One corn for fiddliness, and the other for time consumed (it's well worth it, though). Deviled eggs are one of those foods that seem to come into being about the same time as the wheel, first human thought may very well have been about this food stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if this were at all true (though I suspect it is not in the slightest).
Actually, a variation of Deviled Egg's can be found in most cuisines accross the globe, spanning from Arabic and Middle Eastern provinces, right through to Scandinavia and even Asia. All recipes work on the same idea of boiling the eggs, extracting the yolk and prettying it up somehow, and then stuffing it back into the sockets whence it came. One of the earliest recipes I can find for stuffed eggs comes from a medieval cookbook, here is an excerpt from An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the Thirteenth Century (translated by Charles Perry) for Andalusian Stuffed eggs:
Take as many eggs as you like, and boil them whole in hot water; put them in cold water and split them in half with a thread. Take the yolks aside and pound cilantro and put in onion juice, pepper and coriander, and beat all this together with Murri, oil and salt and knead the yolks with this until it forms a dough. Then stuff the whites with this and fasten it together, insert a small stick into each egg, and sprinkle them with pepper, God Willing.
Now, I think this is absolutely precious. After a little bit of research I learned that Murri is sort-of a salty-spicy-nutty-breaddy condiment used to put kick into food, kind of like a curry paste, and in combination with all the other ingredients it bares a striking resemblance to today's Deviled Egg. Speaking of...
Deviled Egg is one variation of what is more commonly known as 'stuffed egg', you can also find it being called 'filled egg', 'curried egg' and in Hungary it's known as 'casino egg'. Here in Australia, 'curried egg' is a very common name for this food-stuff because of the nature of the ingredients used, I also suspect that is bares some resemblance to curry egg sandwiches which are a truck-stop special in these parts. Wherever you go, however, you will find an egg that has mayonnaise and mustard mixed into its boiled yolks and that, in the grand scheme of things, is all that matters.
In my variation, which is the variation that my mother and her mother and even her mother all cook to, I use an Australian product called 'Keen's Traditional Curry Powder'. This company has been around for 150 years, and have been producing this ghetto-fab, and slightly offensive, white-trash of a curry powder following the same recipe from the very start. This particular curry powder has turmeric, coriander seeds, salt, fenugreek, black pepper, chili powder, rice flour, allspice and celery powder; similar to the Murri. I can't find any substitutes overseas, but if you combine 1/2 a teaspoon each of these ingredients, and grind to a fine powder, you should be able to recreate the flavour anywhere in the world. It's nasty, but it's oh so good (please don't rat me out to anyone in the Asian continent). And no, in-case you were wondering, you can't just use any old curry powder, the flavour is just not quite the same (and a little bit weird, actually).
Also, and I know I'm doing a bit of globe trotting here, the mayonnaise that I like to use in this recipe is a Japanese brand called 'Kewpie'. I like it because of the different vinegar flavours, but you can use any Mayonnaise that you like and it really doesn't make a difference (though, I prefer Kewpie and/or whole egg mayonnaise). If you can't get Kewpie, and you really want to add the vinegar flavour, you could add half a teaspoon of rice-wine vinegar to the mayonnaise and mix in before adding to the egg yolks. To be honest, if you can get rice-wine vinegar then you most likely will be able to get Kewpie as well (they normally go hand in hand), and lately Kewpie has exploded across the world as a really popular ingredient in bento and sushi.
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Ingredients.
12 eggs (1 dozen - fresh)
4 tblsp of mayonnaise
2 tblsp of butter or margarine
2 tblsp of Keens Curry Powder or curry powder mix.
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How To Do!
The instructions I am about to give read similarly to the one's given way back in mediaeval Andalusia.
First bring a pot of water to the boil, then gently spoon the eggs in being careful not to splash and scald yourself - I use a pasta server because it cradles the egg well and stops me from dropping the eggs accidentally into the water. Let the eggs cook on a rapid boil for around about ten minutes, you want to yolk to be pretty much cooked through. One way to tell if it's done is when you pull an egg out of the water it should dry up within a few seconds from the heat (I cheat and use an egg-mate).
Once they are done place the eggs in some ice water and let them cool down completely, the benefit of doing this is that the abrupt temperature change seems to make the eggs shrink a little bit in the shells which makes them easier to peel. Once they are cool enough to handle, peel them.
This can be an annoying, frustrating and tedious task because you have to go gently and cautiously, otherwise the delicate eggs will peel and chunk apart. The best way I've found is to crack the shell in a few different places on a hard surface, and then try and peel away the shell and membrane underneath. If the eggs are fresh they should peel without too-many problems, older eggs tend to give a little more grief. As you peel each egg shake them around in the ice water, just to get rid of any left over bits of shell, and place them to one side (in a bowl, so they don't roll away, is best) .
Once all the eggs are peeled and washed, slice them in half lengthways through the centre of the yolk and then gently remove the yolks from their sockets into a separate dry bowl, place the whites to one side.
Next, add the spices and condiments to the egg yolks, and fork through until you have a fluffy mixture at about the consistency of dense mousse. Finally, add about a teaspoon of the mixture to each egg-white socket; don't stuff them in, however, just gently push it in - if you stuff it too densely the egg white will collapse and even if it doesn't it will be too big to put into mouths in one go (which is sort of the point).
These eggs will go fast at parties, so make-sure you put some aside for yourself. If you are planning on serving them for dinner make-sure you are dining with someone you are intimate with, these are eggs and curry powder after-all.
Things have been a little crazy, but a new year brings a new attitude and so with that I present some new and improved dedication to this little venture, as well as some delicious food and some beautiful recipes.
Sloppy Joe's get two out of five difficulty corns.
One corn for actual difficulty, and another for having the patience to wait for the mixture to congeal to just the right sloppIness; it's harder than you may expect.
I came across Sloppy Joe's like most Australians my age by way of the movie Billy Madison, which came out when I was about seven, and specifically in this clip from the movie with Joyce Gordan playing the lunatic lunch lady. After seeing the movie - and that particular clip - I still didn't know what a Sloppy Joe was, they just looked like unprofessional burgers to me; which is basically correct. Fast forward to Fourth of July 2k12 and my recreation of American foods for my American partner, I find myself staring google in the face wondering weather I can pull off Sloppy Joe's without being reduced to lunatic lunch lady status. Turns out I can.
The history of S.J's is rather controversial because as it turns out there are a few people who want to lay claim to the messy sandwich; and I can't blame them. Earlier last century they were known as loose meat sandwiches, and if you're a fan of the popular 1980's T.V show Rosanne, these sandwiches played an important part in her diet and ever expanding waistline, then you may know them as this.
The basis of the sauce is ground meat which typically was beef. During the war efforts ground meat was the main meat in many people's diets across the western world, this was because wives could cook dishes that would stretch the small rations of meat to feed armies of cold hungry families. Ground beef (for example) could be stretched by adding bread crumbs onions garlic and eggs into burger patties or meat balls or meatloaf, which stretched the dish out to feed everyone substantially while sticking to the ration limits. Loose meat sandwiches are said to have been born out of this creativity, which is the story I'm going with. For more information about the sandwiches hazy origins check out Kerry's Island Kitchen Blog.
Weather this recipe is traditional or not, I'm not entirely sure. This recipe I came across online and it has the most basic universal ingredients so I'm supposing that it's not too far from the mark. However, trad or trash my partner adores them and he's from Santa Barbara in SoCal, so I must be on the right track.
So, to business, or rather pleasure.
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Ingredients.
1 tblsp olive oil
1/2 cup grated carrots (must be grated - not processed or chopped finely)
1/2 cup grated celery (can be processed)
1 cup chopped onion
2 (big) cloves of garlic, minced
500g (or 1lb) of minced meat (beef is best)
1/2 cup of tomato ketchup
1 tin of puree/diced tomato
1 tblsp worcestershire sauce
1 tblsp vinegar
2 tblsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp of dried time
1/2 tsp dried chillies
fresh salt and pepper to taste
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How To Do!
This is really simple, it just takes a bit of chopping prep. Also, please make sure the pot you cook the vegetables in is reasonably big and deep, trust me (I learned the hard way...).
Grate the carrots, and then fry for one minute on medium heat in the pot, then turn down to med-low heat and cover. Cook for five minutes stirring occasionally, and while waiting, grate the celery and chop the onion and garlic. After the five minutes have passed throw the celery onion and garlic in with the carrots, cook on high for a minute or two and then cover again on low heat for five minutes. The point of covering the veggies on low heat is so they sweat down and don't burn, but also it allows the natural sweetness of the carrots and onion to come out into the mix, and it makes a real difference.
In a separate pan fry the mince without any additives or flavors until it's mostly cooked, then add it to the vegetable mix and let it all cook for a little longer on a low heat. In a jug add the ketchup, sugar, worchestershire sauce, salt and pepper, thyme, vinegar and chillies and mix, then pour into the pot with the veggies and the meat; also add the can of tomatoes at this stage. Bring to a fierce simmer then turn down to med-low and let it cook uncovered until it reaches the consistency of mud, stirring often.
Serve in white squishy buttered buns, with iceberg lettuce and grated cheese. I like mine with some mayo on the lettuce but I'm a mayo and lettuce freak, so that's to be expected.
This recipe makes enough sauce for approximately ten Sloppy Joe's, which should, theoretically, be enough to serve four adults for dinner. In practice I rather feel it's enough for two greedy people for dinner, and one extra greedy person for a messy midnight snack. I've been very tempted to use this mix as a disgustingly trashy pasta sauce, but I have managed to abstain from committing such atrocities thus far. However, I dare say it wont be long, I'm only a few wines away from succumbing to trashy kitchen work at the best of times.
This Singaporean Laksa gets three difficulty corns.
I was debating weather I should put this recipe in, but I felt that it's important for me to include even if it doesn't inspire anyone to cook it. I live in Australia, and geographically Australia is just below South East Asia where you found countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei, Thailand etc. As a result of Australia's geographical location there is a great deal of Asian influence in the foods that I eat, and I didn't realize just how much there really was until I went to America and England and experienced a food culture without laksa or satay or curries or anything of that nature. All the Brits want to eat is steak and chips and all the Californians want is Mexican food and burgers; which is just as well because the Mexican food over there is outstanding, and frankly so are the burgers. But, and this was such a revelation for me, there are no asian markets, no asian restaurants, and no asian take away. Not a honeyed chicken in sight! That made me homesick more than scones or nutrigrain or timtams.
The reason I love laksa so much is because it's a part of a universal standard. In every country there is a bowl of something warm and fresh and bolstering that people turn to for solace; in Malaysia and Singapour it's laksa, in Tokyo it's miso, in New Orleans it's gumbo, in Paris it's a bisque, in Glasgow it's cock-a-leekie, in Rome it's minestrone, and just about anywhere in the world you will find a variation of chicken soup for the soul.
Laksa is warm, gently spiced, rich and delicate and perfect when in sickness and in health. The recipe I'm going to describe below is for prawn and chicken laksa, this is slightly unusual because usually it's one or the other, but not for me. I like my prawns just like I like my chicken, and so I will have my cake and eat it, too.
I'd just like to say now that if you are in the US or UK, these ingredients will be really hard to find unless you have access to an authentic asian grocer. Most of the ingredients can be kept for a long amount of time, however, so wait until you have everything to make it. It's really important that you include everything or it won't taste right.
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Ingredients.
For the soup:
2 large red chillis, the kind you would find lit up in wine-bar windows
2 tblsp of dried prawns/shrimp
2 medium onions
6 candlenuts (or macadamia or Brazil kernels)
2 stems of lemon grass (or the thinly peeled rind of a medium sized un-waxed lemon)
4 tablespoons of peanut oil (can use a flavourless vegetable oil but do try to find the former)
1tsp ground turmeric
1tblsp ground coriander
6 cups fresh coconut milk (or 2 cans coconut milk diluted).
Fresh coconut milk is not the liquid inside a coconut, it is the inside of the coconut when it has been shredded, covered with hot water and then strained. The coconut water is good for drinking and preserving the coconut flesh if you don't use it all, one recipe that works is blending a cup of coconut water with a cup of mango, a banana, and some watermelon. Makes for a really lovely vegan kickstarter (but I add rockmelon and orange juice and a few spoons of yoghurt just for fun).
For the rest:
500g (1lb) raw prawn meat
500g (1lb) cooked chicken
1tblsp oil
8 cups of chicken or prawn stock
salt
375g of any noodle that you like, rice vermicelli is prescribed most often but I don't like rice vermicelli I like hokkien which is entirely inappropriate but entirely delicious
fresh bean sprouts for garnishing (so, optional)
small bunch of Vietnamese mint, also known as laksa leaves
sambal ulek or bajak (also entirely optional, only for those who really like fire)
fresh limes
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How To Do!
The hardest part about this dish is finding all the ingredients, if you're in Australia go ahead and lose one of those difficulty corns because you'll find these ingredients in any IGA or Foodland or Asian Grocer that has Asian owners. If you are in South East Asia you can remove all difficulty corns.
First you need to make the paste. Soak the dried prawns/shrimp in boiling water for ten minutes. Add all the chilli, the nutts, the onions, the prawns and their water and the lemongrass to a processor or blender and blitz until you've got a paste. If you don't have the mechanics to do it automatically, then chop everything up super fine and then mash in a mortar and pestle. Failing that get the side of a sharp knife and smooth everything against a chopping board. Then, warm the peanut oil to a large heavy based pot and then fry the mixture for a minute or so. Then add the ground turmeric and coriander and continue to fry for another minute, then add all the stock. Wait for the stock to come to a boil then turn it down to a low simmer and leave for half an hour.
All that's left to do is prepare the noodles (follow the packet instructions of your chosen noodle), throw them in the soup with the chicken, fry the prawns in a separate pan (they have better texture if you do it this way) and plate up.
Garnish with the prawns, Vietnamese mint and bean sprouts, add the sambal if you're adventurous and dinner is done!
As I side note I boiled my chicken and processed my own coconuts for their cream (harder than it sounds) and it made all the difference; the taste was smooth and silky and well worth all the ghastly effort and tearing my hands to shreds, the coconut is unforgiving and unyielding. However, it's nice to know that if the economy falls apart and we all have to go back to growing our own food that I can still make this.
This isn't really a recipe, this is just methods for preparing eggs.
I know that most people already know how to make eggs, but it's so easy and fun and this morning I just wanted a reason to make one of every kind of breakfast egg I know (except toad in a hole, that deliciousness is reserved for bbq breakfast), so I did.
But first, here's some awesome facts about eggs...
Fab egg fact one: double-yolked eggs are produced by younger hens whose egg production cycles are not yet synchronized.
Fab egg fact two: eggs are good for your eyes, because they contain lutein which helps prevents age-related cataracts and muscular degeneration.
Fab egg fact three: when a hen lays an egg, the egg shell is soft. It is contact with the air which makes the eggs harden almost instantly.
Now that we are sufficiently schooled, on with the eggs!
On the top row we have an omelet, a poached egg, and a baked egg.
On the bottom row we have one scrambled egg, one boiled egg, and one fried egg.
I think these are the best variations of breakfast egg you can have.
Instead of giving ingredients and tools I'm just going to do methods for each egg, some are straight forward and some are not.
Omelette is a word of French origin which first appeared during the mid-16th century. According to legend, while traveling through the south of France, Napoleon Bonaparte an his army decided to rest for the night near the town of Bessières. Apparently a local innkeeper prepared an omelette for him, and Nap's was so thrilled by what he had just eaten that he ordered all the eggs in the village to be collected and made into omelettes for his army the next day. Omelettes have many variations with fillings like cheese, mushroom, spinach, onion and more. I like mine with cheese and salt and pepper and they're dead easy to make.
All you do is crack two eggs (per person) in a bowl, whisk them well and make sure there's lots of bubbles in the mix (which will make them light and fluffy). Heat a non-stick pan, add butter enough to coat the pan (and a little drizzle of oil so the butter doesn't burn) and pour in the egg mix. After a minute or so put any fillings you want on half of the omelette and let it cook for half a minute more. Then, take a spatula and flip the side without the ingredients over the side with the ingredients and leave for another minutes or so, then flip the whole thing over so it cooks on the other side for a few minutes further; then put it on a plate. Easy. If you find the egg isn't cooked to your liking then put it back in the pan on a low heat and fry it for a minute on either side, and continue to do so until you're happy with the consistency of the omelette.
Poached eggs are slightly more complex. First of all you need fresh eggs, you need gently simmering water, and you need a tool that you can fish the egg out with that is a big-ish spoon with holes or spaces for the water to drain. You can also put some vinegar in the water, that will stop the egg going everywhere and will make the egg whiter; it will also make the egg taste a little vinegary but that's not such a bad thing if you use a nice vinegar.
There's all this talk of making a vortex out of the water so the egg stays in the middle and perfectly shaped but that's just nonsense to me. Just add three tablespoons of vinegar to five or six cups of water, let it simmer, gently put your eggs in and push it around so it doesn't stick to the bottom. Give it a few minutes until the translucent bit has gone all the white, and a white film has covered the yolk. If you like your yolks like moist chalk then give it about five minutes minutes, if you like really runny yolk take it out at about the two minute mark and let it sit for a few minutes. The egg is so delicate it will cook in it's own residual heat. Salt and cracked pepper, yum.
Baked eggs are a fab way to try something new. You can add things like ligurian olive oil, a dash of cream, tomato sauce, butter, or even nothing; all you need is egg, ramekin, baking dish, warm oven and water.
Here's mine with a dash of cream, and I really mean just a dash - you don't need much. You put the egg in the ramekin, the ramekin in the hot-water bath and then pop it in the oven. You HAVE to put it in the water bath, I don't know the science behind it but it makes the world of difference. How long it takes to bake is really up in the air because different ovens work faster/slower than others, and it also depends on how you like your egg. Give it at-least five minutes in an 180c/350f oven and then check it, and then keep checking every two minutes. Every one minute even...
Scrambled eggs are boys eggs. They aren't delicate, you don't have to worry about piercing the yolk, you just break three eggs whisk them up put them in a pan (with melted butter in) and cook them till they're not runny anymore while pushing them around and mixing them about. Serve with salt and pepper along side fried bacon and mushrooms and you're the world best boyf.
Boiled eggs are quite the art, I must say. An art that I cheat at because for something like six bucks from The General Trader I got this cheaters gadget for cheaters.
It's a red egg that cooks along with the other eggs in the simmering water. You can tell how cooked the real eggs are, because the red plastic egg starts turning purple from the outside in marking how the eggs are cooked. It's really cool and works perfectly. For those of us who don't have this fab tool (if you're a boy just get one so you can add to your impressive breakfast repertoire), four minutes give you a super runny egg, five minutes gives you a reasonably runny egg, six minutes and you're entering chalky yolk stage, any more than that and you'd better want to be using that egg for curried egg sandwiches because that egg is cooked through my friend. Serve the yolky egg with buttery toast soldiers, and the toast is better when it's a bit cold so it doesn't collapse in the egg.
Last but certainly not least, the fried egg. I have to admit something to you all, fried eggs are my favourite, when they're soft yolked and dripping all over a bowl of migoreng noodles with left over dumplings; heaven. The best way to start your day. As for the actual frying you start with a warm and buttered non stick pan as usual, and I would suggest getting a small frying pan just for eggs because it makes the whole process much easier.
There is a bit of a debate about weather the eggs should be flipped, I like mine sunny side over though most restaurants will serve it to you sunny side up; but the choice is yours just make sure you're specific about how you like your eggs done when eating out. To play it safe at home (this ones for you, boyfriends who are being nice in the morning) I would flip it after a few minutes and give it a few moments on the other side, even if the heat is off, just to cook off the rest of the egg-whites; and serve on migoreng and dumplings toast. A tip for frying eggs, don't cook the eggs with the fire of a thousand suns, cook them on medium and be patient; they will taste better if you do.
Alfred Hitchcock was quoted to have said, “I'm frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any holes have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting. I've never tasted it."
Oh Alfy, honey, you've never lived!
Kukul Mas Curry, or simply chicken curry Sri Lankan style, gets three difficulty corns.
It get's three corns because, like most things I cook, two corns for tricky-ness and one corn for scary. Spices, curry, heat, flame, onion, these things all scare people. Curry is not tricky it's just delicate, and it's easy to mess up the flavors. Once you've made it a few times, though, it's not hard at all - just time consuming. This recipe takes about half an hour to put together, an hour to cook, and minutes to eat greedily. I'd like to reiterate that curries are not hard to cook, I mean it's origin is third-world home cooking, but it is precise in the measurements of spices and the spices used to create a delicate and lovely balance. Not only that but the spices used in curries, and especially those from the Indian subcontinent, have so many fantastic health benefits; they are good for the blood, liver function, heart function, organ health, improving memory, and more. Spices are good for you.
This particular curry recipe comes from Charmaine Solomon who is a demigod in the Australian food industry, the grandmother of Asian cooking. She's released more than thirty books on Asian cuisine (and when I say Asian I use it in the broader sense not strictly China Korea and Japan), and my copy of her bible 'The Complete Asian Cookbook' covers recipes from China down to Indonesia, with pit stops in places like Cambodia and Pakistan and India, and Sri Lanka which is where this recipe comes from.
I have a certain affinity with Sri Lankan cuisine. I grew up along side a Sri Lankan family with daughters who were about five years older than I, being hand fed dahl, rice, curries and beans by the beautiful grandmother of the family, Umma (which is like uh-ma but with Aussie inflection). I don't know if Umma is Tamil for Grandma, but that's what they called her, so I did as well.
Sri Lankans love their coconut, their ghee, their chilli and eating all of these things with their hands. I love eating curries with my hands, I can't even fathom eating dahl and rice with a fork; it just seems unnatural and offensive even. Different parts of India and Sri Lanka have different etiquette for eating with hands, but Umma simply told me that she used her hands because it made the food taste better. I like that.
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Ingredients.
1.5kg (3lb) of chicken, best to use pieces which are on the bone, they taste better. First time users please use chicken thigh, on the bone but skinless.
3 tablespoons of ghee or oil
1/4 tblsp of fennugreek seeds
10 curry leaves
2 large onions, finely chopped or processed for twenty or so seconds (chopped not pulped)
4/5 cloves or garlic, finely chopped
2tsp of finely grated ginger
1tsp ground turmeric
1tsp chilli powder (only add if you want your curry hot)
1tsp ground coriander
1tsp ground cummin
1/2tsp ground fennel
2tsp of paprika, for colour (in Sri Lanka, sometimes the earthy red-brown colour is achieved by adding thirty red chillis!!)
2tsp salt
2tblsp of vingar
2 tomatoes peeled and chopped (or 3/4 of a can of chopped tomato is fine too)
6 cardamom pods, bruised (optional)
1 stick or 1tsp of cinnamon
1 stalk of lemon grass or 2 strips of lemon rind
1 cup of thick coconut milk
Tools.
Chopping board
Knife
Spoon
Measuring cups, spoons and cups
Big pot with lid
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How To Do!
You need to prepare the meat. If you are cooking with breast please don't, it just goes all stiff and dry is the texture isn't very nice. If you cook with thighs or wings, fantastic just remove the skin before you do. If you cook with legs chop off the bottom knuckles (cats love these) and remove the skin. Once the meat is ready it's just a matter of measuring a few things, frying a few things, and leaving it to do it's own thing for an hour.
Measure out all of the ingredients so you can methodically approach the frying.
Heat the ghee/oil and then getly fry the fenugreek and curry leaves until they start to brown. If you use fresh curry leaves the oil will spit, because of the water content in the leaves, don't panic just stand back and don't get burned.
Next add the onions and gently fry them until they are aromatic and little translucent, then add the garlic and ginger and fry until the onions turn golden.
Once the onions are fried off, add the spices, vinegar and salt and mix well. This mess should dry up because of the spices, and start to look a little something like this:
Once this is ready, add the chicken and the lemongrass/rind and make sure all are slicked with the vegetable-spice-oil. Then simply add the tomatoes, mix, and cook, covered, on a medium-low heat for 40 - 50 minutes. You know it's ready when the chicken pieces start to fall apart when poked. Just before serving add the coconut cream, once you have done this you can no longer cook the curry on the heat; well, you can but it will interfere with the fresh taste of the coconut. That's it, really.
There are many side accompaniments that go with a Sri Lanken curry. There are Hoppers, there are the Sri Lanken version of flat bread called Chapatis, Papadums, obviously rice, other curries, scrambled eggs, fried greens - the list is just endless. Tonight, I'll be having my curry with turmeric spiced rice, and a potato curry.
This divine chocolate cake get's two difficulty corns.
It would have been one difficulty corn, except most people find baking atrociously difficult by association and so I awarded one corn for difficulty and one corn for scary. It seems to me that when most people think 'baking', they also think 'meringue' or 'pavlova' or 'macrons' or other evil/scary/hard/messy/explosive recipes. Honestly though, this cake is about as easy as a cake mix; it's just measuring, mixing, pouring - that's it.
The original recipe comes from Nigella Lawson, and you can find it on her website and she demonstrates how to make it in series two of Nigella Bites (episode: Comfort Food). She calls this cake a 'Chocolate Fudge Cake', however I tend to liken it more to a light mud-cake. It doens't have the overbearing sickly sweetness that fudge has, despite the recipe calling for inordinate amounts of sugar, and I deviate from Nigella's recipe by preparing half the amount of frosting and actually sometimes, and this time, I deviated entirely from the frosting recipe and go for a chocolate ganashe instead. I find the frosting way to invasive and rich but each to their own, the butter cream frosting is very easy to make as well but you will need an electric beater or a friend whom you can bribe to mix while you sieve. Anyway, let them have cake!
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Ingredients.
For the cake:
400g of plain flour
250g of caster sugar
100g light muscovado sugar (or any soft sticky sugar)
50g cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
3 medium eggs
142ml sour cream
1tblsp vanilla extract
175g unsalted butter melted and cooled
125ml corn oil
* In the recipe online, it calls for "1 teaspoon(s) salt for pasta water, to taste". I giggled at that.
Also the recipe calls for bicarb, which is not out of the ordinary but if you leave it out the cake doesn't rise as much and stays lovely and dense and muddy - this is what I did and it works a charm.
For the frosting (I'm going to give the Nigella frosting recipe here but any good chocolate or perhaps berry frosting will be good and there's loads of recipes online):
175g cooking chocolate chips
250g unsalted butter softened
275g Icing sugar sieved
1 tblsp vanilla extract
Tools:
Mixing bowl
Wooden Spoon
Whisk
Fork
Two 20cm cake tins
Measure cup (more than one would be good)
Measuring spoons
Scales
Cake stands
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How To Do!
Preheat your oven to 180c/350f - do it now and don't forget. I've done that before, and after the pudding stood around for half an hour it turned into a sour sort of mousse!
This is really very simple and takes hardly any time.
I would also like to note at this point that if you want an even denser cake simply don't add the bicarb, and add 1 1/2 tsp of baking soda instead of the 2tsp. It doesn't rise nearly as much, and this flat moist cake can stand without frosting all by it's self and is delicious.
For the regular cake mix the plain flower, caster sugar, muscovado sugar, coco, bi-carb and baking soda to a bowl.
Mix the butter, iced-water and oil in another bowl.
Mix eggs, sour cream and vanilla in another bowl.
To the dry ingredients add the butter and iced-water and oil mix first, then combine well. Then add the egg sour cream and vanilla mix, and combine again.
Mix until well combined, however consider this when deciding weather to eradicate all lumps. Nigella once said, when referring to muffins, that, "a lumpy batter makes the lightest muffins". I have transferred this mantra to cakes and it's never lead me astray, but if you want to go at it until it's pancake-batter smooth then be my guest.
When it's all combined you'll get something like this:
This recipe makes a really runny batter, it's not thick and spoon-able at all, don't be surprised by how wet it is. Finally, it's just a matter of buttering the cake tins, then lining the bottoms with with baking paper and adding half of the batter to each. Transfer the soon-to-be cakes to one of the higher racks of the oven, and bake for about fifty minutes. Check at forty minutes by taking a clean skewer and piercing it into the belly of the cakes, and if the skewer comes out clean your cakes are ready. Simple as that.
If they're not ready then put the cakes back in, and check every five minutes or so.
When the the cakes start to fill the house with their heady chocolate aroma, you have a pretty good indication of when to start checking. Different ovens cook differently, my oven is old and rickety so the smell test is another good guide for people like me.
Once the cakes are cooked through take them out of the oven and set them aside for five minutes to cool, then pop them out of their trays and onto wire racks so they can cool completely. Be patient and let them cool completely or else the icing will just melt.
When the cakes have cooled you can prepare the icing, and this is very easy. Melt the chocolate first so it has time to cool down, do it over a double boiler or in the microwave. If you do melt it in the microwave be careful it doesn't burn, take it out every ten seconds to stir. Once the chocolate is melted put it aside to cool slightly.
Take the soft butter and plonk it in a bowl, and while whisking slowly add in the sieved icing-sugar one spoon at a time. Make sure you take the time to whip it into the butter well; to do the cake justice you need this process to be done with love and tender care.
Once all the sugar is incorporated, take the vanilla and the cooled chocolate and beat them into the sugar and butter. You should find that the cooled chocolate won't make the butter greasy, and what you get at the end is a lovely thick and very rich chocolate butter frosting. I would try this recipe out first, and next time consider halving the chocolate frosting. If you are under twenty or have children who are under twenty and are total sugar fiends then make it all, but for me half of the frosting mixture is plenty.
And now we're ready to ice! You may consider trimming the bottom cake so that it stacks the top cake flush (this isn't necessary if you didn't add the bi-carb and only 3/4 of the baking soda), put frosting in the middle, frosting on the top, and frosting all over the sides. Slice, serve, eat, feel better. Here's my cake with a little of the frosting described on the top, and a chocolate and sour cream ganache on the bottom, you can find a recipe video for how to do this here.
I also wanted to make mention of my lovely cup-cake spoon measures that a dear friend of mine gave me for secret santa one year; these things are so cute and make baking that little more fun. Cake, out!
This is not because it's hard to cook but because it's quite fiddly toward the end.
Just to catch some of you up to speed, Onigiri (also known as o-nigiri) are a Japanese cuisine, and the word in Japanese looks like this お握り or this 御握り; おにぎり.
Today, Onigiri are rice balls filled with the same sort of ingredients you would normally see in or on sushi, and wrapped partially in Norri.
Traditionally they were filled with ingredients like; pickled umi, which is a Japanese fruit; katsuobushi, which is a dried and fermented tuna; kombu, which is basically an edible form of kelp; tarako, which is a fancy word for salted cod; and salted salmon, which is the easy way to describe salmon which has been salted ^_^. The traditional fillings were all salty or sour, which meant that they were naturally preserved which would have been handy in the 11th century when Lady Murasaki first wrote about them in her diary, Murasaki Shikibu Nikki.
Ingredients.
1 cup sushi rice
3 tblsp rice wine vinegar
1 tblsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup cooked peas (optional)
2 sheets of norri
Fillings.
Tools.
Glad wrap, or any cling film
Rolling pin
Sushi mat or cutting board
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How To Do!
I cook my rice in an electric cooker. I know it's pathetic, but I can't seem to make it do right in a pot over the hobb, so I wuss out and use a machine. If you want to do it with a pot over the hobb then be my guest and make a blog about it so I can learn oh wonderful Sensei!
Follow the packet instructions for cooking your rice - different rice brands will give you different advice, so play it safe and follow the instructions advised by your rice brand of choice. When the rice is cooked and sticky add rice wine vinegar, the salt and the sugar and fork the rice.
DO NOT USE A SPOON
If you use a spoon it will make the rice claggy and mooshy. Using a fork will ensure the rice is fluffy and separated, perfect for your Onigiri! At this stage, if you're going to add peas, add them to the forked rice and then fork them through too. Always fork, people.
Now roll out some cling film, you need about 40cm or just over a foot of cling film, you're going to put some rice on one half and fold the cling-film over it. I'm not going to specify how much rice to use because that really depends on how big or small you want your Onigiri to be. If you're going to copy the demonstration triangle's I've made, however, I used roughly a 1/2 cup of cooked rice rolled out to 1/2 cm (or 1/4 inch) thickness, but you can add and subtract as you go (so don't panic about it just experiment). Speaking of rolling out, grab the rolling pin and do just that. Try not to pierce the gladwrap, at the end it should look like this:
The next steps are tricky and it all depends on the size and shape you're going for. I went with a triangle because that's what I saw Team Rocket eat on Pokemon, but you don't have to.
I peeled back one of the layers so the rice was exposed, and placed the ingredients in a triangle shape in the center. I put salmon, avocado and fried calamari in this one. The list of other filling ideas are endless and totally up to personal preference, but here's a few ideas to get you going.
tuna
prawn/shrimp
eggplant
asparagus
omelet
chicken
sliced ham
Then the tricky bit. You have to fold the rice into a triangle, and then peel back the plastic while leaving the rice behind. I do not know a method that makes this easier, it's messy and frustrating and part of the reason I do these big ones instead of little balls. I've found that if the rice is thicker it's easier to peel back the Gladwrap, and eventually I get a lovely triangle shape. If you try to use this thick rice trick when making Onigiri into balls, you just get massive balls. Sorry for overusing the word 'balls'. Okay back to triangles, the tighter you can make the folds the better, because if it's not all tightly wrapped it will just fall to tasty pieces. Once you get a rough shape wrap the gladwrap super tightly in a triangle around it, and using your hands gently but firmly press the Onigiri until it feels a little more firm to the touch and even on all sides.
From here you can refrigerate it for 1/2 an hour or so, so it stiffens up a bit. Or you can just carefully unwrap it, and then wrap it again in the Norri cut to size so it looks a little like this:
I've found that mine hold just fine even when they haven't been refrigerated, and I tend to prefer them tender and slightly warm still anyway.
I serve mine with the usual Sushi side kicks of ginger, wusabi, soy sauce and Kupie mayonnaise; especially the Kupie mayonnaise which is my favorite food find of last year.
Some people do wonderful crazy bento-box style designs with the Norri, all I've ever managed was Triforce Onigiri which was a woeful attempt at cleverness; we all have humblr beginnings.
Yeah I see that typo, I'm going to leave it because it's hilarious.
This is a how-to blog that focuses on foods that we cook everyday. The food is easy most of the time, complicated none of the time, and delicious most all of the time. We get recipes from cook books, programs, food we eat and enjoy, and of course we'd be more than happy to try recipes from readers and take suggestions or requests.
We hope you have a nice time on our blog, and thanks for following.
Yours in the kitchen,
How To Do food.
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