Are You Achin' For Some Bacon?

Happy New Year! Did everyone have a wonderful holiday? I am back in Sydney after a much needed break with my family in Orange. I had a fantastic time checking out my Aunt's beautiful veggie patch (post to come about that), eating waaay too much Christmas food, playing with Harry the Labrador and cooking up a storm with my loved ones.

So, you are probably wondering about that big ol' pile of bacon up there. Well, I am here to tell you that I made it, I actually made bacon and it was so delicious (even if I do say so myself)! It was a process that took me about a week and it was incredibly easy as most of the magic happened during the curing process where I didn't have to lift a finger.
I had been wanting to tackle a project like this for a while now and when I was doing a little preserve jar shopping before Christmas saw this recipe on the Redback Trading Company's website. I won't be posting the recipe because I pretty much made this to the letter and the amount of ingredients and smoking time really depends on the size of your pork belly. The link to the recipe is below.  Here is how I made it:

First I paid a visit to my local butcher to buy my piece of pork belly. My butcher is a very friendly chap and was more than happy to share some of the secrets that butchers have when it comes to bacon making. Most butchers cure their bacon by submerging it in a brining solution made up of sodium nitrite, salt, water and whatever flavours and spices they want to use. The brining process takes a couple of days and then it is pumped with water to make it appear bigger before being smoked and hung. The process I used is what is known as dry curing. This requires a smaller amount of sodium nitrite (curing salt), salt, maple syrup and other flavourings. Depending on the size of your meat, it can take a minimum of seven days to cure before smoking. The butcher was so lovely, he boned the pork belly for me and he even gave me a bag of the curing salt which was perfect as I had forgotten to sort this very important ingredient out and had no idea where to get it at such short notice! He was a little sceptical about my dry curing method but I was optimistic and keen to press on with it. 

Unfortunately, I forgot to ask the butcher to remove the skin, hence my mad butchering skills in the photo above. 

The next step was to make up the paste which consisted of the curing salt, sea salt, maple syrup, onion powder, garlic powder and white pepper. The amount of cure depended on the weight of my pork belly which was about 800g after the skin was removed.

I then rubbed the paste all over my pork belly and popped it into a zip lock bag and then squirrelled it away in the fridge. Each day I would redistribute the paste over the belly and massage it in to make sure the the curing was even and the paste didn't go to waste.

Fast forward seven days and a 3.5 hour car drive to Orange where there was a barbecue, a smoking box, wood chips and a Dad to help me with it all. The night before smoking it, I washed off the curing paste and chilled the pork belly in the fridge overnight.

We used a mixture of hickory and apple wood chips which had been soaked for about half an hour in water. The smoke box is not really necessary; you can get the same results from putting the wood chips into a parcel of heavy duty aluminium foil and poking holes into it to release the smoke.

First I had to dry the belly at around 60C for an hour to dry the surface out. Then I turned the heat down further (the lowest it would go) and added the smoke box to smoke for around 4 hours (even though my pork belly was only small, I wanted it to have a very smoky flavour). I also placed the meat on a rack at the opposite end of the barbecue to where the heat source was. The smoke box was placed directly on to the burner and I only had one burner on. Then I turned the heat up again to around 60C for another one and a half hours until the bacon became a nice smoky red colour.
After the epic smoke-a-thon was complete, I cooled my bacon for a couple of hours and then put it in the fridge uncovered overnight.

Ta da! Bacon everyone! As you can see, I sliced it up somewhat thickly. The best way I could think of eating this was fried and added to a freshly laid egg from my aunt's chickens on a roll that was made by my Mum. The best egg and bacon roll I have ever had. True story.

So if your achin' for some bacon, get cracking as it is too easy! As mentioned, the recipe for this can be found right here. 

Double-Choc Cherry Cobbler

So, after the pickling came some, er, cobbler-ing!

I was first introduced to cobblers by my friend Sarah who makes the most amazing peach cobbler. If this post was about peaches, I would be singing its praises from the rooftop and then some - but this is not the time for peaches. This is the time for cherries. Deeply dark and boozy cherries. For those that don’t know, a cobbler is a dish, usually sweet (and sometimes savoury) that consists of a fruit base with a cakey batter poured on top before being baked. The top puffs up and becomes golden and what you have left is hot, fragrant fruit below with soft, buttery cake on top.

Armed with this peach cobbler recipe, I was keen to do a little adapting. In the peach recipe, the peaches are marinated in rum (best flavour combo ever) but with the cherries, I decided to soak these bad boys in brandy. Kirsch or even Calvados would work very nicely as well, I think.  You will have no idea unless you walk away from your computer and make this now (after reading this post, of course), how unbelievable the smell of fresh cherries are soaking in brandy. If you do know the smell, you would know how hard it is to restrain yourself from eating them with a spoon sitting on the kitchen floor in front of the fridge.

The top of the peach cobbler is a vanilla based batter, and while it would be great to have the cherry juices stain the blond cake, I think what we needed here was chocolate….and chocolate again. So I added some cocoa powder to the mix and then decided that more chocolate was the order of the day and added some choc chips as well.

The result was a deeply dark and rich dessert. Once you plunge your spoon past the warm cake to the dark, boozy cherries below, you know it is the festive season, a time for letting your hair down, enjoying fantastic food and drink with your friends and family.

Have a fantastic festive season everyone and thanks for reading my blog. See you in 2012 when I will be showing you something pretty cool I have been working on (here’s hoping it works out) and I will also have an update on my garlic that I have been growing. It's all very exciting for me anyway!

Cheers from The Littlest Anchovy

Double-Choc Cherry Cobbler

Loosely based on a recipe given to me by a friend for a peach cobbler.


For the cherry mix
About 600g of pitted and halved cherries
1/2 cup of sugar or less depending on how sweet you would like it
Good splash of brandy, kirsch or calvados
approx 1 tbs plain flour- this creates a sauce


Add all ingredients into a bowl, mix to combine and set aside for at least 1 hour to macerate.


For the cobbler
1 cup of self raising flour
1 1/2 tbs Dutch cocoa powder
about 1/2 cup of chopped dark choc chips
pinch of salt
1/2 cup of sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup of butter
3 tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

• Pre-heat the oven to 180-190C
• Sift the flour, cocoa and salt into a food processor, cut the butter into cubes and add them to the food processor. Blend until the flour looks a little like course almond meal. Don't worry if there are a few larger peices of butter in there, this adds to the flakiness. 
• In a seperate bowl, beat the egg with the sugar until it is thick, then beat in the vanilla and milk.
• Fold the wet mix in with the dry mix along with the chopped choc-chips. Only mix until they are combined.

Divide the cherries amongst 4 ramekins or in one large baking dish. Spread the batter over the cherries. Don't worry about leaving gaps, it is great to have the cherry juice bubbling up. Bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes depending on your oven. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool slightly - be careful of the filling as it will be VERY hot! Dust with icing sugar once cooled.

Ta da!

Spiced Pickled Cherries

For me, one of the best things about Christmas lunch is the condiments. Where would the pudding be without the brandy sauce or (gasp) brandy butter? Where would turkey be without a generous dollop of cranberry sauce?  And let us not forget the little guys, the unsung heroes like mustard (seeded, Dijon and Hot English, if you please), horseradish cream and dipping sauces for prawns.

The condiments make a Christmas feast. They add pops of flavour to complement whatever protein you are inhaling and allow you to make that plate piled high with ham, prawns, turkey, beef, salad and veg your own.

When I was younger, my job for Christmas was to make two sauces for the prawns: Marie Rose and Dill Sauce. The Marie Rose sauce consisted of mayo, tomato sauce, Worcestershire, lemon juice, and pepper. All squirted in and mixed together, I would taste and add until  I had found the perfect balance. I took my job very, very seriously.  

I haven’t been given a job this year, you would think that I would have been given a challenging task like the pudding or maybe even a salad given that I started a food blog this year… but the menu had already been planned by my foodie family well in advance. “Menu, schmenu”, I thought, “I am going to contribute something anyway and they can all just smile and enjoy it”. And since it’s what I do, it was still  going to be a condiment; just a more grown up and sophisticated affair.

You see, I was given a mountain of cherries from work and (I kid you not) these were the biggest and juiciest cherries I had ever seen. I had to do something with them before I guzzled them all and when I saw a recipe for pickling cherries in last week’s ‘Good Living’, I knew what had to be done.

First I needed to get myself a cherry pitter. Now you are probably rolling your eyes at this point and thinking fabulous, another useless gadget to clog up my drawer, but just hear me out. I am so happy with my pitter, if I hadn’t bought it, it would have required hours of slicing through cherries to remove the stones; that or keeping a watchful eye on my family to make sure that nobody  breaks a tooth (it is hard to get into the dentists at this time of the year, trust me, I have tried). Not only that, it is actually very cathartic standing there, pitting cherries, glass of wine nearby and carols playing in the background…

This recipe is pretty much foolproof (once you have managed to find whole allspice) and you can get a little creative in terms of what spice you would like to use. For instance, the original recipe did not call for star anise but who can resist a little star anise at this time of the year? I also used brown sugar instead of white and added 100mls of verjuice.  I wish I had remembered to put in a cinnamon quill, that would have been good.  

Now let’s talk about jar sterilisation.  This is the most important step to take when preserving, especially when you are giving preserves away as gifts. There are a lot of tips out there on how to do this but here’s how I did it: First I washed them in hot, soapy water. Then I rinsed them off and left them in the sink. Next I boiled the kettle and tipped the boiling water over the jars , rubber rings and lids. Then I put the jars and the lids on a baking tray and put them in a medium oven to dry off. While all this was happening, I was making  the pickling liquid and once the jars were dry I was able to add the cherries straight into the jars and seal them. You are not supposed to add cold things to hot jars or hot things to cold jars when preserving so I added the cherries to the liquid in the saucepan to heat up rather than putting the cold cherries in the jar and then topping with the liquid.

So I have a jar to take with me to Orange to eat with the ham for Christmas lunch and two left for gifting. Will I be pickling again? You betcha. Did I use all the cherries on this project? Nope, not even close!

Tune in same place soon to see what I made next with them!

Spiced Pickled Cherries

Adapted from Caroline Velik's recipe in the SMH Good Living,13th December 2011 

325mls of white wine vinegar

100mls Verjuice

12 pepper corns

12 whole allspice

350 gm brown sugar

4 bay leaves

3 star anise

500g fresh cherries, pitted and left whole

Bring all ingredients except cherries, to boil in a small pot.  Turn off the heat and add the cherries, stir for a couple of minutes to warm them through. Spoon the cherries into your *sterilised jars, pour over the remaining liquid. Once the lids are on, turn the jars upside down to create a vacuum   Leave to pickle for a day before placing in the fridge.  Will keep indefinitely.

Goes beautifully with ham or pork! 

Kourabiedes

I was thinking to myself the other day  that it is about time I brought a little something in to the office. I mean, I cook and bake all these delicious (well, to me anyway) dishes yet nothing that is really suitable for taking on public transport and able to be munched on with our morning coffee. My office is a small one and they all know about this blog so I really don't think I have an excuse to not bring something in. 

So I made Kourabiedes (pronounced Kour-a-bee-er-thes), a traditional Greek shortbread that is eaten during times of celebration and mainly at Christmas time. Another reason for choosing to make these was because my boss (who is of Greek-Cypriot descent) had brought in some that his mother-in-law had made a few months ago and those particular biscuits were something else and I was curious to see if I could make them myself. Dense and crumbly all at the same time, they are a little morsel of heaven for the lips (but not for the hips). You see, what makes these biscuits so unbelievably moreish is the copious amount of butter that is used to make them. When I say copious, I mean a whole block of butter (well, that is what the recipe I used called for)!

There are so many recipes out there it was hard to decide which one to use. Some are filled with fruit and nuts, and some with cloves embedded in them but almost every recipe that I found contained alcohol. Traditionally Metaxa ( Greek brandy) or Ouzo is used. My boss told me that his father actually makes Tsipouro (made from grapes) which is added when his wife makes Kourabiedes. Of course, for all those teetotallers out there I don't think it is mandatory that you include alcohol; the taste is minimal and vanilla is also an addition that I found in a couple of recipes. 

So, as mentioned, with all the recipes and variations out there I began to feel overwhelmed. In the end I went with the one in the October 2011 Greek issue of Gourmet Traveller. I changed it a little.. but not much. For instance, instead of sprinkling rosewater onto the cooked biscuits; I added it into the mix, a happy mistake. And I also left the skin on the almonds (I just liked the speckled look it gave them). 

My colleagues loved them (well, that is what they said to my face!) and I was pleased to have brought something to the table for coffee time. I am also glad that I was able to have just one and leave the rest to the others because I don't think I could have been held responsible for my actions had I not brought them in to work. It's Christmas after all, share the butter I say!

Kourabiedes

Adapted from the October 2011 issue of Gourmet Traveller, original recipe also found here

110g Almonds, I used ones with the skin on.

250g unsalted butter, softened

80g sifted icing sugar, plus extra for dusting after

1 egg

20ml Ouzo

375g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

2 tsp rosewater

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line 2 baking sheets with baking paper.
2. In a separate pan, spread the almonds out and toast in the oven for about 4 minutes, shaking the tray occasionally, then set aside.
3. Finely chop the almonds in a food processor.
4. Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, then add the egg, ouzo and rosewater. 
5. Add the flour,almonds and baking powder, then combine. Be careful not to beat too much, just enough so that the mixture is fully incorporated.
6. Shape walnut sized balls into crescents and place on the baking tray.
7. Bake until light golden brown for about 15 to 20 minutes depending on your oven. 
8. transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to cool, then sprinkle a little rosewater over the biscuits and dust liberally with icing sugar.
9. Serve with a good coffee and a glass of water. 

Crispy Herb Flat-bread with White Bean and Garlic Dip

As December 1^st hit, we saw fair weather moustaches suddenly disappear from under the noses of countless Australian males (not to mention a collective sigh of relief from countless Australian women) and it was all for a very good cause. However, all this trimming, shaving and smooth upper-lips made me take a good look at the state of my potted herb garden.

Overgrown, tangled and threatening to go to seed, my herbs were in a sorry state of affairs. I like to think that I regularly dip in and out of my herb garden of an evening to sprinkle some fresh oregano into a tomato sauce, or add a few sprigs of rosemary to my lamb as much as the next home cook…but in reality this has not always been the case. 

During the working week in winter when it was dark and cold when I got in from work I would more often than not forget about my little garden sitting outside waiting for a haircut and instead flavour my meals via purchases from the grocery shop that I walk past on my way home. Even as I write this now I feel the prickly heat creeping up my neck to my ears that I get when I am feeling incredibly guilty about something.

I wish I had taken a photo of it before I cut it all away but I was so horrified that I had let them get into that state that the camera was forgotten. Let’s just say that if my herbs were a person, this is who they would look like .

To make matters slightly worse (but it gets better soon, I promise) during my moment of channelling this guy, I just tossed all the herbs together into the one basket: never to untangle again thanks to my intertwining lemon and regular thyme. Within the herby mass were purple sage, the aforementioned thyme brothers, oregano, mint, and some rosemary.

This event happened to coincide with a work afternoon tea that The Moustachioed Bearded Gamer was having at his work to celebrate the end of Movember and so I began to think; I had wanted to make some white bean dip for the holiday/party season for a little while now and adding some of my herbs to it would certainly be an idea.. but that still left a whole mound to contend with after that was done. So I began to research crispy flat–bread online with the hope of squirrelling some of my herbal goodness into there as well.

I found a very good recipe on Food.com that uses beer as a rising agent, which is something that we always have in the fridge.

What I loved about this recipe (apart from its simplicity) was the fact that it is so easily adaptable. I used thyme, sage, rosemary and oregano for this recipe, but next time I might have a go at using a stout beer (maybe with spelt or wholemeal flour) or sweeten it a little with some maple syrup.  Use whatever herb you fancy here (or don’t); that is what is so good about this. All you need to do is make sure you have a very hot oven with a very hot pan and have your ratio of dry to wet ingredients accurate.

I was worried that having herbs in both the dip and the crackers might be a little bit of overkill, but after we (TBG and I) tasted it, it was lovely - especially with the faint beer taste in the background and the garlic in the dip. The crew at TBG’s work seemed to like it too as there were no leftovers and I was pleased to have not let anything from my herb garden go to waste. Since the great herb garden haircut of 2011, I have been diligent in making sure that I try to add something from my garden to my dinner each night - I didn’t know what I was thinking before!

Crispy Herb Flat-bread with White Bean and Garlic Dip

Herb bread adapted from this recipe at www.food.com

For the crispy herb bread:

2 Cups of plain flour

Approx 2 tbs of finely chopped herbs - I used fresh thyme, sage, rosemary and oregano but dried herbs will work just as well here

2 Garlic clove

1 tsp salt

3/4 cup of beer

Olive oil to brush

Good quality sea salt to sprinkle on top

1. Pre-heat the oven with the baking sheet at 250C
2. Sift the flour and salt, then add the beer, garlic and herbs
3. With your hands, mix until you have a firm ball of dough
4. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and kneed for about 5 minutes
5. Roll the dough out as thinly as you can -the thinner the dough, the crispier the3 flat-bread
6. Carefully remove the baking sheet from the oven and place some baking paper on top
7. Again carefully place the flattened dough on the baking sheet- I fitted 2 rounds to the sheet
8. Brush with a little olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt flakes.
9. Bake for around 10 minutes but keep a close eye on it, you will see bubbles form.
10. When it is golden brown on top, remove from the oven and cool the flat-bread on a rack.
11. Repeat until all the dough is used.
12. Once cooled, crack the rounds into smaller shards, perfect for dipping.

For the dip:

2 cans of cannellini beans, rinsed under cold water and drained

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp finely chopped parsley

1 tsp finely chopped thyme

extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

1. Add the beans, minced garlic, parsley and thyme along with a drizzle of olive oil to a food processor, or use a stick blender and blend
2. Season with salt and pepper
3. check the consistency of the dip, carefully drizzle olive oil and blend until you have the consistency you like.

Transfer the dip into a bowl and arrange the flat bread around it. Serve and enjoy!