Chorizo Cups

Many many months ago (possibly years) I went to a party at house of the Reader, who is the Male of the Species’ sister. She is an amazing cook, and she served these… things, I never got around to asking her either what they were or asking for the recipe, though I certainly meant to because I would love to be able to make them myself. Anyway, it’s now ages later and I felt it would be a bit awkward asking the Reader now, not to mention that she might not even know what I was talking about. Also, where’s the challenge in just having the recipe? I decided to reverse engineer them from what I remembered being in them, and see if I could come up with something that, even if it wasn’t precisely the same, was at least similar and tasty! So, I started off with doing a basic mix of what I specifically remembered being in it, figuring that if it didn’t work I’d just keep experimenting. However, having tested it I think I’ve got something pretty good, so here is the result.

I started off with the mix for the innards. I took two onions, sliced them, and then started caramelising them in a whole lot of butter. Once they were fairly there, I threw in a generous pinch of salt and cracked pepper. I gave it a little longer, and then I added a red capsicum, sliced finely into long strips. When I say finely, I mean about the depth of a single layer of onion since they’re much thicker in terms of depth than onion. Once it’s well cooked, add a teaspoon of brown sugar and a teaspoon of soy sauce. Stir that through thoroughly. Now you add your chorizo. Since this was just an experiment, I used cheapskate chorizos (uncooked) from Coles- if I ever make it for an actual event I’ll use good ones from the deli. Still, pretty good even with low class chorizo. So, cut it in half lenthways, and then into half circles. Stir that through your mix and let it cook a bit, and it should come out looking something like this. Yes, I cooked it in a wok (I cook practically everything in a wok )

Now, to keep yourself busy while you’re letting it caramelise at various stages you can do the next part. With this size of mix, you need two sheets of puff pastry, which makes 8. Get yourself a muffin tray, and grease the holes with a little butter- you really need to do this, so that they come out easily and don’t break up when you pull them out. Now, cut your pastry into square quarters, and push it gently into the muffin holes, folding the pastry where it needs it and allowing the tops and corners to stick up. (There’s more than 8 in the photo, because the shots are from the second attempt when I made a bigger mix ’cause I ate all the of first lot).

Have your oven preheated to 200C, and throw them in for 10-12 minutes. Done! Wasn’t that easy? They’re great for parties because they’re filling, but still fingerfood. Once they’ve been cooked they should be firm enough to pull out onto cooling racks without collapsing. Of course, depending on how fast you eat them, this may never be a problem. I somehow don’t think it’ll ever come up for me . Many thanks to the Reader for the idea- I suppose now I should contact her for the recipe and see how close I got to the original!

P.S. Apparently I was very close- the only differences are that she doesn’t add brown sugar and soy, and fries the chorizo in a separate pan to allow it to get a little crispy.

Leftover Roast Pastie

As you may have noticed, I am a lazy cook. This clashes rather badly with my penchant for delicious food. Therefore, I am ever in search of new ways to make something tasty go that little bit further, and this one is a particular favourite. Basically, every so often I get a craving for roast lamb, and actually go that little step further from craving to actually making it. Since I do love a roast, I like to make it last. One can always go for the good old fashioned reheat the leftovers job, but that really lacks that certain something that distinguishes the truly lazy gourmet cook. Thus we have the leftover Roast Pastie.

You need to lay a bit of ground work when making your roast, obviously. Make sure that your meat of choice (lamb is my pick of choice, but there’s no reason this wouldn’t work with pork, or even meatless) has adequate poundage to leave leftovers, generous amounts of gravy and make sure there’s plentiful roast veges. I use potato, sweet potato, onion, garlic and if I remember it, carrot. To be honest I usually forget the carrot. Just make more of everything than you would usually eat. But carrying on! Start by smearing the bottom of a sheet of puff pastry generously with gravy. We’re talking a fair smathering here (and yes I did mean to spell it like that, it’s somewhere between a smattering and a smothering). Then slice up a little bit of tasty cheese and lay it down. Don’t go crazy with the cheese because you’re going to put some more on later.

Then just throw in all your vegetables. Try and spread them fairly evenly so that there are different veges all over the place. I know that sounds obvious, but having watched the Male of the Species cook, well, I’m just making sure. It’s better with the veges on the bottom, since they caramelise well into the gravy.

Meat next, keep the chunks small, about the same size as the veges. Then give it another layering of cheese, about the same amount as before. If you’re feeling crazy, a bit more gravy can’t hurt, but I tend not to simply because I like strong gravy and the stuff on the base is usually enough. Then you basically close her up by pressing the edges into each other. I usually make it so fat I need another half sheet of pastry to get it closed. Then paint the surface with milk, stab it a little with a knife so it can breathe and sprinkle it with sesame seeds.

It’s ready to go into the oven now, about 180-200 C for roughly half an hour or until the pastry begins to look promising. Just throw it in and walk away (any good meal for a lazy cook involves walking away for extended periods of time). Then once it’s cooked take it out and eat it.  It reheats very well, better almost than it does in leftover roast form. It’s a good one because you don’t have to cut anything up or prepare things really, you just throw it all in and walk away. I was all set to take photos of it with the golden brown pastry and the hot, gleaming gravy oozing between the vegetables, but I ate it before I remembered to. Sorry

Blackberry Jaffle-pie

So the Male of the Species and I went up to visit the Rural Artist this weekend, for a variety of reasons including the delivery of one mystery vegetable (as mentioned by Arwen). She swears it’s a butternut and that I don’t know what I’m talking about. We’ll see. She hasn’t opened it yet.

Anyway, while up there it occurred to me that, being February, it’s blackberry season. Like most rural properties there are quite a number of blackberry bushes scattered around the place, so the Male of the Species, Mo the dog and I went up the hill in the rain to pick blackberries. May I take this moment to say that, if it ever occurs to you to pick blackberries in the rain, don’t. Raincoat sleeves are too baggy for it and while they mean you don’t get scratched all that much, you do end up just a tiny bit tangled

Anyway, rain aside we picked a successful haul of blackberries. We split them half/half with the Rural Artist, ending up with roughly a kilo each, and an unsurprising number of blackberry thorns in our fingers. On the way home, the Male of the Species put his backpack on top of the bag containing them, which left them rather squished and aesthetically unfit for having with icecream and blackberry wine as I had planned. This left me with rather a lot of blackberries that needed using, but couldn’t really be used as a side with something, since most of the berries weren’t whole. At this point, you’re probably thinking blackberry pie, and so was I. However, this week I am at home alone, which means that a blackberry pie is a) too big to be consumed by me alone and b) far too much effort for me alone. So when lunchtime came around today I decided to have them for lunch in a jaffle-pie, the lazy man’s pie effort. I’ve done this a few times before with strawberries- for a while strawberries were a dollar a punnet in Sydney and I practically subsisted on them, so I thought I should give it a shot with blackberries instead.

You start with a sheet of puff pastry- I suppose you could also do it with shortcrust or filo, but I’ve never tried it and puff is what I had on hand. You don’t need to thaw it, since your jaffle maker should be preheated anyway. Lie it so that half of it is over the bread spaces, then press it down gently just a little into the dishy bits. Then throw in a couple of spoonfuls of blackberries (or other berries), and 1 rounded dessert spoon of sugar on each side. Yes, I know it sounds like a lot, but really blackberries just aren’t that sweet. You’d have to vary the sugar amount with other berries, strawberries need less than that. You want to do the filling bit fast, since at this point the bottom of the pastry is already cooking. Then you just fold the other half over on top of it and close the lid. I didn’t grease the jaffle maker at all, and it didn’t stick for me at all, but that may not be the case for other machines. Leave it in there until the pastry has puffed up a bit and is golden brown- it should only take a few minutes. If you’re not feeling impatient, you can turn the jaffle maker off at this point and let it go a bit toffee/jam-ish in there, it’s extremely awesome that way, but I’m usually too hungry to wait.  There is a downside to using blackberries though, I discovered.

They’re a lot juicier than strawberries. This was about half way through the cooking process, and there was a puddle as big on the other side. It was bigger by the time I was done. At this point I will admit to sticking in a finger and tasting it, and it was delicious Anyway, if you’re using a juicy berries just be careful that it’s not too near anything that juice will get on.

This was the final result. It’s absolutely divine with icecream too, and it only takes about 10 minutes to do if you have the ingredients on hand. A really awesome snack for a wintery rainy day.