Banana Bread Muffins

Sometimes I wonder why does banana bread and banana bread muffins look so ordinary. You often see them drizzled with a bit of glazed icing, but they still look pretty ordinary. Well, now they don't have to.... See even though looking at the picture above, you may think it looks like a cupcake that is filled with a ridiculous amount of calories, it actually isn't. I am going to show you how to do this.... :) guilt free treats for you to enjoy. 

Ingredients: - 

For the muffins 

1 3/4 cups of self raising flour

1/4 cup plain flour

1 Tsp bicarbonate of Soda

1/2 Tsp cream of tartar 

2 Teaspoon ground cinnamon

2/3 cups of coconut sugar

1/2 cup of skim milk/soy/rice/almond milk 

2 eggs

50g of butter

2 ripe bananas, that have been mashed

For the icing

50g of butter

1/4 cup xylitol icing sugar (may to add more to create a stiff icing mix) 

Method: -

Preheat the oven to a 160 degrees and line muffin tray with cupcake tins. Sift the dry ingredients together in a seperate bowl. In a mixer, add the eggs, butter and coconut sugar and mix until light and fluffy. Combine the dry ingredients to the egg mix and add the milk and mashed bananas. Mix until the flour, milk and bananas have all combined. 

Place about 2 dessertspoons of the mix into each cucpcake tin. Bake in the oven for approx 10 - 15 minutes. Use a skewer to check if they are cooked through, once cooked remove and allow to cool. 

In the mean time get your icing ready. You want your icing to be slightly stiff so that once you have piped the icing it does not lose its shape. When your muffins have completely cooled off do not try to level the muffins as you would with a cake or cupcakes. The whole idea of the muffin is to keep the top 'muffin top' as commonly referred to. Pipe and keep muffins at room temperature. Even though it is kept at room temperature the icing will hold its shape even though it is butter cream icing. :) 

New York Based Cheesecake

Who doesn't love a good cheesecake???? It is probably one of the most commonly had desserts in most households. In Australia, we are fortunate enough to have the cheesecake shops, who make absolutely divine cakes and cheesecakes of course. So sometimes I have to admit it is easier to buy one. :) 

Ok, so before I start the recipe I have to tell you this story, a childhood memory that I will never forget..... The best cheesecake I have ever tasted in my life was when I was in New York quite a few years ago. I was with my parents, and we decided to explore more of New York by foot. As we were walking through the streets we remembered that a family friend had mentioned that we should go to this particular cake shop and order a cheesecake. So, excitedly we start looking at the map and walking down the alley to find this particular shop. We finally find it and excitedly with smiles on our face we look at my dad waiting for him to take out his wallet so we can buy a couple slices of cheesecake. My mum, brother and I go ahead into the store and look at the cakes and know which one we want to order. We look at my dad who looked so upset because he couldn't find his wallet... He forgot to put his wallet back into his bag he was carrying, as he had taken his wallet out earlier at the hotel and forgot it in the hotel room. Now, the hotel was too far to walk back to and then go back to the store, so we moved aside and allowed the gentleman to serve the next customer. We  were not going to leave that store without a cheesecake!!!! All of us started checking our bags and pockets for any change that we had and finally found enough money to buy ONE slice of cheesecake for FOUR of us to eat... When we got to the hotel and I took a bite of the cake it was as though the heavens had opended up and angels were singing. Seriously, the taste of the cheesecake was unbelievable, I sit here salivating as I type this, that is how good it was. Best cheesecake yet and nothing has ever compared to it. So, I guess I have to go back to New York and find the store and make sure I have a wallet full to buy a whole cheesecake.... :)  SO this story was my inspiration for creating this New York baked cheesecake. 

Now, what is the difference between a normal cheesecake and a New York based cheesecake. Well, surprisingly it is more about where the cake is made that it gets the name from, but New York based cheesecakes are made alittle differently, they are made using heavy or thickened cream or sour cream. So the recipe I have below uses sour cream. 

Ingredients: -

This recipe serves 6 as a whole cheese cake. But, if u make smaller cakes like the one in the picture above you could get about 10 cakes (size of a regular cupcake). 

For the cheesecake 

125g Plain sweet biscuits, if you want to make an oreo one like one of the cakes in the picture you can use plain or chocolate biscuits  

62g butter melted

250g cream cheese

1/2 Cup caster sugar

1/2 Cup sour cream

1 Tsp Vanilla extract

1 Tsp lemon zest

1 egg

For Decorating 

You can use any fruit you like for example raspberry jam with fresh raspberries on top, passion fruit with blackberries, crushed oreos in the cheesecake before you bake and whole oreos to top. I used caramel fill to stick the oreos to the cheesecakes. You can also use the extra sour cream, just add some sugar and give it a whip or fresh cream if you like. 

Method: -

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Place the biscuits in a food processor and process until biscuits resemble breadcrumbs. Add the melted butter and process again until butter and crumbs are well combined. Press into baking pan or into lined cupcake trays and press to form a crust. Refrigerate for about 15 - 20 minutes until the crust is set. 

For the cheesecake combine the remaining ingredients (except the egg) and mix well. Once combined add the egg and beat the mixture until light and fluffy. Place the mixture onto the set crust. If you are using cupcake tins to make individual cakes place about 2 dessertspoons of the cheesecake mix into each cupcake tin. The cupcakes would need to bake for a shorter time about 10 - 15 mins whereas if you making a big cake you would have to cook it for about 30 - 45 mins. To know when your cheesecake is cooked, the centre of the cake will be wobbly (like that of set jelly). 

Once you remove your cheesecake and it starts to cool down, do not be alarmed when the centre of the cake starts to drop alittle, this is normal. It is something that will be covered up once you decorate your cake so do not stress. Cover your cooled cake with jam, passionfruit, caramel fill or even whipped cream. and decorate as you like. Refrigerate atleast for an hour before serving, I prefer to leave the cake overnight just to let it all set perfectly.  Enjoy :) 

 

Kit Kat Cupcakes

If you know me, you would know that my favourite chocolate is kit kat. Any type, shape or form of kitkat is heavenly to me. So that is where I got the inspiration to make these devilishly delicious cupcakes. You can use any cupcake recipe that you like, but I will share the recipe I used for this. The reason my cupcakes look quite browned is not because I let them brown, but I actually replaced the caster sugar in the recipe with coconut sugar, so it is the coconut sugar that gives the cupcakes this brown colour. You may ask why did I do that???? Well, firstly coconut sugar is low GI and also better and healthier then eating caster sugar. Also, when coconut sugar cooks it tends to give you this caramel like flavour. Which, I thought would compliment the kitkat really well. Because, you are using sugar and a fresh cream topping I thought I needed to cut down the calorie load just a tad on this one. :)  

I also sliced the cupcake once it was cooked to show you what the inside will look like. This actually isn't the kitkat, but what I did was when the cupcakes were cooked I used a apple corer to help me pull the centre part of the cupcake out and piped it with nutella and replaced the cored out bit of the cupcake so that it is covered at the top and gives alittle surprise when you bite into one. :) 

Let us get started. This recipe is easy the only part that is a little tricky is to core and place the cored bit  back. If you know how to pipe it will be easy to fill and decorate. You could also pipe nutella into the cupcake before cooking, but I found that a little messy that is why I preferred using the apple core method. 

Ingredients: - 

1 1/2 Cups Plain Flour 

1 Tsp Bicarbonate of soda

1 Tsp Cream of Tartar

3/4 cup caster sugar or coconut sugar (coconut sugar can be purchased at any health food store) 

3/4 cup milk

2 eggs

125g butter (soft)

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract 

1 Packet of kitkat bites (if you do not get the tiny bites of kitkat you could buy a slab and simply cut into bite size pieces) You would want to keep some to decorate the top of the cupcake as well

1 Tub Nutella (you will have heaps left over which you could use as a frosting if you like) 

Method: - 

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Using a mixer, cream together your butter, sugar and vanilla extract. Sift your dry ingredients together in a seperate bowl and add to the creamed mixture and finally add the milk, give this a good mix until you see that it is combined well. If you using coconut sugar you will see the brown almost caramel colour starting to develop. Add your kitkat bites and mix with a spatula. In a muffin tray that is lined with cupcake tins place atleast about 1 dessertspoon of the mix into each tin, making sure that each one gets atleast 2 kitkat bites, make sure you push the bites to the sides (because if you are going to core it you do not want to remove the kit kat bite). Place in the oven for around 20 minutes or until the cupcakes are cooked through. Use a skewer to test. 

Once your cupcakes are cooked, allow them to cool down completely before decorating or using the corer to remove the centre. If  you use the corer make sure you do not go all the way through as you still want to keep the base of the cupcake. Using a piping bag filled with nutella to fill the cored cupcakes. Replace the tops of the cupcakes as this will you to decorate the tops really easily. You can decorate the tops, with the extra nutella, whipped fresh cream or even buttercream. Finally, top with a kit kat bite or even better you could break a slice of the kitkat and push half all the way into the cupcake and leave the other half out. This way your guests or kids will know what they can expect when they bite into one. :) 

Tiramisu Chocolate Brownie

There is always something satisfying about having a dessert that not only has one of your favourites but two combined together. Oh yes, a decadent tiramisu chocolate brownie. Looking at this a lot of people have said to me it looks like it fell out of a magazine or better still from a patisserie (my dream to own one someday). Of course, I will take all the compliments I can get as I absolutely love taking the time to make things look beautiful and taste great. This recipe is really easy and not at all time consuming. The only thing that really takes time and patience is making the chocolate squares placed ontop of the cream. I will be doing a seperate how to tutorial which shows you how to temper chocolate correctly and use a chocolate transfer as this is the time consuming part that requires patience. 

Ingredients: - 

For the Brownie

250g butter

2 cups caster sugar

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups plain flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder and alittle extra for dusting

1 1/2 Tsp vanilla essence

100g brown milk chocolate squares (baking chocolate)

100g white chocolate squares (baking chocolate) 

1/2 packet of savoiardi (sponge finger biscuits) crushed

20x30cm baking pan (greased and lined with baking paper) 

For the cream 

250g mascarpone

200ml thickened fresh cream

1/3 cup icing sugar 

Method: - 

For the Brownies

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Melt the butter in a medium sized saucepan over a medium heat. Once melted remove from the heat and add the sugar. Make sure that your mixture has cooled somewhat before you add the eggs, as you really don't want your eggs to start to scramble in the mix. Add the eggs one at a time until you achieve a thick yet glossy mix. Add the vanilla, cocoa powder and plain flour to the egg mix. Add all the white chocolate squares and half of the brown milk chocolate squares and mix. Finally add the crushed sponge finger biscuits and mix well. Pour this into your baking pan which has been lined. Now, place the rest of the brown milk chocolate squares at random places on the brownie mix. This will start to partially melt when you bake your brownies. Place into the oven for approx 30 minutes. Test using a skewer. Once your brownies have cooked and cooled down you can cut them into squares and place on serving trays. 

For the Cream 

Mix all the ingredients together and keep aside until you are ready to serve. I usually keep this refrigerated in a piping bag, so when dessert time arrives it is easy to pipe the cream and then dust with a bit of cocoa powder. Serve and Enjoy... :) 

The guilt free Chip - Kale Chips

The first time I tasted these, was when my sister in law made them. Initially, I thought they would taste like nori (Which I am not a fan of at all!!!) but once I tried one, I couldn't stop and now I am hooked to this delicious snack, thanks Ameeta for introducing them to me.

This is not only a healthy snack, but a super super crunchy one and a great way to introduce your kids to eating kale. It is so easy, 15 minutes is all you need and you have a great guilt free snack for your family.

Ingredients: - 

Kale leaves, about 5 - 6 leaves cut into bite size pieces (stem removed) 

Any seasoning you like I used Nando's Peri Peri Salt

1/4 Tsp Fennel Seeds

2 TBLS Olive Oil

Baking paper 

As you can see from the picture above, it is this simple. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees and mix everything together in a bowl. Place the seasoned kale leaves into a baking tray lined with baking paper and place into the oven for 8 minutes. Check that all the leaves have crisped up and drain on paper towel. Place into an airtight container and keep for 3 - 4 days or until they run out, which I guarantee will be before that. :) Enjoy!!! 

 

Cheese and Garlic Roti

Why not make your dinner a little more interesting then just having a normal roti. The Cheese and Garlic Roti is created in the same way you would a cheese and garlic naan. The only real difference is you do not have to wait for the dough to rise, so cuts down the cooking time. For this recipe I used organic white flour to make the roti dough as opposed to the conventional atta or brown flour mix. The reason for using the white flour is that it has a thicker texture then the brown flour and keeps everything together. 

For the Roti: - 

1 1/2 cups flour

1 TBLS Olive Oil 

Boiling water to form the dough (use a spoon to mix.. DO NOT BURN YOUR HANDS!!!!) 

Simply add all the ingredients in a bowl and mix to form a soft, pliable dough. Divide into smaller pieces of dough and form a ball. 

For the Stuffing you will need a combination of cheese, namely cheddar, mozarella and gouda cheese. Add some chopped garlic, coriander, salt and pepper. I have added a picture here to show you how to do this. 

Roll the dough into a circle about the size of a small bowl, so that you can add a teaspoon full of the cheese mix. Pull the ends together to form a ball again. Using flour on a board, gently roll the ball of dough to form a circle. It is ok if the cheese starts to ooze out of the dough as this will still cook and give you a melted texture. Place the rolled out roti onto a non-stick frying pan on a medium heat and cook on both sides until golden and crisp.

Serve this hot with any curry of your choice. 

 

Bhel Puri and Chutney Made Easy

Sometimes I wonder to myself, why does indian snacks particularly take up so much time to make??? By the time you end up making it you tend to find yourself really exhausted and really hungry, that you literally gobble down the meal and don't actually take the time to enjoy it. Indian cuisine without a doubt has one of the most exciting starters or appetizers that can so easily be turned into main meals and even though most of them are vegetarian they are extremely satisfying. 

Take Bhel Puri for example, it is such a common meal in india and many african countries, but yet in the first world countries it is not as commonly found. Why is that??? Simply, because it is time consuming to make and different chutneys are required. So, ofcourse here in the creativelycooked kitchen I decided to shake things up abit and make bhel puri, that gives you the same great taste you would get in a restaurant, but in your very own home and in half the time. Another secret weapon: Why waste time making three chutneys when all you need is one really good one. It really does taste like all three combined into one. I am going to share this fantastic secret with you, try it out, let me know what you think. I think it sure is a killer chutney that can be used with anything even western Cuisines.  

Ingredients for the bhel puri (Serves 4 as a starter) 

Sev (I bought the premade sev from an indian grocer, absolutely nothing wrong with doing this, I buy a big packet and store the rest to use another time) 

1 Packet of Frozen Spring Roll pastry (cut the pastry in half to fry as this makes it easier to cook, to serve four I fried about 8 sheets of pastry) 

2 Fresh Corn on the cob (corn sliced off the cob, you can use frozen if you cannot get hold of fresh corn) 

1/2 Green pepper, finely chopped

1 Brown onion, finely chopped

2 Boiled potato's roughly chopped

1/2 Tsp Crushed Garlic

1/2 Tsp Crushed Green or red chilli

Salt to taste 

1 Tsp Red chilli powder (if you are using kashmiri chilli powder, please becareful how much you add as it is very spicy) 

Method for the Bhel Puri 

On a medium heat place a saucepan with 1 TBLS olive oil. Add the onions, peppers, garlic and chilli and cook until the onions are translucent. Add the chopped potato and corn, you really want to slightly cook this until your corn appears bright yellow in colour. Add your salt and chilli powder and remove from the heat and let this cool. 

If you have a fryer to fry the spring roll pastry please use that, otherwise place a pot with oil on a medium heat to deep fry the spring roll pastry and drain the pastry on paper towel once fried. Keep aside until you are ready to serve. 

For the Chutney

You will need 1 bottle of a spicy tikka masala sauce (Steers spicy tikka masala, available at South African stores), if you cannot get a spicy tikka masala sauce all you need to do is add archaar masala (slightly braised in oil on the stovetop) to tomato sauce. You will need 1 bottle of chutney Mrs Balls Originial Chutney (Also available at South African stores) is great. If you cannot get the Chutney use any sweet chilli or a chutney relish that is sweet/sour. You need 2 TBLS white vinegar, 1 TBLS sugar, 1 handful of coriander, 1 stem of curry leaves and  2 tomato's. Soak the toamato's in boiling water until the skin has softened and you can peel this off. Take the coriander, blanched tomato's and curry leaves and place into a bowl and blend until a uniform mixture is formed, the coriander and curry leaves should be completely fine. Add the other ingredients to this mix. Taste the sauce and see if there is anything else that is needed. That's it!!!!! Chutney done... Below is an image of what it should look like once you are done. When you taste your chutney you should have a balance of sweet, sour and spicy. You should also be able to taste the coriander and curry leaves. 

To assemble, place the corn mix in the centre of the bowl. Crush the fried springroll pastry into smaller bite size pieces and place on top of the corn mix. Add the sev and garnish with chopped coriander. Now the best part..... Top with the freshly made chutney as much as you like. Bite into it and savour every bite... Enjoy :) 

You probably will have a lot of chutney left over, don't throw this away save it in a sterile jar and the next time you make a burger why not use your very own chutney. 

How to: Crumb coat

Hey guys, today I decided not to put up a recipe, but instead talk abit more about how to crumb coat any meat fillet or even veggies for that matter. 

The standard rule of thumb when it comes to crumb coating is flour, egg and lastly the breadcrumbs. DO not forget to always season your flour, egg and breadcrumbs. 

Now, sometimes when preparing a meal you may have one or more guests that may be gluten free, lacto-vegetarian or ovo-lacto vegetarian or even vegan and it can get abit confusing as to what to use so lets look at alternate ways of coating.

For Guests who are Gluten Free (People who do not eat any wheat or wheat products). 

My standard go to products for gluten free are the orgran brand. The corn crispy crumbs really do give you the same type of crunch that you would get with bread crumbs. Same method applies, flour, egg and corn crumbs for a gluten free diet. Just make sure that you are using gluten free flour and crumbs. 

A Lacto-vegetarian is typically someone who eats a vegetarian diet including dairy products, but excludes eggs. For this crumb coat, you would use the four step crumbing process (In the pic below), which is milk, flour, milk and crumb (You do not have to season the milk only the flour and the breadcrumbs). You can use a normal breadcrumb as long as there was no egg used in making the bread. 

A Ovo-lacto vegetarian is someone who eats a vegetarian diet, but does include dairy and egg products. For this type of vegetarian you can use the standard rule of thumb, flour, egg and breadcrumb. 

A Vegan diet does not include any animal products. In order to crumb coat for a vegan diet you would have to use a four step process of milk, flour, milk and crumb. I would tend to go with Soy, Rice or Almond milk and use a corn crumb.

This is just an image to show you the difference in breadcrumb and corn texture. You can grind the breadcrumb abit more if you would like a smooth texture. 

I hope you find this useful, if you would like more info or tutorials like this please comment in the box below. 

Crumbed Mushrooms

Crumbed Mushrooms are probably one of the most common starters that you would find in many restaurants. The reason I did this recipe was because a member of my blog had asked for a eggless crumbed mushroom recipe. Unlike the conventional crumbed mushroom or really crumbed anything it is usually a 3 step process, flour, egg and crumb. But, if you go eggless you can you an egg replacer or you can use milk. For this recipe I used milk. I will be doing a tutorial shortly to show you how to crumb things for different dietary requirements. 

As you can see in the picture below, I used 1/2 a cup of milk, 1/2 a cup of flour and 1/2 a cup of breadcrumbs. I seasoned the flour and breadcrumbs with parsley, garlic salt and black pepper. Now, to crumb the mushroom it is actually a four step process. Dip the mushroom in the milk, roll in flour (ensure it is completely coasted), dip the mushroom again into the milk and then lastly into the breadcrumbs. The milk acts as a binder like the "egg" would and really helps the flour and the breadcrumbs stick really well. 

Once crumbed I refrigerated the mushrooms for about 10 - 15 minutes and then deep fryed them in sunflower oil until the coating was golden and crisp. Drain on paper towel before serving. 

While I refrigerated the mushrooms I got on to the garlic sauce. For the garlic sauce, you will need about 1/2 TBLS butter, 1 Tub of Thickened Cream, 1 TBLS Crushed Garlic and Salt and Pepper to taste. 

Place a pan onto a medium heat, melt the butter and add the garlic, you just want the garlic to cook off  before it starts to brown. Add the thickened cream, salt and pepper and allow to cook until the sauce has thickened to a really thick consistency almost like a cake batter. 

To serve simply place mushrooms and sauce into a bowl and serve warm. 

Cronuts!!!!

Unless you have been hiding from the rest of the world, you would know that cronuts are the new doughtnuts that have taken the world by storm. Originating in Manhattan, this fantastically delicious combination of the traditional doughnut and croissant makes you feel like you are eating a cloud. It is that good.... Now, I must warn you that this recipe does take abit of time and patience so stick with it, as the end result is sooooo worth it!!!! :) 

Ingredients: - 

1/4 Cup of water

1/4 Cup of milk

7g dry yeast

150g butter (Chopped into cubes, keep cold) 

250g flour 

1/2 Tsp Salt

1/4 Cup of castor sugar or Xylitol (Extra for coating at the end) 

Sunflower or Canola oil for frying 

Method: - 

Mix the water and milk together and pop into the microwave to warm up. You want this only slightly warm so probably 30 - 40 seconds would do the trick. Add the yeast to the warmed milk and water and whisk. Now, keep the yeast aside and add your flour, salt and sugar/xylitol to a food processor and give it a quick whizz to mix everything together. Add the chopped butter and blitz till you see the flour and butter mix together but, you still want to have chunks of butter in. Once this is happening add the yeast mix to the dough and mix till a dough is formed. Empty this onto a slightly floured surface and knead the dough into a ball, clingfilm the dough and place in the fridge for 2 hours.

After your dough has rested for 2 hours, remove the clingfilm and place your dough onto a lightly floured surface. What you want to do now is roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick and then fold one end into the middle and the other over like in the picture below. This process of rolling into a rectangle and folding needs to be repeated 6 times. The reason for for doing this is that you want to build layers. Think of when you bite into a croissant you see those distinct layers, this is the process that creates that effect. Once you have repeated this process place the clingfilm over the dough and leave it in the fridge, overnight. 

The next day take the dough out of the clingfilm, I usually let the dough warm up to room temperature before I roll the dough out. Make sure you place the dough on a lightly floured surface as it will start to stick once it starts to reach room temperature. Roll the dough into a rectangle, you want this about a 1/4 inch thick as well and then cut into doughnuts using your cookie cutter and place onto a lightly floured tray and leave it to rise for about 2 hours, cover with clingfilm or kitchen towel. Like in the picture below. 

Once you see the cronuts have risen you are then ready to fry them. Place your oil onto a medium heat, you want the oil to be hot enough to cook them right through, you will see them puff up and form these amazing layers as you fry them. The oil should be about 170 degrees. I usually test my oil with a tester. I kept a small piece of dough as you can see in the tray above and I popped it into the oil when the oil felt warm enough and checked that it took roughly 2 minutes to brown on either side. Fry your cronuts and let them drain on some paper towel before coating them in sugar or xylitol. 

To serve, you can decorate the cronut the same way you would with a doughnut, icing sugar, you could fill the cronut with custard or jam. I prefer to serve it with some tampered choclate and strawberries as you can see in the picture right at the top, I have some tempered chocolate at the back with strawberries. Enjoy!!!! This is time consuming I know, but so so soooooo worth every bite. 

The Ultimate Fish Burger

There are times where you just feel like you need that pick me up meal, but don't really want to get a take away meal. You still want it to be healthy but unhealthy at the same time. SO life is about compromise sometimes right??? So let's compromise on the chips and still have a bloody good fish burger.  The secret to making a home burger actually taste like the real thing is more around the way the fish is crumbed (Which I will share with you shortly) but, it is also about what sauces to use. Standard rule use a garlic aioli as your "mayonnaise" and a normal tomato sauce (no additional flavours to it). That's it you do not need any other sauces to this dish as it will just start to lose the balance. 

Ingredients: - 

For the fish (This recipe Serves 4)

4 Fish Fillets (I used ling Fillet, you can use any firm white fish such as hake, snapper etc) 

1 Cup of crumbs (I bought them and I used the fine bread crumbs as opposed to the panko breadcrumbs) 

1 Cup Plain Flour

1 - 2 Eggs

Salt to taste and alittle more for curing the fillets

1 TBLS Blackpepper

3 TBLS White vinegar to cure the fish fillets 

Oil for frying 

Sesame seed bread rolls 

Oak leaf lettuce

1 Tomato finely sliced 

1 Small Brown onion finely sliced

4 Cheddar cheese Slices 

For the potato rosti please have a look at my blog for the recipe.

Method:  -

Remove skin from fillet and place into a bowl with water, 3 tsp of salt and 3 TBLS white vinegar, this is to cure the fillet. This needs to cure for about 20 - 30 minutes, you will know this is ready when the fish looks bright white. This is a great way to cut down on the cooking time and also reduces the frying time and really gives you soft flakey fish. 

Once the fish has cured, take each fillet and place in flour with salt and pepper, dip into the egg and lastly into the crumb. I usually add more salt and pepper into the crumb before coating as I like the burger to taste like it has been seasoned. 

Keep the crumbed fish refrigerated until you are ready to serve. I like to fry the fish before I need to serve. I usually shallow fry the fish in sunflower or canola oil on a medium heat for approximately 5 minutes on each side, until the coating is golden and crisp. 

To assemble the burger, cut the bread roll in half and slightly toast just the inside of a bread roll. I usually do this with a flat toaster. Once the roll is slightly crisp spread butter on each half. Place the lettuce, onion and tomato and then add the garlic aioli. Place the fish fillet on top of the aioli and place your cheese slice on top of the fillet so that it starts to melt. Top with tomato sauce and place the other half of the roll on top of the sauce. Use a bamboo skewer to hold it all together. Serve hot on a serving board with your favourite dipping sauce for the Rosti. 

Don't forget to check out the Rosti recipe listed in the blog Archive in the September section. 

Pastie or pasty same thing....

I decided to make pasties the other day, as I was feeling for something light and easy to make for supper. For the recipe you most certainly can use store bought pastry, but if you want to know exactly what is in your pastry then it is worth making it from scratch and it really isn't as hard as you think. 

On the day I made lamb and veggie pasties. I used the same base for both mixtures, the one just has veg and the other had lamb added to it. Traditionally you are meant to fill the pasty with raw ingredients seal it and let it cook in the oven for 45 - 50 minutes. But, because there is waiting time between making the pastry and actually using it to form the pasties, I decided to cook the ingredients and cut down the cooking time.

Ingredients:- 

For the filling

500g Lamb mince and or veggies 

1 Brown Onion, chopped

1 TBLS crushed garlic

1 Tsp Salt

1 Tsp Black pepper

1/2 a tin of 250ml Cream

1 egg to make an egg wash

For the pastry

1 Egg Chilled

125 g unsalted butter finely chopped

250g Plain Flour 

Pinch of Salt

Method: - 

For the Pastry 

Mix the Flour, butter and salt together until breadcrumbs are formed. Whisk the egg with about a TBLS of water and then add to the flour. Mix together until a dough is formed. You can use a processor to make this abit easier. Once the dough is formed knead the dough, cover in clingfilm and refrigerate for about 2 hours or overnight. 

For the Filling

Place a pot onto a medium heat, a dash of olive oil and chopped brown onion. Add the garlic and black pepper and let this cook for approximately 5 minutes until the onions are translucent. Add the veggies or the lamb and mix in salt. Let this cook until the water has cooked off and add the cream. You really don't want your mix to be too creamy as this will cause the pastry to become really soft and break. So once your mix has thickened with the cream take it off the heat and allow to cool before forming your pasties.  

When you are ready to form the pasties, cut the dough into rounds using a cereal bowl and fill half the pastry with your veggies or lamb and seal the ends using an egg wash. Crimp the edges together using your fingers to seal off any openings to prevent the filling from leaking out. Use the egg wash on top of your pastry and place into a 190 degree oven for about 20 - 25 minutes until your pastie appears golden and brown. Serve with some freshly made green salad and tomato sauce. 

Jalapeño Poppers

Today I decided to go alittle spicy. Jalapeño poppers, definately not for the faint hearted, but certainly worth a try, because you do deseed them so most of the hot stuff is removed. However, it will still pack a punch because as you can see I kept the stalks on. You can remove the stalks and coat them as halves and fry them, this of course makes more portions and also a tad easier to eat. This is great as a starter to get your guests warmed up for your main course. ;)  

The ingredients needed for the recipe are flour, egg, breadcrumbs, garlic salt, cream cheese and cheddar cheese. The amounts are really all dependent on how many jalapeños you have. I only had a few (5 jalapeños) so I used 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, 1 Tsp garlic salt, 1 Tub of cream cheese (I did not have cheddar cheese on the day, so I did not use for the recipe, if you have some please do add it as it does make a huge difference to the texture and flavour).  

If you want to keep the stalks on, deseed and slice as shown above. Fill both halves with cream cheese and press together. Now, in order to get this done in a really easy way, mix the cream cheese, cheddar cheese and garlic salt together in a bowl and place in a piping bag and pipe into the halves. Continue to do this with all the jalapeños and  keep aside to start coating. Coat them the same way you would fish or chicken. Flour, egg and lastly breadcrumbs, once you have completed this step keep them refrigerated until you are ready to fry them. If you are serving them to guests you want to fry them just before you serve them. What you want to achieve is a really oozy and melting cream cheese centre as you bite into it. If you have a fryer place the jalapeños into the fryer otherwise place a pot onto a medium heat (use canola oil or grapeseed oil) and fry until the breadcrumbs turn into a really golden and crisp coating on the outside. This will probably take about 5 minutes. You really want the centre to be melted as this is what a Jalapeño popper is all about.  

Sweet Potato Rosti

There is something so comforting about eating this and not feeling guilty about it, because you don't have to count the calories. It gives you the crunch that you would find in a french fry but also the satisfaction of eating something that is full of nutrients and great for digestion. YES!!!! Sweet Potato Rostis are the new in thing and I am pretty certain they are here to stay.

This recipe is sooo easy all you need to do is chuck everything together, quick pan fry on each side and in the oven and you are done!!! 

Ingredients: - 

3 medium sized sweet potato's, grated or if you have a fancy gadget please feel free to use 

1 Tsp Dry Thyme

1 Tsp Black Pepper

1 Tsp Salt

2 TBLS Plain Flour (You can use Gluten Free Flour too) 

The Juice of one medium sized Lemon 

1 Egg

2 TBLS Olive Oil 

Method: - 

Once you have grated your sweet potato (please keep the skins on, as it has all the good stuff, just make sure you give it a good scrub first), add all the remaining ingredients, except the olive oil and mix together using your hands. Make about 10 small rostis and  place onto a plate. Place a non-stick frying pan onto a medium heat, all you need is 2 TBLS of olive oil to lightly crisp up the outside of the rosti. This should take literally about 2 minutes. Once you see the outside looks golden and crisp transfer onto a baking sheet and place in the preheated oven (190 degrees) for approximately 10 minutes until golden and cooked through. Serve with Garlic Aioli or Cream cheese (You can season the cream cheese with garlic salt. Really Awesome!!!).. Enjoy CC :)     

Pasta Loaf

You may initially look at the picture and think what on earth is that!!!!! Well, lets break it down. Traditionally many of us serve our pasta with garlic bread. Yes it is exciting because we use the bread to catch the extra sauce and add abit more garlic to our some what tender pasta dish. But, here is the game changer put it all together and what do you end up with???? Well, a very tasty pasta loaf. Ofcourse you can use any sort of pasta and any sauce you like, the only real part to this recipe is making the bread. Which is what I will share with you... 

I have decided to go the picture format again, as this really simplifies recipes into 5 minute shots and gives you the chance to get on to more things than just being stuck in the kitchen all day. 

All you will need, is 2 Cups of flour, 250ml warm water, 7g dry yeast (mix with the 250ml warm water), Garlic salt (add as much as you like depending on how strong you want it) and italian herbs. Add flour to a mixing bowl with all the ingredients and mix until a dough is formed. Let it rest in a warm area for 2 hours until it doubles in size. During this time you can cook your pasta and get your sauce ready... Once this is done I rolled out the dough to cover a rectangle pan. I used melted butter and freshly crushed garlic to spread on the base and than topped with pasta and parmesan cheese. Cut the edges so that you can fold the bread across to leave pieces of the pasta exposed. This is great because when the cheese starts to melt you will see crispy pockets form between the bread. I placed this in a preheated oven at 190 degrees for approx 30 - 45 minutes until bread is cooked through and crispy. You are more than welcome to use an egg wash to assist in browning the bread, I however had quite abit of melted butter and crushed garlic so I used that instead. Enjoy, enjoy enjoy. :) CC  

Corn Fritters

This is a fantastic idea for a snack, as an Indian breakfast or even as a burger!!!!! Guess what it is Gluten free too... :) My only suggestion for this recipe however is that instead of just using corn, you could add a heap of other veggies to this and it will still taste great. Veggies like chopped zucchini, carrots, spring onions and chopped mushrooms. 

Ingredients: - 

1 Cup of corn (I used Fresh Corn for this recipe) 

1/2 green pepper, finely chopped

5 - 6 Strips of roasted red bell peppers

1/2 Brown onion, finely chopped

2 Tsp Coriander Powder 

2 Tsp Cumin Powder 

1/2 Cup Besan/chickpea Flour

1/2 Cup Rice Flour

1 - 2 Eggs depending on how much mixture you make and also the size of the egg

1 Tsp Salt

1/2 Tsp Sweet Paprika 

1 Tsp Crushed Garlic

Method: - 

Mix all the above ingredients into a batter and let it stand for about 15 to 30 mins. 

In a nonstick frying pan, add some olive oil to shallow fry the fritter until golden and crisp. The less oil you use the more likely that it is going to dry up because of the rice and chickpea flour so be sure to be a bit generous with the oil. Once golden let it drain onto some paper towel and serve warm with any sauce of your choice. :) 

Japanese Katsu Curry

Wagamama and hanaichi are probably the two most popular restaurant/takeaways for Japanese cuisine. If you have been to any of them you have without a doubt tried their famous Katsu Curry. It is actually a lot easier to make then most people would think and if you like spices you probably have most of the ingredients at home anyway. 

I really like making this recipe from scratch as it is super easy and you know exactly what you are putting in. There ofcourse is the easier option of buying the curry sauce stock cubes from a supermarket and adding your favourite stock to it. The issue I have with most of these store bought premade mixes is they contain heaps of MSG. MSG or commonly known as E621, actually causes inflammation of the tastebuds.... Some people react really badly to MSG, that is why I prefer making most of my food from scratch, so I know exactly what is going into it. 

So I decided to make this alittle easier as there are a fair few steps, so I have included pics. I hope you like this. Please comment in the box below if you enjoyed the format of this recipe. 

Ofcouse this recipe does need rice, you can use any type of white rice. I used basmati rice for this recipe. Start of by cooking your rice and keeping it aside for serving. 

Now for the sauce, few ingredients needed in the pic below. Honey, garam masala, vegetable or chicken stock, salt, curry powder (mild), 1 huge onion finely sliced, chilli flakes and some flour. You could use rice flour if you would like to make it gluten free. 

Cook the onions on a slow heat using sunflower oil, let the onion brown (cook for atleast 6 - 7 mins) once browned add 2 TBLS flour and 2 Tsp of curry powder and mix till the ingredients are well blended together. Once you smell the aroma of the spices add the chilli flakes and garam masala, my suggestion is add alittle and add the stock. Let the sauce start to thicken, TASTE and if you need more spice add more garam masala or chilli flakes, also you may need to add abit of salt depending on how salted your stock is. Once you see the sauce start to thicken add some honey about 2 Tsp and mix. Let is simmer for another 2 - 3 mins before blending it until you have a really smooth but thick sauce, (almost gravy like in texture).

Next, lets move onto the veg or chicken. For this recipe I made both chicken and veg. Remember with the veg however, you have to par boil it in salted water until the veg becomes slightly tender, but not cooked all the way through otherwise it will become mash. 

For the veg I used 1/2 sweet potato, 1/2 potato, 1 Small Zucchini. If you order a veg katsu curry at wagamama this is typically the veg they use, sometimes they use pumpkin too, really yum so give it a try if you have some. The chicken breast I had butterflied so that I could fry it as one solid piece and then cut into smaller pieces to serve. 

Par boil veggies and let it cool. Once cooled coat them in flour, egg and panko breadcrumbs (japanese style breadcrumbs, if you can't get any you could make your own breadcrumbs from bread that you have at home). Repeat the process with the chicken, (you do not need to par boil the chicken as it will cook when you fry it). Once coated keep refrigerated until you are ready to fry. 

Shallow fry in really hot oil in a pan, if you have a deep fryer you can fry it in there. Once crisp and golden remove and let it drain and cool on paper towel. The veggies can be added directly to a pile or rice in the serving bowl and pour warm sauce over the rice and veggies. With the chicken, slice into smaller pieces and check that the chicken is cooked all the way through before serving. To garnish add black sesame seeds with some chilli flakes and serve warm. Your guests will love you for this hearty meal. ENJOY :) CC 

Baleada

Baleada, not traditionally mexican nor is it traditionally spanish, it actually is a combination of the two cultures that has some kicking flavours going on...

I thought I would try this recipe, many of us know how to make tacos, nachos, burritos, quesadillas and enchiladas, but no one really talks about baleada and I would like to make it known because it is actually a combination of everything in one and tastes amazingly good. 

Baleada is classified typically under street food in Honduras where it was invented. You get simple baleada that just have refried beans and cheese or you can have a really special one that has sausage, eggs, beans and all the other goodies too. (The pic above shows one with chicken mince on the right and one without on the left). Really easy to make, if you want to use a burrito you can or you can follow my wheat tortilla recipe below, it is meant to be thicker than a burrito because you are required to hold it in your hand and eat it.

So here we go.... :) there are a few more ingredients then the normal but all really worth it.

Ingredients: - 

For the Wheat Tortilla (you can use store bought burrito if you like, the pic above is the wheat tortilla I made) 

1 cup plain flour 

1 TBLS Sunflower Oil  

Hot water to form the dough

For the filling

1 Tomato finely chopped

1 Onion finely chopped

Char grilled peppers 2 - 4 strips finely chopped

Coriander to garnish

Lemon and Limes

Eggs (1 per Baleada) 

Cheddar cheese

Cottage Cheese

Refried beans (which you should cook with onions, tomato and paprika to make it quite thick, once cooked mash slightly so it is easier to spread)

* optional Chorizo or any sausage (I used chicken mince, cooked with onion, garlic, cumin, sweet paprika, chilli flakes and salt for this recipe) 

hot sauce

Method: -

For the tortilla

Mix all the ingredients together to form a soft dough. Divide into golf ball size and start to roll to form tortillas you may require some flour for dusting to roll out. You can fry this in a really hot non stick pan, do not add any oil, simply fry in a dry pan. 

Mix the onion, tomato and pepper together, season with salt and squeeze lemon and limes over this and mix together and leave aside until you are ready to serve. 

Cook the eggs as required per tortilla. To assemble spread the refried beans onto the bottom of the tortilla and add all the ingredients (cottage cheese, mince or sausages, coriander) too and fold in half to serve. serve with a lemon and lime and garnish with coriander.