Chicken Liver, Spiced Rum and Marmalade Pate

This a variation on my Chicken liver and cointreau Pate, the addition of Marmalade and spiced rum give it a sublte sweetness. I hope you enjoy. 

Ingredients

470g chicken livers

50g shallots

160g soft butter

40ml spiced rum of your choice (I used Kraken)

2 teaspoons of a good marmalade

Salt and Pepper

Extra butter to melt and cover pate.

Method

1. Peel the shallots and garlic, place in the bowl fitted with the ultrablade. Mix at speed 12 for 10 sec.  Scrape down the sides with a spatula
2. Replace the ultrablade with the mixer. Add the chicken livers and 20g of the butter, and the rum.
3. Launch P1 slow cook for 12 minutes
4. At the end of the program, drain the livers and rinse the bowl in cold water.
5. Insert the ultrablade once more and place the livers in the bowl with the creme fraiche remaining butter and the marmalade.  
6. Mix at speed 12 for 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides and mix again for another 10 seconds if the pate needs to be smoother.
7. Pour the pate into small dishes and smooth the top.
8. Melt enough butter to cover your pate
9. Place a little parsley (mostly for decoration) and cover with the melted butter. 
10. Pop in the fridge for at least 2 hours but preferably overnight before eating. (remove the pate from the fridge for the pate to return to room temperature)
11. Serve with crackers, on toast or a sliced baguette. 

Yummy Buttery Baguettes

The crust of these baguettes was delicate and slightly chewy with a salty flavour (from the butter). The crumb was tender with an al dente bite.

The one thing I would probably do differently next time is to make 3 baguettes from this amount of dough as they were fairly generous in size. But that could just be because there is only the two of us to eat them here!

I hope you enjoy them as much as we did. 

Ingredients

340g warm water
1 1/2 Tbs. (2 packages) dry yeast
2 tsp. sugar
570 g bakers flour
2 tsp. salt

Method

1. Place ingredients into CC with the kneading crushing blade Pastry P1 2 mins 30 secs
2. This is a sticky dough, remove carefully from CC and scrape dough from blades onto a lightly floured bench. (you want the dough to remain fairly sticky)
3. I used a pastry scraper to lightly knead the dough (basically moved it around until it becomes a smooth ball. 
4. Cut in half and shape into 2 baguettes.
5. To make them smooth and pretty, roll each half of dough into a rectangle and roll up lengthwise. Pinch the edges to seal and place on a lightly greased cookie tray with a seam downwards. Cover and let it rise for 30 minutes.
6. Preheat oven to 230 degrees.
7. With a very sharp knife (you can use a very sharp knife, one with a serrated blade or a razor blade) gently make a slash down the length of each baguette. (I did small diagonal slashes on the second)
8. Pour water in a cookie sheet and place it on the bottom rack of the oven. (this forms a steamy atmosphere for the bread)
9. Bake the bread for 15 minutes. Half way through, brush the bread with melted butter.

Recipe Source http://www.thesisterscafe.com converted for CC

Chicken Liver and Cointreau Pate

 Antipasto plate for dinner, this silky smooth pate will be a perfect addition served on my olive and sundried tomato sourdough. Sick of paying the price for good pate at deli's I decided to give it a go and make my own.  Well, all I can say is, that had I known how easy it was to make pate in the Cuisine Companion I would have saved myself a considerable amount of money!

Ingredients

470g chicken livers

50g shallots

2 cloves garlic

160g soft butter

40 ml Cointreau

100ml Creme Fraiche
Grated rind of one orange

Salt

Pepper

Extra butter to melt and cover pate. 

Method

1. Peel the shallots and garlic, place in the bowl fitted with the ultrablade.  Mix at speed 12 for 10 sec. Scrape down the sides with a spatula.
2. Replace the ultrablade with the mixer . Add 20g of the butter, the cointreau and the chicken livers. Launch P1 slow cook for 12 minutes
3. At the end of the program, drain the livers and rinse the bowl in cold water.
4. Insert the ultrablade once more and place the livers in the bowl, add the remaining 140g of butter, orange rind, creme fraiche and season with salt and pepper.  Mix at speed 12 for 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides and mix again for another 10 seconds if the pate needs to be smoother. 
5. Pour the pate into small dishes and smooth the top. 
6. Melt enough butter to cover your pate.
7. Place a little parsley on top of the pate and cover with melted butter. 
8. Pop into the fridge for at least 2 hours before eating. (remove from fridge for Pate to return to room temperature)

TIP

Pate freezes well, and thats exactly what I will be doing with the left overs! 

Hope you enjoy!!

Not Too Sweet Banana and Coconut Cake

I love a good banana cake, as well as a toasty coconut cake. So this one ticks both boxes.  Not too sweet, but lovely and moist.  Have it warm with vanilla bean ice cream, or a slice with a tea or coffee for afternoon tea.  Either way I am sure you will enjoy it. 

Ingredients

2 Large Over Ripe Bananas (330g)

40g Golden Syrup

50g Coconut Sugar (you could use brown sugar)

50g Shredded Coconut

2 Eggs

Pinch of Salt

300g Self Raising Flour

80g Plain Yoghurt

Extra Tablespoon of both Coconut Sugar and Coconut. (I used flaked Coconut). Sprinkle this on top of the cake before putting it in the oven. 

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170deg, and grease loaf tin well.
2. Place banana and golden syrup in bowl and pulse 6 or 7 times till combined
3. Add everything else and Pastry P1 2 mins. Stop, and scrape down with a spatula after 1 min. Finish P1
4. Pour batter into a greased, and lined loaf tin and bake for approx 35 - 45 mins or until a skewer comes out clean. 
5. Place on a rack and let cool. 

NOTES

• I slice and freeze this as there are only 2 of us to eat the goodies I make.
• Lovely served warm with some icecream
• You could always make some caramel sauce to drizzle over it for a delicious dessert.

Rosemary's Pizza Dough

Who doesnt love pizza, really I think it should be a whole food group on its own.  I think with pizza that less is more.  Less cheese, less topping, means more taste, or what I am trying to say is that you can taste all the ingredients, where if you have too many ingredients they tend to blend together.

I love making homemade pizza, in fact I am always disappointed if I get lazy and order in.  They are NEVER as nice.

This recipe is meant to be for one pizza, but I like my pizza’s thin and crispy so it makes two small dinner plate size pizza’s

Bolognese Buns

Now known as Bog Buns!

We are often stuck for what to have for lunch on the weekend, also these would make a great picnic option as well.  I had a small amount of bolognese sauce left over just enough to be annoying, and would probably have ended up in the bin, until I had the bright idea to pop it inside a bread roll!

My dough was made from my Perfect White Bread recipe, I let this prove the first time, and then portioned the dough into 10 pieces, the dough weighed 1kg, so 10 100g pieces.  Then I rolled these out into about 5 or 6 inch circles, made a dent in the middle with my tablespoon measure and then popped a tablespoon of bolognese sauce into the dent topped with some brie.  Pull the dough up around the filling and twist to form a seal. Turn the bun over so the seal is downwards and cup the dough and turn in circles to create a nice tight bun. Place on a sheet covered with baking paper. Cover and let double in size, glaze with an egg and milk mix and then sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan.

Just use this idea for any fillings, leftover curried chicken, semi dried tomato with brie and salami. Just use your imagination.

Golden parmesan crusted rolls with a surprise in the middle! 

Inside the bun is spicy bolognese sauce and melted brie

Pork and Veal Meatballs with Hidden Veg Sauce

This recipe was created by my lovely daughter, her soon to be husband has an aversion to vegetables, so she is always looking for way to sneak vegetables into his diet. 

Like me, she has had her steamer for quite some time and decided it was time that she tried to do some layered cooking, and this was the result!

The meatballs are steamed in the external steamer while the sauce is cooking in the bowl. She served them in a warm pana da casa roll with a little bit of cheese. Yummo!!  Who needs Subway!!

My Perfect Loaf

Since I bought my cuisine companion almost 2 years ago,  I have rarely bought a loaf of bread.  This recipe has been tested over and over by the lovely members of Loving the Tefal Cuisine Companion Facebook group.

First of all, I don't call this bread my Perfect White Bread because I think I have discovered the BEST loaf of bread on the planet.  I call it that because after many many changes in the development of the recipe, I came up with a recipe that was easy for even non-bakers to create a good loaf of bread. Even my husband cooks this loaf!!

One of the things I love most about this loaf is its versatility, I have made loaves, rolls, and scrolls, both savoury and sweet.  I hope you enjoy making it as much as I do.

Firstly I want to say that bread isn’t that scary, I find it one of the most relaxing things to bake. I love the feel of the silky dough, it's like adult play dough!!

People get caught up in things like the temperature of the water and how long to let the yeast react before adding the other ingredients,  I say don't fuss!!  as long as your water isn’t really cold or really hot, just somewhere in between, (think babies bath water) you won't kill the yeast, there is no need to wait for the yeast to activate either, modern dried yeasts are very forgiving.

So number one - take a breath and relax, prepare to have fun!