Sunday, January 25, 2009

Anzac Biscuit Recipe

These biscuits were made for the men fighting in World War 1.

Easy as to make!!

Makes about 26
1 cup plain flour (125g/4oz)
2/3 cup sugar (160g/5 and a half oz)
1 cup rolled oats (100 g/ 3.5 oz)
1 cup desiccated coconut (90 g/3oz)
125 g butter (4oz)
1/4 cup golden syrup (90g/3oz)
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Preheat the oven to 180 celcius (350 F/Gas 4). Line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Sift the flour, sugar into large mixing bowl. Add the rolled oats and coconut and make a well in the centre.

Put the butter and syrup in pan. Stir over low heat until melted. Dissolve the soda in 1 tablespoon water) then add immediately to the butter ixture, it will foam up. Poir into the well in the dry ingrediants and stir well.

Drop level tablespoons of the mixture onto the tray, flatten gently with your fingers as they spread. Bake for 20 mins or until just browned.
Remove from the oven and transfer to wire rack to cool.

Now if they are a little soft to touch, that's fine they are sometimes soft, sometimes hard, if you leave them too long in the oven they will burn, they set once they are out of the oven.
Will keep in an airtight container for 3 days.
(you can use treacle or honey instead, but golden syrup is best in my opinion)
Instant or 1- minute oats may also be used.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Chicken with parmesan and prosciutto

Lorne asked for the recipe so here it is :)
This serves 2. I do one chicken breast for each person.

30-50gms parmesan cheese
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme (you could use dry but it wouldn't be as yummy I don't think :P )
2 skinless chicken breasts
freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon
6 slices prosciutto
olive oil

To prepare your chicken
Grate parmesan (if you didn't buy it already grated). Pick thyme leaves off the stalks.
Now, I usually cut the breast carefully in half (butterfly it so that the its still all one piece but a little flatter). *** (see bottom) Carefully score the underside of the breasts criss cross style. Sprinkle over most of the thyme leaves over the breasts. Grate a little lemon zest over them and sprinkle with parmesan. Lay 3 prosciutto slices on each chicken breast, overlapping them slightly. Drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle over remaining Thyme leaves. **** Now Jamie likes drama and he says to cover the breasts with clingwrap and whack them with the bottom of a fry pan to get them thin. What I do is this- I just hit them with a mallet and flatten them out.

To cook chicken
Put a frying pan (or grill) over medium heat. Transfer the chicken breast to the pan and put it prosciutto side down. Drizzle over some olive oil. Cook for 3-4 mins each side, giving the ham side some extra time to get crisp if needed. I find that I need about 5-6 mins each side to cook the whole way through.

To serve
either cut up into strips, or leave whole, serve with a wedge of lemon.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Yummy chicken

Last night I made another Jamie recipe. It's like chicken schnitzel but with parsley and garlic crust. It was sooooo good. I made it all from scratch with my new food processor too :)

I didn't take any pics of it though :( Silly me!!

What you need is

I doctored the recipe as I was using 3 chicken breasts (so that was for the 4 of us).
2 cloves of garlic
1 lemon
10 jacobs cream crackers (if you google you will see what type they are, in Australia we have an alternative to that)
50g buter
6 sprigs fresh flat leaf parsely (or continental as some call it)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Flour (if you add flour to your chicken before you dip it in egg)
Eggs for dipping
olive oil
chicken breasts (this is for 3).


Skin your breast if it isn't already done so and butterfly it or cut like you would do for schnitzel.

Pell garlic and zest the lemon. Put crackers into food processor (I guess if you bash them a bit before hand a blender could do it) with the butter, garlic, parsley, lemon zest and pinch of salt and pepper). Whiz until very fine, pour onto plate.
sprkinkle flour onto another plate, put eggs into a bowl and beat with fork.
bash your chicken so its flat
dip the chicken in the flour (if you don't want to you don't have to) then into the egg and then into the flavoured crumbs, making sure the crumbs stick nice and good.


To cook you can bake or fry. If baking preheat oven to highest emp and place chicken on baking tray for 15 mins. If frying (I fry) put fry pan on medium heat, add some olive oil and cook breast 5 mins or so on each side until cooked through.
Serve with wedge of lemon. We had ours with salad and mashed potato.
YUM!!

Monday, January 5, 2009

Jamie Oliver is my cooking hero :P

I LOVE Jamie. Have since he was that young guy who we thought was weird dancing around his kitchen saying "pukka" and calling olive oil his mate and things. but MAN can THAT GUY COOK!! Seriously. I don't know anyone who doesn't have atleast one of his cookbooks or watched his show and not had saliva watering from their mouths. He's quite popular here in Australia. Sydney has one of his restaurants, which I would LOVE to go to one day.

For Christmas I got "Ministry of Food" cook book. The show was just FANTASTIC. He took a bunch of ordinary people (none who could cook or eat right) from a town and taught them simple, yet OH SO DELICIOUS meals they could cook for their family. The catch was with each recipe they had to "pass it on" to others. His hope was that the whole town would be cooking nutritious and delicious meals. Well he had to do some tweaking of his grand design, but it turned out pretty successful. Even I was proud of them all at the end :)

By far my favourite dish is the chicken with parmesan and thyme and covered with proscuitto. Mmmmmmmm. So quick and simple, yet leaves you wanting more. I like to serve that with either roast vegies or his carrots in a bag or dressed asparagus.

Here is a link to his site so you can find out more and see some examples of recipes.
http://www.jamieoliver.com/