Oh My, What A Pie!

Nothing like a challenge to get my creative cheffing ideas going, and I do believe my new pie dish is issuing one!

I saw it the other day and just had to buy it. It's made of enamel, and came as a set with a little pastry brush and a ceramic pie funnel. I can forsee lots of happy pie making days with this little lovely indeed!


The pie funnel is a terrific way to avoid a soggy pastry top. It has little legs and is hollow, which allows it to hold the crust up without sagging, and allows steam to escape venting it outside so moisture doesn't build up underneath.
(Please excuse my fingernails, Dear Readers, I had been blackberry picking and couldn't scrub out all the stubborn juice stains!)

Decisions, decisions....
What pie to make? I didn't really want to do a blackberry pie, as I had other plans for those lovelies, and insted went with a savoury pie for our dinner. Cider Chicken Pie.
Lots of chunky bits of meat, some veggies, sweetness from the cider and a zing from some mustard. Perfect!

I have to admit I cheated a little. My arms just aren't up to making my own pastry yet, so I used a frozen gluten free Rough Puff. I won't state the brand as I'd had it in the freezer for waaay too long and it was very dried out and freezer-burnt. I'm so happy to have some great manufacturers looking after us InTolerants that I don't want people to judge thier products for my mistakes.
But it still tasted good!



Just a word on my choice of chicken:
I always choose thigh fillets over breast fillets for my family. The meat is tastier, juicier and works much better for a dish like this. I actually never buy breast fillets, I don't see the point, I just find the thighs better and as a bonus even a dollar or two cheaper. That's just a personal choice though, I also hate drumsticks, but love wings!

Chicken Cider Pie

Filling

700 grm Chicken Thigh Fillets
375ml Dry Apple Cider
1 nice fat Leek
1/4 bunch of Celery
1/4 cup Gluten free Flour
1/3 cup lactose free Cream
2 Tab Mustard
Several cloves of Garlic
Bunch of Parsley
Fresh ground Pepper


Chop the thigh fillets into nice decent chunks, you want something to sink your teeth into- not just sauce.

Slice the leek fairly thinly into rounds and the celery into smallish cubes, then sweat them and the garlic down in a little oil until nice and soft and sweet. Remove from pan and set aside

Add a slug of oil to the pan, then seal the chicken off well

Add in the flour and mustard and stir around to coat the chicken. Cook it off for a minute or two while stirring to make sure it doesn't stick

Pour in the cider and mix it through to form the sauce, make sure you scrape the bottom of the pan well to get up all the yummy brown bits

Tip in the cream, and let the sauce bubble away and thicken into yumminess. Check for seasoning, I didn't include salt in the recipe as I find the mustard can be quite salty, but it's up to you and your taste buds

Mix the veggies back through, allow to cool, then stir in the chopped parsley
yes, I did forget that bit, but don't worry, I scooped all the filling back out of the dish and added it through. I knew it would be missing the earthy green note to ground the flavours if I left the parsely out.

Place the pie funnel in the middle of the greased pie dish, then spoon the filling all around

Roll out your pastry to fit the top of the pie dish, making sure you press the edges down firmly to seal it well.  Decorate with any scraps to make your pie beautiful and let your imagination fly

Brush your lovely creation with an egg wash to add gloss and colour as it bakes, and sprinkle with some sesame or poppy seeds for a bit of textural crunch- and because it looks good too!

Bake your pie in a fairly hot oven , until the filling is hot and bubbly and the crust is nice and crispy. Mine took about 45 minutes.

Serve up your pie with some mashed potatoes to help soak up any yummy sauce and a few more veggies.
Overall, I thought my pie turned out very well indeed, and hopefully lived up to my pie dish challenge. Oh My!


So Dear Readers, do you prefer the chicken breasts or chicken thighs, or any other particular cut the most?

Already Cooked Apricot Quinoa Cakes

I've certainly cooked with quinoa before.












It's not the weired, way-out, freaky health food it once was, but now is sold in nearly all supermarkets and features in a recipe or two in most mainstream cooking magazines.

Touted as a SuperFood, quinoa is certainly gaining popularity, but its gluten-free veggie-sourced perfect protein is something the Incas knew about a few thousand years ago before being vigorously suppressed during the Spanish Occupation while being forced to grow gluten-full wheat instead.



But I've never cooked with already cooked quinoa before.

The idea intrigued me and the thought of a cake that's high in protein, low GI, includes fruit, and made with a super food was just way too hard to resist, surely all the good bits outweigh the bad bits? It may actually be bad for my health not to eat this cake.

Don't you agree Readers Dear?

I gleaned this recipe straight from the pages of the March issue Australian Gourmet Traveller. Its a lovely recipe, but one that needs a bit of fiddling about really. I don't mean to be disrespectful to its creator, but if I make it again it will have a few changes.

1. dried apricots instead of fresh
2. no oven roasting, and instead of sticky wine I'd just use straight orange juice with maybe a spoon of honey and plump the dried apricots in the microwave
3. cooking the quinoa in the rice cooker with orange juice or apricot juice for an extra boost
4. baked a bit lower for a bit longer. My cakes had a bit of a chewy edge that I actually really enjoyed, but could probably be off putting to others with crunchy odds and ends of quinoa grains getting stuck in their teeth.

I also found that although the recipe stated that it served 8 using 200ml darioles, I had enough mix for 12 using 250ml. Perhaps I whipped my eggs and sugar longer? Anyway, I found them nice and light this way and plenty enough for a single serve.




Roast Apricot, Almond and Quinoa Cakes

This recipe is from the March 2012 issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller.

550 gm (2½ cups) raw caster sugar
1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped
16 small apricots, halved
60 ml dessert wine
Juice and thinly peeled rind of 1 orange and ½ lemon
90 gm (½ cup) white quinoa, rinsed
4 eggs
200 gm butter, melted and cooled
260 gm (1¾ cups) plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
60 gm flaked almonds, plus extra for scattering

Preheat oven to 200C.

Scatter 220gm sugar and vanilla seeds in the base of a roasting pan large enough to fit apricots snugly in a single layer. Arrange apricots cut-side down in roasting pan, pressing into sugar, then turn over.

Drizzle with dessert wine and citrus juices, scatter with citrus rinds and roast, spooning pan juices over apricots a few times during cooking, until golden and tender (20-25 minutes).

Transfer half the apricots and 40ml pan juices to a food processor, process to a purée and set aside (reserve remaining apricots and syrup).

Meanwhile, bring quinoa, vanilla bean and 250ml water to the boil in a saucepan over medium-high heat, reduce heat to medium and simmer until liquid evaporates and quinoa is tender (12-15 minutes).

Drain through a fine sieve to remove any remaining liquid, then spread on a tray to cool and dry (15-20 minutes; discard vanilla bean).

Preheat oven to 180C.

Whisk eggs and remaining sugar in an electric mixer until pale and fluffy (6-8 minutes)

Add butter and whisk to combine.

Sieve over flour and baking powder, stir to combine,

Stir in apricot purée, almonds and quinoa

Spoon into 12 buttered and floured 250ml metal dariole moulds, smoothing tops.

Scatter with extra almonds, bake until cakes are golden and centres spring back when lightly pressed (20-25 minutes).

Cool in tins for 10 minutes, then turn onto a wire rack.

Serve warm or at room temperature with roast apricots and syrup.

So Dear Readers, have you come across any recipes that it would be just plain wrong not to make? And do you ever simplify a recipe to suit yourself too?











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Gluten Free Chinese Dumplings

We love Yum Cha.









Except that in our house we call it Yummy Cha actually.


But it can be so hard to find some lovely little dumplings that suit gluten free eating. I'm very lucky to have a great little place nearby that caters for me so very well. We go every couple of weeks and any problems I've had I put down to lack-of-vigilance on my part, not to any slackness from our favourite restaurant. The staff know our dishes and in case of problems I have little cards with 'No Wheat' written in Chinese that I keep in my wallet.

Eating out is always a tricky issue with food InTolerances, and I understand how many of my friends prefer not to roll the dice with nasty symptoms, but I say Buyer Beware and as always, you eat at your own risk. I choose in this case to risk it!

For those of you, Dear Readers, who are more sensitive or more sensible than I am, I recently found a great recipe for gluten free dumpling wrappers in a magazine page ad for Kikkoman Soy Sauce.

Did you know that Kikkoman now make a really nice gluten free soy sauce too? Made with soybeans, rice, salt and water, it tastes just like the 'real' thing too!

The dumpling recipe is actually for gyozas, but I turned mine into little dumplings and rice rolls instead. I found the best results with steaming, boiling the little lovelies mushed them up too much. The result of steaming is a lovely slippery texture, just like the stuffed rice rolls at yum cha, yummy!

Gluten free Dumplings

300gr cooked peeled Taro
1 Tb Salt
3 tsp gluten free Baking Powder
1kg pkt Glutinous Rice Flour
2 tb oil
500ml Water

I steamed my Taro to avoid it becoming soggy and gluggy. Then let it cool.

Process taro with the salt and baking powder

With the motor running, add the oil, a little water and a little flour. Continue like this until it's all used and the mixture forms a dough.

Turn out and knead for a few minutes until nice and smooth. Rest for about half an hour.

While it's resting, make a yummy filling for your dumplings:

300gr Pork Mince
300gr Chicken Mince
1/2 cup finelychopped Water Chestnuts
1/2 cup finely chopped Silverbeet from my garden
1/4 cup finely chopped chives
Big Tablespoon minced Garlic
Big tablespoon minced Ginger
1 Tbsp gluten free Soy Sauce
1 tsp Sesame Oil
2 tsp Chinese Cooking Wine
1 finely chopped Hot Chilli

Combine all the ingredients for the filling, and mix around thoroughly. The best way is with your hands, it keeps the texture much better this way. Squish, squish, squish!

Ready To Roll:

Roll out the dumpling dough nice and thin, about 2mm thick, on some baking paper. Dust with a bit more rice flour if needed. Then cut to the desired size with a scone or cookie cutter.

Place a small spoonful of meat filling on one half of the round, leaving a bit of a clear border, then wet the inside edge slightly with a wet finger and fold in half. Pinch the edges firmly.

Place on some more baking paper while you make enough little dumplings to fill your steamer.

Place your dumplings in a lined steamer basket over vigorously boiling water, and steam until just cooked through. My steamer took about 10 minutes, but it was a bit bigger than the pot so wasn't as efficient. The outside should be opaque and nice and firm, but with a bit of spring to it.

Serve your little lovelies with Kikkoman Dipping Sauce for a bit more yumminess

Dipping Sauce

1/3 cup Kikkoman gluten free soy sauce
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp sesame oil
1 finely chopped small chilli
Splash of water to dilute saltiness to taste

Mix all ingredients together and allow to sit while cooking the dumplings so flavour develops

As you can see Dear Readers, my arms gave out about halfway through making dumplings, so I turned them into lovely steamed rice rolls. I loved them just as much this way, and actually thought they looked prettier with the filling showing just a little at the ends. It's up to you, present them as you will, just be happy in the yummiest of gluten free yum cha around!

So Dear Readers, which way do you think looks the nicest, and do you enjoy Yum Cha too?








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Just Dinner

Being a chef can have its disadvantages.








People have certain expectations.

They exclaim 'your family must eat well' and to my husband 'you're on a good wicket then' while pointing at his tummy.

But really, you can't always be on. Its not souffles and sunshine all the time.

I thought I'd give you, my Dear Readers, an insight into one of our family meals- just a dinner. Last Sunday nights supper actually.
I wanted something quick and easy, tasty, and that would incorporate a heap of our garden veggies before they take over the yard.

This is it. Chicken Veggie Pasta Stuff. Sound good?

Welcome to my world.

Chicken thigh fillets- cut into chunks
Small amount smokey bacon- from the freezer
Leek- rescued from the bottom of the crisper
Mushrooms- reduced to clear and marked down
Zucchini- so many zucchini!
Cherry tomatoes- veggie patch
Spinach- from the freezer
Garlic- always on hand
Slurp of white wine- cause thats what I was drinking
Splash of red wine vinegar- from the pantry
Dribble of lactose free cream- UHT pantry pack
Basil- veggie patch


Gently sweat down the leek and bacon to render out some of the smokey fat.

Throw in the chicken and seal it off.

Add in all the veggies, all at once to make life easier. Squish the tomatoes as you stir to help make some sauce.

Now slurp in the garlic, wine and vinegar and give a good mix around.

Simmer just until the chicken is cooked through, then take off the heat and dribble in enough cream to the pan juices to make a sauce. Toss in the basil leaves.

Serve over pasta. San Remo is my favourite, it tastes good and retains some bite to it when cooked, but like most gluten free pastas doesn't stay in one piece if you want it the next day.

So Dear Readers, that's an ordinary dinner at this chefs house. What did you have for dinner today?

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