Recipe: deep fried Mars bars!

Well, I remember when I moved to Sydney and entered to one of Bondi`s infamous chip shops, and noticed this Mars bar treat on the menu, I wasn`t convinced. Back then, I wasn`t really adventurous. Also I wasn`t convinced after 1 year as well, I thought I try and try and try later later later… Never happened.  And I was finishing college and finishing with Australian living and thought I must try this once, this and gambling.

The fried Mars bar was surprisingly good, before I tried to imagine how it might taste, I was close,but my imaginary version wasn`t nearly as good. Let me start, the dessert doesn`t taste as bad as it sounds. Actually it`s kinda delicious. The chocolate melts well with the batter, which still holds the whole thing together, it`s almoust like a chocolate filled doughnut, but much better! Anyway, you must try!

Of course the Aussies say it`s their invention, but I’ve been noted by a few people, that it`s oridinated to Scotland, and it`s a popular part of the chip shops “healthy diet”. Wikipedia says the same thing. Anyway I never been, and the Aussies and the Scots can argue on this as much as they want.  Today it`s been tested on 30 sweet loving people, who were very satisfied.

Ingredients

4 Mars bars

150 g self raising flour

150g dry coconut

2 eggs

1 cup milk

pinch of salt

plenty oil for frying.

Keep Mars bars in fridge before frying.

Make batter, with flour, coconut, milk, egg and salt in a bowl. It needs to b a bit thicker then a pancake mix. Just like any other batter.

Heat oil.

Take mars bars out of the fridge,, (remove packaging of course..) roll into flour, then dip into batter, make sure it covers the whole bar.

Gently put it in the hot oil. It has to cover the whole bar. It fries in approx. 1 minute, so make sure don`t burn.

It it straight up, maybe with some vanilla ice cream!

Enjoy!

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Recipe: Lemon, Beetroot risotto with walnuts and thyme.

One other favourites from the risotto family, this time with beetroot! I can`t describe how much I love it, it just tastes cool and loving the funky purple colour! The base of the recipe and the idea comes from Sydney`s Fyrefly tapas bar where I used to be an apprentice a few years ago.  I fell in love with the dish straight away, I never thought beetroot can taste so nice. I wasn`t really a big fan of the veg, but now it`s in my top 10 favourite ingredients. Since, I experimented with it a bit more,at the restaurant we served it with scallops,but  I wanted to add some ingredients, so it can be a nice individual meal, or starter. As much as I liked it, it was still a bit boring on it`s own. From all the searching, lemon was a surprisingly good taste with it, and walnuts are always a great companion to beetroot. The recipe is incredibly easy, and can be done in no time! And its an amazing treat for a romantic dinner!

Ingredients

150g Arborio rise

1 shallot brunoise

1cup white, rose or red wine, DRY!

2 spoons of butter

3 cloves of garlic

approx. 3 cups of veg stock

2 medium big beetroot, cleaned, peeled, greated

zest and juice of 1 lemon

handful of chopped, toasted walnuts

salt, white pepper

fresh thyme

Make a simple risotto base, in a medium saucepan. Melting the butter, adding the shallots first, then garlic, arborio rise. Add the wine, stir a little, until the onions cover the rise, before you start adding the stock. Reduce heat, and start adding the stock only a little at time, wait till liquid is reduced, and add more. Repeat untill rice is almost cooked. It`s ready when the middle is still a bit crunchy.

Add the beetroot, give a little bit of time for it to cook. Add rest of the ingredients, mix well, season.

Serve with fresh parmesan cheese, and some garlic butter bread. It is a perfect companion to seafood.

Enjoy!

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Recipe: Apple Risotto with Veg puffs

First I should say “Thank You” for my fellow college friend/chef Marco who gave me this idea. We were in culinary school together in Sydney and for a final “exam cooking” we had to create 3 dishes within 1 hour, also it had to be creative and some sort original. I was already thinking about a risotto, but of course as there was a big budget cut, I couldn`t really use anything that is you know..fancy.  He asked me “why don`t you make apple risotto?” I said “huuuuh???” – He knew about my love to Italy, and the amount of time I traveled there.  “You never heard of apple risotto??? It`s a traditional northern recipe? Ah I can`t believe You…” . To be honest I haven`t heard of apple risotto ever since….

But what should I serve it with? I wanted to make it as a vegetarian dish (also cos our chef at the time was vegetarian and I wanted to impress him). Apples would be too much,cheese is very avarage, and I knew most of the fellow students were doing parmesan chips for garnish-cos it looks good and it`s easy. The competition was pretty big as it was 27 of us in that class, so, i didn`t want to copy anyone or wanted my idea to be stolen. Also the dish had to be different texture from the risotto, preferably cheap and fast to make. So in this case the easiest ideas are always the best. And I don`t really remember how, but I remembered my fathers corn-puffs. I loved them as a kid and i like them still, it`s easy, cheap, and fast to make. Thou I wanted my dish to be a bit more gourmet so, I decided to use 3 different kind of puffs- corn, zucchini, and parmesan.

The recipe is simple and fast.

Ingridients:

For the risotto

• 1 apple
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 10 g of butter
• 1 small cup of arborio rise
• 1dl white wine
• 2 tbs of sour creme or creme fraishe
• salt
• white pepper
• 3tbs of parmesan cheese
• Veg stock

For the puffs

• 1 small can of sweet corn
• 1 small zucchini
• 2 eggs
• 100 g of white flour
• 7g dry yest
• salt
• parmesan

First make the puff mix. In a bowl mix together the flour the eggs and the yeast. Divide in 3. Add the corn, the shredded zucchini, and the parmesan in the separate mixes. If the dough looks a bit wet, you can add more flour. Set aside to rise.

Risotto. In a saucepan melt the butter add the brunoise onions and garlic and fry until golden brown. Add the small cubes of the apple (witout the skin of course), and stir it constantly so it wouldn`t burn. When the apple got a bit softer, add the wine (use good quality white wine, one wise traveler once said, don`t cook with wine which you woudn`t drink..he is right) and add the rise. Stir it a little bit and allow to cook before You add the stock. The stock has to be warm. Pls try not using water, your risotto will not be as tasty as it should be. If you don`t have fresh stock at home, it`s even better to use the ready made ones from the supermarket. Also If you make stock once, you can easily store it in the freezer. Always add just a small amount of stock at the same time, just enough for it to cover the rise, Reduce the heath to minimum, put a lid on it, and let it cook. Stir it frequently, if the liquid disolves, add more stock. You don`t want to end up with overcooked rise, or rise soup-which is even worse. When it`s almost done, add the sour creme, the parmesan and the seasoning. Cook for an other minute. Take it off the heath, and cover it with a lid.

Heat up the oil, or turn on the deep frier. You need to have enough oil so it would cover the puffs.  Form small balls with your hand out of the mixes and drop it in the hot oil. It`s ready when it has a nice golden brown colour. Don`t for too big balls as they wont cook trough properly and during the frying it will double it`s size anyway.

Enjoy!:)