Thermomix | mutteringhousewife

April 15, 2013

Chocolate Raspberry Pudding Cake in the Thermomix

I don’t usually make cakes, they don’t survive lunch boxes and inevitably require the use of a napkin. But a special birthday requires a special cake and so it was that yesterday I found the perfect cake recipe for a brother in law who is refusing to turn fifty and it seemed like a recipe written specifically for a Thermomix.

It’s a recipe from Nigella’s How to Eat and I first made it back when my sister was editing a minor newsletter for one of those tiny companies that seem to splinter off fund managers from time to time and it had a recipe section. She would source the recipe and I would make it and photograph it for the newsletter and in this case take the finished product in to the kids’ school’s staffroom where it was gratefully demolished.

To make it in a Thermomix, you bung in the jug 250 grams of dark chocolate, 250 grams of sweet butter, one hundred grams of caster sugar, ninety grams of muscovado sugar (or some sugar that isn’t white), two tablespoons of framboise liqueur (shout yourself, you can always put it in champagne at a later date when you want to feel fancy), and 350 ml of water into which two teaspoons of instant coffee have been dissolved. Nigella suggested 370ml, which is a cup and a half, but I did that last time and found the resulting cake a bit too wet. It is supposed to be puddingy, but I don’t want it falling apart. I may have actually used 340 ml, I just took about half a centimetre off the top of the cup and half cup measures. It was much better. I also used 70% cocoa chocolate this time as opposed to the supermarket variety 55%, and it could have stood a touch more sugar. It was rich and authoritative however, and I’d probably leave it alone. Have it with ice cream if you want more sweetness.

Having put all of this gluttony in the jug, put it on 50 degrees for eight minutes on speed two. I’ve tried melting chocolate at higher speeds but it just chucks it up the walls of the jug. That should get everything melted together. If you’re groaning under the absence of a Thermomix you can melt it all together in a heavy based saucepan or a double boiler, and you’ll even have to stir it yourself. When it’s melted put in the butterfly attachment and beat in two eggs for one minute on speed three. Add thirty grams of cocoa powder, one hundred and eighty grams of plain flour (a cup and a half) and three teaspoons of baking powder. Beat again for one minute at speed three. Take off the lid and have a poke around with the spatula to make sure there aren’t any lumps. It should be a runny mixture looking, as the Moose commented, like melted chocolate. Are you sure you’re making a cake, Mum, not just a giant chocolate?

Grease a 22cm round springform cake tin. I usually line things with baking paper, but this one you want greased. I do it by rubbing it over with a cold stick of butter, get right into the edges. Or as you please. Pour half the mix into the cake tin, making sure you’ve got the spring bit closed and the bottom sitting snugly. Sprinkle over 250 grams of raspberries, you’d be mad not to use frozen ones from Serbia. If you want to use fresh ones, use them as decoration on top where they’ll be appreciated. Pour over the rest of the mix, making sure no cheeky raspberries are poking out. Bake at 180 degrees for about forty five minutes. The top should stay flat and develop cracks when it’s cooked, thus:

It looks rather nice sprinkled with icing sugar. It is very rich, so I served it with whipped cream. Having only ever made whipped cream with a bowl and a whisk and plenty of wrist action I was very surprised to see how quickly cream thickens in the Thermomix. Honestly, don’t let it go more than about twenty seconds, you’ll get butter, which will be entertaining, but of no use to you as an accompaniment.

I’ve still got three pieces left. I do wonder whether I should find out if gets better with age as some chocolate cakes do, or just have them for lunch?

4 Comments

April 10, 2013

Adam Liaw’s Laksa Lemak – From Scratch, In the Thermomix

I went on too many quests today and now I feel like my left leg has come loose. You know, the leg that is currently supporting my whole weight at the moment because I’m on crutches? Yes. But I think it’s all going to be worth it because my main quest was to gather the ingredients to make Adam Liaw’s laksa, and he doesn’t do bought pastes.

I have only myself to blame. I’ve been making Exciting Dinner on Wednesdays because the kids have sushi and soccer training and tennis and orchestra in various combinations. I asked my dear husband what he’d really like me to make. “Laksa.” he replied without any hesitation. I’ve been flicking through Adam Liaw’s Two Asian Kitchens but been too terrified to try anything except the stock, so this was a challenge.

The big problem was to gather the ingredients. I would imagine most of you would have no problem knocking up a European recipe, having the requisite pantry items, but when someone like me goes Asian we have to start from scratch. And that includes where you shop, because this laksa paste requires fresh ingredients.

The ingredients are dried 10 red chillies, 2 tablespoons dried shrimp, 4 fresh chillies (sorted, I have a plant), 1 tablespoon dried shrimp paste, 2 brown onions (no problem), 5 candle nuts (wouldn’t even know where to start, but fortunately macadamias can and will be substituted), 2 garlic cloves (run out), 2 thick slices ginger (ditto), 2 stalks lemon grass, 5 leaves Vietnamese mint, dried coriander (we’ll be using fresh, because I need some for a tomato salsa I’m making tomorrow), fresh turmeric (three teaspoons grated, but Thermomixers don’t grate) and 60 mls of peanut oil. The method is simple, soak the dried shrimp and dried chillies in boiling water, bung them and all the other ingredients in the Thermomix then zap. This makes about two cups, you need a quarter of a cup for two people.

See, I did get all the ingredients. I decided to venture into Ashfield Mall, it really isn’t that far. There is actually an Asian supermarket nestled conveniently in the car park, the Tong Li supermarket and gosh that was exciting. I had to go up and down the aisles three times to drink it all in. If it can be dried or pickled or cryovacked, they stock it. I am puzzled as to why you’d tin quail eggs, pickle lettuce, be bothered preserving turnips or eat Spam with real bacon. I was very fascinated by the snack foods, strips of dried fish, chicken flavoured peanuts (what’s wrong with peanut flavoured peanuts?), desiccated eel. I was awfully tempted by the frozen roast eel in the Japanese section. I’ll have to go back when I’m on two legs. I got dried chillies, dried shrimp and fried tofu puffs for the soup, but that’s all. Oh no, actually, also a bunch of fresh coriander (59 cents for a bunch!!!) I couldn’t find the shrimp paste and I certainly wasn’t going to ask, you know me. I didn’t get peanut oil because I didn’t really want five litres of it, and I couldn’t carry it anyway. I also managed to ignore the siren song of the jar of laksa paste, only two dollars.

I then went through the mall and out the other side to the Asian Greengrocer, where I was accosted by a tiny Asian woman who grabbed me by the arm and pointed at the mushrooms. “Mushroom!” she exclaimed, showing me both her teeth. I agreed, got her a bag and moved on. I found what I’m pretty sure was Vietnamese mint, garlic, some very fresh looking ginger, really cheap lemon grass and some bok choy to veggie it up.

I knew Norton Street Grocer stocked fresh turmeric, and I needed about a kilo of jelly for another quest, so Ho for Coles, curse them. They actually had shrimp paste, wonders will never cease. Also a small bottle of peanut oil that is currently sitting in my sink leaking from a spot I can’t locate. The grocer did have turmeric, so I had a full hand.

So I’ve made the paste and frozen most of it in convenient quarter cup portions. I have defrosted two cups of the basic stock made, blogged about and frozen some time ago. I have poached a sliced chicken thigh in it in the Thermomix. I heated the stock plus a couple of teaspoons of fish sauce to one hundred degrees, added the thickly sliced chicken and put it on reverse gentle stir at one hundred degrees for five minutes. Perfect. Removed the chicken. I then put 70 grams of bean sprouts (had to send the Muffet into the Stanmore IGA for those, completely forgot about them) in the steamer basket over the hot stock while I chopped six fried tofu puffs into quarters and chopped the bok choy up. Then transferred the stock to another bowl. Put a quarter of a cup of laksa paste in the Thermomix with a splash of peanut oil and set it to a hundred degrees and seven minutes. I tried five, but it wasn’t long enough. Added the stock back in, speed two, one hundred degrees for another two minutes, added a 270ml tin of coconut milk for a further two minutes. Tasted it, added the juice of half a lime and about two teaspoons of brown sugar because I can’t find my palm sugar. Maybe three.

Added in eight frozen prawns from the packet Daniela made me buy and the chopped tofu puffs and cooked (reverse, gentle, one hundred degrees), then shredded the chicken and chucked that and the bok choy in for another minute.

Meanwhile I’ve had an eighty gram lot of bean thread noodles soaking in boiling water and just added some random rice noodles I found at the bottom of the crisper. Now I’m going to put the noodles in bowls and pour the soup over then garnish with bean shoots and sprig of coriander.

Adam’s right, making the paste makes a huge difference. And now I’ve made it, laksa will be vurrah easy. Complex, full bodied, really really good. It doesn’t have that off putting red layer of oil on top. Husband thinks it could stand more chillies, but is as good as a bought one. I think this might be three servings, which means I get some for lunch tomorrow.

Or not.

2 Comments

April 9, 2013

Hazelnut Meringue Biscuits, Brutti Ma Buoni

I first came across these biscuits around the corner from where I live. They were in the diabetes inducing three level four metre counter of the Italian pasticceria that is famous throughout Sydney for its ricotta cakes. I pointed at a brown knobbly looking biscuit and asked the girl behind the counter what it was called. With typical Italian courtesy and willingness to please she said “I dunno. I think it’s got hazelnuts in it”. I have since discovered that it is often called Brutti Ma Buoni because it looks like something that might be produced by a bilious owl but it tastes so good I’ve wanted to make it ever since I had my first five.

It’s the kind of biscuit that needs machinery to make, so as I’m still slightly surprised to be operating in a kitchen that actually has machinery it has taken me until now to get around to it. I found a recipe in the Guardian concatenated with the recipe for panettone I had a few weeks ago and it looked plausible. I needed to accumulate some egg whites.

I didn’t have anything much to do this morning except convert the choir accounts into a new format, so I thought I’d do that after lunch. The cupboard is bare yet again due to the Muffet corralling all the baked goods to share with her friends at school to celebrate her birthday. Knowing I wanted to have egg whites left over I made lemon cornmeal biscuits and had a crack at kourabiedes for the first time which left me with two egg whites. Enough for twelve biscuits. I really could make them half the size, but they do end up being very light.

I put the egg whites in the clean dry KitchenAid bowl, having learned my lesson about that more than once, you think it would stick. Put on the whisk attachment and got it whipping. The whites had to get to firm peaks and you really can’t get there without collapsing from boredom if you do it by hand. I know how foremothers had to, but I really can’t be bothered. It takes ages, even in the KitchenAid. Perhaps I should have had it on a faster setting.

Meanwhile I placed a half a teaspoon of cocoa powder, fifty grams of hazelnuts, a hundred grams of blanched almonds and a hundred grams of caster sugar in the Thermomix. The recipe suggests a coarse grind, so I resist the urge to zap it into oblivion.

I check the egg whites, they’re getting there. I check my mail and a Facebook argument I seem to be in about gay marriage and by the time I hop back into the kitchen they look like this:

Which is just right. I carefully fold in the nut mix plus fifty grams of hazelnuts I’ve meticulously cut in half – I think whole ones are a bit too robust for this light biscuit. I always feel a little sad hearing those tiny bubbles pop as the nuts get folded in, but there’s no help for it.

Plop tablespoonsful of the mix onto a baking paper line baking sheet, you should get about twelve out of this amount. I would have made more, but I don’t like having bits of egg left over, it upsets my sense of symmetry. I’d have had to have made a custard or something, and then I’d just have to eat it. Bake at 180 degrees for about ten minutes, or until they’re just starting to colour around the edges. You need to let them cool completely before getting stuck in. See what I mean about how they look?

Perhaps more a duck than an owl, but definitely avian. Gosh they’re delicious though,

4 Comments

April 6, 2013

Thermomix Vegetable Patties

I think I overdid it this time. Note to self, just because you have Thermomix doesn’t mean you have to pulverise everything. Here’s how it happened.

I was having coffee with a neighbour and some friends and we were solving all of the admittedly very first world problems of the high school our sons attend. Talk turned to the oversupply of the school cookbook, and my Thermophile friend made the excellent suggestion that she and I should start converting the really excellent and diverse recipes in it to The Thermomix Way. By the time we’d wrapped up I was starving, so after I’d dragged myself across the road home I was looking for a quick and hearty lunch. No bread. No leftovers. Not even frozen leftovers. So I opened the school cookbook and came across a recipe that was a cinch for the Thermomix and I even had all the ingredients, vegetable patties.

I put a medium sized onion into the machine and it made a rather startled sound when I tried to zap it, another note to self – cut them in half first. Added in a slice of butter and sautéed the onion at 100 degrees for three minutes on speed two. I then added in a chopped large carrot, a zucchini and a half and an extremely dried up bread roll I had left over from last weekend’

And zapped them too. Then I added a tin of rinsed chickpeas, a teaspoon of Moroccan spice mix and an egg and gave it a gentle mix on speed two for a couple of seconds. Then I cooked it at 100 degrees for five minutes on speed three, and that’s where I went wrong. I should have had it on speed two or one and put in in reverse (the blunt sides of blades then do the stirring) meaning the chickpeas wouldn’t have been mashed in too. It could do with some texture.

The idea then is that you refrigerate it and it solidifies quite a bit, then you form them into balls and pan fry them in butter. I was really hungry, so I just ate the stuff with a spoon. It was delicious and satisfying. I’ve just had some more for lunch today and it even improves with age. I am eating a lot of vegetables this way, but I’m worried I’m losing the ability to chew. This stuff is also not terribly visually appealing in this form, but would be better as patties.

I won’t tell you what the Moose said it looked like, but I’m sure you can guess. The photo in the school cookbook was worse because the patties had bits of corn through them which for those of us who have had offspring leads to a very unappetising train of thought. Maybe presentation is something to which I should give more consideration.

3 Comments

April 1, 2013

Mayonnaise and Coleslaw in the Thermomix

I grew up in a fairly condiment free household, so I never felt a burning urge to make my own mayonnaise. Despite this, I have had two attempts at it, mainly to prove that I could, and it turned out that I couldn’t. Once with a whisk and once with a blender. Both times it was looking very promising, then irretrievably split into a watery, curdy mess. Of course, it’s really easy in a Thermomix. Having a had a good hard look at myself, you could even say it was foolproof.

What you do is put in the Thermomix the yolk of an egg and a tablespoon of vinegar. You can also add flavourings, I put in two teaspoons of hot English mustard and, because the only mayonnaise I’ve regularly encountered is Praise which is really sweet, a teaspoon of honey. You could also add a clove of garlic. It says salt and pepper to taste, but as if you’re going to have a taste of that mess, so I just put in a twist of the grinder of each. I also weighed out 250 grams of olive oil into a jug for pouring purposes. It suggests a neutral tasting oil, and despite using a light flavoured olive oil, you could definitely taste it, but I like it, so there.

You put the butterfly fitting over the blades. My demonstrator told me there was some secret wrist action that would secure it onto the blades, but I haven’t been able to reproduce it, and everything I’ve read suggest you can just perch it on the blades and she’ll be right. So that’s what I did. And it was. Mix it for one minute on speed 4.

Then comes the bit I’ve always failed at. You pour the oil in a thin steady stream onto the lid, with the little plastic lid on, because the lid slopes down to the middle and there’s a small gap under the lid. You do this on speed 4. It is suggested that you take about five minutes to do this. Or you could pour a steady stream for one minute, then realise the biscotti are about to burn, rescue those, blop in some more oil, decide to take a photo because it looks pretty in the sunlight, and I’ll tell you it’s really hard to take a photo of yourself pouring oil into a Thermomix with an iPad while standing on one leg. But I did it, because I wanted to share:

Anyway, my even with interruptions my very unsteady stream took about three and a half minutes, but look!

I made mayonnaise! It’s the colour and consistency of soft butter, which is probably a bit thick for mayonnaise, but eminently spreadable. It’s rich and delicious.

Then you don’t even have to wash out the bowl to make coleslaw. There are an infinite number of coleslaw recipes, but let’s go with a basic one first. Put in the bowl two tablespoons of your terrific home made mayonnaise, a cored and quartered green apple (I can’t help but notice that a lot of the salad recipes in the Thermomix book contain a green apple), a hundred grams of carrot (which is one large one, very roughly chopped) and about two hundred grams of cabbage. I also put in two green onion stems which were a bit harsh the first day, but had mellowed in by the second day. I may replace them with celery the next time. Then zap for about ten seconds. I like to start off at a low speed, increase over a couple of seconds to a medium speed, then check. The machine does shudder quite a bit at first, but apparently that’s normal. This treatment got the coleslaw to what I think of as Kentucky Fried consistency.

It was an excellent, slightly dry coleslaw, but better the next day. It made two breakfast bowls full, and I ate one bowl for dinner last night. I think you could add whatever hard vegetables you had to hand, I’ll have to let you know how that goes. It could possibly stand a little more mayonnaise too.

So all of a sudden I can make salads. It changes my whole perception of myself. I’m going to have to make some sweets to restore my equinamity.

March 20, 2013

Vegetable Soup, yes in the Thermomix

I’m supposed to be doing recipes from the Thermomix book for the first week. This is a book that has recipes for apricot chicken and beef stroganoff. It’s a very patchy publication. So I’m not in the mood. But I’m picking stuff up, like how to start off a soup.

You chuck in a halved small onion. A smashed clove of garlic. Zap for ten seconds on speed seven. It won’t pulverise them, it will chop them up fairly severely. Put in a slice of butter. Mix for two minutes on hundred degrees on speed one. It just gets them to translucent. We need a verb for “put in Thermomix and add some settings”. I’ll ponder that for a bit.

Put in two tomatoes, cut in half. Cut in half four zucchinis that some kind person bought for you in the mistaken belief that they were cucumbers. Add them to the pot. Zap for ten seconds on speed seven. Add in a cup of frozen chicken stock and a tablespoon of that ultra salty Thermomix vegetable stock. I can’t bring myself to throw it out, so I may as well use tiny bits of it here and there. It can’t go in the compost, it would kill it. I was going to put in cauliflower, but I forgot. You could put in any vegetables really. Cook for twenty minutes at 100 degrees on speed one, which just moves it around. I put the steamer basket over the hole in the lid because I thought it could do with being reduced a bit.

It sounds cringingly healthy, but it was surprisingly tasty and satisfying. I didn’t even put cheese in it. It had a bit of body to it.

It made enough for two, so I’ll have it with toast for lunch tomorrow. I may have to follow it up with a chocolate bar, but at least I’m getting my lycopenes.

March 19, 2013

Deconstructed Sushi – in the Thermomix

I have used the Thermomix for all kinds of things in the five days I’ve had it. Not for dinner though. Tonight was the night. I’ve blogged about deconstructed sushi for dinner. It was the perfect proof of concept.

Normally this dinner involves cooking salmon wrapped in foil in the oven. Rice in the rice cooker. Omelette in the frying pan. And the rest is raw, so lets not bother with that. Here’s how you do it in the Thermomix.

Put the steamer basket in the Thermomix bowl. Press the scale button. Weigh three hundred grams of rice into the basket. Take the basket out. Weigh eight hundred grams of water into the bowl. Put the basket back over the water.

Place the lid on the bowl. Place the Varona basket over the lid. Put two slabs of salmon in the basket.

If you were cooking for anyone mildly adventurous, you could have whipped up some ginger, shallots and garlic prior to filling up the bowl with water, then rubbed it over the salmon. However. There’s a steamer plate for the Varona that goes over the basket. Line that with baking paper. Pour over a couple of eggs beaten with a bit of soy sauce and sugar. Curse a little as they drip over the edge of the paper because you’ve been a bit frugal with it. Bend the paper into more of a bowl shape.

Bung on the lid. Cook the lot for fifteen minutes at Varoma temperature on speed four.

Well, it all worked. Not sure how much I like the look of a steamed omelette, but it tastes fine. The salmon and rice were cooked properly. It sounds like a bit of palaver, but it’s just a stack of steamers, all of which go in the dishwasher, so hurrah from my washing up team who can have the night off.

Preparation time was about five minutes, cooking time fifteen, which I spent cutting up the raw veggies, so that could be the quickest dinner I’ve ever prepared. The machine is a little noisy for what it’s doing, which is just heating up and sloshing around water. And I don’t like the name Varoma. It doesn’t really reflect what the thing is, and sounds a bit like a feminine hygiene product. I guess it needs a name. Steamer? That’s almost as bad. OK, marketing is difficult. Minor quibbles really. This is definitely my preferred rice and fish preparation method from now on. Might stick to doing omelette in the frying pan, just for textural reasons. Yes, yes, I am having fun.

Category: Thermomix