Wok Tea Smoked Chicken Noodle Salad & Weekend Roundup

After a busy weekend doing a site clean up and moving the last few things that were in the old kitchen to the temporary kitchen in a bedroom, I wanted a nice dinner and as I’m trying to be a bit conscious of healthy eating and maybe even losing some weight (so I can eat up big in Turkey!)  I chose a vietnamese style salad. I’ll come back to this after the weekend roundup!

Weekend roundup.

As mentioned, things are getting serious with the exteno and the last items that were in the kitchen have been relocated to the spare bedroom that we will use until the new kitchen is done. This should work well, the only things I haven’t really addressed is how we are going to manage water and dishes. We can now start on stripping the old chimney with no worries about the mess getting into everything. Not sure why I think that matters? There is mess in everything else! It will evolve, I’m not that worried.

Fridge and freezer relocated

Small prep area with my precious ‘toy oven’ in the corner.

A quick wander around the veggie patch and some exciting harvests beginning to come in. Things are a little out of control, but tomorrow I’ll go out with gusto and get stuck into it. You can really tell summer is here!

Tigerella tomatoes in greenhouse. Should have a couple by Christmas.

Cucumbers galore!

So many raspberries this year. That makes me happy!

Harvest of lettuce, peas, cucumber, potatoes, eggplant, beans, beetroot and look at that little red thing. Yes, first tomato of the season!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This weeks bread bake was based in Chad Roberston’s sesame country loaf. I used 20% rye and 80% Callington Mill light flour, 70% hydration. This is a lovely loaf! Smells wonderful and I notice that the sesame flavour has developed well from yesterday until today.

Back to the Tea Smoked Chicken Vermicelli Noodle Salad.

I’m trying to use up as many of the things I have in the freezer and pantry as much as possible. I’d spied some Mirboo Pastured Poultry tenderloins hiding in there and thought they might smoke well.

I marinated (or is is marinaded?) the tenderloins (500ish grams) in a mix of approximately:

• 40ml soy sauce
• 40ml Chinese rice wine
• 1 desertspoon extra fine rice flour
• 1 tablespoons olive oil
• a few slices of ginger
  Leave the chicken in the marinade a couple of hours or overnight.

 

 

 

 

 

Lightly sear the chicken, just enough to brown the surface. Tread lightly here as the chicken will continue to cook while smoking. Prepare the vessel you are going to smoke the chicken in. I use a wok for this.

Line the wok with 2 layers of foil, add the ingredients you are going to create the smoke with. I used

• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• ⅓ cup raw rice
• ¼ cup tea leaves (I used some I wasn’t sure of what it was and that I would never drink, oolong is popular for smoking)
•  sliced ginger
• 1 star anise
• about a tablespoon of pink peppercorns

Mix these together so they are evenly distributed. I added the pink peppercorns last minute, after this was taken!

I use a bamboo steamer for smoking, I line it with baking paper with holes cut out so the smoke circulates well. Like cutting out paper dolls and snowflakes when you are little!

Place the chicken into the steamer, light the gas under the wok (low heat) and when smoke starts appearing, put the steamer with lid on into the wok. Make sure there is a bit of a gap between bottom of steamer and the wok. I let smoke for about 15-20 minutes and this mix resulted in the best smoked flavour I’ve done so far. The pink peppercorn taste take came through really well.

The base of the noodle salad was simply

• vermicelli noodles (I had soaked these in boiling water while chicken was smoking).
• 1 long red chilli finely chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped mint
• 1/2 cup chopped coriander
• some peas and beans I harvested yesterday. The larger peas I shelled and left the young ones whole. I zapped them in the microwave for 1 minute.
• Carrot finely cut
• A sauce made from lime juice, brown sugar, rice wine vinegar and a splash of soy.

I discovered my mint pot which had been doing well was moved at some stage during the slab stage and it was beyond saving for tonights meal. Lucky for me we have a great local fresh fruit & vegie supplier where I knew I would not only be able to get fresh mint but I could also get organic carrots grown by the wonderful Thorpdale Organics. Never had to buy mint before and like buying lemons, it just shouldn’t happen! Grabbed some fresh limes too, but sadly they didn’t have bean sprouts. That’s my chilli, didn’t buy that!

Trafalgar Spud Shed, Thorpale Organics

Bean sprouts are one of those things that I hate buying because it is hard to get fresh ones and they come in plastic bags. You usually only use a small amount from the bag and the rest gets fed to chooks or composted. Whenever I try to grow our own they work well but I can’t seem to co-ordinate having them ready with when I need them. Maybe Tammy from over at Gippsland Unwrapped has some tips of getting these without plastic packaging. Dandenong Market sells them not packed but that wasn’t an option today.

The end flavour of this meal was great. Succulent, juicy, stunning flavour of the chicken and this went together well with the vietnamese inspired noodle salad with loads of fresh herbs and a tangy sauce. I would definitely give smoking in a wok a try, it is easy and the results are sensational!

 

Chick Peas, Pulled Pork, Tortillas, Bread and Garden.

Yep, it’s been a busy weekend! I love it when you get to achieve everything you set out to, it is incredibly satisfying. It certainly helped that the weather was absolutely beautiful. After 10 days of non stop rain and misery the sky was blue, no wind and the temperature got to about 19 today.  This is my son’s dog enjoying the warmth as did we!

I’d been feeling a bit under the weather Thursday and Friday so it was great that I felt energised and raring to go for the weekend. First up I chooffed off to the Warragul Farmers Market to stock up on some goodies. This market has developed well and even though we are entering winter, there is still a great range of produce and a really strong sense of community from every one who attends or sells there. I love it! I bought some beautiful organically grown carrots (see recipe later) and leeks from Thorpdale Organics  (forgot to take a pickie), organic milk and paneer from Miranda Dale Dairy, chicken from Mirboo Pastured Poultry, Eggs from WillowZen, who claim their pullet eggs are sensational poached. I’ll report back on that later! Apples (I always forget the business name but they are very friendly),  Mushrooms from Gippsland Mushrooms, Saffron grown in Mirboo, just up the road, chorizo sausages and surely something else! No need to go into those awful big ‘not so super’ markets at all!

With the shopping stowed away I spent a couple of hours in the veggie patch trying to bring a bit of control back into it. I hadn’t done much over the last few weeks and found it very therapeutic getting out there and getting stuck into it. I tweaked the area where last season I had put a bath to grow some potatoes. It is now a better use of space and gives me a spot to put a chair so I can just sit and contemplate. It also means the worm farm and compost bin are easier to access.

Some gravel fill in between the pavers and some bee attracting flowers planted, it should come up quite well. I also gave the greenhouse a good clean up. I noticed there was quite a big build up of muck on the panels which would be reducing the mount of sun coming in. With the cold season I need to capture as much warmth as possible,  so some hot water, truck wash, broom and a good high pressure blast of water and it is back to looking loved.

 

 

 

 

 

Belated Mothers Day Lunch.

We were in Sydney for mothers day, so the kids came home today for lunch. I was really happy with today’s  meal. I often don’t enjoy eating what I cook but thoroughly enjoyed these dishes. Eating while sitting out in the lovely sunshine consisted of:

Spicy Pulled Pork– Pulled pork is such an easy and cheap way to feed a group. I put a pork shoulder in the marinade/rub  in the slow cooker pot Friday morning before I went to work, put in fridge until Sat night then turned the slow cooker on low and it was beautifully cooked by Sunday morning. I do cover the meat with some baking paper to keep it moist while its cooking. It just falls apart and is so juicy and tender.

The recipe had ‘Cebolla en escabeche’ (picked onion) as an accompaniment. The pickling being achieved by soaking onions in lime and orange juices. I didn’t have limes so substituted green lemon juice and it was fine. Love the colour!

Last week when I was at Herbies Spices in Sydney we sampled a lentil and kidney bean dhal using his ready made blend. I bought some of the blend and used it to make a chick pea dish to go with lunch today. So easy, add some oil/ghee to a pan, add 1 finely chopped onion and soften, add 2 tablespoons of the spice blend and cook out for a minute or so. Add drained chick peas (2 X 400g cans), tomato passata (I bottle mine in beer stubbies so that would be 375ml), 1/2 the juice from the drained peas and cook until required thickness. I also threw in a couple of the last cherry tomatoes. If too thick, add a little water to thin. You can also add some yoghurt but I didn’t and it was still lovely. Served with coriander on the top. Beautiful.

An interesting side dish  I made was a carrot and radish (turnip) salad only I couldn’t get radishes at the farmers markets so I used young turnips which have a similar spicy element to them. Put the carrot and turnip through the V-Slicer, took about 2 minutes to make. Winner-It was really nice!

Home made tortillas, Annabel Langbein’s recipe of course!

which were used as a wrap for the pork, chick peas and side salads. Some greek yoghurt, bean sprouts and tomato relish as well and it went down really well.

Lastly are a couple of photos of the pretty spider webs I saw when I ventured out early Sunday morning. Hope your weekend was as fulfilling as mine!

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Happy Birthday Warragul Farmers Market!

The weekend started magically with me having my monthly visit to the Warragul Farmers Market to stock up on some of the sensational organic and locally produced providence that is showcased there.

The market celebrated their 1st birthday this weekend and it has just grown from strength to strength since its inception. I always think a good market not only offers great produce, but it creates an emotional link within the community. People develop relationships with traders and other community members, they come together to chat, relax, share stories and take home some wonderful things. A feel good experience! This market offers all of this, set in a beautiful location, music by local artists, activities for the kids and some of the best produce Gippsland has to offer!

I really look forward to my visit to this market to see what will jump out and ask me to take it home. Some of my favourite and highly recommended traders are, Thorpdale Organics, Gippsland Mushrooms, Mirboo Pastured Poultry, the Apple lady (I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know from where but I always buy her apples!), and after tasting Jindivick Hydroponics tomatoes they are up there too.  Although I didn’t buy  as much as I normally tend to, I came home with some lovely tomatoes, lettuce, mushrooms, apples and a warm heart. Some of these went into a carbonara style pasta using our home grown broccoli, snow peas, broad beans and herbs, added some of Thorpdale Organics eggs into the sauce and voila, a fresh, mostly organic and made with love dinner. Thanks Warragul Farmers Market!

Flour woes

I reverted to using the ordinary old ‘organic bread flour’ in my sourdough this week and it just cemented how good the flour I brought back from Callington Flour Mill in Tasmania is. Dough hydration was 75% but this flour just doesn’t have to ‘guts’ to cope with that much water so it’s a very wet dough.  I used a portion of the dough into a ciabatta style loaf and will just keep my fingers crossed for what I expect to be a very flat loaf with the rest. Looks OK, smells great but it’s too early to cut to check if I’ve got those lovely big ciabatta holes in the crumb. Time will tell. It is amazing how much variation there can be with flour and protein levels, water absorption and general structure. Back to the Callington Mill flour next week!

We spent most Sunday at the Traralgon Poultry Auction. That was a new experience indeed, not sure if I’d relive it, but it’s something new I can say I’ve done! My son and his fiancé wanted a couple of chooks to include in their backyard so off we went thinking an hour would probably knock it over. WRONG! Finally, a long 4 hours later, they did manage to secure 2 lovely little chooks, not sure of variety but I think there is some Rhode Island Red mixed with maybe some Australorp in there. They have obviously settled into their new home well as I got a message from D&A with a photo of 2 eggs. Pretty impressed and happy they are! I get a real sense of calm knowing that all 3 of our children, grow things, cook things and love fresh unadulterated produce.Got the fence around the veggie patch fully painted/stained, I’m really pleased the way the stain has made the fence blend in with the old hard wood. Bit hard to see here cause of the shadow, but the patch and chicken coop are now really looking integrated.

 Nice weekend indeed. Hope you enjoyed yours too!

Mulligatawny Soup & Slow Cooker Roast Chicken

If anyone had asked me what mulligatawny soup was, I would have replied “something Scottish I reckon”. Wrong, mulligatawny soup as it happens is a Tamil dish from India. There are many variations of how it is prepared but I tried the recipe that is in the book, The Apple Orchard’ I mentioned last post. My first impression was that it tasted like liquid chow mien, but once it had cooked for a while and mellowed out it was just a straight out nice curry flavoured chicken soup. Was perfect tea for in front of the fire after the wet, cold and generally miserable Saturday we had. Served with sour dough croutons, greek yoghurt and chopped chervil. Very nice. Click on the link below for the recipe I used.

Mulligatawny-Apple Orchard

Slow Cooker Roast Chicken

On My last visit to Warragul Farmers Market, my purchase from Mirboo Pastured Poultry was a whole bird but quite a bit larger than the usual size, apparently 10 weeks old rather than the usual 8 weeks. Ilan asked for feedback on this chicken so here it is.

I cooked this chook whole in the slow cooker. I made a rub of butter, lemon zest, S&P and tarragon and put some of this mix into breast between the skin and flesh, then rubbed the rest of the body with it and sprinkled with salt. I stuffed the cavity with my favourite stuffing. This is made by mixing breadcrumbs, chopped green capsicum and an egg all together. Love this stuffing and stick to all the time now. I lined the base of the slow cooker with some sliced potatoes to act as a trivet keeping the chook off the hot base. I threw in 8 smashed garlic coves and 1 lemon cut in half. Some of Wendy & Tony’s beautiful Dutch Cream Potatoes from Thorpdale Organics  went in the pot too. I was going out for the afternoon so I knew everything would be ready  for dinner on my return. I zapped some dutch carrots ready to do a last minute heat and glaze for serving, picked some broccoli florets and beetroot from the garden. I roasted the beetroot in foil while I cooked the bread this morning and planned on putting this with some feta in to heat with the spuds before serving. When I got home I put the chicken and potatoes into the ‘toy oven’ to brown off, took some juice from the slow cooker, added some orange juice and a little sugar and boiled the daylights out of it to reduce it making  a nice jus. I zapped the broccoli for app 1 min 30 secs, reheated the carrot and threw into a pan with butter and chervil. I put some feta in with the roast beetroot and threw that in with the crisping spuds to heat and melt. Dinner was ready to serve.

Dutch carrots with chervil glaze, broccoli, roast beetroot and feta, chicken with orange jus.

Chicken was stunningly juicy and moist. Skin crisped up beautifully with a little zap under the grill element. Considering it was all done and only tweaked after returning from being out for the afternoon it was great. Just can’t work out why anyone would still buy supermarket poultry. I think I would use sage instead of tarragon in the butter rub though next time!

Rueben’s Rubies

I know that’s a bit of a corny heading, but with the ruby colour these quince turned out it just seemed to fit. It still amazes me how such ordinary fruit can become so beautiful and tasty after cooking.

A couple of months ago we had the pleasure of joining some friends at a degustation dinner at a great eating establishment in Mt Evelyn. Billy Goat Hill Brasserie is well worth a visit if ever you are in the area (even if you’re not, go for a drive!). Along with some great menu choices, Reuben the chef and other staff are great hosts and go out of their way to make your experience a positive one. There is an obvious passion and commitment to good wholesome food and sustainability which is evident from before you even enter. Part of our dinner included some sensational quince and I cheekily asked Reuben of he would share his secret and he very graciously obliged. Just have a look at these beauties!

These were Reuben’s instructions-Peel and core into 8, bring the peelings, cores and some lemon rind to boil with about 20% sugar to quince (that’s around one cup to every five quinces), simmer for about 10 minutes then strain the liquid over the peeled quince in a baking tray. The water should cover the quince, give them some room… put foil over the top and place in a low oven until soft (about two hours). Take the foil off, bring the heat up and get some colour on to them. After another hour or so, give them a shake once or twice and yum! Good luck!

Served with Annabel Langbein’s 3 ingredient chocolate mousse and some pure cream it was an extremely rich dessert but heavenly. The sweetness of the quinces syrupy juice with the strong chocolate meant I had to virtually lick my plate clean! Thanks Reuben! Can’t wait till we are back down that way again.

Chilli Jam-not so chilly!

Our harvest of chillies, both jalapeño and rocoto is starting to reach it’s peak, so yesterday I thought I’d make some chilli jam for using as a marinade, dips and all sorts of things. These jalapeño are from just one bush and I have another 3 to go! Any tips as to good preserving recipes much appreciated.

I used Annabel Langbein’s (yes, again!) Chilli Jam recipe as a base and all went according to plan. Her recipe uses 8 long red chillies so I had to have a guess at how many of our chillies were the equivalent. I also cut the sugar back a bit and when the paste was processed I weighed it and used the equivalent weight of sugar. Cooked up really well but boy it has a kick to it!

Slow Cooker Roast Chicken-Asian Style

I had planned on doing a plain, normal old roast chicken in the slow cooker but was keen to try the new chilli jam on something so I reconfigured my plans.  The chicken went into the slow cooker with some sliced ginger, a chilli and some coriander. I rubbed the outside with sesame oil and cooked on high for 3 hours then turned down to low, basted with the juices.

I soaked some rice noodles so they would be ready at serving time, prepared some vegetables for stir frying, broccoli, carrot, snow peas, bok choy, green capsicum and spring onions. I microwaved these for 1 minute and left covered until serving time when I tossed them into the wok with some ginger, sesame oil and a small amount of stock. I shredded the chicken and had kept it hot by wrapping it in foil and leaving in the slow cooker until serving time. All of this worked well as it meant everything was ready to go when our son arrived and there were no deadlines to worry about.

To serve I placed some rice noodles onto the plate, topped with the stir fried vegetables then the shredded chicken. Garnished with spring onions and added the chilli jam on the side so we could use as desired or not. I was a bit nervous about the jam being too hot so also served a bowl of plain chilli sauce for those not quite as partial to hot flavours. The heat intensity actually diminished quite a bit when eaten with the other ingredients. All in all very nice.

Thanks to Mirboo Pastured Poultry for such flavoursome chicken once again it was so juicy and tasty. Need to restock now, that was the last of it.