Anyone have any advice on how to best preserve olives?
Start with good olives in the first place. Then lots of soaking and changing water to remove some of the salty bitter taste (find instructions on net).
Did it once wasn’t really worth the effort IMO. Got the olives free they were growing wild on a mate’s farm - but still didn’t taste great are all the processing. So I think big issue is the quality of the olives you start with.
Kelly is cooked
When do you pick them or do you wait til they fall off?
I just noticed we have quite a few and would give it a crack
Definitely picked from tree, very few foods are best after ripening to extent they fall off. Find out what type you have and ask google when is best time to pick. I think for some types it is when they turn brown, but there are sicilian type olives that stay green or are picked green. I recall picking them when it was cold time of year - so I would guess late autumn or early spring - but google is your friend.
Any home cheese makers here?
How to make easy fresh Ricotta at home.
This is something I have been doing for last 6 months - always works, all up takes about 10mins.
First a disclaimer - technically this is not Ricotta because ricotta means re-cooked and uses the whey left after a rennet based cheese has already been made. I think it is also like paneer which is an Indian cheese, but they press it (this is unpressed). Anyway it is like Ricotta, but made from full milk so you probably get more ricotta yield, more protein and thicker solids content than ricotta made from whey.
What you need:
- 1 litre of discount milk - cost $1.25 (I use this because it is a bit more watery than normal milk, so it is a bit more like whey).
- 80ml of white vinegar
- microwave, slotted spoon, heat proof glass jug, draining rack (I use base from a decor container used heat food in a microwave).
- cotton tea-towel if you want to save the whey.
- some recipes add salt I don’t, my view is I can always add salt later to the meal depending on what I am using the ricotta for.
What you don’t need - thermometer or any complicated ■■■■.
Put milk and vinegar in glass jug. Put into microwave. I do 3 minutes on high. But you have to avoid boiling the milk, that stuffs it. So first few times you make this ricotta you are getting to know your microwave. You want to get the milk to between 74’C and 85’C. But you approach from the cooler side, in small increments, that way you don’t need a thermometer. The milk tells you when it is the right temp because it separates.
- So put milk in microwave for a minute, take it out, stir around the outside with slotted spoon. Does the milk separate? That means you get white globs aggregating in the middle and a watery pale yellow liquid spinning around the outside. As you stir round the outside it should cause more aggregation, if instead the white middle splits up and everything turns to milk again - it isn’t hot enough.
- Put it back in microwave for a minute, take it out, stir with slotted spoon. Does it separate this time?
- If not put it back again, try 30secs more this time. Keep repeating for 30 secs intervals till it separates.
- When it separates and stays separating as you stir around the outside, you will get big heavy ball of cheese spinning and floating in the middle of the pale yellow whey. When the cheese is as big as your spoon, lift it out and put it on the plastic rack to drain. Go back, keep stirring, you will get more cheese, keep lifting it out until you can’t get any more (the little white strings slip through the slots of your spoon).
That’s it, you’re done. It will take you longer to wash up than it did to make the ricotta. After you’ve done it a few times you will know how long it takes and on what setting - you can just set it for that many minutes the first go. But it is always safer to do it in multiple goes rather than risk boiling it.
Make some toast, spread on hot ricotta, add cracked pepper, slice some tomato, pick some fresh basil leaves - put it in your gob. Think to yourself … god that was easy, why doesn’t everyone do this. Fresh hot ricotta is much better than old refrigerated ricotta you buy with added stuff to preserve it.
Whatever ricotta you don’t eat only needs to drain for about 10mins, then put it in a container in the fridge - will last for 4 days - pour off any more whey that oozes out of the cheese. I use the ricotta instead of margarine/butter on bread/toast. Also used in cooking pancakes and carbonara pasta.
Reclaim the whey
You still have a jug of yellow liquid called acid whey. This is different from other wheys called sweet whey. Sweet wheys don’t taste as sour and have a lot more protein in them - they have a wide variety of uses - feeding animals, making normal ricotta, or creating the whey protein supplement powders sold in health food stores.
Acid whey is still a useful food - it contains a lot of the lactose (sugar/carbohydrate) and calcium that was in the original milk. But it doesn’t taste so good - bit acid, sour, lemony taste. Despite the name and taste it is only as acidic as orange juice. So you use it in small quantities so the taste is covered up by other things e.g. as 30% of the water, juice or stock in recipes for bread, soup, porridge, cakes etc. This whey can also be a substitute for buttermilk in recipes (use about 75% of the recipe’s buttermilk quantity).
It is also good to reuse the acid whey, so as not to dispose of this whey where it can runoff into natural water courses as all the carbs promote growth of bacteria and algae.
To reclaim it. Just get another empty jug - bigger than 1Ltr. Put your cotton tea towel over the jug, make a dip in the middle. Pour the whey through the tea towel - that’s it. I usually then pour the whey back into the original 1 Ltr milk container and put it in the fridge.
Clean up everything well and promptly, including the tea towel. Milk solids get pretty nasty if left to grow a lot of bacteria and then they come in contact with something you later eat.
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Made my own home made pork that’s normally served with ramen. Turned out quite well I thought. Easy to make as well but takes a bit of time.
Lightly seal the pork (I used pork neck).
Remove pork from pan.
Add equal amounts of water, soy sauce and mirin (if no mirin use dry sherry, white wine or rice wine).
Once boiled add the pork back.
Add about 1 tablespoon of chopped ginger into liquid and about 1 teaspoon of sugar.
Place drop lid on top. Rotate meat every 10 / 15 minutes till ready. When ready there will barely be any liquid left or it will be quick thick.
Was delicious!
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Sounds and looks yum, going to try to make this on the weekend.[quote=“Soulnet, post:226, topic:1805, full:true”]
Made my own home made pork that’s normally served with ramen. Turned out quite well I thought. Easy to make as well but takes a bit of time.
Lightly seal the pork (I used pork neck).
Remove pork from pan.
Add equal amounts of water, soy sauce and mirin (if no mirin use dry sherry, white wine or rice wine).
Once boiled add the pork back.
Add about 1 tablespoon of chopped ginger into liquid and about 1 teaspoon of sugar.
Place drop lid on top. Rotate meat every 10 / 15 minutes till ready. When ready there will barely be any liquid left or it will be quick thick.
Was delicious!
[/quote]
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I should’ve added that you don’t slice the pork until serving. Probably was obvious but thought it best to make sure.
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Finished dinner not long ago, was yummy Soulnet, didn’t know if hubby would enjoy it but he liked it very much.
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The end taste is not what you think it would be is it?
No it’s not, especially as I tasted the broth prior to putting the pork in. Thought it was going to be a very potent flavour. Instead it was a nice mellow flavour and a good after taste.
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Had the point end of a brisket in the freezer for a while. Trimmed it up and a bit of practice run.
BBQ was running real hot, so not super confident it’ll work out.
Hit 165 and then wrapped in paper, aiming for 203 and then into the esky til dinner.
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use metric mate.
All the recipes are in American, makes it a hell of a lot easier to keep it that way
Just back from Central Europe and there were 3 or 4 dishes I took a fancy to, so had a go at making goulash soup tonight.
I had Spanish paprika but bought both types of Hungarian.
It seems to get sold as a stew here, but mostly as a soup over there.
Took the recipe from http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/goulash-soup/bc52154b-ce39-43df-a744-cf20e0c4aebb and added caraway seeds late in the cooking.
Came out very well.
Still have Polish sour rye, pierogis and currywurst to try.
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these are sensational
So, put these on before work, came home and they were done. Need a bit longer, and a touch more flavour next time. But it was such and easy cook.
Turn smoker on, place ribs inside, come back 7hrs later.
