Recipe

Sourdough Fruit Bread (Gluten Free)

 

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Sourdough Fruit Bread - Gluten Free
Quantity: 1 Loaf
Author: sbaskitchen
Ingredients
THE OVERNIGHT FERMENT
  • 240 g sourdough starter
  • 160 g water
  • 105 g brown rice flour buckwheat flour or a blend of both
FRUIT & SEED MIX
  • 1½ cups sultanas
  • ½ cup pepitas/pumpkin seeds
  • ½ cup buckwheat groats
  • 300 ml water apple juice, or apple cider
PSYLLIUM HUSK GEL
  • 20 g psyllium husk
  • 125 g water
  • 60 g honey
DRY INGREDIENTS
  • 70 g walnuts roughly chopped
  • 100 g sorghum flour
  • 100 g buckwheat flour
  • 50 g tapioca starch
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • Brown rice flour for dusting.
Instructions
THE NIGHT BEFORE
  1. Combine the sourdough starter, water and brown rice flour together in a bowl and mix well to achieve a smooth batter. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside on the bench for 8 hours or overnight.
  2. Place the sultanas, seeds and liquid of choice, into a basin, cover with plastic wrap and leave on the bench for 8 hours or overnight.
TO MAKE THE LOAF
  1. The following morning line your loaf tin with baking paper, or grease the loaf tin with canola oil.

  2. Whisk together the psyllium husk, water and honey in a large bowl and set it aside for 5 to 10 minutes until it becomes gelatinous.

  3. Tip in the sultanas, seeds and residual liquid and stir to combine, then pour in the overnight ferment, stirring well.
  4. Add the dry ingredients, and using a metal or wooden spoon, mix until the dough comes together, then use your hands to work the dough until it is smooth - it will be a little sticky.
  5. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead lightly, shaping it to fit into your loaf tin.
  6. Carefully place the dough into your lined loaf tin, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and set aside at room temperature (approx 23˚C) for 4 hours or overnight, if you wish.
  7. Preheat the oven to 240˚C.
  8. Remove the plastic wrap, lightly dust the top of the loaf with brown rice flour or buckwheat flour, and then, using a razor blade or tip of a sharp knife, score the dough lengthways. Place the loaf on the middle rack in the oven and bake for 40 minutes, then reduce the heat to 200˚C and continue to bake for an additional 30 minutes.
  9. Remove the loaf from the oven and place it directly onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before cutting.
Notes
  • You will need a loaf tin (approx 21cm x 11cm).
  • Do not be tempted to cut the bread before it is completely cool, in fact it is better cut the following day.
  • Wrap the bread in baking paper and store at room temperature. It will keep for 4 days or so. You can also freeze the bread if you need to.
  • I have successfully used chickpea (besan) flour in place of sorghum flour, and either a blend of buckwheat and brown rice flour or just buckwheat flour in place of brown rice flour.

 

If you have a moment, I would love to hear your thoughts on what you see on
this page – just pop a note in the comments box below.
With many thanks and kindness,
Julie.

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Coq au Vin (Chicken & Wine)

 

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Coq au Vin (Rooster or Cockerel in Wine)

If you begin looking for traditional coq au vin recipes, you may just become a little frustrated! Every region in France tends to have their own version. My best tip is to not use a gutsy red such as cab sav, but a lighter, fruitier pinot noir, or at a push, a shiraz.

Note that you will need to start this dish the night before, or at a pinch first thing in the morning for an evening meal...

Category: Main
Style: French
Keyword: Chicken, Cockerel, Coq, Gluten Free Option, Rooster, Wine
Quantity: 6 - 8 serves
Author: sbaskitchen
Ingredients
  • Bouquet garni (1 bay leaf, 1 sprig thyme, 1 sprig rosemary, 1 piece of celery and 8 sprigs parsley all tied up in a layer of leek)
  • 1 cockerel or rooster (approx 1.7 kg), cut into 10 serving pieces
  • 1 bottle of pinot noir or red Burgundy, such as Chambertin
  • Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 6 tbsp plain flour, or gluten free flour blend
  • 1 slice streaky bacon, about 100 g
  • 24 button (little) mushrooms
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 60 g butter
  • 24 shallots, peeled
  • 2 tablespoons cognac or brandy
  • 3 cloves garlic, peeled
  • 4 pinches of freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
For serving
  • Croutons/crostini or
  • Vegetables of choice
Instructions
You will need to begin this recipe the night before cooking.
  1. Lay the herbs for the bouquet garni inside the leek and tie, securely with kitchen twine.
  2. Place the cockerel pieces and bouquet garni into a large non-reactive bowl and add the wine, moving the pieces of cockerel around to make sure that everything is submerged. Marinate overnight
The following day...
  1. The next day, remove the chicken from the marinade and pat the cockerel dry with paper towel. Set the marinade and bouquet garni aside.
  2. Season the cockerel with salt and pepper. Spread the flour on a plate and roll the cockerel pieces in the flour, shaking off any excess.
  3. Remove the rind from the bacon and discard. Cut the bacon into thin matchsticks
  4. Clean the mushrooms with paper towel, and leave whole.

  5. Heat the oil in a 4-6 litre pot, add the butter and then the onions, bacon and mushrooms, and cook, stirring, until softened. Remove and set aside.

  6. In the same pot, brown the cockerel pieces on all sides for about 10 minutes. Sprinkle in the cognac and CAREFULLY ignite, shaking the pot gently until flames subside.
  7. Pour in the wine and stir in the bouquet garni, garlic, salt, pepper, nutmeg and sugar. Bring to simmer and cook for 1 hour, stirring from time to time.
  8. Add the mushroom mixture and cook for 30 minutes longer.
  9. Remove the cooked cockerel pieces from the pot and arrange on a serving platter. Remove the bouquet garni and discard.
  10. Boil the sauce over high heat for 2 minutes, or until thickened. Pour over the cockerel and serve immediately, accompanied by croutons or vegetables of choice.
Notes
  • A cockerel is a male chicken that is less than twelve months old, a rooster, or coq, is a male chicken that is more than twelve months old.
  • I find that potatoes and Brussels sprouts or green beans go perfectly with this dish.
  • Gluten Free Flour Blend link

     

 

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If you have a moment, I would love to hear your thoughts on what you see on
this page – just pop a note in the comments box below.
With many thanks and kindness,
Julie.

Traditional Trifle

 

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Traditional Trifle

Trifle as my mother and grandmother used to make.

Category: Christmas, Dessert
Style: Australian, Christmas, English
Keyword: Custard, Gluten Free Option, Swiss Roll
Quantity: 8
Author: sbaskitchen
Ingredients
FOR THE SWISS ROLL
  • 2 eggs
  • cream
  • ¾ cup sugar
  • 1 cup self raising flour
  • pinch salt
  • caster sugar to sprinkle
  • 1/2 cup Plum and Raspberry Jam
FOR THE CUSTARD
  • 300 ml pure cream
  • 300 ml full cream milk
  • 6 egg yolks
  • 3 tsp cornflour
  • 1/4 cup caster sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
FOR THE WHIPPED CREAM
  • 200 ml whipping cream
  • 1 1/2 tbsp icing sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
TO FINISH
  • 1 can/jar of peach slices in juice
  • 2 tbsp juice/syrup from peaches
  • 2 tsp sweet sherry
  • 2 Kiwi fruit, peeled halved and sliced
  • 1 packet of Raspberry Jelly, prepared as per instructions, and set
Instructions
FOR SWISS ROLL (Make in advance, preferably one or two days prior)

  1. Preheat oven to 180˚C (fan).

  2. LIne a Swiss roll tin with baking paper, and then grease the paper well with butter or spray with canola spray.

  3. Break eggs into a cup, fill with cream and pour into a medium mixing bowl.

  4. Add sugar and beat with a fork or hand whisk until creamy.

  5. Add flour and salt, and stir to combine.

  6. Pour Cream Cake mixture into prepared Swiss roll tin, and bake 15-20 minutes, or until golden.

  7. Meanwhile lay a clean tea towel on the bench and sprinkle with caster sugar.
  8. When cake is done, turn it out onto the prepared tea towel, and using the short end, roll into a scroll (the tea towel will be rolled up inside the cake).

  9. Allow to sit for five minutes, unroll and quickly and carefully spread with the jam. Roll up again, without the tea towel, and place on a cake rack to cool. (Don't worry if the cake cracks.)

FOR THE CUSTARD
  1. Using a whisk, beat the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour together in a medium bowl
  2. Combine milk, cream and vanilla bean paste in a medium saucepan; bring to just under a simmer (when the bubbles start to form on the top). Remove from heat; gradually whisk milk mixture into egg mixture.
  3. Return the mixture to the pan, stir over a low heat, without boiling, until the custard thickens and coats the back of a metal spoon.
  4. Place a piece of plastic wrap over the surface of the custard, to prevent a skin forming, and set aside to cool slightly.
FOR THE WHIPPED CREAM
  1. Whip the cream with the icing sugar and vanilla bean paste to soft peaks.
TO FINISH

  1. Select a clear glass bowl, so that once you have layered the trifle, all the layers, and the swirls of the roll, are visible.

  2. Cut the Swiss roll into 1.5 cm thick slices and arrange in the base of the trifle bowl (I used approximately ⅔ of the roll, bringing it about ⅓ of the way up the side of the bowl).

  3. Mix the sherry and peach juice/syrup together in a glass, and drizzle over the cake.

  4. Pour the custard over the cake, and give a little shake to allow the layers to settle.
  5. Place in the refrigerator to chill.

  6. Drain the peaches.

  7. Chop the jelly.

  8. Spread the cream over the top of the custard.

  9. Arrange the peach and Kiwi fruit slices, alternatively, around the edge of the bowl.

  10. Arrange the chopped jelly in the centre of the fruit.
  11. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Notes
  • If serving as a buffet of desserts, there will be more than enough for at least 12 - 15!
  • This trifle is finished as my mother always did, with fruit and jelly on top.  Nana only did crushed jelly, a little in the centre and a little around the edge of the bowl.
  • To make gluten free, simply substitute in gluten free flour for the traditional flour, and check that all other ingredients that you are using are gluten free.
  • Baking times may vary, as ovens do!
  • I don't give prep times, or say how long it takes to make a dish any more, as we all work differently and I find them to be misleading!
  • I like to use the peaches in juice rather than syrup, they are generally clingstone peaches, but if you preserve your own, they will work beautifully as well.
  • I set my jelly in a glass lidded jar, it takes up less room in the fridge, and if you are taking the trifle to a celebration and it needs to be stored, I make  up to, and including, the custard layer.  Then finish it off with the cream, fruit and jelly on the day.

 

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If you have a moment, I would love to hear your thoughts on what you see on
this page – just pop a note in the comments box below.
With many thanks and kindness,
Julie.

My Little Kitchen Desk

/ sbaskitchen / 1 Comment

A few years ago, for my birthday, I asked Gary to find me a little desk, I initially wanted to have it on the front porch, where I liked to sit on warm mornings.  He went in search of, and found, a cute, old, school desk, it was a little tall and painted mission brown, but I still loved it.  He immediately cut a wee portion off the legs to make it the correct height, it was put in place, still brown, but it fitted and really didn’t look out of place, but I never really used it.

My little brown desk on the front porch…

A few months ago I decided that I wanted to move it into the kitchen, a place where I could make notes as I worked on recipes, or other kitchen jobs.  We found some paint in the shed, and Gary got to work sanding it back and giving it a paint of antique white.   It looks fabulous!  It has a little bottle that sits snugly in the ink well hole, where I can place a single flower from the garden.  It makes me smile.

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Never Say Never!

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I work with kids, now that’s something I thought I would NEVER say! Me working with kids – nup, my sister, Jan, was the teacher, not me!

Well, somehow that has changed a little, and, every now and then I work with kids in the kitchen. This Halloween morning we cooked together again – I’m pretty sure that you can guess what the theme was for that day…  Yes, Halloween….

It’s all about Halloween…

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