Spring Violets

Hello my Lovelies- I'm back!

I missed you, I really, truly did, but I'm back now Nearly-Good-As-New and ready to get into the blogging groove.
It was a bit hectic there for a while with medical bits and pieces, with the worse part being that while I was in the Operating Room having surgery, BigJ was down in the Emergency Room with a ruptured disc in his back. The hospital certainly got a double whammy from our family that day! It's just as well that we've got such wonderful girls as MiddleC and littlej did a great job helping us, and littlej didn't even mind staying home from school to play Nurse for a while :)
Thank you all for your kind thoughts and well wishes, especially Lorraine, Celia, Charlie, and Tania who cheered me up so much and made my day with their emails and phone calls xox



Anyway, today's recipe is Violet Meringue

It's still Spring, and despite the bizarre Mid-Summer temperatures hitting so early, I have had some gorgeous little violets shyly peeping through the greenery in my kitchen garden. I've mentioned before that I just love floral flavours and violet is one that is so soft and subtle that it matches well with the light, billowy clouds of meringue that remind me of Spring skies and warm weather

Basic Meringue

My basic rule of thumb recipe for meringues, is for every 1 Egg White to use 1/4 cup of Castor Sugar
I also add a tiny splash of white vinegar for acid to strengthen the protein and a good pinch of gf cornflour to prevent any weeping- just in case there are a few stray sugar crystals

You can also add a small amount of liquid flavouring- for this 2 egg white quantity I used 1 tablespoon, and some colour as well. Just make sure that they aren't oil based or the mixture won't whip. (The oil based essence you can see here, I added carefully after beating and quickly marbled through just before baking)
I also used some gorgeous candied violets to add extra yumminess and a bit of texture on top

Make sure your egg whites are nice and clean without any specks of yolk, or they won't whisk. Your bowl and beaters need to be spotless too

Whisk the whites until they froth, then add in the sugar, vinegar and cornflour

Then beat until thick, white and glossy

Add in your violet flavouring syrup and mix through

I mixed the paste colour and violet oil together in a little bowl so it would distribute well

Placed some on the mixture

Then folded it through for a marbled effect

Dollop nice, generous piles of the mixture on baking sheets

Sprinkle with candied violets

Then bake in a 120*C oven for half an hour until the outside is nice and crispy, then turn the oven off and let them cool down inside it to dry out without humidity

I know the photos are a bit different, but I started this post pre-op and have finished it post-op, so a new batch of yummies were required. I should have been clever enough to check my first photos to make them match...but I wasn't :( oops!

Nice and crispy on the outside, with a softer, fluffy middle tasting so beautifully of violets and Spring time- Yummo

So Dear Readers, what's your favourite taste of Spring and who looks after you when you're sick?

African Peanut Soup from A Gluten Free Soup Opera

Not too long ago Dear Readers, you may remember I reviewed A Gluten Free Taste Of Turkey by Sibel Hodge, and this successful author, qualified Health and Fitness Professional and self-professed Wonder Woman- has already released her next cookbook- A Gluten Free Soup Opera!
http://intolerantchef.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/a-gluten-free-taste-of-turkey.html



This Souperb book takes your taste buds on a journey around the culinary world, sharing the favourite flavours of each country or continent in a spectacularly spoon friendly fashion.
From Asia to Africa, the best of each cuisine is distilled into a deep dish of dining delight!


The fun and quirky personality of Sibel is one of the things that makes her books special. Instead of just a dry list of contents or ingredients, Sibel promises that that all her recipes are not only gluten free, but ricin free as well, and that eating soup makes you super attractive to the opposite sex- now how could you resist putting that theory to the test?

Each recipe is again prefaced with delightful insights into the ingredients used- from recommending goggles for peeling onions, to using certain ingredients as an anti-aging face cream, to claiming that the use of goat milk products will make you you cuter to look at, as well as a wealth of nutritional information to tempt you to try them for health benefits alone. I have to admit though, that the recipes I tried taste so good that I didn't really care if they were good for me, I just loved the taste :)

The first recipe to catch my eye was, in fact, the very first recipe in the book- African Peanut Soup.
My family loves peanuts, and Asian peanut satay is one of our favourite meals so I thought that this dish would probably go down well...and I was right!
Made up of sweet potatoes, capsicums and of course a healthy dose of peanuts it was absolutely delicious and had a gorgeous richness to it too.

The Carrot and Coriander Soup sounded so wonderful that it will be receiving a whole blog post of it's own, and the Festive Chestnut Soup is just what I need to use up that bag of roasted, peeled chestnuts that have been languishing in my freezer since last season. They have obviously been biding their time for such a glorious transformation such as this.

I will also have to plan a Ladies Lunch, so I have an excuse to create the Salmon and Green Tea Soup. Its subtle sounding sophistication shouldn't be wasted on my husband, who much prefers tinned mackerel for his fishy fix, and only drinks sweet, milky Irish Breakfast tea- yuck! My friends and I, however, will enjoy the antioxidant and Omega3 benefits while we sip and slurp our way elegantly to the end of each bowl..


Once again Sibel has produced another great user-friendly cookbook. While recommending homemade stock, the use of convenient items like stock cubes is acknowledged, and most ingredients are readily available at large supermarkets without trouble. The recipes are easy to make without too much mucking about, and I foresee that this self-confessed Soup-a-holic will soon have you joining her in a big bowl of steamy goodness!



African Peanut Soup
From A Gluten Free Soup Opera by Sibel Hodge

3 Spring Onions (1 large white/brown onion for us)
2 cloves Garlic
5 cups Chicken Stock
1 large Carrot
1 Sweet Potato
1 Yellow Capsicum
1 Red Capsicum
1 cup gf Peanut Butter
2 large Tomatoes
2 tab Tomato Paste
1 1/2 inch piece fresh Ginger
1 or two fresh Chilli or Chilli Flakes
1 tab Paprika
Seasoning
Splah of Oil


Dice the capsicums, chilli and onions. Now as you can see, I couldn't find a yellow capsicum anywhere on this particular day, but red ones I have a plenty in the garden. A yellow capsicum brings a lovely mellow sweetness so substitute with a red one if necessary, but not with the slightly sharp green ones

One of Sibel's handy tips is to grate the tomatoes. You just slice off the bottom end, then holding the stem end grate it on a grater into a bowl. The flesh and juice will come away easily into the bowl and the skin will be left in your hand

As I already had the grater out, I used it to grate the carrot, ginger and garlic as well- but you could chop them instead if you like

Roughly dice the sweet potato- of course you could grate that too, but it was pretty big...

Strictly speaking, Sibel's recipe just asks you to fry the capsicum and onions until soft. Add the rest, bring to the boil, simmer for 35-45 minutes, then blend until smooth.

Now that's fine, but a little more effort here at the start will make a big difference to the finished soup at the end- sorry Sibel!

Sweat off the capsicum, chilli and onions in the oil until starting to soften, you don't need colour here. Then add in the carrot and other grated ingredients as well as the spices and tomato paste and cook down until they collapse and soften up as well.
This will bring out a lot more sweetness from the veggies and take the 'raw' taste out of the tomato paste, making a slightly more mellow soup overall. All the flavours will happily start to mingle before blitzing and become friendly with each other a lot sooner

Now pop in the chicken stock, sweet potato and peanut butter

Mix thoroughly and let it simmer away for half an hour or so, or until the veggies are totally cooked through and soft. If the sweet potato isn't cooked enough the soup won't blend properly and it will taste gritty, so err on the side of squishiness here.
Also DON"T forget to stir the soup well or place it on a simmer mat- the peanut butter catches on the bottom of the pot really easily

Once done to specified squishiness, blitz the soup with a stick blender or other less handy blender until it's nice and silky smooth. Check for seasoning- it will depend a lot on if your peanut butter has added sugar or salt, that's why you should check at the end instead of trying to adjust it as you go

I garnished my soup with a bit more peanut butter, some chopped peanuts and a little sprinkle of paprika for colour- Beautiful!
My family loved this rich peanutty soup, and were blissfully unaware that I had snuck in a healthy dose of vegetables to their treat as well. We were all happy, thanks Sibel!

So Dear Readers, do you make much soup, and what's your family favourite?



Disclosure:
The InTolerant Chef was gifted a free e-copy of 'A Gluten Free Soup Opera', by the author Sibel Hodge. No payment was received for this review.

A Gluten Free Soup Opera

Ebook from Amazon.com Or buy from Amazon.co.uk

Paperback version Or buy from Amazon.co.uk

Also available in all other major ereader formats from B&N, Kobo, iStore, Smashwords.

Son In Law Eggs

I've been meaning to make these for a while now.








The idea of crisp, crunchy eggs paired with a sticky caramel sauce called to me and excited my imagination. I get like that sometimes, and when it happens it is very hard to resist the urge to create it straight away, regardless of ingredients or ability.

Lucky for me these ingredients are pantry staples in our home, and its a very easy recipe to make-despite the fact peeling eggs with one hand is nigh impossible and took a couple of hours!

There's a bit of a mystery surrounding the origin of this recipe. I certainly don't know which, if any, is correct. I'll leave it up to you to decide Dear Reader.

One version claims that Mother-In-Law came to visit unexpectedly, and wife being out, the burden of cooking dinner fell upon unhappy Son-In-Law. Panicing and throwing whatever was available into a pot, he busied himself with the rice, catching the sauce ingredients just on the verge of ruin. With courage born of despair, he served the rice and burnt sauce over the eggs, and thus a legend was created.

The other version paints a very different picture.
Hearing rumours of unpleasant and unacceptable behaviour in her Son-In-Law, Mother-In-Law came to visit. Offering to make dinner and give her long suffering daughter a break, she created a dish with hidden meaning. Excited by the smells of a delicious dinner, cranky Son-In-Law sat down for once in a good mood, only to be confronted by what looked like a very personal part of the male anatomy staring up at him from his plate.
With a wicked grin, she suggested that he treat his wife- her daughter, with a bit more consideration, or next time she visited, she would be frying and slicing very different ingredients...

Son In Law Eggs

2 Eggs Each

For Serving

Steamed Rice
Deep Fried Shallots
Chopped Fresh Coriander and Mint
Wedge of Lime
Chili Caramel Sauce

1/2 cup Water
1/4 cup Palm Sugar
1 tablespoon Tamarind Paste
1 Long Red Chili

Boil eggs to medium. I tried to have soft boiled, but they were just impossible to peel. Ultimitely you want lovely molten centres, but do what you have to do. By the way, older eggs are much easier to peel than fresh.

For the Chilli Caramel Sauce, place the water and sugar in a small saucepan, along with the finely sliced chilli and tamarind.

Boil until the sugar is dissolved and the sauce has thickened and caramelised gently.

Pull off the heat and stir in the lime juice and fish sauce.

While the sauce is cooking, get started on the eggs.

Once they are peeled, make sure they are quite dry then roll them carefully into an inch or so of hot vegetable oil and fry until golden brown and with a crispy skin.
I have seen these made by sliding a raw egg directly into a wok of hot oil, allowing the whites to instantly bubble and crisp, but leaving the yolk lovely and runny. I look forward to trying them this way when I've recovered a bit more dexterity and mobility, but considered in the case of hot oil that discretion is the better part of valour :)

Cut the now crispy eggs into halves so as to to alarm your diners, or Son-In-Law, and arrange on a bed of steamed rice then drizzle heavily with delicious sauce and pile on fried shallots.

Served with a wedge of lime and a generous side of mixed corriander and mint to tone down the buzz of the chilli, this is an amazing dish with all the crunch, heat, sweet, sour, salty, fresh zing you should expect from Thai cuisine.

I loved every bite.

It's one of my new favourites and would be perfect for lunch, brunch, dinner, supper, or just a snack. I hope you give it a try and love it as much as I do.

So Dear Readers, which version of the story do you think is the true one, and who is the Real Hero?