Nice roast potatoes

I like these roast potatoes. Its a keeper. The pork fat I used made them nicer, but there's no reason to believe it won't be nice with less rich stuff.

1. Use  Russet potatoes.
2. Try to cut potatoes in thick slices about 3cm thick. The rounded parts should be similar in size.
3. Parboil the potatoes in boiling water with colander. About 6-8 minutes (I did it 8 mins because the potatoes cooled the water when I added a considerable amount in).
4. Take the colander out. Over the sink, toss and shake the potatoes until you see bits of potato flaking off and the potatoes becoming "furry".
5. Lay the potatoes in a baking pan, with flat surfaces down (as much contact with pan as possible) and mix with seasoning.
6. Roast for about 25-30 minutes at 180C.
7. Take out pan, the turn the potatoes around to the other side (the side on the pan should be slightly brown). Baste potatoes if necessary.
8. Roast another 10 minutes, then turn on broiler for about a few minutes until potatoes look brown.
9. 
   

Roasted pork shoulder redux

Second time doing this.

With a 2.5kg pork shoulder, I did the low temp portion of this in 4.5 hours (for say 1.5 kg, should probably be 3 hours). For the stuffing, I used onions, rosemary, thyme, chopped and some fennel seeds. The pork shoulder was brined overnight in a water, lemon tiger beer mix (with bay leaves, garlic, and rosemary sprigs).

The crackling was a disappointment this time, possibly due to the fact it was prepared long before and was wrapped up for transport. But while rubbery, it did taste very nice, so I got that part right.

Rough procedure.

1. Get the pork the day before. 
2. Separate the skin from the rest of the meat. 
3. Brine the meat using favorite brine.
4. Salt the skin, leave it in fridge for a couple of hours. Return and wipe off salt. Leave it in fridge overnight with paper towels over it to let it dry out.
5. Next day, take out meat and let it warm up to room temp.
6. For the skin, wipe it down again and again (water will condense on the meat). I used a stand fan to blow wind over the skin in an attempt to further dry it out and defeat condensation.
7. Turn oven to 250C. 
8. prepare stuffing, arrange the meat, then lay the stuffing over it.
9. put the skin over the stuffing. tie the skin to the meat.
10. Put meat/skin into oven for about 30 mins or until the skin starts puffing up.
11. Take out roast. Turn oven to 160C.
12. Put a little bit of water into the pan below the roast. Double wrap the entire roast with aluminum foil. 
13. Reinsert to oven. For 2.5kg, I roasted 4.5 hours.
14. Remove from oven. Turn the oven temp to highest setting again. Remove all foil. Cut and remove all string. 
15. Put it back in the oven. After about 15 mins, turn on broiler in oven and keep a close watch on the skin. May need to protect faster burning areas with small pieces of foil. Take out when the skin is nicely crackled (is this a word?).
16. Take out of oven. Rest the meat.

Lemon tart

This is my first real decent application of doing a pie crust based item. It is based on this recipe, but because it is for a 28 cm dish and mine is 20 cm, I cut down all amounts by 2/3.

The crust was decent. But next time, I think I will brown the crust more, add slightly more butter, and do not knead the dough (I kneaded it a but because I was afraid it would break).

For the record, for my 20 cm springform container, I used 180g AP flour, 33g castor sugar, 60g butter (but I think I need about 80g), one full egg, and lemon zest.

The blueberry jam mostly did not add to the taste and just added a visual element. It was too much anyway.

Instead of doing the lemon curd in a water bath, I just heated the juice, sugar mixture to boiling, turned down the fire to tiny, and then added the egg in a stream, stirring all the while.

X'mas party

X'mas party was pot luck at someone elses place. But I went crazy and did a roasted pork shoulder, roast potatoes (with the pork fat), brocolli in cheese sauce, blanched long beans in a sesame dressing, a lemon tart, and mayonnaise (for the potatoes).

The roast pork had a better taste than my first try at this. In fact, pretty nice. However, the crackling turned rubbery - possibly as a result of cooking this well before the dinner and then covering it while warm for transport.

The brocolli in cheese sauce was not good. There's something quite off with the sauce (possibly because I added cheese first ahead of the cream), and I should have blanched the carrots before adding them in.

The long beans are nice and the technique is probably repeatable with different hard vegetables. Can keep.

The potatoes were really nice. The pork fat had something to do with it, but I think the technique can be adapted with simpler seasoning.

Lastly, the lemon tart was my first decent pie crust base item. There was a remark that the crust could have been more browned, more crumbly. The blueberry jam on top only added a visual effect and had no real effect on taste (anyway I added too much jam).

The "easier way" to make mayonnaise

I've just tried out the easier way to make mayonnaise as documented here. It seems very thick. The manual method may still yield a better textured mayonnaise.

No skill needed hollandaise

Found this link : foolproof-2-minute-hollandaise-recipe.html

It really works. I think the theory is this : you want to just cook your egg at about 70C or so and at the same time use the egg to emulsify the incoming oil. So what you do is pour in butter at about 100C  and the temp drops just nice when it hits the egg. 

It works for my handheld blender and my glass measuring cup. I put in the raw egg yolk, pinch of salt, teaspoon water, and a teaspoon of vinegar. I start the blender, and one or two seconds later pour in a little of the hot butter and then slightly faster several seconds later. Move your blend up and down a bit to make sure all the bits are mixed. Done in 40 secs!!

I also found this : two-minute-mayonnaise.html 

For mayonnaise, I think that the basic traditional method is still useful to know. You can make mayonnaise anywhere with nothing special other than a bowl and fork (if your hand is vigorous enough).  For the hollandaise, you need to assemble a water bath and deal with mixing and cooking at the same time, so this method may still be useful albeit hollandaise does not travel very well.

Fish dinner

Breaded deep fried fish on a bed of broccoli in cheese sauce. On the side are plain fried french beans, and home made mayonnaise.

The used deep fry oil was filtered and put into bottles and into the freezer for reuse.

M