn't happen, I fired up "the randomiser" and let it do its job.....



I think the randomiser got stuck as he selected four, rather than 3, ingredients. So luckily for all participants, we do not have to try & marry anchovy with strawberry!
In case you missed it, here are the three random ingredients:
Figs
Anchovy
Mint
But what to select as my choice for the final fourth ingredient...Well it isn't going to be strawberry, but will be:
Polenta

If you need to refresh yourself of the rule, you can find them here.
Remember to post your entry on your blog & send an email to: paperchef@gmail.com
If you're not a blogger but want to participate, email your entry to the paper chef.
So good luck & good cooking :)
Oh, & if you REALLY want to be challenged, add the strawberries to the list of ingredients.

Yesteryear

Scattered around inner Melbourne are these reminders of times past....

Drinking troughs for horses. I've never seen a horse drink from one & this one was on a six lane road, so not really anywhere to tie up your horse for a drink.

Australian Finger Lime Ice Cream

In my previous post I asked what was it?

Its actually an Australian native, a Finger Lime.
It has an interesting characteristic, which is the juice vesicles are fairly tough, meaning that they retain their shape without bursting. Obviously if you apply enough pressure, they will burst & the juice will run out. But why attempt to juice one of these fairly small limes? They are about the size of your finger, so juicing them in the usual fashion would be a challenge.
I prefer to use them where you'd like the tang of lime but not the wet soppiness of the juice. I've previously served a traditional Russian potato pancake topped with sour cream, caviar and lime. The shape of these lime vesicles makes them look like little beads of caviar and biting into them releases an explosion of lime flavour.

There are a few different varieties available (Australian Finger Lime company has a few listed), but I have only ever seen the green variety for sale.

Today I thought I'd try something a bit different, using the lime in an ice cream. My reasoning being that the lime vesicles would hold their shape & juice within the ice cream. I was hoping to achieve a creamy smoothness of the ice cream & then bursts of the sour-tangy lime.
So I made a fairly standard vanilla creme anglaise (recipe here)and churned it in the ice cream machine.
I added the lime vesicles to the mixture just before pouring into the container.
End result? Vanilla & Lime Ice Cream.

Interesting...

No, its not a surprise from the cat.

This happens to be a native Australian fruit. Any guesses as to what it it?

Paper Chef #37

This month the paper chef dished up some interesting ingredients complements of Terry from Taste Adventures.

Three random ingredients from the list:

liver (calves liver to be precise);

cheese;

oregano;

and her choice of: chestnuts
Interesting.
The mind went into overdrive. What to do?!? How to combine them into a dish & hopefully eatable.
First up we had to get the ingredients. So off to the market we went, and suffered... Saturday turned out to be the hottest day on record in Melbourne hitting a top of 46.4c. This was a seriously hot day. If you have been following the news then you will know of the tragic bush fires that occurred. Luckily none of my family or friends were in the areas that were affected.
Back to the PC. And calves livers. 6 butchers later not a calves liver to be found. Time to invoke the substitute clause - chicken livers. All other ingredients were found easily. And then to decide what to make....
In the end I decided to make a ravioli dish, stuffed with liver, chestnut & Parmesan, and a oregano butter sauce.

Ingredients
200g cleaned liver
100g chopped chestnuts
1/4 medium onion finely chopped
20g grated Parmesan
1/4tsp fine orange rind
1/2tsp salt
1/4tsp ground black pepper
1/4tsp dried oregano
40g butter
Fresh pasta sheets (recipe here)
1 tbls roughly chopped fresh oregano
1/4tsp fresh thyme
30ml Brandy (optional)
Grated Parmesan to finish

Method
Melt 10g of the butter in a fry pan and add the onion, dried oregano & orange rind
When the onion is soft add the livers and quickly brown - do not over cook!
Remove from the heat and place in a bowl to cool slightly
Roughly chop the livers and return to the bowl
Add the Parmesan and chestnuts and combine thoroughly
Spoon about a heaped tsp onto the pasta sheets and create your ravioli.
When ready to cook the ravioli, melt the remaining butter in a pan. While the butter is melting cook the ravioli in boiling salted water.
Add the fresh oregano and thyme to the melted butter and allow to fry slightly.
At this point you can add the warmed brandy & flame it
Drain the ravioli, add to the melted butter and toss.
Serve immediately with freshly grated Parmesan.

Autumn?

No this is not a left over photo from last Autumn (or Fall).

This is today, February 4th. One month of summer to go.

After the hot weather that we had last week (4 days over 40c) and the 2nd driest January on record (0.8mm of rain for the month) it looks like the European type deciduous trees have gone into shock & dropped their leaves very very early. 2 weeks ago these trees were a very healthy green enjoying the summer growing season with not a fallen leaf to be seen, but now these trees on our street are suffering. Will they survive? I hope so..

Autumn? No. Global warming? Maybe.

All I know is that the weather patterns are changing and we will have to adapt.

White Salt, Pink Salt?

Yes, it's salt.

Yes, it's pink.

This pink salt comes from inland Australia. Its produced naturally from evaporated ground water that is high in mineral content & the colour comes from a salt tolerant algae which secretes carotene. We've started using this pink salt in our cooking & it does make a difference. Its not as harsh as your normal table salt and has a more delicate flavour.

And its also good for the environment by helping to reduce the salinity of the inland waterways.