Comfort Carbonara

Who doesn't like a nice hot pasta dish at the end of a stressful day or week? Ultimate comfort food. All the carbs. All the cheese. All the bacon. All the carbs. Omg, carbs.

So when I finished my university exams for the semester, naturally I hit up my old faithful comfort food, Carbonara.

As with anything worth cooking, first you start with the Bacon.

Personally, I only use Havoc Free Range bacon. They're a lovely medium sized business run down here in Dunedin. They take fantastic care of their pigs and their bacon is the best I have ever tried. Ever. Chop it up into wee bits and chuck it in a nice hot frying pan. Leave the fat on, because that renders down in lieu of using any oil. Let it start getting browned and slightly crispy. Now, if you were doing a traditional Carbonara, you would only add bacon and some black pepper to the dish. But I am not doing this completely traditionally. In fact, I have developed a taste for some decidedly non traditional ingredients.

So in goes the asparagus. Chopped into inch long pieces, don't stress about the strangely strong taste taking over the dish. Rather, the asparagus takes on the smokiness of the bacon, and if you let it crisp golden on the outside, it takes on a beautifully caramelised sweet flavor that complements the whole dish perfectly.

At some stage during this process, you probably ought to pop on your pasta to boil. The whole thing takes a lot quicker than you would think and by the time the spaghetti is ready everything else is done, too.

Throw in some mushrooms, and while you're at it, throw in a few more. Don't bother chopping them up ally finely, just rip them up. This avoids any bruising and they taste far better nearing the end. Top all this with copious amounts of black pepper. By now the smell should be making your mouth create an unseemly amount of drool creeping down your chin. So good.

Now for what many people think of as the scary part. But it's super easy and it works every time, I promise you. No more buying the weak, slimy carbonara from a can - yuk! Do it yourself like this. Grab one nice big egg and separate the yolk from the white. You only need the yolk for this. Save the white to make a nice meringue for dessert. Or an egg white omelette for a power breakfast, if you're that kind of person. Pop the yolk into a small bowl or cup.

When your pasta has cooked, scoop out a decent half to 3/4 cup of the starchy cooking water before you go and drain it all down the kitchen sink. Add it to the egg yolk and give it a nice whisk with a fork til it's well combined. This has multiple purposes. The added water makes enough liquid for a decent amount of sauce. The starchiness of the water after having cooked the pasta in it makes the sauce cling to the ingredients of the dish so you don't end up with bland ingredients at the top of the bowl and a puddle of sauce down the bottom. And the heat of the water tempers the egg yolk so that when you add it to the hot ingredients, it actually makes a sauce instead of scrambling.

So chuck in your spaghetti, pour in the tempered egg yolk and throw in a good large handful of grated Parmesan cheese. Now is not a time to skimp. You're already eating enough calories for twelve people with this dish, so you may as well make it count. Get your tongs and just keep lifting and combining the spaghetti until it's one glorious, delicious mess. Then serve it all up and enjoy.

A Taste of Your Own Venison - Venison Stroganoff

For the life of me, I can't understand why people would buy those packets of dried flavoring for a Beef Strog when it's one of the easiest dishes you could possibly make. It's so hearty and delicious, it should be in everybody's repertoire.

Learn to make your strog from scratch and you'll never use one of these packets again.

Generally this is done with beef, but with an abundance of wild venison currently in the freezer, I figured the richness of the meat would compliment this recipe well. I was so right. It's delicious. Apparently in Russia it's common to substitute with pork if they don't have beef on hand, as well. So while I haven't tried it that way myself, feel free to mix things up a bit.

Things NOT to change - your pan and your butter. Cook this in a cast iron frying pan - nothing nonstick! You want all the crispy goodness from the meat on the bottom of the pan when you come to deglazing it, and you just don't get that in a non stick frying pan. And if you use any kind of oil instead of butter, it just won't taste the same. It will have a weak tasting, greasy film instead of being creamy and deeply flavored.

For this recipe you're going to need:

• a generous knob of butter
• an onion
• a generous handful of mushrooms
• about 400g of the meat you are using, in this case venison, cut into bite sized chunks
• one or two bay leaves
• 1 tsp wholegrain mustard
• about 1/2 a cup of brandy - or if you don't cook with alcohol use apple cider vinegar
• a cup of beef stock
• sour cream

Cook your chopped up onions in the butter til they start turning translucent. Drop in your bayleaves and mustard, and then add your meat. Keep the skillet on a medium-high heat so that the meat doesn't start sweating. You're not looking to steam your meat here. You want it to stick to the pan a little, leaving a lovely dark brown coating that releases its amazing flavor when you add your brandy or ACV. Scrape the bottom of your pan with your spatula as you add it to get up all those delicious sticky bits and then add your stock. Tear your mushrooms into chunks and drop them in as well. I say tear them rather than cutting them, because cutting down on a musroom even with a sharp knife can bruise them a bit. Just get your fingers dirty and rip them up. Let everything simmer a wee bit til the mushrooms are cooked through and only add the sour cream when you're just about to serve. Lashings of the stuff. Delicious. Serve it all up on a bed of rice; or if you want to go traditional, mashed potatoes and dill gherkins. Yum.

Magic Cake is Magic

This is one of those recipes I keep seeing everywhere, and I think to myself how awesome it looks, but I never get around to actually making it. And to be honest, the way all those eggs and the milk separate into three amazing layers seems like witchcraft. How could that possibly work?

Well, I'm here to tell you that it does work, and it's delicious.

Well, sort of. As you can see from this picture, mine turned out rather flat. The mixture before it goes into the oven is very runny. And I put it into a round cake pan with a drop out bottom. Half the mixture seeped out the bottom and now my oven smells like burnt custard every time I switch it on. If you try it, definitely follow directions and just cook it in a square pan already. Don't try and be creative like me.

But even with the seepage, the mix did what it's supposed to do. The bottom is a dense, slightly chewy custard, with a thin layer of warm custardy goodness that separates it from the light as air sponge with a top that is just crispy enough.

So here's the recipe.

• 4 large eggs, separated
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp Vanilla Essence
• 125g butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 3/4 cup plain flour
• 2 cups milk
• Icing sugar, to finish

1. STEP 1

   Preheat oven to 160C, grease with cooking spray or butter a square cake. Use a square cake tin. USE A SQUARE CAKE TIN.

2. STEP 2

   Combine egg yolks and sugar and give it a good whisk until light and creamy. I choose to whisk by hand, you can use your beater if you like Add Vanilla Essence and cooled, melted butter, mix until combined.

3. STEP 3

   Add flour and mix until just combined. Place half of the milk in a microwave safe jug and microwave for 60 seconds until warm. Add remaining cold milk to jug so that the milk is lukewarm. Whicking gently, gradually add milk to egg mixture in a steady stream, mixing until fully combined.

4. STEP 4

   In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the milk mixture using a spatula. Mix until combined then add remaining egg whites 1/3 at a time and mix gently until no clumps of egg white remain, but the mixture is still light and bubbly. The mixture will be the consistency of thin, watery custard. Don't stress. As long as you're not using a round cake tin, it will be fine!

5. STEP 5

   Pour mixture into greased tray, gently smooth the surface with a spatula and bake for 45 minutes. During baking it may puff up at the sides - do not remove from oven, just allow it to bake the full period. Leave it to fully cool in the tin, then refrigerate and cut into squares to serve.

I'm Crazy Pho You!

I've never been to Vietnam, so suffice to say that I have never really tasted Pho in all it's authentic goodness. But I'd like to think that after going to a few Vietnamese restaurants and the trial and error of going through several recipes, that my version comes pretty close.

Pho is so simple, it practically cooks itself. You can easily pop in it the slow cooker in the morning and have delicious, delicious magical soup waiting for you after work. The recipe I'm sharing with you today is based in a pot and cooks for about an hour, but really the longer you can cook it the better. You want to really leech the goodness out of the beef bones. Yum.

I apologise for the photo quality, but please be assured that this is infact a pot of beef marrow bones. This is pretty much the cheapest thing to cook up ever - these bones cost me less than $2 for a pot of soup that will give me three massive bowls full. I'll be eating it 'pho' days, haha. Ugh. Nevermind. If you can't find them in the freezer section in your supermarket, ask at the counter. Or better yet, support your local small butcher; the price wont be much different and you're helping a local business instead of a massive corporation.

So anyway, stick those suckers in the bottom of your pot and top with the following:

• One roughly chopped onion. Most recipes just ask you to chop it in half so you can remove it when everything is done cooking, but I like bits in my Pho, so I chop it roughly and leave it in.
• Three cloves of garlic, also roughly chopped. I can't impress enough the need to use local garlic grown near you! Not that nasty bleached imported from China stuff. You can tell the difference because local garlic will generally still have roots attached and wont be unnaturally white! You will taste the difference and never go back, I promise.
• Two whole Star Anise.I know cooking with Star Anise can be scary, but I promise it doesn't make everything taste like Aniseed. When used in a soup like this, it imparts a very subtle smoky sweet taste that you can't replicate with anything else. Embrace the Star Anise.
• Five nice long slices of fresh Ginger. Don't use ginger paste, gross.
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons of Fish Sauce. Bottles of this are pretty cheap, with maybe a couple of dollars between the cheapest and the best. Go for the good stuff.
• 1 Tablespoon of Sesame Oil
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons of Soy Sauce - again, do yourself a favour and don't skimp on quality. It really is worth the investment.
• The juice of one fresh lime.

• Now top the pot up with water so it covers the bones and other ingredients nicely, with maybe an inch extra over that height. Get the water temperature up to a nice roiling simmer and then turn it right down low with a lid on, so it just happily cooks away for an hour or longer. The longer the better.

• Every half an hour or so if you're doing it in a pot, just give it a check and skim off any of the scum that rises to the top as it tends to hold the toxins from any fatty tissues left on the meat.

• See floating scum pictured above.
• When things have been simmering away for a few hours, just use some tongs to pluck out the ginger and star anise. Then grab out the bones with the tongs and use a couple of forks to separate the meat off the bones and add the meat back into the soup.
• Then for the last 15min to half an hour of cooking, it's time to add the last ingredients.

• Recipes say to add 1/4 cup of Sriracha but I tend to just gob in a couple of squirts. It maybe works out to just over a tablespoon or so. Enough to give it some warmth without overwhleming the other delicate flavours.
• The juice of another lime
• Some chopped up leafy greens - I've used Shang Hai, but you can use spinach, kale, Bok Choi... what ever takes your fancy
• A teaspoon of salt
• About five minutes before serving throw in your rice noodles and two finely diced spring onions and a nice big handful of finely chopped coriander (cilantro). Love me some coriander.
• Serve with a decent handful of mung beans. You can top with any other vegetables you fancy as well - snow peas, fincly sliced green chili, capsicum, mushrooms - all those delicious things.

Serve and eat in vast quantities, because not only is Pho super tasty, it's also really good for you. Making a soup from bone broth is very gentle on the tummy, so it's perfect if you have been unwell and can help settle the symptoms of leaky gut. It's also good for people with chronic illness and auto immune disorders, which tend to originate in the gut as well. It supports your own bone health, helping to reduce joint pain and inflammation. It's even fanastic for you hair and nails - what's not to love?

NOW what am I up to?

I'm a fan of food - I mean, who isn't? Ever since I was a toddler who would only eat tinned cold Watties Spaghetti, I've been hooked. And now with amazing websites like Pinterest and other more established blogs out there, we have a plethora of ways to experience food; either vicariously through reviews or by making the recipes we find online.

But 'fess up. How many of those recipes that you've pinned have you actually made?

One of the hardest parts of choosing the next recipe to attempt is knowing whether it's going to be a tasty one. Is it going to be worth all that effort, or is the author just talking it up?

Someone needs to take one for the team, and here I am. I'm going to post some of my own favourite recipes for you to enjoy as well as attempt various recipes I come across. I'm going to tackle the latest fads in cooking, be that pumpkin or nutella (we were all hit hard by the nutella craze of 2012). I'm going to try crazy new products that hit the shelves, regional cuisines, wild foods, local restaurants and then I'm going to give you reviews of the lot.

My triumphs and my failures will all get equal screen time and I'll never talk up something I don't enjoy. I don't claim to be a foodie - I just like food. And no one should suffer through Pineapple Whisky Chicken because it sounded good on the internet.