The end of Faking It

I am now finished cooking my way through Faking It - I have made 13 recipes from the book, 11 savoury and 2 desserts. 

Summary:

• I wouldn't make the desserts again - neither turned out the way they looked in the book, and there didn't seem to be enough mixture created by either recipe
• The mushroom risoni is likely to become a regular dish in my house - super easy, super tasty.  I just make 3/ 4 of the recipe for a stand alone meal for the 2 of us (or if I serve it with meat of some sort I then get some leftovers for lunch the next day)
• The salmon roulade tasted fantastic, and looked super impressive too
• The stroganoff was phenomonal - I would happily make a vegetarian pasta dish by leaving out the beef and adding some fresh tomato mixture to the sauce for a delicious dinner
• I would put the cajun fish and the stuffed mushrooms on the boring side of the spectrum - unlikely to make either again.

Have to spend some time in front of the cookbook shelf and figure out what to cook from next - considering one (or all) of either Bill Granger or Jamie Oliver's books, or the new Australian Gourmet Traveller cookbook G received for Christmas from my mum.

Fettucine with sausage and peas

Again, a lot of modifications.  Firstly, I don't love pork (ham, bacon, roast pork, pork sausages - all of it counts) so I replaced the pork sausages with chicken sausages.  Also, you are supposed to squeeze the meat out of the casings and make meatballs, which I did in the meatball soup recipe, but didn't repeat here.  I simply cut the sausages into 'meatball sized chunks' and cooked them.  Secondly, my dislike of pork is eclipsed by my dislike of peas, so I replaced them with diced asparagus.  I otherwise complied with the recipe instructions. 

Now, the dish is not the most attractive one in the book (predominantly white and pale green) so I had low expectations appearance wise, and they were not surpassed.

However, the taste was amazing (once I added a bit of pepper!).

Gnocchi cottage pies

I have modified this recipe a lot!  Firstly, I didn't make the mince mixture as required in the book.  That recipe called for 12 ingredients - several of which I didn't have.  So I swapped the following:

• beef mince for lamb
• left out the pancetta - and replaced the flavour with seasonings
• used more stock and left out the red wine
• altered the seasonings a lot - recipe asks for thyme and bay leaves, whereas I used oregano, basil, chilli and parsley
• I used carrot (as the recipe said) and more vegies - zucchini and mushrooms

I then used olive oil on top of the gnocchi before I sprinkled on parmesan.  So simply, my version of the recipe is cook a delicious mince mixture, using whatever vegies and seasoning you like and then top it with cooked gnocchi and grated parmesan.  Into the oven for 30 minutes and you'll have a delicious dinner.

No bake chocolate tarts

This is basically a crushed biscuit base (food processor = super quick) with ganache poured on top, and is absolutely delicious.

That is not to say that the recipe was faultless.  In line with my experience with the chocolate torte the recipe did not produce enough mixture - either of the biscuit base or of the ganache.

For the base:  I needed a little more biscuit, and a lot more liquid (golden syrup and butter).  In the end the tarts did not hold together terribly well.

For the ganache: I should have made more - the tarts were not as full as I would have liked.

All said and done, the tarts were delicious.

Japanese Prawn, pickled vegetable and noodle salad

For starters, I don't love prawns.  So I did my bowl with cubed bits of ling (not the best choice) and G had his with what he said were super delicious tiger prawns, and the prawns do make it look nicer (and more like the picture in Faking It).

Simple to do, but takes a while as you need to marinate the cucumber and carrot in the rice vinegar and brown sugar syrup for at least an hour.  The sweetness of the vegetables (which I let marinate for about 90 minutes) was beautifully balanced out by the salty dressing pured over the salad at the end. 

Modifications?  Aside from the fish/prawn modification I used snow peas, not snow pea sprouts, and I added a squeeze of lime at the end. 

Chicken meatball tomato soup

The name for the recipe makes it sound far more complicated than it really is.  You make the 'meatballs' by squeezing sausage meat into meatballs. 

The receipe then calls for a multitude of saucepans - to cook the soup, to cook the meatballs and to cook the pasta.  I don't like to use that many pots and pans unless the recipe is crazily complicated so I didn't.  (It's not even that I do the washing; when I cook, G washes).

So I did the tomato soup - using a combination of passata and fresh tomatoes as we didn't have any canned tomatoes.  I cooked the pasta in the soup, and fried the meatballs in a pan, before serving them on top of the soup. 

Lesson - add more liquid to the soup than is called for in the recipe if you are going to cook the pasta in it - the pasta really soaks up the liquid!

Stuffed field mushrooms with pesto

I accidentally bought green olive tapenade, rather than basil pesto.  Other than that, the only modification was that I used panko breadcrumbs (japanese) rather than the sourdough ones (a function of what was available in the pantry).  I did add the chopped up mushroom stems into the filling; my philosophy is the more mushrooms the better!

It was super easy to make - the filling is entirely done in the food processor, so if you don't have one then doing it by hand would be time consuming.  Then you just pile it in to the mushrooms and bake the mushrooms in a pan with some cherry tomatoes.  I ended up baking the mushrooms for a little longer than the recipe calls for (8 - 10 minutes, I gave them 12 minutes). 

Also, mine did not look anywhere near as pretty as the spread in Faking It, but tasted pretty good.

One lesson I learned from this one - you can't put a regular serve on a plate and make it look good - I added another mushroom (the recipe calls for 2 per person as a main) once I had taken the photo so I could get a somewhat decent photo for the blog!

The new beef stroganoff

I have never really enjoyed beef stroganoff, but I love mushrooms so I thought the recipe in Faking It would be worth a try.  It was fantastic, the peppery beef was great, and the mushroom sauce was amazing. 

My modifications: I used a collection of mushrooms (oysters, shitake and buttons, not just swiss brown) and use more than the recipe called for (did I mention that I love mushrooms???). I also used porcini fettucine, not plain egg noodles.  Finally, I used some of the liquid from rehydrating the shitake mushrooms in place of some of the beef stock. 

The recipe was pretty simple to follow, and I did follow it almost exactly. I would definitely make this again - am keen to make the mushroom sauce part for some pasta tonight.

Smoked trout burgers

Yum, I loved smoked trout (or smoked salmon) and I love asparagus.  These burgers are super easy to make in my food processor, basically, throw ingredients in the food processor in the designated order and pulse until combined.   Then shape the mixture into burger patties, cover and chill for 30 minutes.  While that was chilling mixing together the asparagus tzatziki is simple - blanch the asparagus, shred it (except for the tips) and mix that shredded asparagus into some natural yoghurt, along with some salt, pepper and mint. Delicious.

Because I prefer vegetables to bread I just used half a burger bun (for the bottom) and then topped the burger with some mushrooms and potatoes.

The burger was delicious, a great smoky, fishy flavour  The asparagus tzatziki was good too - I like mine quite lemony, so I added some lemon juice in, which definitely worked with the fish.

Cajun fish with corn and avacado salsa

Confession - I used a pre-made spice rub.  I did not mix the marinade as directed, though it douns delicious.  Why did I cheat? Firstly, I have had the (unopened) spice rub in the pantry for the last couple of months and really wanted to try it.  Secondly,  I don't love cumin and probably wouldn't have used the rest of the jar.

In Faking It the cajun fish is accompanied by a small spoonful of the salsa.  However I am a big believer in vegetables and I think that you should eat more vegetables than protein, so I added some ingredients to the salsa to make it a salad/salsa.  I added olives, snow pea sprouts and tomato.  I used mint, instead of coriander, which was a great substitute. On the salad/salsa I splashed a little EVO and lemon juice and cracked some black pepper over the top (there is enough salt in the olives that extra salt is not needed).  

I didn't do the sour cream 'dressing' on the fish (sour cream diluted with a little hot water) because I wanted the fish to be spicy!

Chocolate Torte

Wow, what a weird recipe.  This torte is basically a cooked base (1/3 of the mixture + a tablespoon of breadcrumbs) topped with mousse (the other 2/3 of the mixture).

Modifications? Not really, because I do believe that baking is a science and should be followed as written, however I did use Japanese panko (breadcrumbs) rather than standard ones - a function of what was in the pantry!

I used a springform pan that was a slightly different size (by 1cm) - the springform pans I own are 19cm and 23cm; the recipe calls for a 22cm pan.  1/3 of the mixture was not quite enough to make the base, so I added a couple of tablespoons of the reserved mixture so there was enough.

The base took 25 minutes to bake (the upper end of the time frame given in the recipe) so with an older oven it would probably take longer.  As it was so thin it didn't take long to cool all the way through, even though that has to be done in the pan.

Then I brought the reserved mixture back up to room temperature and piped it on.  In the book the torte is then dusted with cocoa, but I did icing sugar which I think also looks good.

My gripe? That the mousse topping did not look nearly as rich and chocolatey as it does in the book.  This is the second chocolate dessert that I have made from this book (the other was many months ago) and again, it doesn't look like the picture.  Usually I wouldn't be too fussed, but the savoury dishes have generally looked much like the book, so I am surprised that the desserts don't.

Would I make this again? Probably not.  It was very sweet and really looks like it comes from the 1980's - not that I was eating dessert then!  Actually, it is acknowledged that there was a version of this dessert in Vogue Entertaining & Travel in the 1980's!

Oregano Chicken on (bean and) olive salad

The version from Faking It to your right.  My problem with it? The beans - and that was the only problem. 

The marinade on the chicken is fantastic - the chicken was so flavourful, a really great balance on sharp lemon juice with a short kick of chilli (maybe a little more chilli next time for G's palate). 

I made the bean and olive salad with the recipe-required olives and potatoes, and I added tomatoes and mushrooms.  I made the dressing for the salad with the exact same ingredients I used for the chicken marinade, which really carried the flavours through. 

In true Maggie style I had to add something green - some fresh basil from the hydropantry we are minding for our neighbours (the same neighbours own the tomato plant). 

Also, I think all food looks best on plain white (where possible) so pretty much all my crockery is white (on the inside/presentation side at least!)

I did cheat a bit - I used tinned potatoes.  I also changed the olives from black to green, a function of what was available in the pantry.  Oh, and the 'chilli' was really a spice mix that was chilli, oregano and saffron - and totally worked.  Moral of the story - use what you have rather than buy more things that take up space in the fridge/pantry

Sushi rice bowl

This is a dish I knew of as 'chiraishi zushi' in Japan.  In Japan it's basically the rice then layered with ingredients you would normally find in the middle of a sushi roll.  In Faking It it is a rice base, topped with 'japanese' ingredients, like tofu, black sesame seeds and nori (with cucumber and snow pea sprouts), with a dressing of citrus, rice vinegar and soy sauce.  In Japan I typically ate chiraishi zushi that had sashimi tuna or salmon, shredded omelette, spring onion and salmon caviar.

My version? A rice base, the dressing from Faking It, carrot, corn, snow pea sprouts, avacado, pickled ginger and a fillet of salmon on top.  Delicious. Though it did make me miss Japan..

Sesame Salmon Roulades (without the mango/papaya salad)

I just made a sesame salmon roulade for my dinner - with some greens (asparagus/broc) and some salad.  Those who know me, know that I love salad.  I think salad should be served with every meal.  I had to be talked out of serving salad, with curry, to G's 2 male cousins (aged 17 and 20 at the time).  I like big salads with lots of different ingredients that become the meal, not a side.  I use whatever is fresh in our fridge and supplement with tinned things as required (corn kernels, tuna chunks).  I like to take salad to work for lunch, and I serve at practically every dinner.  So although I didn't want to make the mango/papaya salad that is supposed to accompany this salmon I knew it had to have salad of some sort!

The hardest part was taking the skin off the fish - because none of my knives are really pointy enough, but I got through it.  Then I cut the fillet so it was long - key here is to buy a skinny, but tall, fillet.  Season, and roll up and just hold together with a skewer or two.

Then you cover each side of the roll with sesame seeds (just by laying the fillet on the seeds in a saucer) and drizzle with some EVO.  1 minute each side in a fry pan on med-high, no extra oil needed.  Then throw the pan into an oven, pre-heated to 170 degrees.  Just make sure your pan is oven proof.  If you don't have an oven proof pan you will have to transfer the salmon into some kind of baking dish, probably metal so it heats up as quickly as the pan would, and put that in the oven.

5 minutes in the oven, a couple of minutes resting and then you're done.

Simple but with super effective presentation.  The rolling/skewer combination with the golden crust of sesame seeds makes this dish look pretty impressive - and looks like it took far more time than it really did.  Although this works best cooked and served immediately I think that this would be excellent for a dinner party, just because it looks so good!

Porcini-dusted lamb with cheat's mushroom "risotto"

The first recipe I cooked from 'Faking It' was the porcini-dusted lamb with cheat's mushroom "risotto".  Firstly, the substitutions: I cooked kangaroo steaks, not lamb, as that's what we had, I used a variety of mushrooms, not just swiss brown, I used all stock, no white wine and I used parsley and chives (to serve) rather than rocket.

This is the layout in the book - and definitely supports my earlier comments about the fantastic photos of the final dishes in this book.

The lamb/roo is simple - brush with oil, dust with porcini powder and cook as you like it.  With lamb I would cook it medium to medium-well, but with roo it is better to stay on the medium side, so that's what I did (which meant the thicker steak ended up medium-rare, which G prefers).

The 'cheat' in the title is that the risotto is actually risoni cooked in the absorption method that is usually reserved for rice.  Start by cooking the mushrooms, some garlic and some herbs in the olive oil.  After a few mins add the risoni and liquid (stock in my case) and cook by the absorption method.

After resting the meat for a few minutes I sliced it, and served it on top of the risoni.

I should have sliced the meat more thickly - and then it would have looked more like the picture in the book!

The tomato on the side is home-grown. We are currently minding a neighbour's tomato and herb plants and were told to help ourselves.  Luckily for us a tomato ripened and was absolutely delicious.  I never realised how good home-grown tomatoes could taste, even compared to the decent tomatoes we normally buy at the green grocer.  I just dripped on a little EVO and scattered some chopped chives and parsley.

Verdict on the dish: the risoni was really tasty, though could have done with some more pepper.  The porcini powder on the roo really tied in a deep mushroom flavour and held the 2 parts together.  Definitely would make this again - and the leftover risoni (deliberately cooked too much) was delicious at lunch the next day!