Jamie Oliver's Aussie Humble Pie

Yes, yes yet another one of Jamie's specials and a long standing share from my side. 





I had used the filling two ways, one in a recipe I have already shared with you - A Tribute to my Inspiration, my Mummy - Pie Meat & Mushroom buns with Sesame and the other as the pie filling to Jamie's Aussie Humble Pie.

This make was a delightful  and savoury one both to my little one and my hubby. 

I simply love the golden crunchy crust. Thanks Jamie for yet another delicious dish.

I halved the recipe as the original was for 8 servings. This recipe calls for two of  some of my favourite treats Beef and Pie. 

Although Jamie had used pale ale in his recipe, I did my own subsitutions as ale was not available.

You can substitute it with chicken broth, ginger ale or white grape juice. 

I did a combination of chicken broth and ginger ale. 

Pale ale is a beer which is made by warm fermentation using pale malt mainly. The lighter colour of the ale is owing to the higher propotion of pale malt.

Recipe source : Jamie Oliver


You need:

For the filling:

• 1/2 kg beef cum into 1 cm chunks (ideally beef skirt - cut of beef from the 'Plate'. See image)
• Black Pepper
• Olive oil
• 1/2 whole nutmeg, grated
• Salt
• 1 large carrot, peeled
• 1 red onion, peeled
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked
• 125ml pale ale (learn more here)
• 1/2 tbsp full of plain flour
• 1/2 tbsp tomato pureé
• 125 gms button mushrooms
• 1 medium egg yolk, beaten
• Drinking water
• Cold water

 For the pastry:

• 300 gms plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 75 g cold unsalted butter, cubed, plus extra for greasing
• 75 g Cheddar cheese

The Make:

Serves : 4 adults | Preparation Time: | Resting Time: 3 hrs - overnight | Cooking Time: up to 1 hr, 43 minutes

1. Place the beef chunks in a large bowl. Add a heaped tsp of pepper, salt to taste or a good pinch of it and 2 tbsp of Olive oil.

2. Grate in quarter of a nutmeg, toss well and coat all chunks. Set aside. Roughly chop the carrots, onions and rosemary leaves.

3. In a wide, medium sized pan/wok, heat a drizzle of olive oil over medium heat. Add the beef chunks and cook for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the meat is browned all over and any liquid has evaporated, stirring frequently.

4. Meanwhile, heat another medium pan over a medium heat. Add the chopped vegetables and a drizzle of olive oil and cook for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until softened and caramelised, stirring frequently. Set aside.

5. Add the ale or the ale substitute to the beef, turn the heat up to high and allow the liquid to boil and bubble away, stirring and scraping all those lovely sticky bits from the bottom of the pan.

6. Next stir in the flour and tomato pureé and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until it forms a thick paste. Add the softened vegetables into the pan and pour in 1 litre of cold water. Roughly slice and add the mushrooms, then bring to the boil. 

7. Reduce the heat to medium, cover and simmer for 11/2 hrs then take off the lid and simmer for another 30 minutes, or until thickened and reduced and the beef is nice and tender, stirring occasionally. Season to taste, transfer to a bowl and allow to cool completely for a few hours or preferably overnight in the fridge. 

8. Meanwhile, make the pastry. Combine the flour and a good pinch of salt in a bowl, then grate in the Cheddar and rub into the flour along with the butter, until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

9. Gradually add 125 ml of cold water, stirring continuously to combine, then use your hands to bring it together into a rough dough – be careful not to work it too much. Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge until needed.

10. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. You can either serve this individually as Jamie did or as I did as one baked pie dish. For a single dish do the process of the pastry just once. For the individual pie dishes: Grease 4 individual pie dishes (roughly 15cm x 10cm) with a little butter and dust with flour. Divide the pastry into 4 equal-sized pieces, then roll out a portion on a flour-dusted surface to the thickness of a pound coin. Place 2 of the pie dishes side-by-side, roll the pastry around the rolling pin, hold it over the dishes and carefully unroll the pastry to cover. Gently press the pastry into the sides of the dishes, then rough ly cut away the excess so you end up with 2 lined pie dishes. Repeat with the remaining pastry, reserving the excess for later.

11. Equally divide the steak and ale filling between the dishes and brush the edges with the beaten egg. Divide the excess pastry into 4 equal-sized pieces, roll out to the thickness of a pound coin and place over the filling. Trim away any excess, crimp the edges with a fork and with the tip of a sharp knife or kitchen blade cut a little cross into the top. Brush over a little more beaten egg, then place in the hot oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden and piping hot through. Serve warm with a dollop of ketchup or favourite sauce, your favourite seasonal greens and your favourite chilled drink.

Bon Appetit!

*Veg option:
You can make this same recipe using a vegetarian option of cottage cheese / paneer. 
1. Cut the cottage into cubes. You can easily reduce the cook time by half as paneer does not take that long to cook.  However I would suggest you play this by trial. Reduce the initial saute time to 10 minutes. 
2. Make sure to first saute the chopped vegetables and then the cottage cheese. 
3. Also the bake time can be reduced to 15 minutes or until the pastry is golden. 
4. Also instead of the egg wash over the pastry, brush the pastry with a tad bit of milk.

A Tribute to my Inspiration, my Mummy - Pie Meat & Mushroom buns with Sesame

Two weeks ago I was happy and excited to let my inspiration, my Mum know of some new developments with regards to G'Gina's Kitchenette and even before I let my readers know, I wanted her to know as she is the very being of my culinary adventures. Unfortunately I did not get that chance and my Dad confirms that she did not know of the new development either. Little did I know that soon after my angel, my inspiration was preparing for the most important journey of her life...her journey to Heavenly Abode!

My mum for all of you who do not know her was way beyond just my mum...She was an angel, a guide, a friend to the needy and all who walked into her life. Never have I heard of such words of praise, respect and gratitude of any other human being. Her leaving us is a big loss to each and every one of us. She has saved lives with just her intuition and experienced advice each time. I feel privileged to be born the child of such a mother. 

Once someone with great vision of things beyond the physical world, told me of how blessed I was as I was born with two guardian angels unlike others who had only one. My mum she said was my guardian angel on earth! I cannot tell you the loss I feel with Mummy going to Heavenly Abode. She is my everything. I only pray that she will be with me every breath and step of the way guiding me as I go through this challenging life ahead!

I have always wanted to bake bread and have to tell you that I was skeptical regarding any success I may have in doing so. I had already started my bread baking adventure with a little success in the past and more successful recently since Christmas 2014 actually. I have in the past mentioned how my culinary adventure began with baking and how I literally burned the house down with my cake bakes when I was all of 12 yrs.

My mother has always been an inspiration to my cooking/baking feats. She has always cooked and baked creations from around the globe and I was always inspired and in awe of her cooking. Although I was never a foodie growing up, I knew somewhere back then that I would want to do something related to cooking (mostly baking). Also a lot of friends and family growing up would ask me to pursue the food line or to even start my own entrepreneurship or write my recipe creations through books (there were no blogs back then!)

Recently a couple of friends of mine have been inspiring me with their recipe creations around #bread. Among them Dr. Reny Thomas, my school friend has been an immense inspiration with her creations with breads, buns, etc. Also my college buddy and fellow food blogger Shireen had recently posted regarding this fabulous and inspiring group called #BreadBakers, a wonderful group of bread lovers who inspire each other every month to bake theme based bread or with a common ingredient. I am proud to be associated with this group and this will give me a chance to whip out some bread baking skills. This was the much needed leap I required to get me out of my shell.

What inspired me to make this bread was the renowned chef Jamie Olivier's pie creation. I always wanted to try a serious savoury pie and though I have made mince pies and the like during school/college days, I still wanted to perfect my pie making skills. The filling for this bread has very much been inspired by Jamie's pie creation whose recipe I will share very shortly with you.

You need:

For the stuffing/filling:

• 500 gms beef skirt/ tender beef, cut into 1/2 cm chunks
• Ground pepper
• Olive oil
• Rock/sea salt
• 1/2 of a  nutmeg, grated
• 1 large carrot, peeled and diced into cubes
• 1 red onion, peeled and diced finely into cubes
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, separated from the stem
• 125 ml pale ale / non-alcoholic beer / ginger-ale / chicken broth
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 1 tbsp Homemade Tomato Puree
• 125 g button mushrooms, diced small
• 1/2 litre cold water

For the bread:

• 2 tsp Active Dry Yeast
• 3 tbsp Sugar
• 300 gms plain flour
• 3/4 cup Milk
• 1 tsp Salt
• 3 tbsp lukewarm water
• 1/3 cup Oil
• 2 tbsps Sesame Seeds
• 1 egg, beaten (to brush on the buns)
• 1 tbsp water
• 2 drizzles of oil

The Make:

Preparation time (including proofing/proving time and resting time for the meat): 1 hr, 50 mins  + 3-4 hrs or 8 hrs for resting the meat| Baking Time: 20 minutes | Cooking Time: 1 hr, 53 minutes | Yields 7-8 medium sized buns

For the buns' pie meat filling:

Source for the pie meat filling: Jamie's Olivier

1. In a large bowl, add the beef chunks, 1 tsp of ground black pepper, a good pinch of rock salt and 1 tbsp of olive oil and massage well.
2. Next add the grated nutmeg, toss and coat well. Set it aside.
3. In a wide pan or wide-deep bottomed pot, add a drizzle of olive oil followed by the prepared beef chunks and brown on all sides, cover and cook for 15 minutes. Then uncover and allow and liquid to evaporate over the next 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
4. Simultaneously in another flat pan, heat a drizzle of olive oil and cook the veggies including the rosemary over medium heat for 15-20 minutes or until caramelised and softened. Stir frequently to ensure even cooking. Remove from the heat.
5. Next add the ale to the beef, turn up the heat to high and allow all the liquid to bubble ensuring you are scraping all the delicious sticky bits from the bottom of the pan.
6. Add in the flour and tomato puree and cook for another 2-3 minutes or until a thick paste is formed.
7.  Stir in the softened veggies into the larger pan with the beef and then pour in 1/2 litre of cold water. Add the mushrooms and bring to a boil.
8. Lower the heat to medium, cover and simmer for about 1 hour. Then take off the lid and simmer for another 30 minutes or the liquid has thickened and the beef is tender.
9. Season to taste and set aside for a few hours or preferably overnight in the fridge. The longer you rest the beef the better it gets. 


For the Dough :

1. Remember to use the yeast which has not expired. In a small bowl, mix the yeast and  2 tbsp sugar and dissolve it with 3 tbsp lukewarm water. Mix well and set aside for about 5 mins until it froths. In case it does not froth, throw away and use new yeast.

2. In a large bowl, add the flour,1 tbsp sugar, salt, oil and mix well.
Gradually add the milk and make a loosely formed dough.

3. Sprinkle some flour on a clean surface, take the dough and knead it with your hands until the dough becomes soft and supple. Knead up to 5 minutes until the dough is no longer sticky but still soft.

4. Take a large bowl, add a light drizzle of oil and put the dough and make sure it is coated with oil so that it does not dry out. Cover it with a cling wrap and let it sit at room
temperature for about 90 mins or until the dough doubles in size.

5. Line a flat baking tray with parchment or butter paper. Or you could directly grease the baking tray with a drizzle of oil and use directly (like I did!)

6. This part is going to be fun. Take the doubled dough onto a flat surface and punch down the dough with your hands and knead it well so that all the air held in escapes
from the dough. 

7. Next divide the dough into 8 equal parts.

8. Take one of the 8 parts of the dough, roll it into ball and then flatten it out into a disc about 3-4″ in diameter.

9. Add a tbsp of pie meat stuffing in the center of the disc and fold the corners the disc towards the centre to cover the stuffing well. Keep a kitchen towel at your side to wipe your hands in case your fingers get messy with the filling in the process. Fight the instinct to wash your hands each time as you would get the dough sticky with damp hands.

8. Repeat steps 8 and 9 until the remaining 7 bun dough is formed. Line them on the baking tray, folded side facing down and equi-distant giving enough space for the buns to rise and form. 

9. Set aside the buns at room temperature for about half hour or until they begin to swell.

11.  Preheat the oven to 180°C.

12. Right before popping the bun dough into the oven, whisk 1 tbsp of water with the egg and brush all over each bun. Sprinkle the sesame seeds on top of each bun.

13. Carefully set the buns in the preheated oven for 20 minutes until golden brown. Trust me the smell emitting from your kitchen will woo you to come in time to open the oven and take these beauties out.

14. Remove the baking tray from the oven and let the buns cool and rest on a rack before serving.

Now for my vegetarian friends, remember you can use other fillings such as Aloo Jeera (Potato with cumin seeds) or Kadai Paneer or mushrooms or the like.

Bon Appetit!

Spanish Omelette [Tortilla de patatas con cebolla (with onion)] - Hubby's Special!!

It was the morning of our fourth wedding anniversary and hubbykins decided to chef the morning breakfast with a surprise make. I saw some sausages defrosting and potatoes coming out of the tray and was wondering what we were going to have...hmmm!

We had some of these wonderful Spanish omelettes at a live counter at the hotel where we stayed for our honeymoon and once after. Of course this one was made after Anup reviewed a couple of recipes and finally decided that this was the one he would make. I definitely enjoyed it to the very last bite.

There are several versions of Spanish omelettes that you would find. Some are made with chorizo toppings and vegans would probably find thinly sliced mushrooms as an option.

What a truly pampered way to start our special day...I cannot believe that it has be four awesome years together. Time sure flies...

Remember while making these omelettes, that the success factor depends on how thinly sliced the vegetables or chorizo are and incorporated into the omelettes. Another success factor relies on the tossing of the omelette.

You need:

• 4 large eggs
• 4 chorizo sausages/other sausages, finely diced * see notes for substitutes
• 1 large potato or 2 medium potatoes, grated or chopped finely
• 1 large onion, purple or white, finely diced * see notes for preferred
• Oil as required
• 1 sprig parsley, finely diced
• Salt to taste
• Smoked paprika or pepper to taste

The Make:
Preparation Time: 10-15 minutes | Cooking Time: 15 minutes | Serves 2 adults

1. Heat about 1 tbsp of oil in a non-stick pan and saute the chorizo sausages until lightly brown. Set aside.
2. Next 1 tbsp oil and toss in the onions and grated potatoes on medium low heat. Allow the potatoes to cook through for at least 10 minutes taking care not to burn. Once cooked, strain the potatoes and onions in a large colander allowing the excess oil to drain off.
3. Next whisk the eggs well and toss in the parsley, seasoning/condiments, the potatoes and onions.
4. Heat some of the drained oil in a pan checking if there is enough to grease the corners of the pan and add the whisked ingredients evenly.
5. Turn the heat to medium and allow the egg to cook for a minute. Top with the chorizo slices and cover and cook until the egg base seems set.

6. Tuck the spatula around the pan to ensure that any loose egg would run to the bottom and get cooked. Allow  to cook for a half a minute on low flame.
7. Next loosen the bottom using the spatula and using a plate toss the egg onto the plate and slide the egg onto the pan again to cook the other side for another minute to two minutes.

8. Repeat step 7 a few more times allowing to cook briefly on each side before flipping over. Ensure to press the sides each time using the spatula to keep the shape intact.

Serve with your favourite flatbread or baguette. Bon Appetit!


Notes*:
1. Veg option: Finely diced mushrooms (of your choice)
2. White onion is preferred owing to the flavour variance

Post Christmas Turkey Soup - A Boxing Day Special

Hope you all had or are having a good Boxing Day. Boxing Day is traditionally the day after Christmas when those in service roles at home or work were given gifts, money, etc. The origins of the name is still uncertain. This day is also a public holiday in most Western countries. The recipe I have for you was also made last year after our Turkey meal for Christmas. It is a simple recipe made of the turkey carcass, some of the turkey meat and some veggies. I must say it is quite filling in itself.

Remove the usable meat from the turkey carcass which you can use to make nice, delicious turkey sandwiches (with some of the turkey drippings that were not used for the gravy) for the morning after Christmas. You can also use some of the turkey meat for this soup and make the stock right after the Christmas meal.

You need:

• Turkey carcass, skin
• Leftover turkey meat, giblets and drippings
• 1 large shallot
• 5-6 cloves of garlic
• 1" crushed ginger
• Water as required
• 4 carrots, diced
• 2-3 strands of fresh or dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 1-2 Celery
• 1-2 bunches of parsley, diced
• Crushed Peppercorns to taste
• 2 diced tomatoes
• 200 gms of diced button mushrooms
• 1 onion diced
• Noodles/Rice - optional
• Mashed potatoes - optional
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Dash of tobasco or hot chili sauce

The make:

Preparation Time: 20 minutes | Cooking time: 60 minutes | Servings depend on quantity of unused turkey

1. Break up the leftover bones in a large, deep bottomed pot along with some of the turkey skin and cover it with water by about an inch. Some of the drippings that were not used for the gravy and the unused giblets can also be added to the pot. Add a diced shallot, some garlic, 2 carrots, parsley, bay leaf, celery tops and the peppercorns.

2. Bring the contents in the pot to a boil on high temperature. Lower the heat to low-medium . Skim off any fatty residue that arise on the surface.

3. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remember the turkey and drippings may contain sufficient salt so take care on adding more salt to the mix.
4. You can either continue to cook the soup over a medium or low flame for about an hour or turn to an oven of about 150◦C for about an hour. You can later take off any residual foamy contents from the surface.
5. Next strain the contents through a fine, mesh sieve.
6. Return the strained stock to the deep bottomed pot  and add your choice of veggies - carrots, onions, mushrooms, celery, parsley, sage and/ or thyme on a medium-low heat and cook the veggies.
7. Once the veggies are cooked, add the tomatoes and you can add noodles, pasta or some cooked rice. You can now add the turkey meat. Top with some salt and pepper or a dash of tobasco or hot chili sauce for an extra kick.

Enjoy with some crusty bread or a simple green salad!