Cooking Fresh Food - breaking the jar/can/bottle habit...

Cai - You'll get a more intense chicken flavour if you start by browning the chicken pieces in the pan, then remove them whilst you caramelise the veg before deglazing with the wine.

LMS - The condensed chicken soup is just a reduced chicken stock thicken with double cream.

If you just want to have the stock base to store in the fridge/freezer then make a fresh stock then chill/freeze it until you want it - I'd suggest leaving the cream out until you actually want to use - frozen cream just doesn't work quite as well.

Chicken Stock
Put a big, thick bottomed pan on a high heat with a splash of oil
Add some chicken wings and/or some bits of chopped chicken carcass - (I like to use wings, as they are cheap and have a lot of flavour)
The goal here is to get lots of brown, sticky bits of almost burnt chicken to stick to the bottom of the pan - so stir occasionally so that as much as possible of the chicken gets in contact with the bottom of the pan.
Once the chicken is well browned then add some chopped onion, carrot, celery and leek and stir to coat in the hot oil for 2-3 minutes, then add half a glass of white wine (or water) and use a wooden spoon to scrap hard at the gungy bits on the bottom of the pan - once the wine has almost boiled away add 2-3 liters of cold water, some whole black peppercorns and a few bay leaves.
Bring the whole thing back to the boil and simmer gently for 30-40 minutes - fish out the chicken bits and veg with a slotted spoon, then pass the remaining liquid through a sieve to remove any remaining debris.
The stock is now ready to store, or you can put it back into a clean pan and gently simmer it until it has reduced by half to concentrate the flavour.

If you are making a pie, then you can follow a similar process in the pie dish:-
Start by browning the chicken wings along with the chicken meat that you want to use in the pie, (I prefer thigh as it has a better flavour and benefits from the slow cooking) in the pie dish, then discard the wings and put the meat to one side.
caramelise the veg in the dish then sprinkle over a little flour - this saves making a roux, and will make the flavoured oil stick to the veg. Stir the flour through the veg so it is evenly coated and no lumps of flour remain.
Return the chicken to the pan along with some liquid (wine/stock/water) and scrape the base of the pan with a wooden spoon as the liquid comes back to the boil, then stir through a little double cream and any desired herbs or seasonings, add the pie top and put it into the oven to cook.

My mouth is watering. I can't believe I am starting to get vegetarian tendancies again!

I buy chicken wings to feed my dog already so I have heaps of them. It shouldn't be too far a stretch for me to accomplish after a quick grocery shop. I sure wish my veggie patch was full of veggies instead of seedlings.

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To get things rolling, here are two recipes for one of the simplest sauces - Carbonara. The first recipe is the more traditional, the second uses cream which is how most Australians are used to eating it. I'm starting with this, because it's actually quicker to make this fresh than it is to reheat a jar of sauce.

Traditional Recipe

For 4 people you will need:-
120g of Pancetta or bacon cut into small pieces
2 cloves of garlic - minced or cut into small pieces
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt - preferably Sea Salt
2 Fresh Eggs
1/3 cup of freshly grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese...don't even think about using the pre-grated stuff
1/4 cup of finely chopped flat leaf parsley (scrunch it up into a ball so that it is easier to chop finely)
500g of Spaghetti

1. Put a large pot of water on to boil - use the biggest pan you have and add plenty of salt to the water. The bigger the pan, the less likely the pasta is to stick together.
2. While it is coming to the boil, place 3 tablespoons of olive oil and pancetta in a saucepan on a very low heat for 5 minutes...then add the garlic. Keep giving it an occasional stir so that everything gets evenly coated with the hot oil and nothing burns.
3. The pancetta should brown very slowly for another 5 minutes, keep stirring occasionally until the pancetta is crisp.
4. While the pancetta is cooking, beat the eggs together with the parsley and cheese in a mixing bowl. The add the spaghetti to the boiling water and cook according to the directions on the packet - when it is getting close to done start testing the pasta by fishing strands out and biting into them - you want the pasta to have a little bit of bite left into it, don't overcook it until it is mushy.
5. Turn off the heat under both pans, drain the pasta quickly and put it back into the warm saucepan, pour in the pancetta, garlic and oil from the other pan, then add the egg/cheese/parsley mixture and toss it thoroughly through the pasta quickly.
The idea is that the heat from the pasta is used to cook the egg mixture, as the egg cooks it will stick to the pasta - so everything should now be coated in the sauce.
Serve immediately with a fresh black pepper
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i made this tonight!!!

yummo!! i just made sure the egg was well cooked, will try pancetta next time instead of bacon for more flavour

That's how I've made my carbornara for years Jols........I use prosciutto, and it's devine! The number one fave dish with everyone in our house. Pancetta is good too :) Glad you enjoyed!

Excellent, glad to see someone is getting some use from this thread.

Try this about a week before you want to do it again:-

You will need:-
200g of salt
100g of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of black peppercorns
1 tablespoon of juniper berries
5 star anise
a 6-8" piece of pork belly

Grind up the spice in a mortar and pestle and mix thoroughly with the salt and sugar - find an airtight container to store the mix in.

Rub a handful of the mixture into the pork belly, try to work it well into the meat and leave it covered with the mixture - then seal into an airtight container and place in the fridge.
Once a day, for the next five days - take the belly out of the fridge, drain off the excess liquid and apply more of the spice mix.
On the fifth day, wash the excess spice mix off, then soak the belly in cold water for 3-4 hours - then dry thoroughly and store in the fridge wrapped in kitchen paper.

This home made pancetta has so much more flavour than all but the best professionally made product - and that is sold for over $30/kg....this should cost you less than $12/kg.

After you have rinsed and soaked it can you use it straight away or do you need to let it cure a bit more?

I've made my own salami and prociutto before but this is easier, well quicker.

It's good to use straight away, the soaking isn't strictly necessary, but I find it a bit too salty otherwise - it really benefits from being allowed to cook down slowly to render out all the flavour. It's a very easy, simple cure and it's very difficult to go back to commercial pancetta afterwards - we usually have a box curing away in the back of the fridge.

I'd be interested in having some more recipes for curing meat, I'm experimenting with some old traditional english cures at the moment. (Stout, brown sugar, malt vinegar, cinnamon and cloves)

I'm sorry but your wife is going to have to clone you Bear :lol:

Sorry LMS - he's one of a kind! LOL

That he is! I just need him as a teacher chef though :D We can stand to learn a few kitchen things from him that is for sure!

Hmmm I wonder if they will clone Gordon Ramsey :inlove:

LOL Bear you sound just like my DH between eating and cooking "natural" and the areoplanes and what not, you sound like you could be twins.

Anyway..
I will see if i can dig out my curing recipes, I think they are still packed away (i'm in the middle of unpacking) but when I find them I'll post them up.
They are my dad's Italian curing recipes.

Bear, that sounds like a wonderful recipe. I didn't think that pork would keep for that long in the fridge before going funky? :dunno: (Or is that "growing" funky? :doh:)

LL, how do you make prosciutto?

By the way all, I have been a very good girl and not used very much prepackaged nasty stuff. For the last two weeks, I have also been and done my shopping once for the week. I will admit I ran out of fresh veges this week (so bought lots today to see if that will cover the next week), and had to resort to using the frozen variety. Aside from that, I have been planning meals for the week (roughly in my head) and trying to write the shopping list accordingly, as well as using things from the cupboard. Yay me. Now if I could just keep it up, better than my Domestic Goddess practices... :redface:

And I planted my first lot of fresh produce today! Garlic. Why, only because I had it in the cupboard, and it was looking a lot worse for wear, so rather than throw it (or eat it - bleh!), I though I would plant it and see if it grows (eight cloves).

Hey everyone!!

Great thread :) I've only managed to read a few pages but I am soooo keen on getting away from the packet/jar stuff as the budget is tight and all that stuff is real expensive (as you all must know) Plus with my little girl eating the same dinner as us, I would love to limit all the additives and stuff that she eats. So I am going to subcribe to this thread to get some good ideas!!

I've got a few things that I bought at the shop today that I just KNOW I could do from scratch but dont know where to start... and I even have the recipe on how much there were...

1 - Butter chicken 485g $3.19
2 - Thai Green Curry 160g $2.56
3 - Teriyaki Sesame sauce 160g $2.56

I normally just follow the instruction with these!! And I make all three with chicken so if you can suggest a different meat then that would be great! (Keep in mind that DH doesnt like pork!)

Looking forward to figuring out how to do these :D

veronica i willpost my butter chicken recipe later, its soooo easy and soooooo tasty

Teriyaki Sesame Sauce:

1 tsp sugar
2/3 cup japanese soy sauce
2/3 cup mirin
2 tsp sesame oil
1tbsp sesame seeds

I always associate terriyaki with fish for some reason, so I generally get some fillet of fish, either a white variety (I buy from the fishermen here on the bay.... so depends on what they have caught) or I buy salmon at the fish markets... Marinate for 10 minutes either side and then drain & pan fry or grill for 4 minutes both sides (do not overcook!!)

In a small sauce pan add the marinade and cook on a medium heat until it thickens.

I stir fry some green veges in a bit of oil & garlic and then pop them on the side of the fish and serve it with rice.

Netix - it will keep for a couple of weeks in the fridge, but I tend to cut it into 2-3" blocks and just keep one on the fridge, and the rest in the freezer - that way you can just cut off what you need without worrying about it spoiling.

LL80 - The recipes would be good, does your DH fly out of Toowoomba? I flew in there earlier this year...but it took me three days to fly home when the weather turned into this...Piccy

Thai Green Curry

The first thing to make is a green curry paste, it's worth making in decent sized batches then keeping in the freezer until you want to use it.

* 15 large fresh green hot chilies
* 3 shallots, sliced
* 9 cloves garlic
* 1 tsp finely sliced fresh galangal
* 1 tbsp sliced fresh lemon grass
* 9 tsp finely sliced kaffir lime rind
* 1 tsp chopped coriander root
* 5 white peppercorns
* 1 tbsp roasted coriander seeds
* 1 tsp roasted cumin seeds
* 1 tsp sea salt
* 1 tsp shrimp paste

Preparation

1. Combine coriander seeds, cumin and peppercorn in a mortar, pound well. Transfer to a bowl and put aside.
2. Pound hot chilies and salt together well. Add the remaining ingredients except shrimp paste, pound until mixed well.
3. Add the cumin mixture and shrimp paste, continue pounding until smooth and fine.

This will keep for about a week in the fridge, or a year in the freezer.

Now for the curry itself...this recipe uses beef, but you can use chicken or fish - I'll quite often grab a handful of the marinara mix from the fishmonger (salmon, mussels, calamari, etc) to use in this kind of dish. If you are using fish, then don't add it until the end of the cooking process as it overcooks easily.

* 400 grams beef
* 3 tbsp green curry paste (see above or use prepared curry paste)
* 2 1/2 cups coconut milk
* 5 small fresh Thai eggplants, quartered (or substitute your choice of veggie - strips of capsicum, carrot, small cherry tomatoes and even lychee work well - kids like the sweetness of the lychee in the curry)
* 2-3 fresh red spur chilies, sliced diagonally
* 2 kaffir lime leaves, torn
* 1/4 cup sweet basil leaf (optional)
* 1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
* 1 1/2 tsp palm sugar
* 1 tbsp cooking oil (not olive oil, but corn, safflower or peanut oil)
* Sweet basil leaves and red chili slices for garnish

1. Slice the beef into thin pieces, about about 1/3" (3 cm) thick.
2. Saute the green curry paste in oil over medium heat until fragrant, reduce the heat, gradually add 1 1/2 cups of the coconut milk a little at a time, stir until a film of green oil surfaces.
3. Add the beef and kaffir lime leaves, continue cooking for 3 minutes until fragrant and the beef is cooked through. Transfer to a pot, place over medium heat and cook until boiling. Add the remaining coconut milk, season with palm sugar and fish sauce. When the mixture returns to the boil add the eggplants. Cook until the eggplants are done, sprinkle sweet basil leaves and red chilies over, then turn off the heat.
4. Arrange on a serving dish and garnish with sweet basil leaves and red chilies before serving.

Bear, so you only cure a small piece at a time, that's what you mean isn't it? Aside from pastas, what else can you use it in?

I had a look through all my cookbooks, including a reprint of Edwardian recipes, but I only had a recipe for ox tongue something. Not sure you wanted that....

I usually buy a whole pork belly, then break it into three 8-10" pieces so they will stack one on top of another in my curing box - then cure all the meat at once and freeze the cured meat that I'm not ready to use over the next week or so. Sometimes I will also cure some pork loin to make rashers of bacon.

I add it to all sorts of things - lots of sauce bases in casseroles and stews, cut into slices for use in quiches and as the weather gets warmer we tend to make warm salads with it. Once you have tried the flavour of it then you'll discover that it adds a little punch to all sort of dishes.

Try dressing some mixed leaves with a whole grain mustard vinaigrette, then tossing through some little chunks of fried bacon and top with a poached egg - makes for a great light lunch dish.