Hamburger DESSERT?!

Ah Japanese snack food - what will they think of next? I was intrigued when I saw this packet neatly stacked on a shelf above the freezer section of our local Tonyon supermarket. As you can see, the pack clearly shows a multitude of burgers. And having savoured what was probably the most unexpected snack food to date, I had visions of some chemical engineer taking extract of hamburger and infusing it into a gummi style sweet.


As the pack clearly states TWO servings, I was expecting two single round biscuit-shaped objects and as the dimensions of the pack did not provide for this, I was intrigued to know whether these "hamburgers" were going to in fact be elongated!

Thankfully, when I opened one of the two silver foil packs within, this is what tumbled out!

How cute are these?! They are about the size of an Australian $2 coin in diameter (just slightly smaller than actual size for those who aren't familiar with Australian currency) and proportionately as high as a real hamburger would be if it were 1.5 cm across! The "meat" is a little too sauce like but the manufacturer has gone to a great deal of trouble to get that authentic toasted, sesame-seed studded bun just right.

As those of you who have read my early snack food blogs will know, I don't often enjoy sweet snacks but chocolate of course is a whole other story! And as the ingredients list will tell you, there was definitely chocolate in these!

And they were HEAVENLY! As it turns out, the nutritionist detailed to determine what constituted a single serve decided that number would be 8 so this is all you get.

It's not nearly enough! After sampling one, I wanted to throw the entire handful into my mouth to get somewhere near the satisfaction of biting into a regular chocolate bar.

Oh yes, the taste! Considering the filling is a compound rather than premium chocolate, the flavour is quite good. The biscuit is crisp and gives a definite crunch. Mysteriously, the chocolate and the biscuit together tasted peanutty (like a scorched peanut bar without the toffee) even though there are no peanuts listed on the ingredients.

At about $3.50 for the 16 biscuits, it's probably a bit steep for a regular pantry item but for an indulgence, I'd buy them again. I'd be tempted to keep both serves for myself though! He he!

Chiffon cake

Paper wrapped chiffon cakes ... The kind bought from Chinese bakeries .. Light, fluffy and egg-y, they are definitely a childhood favourite! It's been a long held ambition to learn how to make them myself.

After some research on various recipes, most of the Asian sourced recipes include an emulsifier common to households in Asia, but not readily available here. I'm not a fan of adding more chemicals than necessary to my food, and as it was so common in all these recipes, I thought my ambition to make my own paper chiffon cakes had come to end. Luckily, I am also obsessed with all sorts of French baked goodies and I came across a French food blogger who had a chiffon cake recipe that is free of unrecognisable ingredients - just what I was after!

Ingredients I used:

• 130g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 6 large barn laid eggs, separated (from a 700g carton of 12)
• a pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 11 tablespoons of granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil

Method:

• Line 12 waxed paper cups with baking paper (mine were 280ml cups).
  
• Preheat the oven to 170ºC.
• Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl. (Cos I'm lazy, I didn't do as suggested and sift it 3 times and found it still turns out okay.)
  
• In a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks, salt, vanilla extract and 6 tablespoons of sugar until mixture is a pale yellow. Add in oil and water, whisking after each addition.
• Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk til blended.
  
• Using my bright-shiny-red Kitchenaid stand mixer (awesome x'mas present - thanks D!), I beat the egg whites til I got soft peaks, then gradually added 5 tablespoons of sugar until I got stiff peaks. To test whether your peaks are stiff, a fun test is to turn the mixing bowl upside down - if they don't move, your egg whites are stiff!
• Fold a third of the egg whites into the batter to lighten the batter, then fold in the rest of the egg whites.
• I lined my baking tray with some more baking paper, because previous experience taught me that sometimes the wax from the paper cups melts onto your baking tray and then you have to choose whether to scour your non-stick bakeware or not ... Hmm .. Prevention is always better than cure!
• Divide the batter evenly between the 12 cups and place on baking tray.
• Put in the oven to bake for 30 minutes. Try not to open the oven doors whilst baking, because like soufflés, your chiffon cakes can deflate if the oven suddenly cools down early on in the baking process.
• Once done take them out and turn the cakes on their heads! This is to minimise shrinkage as they cool down.
• When they're finally cool, they are ready to be enjoyed!

I've been experimenting with flavour - coffee being a family favorite! - and to do this to the recipe is relatively simple. I've substituted the 1/2 cup of water for 1/2 cup of Illy coffee espresso with some additional grounds to give it an extra kick. Green tea is another flavor I'd be keen to try and classic citrus flavors using zest and juice should work too.

As chiffon cake is relatively low-carb (roughly 2-3 cups of carbs yields roughly 12 cups of cake), low fat (no butter and you can choose a low cholesterol vegetable oil) and has no dairy in it (hence it's popularity in Asia), I think it's a healthier alternative to normal sponge cake. Not that I need another excuse to indulge .. :)

Sugar and spice and all things nice,
la chouquette sucrée

A Chocolate Porking

I now pronounce you Chocolate and Pork; you may now kiss your Pork.

The Married Couple

Will this marriage work?

Is it possible that two attractive individuals living their own lives on opposite sides of the food chain somehow meet, fall in love, and make edible bliss?

With thanks to our good friends at the Australia Pork Corporation for contributing their prized daughter, Murray Valley, I Reverend Shanks and with the cooking skills invested in me will conduct this marriage.

The Blushing Bride, Murray Valley

Apologies to one and all for missing the Yayas Yummers group pork blog to celebrate the launch of the new Food Bloggers award; I was somewhat detained by Bride-zilla demanding her special day to be unique and memorable. I was on a pilgrimage seeking enlightenment to plan the perfect match for Murray with the charming chocolate, Lindt.

Tall, Dark, and Handsome Groom, Lindt

"Ah, If memory serves me right" I was inspired by an Iron Chef Mexican battle where I was originally exposed to the thought of using chocolate in savoury dishes.

Chocolate Mole Sauce

It reminded me that a good marriage requires Love, patience, respect, and a good ear. So I married the loving couple with a bridal party of tomatoes, garlic, chilli and lime sprinkled with the spices of life of cumin, cinnamon, and nutmeg; and blessed by the old traditions of salt and pepper. Their special day is to be showered with hopes and dreams of cous cous confetti, and to be consummated (Porking!!) on a soft bed of tortilla.

Murray Valley Pork can't beat it!!

Yes, it definitely was a celebration, in my mouth that is. The bride and groom waltzed gracefully together throwing a bouquet of different flavours hitting my taste buds harmoniously. Lindt's smooth subtle charm and good looks tamed the raging heat of chilli and the sting of lime. The sweet spices perfumed Murray elegantly drawing out her natural sweet scent and succulent beauty. But like any marriage the happy couple cannot do it alone and definitely needed a reception of fresh salsa and comforting tortilla to balance textures and flavours.


Dearly beloved, you too can help celebrate the marriage of Lindt and Murray, with the exclusive invitation below:


Pan fried Murray Valley Pork Medallions with Chocolate Mole Sauce.

The Bridal Party (Ingredients):

• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 500gm pork sliced or cubed
• 1/3 cup chicken stock
• 50 grams 70% dark chocolate, chopped
• 1/3 cup tinned tomatoes
• Pinch of cumin
• Pinch of cinnamon
• Pinch of nutmeg
• 1 birds eye chilli, chopped
• Dash of tomato sauce
• 1 tspn brown sugar

• 1 fresh tomato, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup sliced shallots
• 1/4 cup Spanish onions
• Juice of 1/2 a lime

• Cous Cous to serve
• Tortilla, quartered to serve

The Wedding Ceremony (Method):

• Heat pan over medium heat. Drizzle both sides of the pork with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Char-grill until just cooked through.

• Combine chicken stock and chocolate in a saucepan, stir over heat until smooth.
• Add tinned tomatoes, chilli, cumin, cinnamon, nutmeg, tomato sauce, and brown sugar and simmer for 5 mins and set aside.
• Combine fresh tomato, Spanish onions, shallots, and lime juice in a small bowl. Toss gently and season to taste.
• Serve the pork spooning the chocolate mole sauce over the top; with salsa, cous cous, tortilla and lime wedge.

So tell me readers, what weird food combinations have you experienced?


Till next time ... we eat!!

Rev. Shanks.

Free Pork? What to do?

As you know, the yum yummers were recently enjoying the launch of the new Food Bloggers category of the Australian Media Food Awards at La Mint, hosted by The Australian Pork Corporation. The goodie bags were mouthwatering and generous, and each of us took home a couple of luscious looking Murray Valley pork loins, and trays of delicious rosemary pancetta.

I am a bit of a pork lover (and don't we ALL love a well done Pork Belly?), however I will say I'm a bit hit and miss with my cooking of pork. As with everything, I think part of that equation in this is the quality of the pork. After trying the Murray Valley pork, I suspect I won't be buying anything else! Surely it can't be fail-proof (or should that be fool-proof? ha ha), but this loin was was so easy to handle and even came through shining after my usually distracted way of cooking dinner. I was incredibly happy with the result.

Firstly, I made a simple marinade of honey, seed mustard and soy. I didn't use just any honey, I used my deeply toffee coloured honey, direct from the bee-keeper, John Donvito.

I used to buy generic brands of honey from the supermarket, but since buying a whole lot of jars of John's honey at a roadside stall in Galston a few months ago, will probably never do so again (unless he's not there again for while...don't leave me John!!). I always thought honey was a purely natural product, made by bees, and not tweaked very much by the brands that packaged it. Now having tried the other style, I guess I'll be doing
some research into what the big brands actually do with the honey and if they add anything to it? Another blog perhaps?

Anyway, I'm convinced there is a very big difference between the two varieties, and will bend John's ear about it next time I catch him. I don't think that'll be a problem, he loved a chat and was happy to talk honey last time.

Ok, honey check, seed mustard...was generic and fine, soy, all mixed with a little dab of oil. Pork in, not for long as I was throwing this together after work and the kids were hungry! Whilst the marinating was underway, I flicked on the oven to 180, and tossed together some assorted green leaves I picked up at the Asian supermarket, a nicer mix than the usual supermarket variety.

I seared both sides of the pork in a hot frypan, just to seal them, then quickly put them back in the baking dish with the marinade and cooked them for 15 minutes with no lid. I just had time to set the table and get everyone sorted, before removing the pork to rest under foil for 10 minutes before carving slices and stacking it on top of the leaves. I dribbled the remainder of the marinade over the top as dressing and voila! I had a warm pork salad ready to serve.

The pork was succulent, sweet, soft and yummy. It was a perfect light dinner for a warm evening. Friday nights we are usually all tired and uninterested in dinner, but there wasn't a skerrick to be seen on any of the four plates! I'm sold. Murray Valley pork is a nothing short of a sensation!

Oh, I shouldn't forget the pancetta, we served that cold with a salad the following day for lunch and thought it was beautiful. The kids were less enamoured with the "black stuff" in the middle, so I think we'll stick with plain pancetta for them next time. Hubby and I have always been porchetta lovers as well, so this is just another choice for another day in our book! If you haven't seen the new Pork ad, check it out !

Over to YaYa here

This is what I did with my Murray Valley pork but first (cue lecture mode) being of the curious researcher type in my day job, and having been introduced to Murray Valley pork chops by my local butcher a couple of years back (who enthusiastically called it the Wagyu of pork and yes it is more expensive than the regular variety) I wondered exactly why the pork was always so tender and juicy, was it a special breed of extra fatty pig, what the farmers fed the pigs or was it the way the meat was processed?

A quick google search reveals the the meat is the product of a company called Rivalea Australia based in the Riverina town of Corowa. According to their website the secret is in the processing of the meat. Murray Valley Pork is brined for you in advance. This is a technique of soaking the meat in a salty solution akin to marinating which locks in the moisture ensuring a tender product. You can do this to any ordinary unbrined meat or poultry but having it pre-brined from the butcher does carry a greater convenience! The brining process doesn't appear to make the pork particularly salty, I guess I would have to cook it without any flavouring to see what it tastes like, perhaps it's only a mild solution as any flavour I add to the cooking process is not exaggerated!

I marinated my pork in lemon infused and plain olive oil, Murray River pink salt, white pepper, some rosemary and a gorgeous saffron flavoured marmalade I had on hand.

A quick pan fry to brown the outside and then popped into a hot oven for about 15 mins

before serving with a mango salsa (mango, red onion, coriander and sweet chili sauce) and some baby potatoes which had been steamed, sprinkled with salt and pepper and olive oil and crushed with a potato masher and sprinkled with nigella seeds before baking.

Thank you to Australian Pork for the opportunity to try out this new recipe! The pork was tender and perfectly cooked, the marmalade adding a slightly bittersweet caramelised bite to the meat which was delicately perfumed by just enough rosemary. The Montecatini rosemary pancetta which we also received in our take home packs was just so good eaten out of the packet, we didn't do anything with it except serve it up with some sourdough bread!

Hey readers, Lobo here

Congratulations for getting this far. I know it's a long post so I'll try to keep this short but when it comes to pork Yaya's Yummers have a lot to say! A Homer Simpson quote sums up my feelings about this amazingly versatile meat quite nicely.

Homer: Are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?

Lisa: No.

Homer: Ham?

Lisa: No!

Homer: Pork chops?

Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal!

Homer: Heh, heh, heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

Yes Homer a wonderful, magical animal indeed and especially magical when it is received as a gift. So what did I do with the rosemary pancetta? Pan fried pancetta wrapped asparagus with poached eggs anyone?

I tried poaching eggs once before with terrible results and have stayed away from the cooking technique since, always using the more forgiving methods of scrambling and sunny side up. But under the tutelage of Youtube instructional videos, I thought I would give it another go.


I missed the centre of the swirling water a couple of times so the egg white didn't wrap around the yolk but luckily the yolk stayed intact during plating up. I loved the combination of the creamy egg yolk, the salty crispness of the pancetta and the crunch of nicely blanched asparagus. One asparagus hating guest suggested that next time I should replace the foul weed with fried sourdough bread stick soldiers and serve it up for breakfast.

The last couple of weeks have been filled with talk about pork. It seemed to be a consensus with most that their favourite part of the pig is the belly. I just couldn't resist going out and buying some organic pork belly and attempting my fathers crackling pork.
The process requires 2 days of curing with a dry rub so you need to think in advance for a dinner party but it's well worth the wait, the result being a light, extremely crunchy crackling that is brittle and yields easily to your molars. Another success story for pork!

EXTREME Snack Food! (Not for the faint-hearted!)

Cue the theme from Jaws!

No, these are not the preserved embryos of some poor pre-historic creature nor are they wrapped in an inner layer of plastic as I was sure they still were when we squeezed them out of their vacuum sealed foil packaging.

As far as packaged snack foods go, I'm sure if I looked hard enough, I'd find some much more exotic entries in the many countries which I have yet to visit.

But I think the Fuzhou Weng Cai Ji Foods Co., Ltd in China (you may want to read on after you click the link, it takes a while to load!) may have stumbled onto something! It's a company which deals mainly in packaged nuts and seeds but has a delightful sideline in prepared meat. And how wonderful our local store decided to stock them!

Always on the look-out for something to tickle my funny bone, Yaya came back excitedly from her visit to one of our many Asian grocery stores armed with these standard plastic pouches.

They turned out to be Duck Feet, Duck Tongue and (from a different company) Chicken Wings! Just a slight variation from your standard packet of Twisties! He he!

The back of the Duck Feet pack helpfully shows in full iconic detail when you might wish to consume these little goodies, as in, on your next flight! I can just see the expressions of the flight staff as you pull out your 4-pack of Duck Feet or your 10-pack of Duck Tongues.


So how does it taste I hear you ask?!!

Anyone who has been to Yum Cha (and who doesn't have an aversion to eating chicken's feet) will be familiar with the double-cooking process which brings out the gelatinous goodness to be found within the folds of skin and sinew, whether it be the soft red predominantly black bean/soy and chilli variety or the crunchy plain gingered white ones. In a nutshell, you either like poultry feet or you don't. These aren't going to sway you if you can't stomach the idea.

[To support the seemingly world-wide "ewww" factor, while by no means an exhaustive search, the internet is not inundated by recipes for how to prepare chicken's feet but Asian Online Recipes has one and Recipezaar has Golden Phoenix Claws the "floral" name for the dish! I will note that neither recipe mentions cleaning the tough outer skin of the feet off but this blog, helpfully titled "How to Prepare Chicken Feet" does!]

Getting back to how it tastes, first of all, they can't compare with the fresh hot variety. That said, I can honestly say (and this is supported by my fellow tasters) that the Duck Feet at least are actually quite addictive! The flavouring is damned authentic and although gelatinised and cold, the spices really hold their own. The texture is crisp and they taste briny with a hint of chilli. They are a little more anaemic than pictured on the packaging but let's face it, who would buy them if they looked like they actually do?!

Each outer pack contains 4 further vacuum sealed packs, a waste of packaging to my mind as it's very easy to eat 4 in one sitting. (I can't believe that my stomach is growling as I write this and I don't have one at hand!)

The Duck Tongues, while also flavourful, are a bit of a chore. I wasn't aware (why would anyone need to know this?!) that duck tongues are full of bones so no matter how small your bite you will crunch into a piece of bone after which you will be forced to use fingers to separate bone from meat. They are tiny and individually packed (boo! for the environment!) and almost not worth the effort (except to say that you've tried it!).

The Chicken Wings taste good as well and amazingly are manufactured by a company a few streets away from where I work (I clearly don't explore my home turf well enough!). The outer pack contains an inner plastic pack containing a single serving of 4 pieces. There was a worrying degree of pinkness as I got close to the bones on these but all of us who sampled them are still here to tell the tale so they've obviously been properly cooked and packaged.

And what if you just can't picture yourself eating one of these let alone a bagful? My tip is: forget everything I've just said and just close your eyes!

Bon(e) appetit!