the second pancake

I've done it, I've figured out how you can eat cake for every meal and stay in shape. This isn't some fad diet, it doesn't involve skim milk, portion adjustments, forgoing cream, or partially hydrophosphorylated nanoengineered seafood-derived fat substitutes (or the previously unheard of medical conditions they precipitate). It's not complicated at all, and in fact I feel somewhat silly that it's taken me this long to work it out.

Are you ready? Okay, here is it:

Make the cake yourself.

"But Tim", you say. "I use my Kitchen Aid four times a day and I weigh 900 pounds". There's your mistake — I'm talking about really making the cake yourself — by hand. No food processors, no electric whisks, no immersion blenders, just two arms, a tall glass of water, and a light breakfast. Have you ever tried creaming sugar and butter by hand? It's hard work. I learned this for myself when I tried to make Amy's Rhubarb Cake using little more than a fork and a large square bowl. That's the other thing: use square mixing bowls, and you're guaranteed to burn off a brownie's worth of calories in frustration alone. Trust me, this is going to huge*.

You can probably tell that I'm not much of a pastry cook. I like the idea of sweets, and done well it can be a beautiful thing, but the truth is I don't have much of a sweet tooth. I do however have a girlfriend who is soon to return from a year overseas, and every intention of spoiling her.

It's rhubarb season here in Australia, and combined with my love of a a bit of sour with my sugar this seemed a natural place to start. Using what I had I replaced 'soured milk' with buttermilk and cooked it in a cake tin, adjusting times accordingly. Despite my modifications it turned out terrifically — a sugary crunch from the top, a moist banana-cake-like crumb, and bursts of tangy rhubarb flavour in every bite.

*Disclaimer: Individual results vary. May cause weight gain.

What would you serve at a special dinner party if you didn't know who was coming? If you wanted to impress but knew nothing about your guests and what they liked? Would you play it safe with something homely and reliable, or go out an a limb hoping to wow them with the unexpected?

Personally I would err on the side of caution. A lot of people are not very adventurous eaters and feel uncomfortable beyond the safe and familiar: roast chicken, meat & three veg, and pork & beans, etc. Of course these people should be challenged, but choose your moment — if your date is grossed out by their warm beef tongue entrée you might well be getting cold shoulder for dessert. The best thing about unadventurous eaters is that they'll be surprised by even the most timid deviation from the mean, so a small adjustment to a classic recipe is all it takes to make them think you're Thomas Keller (although they won't think that, because they don't know Thomas Keller is).

This chicken dish is one of those aces that I keep up my sleeve for special occasions. It has all the flavours and textures of a classic French roast chicken with a couple of adjustments to elevate it above a standard Sunday roast. The recipe below is only a rough guide, but I'm happy to answer any questions in the comments.

Peeking in through the bottom-right corner of my hummus post was another dip, one I like to call feta ghanoush. The inspiration was born out of a surplus of spoilable pantry items before a short trip out of town, but I owe the name to Ivy and her tasty-looking Fetatziki. Think of the possibilities! Olive fetapenade! Baked fetato skins! Umm... Fetarte tatin?

Other than the addition of marinated feta & honey, this doesn't deviate far from a standard baba ghanoush. Grilling the eggplant couldn't be easier if you have a gas stove — poke a few holes in the eggplant skin and set it directly over a medium-low flame for 10 minutes, turning once. It will hiss, spit, become wrinkled and smell of smoke (like your Mum!), but once cooked the skin comes off easily and you can use it in dips, or seasoned and mashed as a simple side for grilled meat.

Baba ghanoush and hummus are traditionally served with some kind of flatbread such as pita. It could be total heresy for all I know, but I like to grill one side of the pita quickly under a very hot broiler, so one side is crisp and smokey while the other is chewy and warm. If that's wrong then I don't wanna be right.

(1) Mine was marinated in pepper, Greek oregano, parsley, and olive oil, but really it doesn't have to be with anything in particular or marinated at all.

We drank wine from McLaren Vale, bought cheese from the central markets, played beach cricket at Henley, danced to Curtis Mayfield at Supermild. You went off to explore Australia and when you came back you stayed with me while looking for a house. I'd come home from work to find you lounging around on the couches like a pride of lions and I would cook you dinner. When you found a cute cottage in Gilberton we went out for pizza to celebrate — Andy in that green jacket looking like you'd won the PGA masters, Daphne and Maggie looking beautiful as always.

Daphne, Andy, and Maggie, this post is for you. Although we've only had a year together, what an amazing year it's been. I'll miss you guys, but I understand that you are needed by your respective countries to solve all of their problems with your awesomeness.

See you in Greece,

Tim

P.S. Dapho, Here's that hummus recipe I forgot to give you.

(1) My name's Tim and I use Savings brand canned chickpeas for my hummus (Hi Tim). Those of you from other countries or, god forbid, other hemispheres who don't know Savings brand would be familiar with its international equivalents. Savings brand is Coles supermarket's budget range. It inhabits the brand sub-basement far below their (respectable) "You'll Love Coles" range, on the bottom shelf where its sparse, Soviet-inspired labels are mostly hidden from view. I was brought up in a "Oh don't be silly, it all comes from the same factory" household, but let me put it this way: with Savings brand, you get what you pay for.

But you know what? Good on Coles for cutting corners and passing the savings on to you (me). Their chickpeas — cooked enough to taste good but not enough to be considered done — have exactly the right amount of inferiority for hummus. We're not talking about hard here, just a slight bite that gives the puréed hummus a rustic mouthfeel. Trust me on this.

(Slightly undercooking chickpeas from dry should give similar results)

There are, on occasion, some things in the world that are a little confusing. What does it mean to obflisticate someone? Why are they called guinea pigs if they aren’t pigs and they’re not from guinea? Why is water wet?

In these times of conundrum and despair, it is reassuring to turn to something unchanging, something solid, some reliable point of reference from which to encounter our wild and dynamic world. With this in mind, may I present Windy Creek Chenin Blanc.

This wine is, and always will be, divine. It tastes like what water has always wanted to be. Clean, pure, refreshing and bright. You can serve it warm or ice cold, with salmon or cheese or roast lamb, in summer or in winter, and it always weathers the changes and tastes amazing. It tastes like the words ‘tranquil’, ‘soliloquy’, ‘lullaby’ and ‘ephemera’ have been liquefied. If humanity were required to justify its existence, this wine would balance out Cheryl Crow, the Crusades, and people who test new ring tones on public transport. It’s so delicious some customers have started to evolve taste buds in their oesophagas because tasting even more of this wine is essential for the perpetuation of our race. It is the vinified equivalent of Nadia Comaneci’s perfect 10 at the Olympics.

And it’s twelve dollars a bottle.

AMEN, AUSTRALIA. I salute you.

The particularly eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that things look a little different — what do you think?

I've test-driven it on a few different browsers and so far so good, but if you notice any peculiarities please let me know and I'll look into it. This seems like the best time to mention that I've tidied up the categories as well. Previously just about every entry was in the "Cooking" or "Recipes" category, which rendered them both essentially useless. Things are now sorted a lot more sensibly, so have a poke around.

Spoiler alert! This was awesome.

You might recall from the recent pork entry that I was unsatisfied with the feta crumble. The flavours were all there, but the crumble's texture was stodgy and lacked any of the satisfying bite I was expecting. I intended not to follow that exact recipe again, but the promise that drew me to try it in the first place was still there. The seed was planted, and I was determined to make a satisfying feta crumble.

This time though, I used the crumble as a filling for stuffed eggplant. I have Peter's stuffed eggplants to thank for the inspiration and rough idea of how to cook the thing. I'm sure he won't mind that I bastardised his recipe, because this turned out really, really well. The eggplant's skin could have been more tender (not entirely sure how to make this happen), and I can see this becoming a staple side dish in the second pancake household.

The changes made to the crumble were minor, and more or less along the lines of what my gut told me the first time I was making it. Rather than mix the crumble ingredients into the beans I baked the eggplant stuffed with the beans and scattered the crumble over the cooked eggplant for a final blast under the grill before serving.

I posted a recipe the other day for George Calombaris' baked beans that are used in this dish. Like the beans this recipe comes from his cookbook The Press Club, and like the beans it didn't quite live up to its promise. The principles are there — baked beans is a classical pairing with pork and a classic in itself — but in making both of them I found myself going against my own cooking instincts in order to stay faithful to the recipe.

There are plenty of great things about this dish, don't get me the wrong. The idea of juicy pork topped with hearty beans and a salty, crispy crumble sounds great, doesn't it? What's more, Calombaris recommends serving it with a jus infused with Greek coffee, and the flavours work terrifically.

Unfortunately the feta crumble topping — the very thing that sets this recipe apart from regular old pork and beans — lets it down. It didn't feel right to be mixing the crumble ingredients together with the saucy baked beans, but I did it anyway. The results were predictable: unpleasantly soggy in the middle, and poorly crisped on the outside. It's hard to believe that they would make it this way in the restaurant.

I don't want to shamelessly plunder another of the book's recipes, especially since it's nothing to write home about. Instead a short description should suffice:

A bit disappointing really, but you haven't heard the last of feta crumble.

Oh God, kill me now. As I write this I sit gripped with pain, dreading the inevitability that the loud contortions of my small bowel are heralding. Apparently it's the inulin. I take small comfort in the words of John Goodyer who understands my predicament:

Written in 1621 of Jerusalem artichokes, "Which way soever they be dressed and eaten, they stir and cause a filthy loathsome stinking wind within the body, thereby causing the belly to be pained and tormented, and are a meat more fit for swine than men."

And yet a part of me is looking forward to the leftovers. A small percentage of people are intolerant of inulin-rich ingredients such as Jerusalem artichokes, and it bugs the hell out of me that there's a food I can't eat — even moreso that it's a delicious food.

Prior to making this soup, my only experience with Jerusalem artichokes was of buying one years ago by mistake and wondering what the hell was wrong with my ginger. While they might look like ginger, these tubers actually have an earthy taste, and a marvellously creamy texture when boiled for a soup. I could see them pairing very well with mushrooms, and while I'm against arbitrary truffing in an effort to make thing fancier a drizzle of truffle oil would pair quite nicely with that earthiness.

This is a delicious and extremely simple soup to make, and rest assured that only a small number can't handle the hardcore taste sensation that is Jerusalem artichoke.

This is a quick entry to post a baked beans recipe from George Calombaris' book The Press Club that I'm using in a couple of upcoming posts. While it won't take you to baked beans heaven — it's not even baked — it's a fairly solid recipe that can be made in bulk and frozen, eaten on its own with a chunk of bread or used to accompany pretty much anything.