cooking

Best in Show Part 2

It’s well and truly over for another year, and the results are in. No prizes for me, but it was so exciting to see my entries on display.

My jam was too thick, as I had gone against my gut and added pectin which I don’t normally do and my ANZACS,  I believe were slightly underdone. The first prize ones were a deeper golden colour than mine. My lemon tart was entered in the wrong category. I took the meaning of creative cookery to mean that you could enter whatever you liked, whereas it was more they type of category to get experimental. I’ll be more prepared next year.

It was such a great learning experience though,  after speaking to some people and listening in on a few sessions in the IGA Demo Kitchen, I was amazed at the lengths that some of the contestants will go. Want that perfect sponge to wow the judges? Well you can put your chooks on a specific diet so their yolks will come out the perfect shade of yellow for your cake. Talk about extremes!

All of my entries were on display besides the jam (not sure why) and that made it worth it.

Here is my lemon curd – in jar in the middle. And below is my plate of ANZACS. Well I’m assuming they are mine, they look like it but I couldn’t quite see the exhibitor number to know for sure, so lets just call them mine.

 

Lemon Curd

Lemon Curd

 

ANZACS

ANZACS

 

I can’t wait for next year. I’ll still be entering but I think I will focus on only one entry, that way I can perfect my skills in one area instead of focusing on different ones all at once.

 

Until next time xoxo

 

 

 

 

 

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Best in Show Part 1

It’s almost upon us again, that time of year where deep fried things are served on a stick, you make yourself sick on sugar and you get to relive the exuberant joyfulness of being a child again. That’s right, The Royal Show is just around the corner, and this year I am an entrant.

Why you ask?? Well every year I look at the entries on display and think mine look just as good as those, so this year I bit the bullet and registered.

I’ve entered into 4 classes. I’ll be entering Raspberry Jam, Lemon Curd/Butter, ANZAC Biscuits, and the Open Cookery class where you get free choice of either sweet or savoury. I’ve chosen to enter a lemon tart.

Pastry and I have a love hate relationship so it’s going to be interesting to see if I can get the pastry right for the lemon tart and the filling is temperature specific so it’s kind of fun and nerve wracking watching that thermometer go up!
The ANZACS need to be crispy and to snap when broken so this will also be a learning curve for me as I prefer to bake mine chewy.
The jam, I’m not too worried about how I make it. I love my raspberry jam so hopefully the judges do as well.
And as for the lemon curd, well I’ve found a great base recipe and I’m going to use a few techniques I’ve recently learned and hopefully they enjoy it.

Entries are due in 2 days so I’d better get back to the kitchen.

If you are planning on getting down to The Royal Adelaide Show come and check out the entries in the Duncan Gallery between the Goyder and the Jubilee Pavillions.

Wish me luck! I’ll post a follow up and pictures after it’s all over.

Kath xoxo

Crackling

Crackling…. it’s one of the best, if not the BEST thing about pork, I mean what’s not to love about crispy crunchy pig skin combined with that layer of fat that just melts in your mouth. So many people ask me how to do it and how come I find it so easy. So I thought I’d share with you my method. This is how my dad has always done it, he used to be in charge of the crackling at Christmas until I took over, and I grew up thinking his was the best in the world.

 

What You’ll Need

– Pork with the skin on

– Coarse salt – I use either rock salt or salt flakes

– Oil

1. First, heat the oven. Crackling needs heat and lots of it, I turn my oven up to 250°c to pre-heat while I’m prepping the pork.

2. Rub the pork and skin dry with a paper towel, getting as much moisture as possible off. Crackling does not like moisture, so the drier you get it the better.

3. Score the skin with a sharp knife – making sure that you only go through the skin and not all the way down to the meat. You want the layer of fat to keep the meat juicy and tender. Sounds a bit tricky but it’s not, once you start scoring you’ll know what I mean.                                              – I’ve gone through a bit too far in a couple of places here, you’ll see what happens further on.

4. Rub a generous amount of salt into the skin, making sure that it gets inbetween the the scored skin. I drizzle some oil over it as well, this makes it easier to get the salt into the cracks.

5. Place pork on a roasting rack and put in in the oven. Keep the temperature on high until the crackling starts to get going and then you can turn the heat down to your preferred roasting temperature. It should look something like this…

IMG_8155Notice that I’ve cut a bit too deep in a couple of places – this is what I meant when explaining how to score the top.

6. Now you can turn the oven down to your preferred cooking temperature, the crackling will keep going until your meat is ready.

The end product should look something like this.

IMG_8156

 

7. Resting the meat – DON’T cover the meat. I can’t stress this enough. The steam created from completely covering the meat will undo all your hard work and make the crackling soggy. If you must, wrap the meat from the bottom, around the sides but leave the top un-covered.

Troubleshooting

Not ready at the same time as the meat. 

  • Turn the heat up again for the last 10 or so minutes of the cook to finish it off
  • Cut the crackling off the meat and place under the grill, this is a sure fire way to get it finished.

Too salty.

  • This is why I use coarse or rock salt, you can brush it off easier once the crackling has started.

Came out of the oven done, but went chewy/soft.

  • Has come in contact with moisture, try one of the methods above to crisp it back up.

 

So that’s it, my almost failproof method of doing crackling. so what are you waiting for? Go get some pork and get crackling.

 

Until next time x0x0

 

 

Hello

Hello, and welcome to my little corner of the world.

I should probably introduce myself. Hi my name is Kathy, a little bit obvious given the title of this blog, but hey, I could’ve been tricking you all and had some kind of other name like Gertrude or something.

Anyway, like I said my name is Kathy and this is my food blog. I love cooking and eating and well, pretty much anything that has to do with food and this is where I want to share that all with you.

Here you will find recipes, cooking tips, photos and basically anything that takes my fancy.

Bon Appetit