To go with chicken

I cooked up a chicken in the crockpot earlier this week, and I've pretty much been eating it ever since. But you can't live on just chicken - tonight when I got home I decided to look for something Edmonds to eat with my leftovers.

Flicking through the vegetable section, I landed on kumara and orange (p161) as a side to my chicken. I was going to go with just that, but on the spur of the moment, I flicked to the sauces and marinades looking for something that would work with chicken.

Onion sauce (p188) is another of the dreaded white sauce variations. It didn't really scream "have me with chicken" but I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't.

I peeled the kumara and got it on to boil - somewhat of a novelty since I only ever roast it - and started melting the butter for the sauce in another saucepan. I choppped up some onions, added them to the butter and let them cook over a low heat until they went clear.

The kumara cooked very quickly, so I drained off the water and added orange juice and grated rind, brown sugar and a little butter, before putting it back on the heat to create a tasty-looking orange glaze.


Meanwhile, the onions had gone past clear and started to go crispy. I saved them just in time, stirring in some flour and then gradually adding milk to make a thick sauce.

I heated up some leftover chicken and hastily cooked up some beans, so as to have at least a little green on the plate! Having added the kumara and poured onion sauce over my chicken, I sat down to eat.

The kumara was very sweet, with a slight hint of bitterness. I quite liked it, but it wasn't perhaps the best side dish for chicken with onion sauce! It didn't occur to me before I started, but orange and onion don't really go together! I was pleasantly surprised by the onion sauce: it had plenty of flavour and went well with the chicken. I like this one far better than any of the other white sauce variations I've tried so far.

This spinster makes good lamingtons

It's my birthday today: a good excuse to knock off a few recipes in order to feed the hungry workmates, even those undeserving individuals who choose to mock my approaching spinsterhood. Of course, being 31, single and childless does have its good points: for a start, you've got plenty of spare time for things like making lamingtons (p67).

As you know, I'd made my lamington sponge in advance and stuck it in the freezer. Yesterday afternoon, I took it out and allowed it to defrost slightly while I made the second item on my list: coffee cake (p46).

Coffee cake is made from a fairly standard recipe, the main difference being the addition of a little instant coffee (dissolved in boiling water) to the creamed butter and sugar. Other than that, it's pretty much the usual mix, divided into two sponge sandwich tins.

 While the coffee cake was in the oven, I mixed up the coating for the lamingtons, which is really just a runny chocolate icing. This done, I cut my sponge into 16 little squares and began dipping them in the icing mixture and rolling them in coconut.

Having the sponge partially frozen made a huge difference - the lamingtons held their shape better and were easier to handle. I found that it's important not to have too thick a coating on the lamington, or you get a sort of lumpy, oozy result. I actually found that carefully scraping off the excess icing before rolling the lamington in coconut achieved the best results.

Soon I had the lamingtons coated and looking pretty tasty. I set them aside while I got the coffee cake out of the oven and turned to the third recipe I wanted to make: toffee (p221). I had no particular reason for making this; I just decided to take advantage of an opportunity to knock off another sweet recipe.


Having learnt my lesson from last year's nut toffee (also made for a birthday morning tea shout) I used caster sugar instead of the plain white sugar indicated in the recipe. This, along with water, a little butter, and a dash of vinegar, I stirred over a low heat until the sugar had dissolved.

Using caster sugar got me over that particular hurdle fairly easily, the sugar dissolving in minutes. The  most trying part was waiting for the toffee to boil to the 'hard crack' stage, a process which took about half an hour. I might have been able to do it faster, but I wasn't sure how high I ought to turn up the heat, and so left it reasonably low.


Finally I was satisfied that my toffee had reached 'hard crack' and I poured it into a tin to set. I tried to mark squares in the toffee, but they kept oozing back. I had to wait until the toffee was half-set before I could get the lines to stay properly. Once it had set hard, I attempted to break the toffee along my carefully-inscribed lines but (predictably) it shattered in all directions, spreading spiky little shards of toffee all over myself and my kitchen.

Next, I had to ice the coffee cake. Coffee icing (p77) is a variation on the plain white icing - again, instant coffee dissolved in water is added to create the coffee flavour. For once, I managed to get the icing to a suitable consistency, and it spread quite nicely on the cake. The icing is used both on the top of the cake and to sandwich the two halves together. I prettied it up a little with some chopped walnuts, and the cake was done.


The last thing I did before going to bed last night was to prepare the cream chantilly (p76) for the lamingtons. cream chantilly is a recipe I've had half a dozen opportunities to use and have always forgotten. It's just whipped cream with icing sugar and vanilla essence. Most people add one or the other of these to their cream; this uses both. Also, the sugar and essence are added to the cream after it's whipped - I would have put it in beforehand.

This morning, I dragged myself out of bed a bit earlier than usual, allowing enough time to cream the lamingtons before work. I cut each lamington almost in half, then spread each with a little of my homemade raspberry jam before piping in the cream. Unfortunately, the cream had gone a bit runny overnight - I should have whisked it up again before putting it in the piping bag - and didn't hold its piped shape very well.



But a little underwhipped cream isn't going to put a lamington fan off: they were the most popular item come morning-tea time, and deservingly so, because they were really good! I was quite proud of them, particularly since I'd finally made a decent sponge. I was surprised at how much flavour was in the cream chantilly: somehow it seemed far richer than my usual cream with icing-sugar. I might make a habit of adding vanilla as well.

The coffee cake also had its enthusiasts, though I would personally prefer a cream filling rather than more of that slightly sickly icing. The cake itself tasted quite nice, but wasn't as light and fluffy as I would have liked. On the whole, though, it was tasty enough.

 To my surprise, everyone loved the toffee. I'd only made it as an extra (I even find I've forgotten to take a photo of the final result), and expected that there would be far more than necessary, but the bowl was empty by the end of the day. Clearly I did something right there!

 

So here I am, another year older, not noticeably wiser but considerably more practised in the kitchen - I'm not claiming great expertise of course, but at least I can make a decent lamington!

Successful sponge!

It's my birthday on Monday, and as such I'll be expected to bring along a morning tea shout. One of the items I've chosen to make is lamingtons, which are always popular, but can be fiddly to make. I'm planning to try out a tip of Mum's to make coating the sponge a little easier: do it with a partially frozen sponge.


Of course, freezing the sponge has other benefits too. It means I can make it in advance, allowing time for a do-over or complete change of plan if I have another sponge disaster.


With this happy thought in mind, I turned to the recipe for sponge cake (p68) and made a start. Unlike the lemon sponge I made earlier in the week, this one doesn't start with creaming butter and sugar. Instead, you beat eggs with salt, then add sugar and beat until thick. After this, you sift in the dry ingredients, and fold in some melted butter. That's it.

The tin specified in the recipe was a 20cm round tin. Well, a round sponge is not much use for lamingtons, is it? Instead I used an 18cm square. I poured the sponge mixture into the greased and lined tin, then put it in the oven for about 25 minutes. Since my oven seems to be a bit hot, I set it lower than indicated, baking at 180 instead of 190.

The sponge looked pretty good when it came out of the oven. I gingerly pressed in the centre, and it bounced back ok, but I was still afraid of having another soggy-centred sponge. However, it didn't collapse like the lemon sponge did, so I'm confident that it's baked through.

The sponge isn't really very high: these are going to be some fairly squat lamingtons. Maybe I'll keep them in proportion and make miniature ones. Other than that, it seems to be a success. Yay - a passable sponge!

I've wrapped the sponge in baking paper and plastic, and bunged it in the freezer for now. I'll drag it out again on Sunday, and we'll see what kind of lamingtons it makes!

Sweet and sour stir-fry

I'd hurriedly got a chicken breast out of the freezer before I left for work this morning, but when it came to making tea tonight, I couldn't think what to do with it. Any of the as-yet-uncompleted recipes which use chicken breast also require ingredients I didn't have on hand.


Having eliminated all the possibilities offered by the chicken chapter, I turned to the sauces. There I decided a sweet and sour sauce (p187) would work ok with a simple chicken and vege stir-fry.

I was interested to see that this particular sweet and sour sauce didn't have any pineapple in it. I've always thought of pineapple as a vital ingredient in anything sweet and sour. Not so, apparently.


The first thing to do was chop onion and garlic and get them into a saucepan. While the onion was cooking, I combined tomato sauce with cornflour, then added it to the onions with some sugar. Then it was just a matter of gradually adding chicken stock, and allowing the sauce to thicken. When the sauce had reached a reasonable consistency, I removed it from the heat and added vinegar and seasoning.

When tasting the sauce to adjust the seasoning, I found that it was not really balanced between sweet and sour: sweetness predominated. I added more vinegar, and more again. By the time I had the sauce tasting the way I felt it should, I'd more than doubled the amount of vinegar given in the recipe.


While cooking the sauce, I'd also had some rice on and was stir-frying the chicken and vege. I served myself up a plateful and added a few spoonfuls of sweet and sour sauce.

I quite enjoyed my sweet and sour stir-fry. Not, perhaps, so much that I'd be jumping to make it again, but it tasted nice enough. As for the sauce itself, once I'd adjusted the flavour to my liking, it was a fairly familiar-tasting sweet and sour. Still, if I particularly wanted to make a sweet and sour sauce, I'd choose the one from the sweet and sour fish recipe over this one.

Soggy sponge and other mishaps

I've been meaning to tackle a few more sponge recipes: not an appealing task, as I've never yet managed to make a passable sponge. I've got Mum's sponge sandwich tins now though, and was hopeful that having the correct size tins would make a difference.

With this in mind, I decided to make a lemon sponge (p69) last night to bring in to work today. Tuesday's a good day for a random sponge cake, I reckon.

The recipe's quite straightforward - you just put flour, sugar, eggs, melted butter, vanilla essence and milk in a mixer bowl and beat it for three minutes, stir in some baking powder and it's ready to go in the tins. I lined the sponge sandwich tins (probably would have been best if I'd had these prepared in advance) and divided the mixture between them.

With the sponges in the oven, went back to the mixer: I'd decided to make mock cream (p78) instead of using fresh cream. I'd had some butter aside to soften, so I beat this up with icing sugar, before adding vanilla essence and a little milk, and beating further until it looked white and creamy.

By the time I'd finished this, the sponges had been in the oven for 10 minutes. They were supposed to cook for 15-20, but when I glanced into the oven, they looked to already be quite dark on the top. Panicking, I took them out.

The sponges weren't actually as dark on top as they'd looked in the oven, but I didn't really want them to get darker. The tops were springing back when I pressed them, so I decided not to put them back in again.

I left the sponges in the tins for five minutes, during which time both sponges sagged alarmingly in the centre. When I turned them out onto a rack, I saw why: they were both still entirely uncooked in the centre.

Crap.

Normally I would have just biffed them out, but then what would I do with the mock cream? I gave it some thought while the sponges were cooling down, and finally came up with a plan: giggling to myself, I cut around the gooey centres and salvaged as much sponge as I could. I spread the pieces with mock cream and generous amounts of my home-made lime honey. Then I sandwiched the matching halves together and cut the larger pieces into serving-sized bits. Hey, at least it wasn't wasteful!


This morning, with my platter of sponge pieces sitting in the passenger seat, I attempted to start my car. And failed: it was totally dead. Sighing, I picked up the platter and wandered off to the bus stop. Except that there's now a major road blockage on the street where I'd usually catch the bus. Hmmm.

I went to a bus stop around the corner instead, but still sat worrying that the bus wouldn't come past that stop. I saw several people walk past me in the direction of the next stop, and convinced myself that the bus would be turning off one block up instead. I grabbed my sponge platter and started walking towards the next stop, just in case.

I was about one-third of the way there when I saw the bus coming. And it was going to come past the stop I'd just left after all. I turned and ran back, waving frantically with one arm while I tried to keep ahold of my platter of sponge with the other.

An hour later, I arrived at work, a mere 45 minutes late and still gripping a platter that had by then begun to feel oddly heavy. It was worth it though: my scrap bits of munted sponge were actually received with great enthusiasm, and the platter was cleared very quickly. SOME people (who shall remain nameless) even had as many as three pieces before others had had any at all.


There's really only one thing I can say about the failure of this sponge: I should have baked it for longer. The parts that were cooked through were actually very nice. I'm glad I didn't throw the whole thing away, because at least I know parts of it were ok! One of these days I'll actually manage a decent sponge...

Pudding, interrupted

Some weeks ago I added the last fruits to my rumpot. Last night, I decided it was about time I had a taste of it. The thing was, what to eat it with? Ice cream was the most obvious choice, but I wanted something more suitable for winter. Finally I decided that a steamed pud of some kind would work ok. I had a look at the various puddings I still have to make and decided on apple pudding (p213).


Apple pudding is a variation on the standard steamed sponge pud; it's just got a bit of stewed apple in it. Well, I'd be needing some stewed apple then, wouldn't I? I peeled and chopped an apple and put it on to stew while I whipped up the rest of the pudding batter.

I creamed butter and sugar, beat in an egg and stirred through some apricot jam. After that I folded in the dry ingredients. By the time I was ready to add the baking soda dissolved in milk, the apple was ready to go, so I bunged that in as well.


I spooned the batter into a greased pudding bowl, tied on the pleated tinfoil, and put it on to steam. The added apple had made it bit more gooey than usual, so I set the timer for a bit longer than the recipe stated.

About 35 minutes later, I checked the pudding. The irritating thing about steaming a pud is that you can't check on it without making a total mess of the carefully tied-on tinfoil top. And no, it wasn't anything like cooked through. I put on a new sheet of tinfoil and set the pudding to steam a bit more.


Naturally, my power cut out at this point. Brief power outages are not uncommon in post-quake Christchurch, and the busy power company people usually have it set to rights in fairly short order. Still, that didn't help my pudding much. I left it where it was and went to read a book by torchlight until the power came back on.

It was over an hour later that power was restored. I allowed some time for the water under my pudding basin to heat again, and longer still for the pudding to finish steaming. Finally, around 9pm, I checked the pudding and it was firm on top.


I scooped myself a generous chunk of pudding, then opened up my rumpot and spooned a selection of rum-soaked fruit on top. I tried to get some of every fruit that I'd put in there; the result being that I actually gave myself quite a large helping.

The pudding was good: still a little undercooked but moist, sweet and filling. But what can I tell you about the rumpot fruit? Well.. they taste like what they are: pieces of fruit soaked in rum. Eating them with the pudding toned down their potency a bit, but after the first few mouthfuls, I couldn't taste anything but rum. Lucky I like rum, then, isn't it?

Curried cauliflower

If there's one chapter in the Edmonds book that I'm really struggling to get through, it's the sauces and marinades. There are thirty-three recipes in this section, an intimidating total which encompasses no fewer than eight variations of the standard white sauce recipe. Since I'm not in the habit of using white sauces, I have only managed to complete one variation so far.

This afternoon, I sat at my desk perusing the sauces and trying to come up with an idea for dinner tonight that would tick another of the dreaded white sauces off my list. I knew I had some cauliflower in the fridge, and reluctantly concluded that cauliflower might work with a curry sauce (p188).


The rest of my dinner was almost ready before I remembered the sauce. Luckily, white sauces don't take long to make. I melted some butter in a saucepan and added flour and curry powder. It's supposed to go 'frothy' at this point, but actually it just clumped into little balls of curry-flavoured flour.

I could only hope the sauce would smooth out with the addition of milk (and a lot of stirring). I added the milk gradually, whisking vigorously in a partially successful attempt to work out the lumps. Before long, the sauce had thickened. I stirred through some salt and pepper and spooned my curry sauce over the cauliflower.


I'm not really into white sauces as such, but I had to admit that the curry sauce added a bit of flavour to the cauliflower - usually a fairly bland vegetable. It was still a bit lumpy, and the curry flavour was fairly overpowering if I took a large mouthful, but on the whole, it wasn't bad at all.