Hammerziet Schnitzel (and Rosti)

If you're going to make this, you have to promise me you're not going to call it a "Schniddy". There's a time and a place for the orange crumbed, mass produced, almost universally Chicken things that are served up at pubs, they make fantastic beer sponges and it's a lot harder to screw up a deep fried schnitzel than it is a steak... especially when you're working with shitty pub quality steaks.

Actually on further consideration, a good schnitzel makes a great beer sponge as well, the only difference being you should be drinking a Munich Lager and wearing a green felt hat with a feather and some edelweiss badges, preferably out of a litre stein.

I've got a couple of sneaky hints with this recipe to make it more than the average schnitzel

Ingredients

2 Veal steaks
5 slices of white bread
1 bunch of Thyme
Salt
2 eggs (beaten)
4 Potatoes
100g Butter
1 white onion (diced)
4 Weisswursts or Bratwursts
2 rashes of Kaiserfleisch
Sauerkraut
2 pickles

OK, so TECHNICALLY you only need  the first 5 things on the list. Take note, this is the first hint!

Second Hint: Use veal. Chicken and Pork will also work but Veal is traditional, and will be a tastier schnitzel overall.

First thing you need to do is make the breadcrumbs - put the bread in the oven for 10 minutes on about 150 degrees, while that's happening strip all of the stems off the Thyme. Once the bread is nice and dry, chuck it into a blender with the thyme and about a teaspoon of salt.

Third Hint - hammer the veal yourself, don't use pre-made schnitzels. Ok no actual reason for this other than it's fun to hammer stuff. Once you've hammered the veal to about 5mm thickness, dust it with some flour, dip it in the egg and then the breadcrumbs. Once this is done, chuck them in the fridge for about 30 minutes. Take a break, because the next 30 minutes are a blitzkrieg.

Next step is the rosti. Peel and roughly grate the potato, season with salt and mix with the diced onion. Be quick, it'll turn grey really quickly if exposed to the air. While you're preparing this, get your Kampfgruppe to ready the other ingredients, they're in charge of the Kaiserfleisch, Weisswurst, pickle and sauerkraut.

You're in charge of 2 pans, the Rosti and the schnitzel pan, which should be a heavy based saucepan that can get really hot. Heat the oil and melt the butter in the other pan. As soon as the butter starts to brown add the grated potato, it should be about a centimetre thick. The oil should be hot enough to brown a bread crust in 5 seconds. Put schnitzels in the oil one at a time, cook 1 minute each side, transfer to paper towel and put into a warm oven. Cook the Rosti until golden, flip, then cook again until golden. DONE.

Hint Four: Schnitzel is good. The thyme is the not so secret ingredient, but the real trick is serving your schnitzel with Weisswurst, Kaiserfleisch, sauerkraut, a pickle, delicious Rosti and a dry, Munich style Lager.
SEHR GUT!

Breakfast Risotto

BREAKFAST CHALLENGE!

What do you make when the gauntlet is thrown for breakfast?? I was all out of ideas until a colleague, henceforth known as "The Breakfast Master" came up with not one, but two awesome ideas.

The second idea was the one I took to the challenge - a breakfast risotto, cooked with warm milk and desert wine rather than stock and a dry white. It's similar to a rice pudding but ideally has the slightly al dente texture of risotto, as well as having a more complex taste.

This version used a berry compote as a topping, but you could just as easily do stewed rhubarb or anything else that has that a tart taste to balance the sweetness of the risotto.

INGREDIENTS

1 bottle of desert wine (I used Botrytis Semillon)
300g of Arborio rice
1.5 liters of full cream milk
1 Tablespoon of butter
2 vanilla pods
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
100g of Castor sugar
30ml brandy or sweet sherry
250g mixed berries
2 egg yolks whisked


METHOD

First up, you need to talk up your recipe for at least a week. Bold promises of the best breakfast ever are good, and you might not want to reveal exactly what you're making for the best impact when you pull out the rice.

This recipe works exactly like a normal risotto but I'll run through it regardless. First of all you need to prep the milk. Split the vanilla pods and scrape the seeds into the milk along with the cinnamon, 2/3 of the sugar and half a teaspoon of nutmeg. Bring slowly to just below the boil stirring frequently... try to avoid the milk forming a skin as it will absorb the vanilla. If you are going to add brandy/sherry this is when you do it. Once it's hot, turn it off the heat.

Now heat a shallow pan to a medium temperature and add the butter. Once it has melted and started to brown, add the rice and stir well until coated. Toast the rice in the pan for about two minutes, stirring frequently so it doesn't burn. Add 150ml of the desert wine, and cook off before turning the heat to low. Next add a ladle of the milk stirring so it's absorbed into the rice. Once it's all absorbed, add another ladle... and repeat for about 30-45 minutes. If you run out of milk heat some more before you add it! Yes, this bit is boring so you might need some spoon thralls to help.

Boring!

Towards the end of the process you'll need the berry compote. This is a recipe in itself, but I'm going to let you in on a cheaty, cheaty secret. It's double cheaty because it saves you time and money. The double cheaty secret is this: Get some frozen berries and leave them in the fridge overnight. The thing with frozen berries, and what makes them unsuitable for pretty much anything other than compote is that they release heaps of water when they thaw. But that's what we want when we're making a compote - so put the mixture into a thick based saucepan and heat on a medium heat. Add the sugar and let it reduce for a bit. You'll need to check this yourself, depending on the berries it may be to sweet (add lemon juice) or too tart (add sugar).

Compoting

By now the risotto should be ready - the rice will be soft on the outside but still a bit firm in the middle.... not crunchy though. If you haven't added the brandy previously I'd add about 150ml more desert wine here. Add the eggs and stir quickly, this will bind the mixture. Put in ramekins, grate some fresh nutmeg on top and spoon the berry compote over the whole thing. If there is any desert wine left, serve it with the finished risotto. Desert wine for breakfast? Give me one good reason why not :)

The finished product

Cmon, one good reason...

And what was the Breakfast Master's other recipe? More on that next time... and a big thank you to MT and KJ for the photos for this recipe - a lot better than my usual mobile phone ones (a photography journal this aint!)

Rabbit Pie

This recipe can also be used to make rabbit stew, but we're working on the assumption that everything tastes better baked into a pie!

Rabbit can be a bit tricky to find, but I use the excellent Red or White butcher in Belmore (seriously these guys are great). The good thing about this recipe is that the actual quality of the rabbit doesn't matter; I'm actually using a method similar to Coq Au Vin which uses an old, tough chicken. It cooks long enough to mean that the rabbit will be tender regardless.

One of my new favourite things is in this recipe: Lardons. Otherwise known as chunky cut bacon. You can use speck if you have any, but make sure you're using at least middle bacon since you need the fat to increase the flavour. The purpose of these guys is to add to the flavour of the stew as it cooks

INGREDIENTS

2  Rabbits chopped into pieces
3 Brown onions roughly chopped
200g Lardons
4 cloves of garlic (crushed)
4 bay leaves
Half bunch of Thyme
1 teaspoon paprika
1 litre of chicken stock
1 bottle of red wine (If you can find a cheap Pinot Noir this is ideal)
Sherry/Brandy
Pepper and salt
Puff pastry
Poppy seeds

METHOD

This is actually a pretty easy recipe, the only trick is that it does take a while to cook, so it's not really suitable for a weeknight. If you're extra cunning cook a bit batch one night and put it in a pie the 2nd night.

First up you need to seal the rabbit - lightly dust it in flour and sear them in a frying pan with some oil and then set aside.

Now heat some olive oil in a casserole dish and chuck in the onions. Once they've started to soften add the lardons and garlic and cook on a medium heat until the fat on the lardons is rendered. Now deglaze the pan with a generous splash of the sherry. You could also add mushrooms to this step as well, though they are better in a Coq Au Vin.

Return the rabbit to the pan and add the chicken stock and the wine, there should be enough to just cover the rabbit. Tie the half bunch of thyme with string and put it in the liquid along with the bay leaves. Now leave it to simmer with the lid on for about 1.5 hours. Check it every now and then to make it's not boiling.

After the 1.5 hours is up take the rabbits out of the stew and set them aside. The pain in the ass part of rabbit is deboning the little bastards, and you have to wait until they cool before you do this. While this is happening it's a good time to test the stew and see if you need to add any extra seasoning; add the paprika here as well as half the parsley. You'll probably want some pepper and salt as well. Turn the heat up slightly and start to reduce the stew

 Once the rabbits are = cool enough to handle rip them apart with your hands, and return them to the stew for another 15 minutes. By now it should have thickened up nicely, but if not add some butter and reduce further. If it's still too thin use some corn flour mixed with warm water.

For the pie, rub your dish with butter then lightly dust with flour. Put a sheet in the base, add the pie filling then seal the top. Brush with a beaten egg and gently shake out some poppy seeds on top. Cook at 180 degrees for about 25 minutes or until golden. This will go really well with a pinot noir or a bordeaux if you can find one. We had a Torbrek - The Steading which was a fantastic match!

And the pie got eated - the end.

Leet Pr0k Laab

Thai food is a bit of an enigma. Throughout the 90's a lot of Asian cuisines became 'flavours of the month' for a while, but of all of them, only Thai has had the prevalence and staying power to still be so common in 2008. Maybe it's their blatant piracy of other cultures' food like the Malaysian Laksa, maybe it's the names of their dishes that must ALWAYS have three words, like a mini haiku. Or maybe it's the fact that it's actually really hard to recreate the flavours of Thai cooking at home - try making a Tom Yum Goon, Pad Se Ew, or Pad Thai at home. Without using one of those shitty MSG filled pre-made sauces it's fucking difficult.

The main reason is the undenyable RULE of Thai Cooking - It all tastes and smells like crap until it's finished. Think about the ingredients - Fish sauce (smells like vomit), Lime juice (sour on its own), Tamarind paste (weird tasting), Shrimp Paste (YUCK), Lemongrass and Kaffir Lime Leaves (Which are actually inedible!). SOMEHOW all these ingredients end up being tasty around 5 minutes before you serve. The theory is that some sort of Thai Cooking Pixie sneaks in and takes away all of the bad smells, leaving you only with the tastiness. Legend has it that these pixies have nest around Chiag Mai... if we could only get the funding to mount an expedition to capture a breeding pair, we'd be rich, RICH!

BREAKING NEWS: The Thai cooking pirates have struck again! Doing some research for this entry I discover that Laab is actually LAOTIAN. A pirates life yo ho indeed!

Anyway, this recipe is one that is actually pretty easy, it doesn't require any crazy ingredients and you don't have to pre-prepare any strange pastes by means of heathen moonlight rituals. Which is good.

Leet Pr0k Laab

INGREDIENTS

600g Minced Pr0k
1 Bunch Coriander (roughly chopped
1/4 Bunch Thai Basil (or normal basil will do for this dish)
2 Red Capsicums (diced)
3 Long Red Chilis (seeded I'd recommend, then chopped finely)
3 Bok Choi (just the leaves, roughly shredded)
4 Shallots (Cut finely, the white bits and the green bits separate)
Fish Sauce
5 Limes (juiced)
1 tablespoon Ginger (minced finely)
8 Kaffir Lime Leaves
2 cloves garlic (crushed)
Lemongrass (bruised and tied in a knot)
1 Tablespoon Tamarind Paste
Brown Sugar

OK the trick to this recipe is to make it super stinky and nasty a the start, then add all the other ingredients and get Thai Cooking Pixie to take away the bad smells. First up, cut up all the ingredients so everything is ready to throw in.

Heat your wok and brown the Prok. Ha that rhymes. Throw in the lemongrass, but don't cook it too fast, add the Kaffir lime leaves, and uh... add about 2 tablespoons of fish sauce and the juice of one lime. I can't think of anything to rhyme with leaves, so from here you need to reduce the fluid that comes out of the Pr0k, while letting it absorb the flavour of the Lime, Kaffir leaves, lemongrass, ginger, garlic, tamarind paste and fish sauce. You'll need to cook it for about 15 minutes on a low heat.

Once the Pr0k has reduced and is quite dry it's time to add the other ingredients. First up throw in the white parts of the shallots, and let them cook for a bit. Add another lime and 2 tablespoons of fish sauce at this point. After a minute or two, add the diced capsicum and chili, 3/4 of the coriander and the basil. The recipe is now safe to taste. If it's too salty, add some brown sugar until it's more palatable.

Cook for a further minute, the rest of the lime, more fish sauce, the bok choi and the green parts of the shallots. Once the Bok choi is wilted you're ready to serve! Garnish with the remaining coriander and serve over white rice. There shouldn't be too much fluid with this dish, but it will be very strongly flavoured, and if the Thai Cooking Pixies have done their work, super tasty :)

 

 

Bob's your Uncle Laksa

Posted on the 16th of March at 04:36 pm (2009)


Apparently this recipe was first put together by Dave Swarbrick back in 1973 and featured in the classic Fairport Convention cookbook entitled "Old, New, Borrowed, Thai". Most famously it was covered by the Pogues in their 1985 collection "Rum, Sodomy and authentic Thai cooking for the Modern Kitchen", and remains popular favorite at the Cropredy Folk Cook-out.

All right, all right... I'll stop with the pointlessly obscure folk music references and get on to the actual recipe. This one was donated by my Uncle, who is as you may have guessed, named Bob. I've got no idea where he got it from, no doubt some long haired bearded druid dreamed it up while covered in mud and filled with LSD at a folk music festival and Bob just happened to be standing nearby a pen and paper. The insane babblings of this chemically altered madman seem to have been genius though, because the recipe is great.

In typical Leet Eats style, it's not enough to get Laksa paste out of a jar like most "Authentic Traditional" Thai restaurants, we have to make it from scratch for MAXIMUM Leetness!

I'm told that this recipe only works if made by a Folk Musician, Bolshevik or a Unionist... luckily one of our Leet Eats team works for the NSW Nurses Association

INGREDIENTS

Laksa Paste

Six Shallots
1 tablespoon Grated Ginger
3-4 cloves of crushed garlic
2 stalks of lemon grass
6 Dried Chilies
8 Ground Macadamia nuts
1 teaspoon of shrimp paste
1 Handful of Vietnamese Mint (or long leaf mint)
1 handful of Coriander leaves
2 Kaffir Lime leaves
1 teaspoon tumberic
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon cumin
1 Tablespoon of fish sauce
1 Lime (zest and juice)
1 teaspoon of sesame oil

Laksa Soup

100g Rice Vermicelli
300g Hokkien Noodles
10 Portions of Fried Tofu
8 Pr0ns per person (de-veined and shelled... leave the tails on)
500g Chicken breast (or thigh)
2 Liters of Chicken Stock
500ml Coconut Milk
2 Teaspoons Brown suger
1 teaspoon Salt
5 Kaffir Lime Leaves
1 cup Bean Sprouts
1 cucumber (cut into matchsticks)
Fresh Mint and Coriander and lime and Sambal to garnish


Yes, this recipe is SUPER Leet - how could it not be with that many ingredients!?!? Luckily the actual preparation isn't too difficult. The paste itself is so simple even the most baked of hippies could manage it after getting home from a Jefferson Airplane concert. Take all the ingredients, giggle at the purple elephants climbing the wall, and chop them up finely. Grab your handy food processor and blend into a paste, adding fish sauce or sesame oil if it gets too dry.

Get your noodles ready, de-vein the pr0ns and cook the chicken before you start making the soup. - you don't actually cook anything in the soup so make sure everything is pretty much ready to eat (except for the Pr0ns).

Now, turn your range hood on for the next bit... the first thing you need to do is fry the paste. Try not to let it smoke too much, because with all the chili it will have about the same effect as mustard gas! Once it's nice and browned take off your gas mask and add the chicken stock, sugar and salt. Bring the soup to the boil - this is the only time you'll boil it! Reduce the heat and add the coconut milk and kaffir lime leaves. Once it's heated up and mixed in, add the chicken, tofu and the Pr0ns. The Pr0ns will take only a minute or so to cook, so you'll want to get the bowls ready.

Add the cooked noodles to the bowls and sprinkle some beans sprouts over the top. Pour the soup over the top, making sure everyone has EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT OF PR0NS to avoid conflict later. Put the cucumber slices down one side, and sprinkle coriander and a bit of mint over the top. Take the lime and fish sauce to the table, you can add these to taste. If you're lucky enough to have some Sambal add it too!

Leet Eats - mk II

Well it's been ages since I updated the old Leet Eats site, but with a lot of cooking happening over the past few weeks it's inspired me to start posting again. The old live journal site was pretty ropey and to be honest I think that the things that we're cooking are a little better than they were 5 years ago, so this is a good opportunity to start afresh. I'll make sure some of the better recipes move over to this site too...
Looks like the blogger interface and functionality is MUCH better. Oh yeah, photo hosting on the actual blog site rather than remote storage and linking. Awesome!

Original Leet Eats found here: http://leet-eats.livejournal.com/