Ham and Potato Pie

Caught Huey on a cooking show the other day, and watched him make this great pie, it looked stunning all wrapped in its pastry case. Suitable to take on a picnic, very English pork pie style.

Sis & B.I.L. were calling in with some great news that needed celebrating, so decided to give the recipe a go. Had to substitute this smoked pork loin for ham, and I didn't have shortcrust pastry, only puff so decided on a pastry top only. Looked just great coming out of the oven and guess who didn't get a pic!
but here is one of the pie being assembled.
Huey reckoned the recipe was one of Donna Hay's and I always love her recipes.

This is what I did with explanations later of Huey's directions.

3 large potatoes, steamed, cooled and thickly sliced
1 onion, sliced and cooked in oil until just starting to colour a little
thin slices of smoked pork loin, probably 150grams, but enough to make 3 single layers in your dish.
4 eggs, whisked
1 cup cream
handful of parsley, finely chopped
leaves from 1 stick of thyme
little salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 Frozen Pastry sheets - I used Puff Pastry

Layer the onion, potato and pork 3 times in an ovenproof casserole, I used a 2 ltr corning ware dish.
In a bowl, whisk the 4 eggs, add the cream, chopped herbs and seasoning,
Pour over the layered potatoes etc.
Make an egg wash with one whisked egg and a little milk
Brush one sheet of pastry with the wash, lay the other sheet on top.
Lift sandwiched pastry onto the dish, and press down around edges to seal, trim.
Brush top with egg wash.
Make a slit in pastry it allow steam to escape.
Bake in moderate oven 180 deg C for 1 hour.

Huey used the same amounts and filling ingredients as above, but using sliced ham instead of the pork loin.
Line a 9" Spring form cake pan with shortcrust pastry
Layer the onion, potatoes and ham 3 times into the case.
Pour the whisked egg, cream, herbs and seasoning over the layers, being careful not to allow the egg mix to go down between the pastry and cake pan.
Using the cake pan as a template, cut pie top from pastry, lay over pie and press edges to seal.
Brush with egg wash, slit, and bake as above.

Honey Soy Sauce for Pork

Peered into the freezer this a.m., wanted to spend the day stitching and not shopping, was happy to see a pork fillet in there, so popped it into the fridge to thaw, that and some nice fresh pak-choy for a simple but tasty dinner. Cooked the pork in a honey, ginger, soy sauce, steamed the pak-choy and served them with steamed rice. Easy Peasy.

Ingredients: to serve 2
1 x 350 - 400 grm pork fillet,
2 Pak-Choy
1 dried chili, or 1 fresh red chill, seeds removed and sliced.
1 knob fresh ginger, cut into small chunks
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/4 cup dark soy sauce
1/4 cup chicken stock or water
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup sherry, dry is best but sweet will do.

Trim the pork fillet, cut into serving sized lengths and then in half through the length.
Pound chili and ginger in a mortar or process in a mini processor, add the sesame oil and transfer to a frying pan, heat slightly (approx. 1 min. ) to release the oils in the chili and ginger.

Add the soy sauce, stock, honey and sherry, stir and bring just to the boil, place the prepared pork fillets in the sauce, lower heat to medium and cover, cooking pork for approx 10 mins until just cooked.

Trim the root end from the pak-choy, wash each leaf and cut into 1"(3-4cm) lengths
separating the stems to one pile and the leaves in another.
Steam the pak-choy stalks until just cooked but still crisp, add the leaves, turn heat off and cover.

Remove pork to a plate and keep warm, turn up heat on sauce and reduce until quite syrupy, take care not to let it go to far and turn into toffee, always a worry with any sauce with a high sugar content.

Return pork to sauce to coat, transfer to serving dish and pour remainder of sauce over.
Serve with the Pak-Choy and rice.

Another 20 minute fridge to table dish.

Enjoy with a nice glass of something lovely, something white and crisp? or maybe a bubbly?

Beef Stir-Fry with Mustard & Honey

Had the raw ingredients of round steak and beans, added a few extras.........
and decided to make a Stir-Fry with the aforementioned Mustard and Honey sauce.

See that lovely plump garlic clove?, it's 'Australian Garlic', grown locally, the cloves are large, mild, sweet and juicy.
They mince easily and lend a lovely flavour to your dish.
The garlic also costs 3 - 4 times the imported varieties but to buy a bulb is such a small $ amount, its only......um......well, 3-4 times the other stuff.
Ingredients:
450grams finely sliced round steak,
1 clove garlic, minced
1 onion, peeled and cut into wedges
1 - 2 teaspoons of Grape seed oil,
150 grams beans topped and tailed and blanched.
1 1/2 Tablespoons Dijon Mustard
Scant 1/3 cup Honey

Method:
Over a moderate flame, or medium setting, heat the oil in a wok or fry pan, add the onion and garlic, cook until onion starts to go transparent but don't allow the garlic to brown. Remove the onion and garlic.

Increase the pan/wok heat and a few more drops of oil if needed, add the beef strips, stirring to turn and brown all over.

Add the beans, mustard and honey and cook stirring for a few Min's until the beans are cooked but still crisp.

Serve with boiled rice.

The above amounts serve 2 for dinner with enough for the Darlings lunch tomorrow.

Timing? put the water on to boil for the rice and by the time the rice is done so is everything else, including time to set the table. Approx 20 Min's and you have dinner on the table.

A bit of a cheating tip, prep the beans first, then as the water for the rice boils, dump the beans in a steamer, colander, sieve, whatever into the water for a min. remove and they are blanched, salt the water and add the rice. Go have a sip of wine to celebrate being so organised and clever.

Girly B.B.Q

.............or B.B.Q in the oven.

Many many moons ago, we had a family fave b.b.q recipe, it involved lamb breasts, tomato sauce, chutney and other tasty ingredients.............well time moves on.

A couple of weeks ago, the Darling and I took a stroll down the culinary memory lane and revisited the recipe.
Oh dear!! did we really eat that?, it was so fatty!, I could just feel the arteries clogging up!

The Darling pronounced the dish a success simply on flavour, o.k., so something had to be done.

Chose to experiment on some lamb b.b.q. chops (forequarter chops), and proceeded to cut every skerik of fat that I could away from the meat.

We had 2 chops each, by the time you cut all the fatty bits away those huge chops turm into tiny little chops

Browned them up in a pan with just a little oil, then transferred to an ovenproof dish, in a single layer with not too much room around the chops.

Half the sauce mixture was then poured over the chops and the whole thing left it to it's own devices in a moderate (180deg C) oven for about 30 mins.

Timing was a little difficult as there was a lot of coming and going and ferrying of bodies around town.

Anyway, this is the result, served it on a bed of steamed rice with coleslaw, but really it would have been better with mashed potatoes and steamed greens, if you want to stick with the b.b.q & salad idea, a potato salad and a simple green salad would be a better choice.

All up, will definitely be doing this again, maybe invite the support team for dinner, I think it would invoke some great memories.

Put the remaining half of the sauce into a steralized glass jar and keep in the fridge either as a condiment, a sauce for a meatloaf, or re-do the chops. The sauce keeps for a couple of weeks, probably longer but we've never managed to keep it for that long.

The B.B.Q. sauce recipe, before we made changes, started its life in the Australian Book of Meat Cookery printed in 1973.

That book was the family culinary bible for many years with such wonderful delights as Meatballs in Tomato Sauce, Swedish Meatballs, Veal Parmigiana, Indian Cutlets - which are not cutlets at all, but left over roast lamb, minced and shaped to resemble cutlets.

Its easy to find the much loved recipes, the splattered pages tell the tale, although strangely enough there is a section near the back of the book where the pages are in pristine condition.

OUR B.B.Q. SAUCE FOR LAMB BREASTS

2 onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 dessertspoon grapeseed oil

3/4 cup tomato sauce

1/2 cup cider vinegar

2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce

1 small jar Chutney - we have always used the Rosella Brand, just habit I guess but a great chutney

1 scant tablespoon brown sugar

1 cupwater

freshy ground black pepper

Slowly caramelise onion and garlic in the oil, making sure it doesn't catch or burn, add a few drops extra oil if needed.

Add the tomato sauce, vinegar, worcestershire sauce, chutney, brown sugar, pepper and water.

Stir well and bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer until sauce thickens slightly, approx 10 mins.

If you wish to make this as a condiment for future use, simmer until thicker and store in sterilised glass jars.

Keep in refridgerator.