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Deep Fried Quail with Lemon and Anchovy Dipping Sauce

November 2, 2012 by Sam

I love quail and I love wing dings.

So I thought I would combine the two – well sort of. For those who don’t know wing dings are those little fried pieces of gold that you find in bain maries at servos across the country.

My local butcher always has a god supply of quail from Nubeena, so I grabbed half a doz on the weekend and had a bit of a fry up.

Ingredients:

6x Quail boned and quartered
1 1/2x Cups of Panko Bread Crumbs
1x Egg
2x Egg Yolks
1x Dash of Milk
1x Cup Seasoned Plain Flour

Sauce:

1 x Egg Yolks
1/3 Cup of Sunflower Seed Oil
3 Tbs Olive Oil
1x Tbs Anchovy Oil
1/2 Cup Sour Cream
1x Heaped Tsp Dijon Mustard
White Pepper and Salt to taste.
1x Tbs White Vinegar
Juice of Half a Lemon
3x Tbs Finely Chopped Parsley
10x Anchovy Fillets Finely Chopped (Really depends if you like anchovies or not and how strong they are)
The rind of 1/2 a preserved lemon very finely chopped
White pepper and Salt to taste

Method:

1. Coat quail pieces in flour and dust off excess. Then coat in beated egg and milk mixture and shake off excess. Then coat in breadcrumbs.
2. To make the sauce, in a electric beater combine; egg yolks, vinegar, lemon juice, pepper, and mustard. The very, very slowly add the oils while still whisking. Once the all the oil had been added you should have a nice mayonnaise. Then add the sour cream and combine.
3. To the sauce add the anchovies, parsley, preserved lemon peel and stir well. Let this sit for an hour or so – it is much better when it has been left to stand.
4. Just before you want to serve, heat up a pot of vegetable oil until about 180 degrees C I find on most stove tops use about 3/4 heat. Fry the quail until just golden. It should take 1-2min. If you think they might be under done just let site and they will keep cooking. Serve hot with the sauce.


Posted in Blog, Poultry · Tagged , , , · 3 Comments

Scallop Pasty with Saffron Pastry

October 17, 2012 by Sam

I’ve had the idea in my head for a while now to make and saffron puff pastry and use it for seafood pies – so I did. This is the first time I have made puff pastry from scratch. If you haven’t made it before I reckon don’t bother – it’s a pain in the arse – just buy it. However I suppose you have to make it if you want to put saffron in it.

Anyway….with the commercial scallop season maybe drawing to a close soon I thought I would make some scallop pasties.

For the Saffron Puff Pastry

Just use a standard puff recipe like this but into the iced water bleed around 10 saffron threads.

For the Filling

Ingredients:

250g Fresh Scallops
16x Spears of Asparagus
Juice and Zest of 1 Lemon
Pepper and Salt
Fresh Thyme
1 Cup of Grated Mozzarella

Method:

1. Roll the pastry flat to about 5mm thick and using a large soup bowl cut out circles of pastry.

2. On one side of the circle of pastry, leaving 1 cm around the edge for when you fold, place a little cheese, then 4 spears of asparagus cut to the length the of the pastry, 5 or 6 scallops, pepper and salt, a few thyme leaves, a sprinkling of lemon zest and a squeeze of lemon juice and a little more cheese.

3. Then wash with egg around the edge of the pastry, fold over, then press down with a fork to seal. Prick the top of the pasty to let steam out.

4. Refrigerate for half and hour then put in an oven at 200 C for about 25mins or until golden.

5. Serve with tomato relish – you might want to add a bit of extra vinegar to your relish as the pasty is pretty full on.

Makes 4




Posted in Blog, Fish · Tagged , , , · 7 Comments

Scallops on Trevalla with a Ham Hock Sauce and Tarragon Mushy Peas (Surf on Surf)

October 8, 2012 by Sam

It was Lottie’s birthday last week and she requested fish for tea so I made a very Tassie stay at home pub style meal – Surf on Surf – I think it was more for me than her in the end. Being winter/spring Tasmanian scallops and Trevalla are still available (I got mine from Mures) so I decided to to those with a ham hock sauce and some mushy peas.

Ham Hock Sauce
Ingredients:
1x Ham Hock
10x Spring Onions Roughly Chopped
3x Cloves of Garlic Chopped
2x Carrots – Chopped
2x Sticks of Celery – Chopped
2x Tbs Black Pepper Corns
10x Parsley Stalks
3x Bay Leaves
2x Sprigs of Thyme
6x Cups of Water
1x Cup White Wine
Salt
Zest of 1 Lemon
1/2 Cup Cream
Juice of 1 lemon

Method:
1. Soften everything (apart from the cream, lemon juice, wine and water) in a large pot in some oil for 15mins.
2. Then turn up the heat and add the white wine and water and bring to the boil. Then reduce to a simmer for 4-6hrs covered. Breaking up the ham hock as you go. Ad salt to taste.
3. Strain and reserve the liquid.
4. Take one cup of the liquid and reduce by half then add the cream and lemon juice simmer for 5min and set aside. You will have some stock left over – it makes a good soup base.

Ingredients
2x 180g Portions of Trevalla – Skin off
10x Scallops
Salt & Pepper
2x Cups of Peas
2x Tbs Chopped Tarragon
2x Tbs White Vinegar
1/2 Brown Onion Finely Chopped
1/3 Cup Cream
Knob of butter
Olive Oil

Method:
1. In a pot, soften the the onion until transparent. Then add the peas and tarragon and cook over a med. heat until done then add the cream and mash half really well and half so just smashed. Then add the vinegar and salt and pepper to taste.
2. Fry off the scallops in a pan very quickly in a little oil and pepper and salt and set aside. It should only take 1-2mins.
3. Then in the same pan cooked the Trevalla – that should only take approx 2mins each side.

Serve the fish on a bed of peas with scallops on top and a bit of the ham hock and lemon sauce. We also had ours with smashed new potatoes.


Posted in Blog, Fish · Tagged , , , , · 1 Comment

Honey Gravlax

September 11, 2012 by Sam

Last week one of my mates let me know that some more Atlantic salmon had escaped down the Huon. This was far too tempting so I rescheduled a couple of meeting and we headed down for sunrise. It was a pretty productive morning, we ended up with two salmon and one trout.

This recipe comes from playing around with some of the left over salmon from my last post. Sorry about the slightly shitty photo but I made this one down at our shack on Bruny Island and we were running late to catch the ferry home!

Ingredients
2x Fillets of Atlantic Salmon – Skin On and Pinned Boned
1 Cup on Honey at room temp
3/4 Cup of Sea Salt Flake
2 Tbs Cracked Black Pepper
1 Cup of Chopped Basil

Method
1. In a large tray sprinkle a little of the sea salt over the bottom then lay the fillets skin side down then evenly sprinkle the pepper, salt and honey and over them – in that order. Then evenly place the basil over the 2 fillets.
2. Then take one fillet and turn it 180 degrees so it is facing the opposite way and place it on the other fillet skin side up.
3. Wrap up in plastic wrap and place a chopping board on top of the salmon in the tray and weights on top of the chopping board. Cans of soup, beers etc work well.
4. Place in the fridge and leave for 24hrs and then turn. Put back in the fridge for another 24hrs. It should take about 2 days but keep an eye on it – it depends on the size of the fillets. You know it is done when the tail bits start to go a little rubbery.
5. Then wash off all the salt and honey under fresh water, pat dry and a little more pepper and pop it back in the fridge on a plate uncovered for about a day to dry it out a little – you could do it in a cool spot in the open I suppose.

To Serve
My favorite thing in the world is gravlax and scrambled eggs so I highly recommend that. This time I some crumbled blue cheese in with the eggs – the sharpness of the cheese worked well with the honey. Or with a dill and lemon mayo and pickles on some crisp bread.


Posted in Blog, Fish · Tagged , , , , · 8 Comments

Lemon Curd filled Doughnuts

August 23, 2012 by Catherine

Fresh lemons are in season right now and that makes me pretty excited, as they are one of my favourite flavours (along with basil, mint, vanilla etc!). We sadly don’t have a fruit producing lemon tree (yet) but luckily one of the ladies at work kindly brought in several bags of them from her tree and I scooped up quite a few for last weekends cooking. I think they are meyer lemons and they are almost orange in colour and so juicy.

So what to do with a load of lemons, besides lemonade (which I made this weekend as well, great with vodka)…….make lemon curd and pipe it into the middle of fluffy soft doughnuts!

The last time I made doughnuts they were yeast free, but I was feeling more confident this time around and wanted them to be lighter and fluffier. It takes a little time and the lemon curd is best made a day in advance, but well worth the time I think and they are perfect for a grey afternoon tea treat.

To make the lemon curd:
2 lemons – zested and juiced
80g sugar
90g butter
4 egg yolks (I used fresh ones from my uncles chickens)

Put the lemon juice, zest, sugar and butter into a saucepan on low heat until the sugar and butter melt. Remove from the stove top.

In a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks, then add them to the saucepan and whisk vigorously. Return the pan to the low heat and whisk continuously as the curd starts to thicken. Once the curd thickens, remove from the heat. Pass the curd through a sieve into a bowl then cover the cud directly with glad wrap and put in the fridge overnight.

To make the doughnuts I used Donna Hay’s recipe I made them slightly larger sized so the mixture yielded 12. You will need to have the oil a bit cooler so they cook slower and right through.

Coat the warm doughnuts in sugar then fill a piping bag, with a small round nozzle, with the lemon curd.


Posted in Blog, Sweet · Tagged , , , · 8 Comments
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