May Dinner and a Movie: Shirley Valentine (Loukoumathes)

 

This month’s  Dinner and a Movie, hosted by Marc of No Recipes and Susan of Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy, is the 1989 film “Shirley Valentine”.

Before this month’s D&M I had never heard of the movie, and when reading the summary about it on Wiki, I admit I was sceptical.   Its about a 40 something English woman who is treated like a door mat by most the people in her life, especially her brutish husband.  She basically lives to serve everyone else, so lonely and beaten down she talks to the wall in her kitchen.  When a friend wins two tickets to a resort in Greece, she makes a last minute decision to realize her dream of travelling, and takes off for new parts.  After her friend promptly ditches her for a man she meets on the plane she has to discover the island on her own.  She then begins to find out what she wants and what she actually needs.

Although I felt iffy about the ending, I was surprised how much the movie actually touched me.  It actually gave  me the push I needed to make a major change in my life that I had been avoiding for a very long time.

This is what brought me to my choice of recipe, Loukoumathes. 

In Greek these are λουκουμάδες, pronounced loo-koo-MAH-thes.  These little yeasted balls of dough are deep fried until puffed and golden and then drizzled with lots of honey and sprinkled with cinnamon.  A New years eve tradition in parts of Greece, I thought they were perfect for a movie based on change and getting a new start.  They are light and airy, and despite being covered in honey, they are not overwhelmingly sweet.  Adjust the amount of cinnamon you sprinkle to your taste, Mr. BotC liked it very liberally covered.  These must be serve immediately as they are fried, and will become soggy if left to sit.

Loukoumathes

Ingredients

• 1 pk -Active dry yeast or 30 grams compressed yeast
• 1 c Milk; lukewarm (110 F)
• 1 tb granulated white sugar
• 1 Egg; beaten
• 1/4 c Butter; melted
• 2 Cups All purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 cup Honey; warmed
• Ground cinnamon
• Oil (of your choice) for frying

Directions

1. In small bowl stir yeast into 2 tablespoons of the lukewarm milk.  Let sit 2 to 5 minutes until yeast is mostly dissolved.
2. In large bowl mix together remaining milk, sugar, egg and lukewarm melted butter. Add dissolved yeast.
3. Sift flour and salt and gradually stir in mixed liquids. Beat until smooth and continue beating for 1 minute.
4. Cover bowl with warm damp cloth and leave in a warm place for 1-1/2 hours until batter doubles in bulk with bubbles on the surface. I like to put the bowl into a cold oven, and place a pan full of boiling water at the other end, and then shut the oven door. This gives me a beautiful rise every time.
5. Line large baking sheet with parchment paper, and then with a layer of paper towel
6. In small pot over very low (minimum) heat, set honey to warm while frying the dough, until nice and fluid.
7. Remove cloth from bowl of dough, stir dough well then drop teaspoonfuls into pot of deep, hot oil (375F) 4 to 5 at a time. Do not crowd puffs or they tend to stick together. 
8.   Turn puffs to brown evenly and remove with a slotted spoon to drain on lined baking sheet.  Watch very closely as each puff only takes about a minute to cook.
9. When all are drained, arrange on serving plate. Drizzle each with the warmed honey and sprinkle with cinnamon. Serve hot.

Adapted from The Greek Cookbook by Tess Mallos

Hoppy Easter and Cake Pops!

Phew I’m exhausted!  Lots of spring cleaning and baking this weekend, along with making a full roast chicken dinner with all the fixings today.  Friday I made the bachelorette cake, and a certain specific area of the cake was refusing to cooperate as the kitchen and my hands were just too warm.  Finally  I got everything to stay put and It was picked up Saturday with no problems.  I was told today it was the centre of the party!  I would love to post pictures but unfortunately for obvious reasons I can’t ;)  Which reminds me, I have leftover Twinkies if anyone is interested!  Since this party was only for about 12 people I had leftover cake, and hating to waste food I knew the perfect way to use it.

I have been admiring the gorgeous cake pops over at Bakerella for some time, and have been just looking  for an excuse to attempt the sweet gems.  Easter and leftover cake gave me the perfect reason!  Bakerella has generously included her instructions for cake pops and Cupcake Bites on her site, which was really useful, because it was trickier than it looked!

I started with the cupcake pops, using the method of chocolate peanut butter cup moulds.  I made up the cake balls (crumble prepared cake, mix with frosting, and ta-da!) and popped them in the freezer.  While they chilled I melted milk chocolate chips and poured in the mould for the base.  I then took out the cake balls and pushed them into the chocolate mould and stuck them back in the freezer. 

When the chocolate was set, I popped them out of their moulds (which you have to do very carefully I found out, or the cake balls will break off from the base very easy!)  I stuck lollipop sticks right through the chocolate bottoms, and then put them in the fridge to firm up once again.

While they chilled I mixed white and red compound chocolate to make pink for the top.  When they were chilled and firmed up  I dipped them in the pink chocolate.  This was the tricky part, as its hard to keep the chocolate from dripping down everywhere and coating the cake ball evenly.  I found spooning the chocolate over the one side to be helpful for completely coating it.  Then you patiently leave them to set, before digging in.

 

I also tried simple cake pops by shaping them into eggs (although I must admit they only bare a very vague similarity to eggs!)

I had a lot of fun with the Wilton sprinkles I found at Michaels…

Although decorating them made me appreciate how truly talented Bakerella is!

My sister brought my niece and nephew over today for an Easter egg hunt around our living room and a sugar-high filled afternoon with the Wii.  My sister and niece loved the pops, though my 6 year old nephew didn’t partake because he hates cake (apparently that IS possible!).   They are rather sweet depending on your cake/icing combination but very yummy…as my niece can attest to, as she had two while my sister was busy (Sorry sis!)

Hope you all had a Happy Easter!

Happy St. Paddy’s Day!

In honour of St. Patrick’s Day, the Food network Canada website ran a poll for their March Cooking Club Challenge with three beer containing recipes. Ricardo Larivee’s Beer Batter Onion Rings won and I’m excited as this will be my first time joining the challenge.

I already have a favourite onion ring recipe though it contains milk and egg, so I am up for a change, and I knew my husband would be more than happy to be a co-taste tester!

Riccardo's Beer-Battered Onion Rings
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Yield: 4 servings

INGREDIENTS:

Onion Rings

• 1 large Spanish onion, sliced into 1-cm (1/2-inch) rounds and separated into rings (if desired, set aside the small centre rings for another use)
• 1/4 cup cornstarch

Batter

• 1 cup pastry flour
• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup pale ale
• Oil for frying

DIRECTIONS:

Onion Rings

1. Preheat the deep fryer to 190°C (375°F). Place a cooling rack on a baking sheet or line a baking sheet with paper towels.
2. In a paper bag or large bowl, toss the onion rings in the cornstarch to coat well. Set aside.

Batter

1. In a bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Whisk in the beer.
2. Using your fingertips or a wooden chopstick, dip the rings in the batter, 4 or 5 at a time. Shake off excess batter and deep-fry for about 3 minutes, turning half way through cooking. Drain on the baking sheet. Season lightly with salt. Repeat with the remaining ingredients.

I used a light canola oil, a plus is that at high temperatures needed for frying such as this, it doesn’t smoke

I used a large heavy pan, and put about an inch of oil, enough that the rings would not touch the bottom when dropped in

I then sliced a large onion we had leftover from the turkey meatballs. It really is okay if some of the rings are broken as you see here, it still tastes great and no one minds that its not a perfect O!

Rings all coated in cornstarch and ready for dipping

Mix all dry ingredients together. I used some of the cornstarch leftover from coating the onions. I do not usually have pastry flour in the house so I used all purpose flour instead.

Although the recipe calls for a pale ale, I used one of my husband’s favourite beers. I would try the pale ale next time for sure, as the beer gives the batter its flavour I think it needs to be stronger than the honey can give.

1 cup of beer as you see was not enough. I ended up using almost the entire bottle save for a bit at the bottom. This may have something to do with the fact that I used all purpose flour instead of pastry flour.

Here is the batter at the right consistency, slightly thinner than a pancake batter (it should hold onto the onion without all sliding off)

Drop in the hot oil, it should bubble instantly

Here the ring to the front left has already been turned over, it turns a nice pale brown. The ring to the right has been coated in bread crumbs like my other recipe calls for, I was interested in if this would prove to be a big difference.

Crispy brown and ready for eating! The ones to the right are the ones that I coated in dried bread crumbs. My husband and I both prefered the texture and crunch they give, although even without they do have a nice crunch, and were not extremely greasy as I thought they might be.

I felt that I still prefered my original recipe, which I will have to post (soon!) but as I am not a beer drinker I could be biased. My husband (who loves beer) thoroughly enjoyed them, and he might have me adding beer to my other onion rings(maybe because he gets to drink the leftovers? For someone with allergies to milk and eggs, this is definitely a fantastic alternative to the normal battered variety.

Actually I must say here I detest beer, but you don’t end up feeling like you’re eating onions dunked in it, and I did steal a couple before handing the rest over. My husband agreed it would be improved with a stronger beer such as Guiness or as the original recipe calls for, a pale ale.

Happy St. Patrick’s day and happy frying!