Russian Pierogies

I had a Russian grandmother growing up. While she had never been to Russia she had spent her childhood growing up in a Russian enclave in China. I always wished i'd been old enough when she was still alive to properly learn her recipes from her. I don't even know the names of some of the dishes that her and my great aunt made us. I remember piroshki - a kind of meat pastie that was delicious with tomato sauce, and yummy cabbage and rice noodle pie. I also remember pierogies: delicious potato dumplings which my grandmother would sometimes give my family big bags of frozen for later.

I was too young to really learn her recipes while she was still alive, but more recently during a nostalgic moment I decided to explore my Russian heritage and learn to make some of these recipes from the internet.

So here is the first success of my explorations: Pierogies!

It turns out that these dumplings are made in many different countries in Europe, so many people I have since talk to about these, also had grandmothers who made them, even if they weren't Russian.

Eating these, I was instantly transported back to my childhood. They are delicious too and make for a fantastic lunchbox snack, entree or even breakfast.

Recipe

Makes 12-15 pierogies

Ingredients:

Filling:

5 potatoes

1 large onion

3 tsp butter

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Chopped parsley, dill or chives

Dough:

2 cups white flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

1/2 cup low fat sour cream (I suspect natural yoghurt might also work and would be healthier)

1/4 cup softened butter

Method:

1. Make pierogie filling first. Boil pealed potatoes. Chop onions and saute in butter until soft. 

2. Mash boiled potatoes. Add cooked onions, cheese, herbs and spices. Leave to cool in fridge.

3. Make dough: Mix together flour and salt. Add beaten egg to mixture.

4. Add sour cream and butter to flour mixture and work with hands until a smooth dough that isn't too sticky.Wrap dough in plastic film and refrigerate for half and hour.

5. Roll out dough on a floured surface ill it is about 20mm thick. Cut rounds using a cup or similar as a guide. 

6. Place filling in half of circle, then fold over and press together with a fork. a damp pastry brush may help getting the dough to stick together if you are having trouble. Pierogie can now be frozen for use at a later date if necessary.

7. To cook them, boil them in salted water. They are done when they float to the top. Then fry them with a bit of butter in a fry pan until crispy. 

Traditionally these are often served with more sautéed onions and sour cream. They aren't bad though on their own or even with some kind of tomato relish. Enjoy.

Cream of Celeriac Soup

This interesting vegetable can be eaten raw or cooked and is the root of a type of celery plant (so it tastes pretty similar celery stalks but with a completely different texture).

Ingredients

1 celeriac pealed and diced

1L chicken stock

white pepper

parsley chopped

1 can evaporated milk

dash of lemon juice

Method

1. Simmer celeriac in chicken stock in a large saucepan.

2. Once tender strain off some of the chicken stock. Use a food processor or barmix to bend. Add a dash of lemon juice and mix well.

3. Add chopped pasley and pepper.

4. Put back on heat and add evaporated milk. Bring to the boil mixing well.

Serve

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 :)

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.

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.