Yeah – me too. Not a pretty picture is it. Actually, it’s so unpretty that I want to show you something. This is what you get when you google images for  ‘leftover silverside’

H-ORRIFYING

So, when my brain stopped working and google stepped in, which is often the way in this fancy new century, I was a little bit scared. I had a big hunk of leftover silverside sitting there in the fridge, and no idea how to proceed. There was no way I was going to put any of those creations up there in my mouth.

Until I spotted a little picture of a taco. For the last few months Mexican food has been my go-to food. I am in love with the fresh flavours and the simplicity of it all. I figured it should work! Also, a few months ago in the first edition of the Masterchef magazine there was a Curtis Stone recipe for Tacos that used white cabbage instead of lettuce.

Revelation!

Try it – you won’t be disappointed. So I’ve used that idea here. When preparing the salad ingredients I was tossing up as to how  I would serve up the silverside. Cold or Warm? I decided to cut it into thin strips then heat it in the pan, just until warmed through. But it started to get a bit of colour on it – and I had a brain wave (Take that Google! It still works!)

BEEF BACON!

Bacon is cured Pork.

Silverside is cured Beef!

Why hadn’t I thought of that before? Why, given the bacon-fueled bacon madness that the food world is experiencing, have the savvy silverside manufacturers not begun marketing it as such?

Of course, it doesn’t have that pork flavour, and not at all as salty - but a great beefy, subtle saltiness that really suited the mexican food.

Ingredients

A hunk of left-over silverside/corned beef – sliced thinly into strips and fried in a bit of olive oil until lovely and crispy and brown

Tortillas - heat them up on a hot frypan about 20 seconds a side

1/4 head of cabbage - VERY finely shredded

couple of carrots, sliced SUPER thinly – julienned

avocado – chopped, with a squirt of lime juice over it and salt and pepper

Tomato, thinly sliced

Any other vegetables that you desire - capsicum is a good one

Coriander/cilantro/mint/parsley

A bit of cheese maybe

Limes - you’ve gotta have limes!

Cholula Hot Sauce

OR

Tajin Chili Powder  (if you can find it – I was given a bottle by a Mexican friend, but i’m going to go searching once I run out! )

OR

Charred Salsa

OR

Anything!

Method

Chuck it all together, squeeze over some lime, drizzle some hot sauce and use your hands!

By the way – For the first iteration of Silverside – I served it with my honey mustard white sauce! (one of the first recipes I posted on i8b.) Delicious!

In the mean time I just couldn’t wait any longer to show you this recipe. My sister’s Mexicano BF makes this all the time and she made it up for us recently. It is the best salsa in the world (in my humble opinion!), and it’s made in a completely different way to what I expected!

Ingredients

3 tomatoes

2 red and 1 green chili (the long, mild thai ones)

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

Coriander

Butter (I know! I was surprised too!)

Method

Heat the oven to a moderate heat, wrap peel the onion and wrap it in alfoil. Chuck it in the oven until it is ‘not raw’

Meanwhile, grab a heavy-based frypan, put on medium-high heat and place the tomatoes and chili in the pan to blacken the skin. Move the tomatoes around and hold them in place (with fingers or tongs) until they stay there and get nice and black all over. You’ll need to take the chilis out first because they will blacken first. (Before and After shots!)

Take the tomatoes out, and put the whole cloves of garlic in to brown then add a bit of butter. Grab the onion from the oven, chop it roughly and put it in the pan to to caramelise for a short while.

Pull the green-plant part off the chilis and throw that away. Put all ingredients in a tall bowl (blackened skins and all!) and buzz with a stick blender.

Serve with all sorts of things. Mexican food, potato chips, poured over roasted vegetables. It’s got a pleasant kick to it, but dies down quickly after you’ve swallowed. The perfect heat!

COMPETITION REMINDER!! We have a mixed case of 24 bottles of Apple and Pear Cider to give away from Punt Road Wines. To enter, all you have to do is write a comment on ANY post on iatebrisbane. Open to Brisbane (and surrounds) entrants only (could you imagine the international shipping fees on a case of cider?!). Check out the details and the tricky little fine print here.

STEP TWO – Wait 2 – 3 hours and you’re done!

Now, of course, everyone talks about how DANGEROUS it is and how the pressure will build up inside the can and it will EXPLODE and shower your kitchen and the surrounding area in sweet, sticky, ooey-gooey debris.

 Firstly, I don’t see a major problem with this – if I feel peckish I can simply lean over and lick the couch. But secondly – it probably won’t happen.  As long as you don’t let the water in the pot evaporate it ’should be right, mate.’  Just keep topping it up every 20 minutes or so. Come on… Live Dangerously!!

This stuff is pretty powerful. After only 3 teaspoons my sister and I were talking way too fast and staring at the spoons we were using to eat our creamy dulce de leche; waffling about the science and physics behind why our heads appear upside-down in the spoon.

20 minutes later we crashed.

It’s great simply spread on bread, or eaten by the spoonful, or over icecream, and it’s great in little tartlets for dessert.

Ok, all jokes aside, a lot of people do say this method is dangerous, so please take care whenever you are doing anything in the kitchen. If you want to try other methods, have a look here, here and here.

Mexican Food Boffin list - The 5 rules to makin’ Mexican.

1. It’s either gotta be fresh…straight from the ground right into your mouth. OR it must be stewed, fried and simmered for a minimum of 48 hours.

2. If you want something to look like Mexican food, follow the ’Mexican Flag Rule’ - red, green and white.

3. Loads of limes, bucketloads of chilis and lots of heart and soul

4. Cook with love and attentiveness

5. If in doubt, chuck some chocolate in it.

This jewel of a poached egg was gifted to me by my husband who kissed me on the cheek, banished me from the kitchen and 20 minutes later presented me with this yummy lunch. It sounds silly, but food surprises are my favourite kind of surprises, especially when Darren does it. When we’d first moved in together, Darren presented me with a piece of pavlova (he’s pretty darn good at them!) and my first ever taste of fresh raspberries. I savoured each one. 

Poached Eggs on Toast

Chop up tomatoes, avocado, red onion and mix together. Dress with olive oil and salt and pepper.

Heat  a couple of inches of water in a frying pan with a tablespoon of vinegar. Heat until there are bubbles clinging to the base of the pan. Swirl the water with a spoon to create a slow whirl-pool. Crack an egg and very gently slip it into the water. While this is happening toast some bread under the salamander. Once the bread is done, the egg should be done.

Cut a piece of garlic in half and rub it all over the bread. Put a couple of leaves of kale and spinach on top and finish with the salsa and poached egg. Crack some pepper over the top and some Cholula.

“Is it like a paella?”

“Uh, nah… it’s just how I do rice”

Brilliant.

And here it was step-by-step in a recipe book. I’ve now made this a few times, trying all sorts of ingredients and spices, including an indian-style one with tumeric. So this is my recipe, but play around with it and try different styles. It’s a great side dish for meat as it has the carbs and vegetables combined.

Ingredients:

1 cup long-grain rice

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic (I like garlic!)

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 tin 4 bean mix, drained and rinsed

Vegetables – chopped. I just added capsicum to this one

1/2 tsp Paprika

Salt

Pepper

Method

1. Fry off the garlic and onion in a little olive oil until brown

2. Add the rice and fry for a few minutes

3. Add the can of tomatoes and a couple of cups of water, and all the other ingredients.

4. Pop a lid on it and stir INFREQUENTLY (easier than risotto!)

5. Add more water if the rice needs to cook for a little longer

6. Serve.

OH MAN and you KNOW I’m gonna say this is going to taste spectacular with Cholula! Because it does!

I don’t usually keep ready-made salad dressing in the house, I wish I did sometimes when I’m being lazy, but it forces me to be a bit creative instead of just reaching for the good ol’ french dressing.  Often it’ll just be Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar, but other times I’ll go nuts and use all sorts of condiments.

The best way to make a good dressing is use approximately equal parts of oil and an acid, perhaps lemon juice or a vinegar. Then just chuck in whatever you have in the cupboard. Maybe some grainy mustard, or some herbs or spices. As we’re all on a Mexican Kick this month, and I am going crazy for Cholula, I’ve gone down that road.

Ingredients

1 cup canned chickpeas
1/2 cooked chook (chicken), shredded roughly
10cm cucumber, sliced
handful of Baby roma tomatoes, quartered
1/2 red capsicum
Coriander
Parsley
1/3 red onion, sliced finely
Mixed salad leaves
Handful of snowpeas, cut into strips diagonally
1/2 avocado, diced

 
Dressing
1cm cube of fresh ginger, cut into very thin slithers
Juice of 1/2 a very juicy lime (or 1 lime)
1 tbsp Cholula Hot Sauce
1 tbsp Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
1/2 tsp Paprika

Chuck it all together in a big bowl and serve.

Yes. Yes she is. Forget Tabasco Sauce people. Cholula is the one for me. To quote their website, “Cholula’s blend of piquin peppers, chile arbol and signature spices enhances food flavours without overpowering them. It’s a combination that has defined Cholula as The Flavourful Fire” I couldn’t agree more. There is more to Cholula than just heat, she’s sweet too. You won’t just have the best night of your life, she’ll make you breakfast in the morning. And that breakfast will be delicious!

Cholula just shooting the breeze with Mexican Lime Water and Guacamole

Cholula goes with everything. Eggs, Meat, as a salad dressing, nachos, soups, pizza, rice. And therein lies the problem. Mr Mexico was running out of Cholula! His parents would send him care packages from Mexico every once in a while, so he had to start rationing it out. I was lucky to even try it. A few weeks later, I mentioned Cholula to my mum and how I was planning to import some myself. And she casually said. “Oh, is it this stuff?” and proceded to unveil a bottle of the prized elixir from out of her pantry.

YOU CAN GET THIS STUFF IN COLES!! GO THERE NOW!!!

(Just realised this may look like I love Coles – but really…I just love Cholula. )

So Cholula for everyone! It’s just lovely. My sister made some Nachos with Guacamole and a simple salad for lunch this week and we drizzled some Cholula over the corn chips. I’ve had it with eggs on toast, I added it to a sauce to go atop of Chicken Parmagiana and I just made a salad with a Cholula-based salad dressing.

Viva La Mexico!

I’ve attempted crème caramels a few of times before trying a couple of different recipes. On one occasion I had trouble unmoulding them, on another I burned the caramel and in yet another failed attempt my custard didn’t set. I’m pleased to report that these crème caramels were delicious and from now on this will be my go-to recipe!

This recipe is from the book “Mexican Cantina Cooking” by Jean-Pierre Vincken.

Ingredients

• 10 tbsp granulated sugar
• 5 tbsp water
• 750mL milk
• 1 vanilla pod, split open lengthways
• 2 whole eggs
• 6 egg yolks
• 200g caster sugar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180^oC (I had to adjust this down to 160^OC in a fan forced oven because the tops started to brown)
2. For the caramel, gently heat the sugar with the water in a heavy-based pain. As soon as the sugar gets a bit of colour, pour it into the prepared moulds. Tip the moulds to spread the caramel around the sides too
3. Pour the milk into a separate pan, add the vanilla pod and heat gently for 15 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool for a little while
4. Whisk the eggs, yolks and sugar together in a bowl. Gradually add the milk, stirring continuously. Strain the mixture through a sieve and pour it into the caramel moulds
5. Put the moulds into a deep oven-proof dish. Fill the dish with boiling water up to two-thirds of the height of the moulds*
6. Check whether the flans are ready after 50 minutes. Prick the centre of a flan with a skewer: the skewer should be clean when it comes out. Remove the flans from the oven and leave to cool
7. To serve, turn the flans out onto small serving plates. It will help with unmoulding to run a knife around the edge of the moulds first. The moulds can also be dipped into hot water briefly to loosen them

*An interesting tip this book gave was to add a couple of egg shells to the baking dish filled with water to stop the water splashing into the crème caramels when it boiled. Just like adding marble chips to a school Science experiment!

I’ve been thinking about caramel a bit recently. Ever since Mrs Melanger , who is possibly… no, definitely the most professional and hardworking blogger in Brisbane, dedicated a whole month to caramel.  There is a lot of science that can go into making caramel and toffee. The great thing about it is it’s predictable. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still bloody scary to work with!  The predictable bit is sugar will always change consistancy at certain temperatures.  Going from sugar crystals to a smooth sticky syrup, all the way through to a hard snappy toffee. There are a number stages, see here for all the details.  Caramel is achieved at 174°C. Hence the reason why you don’t want to make this with a toddler running around your feet!  

There are a few methods to creating toffee and I’ve used the dry caramel method. It’s nice and quick, it doesn’t allow you to become complacent (the enemy of a good toffee!) and once you get your head around having a substance at close to 200 degrees that close to your face it’s actually quite simple.

Ingredients

1 cup white sugar

1/3 cup lightly toasted sesame seeds (toast them in a dry frypan over medium heat until slightly golden)

My Tips for making perfect Dry Caramel (with sesame seeds)

1. Be fearless!… but cautious.  It will all happen pretty quickly but remember – it’s all predictable. It will turn into caramel – and that’s the goal!

2. Spread a piece of aluminium foil on your bench, fold the sides up a centimetre on each side,  and brush it completely with a little oil.

3. Take the sugar and pour it into a heavy-bottomed pan, shake the pan so it sits in a level layer

4. Heat it on medium heat. What will happen at first is the outer edge will begin to liquefy like this…

5. Soon it will start to colour and become even more liquid. Sometimes you may need to push the sugar crystals down closer to the bottom, press it with a wooden spoon, but try not to stir it too much. 

….First of all – sorry  I didn’t get any more photos of the process! It was just me, the camera and the caramel that day!

6. What will happen next is all the sugar crystals will disappear. This is when you take it off the heat. To stop the caramel from getting any darker, have the kitchen sink filled with a centimetre of cool water. Dip the bottom of the pan very briefly into the cool water. This should slow down the cooking.

7. Carefully add and stir the sesame seeds in and quickly pour the liquid onto the waiting aluminium foil. Scrape the excess out of the pan with the wooden spoon.

8. Wait until it is warm to the touch, turn it over onto a plate and peel off the aluminium foil. Do this while it’s still warm so it doesn’t stick.

Mmm – look at those little sesame seeds taking a dip in the caramel ocean

9. Again, while still warm, crack it into bite sized pieces with your hands. If you wait until it is cool it may shatter too much.

10. To clean, once the pan is warm fill it to the brim with hot water from the tap. Don’t worry about it – it’ll dissolve eventually (maybe 2 days later!!)

11. Keep the toffee in the fridge in a air-tight container or ziplock bag. Humidity is the other enemy of caramel!

Gratuitous Sesame Seed shot…

I used to rely on a particularly well-known brand (”what if it had a flat bottom?“) for creating my Mexican authenticity, until I stumbled across a recipe to make taco seasoning myself, only to discover it was dead easy!

My new favourite taco mix? Soft corn tortillas + home-seasoned beef + salsa cruda + gaucamole / sour cream / whatever tasty sauce you’re after!

But I hear you say, “Julia, that packet mix! It just makes everything so simple!” And I will parry you with, “NAY! AVAST! DON’T DO IT!” Here are three great reasons to ditch the Old El Paso ilk and DIY taco seasoning from scratch:

1. It’s healthier! Think of all the thickeners and other yuk that you’re avoiding!
2. Gosh darn, it’s quick! It takes no longer to DIY than it does to rip open that packet!
3. And heck! It just tastes sooooooooo good!

“And what of this salsa cruda stuff,” I hear you say? Only the awesomest taco salad you’ve ever made, and again– dead easy!  When the i8b girls came over recently for our Mexican cookoff, I decided to show ‘em how its done.

DIY Beef Tacos with Salsa Cruda

For the Taco Filling:

• 500g of thinly sliced beef fillet, or beef mince (I prefer fillet, but I was cooking 1.5kg of meat on this occasion so the mince is easier to handle!)
• 1/3 cup tomato paste
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp chilli powder (or mexican chilli spice mix if you can get it)
• 1 cup water

1. Brown the beef in a small amount of olive oil
2. Add the cumin, chilli powder, water and tomato paste (or you could use fresh tomatoes with some flour or corn starch to thicken). Season with salt and pepper.
3. Cook until the liquid is reduced.  Serve!

For the Salsa Cruda:

• 1/2 spanish onion
• 4 ripe tomatoes
• About half a bunch of coriander (at least a cup’s worth, I would imagine?)

1. Chop all ingredients finely and mix (if you have a Tupperware Quick Chef chopper, chuck it all in together and go crazy!).
   NB: If your tomatoes are extra-juicy, you may wish to strain off the liquid from this mix, to avoid your tortillas getting wet and mushy!

To assemble tacos:

• Grab a corn tortilla (I prefer Diego’s Corn Tortillas, just make sure you heat them before serving lest they crack on you!)
• Spoon in some of the beef
• Top with salsa cruda, and your choice of Sarah’s Guacamole, sour cream and tabasco.

See? How easy was that! And it’s such a quick, delicious and super-authentic flavour!  Now, the next step… trying my hand at tortilla-making!