Beetroot and Orange Chutney

On Tuesday, 26 January, it was a public holiday in Australia to celebrate Australia Day, which marks the date when the first white settlers arrived in Australia. True to form, Australia Day was fine and very hot, and many people went to the beaches and had barbecues with family and friends.

Despite a last minute invitation to a barbecue lunch, I stayed at home doing all kinds of things, including baking (of course!). However, to do something a little different to mark the occasion of Australia Day, I bought a steak to make a steak sarnie.

There are many different ways to make a steak sarnie, and typically, I like mine with caramelised onions. Unfortunately, I forgot to buy an onion, so my steak sarnie contained steak, salad leaves, tomato and - my secret ingredient - beetroot and orange chutney:

I made the chutney on the weekend after spotting it on Johanna's site, Green Gourmet Giraffe. You can find the recipe for the chutney here.

Australians traditionally love beetroot on their burgers, and a burger "with the lot" always has one or two slices of ruby red beetroot on it. I am a beetroot fan myself, and couldn't resist this beetroot and orange recipe when I saw it on Johanna's site.

The chutney is easy to make, and only requires that you be around for an hour or so to cook the chutney and stir it occasionally. I only made a half batch, as I would otherwise be eating chutney for the rest of the year, but it is a welcome addition to my fridge.

This chutney can be used as dip (as Johanna did) with flatbreads, crackers and the like, or is a terrific accompaniment to beef or fish. However you serve it, I am sure that you'll enjoy it if you are a beetroot lover.

Enjoy!

And the winner is ...

It's time to announce the winner of the Womens Weekly Little Pies and Cakes giveaway. Taking out my comments and those who didn't want to enter, the winning number was comment no. 6 of 14.

Drumroll please ... the winner is Lazy Cook of The Lazy Cook. Congratulations! I'll be in touch soon to obtain your mailing details.

Thanks to everyone who reads this blog - I am delighted that so many of you take the time to read my posts, and I have enjoyed getting to know many of you better through your blog and comments.

Have a great day.

Daring Bakers - Graham Crackers & Nanaimo Bars

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.


The challenge comprised first up of making your own graham crackers for the nanaimo bar crust. The do not sell graham crackers in Australia, so I was very glad to finally have a recipe for making them myself (because lots of American recipes call for them). We could make the graham crackers either gluten free or with gluten. I really wanted to try the gluten-free version, but found the flours impossible to source easily, so I made the crackers with ordinary plain flour.

Here are my graham crackers:

The crackers came off without a hitch for me - which is a relief!

Once the crackers are made, you crush some of them to make the chocolate base for the nanaimo bars:

On top of the chocolate base, you spread a custard-flavoured buttercream (which is very rich!):

Finally, you top the bars with a mixture of melted chocolate and butter. This part didn't work so well for me, probably because the chocolate was too warm for the buttercream. If I made these again, I'd probably chill the bars after the buttercream step to make it easier to spread the chocolate topping.

I found the nanaimo bars to be very sweet and rich - a little too much so for my liking. However, they disappeared at work - always a good sign.

Thanks to Lauren for hosting us this month and choosing nanaimo bars - it is something I've always wanted to try because it is a Canadian speciality not sold here. To check out how the other daring Bakers went, check out the Daring Bakers blogroll.

TWD - Cocoa-Nana Bread

This week's Tuesday with Dorie challenge is hosted by Steph of Obsessed with Baking, who selected Dorie's Cocoa-Nana Bread for us to try. As the name suggests, coca-nana bread is chocolate and banana flavoured cake. Dorie suggests that it might be suitable as a breakfast treat, but I don't really agree with that observation - this bread is a pure tea-time treat.


I thought this bread was delicious - the banana flavour was not at all overwhelming, and in fact, I didn't even really notice it, with chocolate being the dominant flavour.


The recipe must also be fairly forgiving, because I made a boo-boo while making it, and it all still turned out OK in the wash. You see, I was making this while talking on the phone, and when it said to measure out 3/4 of a cup of milk, I managed to measure out 1 3/4 cups of milk! Even though my brain told me that it looked like an awful lot of milk, I managed to pour in 1 1/2 cups of it before I awoke from my slumber, and thought "holy crap!" Not really knowing what to do next, I just added another cup of flour to hopefully counteract the moisture, left out the chocolate chunks ('cause who is gonna waste chocolate on a potential failure?), and hoped for the best. And lo and behold, I baked it, and it worked!


I didn't have a tin as large as Dorie required, so I made one loaf and 6 muffins (I ate one prior to the photo!).

To see what everyone else thought of this week's pick, visit the TWD blogroll. If you want the recipe, buy the book, or visit Steph's site.

Re-Inventing the Lamington - Wattle Lamingtons

This month, Mr P of DeliciousDeliciousDelicious is celebrating that Australian icon, the lamington, spurred on by the uninspiring lamingtons that Mr P sampled while on a trip to the fair city of Melbourne. Mr P has laid down the gauntlet and challenged us to re-invent the lamington. The highly sought after prize for the best lamington re-invention is Welsh; namely, a dragon shaped cookie cutter.

Mr P himself has come up with some fabulous variations on the lamington, which you can check out on his blog; in fact, since 16 January, he has been posting a different lamington recipe every day. Cherry Ripe lovers, check out his Cherry Ripe lamingtons from Day One!

After spotting this competition on IMBB, I knew I had to participate - after all, the lamington is an Aussie icon!

My entry in the great Re-inventing the Lamington competition is inspired by Australia's floral emblem - the golden wattle. Fluffy, golden wattle flowers are found in clusters amid silvery green leaves on wattle trees, which you can view in all their glory here. The wattle has inspired poetry, prose and art, having more than a just a symbolic influence on our national psyche. I can remember many delightful Sunday drives in the country as a child, with beautiful wattle trees in full bloom lining the sides of the road.

I wanted my wattle lamingtons to both look and taste like wattle. For the taste aspect, I infused the cake component with ground wattle seed (which incidentally has a flavour reminiscent of coffee):


For the look of the wattle, I combined the fluffy coconut covering normally found on lamingtons with lemon jelly (Aeroplane brand, of course!):

After all, raspberry lamingtons (coated with raspberry jelly) are common in Australia, so why not lamingtons coated with lemon jelly?

The tricky aspect of the wattle lamingtons was the shape. I tried two different techniques. The first involved sandwiching two patty-cake sized sponge cakes together with lemon curd:


The second involved cutting out rounds of sponge:

and sandwiching those together with lemon curd:

From a visual perspective, my original patty-cake idea was more visually accurate, while the larger rounds gave fluffier lamingtons of a more regular size.

The wattle seed infused sponge cakes sandwiched with lemon curd were then coated in lemon jelly:

and rolled in yellow tinted dessicated coconut:

And voila - wattle lamingtons!

My base recipe came from The Australian Women's Weekly Bake, and is as follows:



6 eggs
150g caster sugar 50g cornflour
75g plain flour
1/3 cup self-raising flour


For wattle lamingtons (my additions to the base recipe):

2 teaspoons ground wattle seed
1 packet lemon jelly crystals
2 cups dessicated coconut
yellow liquid food colouring

Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. For normal sized lamingtons, grease a 20cm x 30cm baking pan; for the small round lamingtons, also grease 2 x 12 hole patty cake tins. (Make sure you grease your tins well, as the sponge has a tendency to stick.)

Beat the eggs in an electric stand mixer until thick and fluffy. Beat in the sugar in 2-3 increments.

Remove the bowl from the mixer, and carefully fold the sifted flours and wattle seed into the beaten egg mixture. Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin (if making patty cakes, only spoon in about 1-2 teaspoons of mixture per hole), and bake in the pre-heated oven until cooked through (~15 minutes for the patty cakes; ~30 minutes for the large cake). Turn the cooked cakes out onto wire racks lined with baking paper to cool.

While the cakes are cooling, prepare the jelly coating by making up the lemon jelly as stated on the packet, and refrigerating for 45 minutes or until the jelly has formed a slurry (ie not still watery, but not yet properly set).
Cut out 3cm rounds of cooled cake (if using the large cake). Sandwich pairs of patty cakes or cake rounds together with lemon curd (I used Stephanie Alexander's recipe to make mine).

Dip the sandwiched cakes into the lemon jelly slurry, so that the outside of the cakes is coated thoroughly, then toss the cakes in dessicated coconut that has been tinted yellow. (To tint the coconut, place 2 cups of it into a plastic freezer bag, add 3-4 drops of liquid yellow food colouring, and rub the coconut around in the bag until a yellow shade is achieved.) Chill the lamingtons to set the jelly coating, and remove from the fridge around 15 minutes prior to serving. Thanks to Mr P for hosting this fun event! Can't wait to see all the other lamington variations - I have enjoyed those that I have seen so far very much.

If you have a yen to reinvent the lamington, you have until 12:00 GMT on Australia Day, 26 January to get your entry in.

BloggerAid Culinary Olympics 2010 - Frangipani Pie - Australia

BloggerAid - Changing the Face of Famine is hosting a Culinary Olympics to coincide with the Winter Olympics in Canada. The aim of the event is to promote food as sport (LOL) and BACFF's mission - namely to actively promote the alleviation of World Hunger.

I am an Australian member of BACFF, so I have chosen a typical Australian (and particularly Queensland) dish for my entry - namely, Frangipani Pie. It is apparently otherwise known as Pineapple Cream Pie.

Whatever moniker you know it by, Frangipani Pie is delicious - it consists of a sweet pie shell filled with alternating layers of coconut custard and pineapple custard, and is topped with fluffy meringue. And take it from me - it is devine!!!! The smooth, creamy coconut custard is offset by the tangy pineapple custard, and the meringue gives the whole dish a wonderful, marshmallowy mouth-feel. What's not to like?

The yellow and white colours of the pie reflect those of the frangipani (plumeria) flower, after which the pie is named. Frangipani flowers are a common sight in Queensland, particularly at beachside resorts.

I don't live anywhere near the beach, but there is a frangipani tree growing in my street:

Here are a couple of close-ups of the delicate, creamy yellow and white flowers:

Of course, frangipani flowers also come in other colours, mainly varying hues of pink and white, but the yellow and white ones have my heart.

The recipe that almost everyone uses to make Frangipani Pie is this one from the Golden Circle website. Golden Circle was a Queensland-based and Australian-owned cannery for all kinds of fruit, and is synonymous with pineapple in Australia, but, like many Australian iconic brands, it has now succumbed to globalisation and is owned by Heinz.

To assist with visualisation of the recipe, following are photos of the individual components of the Frangipani Pie. Here is my pie crust (made using Matt Moran's recipe, but you an use whatever pie crust recipe you like or, to save time, buy one):

You then make the pineapple custard using crushed tinned pineapple:

followed by coconut custard (which for me, involved a dash to the supermarket at 8.40pm because I realised at the crucial moment that I didn't have any):

and finally, the fluffy meringue topping:

Assemble it all as directed in the recipe, and bake it in the oven for 15 minutes to brown the meringue, and voila:

Frangipani pie! (If you want the pretty peaks in your meringue, it's time to get your fingers dirty and muss up the top of the meringue in whatever pattern takes your fancy prior to baking - it's a little like using hair gel.)

You can eat it warm or chilled - I like it both ways.

Here's a peek inside my frangipani pie, showing the yellow and white colours:

BACFF has requested that I remind you of their wonderful BloggerAid Cookbook, which you can buy online here. The profits from sale of the book go to the United Nations World Food Program. Coincidentally, I have another pie recipe in the book - so if you like pie, check it out!

I am also sending this frangipani pie to The Blonde Duck from A Duck In Her Pond, who is hosting Glorious Pie Celebration Saturday over at The Pond. You can send your pie recipes to her by 3pm Texas time today. For Duckie's ode to pecan pie and a great pic of her Dad pouring "gravy" on his pecan pie, click here. Duckie is probably the world's number one pie fan.

Frangipani pie - flying the flag for Oz!!!

(Incidentally, Tuesday (26 January) is Australia Day, when we mark the arrival of the first white settlers in Australia.)

A Tale of Two Curries - Thai Red Chicken Curry & Beef Vindaloo

For a change of pace, I am going to post about a couple of savoury dishes today. Both of them are curries - despite hating curry or anything highly spiced in my youth, I now adore them, although I don't like my curry so hot that it makes your eyes water.

The first curry, appearing at the top of this post, is a Thai red chicken curry. It is a reader's recipe from page 20 of the January/February 2010 edition of Australian Good Food magazine, from Jane Kelly of Mildura. It cheats in that it uses commercial curry paste rather than requiring you to bang away at a long list of spices in a mortar and pestle, but that suits me - curry in a hurry is always welcome!

The red curry paste gives this curry a nice kick, without making your eyes water. The green of the peas and beans in this recipe contrasts satisfyingly with the red curry, making it a visual as well as a gastronomic treat.

The recipe (with a few tweaks) is as follows:

1 tablespoon oil
1 chopped onion
1 carrot, halved lengthways and thickly sliced
500g chopped chicken fillets (I used thigh cutlets)
150g halved green beans
2 tablespoons thai red curry paste
375ml light coconut milk
120g (1 cup) frozen peas
2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce
chopped fresh coriander and rice to serve

Heat the oil in a frypan or wok, then add the carrot and onion and cook until the onion is soft.

Add the chicken, beans and curry paste to the pan and cook until the chicken is cooked through, stirring as necessary.

Add the coconut milk, peas and sweet chilli sauce to the pan, stir well, then reduce the heat and simmer for ~5 minutes until all ingredients are heated through.

Serve the curry on a bed of rice, topped with coriander garnish.



My next dish is Jane Kennedy's beef vindaloo from Fabulous Food Minus the Boombah. This curry tastes fantastic! It has the just right amount of flavour and kick, and is a satisfying meal. Unlike Jane, I served it with standard rice, because I was not in the mood to make Jane's cauliflower "rice" (as Jane believes that rice is a serious "boombah" food for her, she makes faux rice from cauliflower).

This book contains Jane's own recipes that she designed to feed her family and herself great, tasty food without piling on all the calories. Australian audiences would know Jane from her television work in Frontline, a spoof of current affairs shows, and her work behind the scenes with Working Dog Productions.

Accordingly to this article, Jane has had her beef vindaloo recipe laboratory analysed, and it has only 60% of the calories of a standard takeaway beef vindaloo. As it is the dish which she is most proud of, I won't provide the recipe here - if you are interested in the recipe, you will have to check out her book.

Have a great weekend!