Cookbook Challenge, Week 5 - Hellenic Republic's Homemade Yoghurt and Berries

This weeks challenge was Greek. So, when looking to a cookbook for Greek recipes - who else do you turn to other than the one, the only, masterchef - George Calombaris?
I thought about making things like Souvlaki, Pan Fried Halloumi, Spanikopita, but I decided to go with something a little different, a little homely and something I've been wanted to attempt for years. More than anything, I just wanted to see if this would actually work!



My recipe this week is from Georgie's book - Greek Cooking from the Hellenic Heart. It's Homemade Yoghurt with Berries. Now, despite the title, this yoghurt isn't actually homemade from scratch. You actually have to purchase a tub of natural yoghurt with live cultures.
You basically mix milk with the tub of yoghurt and overnight the cultures change the milk into yoghurt.


The yoghurt doesn't set as thick as the original yoghurt, it's slightly runnier, but it really does turn into yoghurt! It tastes pretty delicious! I used organic milk to make this, which hopefully created a better final result.
I topped the yoghurt with summer fruits and berries with yoghurt and chopped pistachios. If I had my own cafe, a version of this would definately be on the summer menu!

Recipe - Serves 4
Ingredients:

800ml Full Cream Milk
1 Tablespoon Honey
Pinch Salt
1 Cup of Plain Greek style yoghurt with live cultures
Mixed Berries
Extra Honey

1. Bring Milk to the boil, simmer for 2 minutes and then leave to cool to blood temp (37c)
2. Whisk in honey, salt and yoghurt, then strain into sterilised glass jars and cover with cling film and leave to sit at room temperature for 12 hours.
3. Serve with mixed berries of your choice and drizzle with honey.

Strawberry Salad with Speck and Halloumi

I saw Jamie Oliver do this recipe on his new show, where he has the insanely big garden, huge house and best of all, a massive woodfired oven!
I love the idea of food with a twist and mixing ingredients together that seem a little unusual. This salad has definately got that vibe. Although it might sound a little strange to have strawberries in a salad, the taste is actually really (for lack of a better word) 'zingy'.
My local deli didn't have any Speck, but I'm sure you could find it in Melbourne if you looked hard enough- so I used some nice thin Prosciutto instead. Make sure you use some good Balsamic vinegar for this recipe, otherwise the final product will be rubbish. My favourite is from Simon and Johnson, which is about $20 a bottle- but lasts for ages and is definately worth it for the taste.

Ingredients

300g strawberries, hulled and cut into one quarter cm slices good-quality balsamic vinegar the juice of half a lemon extra-virgin olive oil sea salt and freshly ground black pepper olive oil a few sprigs of fresh basil, leaves picked 250g halloumi cheese, cut into 8 thin slices a few sprigs of fresh mint, leaves picked a handful of mixed salad leaves, washed and spun dry 8 slices of speck In a bowl, drizzle the sliced strawberries with a good splash of balsamic vinegar, the lemon juice and some extra-virgin olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. This will draw out and flavour the lovely strawberry juices. Preheat a large non-stick frying-pan to medium hot and add a splash of olive oil. Press a basil leaf on to each slice of halloumi. Place the slices, leaf side down, in the frying-pan and fry for a minute. Turn over carefully and fry for another minute until the halloumi is light golden and crisp. Get yourself four plates and place a couple of pieces of the crispy halloumi on each. Put the mint, the rest of the basil leaves and the salad leaves into the bowl with the strawberries and toss together. Pile some of the strawberry mixture in the middle of each plate and drape the speck over the top. Finish with more salad leaves. To serve, drizzle with balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil.

Sheila's Pudding

Finally, Summer is upon us and with the warm weather comes my favourite fruit of all, the stone fruit. Apricots, Plums, Nectarines and best of all Peaches. Normal Peaches and White Peaches, I love them so much, I could eat them all day long.
This dessert is a little strange, because it's more of a Winter comfort type of food, rather than a light, refreshing Summer dessert. Even so, if you can deal with eating a Winter dessert in Summer, this pudding is delicious.
This recipe is a Jamie Oliver remake of an old pudding, which is actually made with Apples, rather than stone fruit. The original pudding is called Eve's Pudding.
It's quite an easy recipe to put together, but if you're going to make it, do yourself a favour and make it with proper Vanilla Beans or at least Vanilla Bean paste, it makes all the difference.

Ingredients
6 ripe peaches or nectarines, halved and stones removed
4 heaped teaspoons unrefined sugar, like turbinado
4 tablespoons water
1 vanilla pod, scored lengthwise and seeds removed
4 1/2 ounces butter
4 1/2 ounces caster sugar
2 large free-range eggs
4 1/2 ounces self-raising flourPreheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Put the peaches in a saucepan with the unrefined sugar, the vanilla seeds and 4 tablespoons of water. Simmer for 5 minutes and then place into a well greased and lightly floured ovenproof dish or bowl. Beat together the butter, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy. Add the flour, mix thoroughly and spread over the peaches.

Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve with hot custard or something cold, like vanilla ice-cream or creme fraiche.

Ricotta Hotcakes with Banana, Maple Syrup and Honeycomb Butter

I love nothing more than eating a signature dish at a famous restaurant and then finding the recipe and making it myself at home. What I love even more, is making it at home and making it better than the one I had at the restaurant.
On the weekend, I thought I'd try my hand at making my own Ricotta Hotcakes, like the ones I had at Bill's in Surry Hills.
It's amazing that Bill's has gotten so famous for such a simple recipe. To be honest, they're not all that different from regular pancakes, just slightly more dense. The Honeycomb Butter is what really makes this breakfast. Crushed up Crunchie Bars, mixed through a stick of butter. Now that's some triple by-pass creating goodness, if I've ever heard of it!
Anyway, here's the recipe for you, which is featured in Bill's Sydney Food, book.

Serving size: Serves 6

INGREDIENTS

1 1/3 cups ricotta
3/4 cup milk
4 eggs, separated
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
50g butter

to serve

banana
honeycomb butter, sliced (below)
icing sugar for dusting

Honeycomb Butter

250g unsalted butter, softened
100g sugar honeycomb, crushed with a rolling pin
2 Tbs honey

METHOD

Place ricotta, milk and egg yolks in a mixing bowl and mix to combine. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Add to the ricotta mixture and mix until just combined.
Place egg whites in a clean dry bowl and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites through batter in two batches, with a large metal spoon.
Lightly grease a large non-stick frying pan with a small portion of butter and drop 2 tablespoons of batter per hotcake into the pan (don't cook more than 3 per batch). Cook over a low to medium heat for 2 minutes, or until hotcakes have golden undersides. Turn hotcakes and cook on the other side until golden and cooked through. Transfer to a plate and quickly assemble the other ingredients.
Slice one banana lengthways onto a plate, stack three hotcakes on top with a slice of honeycomb butter. Dust with icing sugar.

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Shape into a log on plastic wrap, roll, seal and chill in a refrigerator for 2 hours.
Store any leftover honeycomb butter in the freezer, it's great on toast.

Easy Banana Bread

Everyone loves, fresh, warm bread in the morning, but I’m a little more partial to a sweeter type of breakfast bread. Here’s a recipe for the most moist, perfectly sweetened Banana Bread that you will find. All you need to make sure this recipe works is some really ripe bananas that you have forgotten about for a few days, so that they’re practically black. Apparently you can help speed up the ripening process by placing the bananas into a brown paper bag, in a dark cupboard, give it a go.

Spread your warm baked bread simply with some butter and maybe even some honey drizzled over the top. Yum!!

Ingredients:

90g Softened Butter
115g Caster Sugar
2 eggs
1 Teaspoon of Natural Vanilla Extract or a fresh Vanilla Bean
2 Cups of Plain Flour
2 Tspns of Baking Powder
2 Largish, Very Ripe Bananas
Zest of an Orange or a Lemon
1 Small Handful of finely chopped Walnuts (optional)


Method:

Preheat oven to 180c
Place all of your ingredients into a food processor, except the Walnuts (if adding).
Blend until a smooth batter forms.
Place batter into a 8 x 16 baking tin.
Bake for an hour, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Spread your warm baked bread simply with some butter and maybe even some honey drizzled over the top. Yum!!

Figs with Prosciutto, Basil and Buffalo Mozzarella

Here’s an easy one for you, which is a great summer classic. I put this together in our little cabin, whilst holidaying in Wilson’s Prom for a few days. It only takes a few ingredients to make these fantastic little gems of goodness. The one thing that I have to stress is to make sure your ingredients are the freshest you can get. Remember, the fresher the ingredients, the better the end product!

Ingredients:

6 Ripe Black Figs, cut into quarters.
24 Basil Leaves, washed and dryed
12 slices of Prosciutto, sliced in half, lengthways
1 Ball of fresh Mozzarella (Buffalo is best, if you can get it), torn apart into 24 similar sized pieces
Sea Salt, Black Pepper and Extra Virgin Olive Oil to serve

Method:

Lay a Prosciutto half flat on the bench.
At one end, place a basil leaf, a piece of fig and some mozzarella.
Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper
Roll your piece of prociutto around the cheese, basil and fig.
Place on a plate and drizzle with some olive oil to serve.

Banana Fritters

Who doesn't love Banana Fritters!? I love them, I could eat them everyday! The crunchy battered shell, surrounding the soft, warm, sugary banana, drizzled with golden syrup and resting in the slowly melting vanilla ice cream! I love it.


Since I just bought a deep fryer, I thought I'd give my all time favourite a go. My first attempt was one from Ben and Curtis' Surfing The Menu book. This batter was made of coconut milk, which turned out quite tough and really crunchy... too crunchy. Nothing like the ones I remember eating in Footscray when I was a little kid.
My next attempt was using a beer batter. The batter was literally a cup of flour and enough beer to make a slightly thick batter. Apparently it's best to stir the batter with chop sticks and leave some lumps in there.
This batter turned out perfectly, (as you can see pictured) it was thin, it was crunchy (not too crunchy), and in case you've never had beer batter before - it tastes nothing like beer. The fizzyness of the beer helps keep it light and make it crunchy.
You could make these in a wok or saucepan if you don't have a deep fryer. Give them a shot - I love them! Just like the lady used to make in the vietnamese shop when I was little!

Brandy Snaps with Vanilla Cream, Strawberries and Chocolate

This little dessert is pretty impressive for the amount of effort that goes into it.

Buy some store bought Brandy Snaps. Whip some cream with sugar and a vanilla bean to taste.

Remove the green leaves from some strawberries and cut them in half.

Put some of the cream on the Brandy Snaps, then top with some strawberries, the a bit more cream on top. Get some chocolate, I used some left over Cadbury from Xmas and grate over the top. Garnish with a mint leaf and you've got a great dessert which literally takes 5 minutes to put together!

Sunday Family Lunch

It was another perfect Summer's day in Spring on Sunday, which called for a Family Lunch. I thought I'd invite the parents over for a quick lunch and then I could head out for a game of golf afterwards. By the time I'd finished shopping down at Victoria St, Richmond, I was already running late and I realised, it wasn't going to be such a quick lunch!

First up I served a Papaya and Chicken Salad from Marie Claire's 'Kitchen' Magazine. I couldn't actually find Papaya in Victoria St, so I used few sweet, ripe mangoes instead. A delicious replacement and so cheap too! This salad has summer written all over it. The spring onions make it crunchy, the roast chicken breasts are soft and the mango slippery. The dressing consists of tamarind, soy sauce, palm sugar, ginger, chilli and cumin. A few crushed peanuts, some fried shallots and chopped mint thrown into the salad and there you go - summer salad!

For the main course, I bought everyone a whole Snapper each. I bought 6 of them in Victoria St, and they totalled $25. Not bad considering a whole Snapper at a reputable restaurant would set you back at least $40. I cut slashes in the side the fish, then I marinated the Snapper in chilli, garlic, ginger, soy and olive oil. I then deep fried each Snapper until they became golden and crunchy. Once ready I dressed the fish with a mixture of Soy, Lime, Coriander, Peanut Oil and Palm Sugar. Served simply with some steamed asian greens and some lemon.

Finally, dessert. The ultimate Summer fruit. Peaches. Soft ripe, sweet Peaches! I could eat these things all day long. For lunch, I poached them in a vanilla sugar syrup. I used vanilla bean paste, which still gives you those little black dots, but ends up working out much cheaper than buying beans. 1 tsp = 1 bean. After about 5 minutes I took them out and left them to cool a bit, so I could remove their skins, leaving that gorgeous yellow/pink flesh exposed. Continue to simmer the sugar syrup until it's thickened and then add juice from 1 lemon. Leave the syrup to cool. Pour over the peaches and serve with some mint and ice cream. Unfortunately the 36c heat melted my ice cream before I could take the photo.