Potatoes

A few days ago, I was rummaging around in the cupboard for some potatoes for a mash that I was making, and was surprised by the variety that seems to have mysteriously accrued in the cupboard.

The dark purple (almost black) skinned variety are called Purple Congo. They have a floury texture and a purple flesh. Apparently they make great Gnocchi, so guess what I will be making this weekend....

The other varieties are (if I remember correctly) Kipfler, Pink Eye, Desiree, Toolangi Delight, & Dutch Cream. They all have different characteristics, flesh colour, texture, & even flavour. And there are alot more varieties out there!

Pizza

There's a new Pizza store that's just opened near us in Carlisle St called The Green Light.
I haven't sampled their pizzas yet, but if this chalkboard special is anything to go by it could be very interesting...

Street Art

Modern technology.

Wondering the streets of Melbourne.

See something interesting?

Take a photo with the trusty mobile phone...

Another Paper Chef entery...

I think I'm going through an un-motivated cooking stage as looking back through my blog, the Paper Chef entries seem to be the only recipes that I'm posting.
This month's ingredients were selected by Bron from Bron Marshall with a some help from her little fairies.
They selected: Prosciutto, Floury Potatoes, Thyme, and (just for something different) a theme of Mother’s Day for the fourth ingredient.
No stuffing around with wild ideas for this one, I went with my first thought: Gnocchi, with herbed butter and crispy fried prosciutto. And the Mother's Day theme? Flowers, vivid blue Rosemary flowers, both colourful & eatable. If you're looking at the photo you maybe wondering what the black specks are. Well my partner Paul suggested adding some crushed dried truffle to the butter sauce. We had a pack of them sitting in the pantry & they hadn't been used for anything as yet.
The recipe for the gnocchi can be found here. It was my first ever blog post which I had initially posted on Paul's now closed blog Eat Me! which I moved onto here when I started Spikey Mikeys.

Ingredients:
1 portion gnocchi
100g unsalted butter
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp fresh rosemary leaves
Rosemary flowers
5-6 fresh sage leaves
scraping fresh nutmeg
1 tsp dried truffle, crushed (optional)
salt
fresh ground black pepper
100g prosciutto
Olive oil
Fresh grated Parmesan

Method:
Fry the prosciutto in a little olive oil till it nice & crispy.
Remove & place on paper towels & allow to drain of any excess oil.
Melt the butter of a low heat & add thyme, rosemary, nutmeg & crushed truffles and allow to gently infuse.
Cook the gnocchi as instructed.
Gently toss the gnocchi with the butter sauce and place into a serving dish.
Crumble the crispy prosciutto over the top of the gnocchi.
Sprinkle with the rosemary flowers and serve with the grated Parmesan.

Happy Mother's Day Mum!!! x

Colours

All I can say is it looked good.

What The ......

I was at Melbourne Markets yesterday & came across these....

They were the size of an apple, a wonderful vibrant shade of red and had me intrigued.
What were they??
Would you believe they are plums!!
Unfortunately the stall assistant wasn't able to tell me what variety or what the were like but if they are there tomorrow I'll be getting some!

Hot Cross Buns

Have you noticed that when you go grocery shopping at this time of year all the stores are full of different varieties of Hot Cross Buns? I've seen so may types out there: traditional, plain, wholemeal, choc-chip, chocolate, chocolate & choc-chip, mocca (coffee & choc-chip), blueberry (??) and would you believe I even saw a savoury one! I guess some bakers imagination s run riot at times.
Anyway, with all these "interesting" varieties out there I thought I'd make my own Hot Cross Buns. I based this recipe from British Food by Mark Hix. This is a half portion that makes 10 buns.

Ingredients:
325g strong plain flour (I used tipo 00)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground mixed all spice
1/4 tsp fresh ground mace
1/4 tsp salt
33g caster sugar
45 g butter
1/2 sachet dry yeast
100ml warm milk
100ml boiling water
1/2 large beaten egg
50g raisins or sultanas
33 g mixed candied peel
To finish
The other 1/2 of the beaten egg
20g plain flour
Few drops of almond extract (I used bitter Almond)
33g caster sugar

Method
Sift flour, spices & salt into a mixing bowl.
Add sugar & rub in the butter.
Add the dried yeast.
Add the milk, water & egg & mix to a soft dough.
Turn out onto a lightly floured surface & knead for about 10 minutes.
(At this stage I let my dough rise in a covered bowl till it had doubled in size - but the recipe doesn't state to do this, so you can skip it).
Add the dried fruit and knead in.
Roll into a long sausage shape & cut into 10 discs and shape into buns (I couldn't count - I made 9).
Place on to a baking sheet lined with grease proof paper, at least 2cm apart.
Cover with cling wrap & leave them to prove for about 30min.
Preheat the oven to 230c.
After they have risen, remove the cling wrap & buns with the remaining beaten egg.
Mix the flour, almond extract & a little water to form a thick paste.
Pipe this paste over the buns to form the x.
Bake in the oven for about 15min then transfer to a wire rack.
While they are still warm, dissolve the caster sugar in a little water & glaze the buns and leave to cool.
I like to eat them while they are still warm, dripping with melted butter

Yes my buns did end up looking almost identical to the picture in the book.

Paper Chef #39

How time flies..
Its that time of month where my creative idea's start running wild & my part just starts running, scared, away from what ever concoction I dream up. Ah yes, the joys of The Paper Chef.
This month's ingredients were selected by Adrienne from Hungry Bruno. Adrienne's friends randomly selected three ingredients: Blackberries, Artichokes, Bulgar. The fourth ingredient was her own selection: Salmon. This was going to be fun!
First up, its the wrong season for artichokes & blackberries have just finished. So I had to rely on tinned artichokes & frozen blackberries. Now, what to create :)
I was toying with the idea of a bulgar salad with the artichoke petals, flaked salmon & blackberries, but was worried that the blackberries would turn it into a black mess... So I tossed around a few different ideas & did a bit of googling and decided on pan fried salmon with a blackberry sauce. I was tempted to use the bulgar as a coating on the salmon before frying, but decided against it, maybe next time. The bulgar you can treat like Couscous and is one of the main ingredients in Tabbouleh. My partner Paul decided to pilfer some of the bulgar & artichokes and make a salad (in case my concoction was inedible?). I decided to use the bulgar to coat the artichokes & roast them. Did it work?
Sort of...
The salmon is very hard to get wrong, the blackberry sauce was a complete success & I'll be making it again (Paul says it will be perfect to accompany pork), the texture of the cooked & roasted bulgar was good, but even after repeated rinsing the tinned artichokes tasted of vinegar. So while the ingredients may not have all been in the one dish, they did all work well together.

Ingredients:
for the blackberry sauce:
1 cup blackberries
1/2 cup red wine (I used Shiraz Cabernet)
1/2 tbls finely chopped fresh ginger
5-10cm stalk of bruised lemongrass
2 tbls vincotto
2-3 tbls sugar
Pinch salt
pinch ground black pepper

Salmon fillets
seasoned flour
400g tin artichokes, thoroughly rinsed
1 cup prepared bulgar
20g butter
Olive oil
1 clove finely chopped garlic
1/2 finely chopped onion
salt
pepper

Method:
For the blackberry sauce:
Place the blackberries, wine, ginger, lemongrass & 1 tbls of the sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil.
Reduce the heat & simmer until its reduced by about half
Remove the lemongrass stalk and pass the remaining contents through a mouli or fine sieve to remove the blackberry seeds.
return to the heat & balance the sourness of the wine with some sugar
Season to taste.

Halve the tinned artichokes & rinse thoroughly.
in a saucepan, melt the butter and a dash of olive oil. and soften the onion & garlic.
When softened add the bulgar and season to taste.
Add the artichokes and toss to thoroughly coat the artichokes.
Place the artichokes into a greased oven proof dish & spoon the blugar mixture over them
Place into a pre-heated oven (200c) & cook until the bulgar starts browning & crisping up.

Rinse & pat dry the Salmon fillets
Coat in the seasoned flour
Quickly shallow fry on both sides
remove & drain on paper towel.
Serve immediately with the blackberry sauce.

Look Up

You don't know what you will see above the streets of Melbourne...

Native Limes - Part 3

Yes, I'm still experimenting :)
And this time its a Rocket & Lime salad.
As rocket is fairly peppery, and lime is sour, to balance out the flavours meant that the dressing had to be on the sweet side. The pepperiness of the rocket & sweetness of the dressing are nicely complimented by the bursts of sourness from the limes.

So here is a quick, rough & ready dressing recipe for a Rocket & Lime salad.

Ingredients:
1 large handful of wild rocket
1/2 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp rice vinegar
3 tsp olive oil
pinch of salt
1 tbls native lime vesicles

Method:
In a small bowl dissolve the sugar & salt in the vinegar
Add the oil & whisk to emulsify
Place the rocket in a large bowl
To get the vesicles out of the native lime simply cut the lime in half (they have a fairly tough skin) and squeeze the vesicles out. If the lime is ripe they will ooze out easily.
Add the lime to the leaves
Add the dressing & toss. The vesicles may become slippery & fall to the bottom of the bowl.
Place the salad into a serving bowl & drizzle the vesicles that are left in the original bowl over the salad.
Serve & consume immediately.