Tag Archives: Bread

A twist on the English muffin and chicken

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Last week I made a chicken burger and used an English muffin for the roll. I had a couple of muffins in the freezer and a chicken thigh. I’ve never used a muffin to make crumbs so I gave it a go. With the muffin I added a chunk of Coon tasty cheese. I also mashed a potato and made a crumbed potato cake.

 

The verdict? It was good.

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Fekerte’s Ethiopian Cuisine

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Last night we went out for another birthday celebration. It was M’s birthday, that is last night was the designated birthday celebration as opposed to the impromptu birthday celebration we had a few weeks ago. Apparently M has wanted to eat at Fekerte’s for a long long time.

Fekerte’s has a long Canberra tradition. I recommend reading the introduction to their menu which is very informative and explains a lot about the food there.

Last night we selected a banquet (banquet three) which consisted of:

Entrée
Samosa
Pastry filled with a mixture of whole lentils or lean minced beef, coriander, shallots and other fresh herbs served with sauce

These were amazingly good samosas. Full of meaty goodness.

Kita
Ethiopian pan bread brushed with olive oil and spices

This bread came out first and at first I didn’t know how to attack it. It was nice with a pancake consistency.

Cauliflower Fritters
Finely cut cauliflower and fresh herbs mixed with chickpea flour and egg deep-fried and served with a yoghurt sauce

These fritters were really very good.

Main
Lega Tibs
Lamb marinated in white wine and Ethiopian spices sautéed with rosemary, onions, and green peppers

The lamb was tender and very tasty. The green chilies weren’t too hot.

Key Wat
Diced beef gently simmered until tender in a blend of onion, exotic spices and berbere

The beef was tender and the sauce was great on rice and with the enjera

Zilzil Alicha
Diced lamb and seasonal vegetables slowly cooked in a green pepper sauce and seasoned with ginger and jalapeno pepper

This lamb was a lot spicier and the sauce was great.

Ater Alicha – Mildly Spiced Pea Stew
Yellow split peas cooked with garlic, turmeric and basil

Nice and spicy and full of fibre.

Assa Curry
Nile Perch fillet lightly curried with garlic and coriander

The Nile Perch is a nice flaky fish. A little mushy though. The fish tasted great.

Salad

Mixed with the sauce from the fish curry and this rocked.

Served with enjera and rice

This had a lovely citrus sourness alone and amazing with the sauces.

Traditional Spiced Tea or Traditional Coffee

This tea was great. With a little sugar it was sweet and spicy.

The entrée selection was really good. The samosas especially. They were full of meat and full of flavour. Each of the main meal dishes had its own distinctive spice mix and when eaten with rice and enjera the sauce was nicely absorbed and oh so delicious.

For dessert Bron brought along a little container of poppy seed orange biscuits with chocolate and nutella filling. These were amazing little packets of flavour. So yummy. Bron also brought a couple of pecan brownies which were fantastic.

These were full of buttery goodness.

This brownie had a nice pecan crunch and flavour.

Fekerte’s is definitely worth visiting.

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Slowly cooked lamb shoulder and cauliflower soup

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Last night after making a pot of cauliflower soup I set about preparing to cook a shoulder of lamb for my lunch this week at work. Having now seen the result I think I’m going to swap around and have left over cauliflower soup for lunch and lamb for dinner when I’m at my place this week.

Yesterday afternoon I returned to Canberra from Brisbane and immediately started shivering on leaving the aeroplane and walking on the air bridge at Canberra airport. My mind immediately went to warm comforting foods hence the need for soup and a joint of meat.

The cauliflower soup is pretty basic. I sauté some onions and bacon pieces and get the bottom of the saucepan nice and sticky. Once the onions are soft I add a splash of white wine, some diced potato and the cauliflower florettes. To this I add some chicken or vegetable stock and then enough water so that after 30 minutes of simmering it has reduced to enough to blend without being too watery. I know what you’re thinking, I’ve spent most of my career in a laboratory; I should be able to be more precise than that. Like I explain to my medical students, medicine and pathology included is like a main meal, experience is what is needed. That is different to dessert and pastries where you need precision. Once the cauliflower and potato is soft I use my trusty Bamix® to blend the contents into a smooth soup. To this I add a few generous lumps of blue cheese and some pouring cream. This gets heated through and then served with crusty toasted bread and butter (or as some tweeps have commented served with butter and some toasted crusty bread).

Cauliflower soup with bread and butter (iPhone)

For the lamb I wanted to cook it slowly without a slow cooker. I decided on a large casserole and a low oven and a cooking period of about six hours while I slept. The preparation is pretty basic with onions, celery, carrot, tomato, red wine, beef stock, bacon pieces and the lamb. In my refrigerator I also noticed some old lup cheong and I thought, why not? What I enjoyed most was getting my boning knife out and having some fun dissecting the joint of meat.

When I woke up this morning my apartment was filled with the aroma of slow roasted lamb. It was amazing.

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) I wanted to capture a rustic look

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) Vegetables have been cut

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) I love a bit of blunt and sharp dissection

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) Everything tastes better with bacon and lup cheong

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) You should have smelt this when I opened the lid

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) I could just devour the meat, it was falling off the bones

Lamb shoulder (Nikon D90) Oh look vegetables too

Tomorrow I head off to Darwin for a night. I’ll be back late Wednesday night for the second half of the second State of Origin match and I’ll be enjoying some lamb stew. Yum!

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Wonderful Wagyu rib eye (scotch) fillet

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I had intended this meal for tomorrow night but I will be away for most of tomorrow and won’t be back until late. It seems so indulgent, decadent to have a Wagyu steak two nights in a row.

I had some left over vegetables in the refrigerator I didn’t want to waste. I made it look a little nicer by crumbing some bread and cheese and putting it in the oven to heat through and brown on the top.

Last night I followed a recipe, tonight I tried a variation. I heated the oven to 100 °C and put the vegetables in. After 30 minutes I heated up the stove to high and got my my saucepan and oil hazing. I had already dried the meat surfaces with paper towel and seasoned with salt and pepper. I seared one side for sixty seconds (that is, I counted to 60 slowly) and then turned and put straight into the oven. I left it there for 30 minutes and pulled it out. I put the meat on a warmed plate and covered with aluminium foil to rest for 10 minutes. I turned the grill to high and browned the top of the vegetables. The rest is history.

Rather than a long page of images, here is a slideshow to enjoy.

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Two nights in a row. There’s nothing wrong with that.

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Picnic lunch and then sausage rolls

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Today Bron invited me to a picnic lunch at Yerra Beach on Lake Ginninderra. There’s not much better than homemade sandwiches at a picnic or at the beach. To be honest, they’re always better on a sandy beach where there is surf. I’m sorry if I sound like a snob, I really do prefer surf beaches.

The weather was a little cool so I was wearing a hoodie and a pair of shorts. Bron had bought some nice crusty rolls, French onion dip, hummus, pesto, carrot sticks, brie, tasty cheddar, ham, salad leaves and tomatoes. We were able to assemble sandwiches at the Lake. After lunch we had Weston’s Wagon Wheels.

Yerra Beach. TAMS needs to come and cut the grass. The grass seeds had my allergies going.

Another view. The grass is lush.

There's playground stuff too.

And here is the sandwich. Bread smeared with French onion dip and filled with ham, brie, baby spinach, tomatoes, and cucumber.

Tonight I had some sweet potato and thought I’d do fritters again. I mentioned to Bron I still had puff pastry from last night and she suggested sausage rolls. I went and bought some pork mince, a pear and an onion. I still had some diced prunes from last night.

I made a potato and sweet potato bake with some Gruyere cheese and cream. The sausage rolls were simply the pork mince, onion, pear, prunes, some chilli flakes, pepper and an egg to bind.

Lots of ingredients to make sausage rolls and a potato bake.

The potato and sweet potato bake with Gruyere cheese.

This looks disgusting but it was full of goodness.

Sausage rolls ready for the oven.

The potato and sweet potato bake out of the oven.

Side by side. My main dishes for tonight.

Two hot logs of goodness.

Plated up.

On my dining table.

This was a pretty filling meal. I’ll have left overs tomorrow night.

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