Papa Pomodoro

This evening I was really hungry and not without good reason. At 9 AM This morning Serge (from Les Alpes restaurant) and I, set off to Arrowtown to walk the Big Hill trail via Sawpit Gully, Hayes Creek and Arrow River.
The track lay strangely deserted on a Sunday as most people were pulled away to the last day of the golf at The Hills.
While Phil Tataurangi was putting forward his best putt, New Zealand's one shot at winning the New Zealand Open this year, we were putting forward our best foot in the sweltering heat on the steep hills over Arrowtown.
We walked 25 km, 5.5 hours in total.

This recipe is quick, cheap and doubles as a stuffing recipe, stuffing meaning not your face but the rear end of a chicken, and a fantastic summer dish to boot!

1 can Budget chopped tomatoes $.99
Half a sour dough (ciabatta) stick $1.70
1 cup chicken stock* $0
Fresh sage $3
salt & pepper

Cost approx $6 tops for two-three people.

Method

Heat a glug of oil and chicken stock in a pan. Pull bread into small bits and add to the pan until all the bread has soaked up the liquid and is starting to fry. Add chopped tomatoes and more chicken stock to make it a gooey consistency. Chop up sage leaves and mix under the stew.


There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying fresh food items incl. meat reduced to clear as long as you either use them or freeze them instantly so you can use them whenever you need them in a meal. Examples of items I have bought in the past are chicken livers, steak, sponge (for lamingtons), sour dough bread/ sticks, soda water, chocolates. You save a lot of money this way and come up with some interesting ideas to cook for example Papa Pomodoro, the recipe for which I remembered from reading the recipe book of the highly regarded River Cafe, London.
The sour dough stick cost $1.80 reduced from $5.29 at Fresh Choice last week and froze it straight away. It also pays to research and observe what day they fill the reduced to clear basket.

Expect the sage to cost a bit though. Fresh herbs are always dear but definitely worth it, and worth growing I should add. The costs are off set by the savings you achieved through other less expensive items required for a recipe.
Add fresh herbs eg basil, sage, coriander, rosemary, always last as you will get much more flavour out of them.

*The chicken stock should be homemade from the last roast and sitting in the freezer,too.

To make it more picante add anchovies, to make it tart add some white wine which makes digesting easier in a hot climate.

The only drawback of this dish is that it has to be eaten straight away and does not keep.

For the next meal I will be making roast chicken I got for $11 on special at New World. I will use the above recipe as a roast stuffing. So see you back here tomorrow if you fancy some poultry for dinner.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Pizza Schmizza

For a quick pizza-wine-movie, impress-your-other-half fix, make pizza in ten minutes using prefab, homemade frozen dough. See function plus below.
But for now we'll just go for the normal version.

Ingredients (El cheapo)

Home Brand* Flour $2.50
Home Brand Black Olives $3.75
Home Brand Tuna in Oil 425g $3.99
Home Brand/ Valumetric Cheese (Choose your type)1KG $7-8
Home Brand Tomato Soup Condensed 415g $1.49
Home Brand Salt 1 Kg $1.35
Home Brand Olive Oil Pure 500ml $5.99
Onions $1.99 per kilo
Edmonds Yeast Active Dried 150g $4.39

Shopping cost, approx $32.
Cost per pizza, approx $4

Ingredients (El expensivo)
High Grade Flour
Spanish Kalamata Olives
Fresh King Prawns, Bell's Italian salami
Mozzarella
Delmaine's tomato paste
Olivio Extra Virgin Olive Oil ...


Substitute tuna with left over cold meats (Chicken, roast, chops, sausages) Pam’s ham or salami (To be got at New World)

All ingredients can be used in other recipes.Most of them last for a good while in the refrigerator and dry storage/ pantry.

Wherever you are in the world, your Super will have its self owned low budget brand so go and get it Tiger because there is nothing wrong with using it and saving your money for a trip abroad!

* Home Brand is a Woolworth Brand. Substitute with Pams and Budget which are a New World brand.

Method

Pizza Dough

Add the following in a big bowl
3 c flour
Pinch of salt

Separately, mix together
3 tsp Yeast
1.5 c Tepid water (Means warmer to colder than warmer to hotter water)
1 tsp sugar

Wait until it has a nice head of froth then tip into the flour mix with
3 glugs of oil

Knead the mix thoroughly in a big bowl until you get a nice smooth dough, like the one you see in Mystic Pizza the movie

The dough is better to be loose than tight and floury.

Divide dough into two parts. Clean the bowl. Grease bowl with oil and place two dough balls inside. Cover up with cling film or towel and let sit for half a day. The dough should have doubled in size before they are ready for pizza making.

In-a-hurry alternative - Put the oven on lowest temperature setting, put bowl with the dough balls in the oven and let them rise the artificial way. Be careful to put the temperature on 20 or 40 degrees. If the oven is too hot it will dry out the dough!
Should take an hour for the yeast to activate in the dough and double it in size faster.

Rolling out dough is tricky. It requires loads of practice.

You need to flour well your bench and roller (Empty wine bottle works a treat) or the base will stick and tear.

Punch the dough down and start to work with it. It works best when the dough is cold as the proteins have not expanded which makes the dough go sticky!

Chemistry aside you need to try and get the base the shape/size you want.Don't make the dough tough, keep air in it so it becomes crispy.
The more flour you add the drier the dough becomes and we don't want that.

For immediate pizza gratification ...heat oven to 220 degrees, prep toppings and add toppings in the following order.

Toppings

Tomato paste (Use soup) – Thinly spread
Onions - Finely chopped into rings
Meat, fish, soya
Cheese - Grated
Olives - De-pitted (Nothing worse than enjoying a meal while having to pit olives).
Mixed herbs - Sprinkle over the whole pizza

GO EASY ON TOPPINGS! Too much on the pizza base will make the crust soggy.It is better to be sparse with toppings and have seconds!It will ruin the base and the flavour if otherwise overloaded with stuff.

Bake Pizza 20-30 min until crust start turning brown in colour and bottom is hard.

For extra flavouring

With chicken – Try chutney
With Tuna or fish – Pour some olive oil, lemon scented if you ‘ve got it
General, garnish with rocket - tastes delish

FUNCTION PLUS

Freeze or refridgerate dough once it has risen for later use in zip lock bags. Make sure to rub oil over dough and inside bag before putting it in the freezer so the dough is easier to take out once it has thawed.

Tip

Remember Mario Battali’s adage on Molto Mario, it's better to start out with a slightly gooey dough than a too dry one as it is easier to add a bit more flour than liquid. Good luck!

Redcurrant jelly

On the same impromptu walk I took on Sunday 17 January as I was rambling I saw some cheeky redcurrants in the corner of my eye blinking at me through the tough Hawthorne.
Back home I decided to add it to my list of southern preserves to tick of my list and added redcurrant jelly to my things to do.
Delia Smith on the book shelf was ready and waiting for me, I searched its reverent pages for a redcurrant jelly recipe, looking like Jesus Christ nailed on the cross after sitting in the Hawthorns but nothing that Savalon cannot fix, and now am proudly displaying five jars of the crimson transparent delisciousness in my pantry.

Cheap as usual, buy a 3Kg bag of self owned label sugar from any supermarket(approx $5). I am making a lot of preserves now (apricot preserve is next)that I may as well buy a big packet of sugar to avoid another visit to the supermarket and keep up the sugar supply at home.

1.5 Kg
900g red currants

Method

Add red currants into a large sauce pan or preserving pan with stalks and all. Bring slowly to the boil, squeezing the berries as they are taking on heat.
Concurrently warm the sugar. Make sure the sauce pan, spoon or anything else you use for handling the sugar is not wet as the sugar will crystallise.

Once the berries are boiling gently, take them off the heat, add the sugar and stir until the sugar is fully dissolved. THe bring the whole mixtures back to boiling point (gently) and boil for 8 minutes.

Sanitise jars by boiling them with the lids in hot water and pour the jelly inside while they are still warm.

Serve with chicke, turkey, hogget, lamb, beef roasts and/ or on toast with a cup of coffee for a red hot loving brekkie.

Elderflowers

Elderflowers flower over Christmas and into the new year. Here in the south they are the fruits in season alongside strawberries, raspberries,cherries, apricots, red currants and so on.

Elderflowers are long-used as a de-congestant and containing essential oils. Elderflowers can inhibit mucus, help fight catarrh, soothe the tongue, mouth and throat, and are a good source of potassium.

I found some Elderflowers still flowering when I went for an impromptu walk to Moke Lake on Sunday 17 January. Last year I expressed to my mother how I was hoping to fill my marmalade making with making preserves out of southern fruits such like Elderflowers and Central Otago fruit, substituting my Auckland citrus fruit with Otago stone fruit, rosehips, quince ...

I picked two plastic bags full, bought sugar, citric acid and wildly expensive lemons from FreshChoice on my way back home and made Elderflower Cordial.

I am so happy I can tick this off on my list of things to preserve in the South Island and once more proud to announce that the Eichardt's Private Hotel are now serving my homemade elderflower cordial too.

Makes approx. 1.3 L

30 Elderflower heads (from Moke Lake)
4 lemons
1.5 Kg sugar
50 g citric acid
4 C water
Muslin cloth (Ask mum, buy at kitchen shop or use a nappy, pref. clean, which you can look for in your local charity shops, check out Salvation Army!)

Method

Add 4 cups of water to sauce pan. Bring to boil. Then add citric acid and sugar. Let cool. Once the syrup is cool at elderflower heads and let sit overnight. In the morning filter the syrup with muslin cloth and pour into sanitised bottles. Refridgerate or freeze.

Cost

Home Brand Sugar $2.50
Lemons .85 each(Queenstown only!Argh)
Citric Acid (good for two batches) $2.70

$10


How to use

Mix with water, a refreshing summer drink
Mix with soda water to make it a refreshing spritzer
Add gin to make a refreshing cocktail
Pour and freeze in icebock containers for cocktails
Make iceblocks for a summer treat, or use for dessert, see below.