Mutton + Bird

My goodness, we have have had two sunny days in a row here in Dunedin - during summertime. I am sure that's a record somewhere. The ODT may report on it at some stage. I promised a mutton bird tale and here it is, rather short and sweet, the pics say it all really.

I arrived home at Hawkes' Bay after Christmas and dad had scored a couple of muttonbirds from somewhere or other. Now I have never tried muttonbird but did have to fish them out of a 40L plastic drum as a 15 year old working in the Avenue Dairy. All I remember of the things is that I'd get stinky grease over my hands, the newspaper I had to wrap them in and the spunky blue tunic I had to wear at work.

Anyway, dad had already performed the multiple boilings to reduce the salt and thought he'd crisp it up on the bbq, seeing as how it was out and being used for dinner.

It was browning up nicely, but seemed to be producing an endless supply of fat. Like the Tardis its innards were out of sync with its outsides (outtards???). We bunged the sausages and steak on too, a little bit of extra fat never hurt anyone. Well, not quite. The top drip tray started belching black, muttonbirdy smoke and flames a foot high were escaping the lower drip tray and curving up the outside of the bbq lid.

Hmm. Not good. Using the knowledge acquired from Mrs Werner in Form 1 Manual, I managed to douse the top tray with about 3 tonnes of iodised salt ('never use flour as this can catch alight in the air'). The lower drip tray was still flaming and mum was busy exhorting her grandchildren to get away from the imminent explosion. Funny that she wasn't exhorting any of the rest of us to escape death by muttonbird conflagration...

To cut a short story shorter, we retrieved the never before used extinguisher from dad's Civil Defence emergency pack ('Are YOU prepared?') and tamed the bird of mutton. After my salty heroics, all that remained for me to do was to get the camera and play war zone correspondent.

It may not be a weapon of mass destruction, but I do feel that the preserved sooty shearwater may need to come with a health warning, a la tobacco products, complete with disturbing scratch'n'sniff photographs of blackened, greasy soot-flavoured sausages.

After all that drama I can now equivocally say however that titi does not taste like chicken. Meaty anchovies maybe, but definitely not cluck. Quite tasty really. Don't forget the fire-retardant foam.

2011

It's been a long time between pavlovas manfoodies. After a hectic December with manfoods and ladyfoods and christmasfoods galore, it was great to get back to Hawkes Bay for some r & r in the warmth.

That said, Christmas was fabulous at Norfolk St. I had some of my favouritest people around and thoroughly enjoyed feeding them and drinking champagne and fine pinot noir. The menu ran as follows for those interested:

Nibbles: Spanish Tortilla, Chilli Cumin Spiked Almonds, Agua de Valencia (yum concoction of bubbles, orange juice, white rum and cointreau)

Entree: Saffron Risotto with Paprika-dusted Monkfish and Flash-fried Paua

Main: Whole Beef Rib-Eye Roast with Port and Rosemary Sauce, Baby New Potatoes in Minted Butter, Peas with Caramelised Shallots

Dessert: Spiced Plum and White Chocolate Trifle, Dark Chocolate Torte with Cherries, Raspberry and Lemon Tart, Raspberry Gelato

The first regular manfood of the year is set for Wednesday 9th February and I'm hoping to set up some short courses this year too. Details to follow, so watch this space.

The next installment will talk all about the perilous muttonbird, consider yourselves warned!

The Hex Part II

I can now proudly claim to be a true Kiwi woman! Last night's pavlova emerged successfully from the Smeg Beast, the Pavlova Hex has been broken and all is good in the kitchen.

The Hex

I do believe that this is the most marvellously mountainous pavlova I have ever seen - look too at its verdant kiwifruit slopes!!

When I was five I had the leading role in our class' production of Sleeping Beauty. I got cursed by the wicked fairy, slept for 100 years with nary a wrinkle to be seen and lived happily ever after in the lap of luxury with Prince Charming.

I hear you wondering what has this in common with me or food for that matter? Well not all that much. I certainly am not escaping the march of time, despite lathering on moisturiser religiously, and Prince Charming is a trout fisherman whose idea of luxury is a sleeping bag AND a pillow in the back of the truck. The sad truth is that I too was cursed as a baby. Some unknown sprite, out of malice or sheer meddlesomeness, cursed me with The Pavlova Hex.

I'm a good cook, I can bake, I can even cook and bake relatively tricksy things, but the elusive Pavlova does not come high and white out of the Smeg Beast. I know the theory behind the Pav. I beat egg whites until they are glossy, satiny, smooth, shiny and a hundred other adjectives. According to each recipe I add the sugar all at once, in thirds, sprinkled in a spoonful at a time. Vinegar, vanilla and cornflour are folded in with all due care and the lightest of hands. The oven is high then turned down, or off, or kept on an even heat for the duration. Still the Pav fools me.

It looks the picture of perfection in the oven, whitely delicate, puffed up with the promise of marshmallowy goodness inside and a crunchy meringue exterior. I think that this might be the one. I let it cool in the oven. And it sinks. Not enough to be an abject disaster, rather just sufficiently to leave a flicker of hope that I am making progress. There is meringue, but it is too thick; there is marshmallow, but it is not inches of pillowy yum.

After a hiatus of almost 9 months, I have decided that it was time to face down my Pavlova demons again. As I type I have a Pavlova in the Smeg Beast. I have used Stephanie David's 'never fail' recipe that my neighbour's 13 year old son whips up regularly. It failed for me last time. This time I have opted for the dunce's heat setting of 2 hours at 120 Celsius. It's looking good. If, in my next post, you see that I write about the virtues of Eton Mess (broken meringue, berries, cream) as a quick and easy dessert, you'll know that I'm still pricking my finger on the Pavlovian spindle...

STOP PRESS: why didn't I find this link earlier?!! It's cream of tartar for the marshmallow and furrows to support the sides....

http://www.taste.com.au/how+to/articles/912/make+perfect+pavlova

It's been a while

Sorry for the dearth of blog-bites cherubs, there has been fooding left, right and centre at Norfolk St over the past few weeks. I suppose I should also confess that the glorious weather Dunedin had last week left me less than inclined to tap away inside on my Mac...

Since my last post it's been all go with Cardrona lamb and slow-cooked quincy pork and extra-manly manfood (pizza and ribs), not to mention aprons galore. My studio looks like a 1934 haberdashery has exploded in it thanks to random assorted pieces of vintage-looking floral cottons everywhere.

Nothing has exploded in the kitchen although I have taken to having no-cook days which are rather relaxing. I have however, developed an unhealthy obsession with Hubbard's Feijoa cereal and would happily eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner (and indeed have done so on occasion). While I'm sure it is not quite as decadent as eating nothing but braised pork belly and vegetables with beurre blanc, I don't think finishing a whole box of cereal in 2 days is really part of a balanced diet. I now avert my eyes in the cereal aisle...

My manfoodies and I did risotto last Thursday and I must say that it was damn fantastic. I'd forgotten how tasty it is, and at the risk of expulsion from the Potato-Fanciers' Committee, would almost rate it higher than mashed taties as a comfort food. I know, I'm the first to champion a well-squashed Agria with unhealthy (but delicious) amounts of butter and salt, but creamy rice with bacon, asparagus, spinach and Parmesan was pretty fine.

Speaking of things beginning with 'r', I made my first batch of ricotta yesterday. It's so easy! I was inspired by an interview on Radio NZ National's 'Country Life' programme - the things you learn listening to public radio on Saturday mornings! Ate some for morning tea, still warm with passionfruit syrup, mmmm.

Spargel ist lecker!

Spring must officially be here: I bought my first asparagus of 2010 today at Fresh Choice and it wasn't $3.49 for 4 measly stalks. Not in sufficient abundance to stir-fry with abandon, but enough to serve with a divinely decadent beurre blanc and monkfish at tomorrow evening's manfood. I test-drove my recipe the other day and really, half a pound of butter to make 1 cup of sauce, it's so wrong but so very tasty.

One thing that bugs me however, is the fact that NZ is home to the monopolistic dairy beast that is Fonterra and has about umpteen gazillion cows taking over the South Island, all the while roaming free and eating grass (and polluting our rivers), but the 'fresh' butter we find in the chiller often has nasty rancid overtones and discolouration to the outer layer. Based on numerous chef recommendations I have bought DANISH butter to make my beurre blanc tomorrow. I mean, carbon credits be damned and all that, I should be able to buy fabulous, sweet, boutique NZ-made butter here. My next Trade-Me purchase may well be a butter churn; not sure where the cow would live though - it would have to like thistles if it wanted to live off my backyard.

Watching Julie & Julia (again) last night, there was a lot of swooning over butter. While I am happy to cook with butter and certainly use it in my baking and for a few specific things, generally when cooking European-style, I am an olive oil liberal in the free-est (is that a word?) sense of the term. I love the flavour and the texture and the fact that it won't cause an instant coronary if I ingested a cup of it. I suppose this points to a markedly more Mediterranean style of cooking than a traditional French one. It's also great combined with manuka honey in a home made face mask. I know, I'm such a geek.

I'll let you know how the asparagus went in its butter deliciousness, all I need now are strawberries and cherries and I'll know that summer isn't far away - and they don't need any butter whatsoever! Happy eating cherubs xxx

Fried bananas and other important food groups

What a manfoodful few days I've had. In between manfoods and ladyfoods and tonicfoods and wo/manfoods the only thing I've really managed to do is attend a First Holy Communion (which I wouldn't have missed for the world). I did sample a very tasty Croucher's Pale Ale and a wee Weizenbock on Saturday night at Tonic's Bestival of Feer opening, but that was definitely for medicinal purposes. I swear, if I see another Spanish Tortilla before a suitable amount of time has passed I may well scream - in Spanish no less.

That said however, I have had a wonderful time and there have been lots of happy manfoodies with tastebuds excited by delicious Malaysian flavours - it has definitely been SE Asia week with Beef Rendang, Chicken Rice, Satay, and Squid in Lime all on the menu, not to mention Fried Bananas. Mmmm, fried bananas. They constituted dinner for me tonight and I am not ashamed to say that their crisp, fried, sugared goodness induced me to eat one and a half of the four I was saving for Max - after I'd already had an undisclosed (but rather significant) number of my own with ice cream...

The upshot of all this is that Max and I might just be existing on non-cook foods for the next week while Simon's away; I find that cereal makes a filling dinner meal with few dishes and even less preparation, it goes wonderfully with that other dinnertime standby - Marmite on toast - and the beauty of it is that you can have the leftovers for breakfast.

Fear not, I promise to be back to my be-aproned, cookingest best by Thursday's manfood class. Speaking of which, get out The Godfather, buy some Chianti and polish your Vespa as we are doing my Italian grandmother's Spaghetti and Meatballs this Thursday - fantastico. There will be opera - consider yourself warned! Ciao ciao xxx