Food Academy- Beef and mushroom pie.

Beef and Mushroom pie.

Ingredients

·      Stewing beef (chuck), 1 ramekin, cut into 2cm dice

·      Oil for frying

·      Onion, ½ , finely diced

·      Garlic, 1 clove crushed

·      Button mushrooms, 4-6, quartered

·      Beef stock, ¼ cup

·      Red wine, ¼ cup

·      Parsley, 1 tsp, chopped

·      Thyme, ½ tsp

·      Tomato sauce, 1 tsp

·      Salt/pepper

·      Puff pastry, 2 sheets

·      Cornflour, 1 Tbsp

·      Milk to glaze

·      Tin foil pie dish

Method

1.    Heat up the oil in the fry pan (medium high) and brown the meat.

2.    Remove from the heat and drain.

3.    Fry the onion, garlic and mushrooms until soft.

4.    Return meat to pan.

5.    Add the stock, wine, tomato sauce, seasoning and herbs.

6.    Bring to boil and then simmer until the meat is tender (20-30 min).

7.    Mix the corn flour with a little cold water and add to meat. Bring to boil to thicken. Allow to cool.

8.    Line a pie dish with the pastry.

9.    Fill with the meat mixture.

10. Cover with a pastry lid and seal the edges. Make a slit/holes in the top.

11. Brush with milk/egg wash and bake at 200⁰C for 30 minutes.

12. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before eating.

Chocolate Weetbix slice.

A simple recipe to do by yourself.
Just remember not to burn the butter and measure accurately.
And pack the slice mix down nice and hard into the tin.
Finally, go easy on the water in the icing. If you add too much, you will make soup.

Energy (Chocolate Weetbix) Slice

Equipment

Small pot

Wooden spoon

Measuring cups/spoons

Baking tray and cooling rack

Baking paper

Sieve

Large Bowl

Ingredients (per pair)

Butter, 100g

Sugar, ¼ cup

Flour, 3/4 cup

Weetbix, 2, crushed

Baking powder, 1/2 tsp

Cocoa, 2 tsp

Coconut, 1/4 cup

Hot water, 3 Tbsp

Icing

Icing sugar, ½ cup

Cocoa, 1 tsp

2 knobs of butter, melted

Hot water, 3 tsp

Method

Oven on to 180⁰C.

1.    Melt the butter and sugar in a small pot. Don’t burn the butter!

2.    Sieve the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking powder) into a large bowl.

3.    Add the crushed weetbix and coconut.

4.    Pour over the melted butter and sugar and mix together well. Add the water too.

5.    Lay the baking paper in the bottom of the baking tray.

6.    Scrape the slice mix into the tin and press down to compact it.

7.    Bake for 15-20 minutes.

8.    Make the chocolate icing.

9.    Remove the slice from the oven and let cool down in the tin for a bit before removing.

10.  Place on a plate and ice with chocolate icing.

Food Academy- Apple cake

Apple cake 

Ingredients 

·       3 - 4 Apples (any tasty kind will do!)

·       1 tsp of Cinnamon

·       2 tsp of Sugar

·       1 and 1/2 Cups flour

·       1/2 Tablespoon of baking powder

·       1/2 teaspoon of salt

·       1/2 cup of vegetable oil

·       1 cup of sugar

·       1/4 cup of orange juice

·       1 & 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

·       2 eggs

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 Degrees Celcius
2. Butter or oil a cake tin.
3. Remove skin and cores from the apples. Chop up apples into small cubes and place in a bowl.
4. Sprinkle Cinnamon and 2 tsp of sugar over apples then lightly shake it until the apples are coated. Set aside.
5. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl.
6. In a separate bowl mix oil, orange juice, sugar, vanilla and eggs. Mix well.
7. Add wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix together lightly until mixed well.
8. Add half of the container of apples into the mixture and mix lightly.
9. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin.
10. With the remaining apples, sprinkle these on top of the cake.
11. Evenly pour the remaining juices from the apple container - this gives the cake more moisture and sweetness.
12. Bake at 180c for around 40 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.
13. Serve hot with ice cream, or even amazing to eat on its own!

§  Share on Facebook

Food Academy- "Pear's in Tutu's".

This is actually a simple dessert.
Poaching fruit in a cooking liquor is a great way to combine the flavours of the fruit. In this dish, I have used lemon in the poaching liquor and pears to poach. I suppose you could try other fruits to poach.
The pastry adds more texture and flavours to the dish. Presentation is a big part of the end product. Making use of the excess pastry to create shapes to bake is a great way to enhance the final dish.
I also reduced the poaching liquor to a syrup to drizzle over the the plate. Be careful with this syrup as it is incredibly hot (sugar heats up more than water). A sprig of mint adds colour to the plate.

Pears in tutus

ingredients

1 lemon, juice and zest

½ tsp vanilla essence

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups water

4 pears, peeled and cored with bottoms trimmed

1 sheet butter puff pastry

2 tsp apricot or orange jam thinned with a little boiling water

Method

1 Poach the pears; this can be done a day or two ahead. 2 Place the lemon juice, vanilla, sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Do not stir. Simmer until the sugar has dissolved. 3 Peel the pears, neatly leaving the stalks intact. Slice the bottoms off so that they sit upright. I don't remove the core but if you prefer to that is fine. 4 Carefully add the pears to the lemon syrup, weight with an inverted saucer to keep submerged. Simmer for 20 minutes or until tender. 5  Store pears in poaching liquor. The poaching liquor is a lovely lemon and pear cordial, great as a soft drink or a cocktail mixer. 6 Cut 4 rounds of pastry and transfer to a lined baking tray. Mark a smaller circle about the size of the base of each pear into each round. Place a pear in the centre of each pastry circle and brush the pear and the pastry with the apricot jam. 7 Bake for 20-25 minutes until the pastry has puffed up. Serve with icecream and a little warmed lemon vanilla syrup.