A use for plum sauce

I noticed a recipe in the poultry chapter the other day that had plum sauce as an ingredient: sesame chicken (p142). I'd made five bottles of plum sauce a couple of months ago, but hadn't used any yet. This looked like a good chance to try it out.

The recipe uses four chicken breasts, but I made my usual half-recipe with two. The plum sauce is mixed with crushed garlic and cooking oil, then brushed on to the chicken breasts. When the chicken is coated in the sauce mixture, you roll each breast in sesame seeds and put them in an oven dish to bake.


The cooking time was surprisingly short, only 15 minutes: just enough time to throw together some stir-fried veges with noodles and a bit more plum sauce. When the timer went off, the chicken hadn't gone 'golden' as described in the recipe, so I put it back in for another few minutes.

Five minutes later, and the chicken breasts were still looking kind of anaemic. Piercing the breasts with the tip of a knife yielded only clear juices, though, so clearly they were cooked through. I didn't want to dry out the chicken, so I decided to leave it the way it was.


The chicken was nicely cooked, and I liked the texture of the sesame seeds on the outside. Unfortunately there wasn't much flavour from the plum sauce, and the chicken was quite bland on the whole. On the other hand, the sauce gave a nice tang to the stirfry, so that's one successful way of using it, at least!

Sugarfree pudding

Since the banana pancakes only used one cup of pancake and pikelet mix, I still had more than half a box left. Luckily, there are some other recipes that use it as an ingredient, so tonight I decided to make myself a lemon coconut pudding (p217).

It was fairly simple: just beat some pancake mix with butter, eggs, milk, sugar, coconut and lemon zest, pour into a shallow oven dish, and bake. So simple in fact that I didn't bother to read the recipe carefully and missed out the sugar.


(If you've been reading this blog for a while, there'll be something familiar about the scenario described above)


Of course, I didn't notice at the time that the sugar was missing. The pudding baked beautifully, and came out appetisingly golden and smelling delicious. I scooped out a generous portion, added some greek yoghurt, and sat down to try it.

Bear in mind that I still hadn't realised that the sugar was missing. And as such I wasn't impressed with the recipe at all. It tasted more eggy than anything, and was kind of rubbery in texture. I managed to finish what was in my bowl, but don't think I'll be going back for seconds.

Having now worked out that there should have been sugar in it, I can see that the pudding ought to have tasted different - sweeter, certainly, though I can't see that a bit of sugar would entirely cancel out the egginess. And any improvement to the texture would surely be minimal. Having followed this recipe incorrectly, I'm not actually in a position to offer a valid opinion on the pudding, but I don't believe it'd be worthwhile trying it again.

Dessert - or brunch

There's a recipe for banana pancakes (p215) in the 'desserts with Edmonds' chapter. While I'm sure it would make a good dessert, it also sounded like an excellent Saturday morning brunch. So this morning I rolled up my sleeves, got out the Edmonds pancake and pikelet mix, and went to work.

The instruction in the recipe is to 'make pancake mix according to packet directions'. Fair enough, except the packet indicates an egg and the recipe does not. I decided to stick with the ingredients in the recipe and leave the egg out. So really, it was just a matter of mixing the pancake mix with some milk. There were a lot of lumps in the resulting mixture - I think I should have sifted the pancake mix first.


When I had beaten out as many of the lumps as I could, I added the extra ingredients - mashed banana, finely chopped walnuts and nutmeg. The mixture was very thick but looked and smelled quite tasty.


Next, I had to cook the pancakes, again 'according to packet directions'. Well, the packet said to use 2-3 tablespoons of batter, and 'tilt the pan to cover the base with a thin layer'. I had my doubts about this - would such a thick batter spread neatly around the pan? Answer: nope. I spread it around as best I could with the back of my spoon, but the result was lumpy-looking and not terribly appealing.

Once the pancake was cooked, I found that appearances aren't everything. The pancake had a pleasant banana flavour and interesting texture from the walnuts. The recipe says to serve them with cream, but instead I used Greek yoghurt and a little bit of my lime honey. Yum.

I like the addition of banana, walnut and nutmeg to the pancakes, but the thick batter made them oddly lumpy and hard to spread around the pan. I'd definitely recommend thinning down that batter a bit if you're going to try out this one.

Lemon/lime

I arrived home from work a week or two ago with half a dozen limes in my bag. A large box of them had appeared in the office - I gather they were brought from Auckland by a visiting colleague who has a lime tree at home. I was instructed to take some limes and turn them into something tasty to bring for morning tea. This I completely failed to do, and the limes just sat in my fruit bowl day after day.

There are no lime-based recipes in the Edmonds book. There are a couple of places (salad dressings etc) where either lemon or lime juice can be used, but there's nothing where lime is the star of the show. I started thinking I could substitute limes for the lemons in a lemon-based recipe. But which recipe? Perhaps I could make a lime meringue pie?

This evening, I finally got around to doing something with the limes: lemon honey (p226) or, more accurately, lime honey. As I already have plenty of shop-bought lemon honey in the cupboard, I thought it would be interesting to see how a lime one would taste.


The limes were of course smaller than most lemons, and I decided that my six limes would yield a suitable amount for a half-recipe. The first task was to grate the rind off the limes, then squeeze out the juice and strain it. When I had the juice and rind ready to go, I melted some butter in a bowl over boiling water, added sugar and the lime juice.

After a few minutes stirring, the sugar had dissolved and the mixture was ready for the next step. I added the rind and a beaten egg. It was soon apparent to me that I hadn't beaten the egg well enough, as stringy bits of white and yolk stared cooking in the hot liquid. I scooped out the worst bits, and hurriedly grabbed a whisk to make sure the rest of the egg was well combined.


All that was left was to stand and stir until the mixture thickened. It didn't seem to be thickening much though, and, glancing at the recipe again, I suddenly realised why: Thinking there were two eggs in the full recipe, I had only put one in. Actually, the full recipe had four eggs, and two was how many I needed for the half.

I got another egg from the fridge and quickly cracked it into a bowl, scattering pieces of shell through the egg, which I then had to pick out. I whisked this one a lot more thoroughly, and when it went into the lime honey mixture, there was no sign of eggy strings.


Now, with the correct number of eggs, it was only a matter of time before the lime honey thickened. For some reason  I expected it to thicken up quite suddenly, like custard, but instead it was so gradual that I could hardly convince myself that it was thickening at all. It got to be a fairly thick liquid, but refused to thicken any further, no matter how long I kept it on the heat. I decided to pour it into the jars, and hoped it would thicken a little as it cooled.

I only got 1 1/2 jars out of my half-recipe, and I don't think I'll have any trouble using them. My lime honey is so tasty! Oddly enough, it doesn't obviously taste like lime as opposed to lemon. It's just tart and citrusy and delicious. I couldn't resist opening one jar immediately and having some lime honey on a piece of toast. I'll have to be careful how much I eat, though - with butter as well as sugar, it's even more fattening than jam!

Still not convinced

Of all the chapters in the Edmonds book, the ones I'm having the most trouble getting through are the  'baking with Edmonds' and 'desserts with Edmonds' chapters. Baking with packet mixes doesn't come naturally to me, and instead of just using ingredients I have in the cupboard, I have to specifically go buy the mix.


Recently I've made a point of buying cake mixes when they're on special, so I have them when I want them, which meant that I was able to choose black and tan square (p70) when I was looking for something to bake last night.

Since there's no recipe in the Edmonds book for traditional tan square, (an odd omission, don't you think?) I expected this to be a similar sort of thing. After all, it did have a condensed milk-based caramel filling like a standard tan square.


Using cake mixes does shorten the time required to mix up a cake... slightly. Used to the usual 'cream butter and sugar, etc, etc' method, I found it slightly odd to simply tip the packet mix into a mixer, add water and eggs, and beat. Then you just mix in some melted butter and the mixture is ready to use.


Meanwhile, I had been meting some butter and condensed milk in a pot with a little golden syrup. This mixture melted and thickened very quickly; in fact I think I overcooked it a little. I spread 2/3 of the cake mixture in a sponge roll tin, then tried to spread the caramel filling over.

It wasn't easy, as the base was soft to the point of almost being runny, and I didn't seem to have nearly enough caramel to cover the whole base. Nevertheless, I managed to spread it in a thin layer, in some places covering the base, but mostly kind of smeared into it. The rest of the cake mixture went on top of the caramel, and the square went into the oven.


After 20 minutes, the slice came out feeling spongy but cooked. As it cooled, I cut a piece and tried it. I have to say it was disappointing - there wasn't nearly enough filling, just a slight swirl of caramel here and there, and the slice itself was more of a flat cake than a slice. It's nice enough, but given the choice, I'd prefer normal tan square.

I can see that cake mixes make a reasonable cake, and perhaps might mean that you can mix up your cake in five minutes rather than ten, but I'd still rather bake from scratch. That's just my own preference though - I know many people choose cake mixes for convenience and reliability, so don't let my prejudices prevent you from doing things whichever way you like!

Don't forget potatoes

I love potatoes. I like them mashed; baked; boiled - pretty much however you choose to cook a potato, I'll like it. So it's really strange that I seldom cook them myself. I don't know why this is: potatoes just don't seem to come to mind when I'm thinking about what I'm going to cook. I always have some spuds in the cupboard, but quite often they'll go wrinkly and grow big long shoots on them before I think about using them.

The other day, I came across the recipe for scalloped potatoes (p162) which was a useful reminder that I had potatoes in the cupboard that needed to be used.

Scalloped potatoes is a pretty simple dish, as long as you allow time for it to cook. All you do is thinly slice your potatoes, chop an onion and grate some cheese. Then make a layer of potatoes in a casserole dish, sprinkle over some onion and cheese, season, and make another layer the same. Keep layering until you've used up all the potato, and finish with a layer of cheese.

The next instruction is something I almost overlooked: you're supposed to pour some milk over the top before you put the casserole dish in the oven. Forgetting this, I just bunged it in as was. Fortunately, I realised my mistake within a couple of minutes, rushed to the oven, pulled out the still-cold casserole and poured the milk over.


Since both the potatoes and onions are raw, this dish takes a while to cook. The recipe indicates 30 minutes covered, then another 10-15 minutes with the lid off. I would tend to leave it in slightly longer: my potatoes, while not raw, could have done with just a little more cooking.


The potatoes looked really good when I first pulled them out of the oven. I was a bit disappointed when I scooped out a serving and saw how much liquid there was in the dish - it was really quite watery-looking, and the milk had created an unpleasant curdling effect around the potatoes.

Despite these unappealing aspects, the potatoes tasted really good: warm, filling and nicely savoury from the cheese and onion. I'm not sure if the wateriness was the result of an error on my part, or whether they always come out like that. In any case, I wouldn't let this description put you off. Have a go at scalloped potatoes yourself, and see if yours come out any better than mine. Even if they don't, they'll taste better than they look!

(Almost) foiled again!

Back in the first weekend of September, I headed to Timaru, intending - among other things - to make some Chelsea buns (p23) for Father's Day. An earthquake interrupted that plan, so as Dad's birthday approached, I considered making a surprise day trip on the weekend before his birthday, bearing freshly made Chelsea buns. Unfortunately, that particular weekend happened to be only a few days after the February quake, and that plan went out the window too.

You may have gathered from the above that Chelsea buns are a favourite of Dad's. I came to the conclusion that there didn't need to be a special occasion for making them, and decided to make some this Saturday before heading to Timaru for Nana's 90th birthday celebration.

So on Saturday morning, I scattered yeast over some warm water, let it go fluffy, then mixed it with flour, salt, sugar, melted butter and warm milk to make a dough. After a bit of kneading, I placed the dough in an oiled bowl and left it to rise.

During this time, I'd become aware of the cat behaving strangely. As I watched her repeatedly go back and forth to her litter box, I started to suspect a problem and rang the vet for an appointment. Since Moby's usually a very healthy cat, I haven't had reason to take her to the vet for years: I didn't have a cat carrier. Abandoning my slowly rising dough, I made a rush trip to the crowded shops of Northlands Mall, where I found no cat carriers to be had. Eventually I found a pet shop down the road from the mall, bought a cat carrier and rushed home.

With an hour to spare before the appointment, I had time to bake my buns. The dough had risen nicely in my absence, so I punched it down and gave it a quick knead before rolling it out to a rough rectangle. This I spread with a filling made of brown sugar, mixed fruit, cinnamon, mixed spice and butter (actually low-fat canola spread, in deference to Dad's cholesterol levels). With the filling on, I rolled up the dough, cut it carefully into 12 pieces, and placed them in a sponge roll tin to bake.

The given baking time was 25 minutes, so I set the timer for 20. Even before the 20-minute mark, the buns were looking risen and golden, so I started work on the glaze, a mixture of water, gelatine and sugar, heated until the sugar and gelatine dissolve. This was ready quite quickly, so I was able to glaze the buns the moment they came out of the oven.

With the buns baked and cooling, I turned to the tricky task of getting cat into carrier. She'd retreated into the couch, her favourite hidey-hole, and I had to pull it half to bits to get her out. Even when I managed to grab her, getting those flailing claws into the carrier was a mammoth episode. Still, I eventually got her to the vet, where she received an unalarming verdict of stress-induced bladder infection.

Since I had to try and de-stress the cat, get her to eat something then take her medicine, and find a way to induce her to drink more, heading to Timaru overnight was not really on the cards. So, once again, no freshly-made Chelsea buns for Dad. Of course, I was still making the day trip for Nana's birthday lunch on Sunday, so I packed up the buns and took them down with me.

When the buns were warm from the oven, they were delicious: soft, fruity and spicy. Certainly the biggest success I've had from the 'breads and buns' chapter, though considering my history with yeast-based recipes, that's not saying much! By the time they got to Dad, they were a day old and really needed a zap in the microwave before eating, but he seemed perfectly happy with them. At least, despite two earthquakes and one sick cat, he got his Chelsea buns in the end.