Ode to an Oak Tree: Mont Blanc with a twist!

Mont blanc is a traditional French dessert which is based on creamed chestnuts. Both chestnuts and acorns come from oak trees. Thus in tribute to this wonderful tree, and because I still had some acorn meal left over, this version of mont blanc combines these two ingredients.

Serves 3

Preparation time: 1 hr + overnight chilling time.

Ingredients

Base:

1/3 cup acorn meal

3 scotch finger biscuits

2 tbs brown sugar

1 stick butter

2 roasted chestnuts

Cream:

About 12 roasted chestnuts (see previous recipe for roasting instructions)

1 tbs butter

vanilla essence

2 egg yolks

1 cup milk

2 cloves

whipped cream

Instructions:

1. Crush all the dry ingredients for the base in a bowl with a pestle. Soften butter and mix through with fingers until mixture resembles course bread crumbs. Push into 3 well greased cups in a muffin baking tray. Chill in fridge for at least 1 hour.

2. Put chestnut meat with milk, sugar and cloves into a saucepan. Simmer for about 20 mins. Watch to ensure milk doesn't burn or boil over. Stir regularly.

3. Push mixture through a fine sieve. This is a good opportunity to fish-out any husks from the chestnuts remaining. Throw away cloves.

4. Mix into puree the egg yolks and melted butter. Pour into the 3 muffin cups with the bases. Refrigerate overnight.

5. Serve topped with whipped cream.

Warm Autumn Chestnut Salad

Chestnuts are somewhat of a novelty for me. So sorry if this isn't so 'exotic' as some of the other things i've posted here.

Serves 2

Ingredients

~ 10 chestnuts

handful of wild rocket leaves

2 carrots

1 potato

3 cloves garlic

olive oil

salt & pepper

fresh rosemary

Method

1. Roast the chestnuts. You do this by first cutting a cross on the flatter end of each nut. This stops it exploding in the oven. Then place them in a preheated 200 degree C oven for about 15-20 mins. If you put a sheet of baking paper over the top of the roasting nuts this might make cleaning the oven if any explode an easier task. The nuts should be a golden colour and fairly easy to remove from the shells when they are done.

2. Roast veggies, garlic and rosemary in a baking pan with olive oil on 200 degrees C (thus you can cook both the chestnuts and veggies at the same time if you want.

3. On a bed of rocket crumble some roasted chestnuts and roast veggies. Squeeze the garlic cloves into the oil the pan and mix. Pour some of the garlicy olive oil over the salad.

Serve as a side to a main dish. In the spirit of Autumn this would be best with roast venison or duck...or roo, just make it gamey :)

Red Wine Pasta

This is pretty simple to make, and worth the time. It tastes much, much better than dried pasta with bottled sauce. Oprah if you are reading this, perhaps this could be an example of 'cook yourself fit' because I think any carbs in the pasta would get burnt off with all the kneading and rolling!

Serves: 2
Preparation time: about 2 hours
Cost: Probably about $10

Ingredients
Pasta

250g plain flour
3 eggs

Sauce
4 roma tomatoes
1/2 a bottle cheap Aldi french red wine
basil
oregano
2 cloves garlic
olive oil
salt
pepper
plain flour for thickening

Instructions

1. Start by making the pasta. Sift flour onto a clean bench. Make a well and crack eggs into it. Using your hands mix egg and flour. Knead until pasta dough feels smooth and elastic.

2. Wrap in cling wrap and put in fridge for at least 30mins.

3. Finely chop tomatoes. Heat some olive oil in a saucepan. Add tomatoes, garlic, herbs spices. After about 1 min add red wine. Simmer on low for 45 mins

4. Remove pasta dough from the fridge. Split into 2 balls of equal size. Knead each ball and then using a rolling pin roll as flat as you can. With a knife cut into long thin strips.

5. Boil water in a saucepan. Add pasta. It will be very quick to cook in comparison to dried pasta so watch it!

6. When pasta sauce is reduced down to about 1 1/2 cups take off heat. Sprinkle a small amount of flour. Return to heat and stir until it thickens.

7. Drain cooked pasta. Add sauce. Serve with cheese and fresh basil.

Other ideas: this pasta recipe can be used to make all sorts of pasta. Make lasagna or ravioli using spinach and home-made ricotta (see recipe below).

A Purist's Shopping List

It has been a bit of an obsession lately of mine to get my shopping list down to only the essentials (plus any gathered foods I find) from which I then make everything I can from scratch. It is fun, satisfying, healthier and cheaper (and because of that if you wanted it probably would be affordable to opt for organic versions of everything).

It might take a little bit more time, but often most of the time making basics is spent rising, setting etc. Thus it takes longer to have the finished product, but while you wait you can do other things. So it is just a matter of planing and setting a routine whereby you make things to set overnight every few day etc.

So here is my current shopping list (many of these things last for ages or can be bought in bulk, thus this doesn't represent a weekly shopping list, just what you would have to buy to set yourself up to start this particular lifestyle):

- fresh fruit, veggies and meat (bought from a local market if possible)
- a variety of dried beans and lentils
- eggs
- butter
- oats
- milk
- milk powder (for yoghurt making...but not essential)
- brown sugar
- caster sugar
- bakers flour
- plain flour
- baking powder
- herbs and spices (including salt and pepper)
- vinegar
- red wine
- dried yeast
- nuts and dried fruit

From this list you can make pasta, bread, croissants, cakes, muffins, yoghurt, jams, preserves, ricotta, musesli... the list goes on.

Ricotta

I'm posting this on request. Note I didn't invent this recipe (like i did the others). The following will make about 1-1 1/2 cup of ricotta.

Ingredients

2L milk

1/4 cup vinegar

2 tsp salt

Instructions

1. Heat milk to 83 degrees C (or just before it starts to boil).

2. Add vinegar. Stir mixture ever so slowly :1 cm every 10 sec or so for a maximum of 1 min. Add salt.

3. Allow to cool for 2 hours.

4. Put a cheese cloth in a colander and pour in mixture. This will catch the curds and let through the whey. Let strain for about 1/2 hr.

5. If the liquid that goes through is still milky then return to the stove and heat until it fully separates and the liquid appears yellowish and clear. Pour through cheese cloth to add to the curds.

6. Squeeze the cheese cloth until ricotta is the amount of dryness that you would like. Scoop into a jar and refrigerate.

Ideas for Using Your Ricotta

- Lasagna from scratch. Make the pasta for it as well (let me know if you need the recipe too).

- Makes a yummy breakfast on toast (even better when you've made the bread too) with cinnamon and sugar.

- There are some tea cake recipes that use ricotta. It adds nice moisture and creaminess.

New Lessons Learnt:
This is one recipe that can be made using long-life milk (even the $1 Aldi stuff). I have done this with skim, but I suspect you get more ricotta from full-cream milk. The process can also be sped up a lot. It isn't necessary to leave it for a full 2 hrs to separate. 20mins is actually enough. Even though it will still be hot drain it through the cheese cloth. The liquid will still be milky so then bring the liquid to the boil and it will fully separate. Now drain the additional curds through the cheese cloth and then with the help of a teatowel to protect your hands from the heat, squeeze the excess liquid out. This way you can probably make your ricotta in a fraction of the time. I haven't noticed any real difference in the quality (although fresh milk is a little better than long-life...don't use powdered milk it won't work).

Sweet Acorn & Pumpkin Muffins

This recipe uses acorn flour that needs to be made following the process outlined in the previous post. You could also make this without acorn flour...but need I say it, that's cheating. The flavours in this muffin are inspired by an amazing pumpkin pie I had when I happened to be in Hawaii during thanksgiving.

Preparation time (not including acorn flour processing): 45 mins

Cost: ~ $3 for 12+ muffins

Ingredients

1 cup acorn flour

1 cup plain white flour (if you want them gluten free, use 2 cups acorn flour instead)

1 1/2 cup mashed pumpkin (boil, mash then cool before using)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup currants

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp all spice

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs lightly beaten

2 tsp vanilla essence

100ml vegetable oil (macadamia would be perfect, but anything's ok)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.

2. Grease muffin pan

3. Put all ingredients into a bowl. Mix until blended. Spoon into muffin pan.

4. Cook for 20 mins or until a skewer inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Note: Replace currants with chocolate chips for a different twist.

Acorns: Canberra's Street Food

The story behind this particular exotic, gathered ingredient is that I was riding my bike to civic on the weekend and came upon a tree with a lot of seed pods underneath it.

I did guess they were acorns, as they look exactly like the acorns from children's books especially when they still have their little hats! I broke one or two open and inside was a lovely beige coloured nut with a texture a little like macadamia. They didn't taste all that good though, but I did have a hunch there may be some way of processing them to be edible (if squirrels can eat them, why not humans!). Thus I took a bike pannier full home to investigate further...

It turns out they were in fact acorns and that they are actually edible with a bit of processing. Without processing the tannins in them are poisonous in large enough quantities, so be careful. They are however, a staple in Native American cuisine. Acorns come from oak trees, and apparently every kind of acorn is edible.

From initial investigations there are two kinds of acorn bearing oaks in Canberra. They are of course all introduced trees! The red oak Quercus borealis is probably the most common andhas acorns that are up to about 5cm long (see above). They have a lovely leaf which has kind of a lobe shape. I've seen these trees everywhere in Inner North, they are probably the most common oak in Canberra. Wattle St in Lynham has many good examples and they are pretty hard to miss with such large acorns scattered all around them and onto the roads.

The other species in Canberra is the Pin Oak Quercus palustis. This tree has much spikier leaves and much much smaller acorns. They are still edible however, and as they potentially have less tannins they may taste nicer. They are extremely fiddly though, so for the effort vs amount of nutmeat, I personally would say that red oak acorns are the way to go. If you interested though, an example of Pin Oaks can been seen on Hawdon St, Dickson.

Processing Acorns

It is necessary to process acorns to removed the tannins (a substance actually used to tan leather) to make them edible. This is a bit of a time-consuming exercise, so if there is any chance you may really like acorns for cooking, it is probably best to do a largish batch in one go. It would be possible to do the entire process and even cook something with them in one day, but in general it is easy to break it up into different steps that can be done in the evening while you do other things.

1. Kill any bugs in the acorns. It is necessary to do this straight after gathering. In the US there is a particular moth that lays it's eggs in acorns. It may also be in Australia, i'm not sure, so just in case do this step!

Lay all our acorns on a tray and heat in the over for 30mins at 120 degrees C.

2. Shell the acorns. You may have some kind of fancy device to do this that you use for other kind of nuts. I don't, so i just do it by hand with the help of a mortar and pestle. The shell is quite thin in comparison to most other nuts we are used to so it isn't as difficult as you may imagine...just time consuming.

3. Leach out the tannins. Boil acorns in water for 5-10 mins. Drain off the brown water and repeat 5 -6 times or whatever is needed to no longer have brown bitter water.

4. Dehydrate the acorns (do this straight after leaching or they will go mouldy). Put them in a low oven until they are completely dry, or in front of a heater.

And that is it. Your acorns are now edible. You can grind them to a flour or meal to use in cakes/bread etc, eat them on their own or even make veggie burgers from them. They make an interesting substitute for corn or almond meal, and it's gluten free! Stay tuned for some recipes....

Note: An alternative method is to grind the acorns before leaching. This is more in keeping with the Native American method. You can then put the powdered acorns in cloth and then in a bowl of cold water. This water needs to be changed regularly until the flour tastes sweet instead of bitter. This is a much slower process however, although is more energy efficient.

Another Note: Again i take no responsibility if you manage to kill yourself eating something i've suggested!

Quince, Ginger and Peach Yoghurt

Most people have probably heard of quinces before and maybe even eaten the odd cake with it at a cafe. So it isn't entirely exotic. But then, i've never cooked it myself, so I thought I might give it a go.This recipe also involves making yoghurt from scratch. Obviously you could just buy some and add the quince but then that would be cheating!

Servings: 6
Preparation Time: 10hrs (a lot of this time can be overnight while the yoghurt sets)
Total Cost: Approximately $4 for 1.5L of fruity yoghurt.
Ingredients
Plain Yoghurt:

1L milk
30g milk powder
4 tbs store bought plain yoghurt (silly i know, but necessary, after the first batch you can use your own)

Fruit Mix:

1 quince (peeled and diced)
3 peaches (diced, leave on the skin for texture)
1 tbs fresh grated ginger
1/2 tbs butter
1 tbs brown sugar
honey to taste

Instructions:
Yoghurt:

1. Heat milk and milk powder in a saucepan to 90 degrees C. Now cool quickly by pouring into a clean bowl floating in an icy bath.

2. When temperature of the milk reaches 43 degrees stir in yoghurt.

3. Pour into a preheated thermos. Let sit for at least 6 hours (or overnight) until yoghurt has set. Refrigerate (it will set even more when it cools).

Fruit Mix:

1. Heat butter in a saucepan. Add quince and ginger. Cook until quince is soft. Add sugar and peach. Cook for another 2 minutes.

2. Refrigerate fruit mix until cool.

Mix fruit with yoghurt and add honey to taste. Serve.

Other ideas: Puree the fruit mix in a food processor and serve with pork instead of apple sauce.

Poached Peaches

My own take on an old classic. This was made from peaches collected from a tree beside a bike-path in Belconnon.

Serves: 4
Preparation Time: 20 mins

Ingredients
4 peaches
2 cups water
1/2 cup port
1/2 cup sugar
vanilla essence
4 cloves
2 cardamon pods
1 aniseed star
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 tsp chili powder
1 tbs honey
50g 90% coca chocolate

Instructions
1. Bring water to boil in a saucepan with all the spices. Reduce to a simmer. Add sugar and vanilla stir till dissolved. Add port and honey.

2. Add peaches. Cook for 5-10mins, every now and then turning peaches so that all sides are poached.

3. Remove peaches and put in a bowl of iced water to cool. Increase heat of saucepan and reduce liquid to a syrup.

4. When peaches are cool, peel them and place in small bowls. Melt chocolate by placing it in a small bowl which is floating in a larger bowl filled with hot water.

5. Pour over syrup and serve with icecream and drizzle with melted chocolate.

Note: Would also work with nectarines or pears. To make it even more luxurious add some blackberries just before removing the syrup from the stove.

A Guide to Gathering Wild Blackberries

Blackberries are considered a menace on the Australian landscape. There is no denying however that they taste pretty damn good. There is perhaps some crazy logic in the idea that if you buy these berries you are supporting blackberry farms, thus creating opportunities for them to go wild and take over more bushland. On the other hand if you gather berries from these out of control bushes, you are doing a small part in removing seeds which could potentially become more plants!

Ok, that all sounds a little crazy, I don't think you really need a justification for berry picking. It is quite an addictive pursuit (as my friends and housemates can now attest), somewhat meditative and despite the certain amount of pain involved in a serious stint of berry picking, it is amazingly satisfying (probably because at the end of it you get to eat berries!).

Currently it is blackberry season in the ACT, NSW and VIC. It seems to fall around February and March although it will probably depend on the local climate. So here are some tips i've picked up for successful wild blackberry picking.

1. Wear appropriate clothing. Blackberry bushes have horrible spines that catch onto anything including your clothing and skin. Long pants like jeans are essential. Closed in shoes also so (i find gumboots perfect!). Berry juice may also get on you during the picking processes so basically don't wear anything you don't want stained or ripped.

2. Bring a good sized rigid container. Tupperware or old yogurt containers work great. Make sure it has a lid. Plastic bags will squash your berries.

3. Think about the context of your berry bush. Could it be sprayed? Blackberries are regularly sprayed throughout Australia in an attempt to rid the natural environment of this introduced pest. You will not feel very well if you do eat poisoned berries. Often bushes that have been sprayed will have a sign warning you. This is not always the case however. As a rough guideline however bushes usually aren't sprayed in national parks or along waterways.

In general it is a good idea to wash your berries before cooking or eating and to eat a few and wait to see how you feel before chowing down on a berry feast or feeding friends your gatherings. There is however always some risk involved in picking wild blackberries...it kind of adds to the fun of it.

4. Don't try and avoid the spiky bush, stand on it! It might go against common sense, but when you are picking blackberries if you try and stay away from the spiky vegetation, it will manage to catch onto you and sometimes it hurts! With your sturdy shoes standing on the bush rather than have it flap around your legs as you pick helps a lot.

5. Only pick plump berries. Healthy looking berries are less likely to be poisoned and they taste much nicer. You go to all the effort and pain of berry picking, don't waste your time on shrivelled ones.

6. Leave red ones for another day. Red blackberries are not like bananas. They will not ripen at home. Take note of the number of red berries on the bush as this will give you an indication of if it is the end of the season or if you will be able to come back another day for some more.

Some locations of Blackberry Bushes in Canberra:

1. Along the bike path between O'Connor and Belconnon near O'Connor Ridge. There are a number of bushes here, most associated with natural drainage lines and thus far I haven't got sick from any of them.

2. Cotter Reserve. Across the stream from the campground there is a nice bush.

Note: You pick and eat wild berries at your own risk. I take no responsibility for anyone getting sick or falling into a blackberry bush.

Nectarine and Blackberry Custard Flan

A blackberry recipe made with wild berries collected from O'Connor Ridge in Canberra. Just be careful you collect berries that haven't been sprayed.

INGREDIENTS
5 nectarines (can be quite old as they are cooked)
handful of blackberries
4 tablespoons custard powder
1 tablespoon caster sugar
a dash of port
125g cream cheese
300ml of milk
100ml orange juice
1 1/2 teaspoon gelatine
stick of butter
1 teaspoon butter
3 tablespoons water
10 hazelnuts
6+ scotchfingers biscuits

INSTRUCTIONS
1. In a bowl crush biscuits and hazelnuts with a pestle.

2. Spray with oil a small dish or pan. Melt 1 stick of butter in microwave. Pour onto biscuit mix then press into bottom of try or pan to make flan base. Put in fridge.

3. Put custard powder into a mug. Fill to 1/2 full with milk. Mix until all the powder is dissolved. Bring remaining milk to boil in saucepan. When boiling take off heat and stir in custardy milk. Mix until it thickens, if it doesn't seem to return to head and stir constantly. Transfer custard to bowl, cover with gladwrap (touching custard so as not to form a skin) and put in fridge to cool.

4. Chop nectarines into pieces. Cook in saucepan with water, port and 1 teaspoon. Cook until liquid is almost completely reduced. Transfer nectarines to bowl and put in fridge to cool.

5. Put juice into a glass. Sprinkle gelatine ontop. Place glass in saucepan of boiling water. Stir juice until gelatine dissolves. Remove, put into another cool glass and place in fridge to cool.

6. When custard is relatively cool take out of fridge. Break cream cheese over it and stir it until it is a homogenous paste.

7. Spread custard over biscuit base.

8. Place fruit (nectarines and blackberries) ontop.

9. Pour glaze (the juice, gelatine mix) over the top.

10. Set in fridge for at least 1 hr.Enjoy! -- This recipe can easily be made with other types of fruit as well. Just use what you've got.

Mexican Jicama Salad

Jicama is a root vegetable sometimes called a bean yam. It originates from South and Central America where it is an important part of the Festival of the Dead in Mexico.

The leaves of the plant are actually poisonous. This vegetable can be eaten raw, baked, fried.... The only requirement is that it is peeled which given it's unusual shape is surprisingly quite easy. All you need to is cut a bit with a knife and peel the back the skin with your hands. Raw, the vegetable smells and tastes a lot like sugar snap peas with a texture like raw potato.

This is quite close to the way that jicama is served on the streets of Mexico (they serve jicama slices with lime and chilli). It's incredibly fresh and zesty... and would make an awesome side dish with pan-fried salmon. I honestly could eat this stuff for days...and unlike the chips, it's actually healthy and super quick to make.

INGREDIENTS
1/2 a Jicama
1 nectarine
bunch of fresh coriander
one chili (medium heat)
lime juice (fresh or from a bottle)
olive oil

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Peel jicama. Slice into thin sticks. Put in bowl with a splash of lime juice (to retain white colour).

2. Slice nectarine and add to bowl. Add a handful of coriander mix.

3. Finely chop chili add to bowl.4. Mix a slash of olive oil with a splash of lime juice. Mix and pour over salad. Serve

Note: Nectarines could be exchanged for mango

Banana Blossom Salad

Upon discovering the rather good fruit and veggie store in Civic I decided that i'd learn to cook one different item of unusual produce each week. This week was banana blossom which is a rather beautiful pinkish flower pod...apparently it is what later becomes a bunch of bananas, and is usually used in Vietnamese, Thai and Hmong cooking. It's also sometimes called a banana bell (there is a pictures below of what it looks like)This recipe is inspired by some others i've seen on the internet, but is ultimately my own creation using whatever other ingredients i had available. And it actually was quite yummy.

INGREDIENTS:

1 banana blossom2 fresh bananas

1/2 a can of coconut cream

soy sauce

sweet chili sauce

baby spinach leaves

rice noodles (the thin kind you use in vietnamese spring rolls. Have them already cooked)

1 fresh chili

1 carrot

chicken...breast cut up would be best, but i used thigh because it was cheaper

1 and 1/2 lemons

a large handful of mint leaves

salt & pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Remove outer petals of the banana bloom and put aside for later. Chop the rest into finely into threads. I removed all the stalky seed things when i did this, although i imagine they would also be edible. Take in the wonderful fragrance of the blossom! Squeeze the juice of 1 lemon onto the chopped blossom. This will help it retain some of the beautiful pink colour and add flavour.

2. Chop mint, chili (remove the seeds), and carrot and add to the blossom in a large bowl. Also add the noodles which should be cooked but cold and fresh baby spinach leaves.

3. Slice the banana and leave in a separate bowl in lemon juice from the remaining 1/2 lemon.

4. In a saucepan lighly spray with oil and add chicken pieces. Cook for a bit, then add coconut cream, soy sauce and sweet chili. Cook until you think the chicken is done and add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Pour chicken and the coconuty sauce over the salad. Add the fresh banana slices. Serve in one of the outer petals of the blossom and garnish with a sprig of mint. It is nice while the chicken is still warm and also the next day when it is cold.