Molinillo and hot chocolate

As part of my Mexican fad, I bought some Mexican chocolate a while ago and in my readings came across a gadget called a molinillo, which is used to froth the milk.

I headed over to Ebay and found some and set about purchasing three (one for me and presents for others). They arrived on Friday just a little over two weeks since I ordered them. I opened the box with great excitement. I was ready to make a comforting hot chocolate in my favourite mug. Small problem, well large really...they are huge!

I thought it would sit in my mug nicely. Not likely!! Good if I'm planning to make chocolate for a family of ten!! Oh well. Of course after I received the gigantic stirrers I checked the Ebay description and plainly at the end of the item description was the size.

I made my hot chocolate in a smallish saucepan. I used half a tablet of the chocolate (approx 45g), added half a cup of boiling water to soften it then 1 cup of skim milk (I think I will try full-cream mild next time or no water and just milk). I then brought the mix to the boil stirring with a whisk. Once it had started to bubble, I turned it off the heat, poured it into a bowl and did the molinillo thing. (Stand the molinillo in the chocolate, place your hands either side of the stick and rub, like you're rubbing your hands together to keep warm, only there is a stick in the way)

It didn't froth as much as I'd imagined (one reason for trying full-cream milk next time). Also am going to try and find a taller narrow vessel to use the molinillo in. It was quite sweet too, maybe I'll use less chocolate next time.

For more on molinillos here's some info and a bit more here.

Greek Easter Bread

I was at a wedding at the weekend and got to catch up with friends I haven't seen in a while. One friend I got to spend time with is a Norwegian girl. Among the many things we chat about is Norwegian and Scandinavian food, (one of my many, many obsessions is international foods and food traditions). Our food talk led to things she's cooking for Easter. She has been baking fettisdagsbulle, also known as semla and Fat Tuesday buns. They sound great, yeasty buns with cream in the middle, how could they not be great? But that's a project for another time.

On Sunday I began searching the internet for other Easter foods. One thing I've been meaning to try for a long time is Greek Easter bread which is called tsoureki. (Have just selected a random link off the net to give an idea of what it looks like). I had a look at a few recipes and comments and found mention of a spice call mahaleb or mahlepi which is a traditional ingredient and I have never heard of it. So I scheduled a lunch-time visit to the Vic Market to find some.

This morning while I was having my morning coffee and reading the Epicure liftout (from The Age) I found a very timely article about Easter foods from various nations which included Eritrea, Italy, Greece, Philippines and Poland. (At the end of each country section a couple of grocery stores pertinent to that country, which is very helpful, especially for a food-obsessive such as myself!)

At lunchtime today I headed off to Hellenic Deli at the Vic Market. No joy. Went to three more delis before I was directed to this place, Tina's Gourmet Cheese Deli, to buy my little bag of spice.



So I have my stash of ground mahlepi ready to use. Other places where you could buy it include Northcote Plaza, there are a couple of good delis there. Oakleigh has plenty of Greek delis and bakeries. You may also find some at the Coburg Market or the Preston Market.

If you want whole mahlepi seeds you can buy them online at Herbies. Quite a few gourmet food shops stock Herbies products but they don't always have the whole range available.

Excess info: the mahlepi seeds are from the kernel of the St Lucie Cherry. For more info you could try this site or this site.

So tsoureki is a forthcoming project. Might try dying the eggs too.

Ham, vegetable and barley soup

I had some people over for lunch the other weekend and as usual I over-catered. I had a heap of left-over ham, chicken and roast beef. The thought of how many sandwiches I would have to make to use up the meat was too much to bear. I thought of making sandwiches and then freezing them, but that had no appeal either. So I decided on some soup. I picked up a bag of soup mix at the supermarket. The 500g pack contained barley, red lentils and yellow and green split peas and away I went.

Ham, Vegetable and Barley Soup

250g soup mix - half the pack (I used Mckenzie's brand)

Olive oil

1 onion, diced

2 medium carrots, diced

2 large celery sticks, diced

2 garlic cloves

400g cold ham, diced (I had leftover ham, chicken and roast beef)

1/4 cabbage, sliced

450g (approx) sweet potato, diced

Stock or water, as needed

Boil a kettle of water. Rinse the soup mix then soak the soup mix for about 30 minutes in the boiling water and cover with a plate or some foil.

Heat the oil in a pot and add the onion, carrots, celery and garlic and cook them over a medium heat for about 5 - 10 minutes. Add the drained soup mix, diced meat, cabbage and sweet potato, and enough water or stock to cover. Bring to the boil then cook over low heat for about 45 minutes, or until vegetables, barley and lentils are soft.

When cooked, check the seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed. This will depend on how salty the stock (if used) and the meat is.

Had about 5 or 6 serves to put in the freezer.

Note:

You could use any combination of cold meat.

The vegetables could be changed.

Instead of soup mix you could use just barley or lentils or split peas.

Kiwiberry

I went to my local Coles Supermarket last night to get a couple of things. In the refrigerated fruit and veg section I found these little fruits.

They were pretty good, not too sweet and much better that conventional kiwi fruits which I find to be either under-ripe or over-ripe and a bit on the tart side. You can eat the skin as well. They would be very cute on a fruit platter or on mini pavlovas.

The NZ kiwiberry growers have some recipes and info on their website.

Excess chorizo - part two

My second recipe for the abundance of chorizo was Portuguese Beans with Rice.

As usual, I made some changes. I had some cooked kidney beans in the freezer and some cans of mixed beans in the pantry.

4 cups cooked beans (a can is approx 1.5 cups)

120g chorizo (I used the left-over kolbasi for this one)

230g arborio rice (or other short grain rice)

- I had some Calasparra rice (from Casa Iberica) when I tried to make Paella (need practice!)

1 onion, diced

Olive oil

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 ripe tomatoes, seeded and diced

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/2 cup chopped parsley

Cook the rice in a rice cooker.

Fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil over medium heat. Add diced tomatoes and diced chorizo. (I sliced it, but after eating the meal, diced would have been better to more evenly distribute the chorizo through the dish). Fry until chorizo is cooked and onion soft. I added a little water when it looked like drying out.

I then added the beans and the rice. Stirred until all heated through. Added some salt and pepper then stirred the parsley through.

I was pretty happy with this one. I'll make it again, but definitely would use chorizo for more colour and flavour.

Excess chorizo - part one

My first recipe search for my excess chorizo was based on a dish I've had at De Los Santos in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.

It was a tapas dish on their menu which they call Chorizo Mo. I went to my trusty international recipe search website, Recipezaar. This is a really cool website, especially when you're looking for recipes with a particular ingredient/s in mind. So I checked out the options combining chorizo and chickpeas (garbanzos) and came up with Chickpeas and Sausages.

I didn't have any bell peppers (capsicum) and I also had a heap of rocket in the fridge.

Olive oil

1 red onion, diced

2 cups cooked chickpeas

350 grams chorizo

Rocket

Fry off the onion in the oil over medium heat about five minutes. Add the sliced chorizo and cook for another 5 or 10 minutes on medium heat until cooked. Add chickpeas and stir through until heated up.

Put some rocket in a bowl and then serve some of the chickpeas and chorizo over the top and mixed it through the rocket.

Very nice and the chickpeas and chorizo froze okay as well. (I didn't freeze the rocket). I took some to work for my lunch during the week.

Would make this again and might try adding some capsicum too.

Note about chickpeas: I have often used canned lentils and beans for cooking and salads and they are very good to use if you're short of time. However, I just cannot stand the taste of canned chickpeas. I soak chickpeas during the day and then they take about 30 minutes to cook. They freeze really well also, then you just use them as needed.

Test Kitchen: Chorizo (and kolbasi)

Some time ago I read an entry at Footscray Food Blog about Michael's Deli in Footscray. There was mention of kolbasi and it's similarity to chorizo. This piqued my interest as I'm a big fan of chorizo and have never heard of kolbasi. So off to Michael's Deli. As usual I got overexcited and walked out with some dry kolbasi and some prosciutto (but that's another story).

I decided a comparison was needed. So off to my current favourite place to buy chorizo, Casa Iberica.

In my shopping bag I ended up with dry chorizo (Spanish), semi-dry chorizo (Portuguese) and fresh chorizo (Spanish). Combined with the kolbasi; I had my meaty quadrella.

I laid out the stash, and sliced a little ready for cooking.

I set up my trusty pan and did two separate fry-ups, washing the pan between each fry to enable a truer result.

I laid out the cooked meats and began to taste.

The dry chorizo was my favourite, good spice and texture. I would use that again, and will do. The kolbasi was my second favourite, it wasn't so spicy but had a really nice mild smoky flavour. The fresh was my least favourite, I wasn't so keen on the taste and the texture wasn't so appealing.

Now just need to find some recipes to use up all the chorizo and kolbasi left after my research project!

Casa Iberica

25 Johnston St

Fitzroy

Ph: 9419 4420

Mon - Thurs 8am to 5pm

Fri 8am to 6pm

Sat 8am to 2pm

Sun - not open

Apple Tasting Festival 28th March 2010

I'm on an email list for Melbourne Community Farmer's Markets. I don't get there so often as it's a bit difficult to get to from my place but their e-newletter has interesting foody news. In the latest email there is mention of an open day at Petty's Orchard which I'm really keen to get to.

I've heard about this orchard before and have been meaning to get there for ages. They grow a vast range of heritage apples which, according to the flyer, you get to taste. Amongst other things there will be apple cider and information on organics and permaculture.

Kit Kat Flavours

The Bloke is a regular reader of Boing Boing and forwarded me this interesting snippet about Kit Kats. We had some banal chat about them and wondered if we could buy any off Ebay, ha ha joke. Checked Ebay and sure enough a decent array of Kit Kat flavours. I found a sample pack from Japan. I wondered if I might just be blowing my money. What the hell. Went ahead and $13 and a week later these little treasures arrived in the post. Bless Japan's postal service! Whole and uncrushed!!

Some flavours we figured out, some we had to do a bit of Googling to figure out what flavours went with which pack (the Ebay seller mentioned the flavours in the set, we just had to match the pack with the flavours so hopefully we got it right!)

1. Milk Chocolate Kit Kat

2. Maple Kit Kat

3. Royal Milk Tea Kit Kat
4. Caramel Kit Kat
5. Sweet Potato Kit Kat

6. Vegetable Juice Kit Kat

7. Strawberry Kit Kat

The verdict:
Milk Chocolate - same as Kit Kat in Australia
Maple - white chocolate, barely any maple flavour, okay.
Royal Milk Tea - my fave. white chocolate as well, tasted just like milky tea, yum.
Caramel - milk chocolate, strong caramel smell, okay.
Sweet Potato - white chocolate, didn't really taste of anything, just Kit Kat

Vegetable juice - pale apricot coloured white chocolate. Surprisingly nice, actually tasted a bit like a cross between apricot and Juicy Fruit chewing gum, not bad.
Strawberry - milk chocolate. Strong smell of strawberry. The Bloke's fave. not too bad either.