Sally’s Kitchen & Stuff

Making hallandaise sauce from scratch can be daunting - there’s the whole double-boiler thing, and the constantly whisking thing, and then there’s the whole bit about adding boiling water a spoon at a time. There is, however, a simpler way to do this.

Dump everything into the same bowl at the same time, whisk as the bowl sits over simmering (not boiling) water until thick. That’s it. Try it yourself - because we’re not adding boiling water, there is no risk of the egg scrambling.

Here are a few additional things to watch out for:

• Use the freshest eggs you can find. If it’s been sitting in the fridge for a week…don’t make hallandaise with it.
• Make sure your bowl sits OVER not IN the simmering water.
• Use a wire whisk and don’t ever ever stop whisking.
• If you’re still failing, try melting the butter in the microwave first. Stick your finger in it to check that it’s not too hot before adding to the eggs.
• Use fresh lemon juice when a recipe calls for vinegar.

On Saturday, Stu did the usual convenience store run. Instead of my usual plea for a specific chocolate bar, I just said "something sweet and nut-less." He came back to me with a tube of Rolos. I’m not a fan of Rolos, but since Caramilk is my other favorite, Rolo is pretty darn close.

I opened the wrapper and SCREAMED AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS. Up bounced the chocolate bar and it landed on the coffee table.

Stu exclaimed…"uh, what’s wrong?"

"THERE’S A MAGGOT IN MY CHOCOLATE BAR!" And on the coffee table, crawling, there it was. It was quite alive. The Rolo bar sits on the floor near it.

Stu then proceeded to put the maggot back into the bar and subsequently squishing it with the wrapper. So, what to do with a maggot-ed chocolate bar? I don’t know. Call public health? Likely. Why would a maggot be in a chocolate bar? Don’t they only eat rotting flesh? How desperate is this maggot to hatch in a Rolo bar? Now, what if I had opened the other end, eaten all the Rolo pieces, then to reach for the last one to find a maggot crawling on it? I shudder to think. Yuck.

From this day on, I’m only having chocolate if it’s factory sealed. None of this foil-wrapped stuff for me anymore.

Casual games. No, I don’t exactly fit the demographic for the stuff, but you don’t often find food related games in the serious gaming genre (restaurant tycoon doesn’t count; it sucked) and spending a few minutes clicking away while I wait for my ride is more fun than surfing the net.

Check out my favorite games! They’re mostly about food, by the way.

This makes for an impressive main dish, but really, MUCH easier than it looks. It is labour intensive though. I’ve modified the contents of the traditional Cornish pasties a bit so that it would SEEM more expensive, and used puff pastry instead of a pie crust to get a more manageable square shape. The steaks used in it can be anything, but since we’re cooking it to well-done, getting well-marbled expensive beef is a waste. Just get the cheapest cut you can find.

I would suggest making EVERYTHING ahead and taking the baking sheet of pasties out of the fridge to bake 30 minutes before serving. With so many steps, things could get a big hectic.

Ingredients
1 Cup of Chinese chicken marinade
3 small 4 oz "marinating" steaks
1 Cup chicken broth
2 small onions, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Cups of sliced carrots
2 Cups of Cremini mushrooms, roughly cubed
2 + 4 TBSP butter / margarine
2 TBSP all-purpose flour
2 sheets of pre-rolled puff pastry (I used President’s Choice)
1 eggs and 1 TBSP water, whisked together

Instructions
Marinade steaks overnight in a freezerbag. I used chicken marinate for its sweet and salty flavour, but if you don’t have it, you can use soysauce, a bit of ginger, and a couple of tablespoon fulls of brown sugar. Brown steaks on both sides - don’t "cook" it, just brown it. Let it cool, cube them, and slice off any extra fat.

In the pan where you browned the steaks, pour in the chicken broth to deglaze the pan. Add onions and saute until lightly browned. Add garlic and carrots and cook until the carrots lose their bite. Set the mixture aside. In a clean pan, cook mushrooms on medium heat with 2 TBSP butter until soft. Add mushrooms to previously cooked mixture.

Now this might be a bit tricky. Melt the 4 TBSP of butter in a pan on medium heat, add flour. Using a wire whisk, whisk constantly, adding hot broth/water a dribble at a time to turn the roux into a white-ish sauce. This will be our "glue" to hold all the ingredients together so it can’t be too watery. Mix this with all your other cooked ingredients (add the steak now) in a big bowl and let it cool completely.

Preheat oven to 375. Unroll puff pastry and cut each sheet into half. Scoop filling onto half of each cut sheet - as much as it can hold, about 1 1/2 cups - and fold the other half over it, pinch the edges to seal. Try to leave as little edge as possible. Poke holes along the tops with a fork. Instead of lifting the pasties off the paper, simply trim the excess paper off and put the whole thing on a baking sheet. Brush with eggwash and bake for 30 minutes.

If you have extra time, put the baking sheet of pasties in the fridge before putting them into the oven. The colder the puff pastry, the puffier it gets in the oven.

This is NOT a conventional curry - instead of pungent and savory, it’s sweet and spicy. Good for having younger ones over who are not used to ethnic foods. Browning the chicken is not required, but it does give the dish a little something extra. You can go as far as keeping the cayenne out of the recipe altogether and just have a shaker of it at the table. Serve over white rice.

Ingredients
6 Chicken legs
2 TBSP curry powder
3 Yams, peeled and sliced
4 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 TBSP salt
2 boxes of low-salt chicken broth (or bouillion and water equivalent)
1 Can coconut milk
2 TBSP all-purpose flour
Cayenne powder to taste

Instructions
Remove skin and cut off as much fat as possible from the chicken. Brown both sides in a pan or the bottom of a pot. Add corrots, 1 and a half box of chicken broth, salt, and curry powder. Cover and boil, then simmer, until chicken is cooked and falls off the bone when prodded with a fork. Take the chicken out to strip bones, reserving chicken meat in a container to prevent drying out.

Add sliced yams to the pot and let simmer until tender. Combine remaining chicken broth and flour with a fork to prevent lumps. Add to the pot in a steady stream while stirring. Put the reserved chicken back into the pot and add cayenne powder 1/2 teaspoon at a time until desired heat is reached.

Feeds 10 easily with the cost being less than $1 per person. Yum!

It’s HARD!

I’ve managed to produce an edible carrot cake (ok, it got rave reviews - but too sweet for me), a batch of brownies, pancakes, and some chocolate cookies over the weekend, but geez, it’s not nearly as easy as I thought. Especially when it comes to biscuits and breads, I seem to turn everything I touch to charred dough.

I’ve been extremely busy lately - it’s getting to the end of the summer and we’ve started teaching Christmas music (to prepare for those upcoming Christmas shows) and it doesn’t help that I’ve had relatives over every weekend. Soon enough though, I’ll have a thrifty brownie recipe perfected with chewy caramel. Right now though they’re pretty standard and nothing special.

Any tips on making breads you’d like to share with me? My biscuits are tough, my bread is doughy, and my rolls kinda…sink.

It’s been extremely busy. For one, it’s summer. For two, I seem to be losing all my weekends to visiting relatives. Or having relatives visit. Or cooking dinners for relatives. No more! I shall have this weekend to myself or else!

Menu for the last weekend (lunch and dinner):
Lamb and Beef Sheppard’s Pie
Maple Mustard Corn (combine maple syrup, mustard, and whip it with butter. Add to corn.)
Traditional Buttered Scones
Banana Bread
Baked Chicken Curry

I’ll post some of them at some point.

And I have hardly anything in the fridge. Now, if I had known this beforehand, I would’ve stocked the freezer a bit more thoroughly. But since I already have brunch planned for the day, and now mom in the evening, I might end up with something ridiculously creative involving anchovies and cream cheese with a dash of advocado.

Contents of fridge: eggs, mushrooms, some grapes, lots of yogurt, milk, butter, cream cheese, condiments (lots), bacon fat (ya, I keep a jar in the fridge), tin of anchovies. Contents of freezer: sausages, some beef, some beef/pork bones, chicken breasts, cooked cubed chicken. Lots and lots of bacon.

We’ll see what happens.

This is by far the EASIEST ribs recipe I have on hand. It takes minimal prep-time - aside from the wait time - and tastes impressive to boot. You can roast vegetables along with it in the "open roast" process; just put your veggies in individual foil wraps.

Ingredients
1 rack of pork ribs
1 Cup soy sauce
1/4 Cup teriyaki marinade
1 TBSP grated ginger
3 cloves of garlic, grated, or 3 TSP out of a jar
2 TSP sesame oil
1 pinch cayenne pepper (optional)

Instructions
Cut pork ribs into individual servings (usually I count 4 bones to a person) and throw everything into an extra large freezer bag. Marinade overnight or at least 4 hours.

1.5 hours before dinner, preheat oven to 400. In a large roasting pan (large enough for the ribs to not stack on top of each other), lay ribs bone-side up, cover, and roast for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, take the lid off, turn the ribs over, and open roast for another 30 minutes.

Serve with sweet peaches and cream corn and some roasted veggies.

Generally I wait til there’s a sale or special of some sort, then I bring it home, season with just salt and pepper and cook it right away in a few different ways - broil, fry, grilled - and chop into strips. Put them in freezer bags, label them, and throw them into the freezer as flat as possible.

When you get home from work, just defrost one in the microwave with some sauce inside the bag and add it to whatever you happen to be cooking. Teriyaki chicken can be had in 20 minutes, with quick-cooking rice; add some ham and cheese and you’ve got what I call "open-face chicken cordon bleu."