Kerrin | Crazy About Cooking

Not Empanadas

Kerrin Air Fryer, Brunch Favourites, Not Vegetarian, Savoury Temptations, Uncategorized 18/04/201902/05/2019 0 Comment

Before everyone gets all crazy about the name, let me start by saying that I’m not claiming that these little parcels of deliciousness are empanadas, but that they ARE inspired by them. Sure I could just call them ‘savoury meat parcels’ but where’s the fun in that?

Ingredients

500gm beef mince (Don’t like beef? You can use chicken, lamb, pork … it’s up to you)*
1 onion, finely chopped
Whole garlic cloves – as much as you like. I use about 3-4 cloves, but I really like garlic
Tomato paste – use the best you can get. How much you use will depend on how good it is.
1/2 cup stuffed green olives, roughly chopped
1/2 cup frozen peas
Salt & pepper to taste
Puff pastry – if you’re really keen you can make your own, but honestly, the shop bought stuff is just fine
Egg wash or milk
The secret ingredient : pomegranate molasses

* Vegetarian? You can substitute TVP mince in this recipe – you just need to cook the mix down a bit longer for the flavours to absorb better.

Method

Saute the onions in a little oil or butter over a medium heat. Don’t let them get too browned – you want them more soft and golden. After about 5 minutes toss the whole garlic cloves in there with them. Keep stirring, it’s important they don’t stick. After the onions are done to your liking, add the mince to the pot in small batches to brown it nicely. Once browned, add the tomato paste. Again, how much you use will depend on how good it is – the stuff we have is insanely good. It’s so thick and rich that you only need a little bit, but if you’re buying supermarket brands you’re probably going to need a good couple of tablespoons.

Once that’s mixed in nicely, throw in those chopped olives, the frozen peas and add a little water (or red wine) if the mix is a little dry – just a tablespoon or so though, you don’t want it getting too runny or your pastry will be soggy. Lower the heat and let the whole thing stew along nicely for about 15 minutes, stirring it every now and then so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Remember, if you’re using TVP mince, you’ll probably want to let it cook a little longer so the flavours really absorb. Just keep the heat nice and low.

Next, fish out those garlic cloves – they should be nice and squishy by now. Transfer them to a chopping board and crush them with the side of a knife to make a paste. Add that back to the mix and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Now it’s time to add the secret weapon: pomegranate molasses. If you’ve never had it before, it is amazing. It really is a total explosion of flavour and it adds SO much depth to a savoury dish like this (I’ve used it in bolognese sauce as well and it’s a real game changer). Add about 1 tsp of pomegranate molasses to the mixture and give it all a good stir to distribute the flavours.

Turn off the heat and set aside to cool. If the mix is too hot, the pastry will get all melty, so make sure it’s good and cool.

Grab your pastry – if you’re using shop-bought sheets, peel one off at a time and leave the others under a damp cloth so they don’t dry out. Cut the sheet into 4 squares, and have a small bowl of cold water close by. Add a dollop of the cooled mixture to the centre of one of the squares and dip your finger in the bowl of water and run it around the edges of the square. Next pull two opposite corners of the pastry up to meet in the middle and squeeze them together gently. Hold that point with one hand and bring up the third corner to meet them, squeezing the ‘seam’ together as you go. Repeat with the final corner. Brush your parcel with egg wash or milk. And set aside while you repeat the process till you run out of pastry or mix or (hopefully) both.

Now you have all your little parcels made, it’s time to decide how you’re going to cook them.

Anyone who knows me will tell you how in love I am with my air fryer. And I confess, I may have gone through a phase of asking, ‘Can we air fry that?’ about practically everything. (Who am I kidding … I’m still doing that!) Well, if you love your air fryer as much as I love mine, you’re going to be thrilled at how well these turn out when they’re air fried.

Air fry them at about 180 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Obviously, some air fryers may be cook a little differently, so check your first batch partway through cooking to see how they’re progressing.

After about 10 minutes they should look something like this …

Just LOOK at that golden puffiness! >>>

Alternatively, if you don’t have an air fryer, you can pop them in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius (375 degrees Farenheit) for about 10-12 minutes. Again, every oven is different, so check partway through cooking to see how they’re going.

Let them cool slightly before you bite into them – they will be blisteringly hot inside. Trust me on this, you don’t need to learn it for yourself the hard way.

Chunky Chewy Choc Chip Cookies

Kerrin Beginners Baking, Sweet Treats 15/04/201902/05/2019 0 Comment

If you’re a fan of chewy cookies and big chunks of chocolate (none of your neat little choc bits here!) and you want the best chocolate chip cookie recipe you’ve ever made look no further for your next treat than these golden drops of pure happiness.

Ingredients

185g butter
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla essence or medium dry cooking sherry
200g of dark cooking chocolate, roughly chopped

Method

Melt butter and set aside to cool – it’s important that the butter has cooled before you add it to the other ingredients or it will melt the chocolate and cook the egg in the mix (it’s a rookie mistake – I’ve made it before when trying to rush a batch of these through and it didn’t end well!).

In a large bowl combine the flours and brown sugar. I use a whisk to do this as it aerates the flour and breaks up the lumps of brown sugar perfectly.

Whisk the egg and egg yolk together with the vanilla essense or sherry (I ran out of vanilla essence one day and used sherry instead – it worked just as well to add that little bit of depth to the taste).

Blend the egg mix into the butter and set aside.

Now for the fun bit – it’s time to chop chocolate. Assuming you bought a big block of cooking chocolate, you’re going to need to cut it into smaller squares. You still want big chunks though – that’s what makes these cookies so great.

Look at those chunks of goodness!

Next, make a well in the centre of your dry ingredients and add the egg/butter/vanilla mix. Fold it through until it makes a soft dough-like mix – don’t worry too much if it seems a little wet at the moment, we can fix that after we add the chocolate if need be.

Add the chocolate chunks to the dough, and mix just enough to distribute them evenly – don’t over handle the mix. It’s not supposed to be perfectly even.

If the mix still seems a little wet you can add a touch more flour – but remember you want the cookies to be nice and chewy, so you don’t want the dough to be too dry.

*Side note: the amount of liquid needed to make a good dough will vary slightly depending on how old your flour is and how you’ve stored it. So sometimes you may need more or less liquid than a recipe calls for.

The next bit is to decide how big you want your cookies to be. They will spread a bit, so make them roughly 1/2-3/4 as big as you want the finished product to be.

Lay them out nicely paced on a tray lined with baking paper. And then, if you want to take the flavour to the next level … sprinkle them with a little Himalayan Pink Salt.

Trust me – it’s divine!

Bake them for about 12 minutes in a moderate oven – that’s roughly 180* Celsius or about 375* Farenheit. Again, how long you bake them will depend on how ‘hot’ your oven runs and how dark you like your cookies. They will still be a little soft when they’re cooked though – they firm up on the rack as they cool. Cool them on the tray for a couple of minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Get ready to do a lot of hand slapping as the cookies cool – particularly if you have boys in the house 🙂

Once completely cool, transfer to an airtight container. They keep well for about a week – if they last that long!

If by some miracle they last long enough to get a bit stale, you can crumble them up into ice cream for a yummy dessert.