Meat Loving Quiche Man

I stumble across many wonderful (some weird) things on Twitter, the latest being the Sunday Bake Club.
 
While they began in January this year, I've only been following for about the last month.

The concept is fantastic -- on Sunday bake something to team with the week's theme. How simple could it get?
 
Each Sunday evening, my Twitter feed is filled with amazing looking baked goods and great conversation with some friendly mostly United Kingdom based bakers.
 
Check out their blog to see some of the past themes. We may need to ask if we can have a sister city program for Australia.
 
This week's theme is Bakes for the Boys, so being a boy I thought I was at least halfway there.

Thinking about this theme amongst debating the gender politics of a sausage roll I kept getting a repeated phrase in my head "feed the man meat".
 
I tried avoiding going down the stereotypical cave man road which ignores the metrosexual quiche men amongst us, but by combining the best of both worlds I created the Caveman's Quiche, Man! 
 

I couldn't resist prettying it up with a pancetta flower

 

Caveman's Quiche, Man!

 

Pastry

Ingredients

• 200g plain flour
• 100g unsalted butter
• 50ml water
• Pinch of sea salt

Method

• Finely cube the butter
• Add butter, flour, salt to the bowl of a food processor
• Process on high for about 20 seconds till it looks like breadcrumbs
• Add water and process for about 1 minute till it comes away from the sides and forms a ball
• Wrap in cling wrap and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes
• Grease 25.5cm x 6cm deep quiche/pie tin with removable base
• Flour work surface and roll pastry out to about 1/2cm thick
• Line the tin a bit higher than the sides to allow for shrinkage
• Blind bake for 10 at 180º C 
• Remove the beads/beans and bake a further 10 minutes
• Now it's ready for the filling
• Make the pancetta flowers while pastry is baking

Pancetta flower
6 slices of round hot pancetta
Method

• Place 4 slices pancetta flat on a greased tray
• With remaining 2 slices curl each tail around to look like a flower and place on top of the round end as per picture below
• Bake for 10 minutes at 180º C
• 1 flower is only there as a back up and can be a cook's treat

Filling

• 6 pork sausage
• 6 short cut rasher free range bacon
• 160g hot Calabrese salami
• 150g ham cubed
• 12 eggs
• 200ml sour cream
• 100g parmesan shredded plus 25g extra for topping
• 4 spring onions chopped
• 25g grated cheese

Method

• Pinch and twist the sausage in the skins then slide out to make little balls of sausage
• Roughly slice the bacon
• Roughly chop the salami into 1cm pieces
• Fry sausage balls on a medium heat for about 10 minutes
• Repeat with bacon and salami
• Cut the ham into 1 cm cubes (I asked for a 1cm thick slice at the deli)
• In a mixing bowl add the eggs, sour cream, parmesan and spring onions and combine
• I didn't add any salt as I thought there was already enough in the meat and cheese
• Fill the pastry case with the meats
• Fill with egg mixture
• Sprinkle with extra parmesan
• Bake at 160º C for about 1 hour (I checked every 20 minutes)
• Sprinkle on additional cheese and bake for an extra 5 minutes (I was thinking about a meat lovers pizza when I did this)
• Serve topped with pancetta flowers
• Note I treated today a bit like a Bake Off technical challenge where all the recipe was missing because I was making it up. Next time I would add about 2-3 tbsp. of flour to the meats so that it can soak up some of the juices without having to over bake the quiche  

Chow Down to Euovision 2013 - Sweden

This year's Eurovision host country Sweden is the first cab off the rank in the final of Chow Down to Eurovision 2013. As hosts Sweden automatically qualifies for the final along with Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
The remaining 20 spots in the final come down to your votes and will be announced tomorrow.

While I had a dish in my head to finish our journey to Malmö with I kept seeing requests for meatballs recipes on twitter from potential Eurovision party hosts. I was resisting doing meatballs as I didn't think I'd be able to get my hands on enough horsemeat, but I always like to give the Saucers what they want.

The twist is these are based on my memory of Swedish meatballs from my childhood when the grown ups had parties. I remember they came frozen in a large box of about a thousand dark brown pebbles that looked like something decorative from a garden shop, they tasted of  a shipload of pepper and had a distinctive bounce to them.

This version doesn't  have quite as much bounce and with the brown onion glaze will disappear quickly. I've also included in this post a Swedish cocktail to get you in the spirit, or possibly hospitalised if you play the Eurovision drinking game!

I had a very hard time picking the past Eurovision taster as Sweden has a smorgasbord of brilliant offerings so I thought I'd stick to one most personal.

There is something magical in the finding Eurovision in a non Eurovision setting whether it be Loreen's Euphoria in the final of My Kitchen Rules, the music in a shopping centre or an intimate stand up comedy routine with a Eurovision theme.

My most thrilling surprise Eurovision was during a 6am body pump class, yes not only awake at that time but out of the house and exercising! Around this same time I was body jam instructing so I was no stranger to the inside of a gym, I just didn't look it.

I was getting ready to lift the weights while day dreaming about being back in bed when I hear "never gonna run away" (what, no way) "I'm not gonna hide"(OMG can it really be!!!) "I know, just what I feel inside" and yes it was Carola from 2006 serenading the class with Invincible! It was like I was back in Athens.

The instructor was very accommodating as I sang at the top of my lungs and tried to wave the bar like a flag with 10kg weights on each end. Just like the backing singer in the semi final there may have been a well covered stumble that had the potential of doing one's self a mischief. (2.45 in the video)

Swedish meatballs with Onion Gravy
Ingredients

• 500g mince (lamb, beef, pork, or combination)
• 250g sausage mince
• 11/2 cups bread or a bread roll
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 brown onions, peeled quartered
• 3 spring onions roughly chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp. pepper
• 1 tbsp. salt
• 2 brown onions peeled finely sliced
• Knob of butter
• 2 cups beef stock
• 2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp. corn flour
• Olive oil

Method

• In a food processer add 2 brown onions quartered, bread, milk, spring onions, garlic peeled, and processer for 30secs till chopped
• Add the meat, pepper, salt, process till combined, add more milk if needed
• Roll into approx. 25g balls or to the size you prefer
• Cook in batches in a frypan on medium heat with a good splash of olive oil
• Move the frypan in a circular motion to move the balls around so that all sides brown
• Cook for about 10 minutes till cooked through, alternatively brown in the frypan and finish in the oven for about 15-20 minutes on 180°C

• To make the glaze sweat down the onions with  butter in a saucepan over a medium heat, they should be transparent rather than brown
• Add the stock and vinegar
• Boil to reduce slightly
• To thicken make the cornflour into a paste as directed and stir through
• Serve hot with toothpicks, as a main with mash potato or in a butter bread roll

 

Swedish Polar Bear Cocktail
Ingredient

• 30ml vodka (I have reduced the vodka to 1 shot instead of 2 as it is a long night)
• 30ml blue Curacao
• Ice
• Lemonade

Method

• Add all ingredient to a glass
• If you are playing the drinking game you could get an advantage by just having lemonade and blue food colour, it is cheating but could avoid a messy time!
• And always drink responsibly, no one wants blue clean up. 

Robin Stjernberg will have the home crowd support with his song You, can Sweden win 2 in a row?

Lycka till!