Cooks' Corner

[KenC]

Anne, in a restaurant setting they are often served on a separate plate.  For a home meal they are usually sliced in half, spread with butter and eaten from the same plate.  Most people eat biscuits (or rolls) with the meal.  Usually saving a little for the end of the meal to clean up any sauce or gravy left on the plate.  Our biscuits have more grainy or course texture, perhaps crumbly is more accurate.  They are more likely to be served with breakfast.  Our rolls have a  bread-like texture, with a firm crust.  They are soft, light and fluffy inside and are served with dinner.  I hope this helps, but should also say this description is probably quite regional and may vary across the United States.  There are countless different types of rolls and biscuits.  Our scones are bread dough, deep fried and served hot with a mixture of honey and butter slathered on top.   Our cake flour is a finer texture with a lower gluten content.

[Anthony Darby]

Originally biscuits were cooked twice (hence the name) to make them hard and dry, so easy to store and carry, e.g. ships biscuits. Ships biscuits often contained grain beetles, so you tapped them on the table to dislodge the beetles and then dipped them in brine or some other liquid to soften them before eating.

[annew]

Thanks everyone - that's set me onto some googling, MILK gravy...
I think I'll stick to splitting them and putting jam or honey on.
I don't think I'll try dunking my morning biscuit in brine though.

[Lesley Cox]

Cakes go hard when stale; biscuits go soft. Cookies are already soft so are not biscuits,

My cakes, biscuits, scones NEVER go stale. They don't get a chance.

I made a wonderful tomato tart a couple of days ago. It was supposed to be a red and yellow tomato tart but yellows have finished so I used a couple of sliced yellow capsicums, seeded and sauteed a little, to partially cook.

Pastry -
2 cups plain (all purpose) flour,
110 gms butter
pinch salt,
beaten egg yolk
Put flour and salt in a bowl and rub in the butter (I whizzed it up in the blender). Add just enough water to make a smooth dough. Wrap in cling film and chill for at least 30 mins. (I made a mistake here as I thought the recipe forgot to add the egg yolk so I added it to the flour, then the water. It made the pastry yellowish but a good texture. Then when I read further on, I realized I was supposed to use the yolk to brush the base of the pastry so I used another yolk for that.)

Filling
500 gms or more red and yellow tomatoes, sliced
4 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper
basil leaves
Arrange sliced toms in a single layer on several layers of kitchen paper towels. Sprink with salt and stand for 20 mins. Blot dry with more towels. Heat oven to 190 centigrade (170C fan oven). Grease a baking tray. Roll the dough to a round approx 35 cms in diameter. Place on the baking tray and brush with egg yolk. Arrange tomates on the pastry to a diameter of about 25cms. Drizzle over the oil and balsamic vinegar and scatter with salt, pepper and basil leaves. Turn up the edges of the pastry, fitting snuggly around the tomatoes and pinch together to make a bowl. Cook for 25 to 30 mins or until tomatoes are tender. Garnish with more basil leaves.

This should serve 4 people but we halved it between us. It was delicious. The recipe was March on my supermarket's calendar.

[Lesley Cox]

Instead of rubbing butter into flour for scones, I always use cream if I have it in the house, quickly mixing in about 1/3rd to 1/2 a cupful. So much quicker and less messy. Scones are best if mixed very quickly and as little as possible. The more mixing, the tougher they'll be.

[maggiepie]

I made a wonderful tomato tart a couple of days ago. It was supposed to be a red and yellow tomato tart but yellows have finished so I used a couple of sliced yellow capsicums, seeded and sauteed a little, to partially cook.

Lesley, this looks yummy, thanks for the recipe.
Will print it out for later when hopefully we can get tasty tomatoes.

[Anthony Darby]

I'm hoping to get a late crop of purple tomatoes.

[Paul T]

So Anthony,

Are you going to show us the purple tart you produce when using those purple tomatoes in Lesley's tomato tart? 

First time I have been into this topic for a very long time.  I figure that now I need to relearn cooking (I wasn't allowed into the Kitchen as Yvonne loved her cooking, although I used to enjoy cooking prior to that), I figure that recipes here might be useful.  I hope to unearth some of Yvonne's recipes one of these years, but I think that most of them were in her head rather than written down, so short of a Séance I am doubting that there is much chance of retrieving them.    I know that her banana cake recipe is written down somewhere, but no idea where. 

[maggiepie]

Paul, I am sure if you tell us what sorts of food you like best you will get flooded with recipes.

My other half makes a great banana cake, he swears by the recipe so if you would like to try it just holler.

[Paul T]

Helen,

As long as he swears by it, not at it.    Yvonne's one has 3 bananas in it..... we have old bananas frozen in packs of 3 in the freezer for the next time we needed them.    Planning ahead when a surplus is evident. 

[Anthony Darby]

Old bananas tend to go to the blue tongued skink or my fruit-fly farm, but a nice moist banana cake is one of my preferred cakes.

[Paul T]

Anthony,

I'm sure all the fruit growers in your area are indebted to you for breeding more fruit fly?

[maggiepie]

Helen,

As long as he swears by it, not at it.    Yvonne's one has 3 bananas in it..... we have old bananas frozen in packs of 3 in the freezer for the next time we needed them.    Planning ahead when a surplus is evident. 

Paul, we freeze bananas in 3's too.

Here's the recipe Edgar uses.( hppe there are no typos, was not watching screen as I typed)
It is pretty foolproof.


Banana Cake-From the All New Good Housekeeping Cook Book.

For the best flavour wait untl your bananas are completely ripe and covered with brown spots but not blackened and soft.

2.5 cups all purpose flour
2 tspns baking powder
3/4 teaspn salt
1/2 tspn baking soda
1.5 cups mashed very ripe bananas ( 3 medium)
1/4 cup milk
2 tspns vanilla extract
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs


1. Prepare oven to 350F. Evenly grease 9 X 5 inch metal loaf pan.
In medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda.
In small bowl, combine bananas, milk and vanilla.

2. In large bowl, with mixer at medium speed, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, reduce speed to low. Alternately, add flour mixture and banana mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula.
Beat just until blended.

3. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean, about 1 hour  10 mins.
Cool in pan on wire rack 10 mins , remove from pan and cool completely on wire rack. Makes 1 loaf, 16 slices.

[Lesley Cox]

Our old bananas go out onto a nail on the fence, where the tuis and bellbirds like them a lot.

I had planned to post a picture of the Black Krim tomato I wanted to use for the tart but missed out at the relevant market. I bought some last Saturday and 3 toms weighed 1.4 kgs. They are an old variety, with darkish, very juicy but also meaty flesh and the underside of a dark, olive green colour. When Fred is finished his doings I'll post the picture.

[Anthony Darby]

It would be the Indian mynas that would attack a banana on a nail here. Today I was watching starlings and a blackbird eat olives of next door's tree!