Australians All Let Us Rejoice

It's AUSTRALIA DAY today so I won't consider it too garish to get a little patriotic say a big G'day to all of you! And if you were thinking that we are all putting that trite little shrimp on the barbie then think again, first of all we call them prawns down here and were most likely going to be putting snags or chops on the barbie. Yes, snags or chops. Sausages or steaks.

You have to love the Aussie lexicon. It's baffling and nonsensical to the outsider; we love to attach silly terms to words that are in perfect working order and love to shorten everything, but if you are Australian it makes perfect sense. Like a cup of tea being a cuppa, chewing gum becomes chewie, breakfast being breakkie, and anyone called Darren, Karen and Lauren will indubitably be given the nickname Dazza, Kazza, and Lozza. I love being Australian.

Another thing quintessentially Australian and proudly so, is the barbie- the barbeque. Now I'm pretty sure it wasn't the early settlers who thought up this way of grilling meat over hot coals, I'm sure it was around for a lot longer than that. But what we do pride ourselves in are our barbies. Most people will get together today and put a few snags on their barbie, have a beer and good laugh. We're not into formality and being all ceremonious about things, and the barbie epitomises all that is casual about the Australian lifestyle.

There's something about meat that is cooked over an open flame that just makes it taste better. All that smoke and fire permeating the meat, charring the outside and leaving the inside tender. It's a joy to behold and even more so to eat.

Right now I'm on a bit of a sausage bent. I have it with my pasta, I have in my sandwiches and I have it on my pizza. Right now I'm obsessed with finding good sausages all over Sydney and for this moment my taste buds go ga-ga for any sausage by the Eumundi Smokehouse people. They are a small business operating out of Dulwich Hill and if you're in Sydney and you like your meat, then this is your Mecca. They also have stalls at several markets like the monthly Pyrmont ones and the Farmer's Market in the Entertainment Quarter and most of their stuff can be found at organic wholefood stores like Macro and Aboutlife.

Their chorizos are probably one of the best I have tasted in Sydney, and at $32/kilo for the Russian Farmer's sausage, it's gold for the discriminating carnivore. As much as the shop is filled with exotic fare, there are also simpler stuff that I find are a delight- like the beef and Guinness, lamb and rosemary, chicken and leek, Tolouse and Italian sausages. My personal favourite is the lamb and rosemary. When you cook them up, the kitchen fills up with that distinct aroma of lamb, and soon enough it's perfume has summoned everyone to the kitchen.

I went to the farmer's market at the old Fox Studios lot this week to get my ration of sausages for the weekend and it seems that most of Sydney had the same idea. By the time I had arrived at the Eumundi stall most of their sausages had already sold out including the lamb and rosemary, so I was left with what was still there. Not that the stuff left behind was second-rate. It's actually top-notch stuff that I thoroughly enjoy today.

So have a barbie and get a few sausage sangas (sausage sandwiches) and beers into your belly, be up standing for the national anthem and enjoy this beautiful land we call Australia.

Eumundi Smokehouse Sydney
402 New Canterbury Rd,
Dulwich Hill, NSW
Phone: (02) 9569 0205
Opening Hours: Thursday-Friday 11am-6pm, Saturday 7am-2pm

In The Closet, And A Really Good Pizza Dough Recipe

I'm still a little embarrassed about the little spiel I did earlier about my recent nomination. I sort of stayed away from the blog for little while for fear that my readers had turned on me and thought I had become some sort of sell-out. I don't know why I feel like that but I'm still a little awkward about getting recognition for the blog, it's nice when other bloggers say nice things about me, but when all the appreciation suddenly becomes official, I somehow get all gawky and reluctant.

I guess I'm not sure what the appropriate reaction is, I guess gratitude and excitement would seem apparent, although I'm not sure whether I should be all glaringly blatant about it and in the spirit of blogging- share all things with you the reader or whether I should be all rock and roll about the whole thing, just cool and aloof- no skin off my back whether I win or lose.

At some points I manage to border on being apathetic about the whole thing but my inner dork just wants to be all giddy like a school girl about it. There's no fighting that geek inside, so I just can't help but be all Gwyneth Paltrow at the Oscars about the whole thing. I'm sorry.

But the weird thing is I'm still a little reluctant about the blog. Yes, this blog; the blog that I have been writing on for the past year and half; the blog that I have been disclosing what I eat, what I do, what I hate, what I like. Yes that blog. Bizarre I know but surprisingly some of my friends don't even know I have a blog and my own mother only found out accidentally. It's not that I'm ashamed of the blog. Quite the contrary in fact, especially when I didn't even really know what a blog was before I started.

Let's just say that I'm a little self-conscious about my thoughts being there for everyone to read. Laughable you might say because contradictorily I am writing about my thoughts on a blog for everyone to read, but I am somehow comfortable in the fact that most of you don't really know me other than through the blog. It's not that this blog is my opportunity to peddle a fake version of myself, but I am uncomfortable about people I know reading my writing. Weird but true.

I've never admitted to it until now but I have a real problem about people I know reading and criticising my writing, I don't mind them seeing the photographs, but it's the words that I have a complex about. It mortifies me for a second when I know that one of my friends have discovered my secret hobby. It's probably equivalent to being caught naked in a public street. I don't know why but I'm still in the closet when it comes to blogging.

But what I don't have any qualms with shouting from the roof tops about is pizza. I could literally have pizza as my last meal on Earth, provided that it's good pizza and not that doughy, processed meat topped garbage that some establishment to try peddle as "pizza". Yes you know who you are.

There's as many recipes for pizza dough as there are combinations of pizza toppings, so I don't like to say that this recipe is the be all and end all of all pizza dough recipes. Although this recipe is from the cookbook The Silver Spoon, touted as the bible for Italian cuisine. So I wouldn't dare question or even dare critique over 55 years of culinary history. All I know is that this dough is simple and it turns out a treat.

I don't usually like to do recipes for pizza except for the dough itself. I think you should be able to put whatever you fancy on it. Hey, you rolled out that dough, you waited around for a couple or so hours for that dough to prove, you kneaded that thing until you developed really toned forearms, you deserve to pick your own pizza toppings.

And with pizza, I think the only rules that apply are- the dough shouldn't be too thick and secondly don't overload your pizza with too many toppings. Don't be tempted to put every left-over you find lurking in the fridge on your pizza, it's not a garbage disposal, so don't over-top. But other than that just go for what floats your boat.

I went with a sausage and bocconcini pizza- it was good.

MY PIZZA TOPPINGS:
Eumundi Smokehouse Beef, Spinach and Tomato Sausages
Bocconcini
Crushed tomatoes
Basil leaves

This pizza can also be seen in the round up for HHDD #17 hosted by 80 Breakfasts. Have a look at the other bevy of pizza recipes and vote for your favourite one.

Basic Pizza Dough
recipe adapted from The Silver Spoon
Serves 4



SPECIAL EQUIPMENT: pizza stone or better yet a wood-fire oven

250g plain flour, preferably Italian type 00, plus extra for dusting
¾ tsp salt
15g fresh yeast
120ml lukewarm water
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for brushing

Sift the flour and salt into a mound on a work surface and make a well in the centre.
Mash the yeast in the water with a fork until very smooth, add the olive oil and pour mixture into the well. Incorporate the flour with your fingers to make a soft dough.
Knead well, pulling and stretching until it becomes smooth and elastic.
Shape into a ball, cut a cross in the top, place in a bowl and cover.
Leave to rise in a warm place for about 3 hours until almost doubled in size.
Flatten the dough with the palm of your hand and roll out on a lightly floured surface to a circle about 5mm thick.
Brush a baking sheet with oil or line it with baking parchment.
Put the dough on it and press out until it covers the area.
Make sure the rim is thicker than the centre.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Since when did self promotion become so shameless? I don't know, but if reading this is making you cringe, don't worry, I feel the same way and that feeling grows at an exponential rate while I'm writing this. Although for some reason I still cannot get my fingers to stop typing. Perhaps that is why self promotion is so shameless, it's a guilty pleasure; its blatant and immodest, yet it's so easy to yield to it's beguiling temptation.

So what am I promoting? Well, this blog. I woke up this morning to realise that I was one of the finalists for the 2008 Bloggies in the Best Australian or New Zealand Weblog category. Unbeknownst to me someone out there nominated this blog and to my surprise it is now one of the finalists. Who would have thought? I had never even heard of the Bloggies before and to realise it had been going on since 2001, I feel so ill-informed about my own medium.

So I just wanted to say THANK YOU to whoever it was who nominated me for the Bloggies, you can choose to remain anonymous if you want as there is no reward for you in coming forward other than getting a showering of gratitude from me for thinking of this little blog. But while we're dwelling on thankfulness and appreciation, I might as well point out that you too can vote for me by going to their website.

So that it's not all about me, there are also a number of other great blogs, some of them Ausralian, up for a Bloggy, so why don't you go and vote for them too. Voting closes at 10:00pm EST, Thursday, January 31 and the results will be posted on their website Monday, March 10.

A Cake Without the Bake

NOTE: I have received several comments about the Spanish origin of polvoron or namely polvorones. I do realise that this Filipino sweet was most definitely inherited from the Spaniards during their colonisation of the Philippines during the late 1500's, and I do apologise for not pointing this out earlier. However, this version of polvoron, I believe, is the Filipino permutation of the dessert after thousands of years of acquiring the recipe. Traditionally, Spanish polvorones is made with almonds and cinnamon, and does not contain any powdered milk like the Filipino version does. So although polvoron did originate from Spain, the Filipino version does differ markedly from it's Spanish original.

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Everyone loves a shortcut, taking the longer course or going through arduous and difficult procedures is usually left to sadists. Why do you think those "lose-10-pounds-in-two-weeks" exercise machines are so popular, and not to mention liposuction. Hey, when all this food-blogging weight finally catches up with me, I wouldn't say that lipo was out of the question. Inherently we all like the shorter path, easier to tread and faster to get through. Who wants to row a boat across a river when there is a perfectly reliable bridge?

Sometimes a shortcut takes you to a place you never wanted to be at in the first place, sometimes it gets you in an argument you never wanted to have as you are tossing the street directory out the window, but enough about my life. Sometimes a shortcut can take you to a delicious destination in half the time, like a cake without the bake. Say what?

Yes, a cake without the bake. It's polvoron- a Filipino sweet that is somewhat like a toasted wheat cake that consists of flour, powdered milk, sugar and melted butter, and is compressed into a cake using a polvoron press. I used to eat these by the dozen as a child and I never imagined that I could make it myself. It always stood in my memories of childhood on some imaginary pedestal of foods that I could never possibly recreate. It seemed almost irreverent to reach into that corner of my childhood remembrance and rehash something that I have such a wistful affection for.

Since I had never made this childhood dessert before, and always ever purchased it from the Filipino store, I doubted whether my creation could attain the same pleasure and gratification I got whenever I popped one of the store-bought ones in my mouth. Sweet and milky, the powdery cake slowly melts into a thick pool of sweet creamy goodness in your mouth. But I never realised how simple it was to make. And did I mention there is no baking involved?

Traditionally polvoron is milk flavoured but sometimes nuts like cashews or peanuts are added. Also a popular addition is pinipig, which is immature glutinous rice that is pounded and added to the flour mixture and sometimes pandan (screwpine) or ube (purple yam) is also used to flavour polvoron. But as a child with such a juvenile palate, I could only savour the plain version of polvoron, I was much too fussy to eat anything green, or even more so purple.

But this time I decided to make the original milk flavoured polvoron and a chocolate version as well. I know as a child I would have relished a chocolate flavoured polvoron, as most children probably would. I assume that this flavour would have caught on by now as I know that some places in the Philippines do sell a very post-modern cookies and cream version of polvoron. And if your imagination stretches far enough you could pretty much cnceive any flavour of polvoron- say green tea, lavender, coffee, hazelnut, which ever way you are inclined the polvoron can go that way.

But today we are talking about sentimental food, so there can't be any meanderings into the bizarre and fanciful. It's all about the simple things that hark back to your youth. There's always something distinctly romantic about the food we've have in our youth and years later they somehow manage to mount the massive plinth for things we idealise and hold dear with starry-eyed affection. And this sweet, along with fairy bread and nutella sandwiches is definitely high on the list.

As for the cake without the bake, well it might seem off-putting and unsavoury to be eating flour unbaked, but what is done first is that the flour is toasted in a skillet until it is slightly browned. Turn your eyes away for a moment and you might have yourself suffering from smoke inhalation, burnt flour does not smell good, so make sure you keep your eyes on the colour of the flour at all times. Just like caramelising sugar, it can go brown in the blink of an eye. It all comes together with a little melted butter and the powdery mixture is compressed in a polvoron mould that contains a small press that pushes out the shaped polvoron. And to finish it off the polvoron is individually wrapped in paper like little powdered lollies.

The verdict, well I couldn't help but be hard on myself. Could my own rendition of this hallowed childhood sweet be as good as it is in my memory? I don't know. To be honest when I tasted it I was pleasantly surprised at how similar it tasted to the store-bought variety, although for me it just wasn't the same. It was probably because my palate had been clouded by years and years of eating this stuff as a child, and frankly I don't think any version of mine could ever taste as good as it does in my imagination. But do try it for yourself and come to your own conclusion.

But if you would like to see what other meals and recipes people are reminiscing about, head on over to the Skinny Gourmet. She is holding a food event focussing on food nostalgia. The round-up will be posted at the end of January.

Polvolron
makes about 24 polvoron



1 cup plain all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
½ cup powdered milk
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted

FOR CHOCOLATE POLVORON
2 tbsp hot chocolate milk powder

In a large skillet over low to medium heat, toast the flour until light brown.
Remove from heat and add the sugar and powdered milk, (add the hot chocolate milk powder if making chocolate polvoron)
Add the melted butter and mix thoroughly in skillet.
Transfer flour mixture to a plate and compact mixture in a polvoron press.
Place moulded polvoron onto a flat baking tray/cookie sheet and refrigerate for 1 hour.
To wrap, cut tissue or soft wax paper into 12cm x 12cm squares.
Place polvoron piece onto the middle of the paper and fold over top and bottom sides, tuck in edges into the middle and twist