a kitchen disaster post

Since I started my current job late last year I've managed to wow the crowds with my culinary outings, from my famous Italian style pate, to a lovely chestnut tart, a rhubarb and raspberry crumble cake and a gigantic slab of baklava.

Tomorrow we're having lunch to say farewell to a departing fellow servant of the state.

In my head I had fantastic pastry. Mini shepherds pies and gorgeous lentil pasties. So I came briskly home from work to set upon the pastry. First thing to do was get that brand new packet of plain flour out of the pantry.

Hang on. How long have they been printing 'self raising' on plain flour?

Crap.

Ok, ok, don't panic. There's a bit in the plain flour container, and you have some pizza flour and some of the really cheap stuff that you use for dusting. OK, 5gm short. Hurrah.

mmmmm.... not so hurrah. After it's rested, it's dry and crumbly and I have awful trouble rolling it out. I make a couple of the pies, and decide to leave that, it's just too hard to get the dough into the mini muffin tins. Stick with the pasties.

I had made the most wonderful lentil curry on the weekend, so I set about cutting out circles of the less than perfect pastry. I should have stuck with the pies. Ever time I went to crimp the pasties, the dough broke and the curry leaked out, if I managed to get a circle of dough that was thin enough in the first place.

These are some of the better specimens

However, this is what most of them looked like.

I could have dealt with it if they tasted good, but the lentils had dried out and the pastry was way to short. It was like a mouthful of chalk.

Panic! Out come all my standard books, something with self raising flour,and not too much butter, as I'm running low on that too. Why can't I find anything with self raising flour!!!!!

Then I realise I have what I need for banana cake. Hardly revolutionary, but at least I won't go empty handed.

OK, flour, sugar, eggs, butter, bananas, milk. All set. Cream the butter and sugar. Hey this doesn't look right.

Of course it doesn't you dim-wit, because you've put in the flour, not the sugar.

Having used the last of the butter I have no choice other than to press on and mix it to within an inch of it's life. When I put it in the pan it had big chunks of butter still sitting in it. It's out now,and looks OK, but I think I'll cut it and try it before I leave tomorrow, just in case I have to face the ignominy of stopping at the shops on the way.

So, what started out as a sparkling clean kitchen and dreams of glory, ended with not one, but potentially three failed dishes and a kitchen that looks like this.

Worst thing is, as I was cleaning up I found another packet of butter in the fridge.

food and history - a delicious meal

haven't been posting much, but am probably going to make up for it now, because this proves to be a long one.

started by breakfast at the store today with JC and Jess the Elder. Was too tired to really enjoy myself, as some bright spark decided to put the movie Troy on last night, starting at 10.30 which meant that it was almost 1.00am by the time it finished.

I loooove Troy. and as a history nerd, i have other history nerd friends who have issues with this. and i should warn you, if you ever get the chance, never see an 'historical' ancient film with me - don't. i spend the whole movie saying things like 'thessalonians didn't wear torques', or 'sparta's not on the coast', or 'they wouldn't have had those types of columns in troy'.

i can be very tiresome most of the time.

but it's a stonking, rip snorter of a film. only the thinnest thread of relation to the homeric story (i note in the movie patrokolas is brad pitt's cousin, not is lover) but i think brad pitt makes a fantastic achilles, and eric banna a brilliant hector and the movement and the colour and even the sounds are just how i've always imagined this time in history - something i'm sure a lot of you have not given any thought to at all.

but the whole point of this very rambling film critique is to emphasise that i was tired.

after a very large plate of bacon and eggs and a second coffee please, i rode to my mothers to make pasties.

i've always known that i have scottish/viking heritage on my father's side, and welsh and german on my mothers. but it turns out that my great-grandfather (my mother's paternal grandfather) was part cornish and a great pasty maker.

originally pasties were made for cornish miners, and the big bit of crust was used as a 'handle' so that they could eat them after coming up from the pit, and sometimes they would be savoury one end and sweet the other. they're still popular in australia, particularly in south australia where there is a big cornish population.

so today we tried out my family's pasty recipe:
Filling

¾ lb steak (0.34kg)

1 lb peeled potatoes (0.45 kg)

1 onion

1 swede

1 tspn salt

¼ tspn pepper

1 tplsn finely chopped parsley

4 tblspn water

pastry

1 ½ lbs plain flour (0.68 kg)

1 pinch salt

Squeeze lemon juice

¾ lb lard or dripping (0.34 kg)

2 ½ - 3 gills (1/¼ - 1½ cups) water (2 gills = 1 cup)

Cut meat into small pieces. Add vegetables chopped fine and seasoning. Just before putting on pasty add water.

Sift together flour and salt. Rub in shortening with fingertips and make well in centre. Add lemon juice and cold water and mix to a stiff paste using a knife. Do not make too damp or pastry will be hard. Form into a ball and knead lightly on a lightly floured board, rest in cool place for 30 minutes then roll to required shape

cut out circles from the pastry using a side plate as a template. add a good quantity of filling, moisted the edges before folding into a half circle, and crimping the edges to seal. brush with egg or milk to glaze.

you should get 10-12 pasties out of this

bake at 220 degrees for about 30-40 minutes, or until the pastry is a rich golden colour and the filling hot.

we had a bit of pastry left over, so we filled it with apples, sultanas, apricot jam and little brown sugar to make a tart for afters. because obviously we hadn't had enough fat in our day to that point.

now, the health fanatics amongst you are going ooooooowwwwwwwhhhh... dripping. well, yah boo sucks to you, because it made a lovely pastry, and to be honest a lot of the fat cooked out and into the pan in the oven. they were truly lovely. i can not recommend them highly enough.

you will also notice that the pictures in this post are much better than the ones you usually get from me. this would be down to the fact that as i have the darkest kitchen in the world, my mother does not and there's a lot more natural light to work with.

hurrah!