Daring Cooks: Butterscotch Banana Pierogi

The August 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by LizG of Bits n’ Bites and Anula of Anula’s Kitchen. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make pierogi from scratch and an optional challenge to provide one filling that best represents their locale.

In my case, that means I should have pierogi with either kangaroo, vegemite, or boerewors (South African farmer's sausage). As you can see, I came up with butterscotch bananas. I decided "my locale" also loosely translates into "my kitchen", and what I have in my kitchen at the moment is overripe bananas. Sounds perfect with some butter, brown sugar and dark rum, doesn't it? Except, I didn't have any rum, so I used some butterscotch schnapps instead. (I realise it's unforgivable to have butterscotch schnapps in your house, but it's leftover from the time I tried to recreate the butter beer from Harry Potter. Which turned out delicious, thank you very much.)

I'm going to be completely honest with you, ladies and gentlemen. I am exhausted. The Fabulous Man has been away on business most of the week, and I'm worn out from looking after the Little Girl on my lonesome. To all you single mums out there: Respect, girlfriends. I don't know how you do it. It's a combination of the Little Girl refusing to miss out on anything, and being a bit out of sorts because she's missing Daddy. Just taking a shower is a challenge, since she realised that she can crawl in while I'm washing my hair and can't see or hear her. She's done it once (soaked through clothes put on only minutes before), and now she tries to do it every time. I dare you to try and wash your hair with one hand while keeping the shower door closed with the other, as the Little Girl bangs on it with all her might.

Falling asleep has always been a battle, but that's now combined with waking up way too often during the night for a one year old. Anyway, all this to explain that I'm tired, I'm not going to write fabulous posts tonights. Luckily this challenge was a fairly easy one, otherwise I would've missed out.

So without further ado, I bring you Butterscotch Banana Pierogi.

Butterscotch Banana Pierogi
Serves 4

Dough


½ cup (125 ml) milk (can be whole milk, 2% or skim milk)
½ cup (125 ml) whipping cream
3 large egg whites
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
3 cups (450 gm) all-purpose flour

1. Mix flour and salt, add other ingredients, and knead dough until you have a smooth dough.

2. On a floured surface roll out fairly thin (1/8” or about 3 millimeters), cut into 2” (5 cm) squares, and fill with 1 tsp (5ml) banana filling (see below).


Filling
2 bananas, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon butterscotch schnapps or rum (optional)

In a heavy saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar until frothy.
Add the bananas, and fry until soft and fragrant.
Add the schnapps.

Keep separate until needed.

To finish

Fry the cooked pierogi in the leftover caramel until nice and golden, and serve with some cream and some schnapps on the side if you're letting your hair down.

Let's play pretend

Today's game of pretend is "Let's pretend it is the 14th of June, and I'm not months late with this Daring Cooks challenge." Exciting, isn't it?

OK, I'll hand it to you. This reveal is hardly earth shattering. One can even go as far as saying it is SO two months ago! I'm sure everybody has already ooh'ed and aah'ed over everybody else's Tricolor Vegetable Pate's, but what can you do? Sometimes life gets in the way, and you need to be a few months late with your Challenge.

I could've just skipped it. You are allowed to skip two challenges a year, but I really liked the look of this one. Ideally I would have made one of the carnivore versions, but some people in my family (I promised to never name any names again) doesn't like liver. So, vegetables it is. Only, this vegetable version doesn't feel like a compromise at all. It was so easy to make, and so very delicious, it was just as good as any meaty version I've ever tasted. And it looks fabulous, much more difficult than the chopping and layering of vegetables it essentially is. Perfect party food.

The bread recipe is one I found in a South African magazine years ago, and have been making ever since. It's made of Nutty Wheat, a wholegrain flour made in South African consisting of 20% wheat bran (a useful fact I learned from Cooksister), so if you don't have it, make your own. Easy peasy. It also requires some sunflower and sesame seeds, but you can either skip them all together, or substitute with your favourite ones. This bread is easy and delicious, you'll see. Except maybe if you're young and male, like my brother, who calls this parrot food. This boy doesn't pull any pushes, let me tell you.

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.

Tricolor Vegetable Pâté
Makes enough for 4 one cup capacity ramekins
Line your ramekins with plastic wrap, overlapping sides.

White Bean Layer

2 cans cannellini (white kidney beans), rinsed, drained thoroughly
1 tbsp / 15 ml fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp / 15 ml olive oil
1 tbsp / 15 ml minced fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried
2 garlic cloves, pressed

Mash beans in large bowl. Add lemon juice, olive oil, oregano and garlic and blend until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Spread bean mixture evenly on bottom of prepared ramekins.

Red Pepper Layer

210 ml jar roasted red bell peppers, drained, chopped
3/4 cup / 180 ml crumbled feta cheese

Combine peppers and feta in processor and blend until smooth. Spread pepper mixture evenly over bean layer in prepared dish.

Pesto Layer

2 garlic cloves
1 cup / 240 ml fresh basil leaves
1 cup / 240 ml fresh Italian parsley leaves
1/4 cup / 60 ml toasted pine nuts
3 tbsp / 45 ml olive oil
1/2 cup / 120 ml low-fat ricotta cheese

Mince garlic in processor. Add basil, parsley and pine nuts and mince. With machine running, gradually add oil through feed tube and process until smooth. Mix in ricotta. Spread pesto evenly over red pepper layer.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

To unmold, invert pâté onto serving platter. Peel off plastic.

Fair Lady Bread
Makes one loaf

3 cups Nutty Wheat (or 150ml wheat bran mixed with 600ml all purpose flour)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
2 cups yoghurt
5ml honey
1/2 cup milk
7.5ml baking soda

Preheat your oven to 180°C.

Prepare a loaf tin with some butter.
Mix all the ingredients together, and spread into the tin. Smooth the top of the dough.
Press some extra seeds into the top of the dough if you want.
Bake for one hour.
Cool out of the tin on a wire rack.

Enjoy with a cup of tea.

Daring Cooks: Brunswick Stew

No, your eyes are not misleading you: I am also now a Daring Cook (as well as a Daring Baker, but more about that later). Every month from now on, in a very daredevil way, I am going to take up the challenge and cook the chosen dish with grace, style and, unlike today, on time. I do realise that the reveal date was yesterday, only yesterday I spent the whole day with the Fabulous Man looking at houses. That's right. You think the Daring's Cook's a challenge? Try moving house, having a baby, and then moving house again, all within one year. So I would like to apologise very sincerely for my lack of reveal post yesterday. Not a good way to start, I know. I was considering not doing it at all,  but decided rather late than never, as they say.

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

I was pleased to see my first challenge turned out to be a stew. Impossible to mess up, right? Just chop a few things, throw in the pot, simmer for a while and voila! Dinner is served. And this is exactly what you do to make Brunswick stew, almost to the letter. What makes it interesting is the bits you chop up. The recipe asks for chicken and rabbit, which sounds great, except you can't find rabbit in the usual mums-with-babies haunts. What you do find next to the normal everyday chicken and lamb in Australian supermarkets is kangaroo. Which is amazing, because the number of Aussies I've come across so far who actually like kangaroo I can count on one hand. No, actually I'm wrong. I can't think of anybody I know who likes it. Supposedly it tastes too gamey. I don't know about that. I think it tastes marvelous. And it's a winner in Brunswick Stew.

My Brunswick Stew will not win any beauty prizes. In fact, let's just be honest and call a spade a spade: it looks like a mess. But it's a delicious mess, let me tell you. I'm not sure if it's the kangaroo or the chicken stock I used, or maybe just the magic of the right ingredients coming together. The smell was delicious straight from the start, and I couldn't stop my self from fishing out little bits of chicken to taste. The Little Girl also had a few slivers of chicken, and obviously thought it was much nicer than the organic sweet potato, pumpkin and apple baby mush I was trying to get her to eat. Sophisticated tastes, this Little Girl. I don't blame her. It tastes great, and according to the recipe it will taste even better tomorrow when the flavours had chance to develop. Yum. Can't wait.

Brunswick Stew
Serves 6

50g bacon, diced
2 dried red chiles, stems trimmed, sliced, seeded, flattened
250g kangaroo fillet, diced
1 kg chicken pieces, skin removed
sea salt and pepper for seasoning
4-6 cups chicken stock
1 Bay leaves
1 large celery stalk, chopped
3 Yukon Gold potatoes, or other waxy type potatoes, peeled, rough diced
2 carrots, chopped
2 onions, chopped
1 cup corn kernels
1 cup butterbeans
1 can tomatoes, chopped
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
juice of 1 lemon
Tabasco sauce to taste


In the largest stockpot you have, fry the bacon over medium-high heat until it just starts to crisp. Transfer to a large bowl, and set aside. Reserve most of the bacon fat in your pan, and with the pan on the burner, add in the chiles. Toast the chiles until they just start to smell good, or make your nose tingle, about a minute tops. Remove to bowl with the bacon.


Season liberally both sides of the kangaroo and chicken pieces with sea salt and pepper. Place the kangaroo pieces in the pot and sear off all sides possible. You just want to brown them, not cook them completely. Remove to bowl with bacon and chiles, add more bacon fat if needed, or olive oil, or other oil of your choice, then add in chicken pieces, again, browning all sides nicely. Remember not to crowd your pieces, especially if you have a narrow bottomed pot. Put the chicken in the bowl with the bacon, chiles and kangaroo. Set it aside.

Add 2 cups of your chicken stock, and deglaze the pan, making sure to get all the goodness cooked onto the bottom. The stock will become a nice rich dark color and start smelling delicious. Bring it up to a boil and let it boil away until reduced by at least half. Add your remaining stock, the bay leaves, celery, potatoes, chicken, kangaroo, bacon, chiles and any liquid that may have gathered at the bottom of the bowl they were resting in. Bring the pot back up to a low boil/high simmer, over medium/high heat. Reduce heat to low and cover, remember to stir every 15 minutes, give or take, to thoroughly meld the flavors. Simmer, on low, for approximately 1 ½ hours. Taste the stock, according to the recipe, it “should taste like the best chicken soup you’ve ever had”.

With a pair of tongs, remove the chicken and kangaroo pieces to a colander over the bowl you used earlier. Be careful, as by this time, the meats will be very tender and may start falling apart. Remove the bay leaf and discard. After you’ve allowed the meat to cool enough to handle, carefully remove all the meat from the bones, shredding it as you go. Return the meat to the pot, throwing away the bones. Add in your carrots, and stir gently, allowing it to come back to a slow simmer. Simmer gently, uncovered, for at least 25 minutes, or until the carrots have started to soften.

Add your onion, butterbeans, corn and tomatoe. Simmer for another 30 minutes, stirring every so often until the stew has reduced slightly, and onions, corn and butterbeans are tender. Remove from heat and add in vinegar, lemon juice, stir to blend in well. Season to taste with sea salt, pepper, and Tabasco sauce if desired.

You can either serve immediately or refrigerate for 24 hours, which makes the flavors meld more and makes the overall stew even better. Serve hot, either on its own, or with a side of corn bread, over steamed white rice, with any braised greens as a side.