Meat Balls ala Italian Mama and more!

What an inspiration it is for to when one of my favorite foodie magazines new copy is out!  I just cannot WAIT to get my hands on them!  Basically in my mind being the first to see it, try all the awesome recipes in it!  Reading words like "clementine mimosa, grapefruit lemonade...steamed whole fish in hot beer and ginger lime sauce..." oh how I love the foodie language!  This month I was inspired by The Food and Home August Cover "Fresh and Fiery" when the Asian recipes with spring rolls, stir-fries, noodles, tempura and sake caught my eye!   They always have the most interesting questionnaires each month and I would say that one that stood out for me is:  "What does the Chinese term DIM SUM literally mean?  It means "Dot on the heart" - how romantic for cooking terms!

Ever since the Foodie Pick and Pay on William Nicole opened it's doors, I wanted to do one of their cooking classes in the Food Studio so last week I went and did an Italian Course - YUM!  It is much fun, people meet up and have some wine, one mingle as most have the same "foodie language" and there you go!  I met lovely people there and had a blast of a evening!  I was lost in Foodie World when I saw the wall painted with these words:  "There is no LOVE sincerer than the love of food! Awesome!

All our ingredients were ready for us after we have seen the demonstration, and we could get all hands on!
For starters we made Asparagus in Parma Ham Gratin with a mini Salad.  This was SO quick and easy!  We had our gas ovens pre-heated and we blanched the asparagus in hot boiling water for a couple of minutes and then in ice cold water.  We removed the hard bottom parts of the green spears.  We wrapped the full of flavor, salty parma ham around the asparagus, and then made a paste with the butter and the Parmesan and placed in on top and then the pan went into the oven! The smells in the kitchen the anticipation and he laughter was buzzing and fun!  Please email me if you would require the recipe - cookingfoody@gmail.com

The smell of fresh ingredients, the strong parmesan cheese, the fresh citrus smell of the clementine we used for the mini salad and red wine went off well.  We arranged the rocket leaves added the clementines (you can also use fresh figs, nectarines or peaches.  We placed the asparagus gratin parcel next to our mini salad, added some fresh "real deal" Parmesan shavings and dressed the salad with rock salt and ground pepper, olive oil and balsamic dressing.  While we were busy at the stove they played funky music to keep us in the mood! 

 We then started this amazing little tomato sauce which is so versatile, you can make 3 other recipes or more with this and can be frozen and used straight away.  We were told that the longer we cook the peeled Italian tomatoes in a can, the sweeter they will be come and they will develop flavor and will loose their acidity without adding any sugar!  More on this sauce and recipe later...

 

 I made some awesome new friends and we chatted and had a blast with this Italian cooking class!

In the August copy of the Woman and Home Simonsberg did a food ad on their Cambrieni, which is basically Brie and Camembert cheese mixed.  The recipe asks that you make a Rose Petal syrup.  This was extremely exiting as I received some shocking pink roses for woman's day so with the smell of roses in the air I started with this recipe:

Pan-fried sesame and honey crusted Camembert served with rose petal syrup
serves 4

250ml (1 cup) fresh rose petals, washed
300ml water
200ml sugar
5ml (1tsp) fresh lime juice

1.  Place the sesame seeds on one plate and he honey on another
2.  Dip the cheese wedges into the honey and then coat with the sesame seeds.  Using your hands press the cheese firmly into the sesame seeds to coat the wedges well.  Refrigerate for 10 min ( I would recommend a little longer)
3.  To make the rose syrup, simmer the petals in the water, for 30min.  Strain and discard the petals.  Place the water back into the pot and simmer until the liquid is reduced.  About 50min.  Mix in the sugar and lime juice and boil until the sugar is dissolved.  Make sure that the sugar does not caramelize.   Bottle in sterilized jars and store until ready to use. 
4.  Heat the oil and butter in a frying pan and, over medium heat, gently fry the wedges in batches until the sesame seeds are golden, about a minute on each side. Drain and serve drizzled with the syrup, topped with parsley and chives, while still hot!  It was delicious!  Sticky rich camenber

 

AND then...for the moment you all have been waiting for...the BEST Meatballs that I have ever eaten!
It is SO true as they say, simple good quality ingredients makes the best food.  I was dreaming off into my Italian World...between the Tuscan fields into a Italian Mama's house....

 

Firstly we started with the yummy tomato sauce I was talking about earlier, here is the recipe:

Basic Tomato Sauce - serves 4

Ingredients

1/2 Garlic clove, finely chopped

15ml olive oil

1.5ml dry chilly flakes

5ml dried oregano

2 x 410g Italian Plum tomatoes

10g Fresh Basil roughly chopped

15ml Extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

 This is sauce is so delicious and thick, full of flavor and taste.

Method

Heat the oil in a saucepan over a medium heat and gently fry off the garlic for a few seconds before adding in the chilli, oregano and tomatoes

Bring slowly up to a gently simmer and allow to cook for at leat one hour to allow the flavors to develop and to sweeten the tomato sauce

Break the tomatoes up with a wooden spoon about half way through cooking to release the pips and make a smoother sauce

Once the sauce is nice and sweet, season to taste and stir in the fresh herbs

Stir through the extra virgin olive oil to enrich the sauce

One can also make 3 different varieties of this sauce to name but a few.

1.  For a Puttanesca sauce - add 30ml capers, 2 anchovies finely diced and a 1/4 cup of black stoned olives

2.  For an Arrabiata sauce - add freshly chopped red chillies to taste (it should be fiery)

3.  For a more meaty sauce - lightly fry some finely diced onion and prosciutto, add some sliced mushrooms and saute till tender and add it to the tomato sauce

Twice cooked Meatballs in Tomato Sauce with Fior Di Latte Mozzarella and Fresh Basil

Ingredients - serves 4

500g Minced Beef

1 slice brown bread (use a food processor to make breadcrumbs of the slice of bread)

15ml dried oregano

1.2ml cumin seeds, crushed (I used powdered)

1.2ml dried chilli flakes

7.5ml fresh rosemary, finely chopped

1 egg yolk

5ml salt

1 small onion finely diced

1/2 garlic clove

7.5ml olive oil

7.5ml dijon mustard

30ml olive oil

Previously prepared tomato sauce

30g Mozzarella balls, broken into small pieces

30g Parmesan cheese, thickly grated

10g Fresh basil leaves thorn

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees
Add the breadcrumbs, oregano, cumin, chilli, rosemary and egg yolk to the minced meat and season with salt
In a small saucepan, heat the oil over a medium heat and saute the onion till soft and fragrant add pinch of salt
Add the garlic in and continue cooking for 30seconds then add the Dijon mustard
Stir well and allow to cool slightly.  Add the onion mixture to the mince mixture and mix well
Wet hands shape the mixture into meatballs he size and shape that you would prefer.
Preheat a large frying pan and add the olive oil.  Add the meatballs and fry them until they are golden brown all over.  Put the meatballs in a ovenproof dish/pan and cover with the tomato sauce.  Top with broken mozzarella pieces and Parmesan and bake int he oven for 15-20 min depending on how you would like your meat done, until the cheese is golden brown.  Tear the basil up and 5min before the end add the basil on top of the meatballs.  Serve with fresh (home made) or bought cooked spaghetti or tagliatelle

This is before you put it in the oven

After it came out of the oven

Dishing up of the yummy rich meatballs - think with such a gorgeous sauce one can use vegetarian meatballs as well.  Thanks Rebecca for your inspiration, hope you enjoy this!

Well...it's almost 12 o clock - AGAIN so off to bed with me dreaming of my next adventure.  This has been a hectic week with my hubbies birthday which we have celebrated at the Saxon Hotel - blogging to follow and Fire and Ice Hotel in Melrose Arch with friends.  I have been lucky enough to watch the RAIN tribute to the Beatles musical at Monte casino this week, next week we are watching the TATOO show there in the open outside area, have a girls movie ladies night and going away for the weekend.  Hopefully I can catch up on some blogging and exercise!

Braised Pork Belly with Ginger-Caramel sauce

Adapted from Reuben cooks "food is time travel"

Pork Belly was not one of my favorites, but one that fits my husband extremely to the heart.  It is therefore that I wanted to perfect this dish as he usually orders pork belly at some of our favorite restaurants which include The Attic in Parkhurst.  I wanted to capture this dish with all the flavors and textures involved.  When I started off I knew this was going to be something new and something that I have not attempted before, but thought I would give it ago anyway.

Tonight I feel like Julie in my most popular movie Julie and Julia 2009 where she comes home after a horrible day from work, and says to her husband:

"You know what I love about cooking? I love that after a day when nothing is sure and when I say nothing, I mean nothing. You can come home and absolutely know that if you add egg yolks to chocolate and sugar and milk, it will get thick. That's such a comfort."

Again I tried a recipe from Reuben Riffel as I was SO amazed by the yummy French Onion soup that when I saw the picture in his book and the ingredients I just knew I had to try it out!  One thing that I must say about Reuben's cookbook is that it's fancy food without any fuss, easy recipes and not a a lot of ingredients per recipe.  I love experimenting and smelling the flavors and I get teached at cooking class that one must taste the herbs and new ingredients to see what it is going to do to your dish.  I also did some research on other blogs and websites and found a very interesting blog http://almostbourdain.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post.htmlh - with absolutely brilliant pictures "almost bourdain" twice cooked pork belly that I will most definitely try in the future!  

I think the choice of recipe for me was in the interesting sauce as I love "taste explosions" if you can call it that, and the thing is, once you've eaten like this at home there is no way you can expect this from all restaurants without being disappointed unfortunately.  This is my passion, and I am going to give it my best and even if all I am getting from this is to reflect on the promise to myself to educate and enjoy myself every step of the way, and to look back to what I have achieved, this dream that will be ticked of my "Bucket-list" as my BEST friend and writer Marion Erskine always say.

At first, I did not really know what to do with this round piece of meat (all rolled up with string), Woolies bought (next time I will visit my butcher).  I placed it in a small oven tray that it fits fairly snugly. 

500g pork belly 

2 cups chicken stock

Peel of 1 orange 

1 cup soy sauce

1 small piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

1 star anise

1 small cinnamon stick

1/2 cup sugar

Peanut oil for roasting

Lime Quarters, to serve

I mixed the stock, orange peel, soy sauce, ginger, star anise, cinnamon stick and sugar together, poured it over and covered it with foil.  I then roasted it for 3.5hours.  Then transferred the pork (out of the sticky yummy red marinade) into a plastic container, about the same size, left a little stock at the bottom and closed and put a brick on top to make it flat. (very interesting).  Needs to be in fridge for 3hours or over night.  We left it over night.  

One then just heat the oven to 180 degrees, cut the pork belly in squares (depending on how big you would want it) and then roast it until crispy on each side for 10min.  First it is skin-side down, the roasting tray lightly brushed with peanut/sunflower oil.  

The super yummy sauce, sticky, chilly, ginger, fish sauce, limey recipe is:

Ginger-caramel sauce

1/4 cup palm sugar (I used Demerara sugar)

1/4 cup water

2 red and 2 green chillies (I used a teaspoon green chillies)

2 Tablespoons crushed ginger ( I used Robertson's new Ginger paste - which I think is amazing because it does not have the ginger strands)

4 Tablespoons Thai Fish Sauce (I only used 2)

and the juice of 2 limes (I used 1 large)

Method

In a saucepan, slowly bring the palm sugar and water to the boil.  Simmer until the mixture starts to caramelize.  Add the chillies, ginger, Thai fish sauce and lime and cook slowly for 2more minutes.

Whala!

The meat was extremely tender and warm gingery, aniseed, "cinnamoney" like, almost like Peking duck. The fat was soft and was like butter melted on your tongue.  Rich, but the sauce with the lime and the chilies cut through that.  I served it with fresh green asparagus, Broad beans and Edame Beans witch was boiled in a little salt water for 4min, then put in cold water, re-heated with a little melted butter and roasted pumpkin.

I want to say goodnight with another quote for my husband whom supports me with my efforts and even helps with the cooking and photography even if it's only watching with one eye..."You are the butter to my bread, and the breath to my life!" - Paul Child

Reuben Cooks "food is time travel"

After I have been super inspired and charged up by the movie Julie and Julia more than a year ago, today was the day I woke up and felt like I had to look through my cook books for some inspiration for this lovely Winters day.

 I paged though a lot of cook books, an then decided to open Reuben Riffels signed copy for some inspiration.  This amazing book full of heartfelt stories and beautiful pictures about his cooking life was all that I needed to do my "bucket-list" of wanna-do's from my wall.  French onion soup was one of them.

As we traveled through Paris, I was thinking back to the yummy crunchy french loaves "baguette" we discovered in the most amazing small bakeries and comfort eating in sweet buttery onions caramelized to perfection brought back so many memories.

 As I sliced the super sweet onions and the aroma in the house was this of garlic and butter, my heart was happy as I was thinking of my earlier shopping in the cheese department, and I wanted something stronger or with better character than brie that was on my list - camenbrini sold out ;-(  I did try the brie as Reuben suggested and also Provolone Piccante and imported old Gouda that was supper yummy on the crunchy baguette with olive oil and a little garlic.  This little mini breads scooped up the yummy onions and was melt in the mouth full of flavor and yummy-ness.

To make the soup a little richer in the future, I though of roasting off some marrow bone and adding it to the soup when it boils for the 20mins suggested.

  French onion soup

serves 6

6 big sweet onions - peeled and sliced into thin strips
60g butter
Salt and black pepper
1/4 cup sherry
9 cups clear beef stock
24 round slices of sourdough bread - I used baguette
115g goats milk Brie cheese, cut into thin slices
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

Method

Sweat the onions in the butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat for 30min or until golden brown.  Season with salt and pepper.  Deglaze the pan with the sherry and cook for a further 2min. Add the beef stock and simmer for 15min.  Season to taste with salt and pepper if necessary.

To prepare the croutons, preheat the oven to 180 degrees.  Toast the sourdough bread slices in the oven for 10-12min or until golden brown.  Place a slice of Brie on each crouton and slice under the grill until cheese has melted.  To serve, ladle soup into shallow bowls.  Arrange 4 croutons in each bowl.  Sprinkle with chives and thyme., and grind over some black pepper.

I also used a bay leaf and garlic and thyme.

YUM!  Eat your heart out "frenchies".  I also think this will make a fabulous entertaining starter