Rosemary and Brown Sugar Chicken...and Poached Fruit with Cinnamon & Brown Sugar

Ever smelt fresh rosemary, mmm, doesn’t it smell amazing – think of flavour enhancing lamb, chicken, beef with this herb…and…every time you make dessert …like sticky date pudding, and you have to retrieve the brown sugar – can you smell the aroma of caramel as you start to measure it out?  Well I have an idea…but before I tell you, let me introduce Louise.

The lovely Louise who I should converse more about work related topics rather than food, told me that I needed to buy a bamboo steamer.  A steamer I said???  Really?  Why?  Louise then told me that I must buy one and it is a life change experience – well cooking changing experience…

When we should have been conversing about Tenders and Contracts, I was telling her about this idea about steaming chicken and infusing the flavours of Rosemary and Brown sugar.  However Louise gave me the brilliant idea of infusing these flavours with a bamboo steamer rather than my idea of using some metal frame (Lou, what will I do without you when I finish my contract at work...).  So last weekend I decided to try this.

It tastes amazing and everyone will say – wow what are you cooking???

Here is my recipe, but feel free to change up the measurements to suit your cooking party:

2 tiered bamboo steamer

500g chicken breast – I like tenderloin myself

2 stalks of rosemary – but add as much or as little as you like

¼ cup of brown sugar – again this can be as much or as little as your taste buds require

½ cup of water

Vegetables I used:

Broccoli

Carrot

French Shallots

Spinach

(but any veges could be used)

Chop vegetables and add to the bamboo steamer – its good to have these prepared so they are ready to go when you want to cook them.

Cut chicken in desired size, I kept mine in tenderloin strips.

In a wok, add water, brown sugar and rosemary over low heat and stir until combined.  You want a gentle simmer here, if there is too much heat, the brown sugar will burn and you lose that yummy caramel flavour and it will be replaced with an unpleasant taste of burnt chicken even though it doesn’t look burnt (invisible burn)

Immediately place bamboo steamer in the wok, and keep lid on, it’s important to keep the aroma and flavour trapped inside.  Add chicken.  This will be touch and go, and it really depends on how you like chicken cooked.  If you leave it too long, it can be quite tough and invisibly burnt.

When chicken has 2 mins left, add veges. 

You will need to give an occasional stir to vegetables and turn the chicken over, but try not to remove the lid as much as possible.

This tastes delicious over a bed of rice.  As this is extremely healthy, you can indulge a little and make a more sophisticated bed including chicken stock, butter, pine nuts, slivered almond etc.  But I opted for brown rice so I could have a chock mint rocky road super sundae – but that’s another blog.

Enjoy!

And what's for dessert??????

How about Poached Fruit with Cinnamon & Brown - goes with the whole brown sugar food theme and its healthy! - ok its not steaming them and its not as bad as tucking into a rich moist chocolate fudge brownie with white and dark chocolate chips, oh and maybe some pecans as well...where was I?

You make an intoxicating reduction of cinnamon sticks, brown sugar and water and peeled pears and apples and let it simmer why you are cooking dinner.  The longer it reduces the richer and more delicious it becomes.  It should sit for a minimum of half an hour, but I've let mine simmer for 1.5 hours in the past.  Place fruit in bowl and top with cinnamon syrup.  Of course, I had to top with cream and then cinnamon sugar over it, but that's optional :-)

Lavender pavlova – which I like to call Provence pavlova

I took a simple pavlova recipe from the MasterChef website, but added lavender at the end.

Lavender pavlova – aka la Provence pavlova

Here is the recipe:

4 – 5 eggs or 150ml egg white
1 cup caster sugar (sifted)
2 tablespoons cornflour (sifted)
2 teaspoons white vinegar

Lavender flowers – depending on how much you like, I probably used a handful.

Preheat oven to 150C.

Measure all ingredients out prior to and sift everything prior to starting. Pavlova can be a little temperamental and it helps to have all the ingredients ready.

Grease baking paper with butter and place on baking tray. You can draw a circle, I didn’t bother. Pavs can have a mind of its own, but if you have whipped it good, (I feel like duran duran right now), you will be able to shape it in a nice round circle.

Place egg white in a large bowl and whip with an electric mixture until stiff peaks form.

Gradually add the sifted sugar – about a tablespoon at a time. I know this sounds cumbersome, but when you start to build your pav on baking paper, you will thank yourself. Your mixture will start to get glossy and very thick. Its really important not to rush the sugar...this is the mistake I have been making – if it doesn’t dissolve, it will melt in the oven and the pav will look like its wet its pants with sugar syrup. When your arm feels like its about to drop off and your knuckles in your hand are in pain, then you probably have whipped it enough. I did mine for 10mins. I was so over it by then. Also, use a big bowl. The more its whipped, the bigger it gets – like a big fluffy cloud swirling under the beater. I had to be careful that my cloud wasn’t spilling out.

Add cornflour and vinegar and whip until just combined. Because my mixture was big, I added this a little at a time so I made sure the cornflour and vinegar was evenly distributed.

Place 1/2 mix on baking paper and form your shape with a flat dinner knife. Now sprinkle your lavender flowers on top...Its really important not to let the flowers be visible as they will burn. Then add the rest of mixture on top and form into shape. If you have whipped it good, it should be really stiff and sit perfectly. My top has a slight concave to eliminate air bubble and this will be filled up with cream and berries or whatever you top with...

Reduce oven to 120C and bake for 1 hour and 20 mins. Now important – do not take pav out of the oven!!! Simply turn off the oven. I know its tempting, but don’t let it come near cool air. I usually cook mine at night and take out the next morning. It must be completely cooled.

Whip cream, I added rose water (but maybe next time I'll add lavender flowers) after it has been whipped and layer on cake. Add fresh raspberries / strawberries. Sift a little icing sugar on top and sprinkle a few lavender flowers for garnish.

My tips:

If you spill egg yolk in your white – start again. Don’t attempt to salvage it. Your pav just wont turn out. Even if you think you got all of it out...You can use it for anything else but pavlova.

The egg whites must not come in contact with any grease, so if your like me and drop shells in your egg white – make sure to use a clean spoon. And always use a clean bowl, egg beaters etc. 

If your making it for a special occasion, and you’ve never made one before, its worth doing a test run to get a feel for your oven in terms of heat and “hot spots”. My oven is really hot on the right side, so I make sure to push this to the left as it will burn otherwise.
Oh and don’t whip cream with rose water or lavender in there. Whip it... then gently fold in... Mine turned into cottage cheese – so darn annoying. I had to go and buy a whole new tub of cream, because I am obviously the most incompetent person at whipping cream. This should be the easiest part of the pav right???  Clearly wrong for me.

Weekend delish!

So if you could see my desk now...I have about 10 printed recipes on my left side and 2 shopping bags of food on my right side.


I am having my gorgeous friend from Vancouver staying with her mum and who I haven’t seen for almost 2 years. So want to make sure I make something extra delish.


Last month I perfected the art of pizza dough - ah bubbly soft crust with super crispy base - not to thin, not too fat, just right (goldy locks style). So I have a dough in the freezer that I think i will make and then I found pasticcio (like Greek lasagne). I wont be doing my Greek grandmothers pasticcio any justice, so doing one with haloumi and vege's through it. Never made it before, so hope it works ok.... And the pav I made last night, i think I will make that again - true Australian dessert. A few bottles of beautiful sav blanc and a light rocket and parmesan salad and I think I have my feast down pat.


Now onto my Shopping bags - I visited a little Asian mart during lunch and bought items I never thought to buy before:


curry cubes - has anyone heard of this? I'm yet to make it. You break off a cube and add to your meat / veges with a little water and you are supposed to end up with the most flagrant Japanese curry of your life (???)


dried shrimp - ah, this needs to go in the fridge and probably will smell when I do open it, but I found a recipe that says to use it...so watch this space I guess...


dried shitake mushrooms - apparently I haven’t lived prior to today as I have never used them before...


Thin & crispy Korean seaweed - ah YUM!!! Another discovery!!! Had lunch at a little Chinese place and my friend told me to break off bits and layer over rice and eat. Hhhhmm, not the most appetizing of ideas, but when in Rome...can I just say - heaven!


Mirin - cooking sweet sake - I have no idea what I will do with this.


Goma Shio - rice seasoning - you know those little black seeds you see on sushi...yep, now why didn’t I think of buying this before????

Lavender Pavlova

So last weekend my hubby surprised me and took me to Sydney, but not only that, he took me to Bilsons - oh my goodness, no words can describe - but I will try...I had Scallops with Lentil and duck and it was just the most beautiful dish (you will probably hear me say that a lot) and my hubby had Assiette d'locean (apologies for spelling). Next we had dewfish (which had been feeding on prawns which made the fish sweeter – wow) and followed by bourbon baba – tiny little sponge cakes with little crème Brulee in the middle, while he had the chocolat plate...we made the deal that we would share these two plates, but I wasn’t very true to my word – it was just so good, I couldn’t stop myself. Luckily hubby said it was too rich so he gave me his dessert (or that’s how i like to relay it J)...Then petit four was these tiny little strawberry meringues...which is why I thought I would start this blogging (and also because one of my gf told me I should start this...) so these meringues were crisp on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside and just melted away, however it was the flavour of strawberry.

As I said, I’m still feeling my way through food. When I lived in Sydney, for some reason I decided to try a pavlova. Don’t ask me why – actually I had to make a dairy free dessert. I had never made it before and had no idea what I was doing, so just whipped it up. I didn’t know you needed to “test” your oven and that “hot” ovens existed (if it says its 180 C – then its 180 C right??? Wrong) but the blessed thing turned out. I felt like a superstar. It was a marshmallow pavlova and this is the dish that I will hold close to my heart as it was the one thing I made that made me feel invincible in the kitchen. After many blunders since, I don’t have that elated feeling so much, but you get the idea...Yesterday I was relaying to my colleagues the artist and master – Adriano Zumbo...How could I go to Sydney and not visit his shop – by the way, the salted caramel macaroons are divine. Anyway, my colleague gave me some recipes for macaroons and flavouring them, and one was with violet flavour and purple food colouring...

Yes I am getting to my point...Since I moved house, I cant make the pavlova for the life of me. So I decided to give it one last go, this was the deciding point – if it doesn’t work out this time, I will never do it again. It turned out!!!! Yay!!!! I also found a bunch of dried lavender flours that mum gave me...so this was something that made me think – could I try a lavender in my pavlova? Could I flavour it?

Another suggestion I had was put rose water in my cream and top with strawberries and raspberries...aw yum.

Appreciate your thoughts...