Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Chelsea Buns

I have tried several recipes for chelsea buns and find that this 'sponge and dough' method is the best by far. It produces nice and fluffy buns every time and the dough is a breeze to handle.

Chelsea Bun
I prefer the buns without icing but it seems to be a Kiwi thing to have white or pink icing. Make sure the buns double in size before baking or else it will be dense. I usually leave the dough in the fridge overnight so that the next morning I can proceed to the next step and have fresh sweet sticky buns in time for morning tea.

Sweet Sticky Buns


Makes 18 buns

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Redneck Lemon Chicken

This is the Rednecks preferred Lemon Chicken dish which combines the marinade and coating of Sinner's previously posted recipe with lemon sauce found on the net at ‘CD Kitchen’.

Lemon Chicken


We disagree as to which dish is best so one day we will cook both sauces and do a ‘taste test’. I hope the people who commented on Sinner's recipe will also try my version. As with all sauces the cook should taste and tweak to suit prior to serving. If it is not lemony enough add more zest or if it is too thick add more water.

Ingredients
6 pcs drumstick

Marinade
1 Tbsp chinese cooking wine
1½ Tbsp light soya sauce

Coating
100 gm cornflour
50 gm rice flour

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Short Crust Pastry with 25% less fat

I have always been apprehensive about handling pastry and even more so making it. I have only ever attempted making short crust pastry once, more than a decade ago and that experience was enough to stop me dead in my tracks.

Here I am again, taking up the challenge, all because I bought myself a pie maker. It was on special for $10 and too good an offer to pass up.

curry mince pie
Pastries are by nature quite fattening. I played around with trying to reduce the ratio of fat to flour as even a slight reduction in the fat content will help in the cholestrol and calorie count. In this recipe I have successfully reduced the fat used by 25 percent without affecting the flaky texture of the pie.

This short crust pastry was easy to handle and did not crumble . When baked the pastry was tender, flaky and crispy right through to the inside. I usually make a batch, pre-cut the pie tops and bottoms, and freeze them thus making the task of making the next lot of pies less tedious. We have used the pastry to make curry mince and bacon n' egg pies and they were delicious.

Makes 5 - 5" pies

Ingredients
260 gm flour
60 gm butter
40 gm shortening
¼ tsp salt
95-105 ml ice cold water
1 tsp vinegar or lemon juice (add to water)

Method
1. Add flour, salt, butter and shortening to food processor. Cube the butter and shortening. Pulse a few times until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

2. Sprinkle the water over the flour mixture. Pulse until it starts to clump together (fig 2). Pinch a little of the mixture between your fingers, if the dough is too dry and crumbly, add a little more water and pulse for 1-2 seconds more. It is very important not to overprocess the dough. Do not allow the pastry to form a ball in the food processor. The dough should not be wet or sticky.

3. Transfer the mixture to a plastic wrap (fig 3). Gather the wrap round the dough and flatten the dough to form a square (fig 4). Do not knead the dough.


making shortcrust pastry in a food processor

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Ginger Prawns

This was my mother's favourite way of cooking prawns and is an exceptionally quick and easy dish to cook. The prawns are cooked with ginger juice.

Ginger Prawns
Ingredients
300gm raw prawns
50gm ginger
½ onion, sliced thickly
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 Tbsp oil

Seasoning
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp cooking wine
1 tsp fish sauce

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Beef Kheema

Beef Kheema is an indian mince curry that is delicious with Naan. The meat we used is minced aged rump steak with the fat removed making it healthy and tender.

This dish if cooked without the addition of too much liquid could even be used as a pie filling.

beef keema

Ingredients
500gm beef mince
1-2 Tbsp oil
1 big onion, chop fine
3 clove garlic, chop fine
1 Tbsp fresh ginger, chop fine
2 tsp chilli paste or powder

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