Category Archives: Recipes – All About – Tried and Tested

Cooking for Family and Friends

LA PORCHETTA

La Porchetta is a popular pork roast in Italy and one I enjoy doing every so often

RECIPE

Use a whole pork belly, the easiest way to make a good Porchetta. Use one with either skin off or on, whatever your preference is.

Mix a handful each of chopped Rosemary and Parsley

Half a handful of chopped fresh wild Fennel fonts and seeds

6 – 8 chopped Cloves of Garlic

Salt and Pepper to taste

Chilli if you like

Mix all the above ingredients and layer it evenly on top of the flat pork belly. Roll it tightly and bind well with string and then slip it into tight fitting netting

Cover with baking paper and then with aluminium foil. Make sure the foil is well closed, including the ends. Poke holes through the wrapping which will allow he fat to escape when roasting.

Lay the wrapped Porchetta on a wire rack which sits over a oven pan. Put water in the pan, but it should not touch the Porchetta. Place this into a pre heated oven at 250 C and bake for 3 hours without touching the Porchetta, but make sure there is always water in the tray

After three hours, remove the Porchetta from the oven and carefully unwrap it and cut and remove the strings and netting

Now place it back in the preheated oven at 250C with the oven’s airflow turned on. Watch it carefully forming a crust / crackling which should take 10 – 15 minutes. Turn it over and do the same on the other side.

You can either use a belly with the skin removed which obviously will not have the skin crackling, or you can use it with the skin on, which will give you wonderful crackling

ENJOY !!!

Do not forget a few glasses of home made RED WINE to wash it all down!!

DAILY BREAD

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The recipe that my family likes most is a combination of organic Wholemeal Wheat Flour and ordinary White Sifted Wheat Flour. Even though I mill both these products, I only sell the Organic Wholemeal Wheat Flour as the white sifted is too slow and laborious to make for selling and there are many good nutritious and healthy recipes for 100 % Wholemeal Wheat Flour 

350 g Wholemeal Wheat Flour

350 g White Sifted Wheat Flour

Mix well

or

What I use for every day bread

100 g Coarse Semolina

300 g Wholmeal Wheat Flour

300 g White Sifted Flour

Mix well

Take 450 g Luke Warm water and dissolve 25 g SUREBAKE Yeast and 20 g honey or molasses or sugar in it – mix well with a fork. Let it proof in a warm place for about 10 minutes

Mix about 25% of the flour mix into the water and yeast mixture and mix well with a fork. Let it proof in a warm place until double in size – about 90 minute depending on temperature

Now mix all the flour into the water and yeast mixture and start kneading – either by hand or machine, whichever you prefer. While kneading add 10 g salt and 50 ml olive oil. Knead VERY WELL until very elastic – add more flour or water to get the consistency just right (silky soft and shiny), even though in most cases it should not be required. If mixing by machine, knead for about 7 – 8 minutes. If kneading by hand it will take longer depending on your ability

Oil two standard size bread pans and put the kneaded dough into the pans, score the dough with a sharp knife and sprinkle with flour or brush with water or brush with egg

Let it proof until 3 times the size – about 2 -3 hours depending on the temperature

Bake in oven at 225 C for 20 minutes, turn the pans and bake at 190 C for 20 minutes, turn the pans and bake at 190 C (bottom element only this time) for another 10 minutes (adjust the times that suit your specific oven)

ENJOY !!!!

BRESAOLA

Bresaola and Biltong are the two pure beef Salumi I regularly make. Winter is always busy, getting enough Salumi processed for the rest of the year. This week I made both Bresaola and Biltong

RECIPE

Get yourself a good quality Beef Silverside and cut decent chunks of steaks for the Bresaola (About 250 mm long and 100 mm in diameter). Remove all sinew and fat and leave clean cut surfaces on all sides. Dry the meat well.

Mix the following spices together (Quantities for 1 Kg of meat)

28 g Salt

7 g Brown Sugar

3 Juniper Berries – Crushed

1 Glove – Crushed

2 Cloves of Garlic – Finely chopped

2 Dry Bay Leave – Crushed

3 g Black Pepper – Ground

1 g Nutmeg – Grated

1 g Cinnamon – Crushed

Mix the spices well and rub thoroughly into the meat. Place the spiced meat covered in the fridge for 5 days and turn and rub twice daily. You can also use a food bag for this as it allows for easy mixing and the meat is always covered.

After 5 days, remove the meat from the fridge and wash thoroughly in cold running water and then rinse with a good white wine, then dry the meat properly – The photo above is at this stage of the processing.

Now comes the fun part. Wrap the meat in natural sheep casings. If you are lucky enough, you may find a large enough Salame casing and you can just slip it inside, provided it is a tight fit. I cut the casings open and carefully wrap it around the meat and tie it down with string. Make sure there are no exposed meat. You can now either tie it down further or slip it into a stretchable meat netting, which I did.

Prick very well on all sides and hang the Bresaola in a cool place of about 15 C for 3 days and then hang inside the fridge until ready to use, which may be about 100 days. I am fortunate that my pantry is well ventilated and always a couple degrees lower than the ambient temperature and I hang my Bresaola there and not wasting fridge space. Dunedin being cool during June, July and August and my well ventilated pantry with average temperatures of less than 10 C at all the times, which is ideal, makes the perfect curing house. As my curing temperatures are about 6 C, my Salumi cures a bit faster than in the fridge. Make sure you do not have wind (draft) over the meat as it will cause case drying and rotting in the core. Well ventilated without drafts is very important.

I made 5 Bresaola, starting with 11 Kg meat in total and after cleaning the 5 was 7Kg in total. The 4 Kg meat, not used for Bresaola, was well used for minced meat and the sinew, excess fat and poorer quality cuts made wonderful beef stock

Bresaola is more than often part of my antipasto platters and goes down very well with a glass of HOME MADE RED WINE !! ENJOY !!

ITALIAN STAPLE DIET

SIMPLE NO KNEAD BREAD RECIPE

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It gives me great pleasure to bake different types of breads every few days. The one I am describing here is a low input, high success, bread that I “developed” when my Kitchen Aide broke down and I had to do ALL the kneading by hand

300 g Luke warm Water

24 g Dry Yeast (I use SUREBAKE)

1 Teaspoon of Honey

Wisk well

Cover and let it proof for 5 – 10 minutes until the yeast has formed some foam on the top

100 g Whole Wheat Bread Flour (Home milled) and mix with a spatula

Cover and let it proof for 1 hour

300 g Flour (Use either more Whole Wheat Flour or a combination of whole and refined Wheat Flour to suit your taste

2 level Teaspoons of Salt

3 Tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Mix very well with Spatula

Cover and let it proof for 1 hour

Mix well with Spatula, or hands, and form the bread, use extra flour to keep it from sticking to your hands and place it in pre oiled bread pans. Dust the bread with more flour, or paint with egg or water, whatever you prefer

Cover and let it proof for 1 hour

Preheat the oven to 250C and place the bread in oven. Bake for 20 minutes

Turn the heat down to 190C and bake for another 10 minutes or until it suits your preference

ENJOY !!!