Improv Night

So, I made a version of the goat's cheese stuffed chicken again... but this time I had the company of a friend, and we added a few different bits. I do have a picture, but, as I took it on my not-so-stellar phone, it doesn't show much at all!

Normally, I would take the goat's cheese, mix it with the parsley and lemon zest, stuff it in the chicken, then wrap it in bacon. This particular time, however, with the excitement of me and my friend combined, our trip through the grocery store was equivalent to letting kids loose in the candy shop. Vegetables here, meat there - our ideas burst into the air, and most things we passed ended up in our rolling shopping basket. Eventually we managed to get an actual idea of what we wanted to cook, so...

This is what we had:
Two chicken breasts (skin on)
Goat's Cheese (soft)
Parsley
Lemon Zest
Sun-dried tomatoes
Garlic

This is what we did:
While I was assembling the chicken my lovely co-chef sliced the garlic then began frying it in a sauté pan with a tiny bit of olive oil. On my side of the counter, I took the goat's cheese, parsley and lemon zest, mixed it all together, and sat it to the side while I slit medium-sized pockets into one side of each piece of chicken. Then, I took my tasty little mixture (after getting all the bits of goat's cheese that covered my hands off) and stuffed it in those pockets with sliced sun-dried tomatoes! New for me, but I liked where my friend was going with it....

So, with the chicken stuffed and the garlic browned, we put the chicken into the pan, added some oil from the sun-dried tomatoes, and fried the chicken (on one side only) for a mere few minutes. Satisfied that all the juices were locked and loaded, we transferred the chicken into a glass baking dish, covered them with the browned garlic slices, a tad bit of the used sun-dried tomato oil and a good amount of chili oil, and baked them in the oven for a good 25-30 minutes.

They came out beautifully coloured, cheese mixture slightly oozing from the pockets, with a delicious aroma of fried garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, and citrus. Nice little improv moment! Certainly tasty too....

BM Results

Now, I didn't manage to get a photo of the food before or after I took it out of the oven (I had hungry animals ready to attack and had no time to spare), but I did get one of the end result:

Very satisfied customers once again :) Review of this dish will be posted soon...

Beef Moussaka Begins

Ingredients
Potatoes
4 white potatoes peeled and cut into 1/4-inch slices
1/4 cup olive oil (60 ml)
Coarse salt and freshly cracked black pepper

With the potatoes. I've preheated my oven to 375 F/190 C (170 fan)... now I am peeling the potatoes, soaking them in water, and cutting them into 1/4 inch slices then tossing them with 60 ml olive oil in a large bowl.

Next, I am arranging them on a single layer on a baking tray, seasoning with salt and pepper, and roasting them in the oven until soft and starting to brown, about 35 minutes.

With the potatoes roasting in the oven, I began making the béchamel:

Béchamel

1/3 cup unsalted butter (75 ml)

1/2 cup all purpose flour (125 ml)

3 cups milk (750 ml)

Coarse salt and freshly cracked black pepper

large pinch freshly grated nutmeg

3 eggs

Around this point, things began to get a bit chaotic, as I managed to overlook a part of one of the instructions giving cooking times for the sauce, so not much was documented from here! But anywho, I began making the béchamel by melting the butter in a sauce pot, adding in the flour, then stirring and cooking this roux for about three minutes, when I gradually whisked in the milk. 

After adding the milk, I kept whisking (furiously may I add, to try and keep the roux as smooth as possible) until it thickened and coated the back of a spoon. Then, I seasoned the roux with salt, pepper, and nutmeg before placing it to the side and letting it cool slightly before adding in the eggs one at a time. 

Satisified with the results, I covered it and put it to the side for later assembly.

With all the little elements prepared, I moved on to the main bulk of the dish - the meat sauce!

Beef

3 tablespoons olive oil (45 ml)

1 1/2 pounds ground beef (750 grams)

1 large onion, finely chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup red wine (250 ml)

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (2 ml)

2 teaspoons dried Greek oregano (10 ml)

1 teaspoon cinnamon (5 ml)

6 cups of canned plum tomatoes, drained and chopped (1500 ml)

1 tablespoon tomato paste (15 ml)

pinch of ground nutmeg

I began by heating oil in a large pot then adding the beef, cooking until brown, and breaking up chunks with a wooden spoon. As silly me forgot to chop the onions and garlic before, I rushed over to my worktable (just opposite the stove) and chopped and minced away, returning to the pot quickly to add the onions and garlic and cook until soft. 

Once soft, I poured in the red wine, cayenne, and oregano and let reduce for about ten minutes. During this time, I checked on my potatoes and pulled them out of the oven, placing them to the side. After a quick tidy and change myself (I was, after all, covered in every ingredient imaginable, especially the next one), I returned back to the meat sauce, reduced the heat to medium, and added the tomatoes, tomato paste, cinnamon, and nutmeg. With a swift stir, my sauce was complete! Now, all I had to do was cover it and let it simmer until it turned into a nice, thick sauce, about 45 minutes.

While the sauce was simmering, I sliced the eggplants into 1/4 inch slices, seasoned with salt and pepper, and fried them in batches (in a previously heated sauté pan), adding more oil when needed. When they were all golden and soft, I took them off the heat and put them to the side.

Eggplant

1/4 cup olive oil (60 ml)

2 large eggplants cut lengthwise into 1/4-inch thick slices

Coarse salt and freshly cracked black pepper

After frying the eggplant, I turned up the oven heat to 200 C/180 and tended to my sauce until it was ready for the moussaka. Then, with all the elements created... At last! The layering begins! My moussaka was spread between two dishes due to equipment availability and the fact that our oven is just a little bit too small.

And it went like this:

Potatoes - Aubergine (Eggplant) - Sauce - Potatoes - Aubergine - Sauce

Covered in Béchamel

Then into the oven for 45 minutes to an hour! 

Brownie Taste Test

Definitely not your typical brownie. As the bowl is circular, so goes the way of the brownie. The outer circle gives a light, flaky, slightly crunchy crumble that melts instantly on your tongue. The middle circle is the cake-y, spongelike layer that has a nice fudge texture and gives some density to the brownie. The inner circle is more of a loose mixture of cake and a richly flavoured, deep chocolate molten substance that gives the whole brownie the spring in its step! Very atypical overall, but I think it works for itself and comes out in the end a very tasty treat.

Beef Moussaka and Chocolate Brownies, pt. 1

So, I've decided to start writing a cooking blog. Apparently, according to my friends, I have an uncanny ability to describe food and instantly make the listener wish to eat whatever it is I am describing. I love to cook, I love to bake. This blog will monitor my adventures in the kitchen as I cook for my friends and try out new recipes!

Let me just note here something about my recipes... I study in the UK, so my recipes are from both the US and the UK, which makes measuring a bit of an adventure most of the time. 

What's on the menu today: Beef Moussaka and Chocolate Brownies 

Chocolate Brownies
Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, about 225g
6-8 oz. unsweetened chocolate 
4 large eggs
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour

To start off, let me just point out the temperature conversion. The recipe calls for 325 F, but I will be using 160 C/140 C fan. As I am a student, the variety of my cooking gear is slim, so for baking these brownies, I used a circular glass dish. 

First, I melted the butter and chocolate in a heavy medium saucepan over low heat, stirred until the mixture was smooth, and placed it to the side to cool while I moved on to the main bulk of the brownie ingredients. 

In the largest mixing bowl we have, I hand-beated with a giant whisk the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy by cracking the eggs in the bowl first then slowly streaming the sugar in as I whisked. Then, I whisked in the chocolate mixture (in smaller streams), vanilla, and salt. Once those ingredients appeared mixed, I added the flour in small batches, whisking furiously, until fully blended. 

With a tired wrist but a bowl full of chocolate, I poured the batter into my prepared baking dish, smoothed the top, then placed it into the oven (at last).

Now, the recipe itself calls for 35 minutes of baking time, until the the tester inserted into the center comes out with crumbs attached... here is where my problem arose. Whether it was the innate confusion in temperature conversion, the glass baking dish, or a possibly possessed oven, but I had to keep my brownies in for an hour and 15 minutes! Currently they are cooling, but once they are, I am ready to dive in and see how they turned out! (Hopefully before my guests arrive...)

Initial Impressions: Looks very moist! The dish is covered in a thin, slightly crispy, light brown layer of brownie that slightly sunk after I took the bowl out of the oven (oh well, experimentation!)... I snuck a little taste of the crispy topping, and it has a nice buttery undertone to it that complements the chocolate I used nicely (standard baking chocolate, but this time I chose the slightly-tinted-with dark chocolate baking chocolate).

Beef Moussaka post to follow in a few hours!