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.

Pork with Celery in a Cream Sauce

The pressure of photographing a plated meal and getting it to the table piping hot, the only way the Darling likes his food, has been a bit of a hurdle, so am trying a different approach.... 'Take a pic in a pot'........

Firstly, brown the pork pieces in a heavy based casserole or fry pan in oil. transfer pork to a plate.

Add onion and celery to pan and cook until soft and onion is just translucent.

Add the stock to the pan, stir well to scrape up all the pork brownings.

Add cream, stir well and place pork and any juices back into pan.


Cover and cook until pork is done and sauce has started to thicken approx. 7 - 10 mins


Plate and serve with your choice of vegies.



We had these,

The potatoes were boiled in salted water until just soft, drained and returned to the heat for a few seconds to dry off.

Pour over the herbs & olive oil that have been whizzed together in a mini blender.




The carrots were also boiled in salted water, drained and returned to the heat with a little maple syrup poured over and allowed to reduce and caramelise.






The freshest of fresh purple and green beans, grown by a neighbour, along with the brocolli, were steamed over the carrots and served just as they were.

We had our No. 1 Grandson for dinner last night, he was quite entranced with the magic of beans that change colour when cooked.


Pork and Celery Casserole Serves 4

1kg pork fillet, trimmed and cut into serving sized pieces
2 - 3 sticks celery, sliced thickly
1 onion coarsley chopped
1 teaspoon olive oil
150 mls stock or water
100 mls cream
salt and pepper.

This recipe is also successful using a 1kg piece of loin pork, but the liquid needs to be increased by adding another 150mls of stock or white wine, increase the cream to 150mls and cook in a covered casserole in moderate oven for approx. 40 mins.

Summer Salads

Bought a new cookbook the other day, just to inspire me away from the same old dishes that I had recently fallen into the habit of preparing.

It's "fresh + fast" by Michele Cranston, A Marie Clair cookbook, and it certainly lives up to its name, you can check it out here http://www.murdochbooks.com.au/mcfreshfast.htm .

I got my copy from Big W for just over $20 and I know that it is going to supply some new family favourite recipes.

I made the Ham Salad with peach and pecans but instead of whole pecans I ground some and sprinkled them over the top.

I peeled the peaches and put them in the balsamic and olive oil dressing about an hour before the Darling got home, so the peaches are a little coloured by the balsamic, but the flavour was wow!, I also pulled the mozzarella cheese apart ahead of time, so at the last minute was able to layer the rocket, mozzarella, peaches and ham and then sprinkle the pecan meal over the top. A fast but tasty and satisfying meal for the end of a busy day.

The Apple & Crasin Salad is my own creation and the potato salad is inspired by Stephanie Alexander, using olive oil and herbs instead of a mayonnaise dressing.

APPLE CRASIN SALAD:- so fast and easy, just finely slice half a crisp apple, I used Granny smith but any other apple would be fine. Half a celery stick, finely sliced and about a Tablespoon of crasins, for a dressing I mixed a dash of apple cider vinegar into a Tablespoon of plain yoghurt, Tossed the apple,celery and crasins through the yoghurt and done.

The POTATO SALAD was peeled and steamed Kipfler potatoes, chunked and while still hot,coated with a dressing of olive oil, Thyme, Oregano and Parsley all whizzed together in the mini-processor, put into a serving bowl, covered and left to come to room temperature.

For some reason every new line is a double line so have had to type the recipes as above, otherwise this post would be so long you would fall asleep getting to the bottom.

Wednesday night we had Minted Lamb Kebabs from the butchers and a lovely Watermelon and feta Salad from 'fresh + fast',

It was so easy, just the watermelon, feta, olives, mint leaves and celery with dressing.

Roast Pork Fillet with Creamy Mustard Sauce

Too busy enjoying my early birthday pressie to shop, so another quick grab from the freezer, thawed a pork fillet while the Darling was teaching me the odd thing or two (or ten) about download, uploads or even side loads, boy am I confused.........
Yep you guessed, clever you, I got a new computer, my old one had 40 thingies and this one has 360 thingies, so it is expected that there will be no more screaming conniptions about lack of storage space or operating space, or whatever.
Now I know you will find this hard to believe, but somehow or other between retrieving the recipe and then activating the net, I have actually lost the recipe for this dish, so this is what I did, not an actual recipe.

Mustard Crumb Coating
1 45grm egg, whisked with
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Process together in mini food processor
1 1/2 slices white bread,
1 large sprig curly parsley
1 small clove garlic
salt & Pepper

Trim the pork fillet from all sinew and fat, cut into 2 serving portions, coat each portion with egg-mustard mix, then coat with the crumb mix.
Place in oiled baking dish and bake for 30 mins.

Creamy Mustard Sauce
1 tiny onion, finely chopped,
1 teaspoon oil
1 Dessertspoon Sherry Vinegar or White Wine Vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon Mustard
2 Tablespoons Light Sour Cream

Soften onion in oil over medium heat, add Sherry Vinegar and simmer until reduced a little, add Mustard and Sour cream, stir over heat until combined. Serve over Pork Fillet.

I served the pork with roasted Vegies at the Darlings request, but as a little extra for Moi, (like I need any extra) I did a cauliflower crisp dish which is just little cauli flowerettes, a teaspoon of each oil and butter, 1 tablespoon fresh breadcrumbs and a pinch of finely chopped parsley, salt and peper, Mix all together in a hot pan, then into a small gratinee or other dish, pop it into the oven with Pork and Vegetables for 15 mins. Crispy and nicely flavoured.