Tonight I'm in Wollongong for Christmas and I told the old-man I would cook dinner, I've had this idea to do stuffed calamari for a while so I went to the Fairy Meadow shops to stock up on supplies. I got some squid heads and prawns at the seafood market and a bunch of salad materials and set to work. First job, give dad a beer and tell him to just let go of the grilling reins tonight! I made a paste of corriander, chilli, oil and lime zest and stuffed it into the squid heads. Leaving them to marinade I made a big salad with rocket, spinach, beetroot, carrot, bean shoots, corriander, chilli, mint, cucumber, tomatoes and corn. Then, using a BBQ grill plate I cooked all the seafood. After the seafood was cooked through, approx 7-10 minutes on high. I sliced up the squid heads and voila! Calamari!!! For the dressing on the salad I used a red wine vinegar, sweet chilli sauce and fish sauce. It was a really yummy dinner!! "Delicious! A smorgasbord for the senses" - Mark Anderson, 21st December 2013
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What a great way to spend a Sunday, watching cricket in air conditioned comfort and cooking pizza! Recipe for this base has been posted previously, if your keen. A brewski would be good too, but it was a late one last night at a XMAS party, so I'm being good today. The party was themed 'the literal interpretation of a band' I went as the 'Captain and Taneille', and my man friend went as 'Daddy Cool'. Piccy below :) This one is pretty simple, take 1 spud per person at the dinner table and slice off 1 side, so that when you cook the spud it sits flat and doesn't roll about like a jerk. Then cut slits across the surface of the spud leaving about half a centimeter attached at the base. Then wrap the spud in foil, leaving the top open so you can chuck in a wedge of butter, some garlic and pancetta to taste, fold up the top of the foil and place in the BBQ. I cooked them for 1.5 hours at 170 degrees celsius. Very good! You could put some cheese on them for the last 10 minutes for an extra treat! Xox Ps... A spud is a potato and 'Sunday best' means keep the skin on!! The start of any good cake... For the quick step recipe please see the end of this blog. For the rambling conncoction of my afternoon read on!! This morning was the first morning I woke up and didn't have to go to work!! Woo hoo!! After Matt left to go fishing at 10 am I started cleaning our apartment realizing how awesome apartment living is because the cleaning only takes 1 hour or so. At about 1 pm I made some lunch (ham, salad and jarlsberg cheese sandwhich) poured myself a glass of wine and set to combing through the recipes books for something new... I decide on a lime cake because for some reason there is sour cream in it which I couldn't understand.... So this is what happenned. I first creamed the sugar and butter. Then got to work zesting a lime on the grater. I thought why not be different and video tape this BBQ extravaganza, so while I was artfully filming myself grating said lime I got distracted by myself and ended up grating my thumb!!! Owwwww! Might leave that one for a while... Anyway so the rest of the prep went well, no more accidents or stuff-ups.... I was playing ministry of sounds chill out sessions and enjoying the air conditioning, because the wet season is kicking in.. Like last night our balcony furniture started flying around the balcony... I thought I was going to end up in OZ seeing a wizard (and being all like, hi James Franco - your hot) but it's okay it calmed down and I didn't need the glittery red slippers. I buttered up my new plastic cake tin this time - it's red ... No glitter though... Again I'm placing the cake tin to the side of the heating elements, I find no direct heat underneath the cake tin gets the best results! This is the view that the BBQ has, you'll see the tide is going out right now. No surf though... Sad face! While waiting For my cake to cook and typing this blog I've been enjoying an icy cold Matso's Ginger Beer from Broome in the Kimberley of Northern Australia... Some would argue whether Broome is really more like the upper north shore of the Pilbarra....? No...? My adaption from Gwyneth Watkins recipe in the CWA Classics - Australia Cookbook!
Results... I forked it and it came out clean! Check out the smooth finish from my plastic mould!! Ripper cake! Smashing taste! Watch out Darwin show! Take care of yourselves, and your BBQ's! Righto, I'm back this weekend, I've settled into my new job and ready to kick some BBQ butt this Sunday! I made these scones from my CWA WA recipe book, which to be honest is a little light on instructions But in line with my style of writing a recipe it leaves a lot of room for changes and creativity. With scones you want to knead them as little as possible so they stay light and fluffy, and t he dough should be rolled out on a lightly floured surface, I did it on wax paper and the dough kept sticking. The rounds should be cut to about 4cm in height and placed 1 cm apart from each other on a tray lined with foil and baking paper.. When cooking scones in the BBQ you want to preheat the BBQ to anywhere between 220 and 250 degrees celsius and rotate the tray once. As pictured try not to place the scones directly over the heat while cooking, cut them in half and serve them up with jam and cream for a delicious snack. Yum yum yum I made this meal tonight for my man-friend as he has been working hard all week and deserved a yummy meal, this is one of his favorites! Lamb Kofta - Aussie BBQ style! Ingredients - Kofta Meat Balls
Ingredients - Tzatziki Sauce
Method: I don't like to commit too strongly to measurements in my recipes, as things can change based on what you have in the fridge or on the balcony or in the pantry... like this arvo our basil plant needed a trim so I chucked a bunch of it in the kofta... Not quite a traditional kofta but good for not wasting anything. I mixed the following ingredients in this kofta:
Then roll it into balls about 3 cm in diametre. I used the perri perri sauce because it was in the fridge and I prefer to use sauce to hold mince together not eggs... I read somewhere that you shouldn't use eggs in meatballs, but blow me down I can't remember where! Do you know? Could it be Heston? I listen to most of what he says..... For the Tzatziki I used:
Mix this all together in a bowl - if it's your first time watch the garlic, it can be overpowering, remember you can always add more but it's tricky to remove once its in there... Then I chopped up some salad and openned a pack of Lebanese bread. For cooking the meatballs I shallow fried them on the side burner of the BBQ. It was pretty easy, I put 1 cm of light oil in the bottom of the pan and kept the meatballs moving every 30 seconds (don't forget to dispose of your oil properly - do not chuck it down the sink!). Plus watch out for the splatter, it burns like hot oil surprisingly enough... Place all the elements together on a platter for serving if you want it to look special - otherwise do as I do and save washing up by presenting it on a wooden chopping board. Yatzee! Yummy dinner!! We followed this meal up with a furry friend each! Best Aussie choccies ever!! It rained in Darwin tonight, which is great because it means the wet season is coming. Till next time - BBQ well my friends! These delightful treats are great, and pretty easy to make! I started by cutting the tops of the capsicums removing the membranes and placing them in boiling salted water for 5 minutes. Then you drain them and set to the side. Now set the BBQ to about 150 degrees (300 fahrenheit). Then I made a vegetable/meat medley mixture for the inside using sautéed garlic, onion, sweet potato (yams), asparagas and chorizo. After removing this from the heat I then added chickpeas, tomatoes, feta and basil. You can now spoon the mixture into the capsicums and place in the BBQ. A stuffed capsicum is probably enough for 1 person, but I fried up some perri perri chicken as well, because I was cooking for 2 men. I baked these in the BBQ for about 30 minutes, or until the capsicums are slightly crispy in places. Enjoy, and be creative!! Dirty BBQ? If you don't have your handy paint scraper to clean the BBQ.... Not to worry, cut a lemon or lime in half and rub it into the grill plate. Leave it for 5 minutes and then use some paper towel and wipe that bad boy clean! So I had BBQ Procuitto Banana Pizza tonight! The main reason for this was because I forgot to buy canned pineapple at the supermarket - doh!. But yes, that's right, I'm a massive ham and pineapple pizza fan, I know this doesn't sit right with about 50% of the population (in OZ) but it's cool! Here is my pizza base recipe:
Mix that business together and let it sit for 30 minutes, or if you live on the tropics (like Darwin) you don't need to wait just grab a rolling pin, roll it out and place it on a pizza stone! Do not place your pizza stone in water EVER!!! The reason it cooks so good is because it is a dry hot heat. My pizza stone looks dirty and gross but it is still cooking an awesome pizza so who cares? Preheat the BBQ to 180 deg. C. (350 deg. F.) and cook for about 20 minutes. You can choose whatever topping you want, The main trick I live by is 2 types of meat, 2 types of cheese and something fancy! This pizza pictured is proscuitto and ham, feta and motzarella and banana. Xox what's you favorite?? -the BBQ baker Remember - every BBQ has a personality! I apologise for my lack of BBQ blogging - this last weekend I've had some delightful friends up from Sydney and Top End touring was in order! We went on a croc jumping tour and saw some buffalo, then ate some buffalo, then had all you can eat seafood in Cullen Bay and I was so exhausted and full that instead of cooking a sweet ass Mint Slice Cake from twitter handle @stephcookie from RaspberriCupcakes.com I fell asleep on my lounge. So as soon as I give it a crack next weekend, you will be able to read all about it! Also something weird happenned, I sold my car 'grimey' a ford festiva trio to a farmer out in the rural area thinking I would never see him again, but he is parked out the front right now!!! Has this ever happenned to you??? Anyhow, keep sizzling you hotties! -the BBQ baker Spent today showing off the NT to good mates up from Sydney! Buffalo and croc country, followed up with a buffalo snag with kakadu plum sauce Here is my really quick recipe for these delightful treats. 125 grams butter 1/2 cup caster sugar 2 eggs 2 ripe bananas 2 tablespoons honey Handful of almonds (flaked) 1 cup self raising flour 1 cup almond meal Instructions: Preheat BBQ to 180 degrees Celsius. Mix butter and sugar with a stick blender. Whisk eggs add to mix. Mash banana add to mix. Add honey, then stir all the yumminess in. Add flour and almond meal, mix together with flaked almonds. Place in flexi tray. I placed the grill plate over the 2 elements that where turned to off, with only the 2 'protected' elements on. Bake for 30 minutes, rotating once. Enjoy the tastiness!! My work colleagues will confirm the tastiness... "These are yummy, really moist" Success with the flexi-tray! I made these today, I call them Cakecups, because it was cake mixture in a cupcake tray!! Hi BBQ Fans, Since last Sunday’s epic failure of BBQ White Choc-Chip and Raspberry Cupcakes I have been brooding over whether I should wait until I found a fix for my cupcakes or just blog about what a disaster they were! So I took it to the streets – the streets of Darwin – the streets of Facebook - the people wanted the details …. ‘Stuff waiting for a fix’ they cried, ‘what should I avoid doing if I bake your potentially delicious cupcakes tonight?’ blared the punters on Mitchell Street and in the internet machine. So here is the story – fully illustrated with a fair bit of ramble… First things first, find a kick-ass basic cupcake recipe and add your own cool vibe to make the recipe yours. I used Joyce Goos ‘Feather Patty Cakes’ recipe taken from my CWA (Country Women’s Association) cookbook and decided to add some white chocolate and raspberries to the mixture to give it some extra sugar – because let’s face it…. 1xcup (250 grams) of processed sugar really isn’t enough to get the heart started.* Next, I followed the recipe, marvelling at this concoction of butter and sugar…** Then I added some white chocolate (cut up into chunks) and forgot entirely about my plan to put raspberries into the cupcakes…. In hindsight, this was probably the beginning of the end, because this is where things started going wrong. I mixed the crap out of all the ingredients in my sweet stainless steel bowl with my big red spoon, stood back and congratulated myself on my amazingness at creating such a delicious cupcake batter. Then, realising I had not pre-heated the BBQ or prepared my cupcake tray…… I went hunting for the patty cases I thought I had tucked away somewhere…. 20 minutes later, after pre-heating the BBQ, tying my hair up, checking myself out in the mirror (in case I needed to take a victory photo of me with my cupcakes) and dusted the telly, I couldn’t find 1 patty case – let alone the 12 required to fill my cupcake tray. Considering that this was my genius plan to keep the cupcake batter from direct contact with the metal and avoiding burning the cupcakes – you would’ve thought I’d have been more prepared…. You would’ve thought….. So with no cases or motivation to go to the store I did what I could to salvage the situation, I dropped the temperature of the BBQ to 150 Degrees Celsius and buttered up the cupcake tray***, then I exported the batter into the slots on my metal cupcake tray which fits 12 cupcakes..... After realising I had enough batter for 18 – Doh! Probably should've read the recipe properly instead of skimming it - no matter, I just scooped more into each slot. Anyhoo, while I pretend to wait for these cupcakes to cook this is where you can learn something about BBQ baking, the recipe says to cook the cupcakes at 180 Degrees Celsius for 30 minutes, I cooked mine at 150 Degrees Celsius (lower than the recipe) for 15 minutes, rotated the tray and then cooked for a further 10 minutes – a total of 25 minutes in the hooded BBQ Burner. In hindsight if I cooked the cupcakes again in a metal tray I would have cooked them for the 30 minutes on 120 degrees, rotating the tray 4 times. I have no catering or cooking degrees but I think in my year of cooking cakes on the BBQ that I’ve noticed a definite difference in the temperature of the BBQ compared to a regular oven, if in doubt, go lower than the recipe says, or just don’t trust the thermometer… Anyway – you’ve read through enough of my ramblings to deserve this picture…. Of my amazing, mega-failure Cupcake disaster!!! Oh yeah, and if my cupcakes couldn’t get any uglier looking I decided to add the forgotten raspberries to my butter cream icing on a couple of the survivors of the Patty Cake Disaster of 2013…. **** I think they look worse….. There is light at the end of the BBQ tunnel, I’m going to give it another crack this weekend for my UK Twitter friend National Cupcake Week @CupcakeWeek who writes about the fifth National Cupcake Week run from 16-22 September 2013, organised by British Baker magazine it celebrates this glorious sweet bakery product www.nationalcupcakeweek.co.uk AND FINALLY: To Robert Schuller who according to some internet machine website said ‘What would you attempt to barbecue if you knew you could not fail?’ I say ‘I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying’ Wish me luck for next time!! -the BBQ baker *Eat cupcakes with side dish of 100 sit-ups! **Again – take another dose of 100 sit-ups just from having the balls to mix this concoction. ***More butter!!! Why would you do this to yourself!!! That’s 300 sit-ups now! ****if you have never made butter cream icing – look this shiz up – you’ll be doing sit-ups for the rest of the day – but hey, if your BBQ recipe works then you deserve a treat, so tuck in – yum yum! Here is a quick and easy recipe for when you have too many spuds (potato's) left over and you just want a quick and easy dinner on a saturday. and yes... I may be posting this recipe instead of my White-choc-chip muffins because I met some BBQing related complications :( Full details of the disaster with photos coming soon - but i want to figure out a fix before sharing..... i'll start by buying a non-metal muffin tin and some paddy cake cases! Anyway here is something i didn't stuff up - happy BBQ Baking! Ingredients:
Pre-heated the BBQ to about 180 degrees celcius OR (incase you use farenheit instead, i'll include a BBQ language for you.... If you have 4 knobs on your BBQ like me .... turn 2 knobs to low, 1 to medium & leave 1 off. Also - make sure you have taken out the hotplate - leaving only the grill plate in the centre of your hooded BBQ. Now for the cooking I have one of those fantastic slicers that cuts stuff into wafer sizes pieces which I used to cut up the potato and onion.... Man that thing is great - i don't even know how i ended up with one but i love it! Then (after you spray the tin with a bit of oil or butter I created 3 levels of layers in my baking dish of potato, onion, bacon & cheese (You don't have to pre cook the bacon, just cut it up small and it will bake with the cream). Then in a seperate bowl pour 300ml of cream and crush in the 2 cloves of garlic, stir this together with salt and pepper. Now pour the cream over the baking dish, place more cheese on top, cover with al-foil and place in the BBQ (on the grill plate which you have moved to the middle). I left this all to bake for about 1 and a half hours, taking the foil off with about 10 minutes to go. I then cooked some Buffalo Snags on the side burner and chucked a green salad together and YATZEE - Dinner! Okay, fine! So maybe i didn't make a green salad... but i probably should have....
xoxox TATA - the BBQ baker! As I lie here in bed pondering the awesomeness that today (a Saturday) could bring.... My main thoughts are
Today is going to be a good day! - the BBQ baker Spending the next couple of days in meetings, life's tough! I'm getting inspired to bake some seafood soon. Hi, I’m Taneille and i'm the BBQ baker from the Top End, Australia.
I'm an amateur cook who loves to bake, I've even won a few awards for my cakes and slices in local Agricultural shows BUT..... mid-2012 I moved to Darwin and moved into an apartment without an oven…!!! So I’ve been teaching myself to cook everything (including cakes and cupcakes) in my 4-burner hooded BBQ – ‘The Down Under’. Darwin is tropical and the weather is extremely humid so cooking outdoors really keeps the house cool – I hope you enjoy my blog of easy recipes and cakes that you can cook on your BBQ. |
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AuthorHi, I’m T. |