Hearty Eggplant Parmigiana Bake

I go through phases of being addicted to certain foods. Currently I'm completely stuck on eggplant. Soft and creamy when it's cooked properly, it's amazing how rich tasting a vegetable can be! And it's good for ya, so it's a win-win situation for me really. I end up eating it religiously for a few weeks then move on to the next thing, but it comes back around every few months, like an old loyal friend. Oh eggplant.

Anywho, I've done the eggplant schnitzel thang, and I felt it was time to layer and bake. I ate it like lasagne, with some veg on the side the first time but then realised, hey, eggplant is a vegetable, why double up? I made up for that by adding a ton of mozzarella ;)

Baked Eggplant Parmigiana

Serves 4

1 large eggplant
1 700ml jar tomato passata
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 pinch thyme (dried or fresh
250g grated or slice mozzarellla
1 handful of breadcrumbs (optional)
salt & pepper
olive oil


Slice eggplant in to ~1.5cm slices, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Grill under a medium heat in oven or on stove top until colored and nearly cooked through.

Meanwhile, saute the sliced garlic in olive oil for a few moments, add passata, thyme, salt and pepper, and let it bubble away on a low heat reducing slightly.

Layer sauce, eggplant and cheese in a medium baking dish (I used a square cake tin), in that order, and repeat ending with a layer of sauce, cheese then breadcrumbs if desired.

Bake at 200°c for about 20mins or until golden on top and eggplant is melting and soft.

Rest for 10mins before serving or it will slop everywhere.


PS: It's even better re-heated.

Slow Braised Chinese Pork Belly

Every time I visit a chinese restaurant I always make sure pork belly is on order. I'm completely addicted to the melting fat and tender soft meat, all soaked in the flavours of star anise, soy, ginger and garlic. I had an intense craving the other day and decided to recreate some at home.

After a brief panic attack because the supermarkets were closed due to a public holiday (damn SA trading laws), I surprisingly found some belly cuts at my local foodland corner store. Chuffed, I trotted home and started preparing. Threw in some bok choy too because I figured I should probably eat some sort of greenery after all that pork fat.

Chinese Braised Pork Belly

serves 4

4 generous slices of pork belly, about 500g
(alternatively, buy a whole piece of belly and slice 3-4cm thick)
1 small knob ginger
4 cloves garlic
8 spring onions
2 star anise
4tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp shao xing cooking wine (about $2 a bottle at any Chinese grocer)
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar (you can leave this out if it's too much trouble)

steamed rice and bokchoy to serve


Slice ginger in to discs and spring onions in to 5cm batons. Place all ingredients in to a pot that the meat fits snuggly (but not too snug) in.

Cover with water so the meat is submerged and bring to the boil slowly on the stove. Turn down to a gentle simmer and leave for approximately 2hrs, or until the meat is tender, but not falling apart.

Retrieve the meat, and strain sauce if desired. You can also thicken with a little cornflour mixed with water, however I like the runny but rich gelatinous taste.

Serve over steamed rice with greens and remain blissfully ignorant to the thought of eating streaks of melting tender pork fat.

Autumn Pasta Greed

Motivation to exercise always ceases when the cool change sets in. Not wanting to get out of bed, wearing thick cardigans and eating lots of pasta are common themes for me. Pasta because it's tasty, but also because it's quick and comforting. It's funny how eating tends to replace exercise in colder months. A dangerous opposite.

Anywho, a favourite dish of mine from growing up was always spaghetti carbonara. I would get so excited when dad would make it for dinner and eat 2, 3, even 4 helpings before he told me that I should stop, and I would, but always reluctantly. Traditionally the addition of cream is not as common, as the egg is the star of the show, but make sure your eggs are fresh! And if it weirds you out too much just substitute an egg for an extra 100ml of cream.

Simple Spaghetti Carbonara

Serves 4, generously

8 rashers short cut bacon
1 small brown onion
2 cloves garlic
4 eggs
dash of cream or milk
salt and pepper to taste
chopped parsley and parmesan cheese to garnish (optional)


Cut the bacon in to strips and fry with a little oil in a pan until browned, but not too crisp. I would brown mine a little more next time.

Chop the onion and garlic finely and add to the pan with bacon, fry on a low heat for a good 10-15mins so the onions are nice and soft (start heating your pasta water now). Best to avoid crunchy raw onion in your pasta.

 Meanwhile, boil the spaghetti (I used linguine because it's my favourite) in a large pot of well salted water.

While the onions and pasta cook, whisk the eggs with cream/milk and season with salt and pepper.

 Once cooked to al dente, drain and quickly place back in to the pot.

Add the bacon and onion, as well as the egg mix. Stir and let the egg slowly cook through the residual heat. If it's not doing much put it back on a very low heat and mix constantly, but make sure the egg doesn't just scramble on the bottom.

Pile generously on to a plate and eat on the sofa.

Silverbeet!

My housemate has a friend who grows abundant amounts of silverbeet in her yard and every time they visit each other we get adorned with a mountain of the stuff. I'd never tried it until the first time she brought it home and I loved it! So delicious and nutty, not what I was expecting at all. I sort of imagined a watery bland leaf with a bitter nasty flavour, but that's just the anti veg child in me coming out.

We had so much that I thought I should utilise it well and make something that required a large amount. I tossed around some ideas and then remembered a failed attempt at quiche I had long ago and wanted to redeem myself. Okay, so I didn't make quiche, but turned it in to a silverbeet-rich baked frittata (I guess you could call it).

The beet was mostly leafy with small stems which is preferable to me, I shredded it and tossed it in olive oil with sliced mushrooms and some saute'd garlic and  spring onions to wilt it a little and mixed it up with beaten eggs, cream salt and pepper before covering with a nice layer of parmesan and baking ;)

 

Silverbeet and Mushroom Frittata

Serves 6

1 large bunch silverbeet, sliced
500g mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 spring onions, sliced
olive oil
4 large eggs
150ml cream
150ml milk
1/2 cup parmesan, gruyere or cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste


Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Slice silverbeet, musrooms, garlic and spring onions. Saute garlic, onions and mushrooms until mushrooms begin to cook. Add silverbeet and toss until wilted.

(I do this in the dish I'm about to bake in) Mix eggs, cream, milk and salt/pepper in the dish an add beet/mushroom mix. Carefully stir together to combine and make sure the beet is distributed evenly/there are no air pockets.

Sprinkle cheese on top and bake for 40 minutes or until set in the middle and cheese is browned on top.

Makes a nice lunch served with a simple side salad.

Better than Bolognese

One day I had absolutely nothing to do so I ended up lounging around watching Jamie Oliver TV shows on my computer. It was great! But it made me sooo hungry. I was inspired to make a 30 minute meal, but you know, it's pretty much impossible to do if you don't have the insane chopping skills of Jamie.

I figured since I'd taken inspiration from this one dish he makes on 30 minute meals and makes 4 in that whole 30 minutes that this one would be easy peasy and take no time at all. So it didn't take that long, but I think I managed it in about 40... Mostly because I have a silly electric stove which doesn't like getting hot and had to wait for the ingredients to brown.

Anywho, it was a delight to eat! I got hooked and was glad I made such a large amount so I could still have it for the next 3 days. The sweetness and aniseed flavours from the balsamic and fennel seeds are addictive. I didn't think I was going to like it because I used to be a sweet-in-savoury food snob, but now this is my go-to when I want something tomatoey but am totally over plain old bolognese. Don't be put off by me saying it's sweet, it's not like a sugary sweet it's very mildly sweet with a nice mellow tang.

Pork, Fennel and Balsamic Pasta

Serves 4 large or 6 small.

500g g pork mince
500g g pasta of your choice
1 carrot
1 brown onion
4 cloves garlic
2 celery stalks
1 tspn fennel seeds
1 pinch salt and pepper
1 splash olive oil
1 700ml jar of tomato passata

Method

Place carrot, onion, garlic and celery in a food processor and blitz until finely chopped.
Saute over med-high heat in a large fry pan with olive oil.

Once the mix begins to caramelise, push to one side and add the pork mince and brown.
Give it a good lug of balsamic – about 3 tbsp and let it sizzle off the tart vinegar tang and leave behind the sticky sweet balsamic taste.

Season generously with salt and pepper and add the fennel seeds.

Add the passata and simmer gently, tasting and seasoning with salt and pepper again if required.

Drain your pasta but reserve some cooking liquid and toss it all together with the sauce (this is why you need a large pan) which will help to emulsify the sauce and stop that horrible water-in-the-bottom-of-your-bowl problem.

Enjoy!

Optional: Toss through some fresh chopped parsley and garnish with grated parmesan.

Pulled Pork!

Sooo I had a bit of an incident with this recipe. I spent a whole day roasting and simmering the pork, then made a lovely coleslaw accompaniment, thoroughly enjoyed the meal with some good company and accidentally deleted all but one photo from my camera!

Quite devastated by this and obviously it detracts from the quality of the post but I just couldn't not post it! And I'm not ready to go through all of that again any time soon; especially because I still have some in the freezer ;)

Here is the lone solider... coleslaw sadly absent.

No pulled pork will ever live up to the BBQ goodness I had at Hot Wings on Queen st. in Toronto, however, this isn't so bad!

Roasted Pulled Pork

Serves 6

1.5-2kg pork shoulder roast
1 cup beef broth
1 cup of your favourite BBQ sauce (I like anything smokey)
1/2 cup tomato sauce
6 hamburger buns (I won't lie, nothing comes as close as those cheap soft white store bought ones)

rub;
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp hot paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tbsp vegetable oil

coleslaw;
1/2 head cabbage, shredded
3 carrots, shredded/grated
2 spring onions, finely sliced (optional)
1/4 cup whole egg mayonnaise
1/4 cup greek/natural yoghurt
2 tbsp white wine/cider vinegar
1 tbsp mustard
1 tsp lemon juice
salt and pepper


Pre-heat oven to 150ºc. Rub spices and oil in to a paste and cover the pork roast. Roast in oven for 5-7 hours until tender and falling apart.

Remove pork and place on a board, shred apart with two forks and place in a pot with sauces and beef stock. Add more/less stock if it's too runny/thick. Bring to a boil then reduce and simmer on a low heat for 1-2 hours; it's reasonably flexible, whatever suits your time constraints.

Meanwhile, shred cabbage, carrot and spring onions for coleslaw and whisk dressing ingredients in a separate bowl.

Toss together coleslaw and serve on top of the sticky sweet pork between two toasted hamburger buns!

Vegetable Lasagna

My housemate is vegetarian so we often eat vegetarian meals. We took a trip to the Adelaide Central Markets recently and bought ingredients for lasagna. It turned out sooo delicious however the photos are pretty average because you can't see all the layers of veg! :( We used eggplant, zuchinni, pumpkin and mushrooms all pre-roasted and baked between chewy pasta sheets with a tomato sauce and dotted with pieces of salty Danish feta. Mmm!

Lasagna!

Serves 4-6

1 large zuchinni
1 large eggplant
300g button mushrooms, sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
500g pumkin
1 700ml jar tomato passata (tomato puree)
1 cup crumbled Danish feta
250g dried lasagna sheets
olive oil
salt and pepper


Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees Celsius

Slice eggplant (around 5mm), pumkin and zuchinni (around 2mm thin) (easily done with a mandoline), lay on to baking trays (you'll need a few) and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast for 10-15mins or until softened and lightly browned but not fully cooked. They will further cook in the lasagna.

Meanwhile, saute mushrooms and chopped garlic in some olive oil and set aside.

In a lasagna pan assemble layers of roasted eggplant, zuchinni, mushroom and pumpkin as you see fit adding tomato puree in with layers to moisten (you might not need it all) and distributing the feta evenly. Make sure to leave a little to sprinkle on top though!

Turn oven down to 180 and bake covered for 40-45mins or until pasta is cooked but not soggy.

Leave to sit for 15mins before cutting and serving!

Tip: The pan I use for lasagna makes 6 perfectly portioned slices but if you only have a larger pan then you may want to increase the amount of ingredients so that it's nice and thick!

Sugo d'Arrosto

So I read about this sauce in a book I have and was drooling through the whole chapter. I made some tortellini recently and decided to pair the two, it was filled with chicken and covered in a beefy sauce which I thought might be a bad pairing but it was seriously delicious. I regret nothing!

I changed a couple of things around from the original recipe but I'll just write the original and add my changes in brackets.

Sugo d'Arrosto (Sage and Meat Sauce)

1 tbsp butter
6 large fresh sage leaves
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 1/2 cups beef broth
1 (scant) cup grated parmesan

This will make enough for 500g of dried pasta or 4 generous serves of fresh.

Melt butter in a pan, add sage leaves and garlic clove (I used 2 cloves and more sage), brown lightly.

Add broth and simmer for a moment then remove from heat (I added some salt and pepper also and removed the garlic before the next step).

Toss through pasta and parmesan cheese. Enjoy!


Tip: Because the sauce only coats lightly make sure its well seasoned otherwise it will be bland. Also of course home made beef stock is going to be the best but if you want something super easy and quick you could substitute for a good quality store bought liquid stock.

Two Bite Tortellini

I had a friend coming over for dinner so I decided to get a little fancy and make some tortellini. I'm pretty sure I folded them wrong but I think they look adorable and close enough, haha. I only realised after that I'd done it wrong the whole time. Also, I accidentally kind of sort of made them jumbo sized so to cover up my mistake I've renamed them two-bite tortellini. I actually quite enjoy the larger size because you get a nice big mouthful of the tasty filling!

I filled mine with a really tasty chicken and leek filling made with a "chicken mousse" it was somewhat experimental but turned out fantastic!

Pasta tip: Make sure you roll your pasta out very thin as it will expand when it cooks and all those little folds will end up being tough if your dough is too thick, 7 or 8 on my pasta machine worked a treat.

Pasta

100g/1 cup plain flour to 1 egg. (of course this varies with size of egg/humidity etc.)

I used 400g flour and 3 XL eggs plus a splash of water as needed. This made enough for about 6 serves of tortellini although the rule is that 100g is per person, I'm sure this would be the case for un-filled pasta.

Combine most of the egg to the flour and knead adding more flour/egg/water if necessary. Knead for a few minutes until it becomes smooth. Don't worry if it seems a little dry or tough at first once the dough rests it will become much softer/stickier and malleable. Set aside and rest for at least 30mins to a few hours. If you're leaving it for more than 30mins or so or it's a warm day pop it in the fridge.

Knead lightly then pass through a pasta machine on the first setting folding over a few times, slowly increase the setting and dust sheets of pasta/set aside. 

Filling

Serves 6

1 large leek
300g (one medium size) chicken breast
1 egg white
75ml cream
salt and pepper

Finely slice/chop leek and saute in butter and oil until softened.

Roughly chop chicken and place in a food processor, process until it forms a paste, add egg white and process further slowly adding in the cream. Season with salt and pepper and process once more to combine.

Stir through saute'd leeks.

 Making the Tortellini

So, I forgot to take photos of the construction process so I will try to explain it the best I can. Cut the pasta in to approx. 10x10cm squares and place a small teaspoon of filling in the lower left quarter. Fold the opposite corner over and seal shut (if needed use a little water or that leftover egg yolk).

Roll the filling pouch over so it is ontop of the sealed corner then sit the pasta so that the pointy sealed corner is up horizontally and the two sides are flat on the bench.

Pull each side flap around away from the corner side then pinch together.

Boil them in a large pot of well salted water and once they rise leave them for another minute or two to ensure the filling is cooked. Just cut one in half to check if you're unsure.

Tip: They also freeze really well! Freeze un-cooked and just plop them in to the water and add another minute or so to the cook time.

I tossed mine in a Sugo d'Arrosto which I got from my book "The Man Who Ate Everything" by Jeffrey Steingarten.

I'm the worst at taking photos because I just get so caught up in the making/eating process. I'll get a snap of one cut in half next time I bust out the frozen batch.

Spicy Thai Style Pumpkin Soup

It was rainy and cold today and my house mate messaged me asking what I wanted for dinner. I had a pumpkin in the fridge that had sadly gone bad but had been planning to make pumpkin soup for days and was craving it so she brought home the ingredients as per my instructions. She was even surprised by how tasty the end result was!

It's simple and comforting on a rainy day. We toasted some bruschetta slices she had spare in the freezer to accompany. The recipe is just basic and we used what I had on hand however you can add lemongrass or kaffir lime leaves to make it a little more exciting.

please excuse the crinkled tablecloth...

Spicy Thai Style Pumpkin Soup

serves 4

1kg (about 1/2 of a large butternut) pumpkin chopped in to small cubes
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
1 large thumb sized knob ginger
200ml coconut cream/milk
2 cups vegetable stock/water
fresh or ground chili to taste
2 tsp fish sauce
1 tbsp lime juice
fresh coriander chopped last minute
salt and pepper

Chop the onion, garlic and ginger and sweat onions in a pot with a neutral oil (canola, vegetable, rice bran etc.) for a few minutes on medium heat. Add garlic and ginger and saute until fragrant.

Add cubed pumpkin, stock and coconut milk/cream along with chili, fish sauce and lime juice. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10-15mins or until the pumpkin has cooked through.

Transfer to a blender (you may have to blend in batches depending on your blender size) and whiz until smooth.

Alternatively, stick mix it all up in the pot! If you have one.

Stir through the chopped coriander and enjoy!

Tips: Remove the middle insert in the blender lid and secure over the lid with a tea towel (and your hand!) while blending. The tea towel trick means that you won't get that pressure build up from the sealed lid + hot soup which is the culprit of the old press-blend-scalding-soup-goes-everywhere. It might mean you get a little soup on your tea towel from covering the hole but its a price I'm willing to pay to save my kitchen from soup projectile.

If you like it thicker add more pumpkin/less stock or vice versa for thinner.

And if you're in a mad rush and need your soup fix replace onions with spring onions/shallots and grate the pumpkin and it'll cook in no time!