Cat on the Bench

Moving on

My mum is in the final stages of moving from the town we grew up in to a tiny studio flat in St Kilda. She has been living in St K for the last few months (under a license agreement in which I inserted a “cat clause” clarifying that she was allowed her cat) and has been spending weekends moving up as much stuff as will fit in her little shoebox and allocating the overflow between her three kids.

It has been quite an effort. Three weeks ago we hired a truck and clad in our wife-beaters, we trucked down the highway with Jimmy pumping, stopping of course for a sausage roll. All went smoothly until we actually got to packing and discovered that it was going to be a lot more difficult to move ‘adult’ furniture than my hard rubbish collection. So my mum went into the pub next door and offered a slab to anyone who wanted to help two women pack a truck. Half the town’s male population put down their beers and we were packed in no time!

There were no probs unpacking in St K after a few hasty text messages to friends with biceps. But the next week my mum had some terracotta pots that she couldn’t carry up the stairs, so she went into the Saint and made the same offer she did the week before. No one would even make eye contact. She ain't in Kansas anymore.

Anyway, yesterday she made the final carload and arrived on my doorstep with a vacuum cleaner, her Kenwood mixer that she used when she ran her breadmaking stall at the local market, and a suitcase full of papers.

I was pretty excited about the first two, but bemused at the third. She said she had had a peek and thought it was my old music and to watch out for spiders.

Once she had left I opened the suitcase and found:

• a feckload of sheet music that I had forgotten about
• folders in which I had systematically filed school certificates, handwritten recipes and letters from boyfriends (including a pressed corn chip packet that I had shared with a crush - dated to go off in 1993). Destined to be a secretary, some would say.
  
• school reports which I had absolutely no idea that my mum had kept. I had a look through, and the highlight (and requisite food angle of this story) would have to be Mrs Gleeson’s comments for year 8 Food Studies:

 “ . . . a very enthusiastic cook but she would get better results if she paid more attention to the recipe and spent less time talking. Her cleaning skills are also below average.”

I'm not sure what to make of that!

Here’s a recipe found within for what I think was an attempt to make non-alcoholic mulled wine.

(Sorry - no idea how to make it any bigger . . . you aren't missing much!).

A Romalpa clause risotto

A Romalpa clause is a clause in a contract for the sale of goods that reserves rights of title in the goods in the vendor until a certain event occurs. If the purchaser becomes insolvent before this event occurs, the vendor is in a better position than general creditors because she has a proprietary interest in the goods. Justice Kirby doesn’t like Romalpa clauses because they cannot be registered with ASIC and thus operate as a form of secret security for the lender that is detrimental to commercial certainty. They are usually found in cases about aluminium manufacturing but now and again they pop up in my kitchen.

For example, N’s parents came over on the weekend with a big bag of asparagus, parsley and lemons from their garden, some eggs from their chooks and a block of cheese from the market on the condition that these goods were to be shared between N and his siblings (i.e. it wasn’t a contract for the sale of goods as such, but I suppose our hospitality and detriment suffered from pausing study somewhat constituted valuable consideration, and there is always an intention to create legal relations in a house full of law students). 

The asparagus was thick and meaty and I was dribbling in anticipation of the golden rich yolks of freshly laid eggs. However, if the parcel was to be split three ways, there would not be enough for more than a boiled egg and two spears of asparagus each - a delicious dish in its own right but one that would probably require toast, of which I am increasingly tiring.

So I proposed that the siblings leave all the asparagus to N and myself, and I would make an asparagus risotto for everyone to eat that night. That is, they would reserve their rights of title in the said asparagus until I made the risotto and they could then gobble up their proprietary rights to their hearts’ content.  After warning them that my risotto would not be featuring on the securities register, we headed separate ways and reconvened later night.

I am not going to detail how I made the risotto, save that for the mantecura (the goop that you stir through at the end of the cooking process to enhance the creaminess, usually butter), I used the zest and juice of a lemon, an egg yolk and some grated parmesan, whisked into a hollandaise-like sauce.  I then stirred through the blanched chopped asparagus and some torn parsley, then let it rest for five minutes.

It was eaten too quickly to take photos but here is a balsamic mushroom risotto from a few weeks back made with the same mantecura.

Would you like toast with that?

After a month of too many birthdays, bills and 'busive phonecalls from the Bank, and only managing to pay rent yesterday after cleaning out all my handbags for loose change, I do not have much to report in the way of culinary excitement.

N had foresight and stocked the freezer with bread a few weeks ago, so the week's meals have been toast with a random permutation of ingredients already in the fridge, the highlights being:
- frozen peas smushed with sauteed onion and garlic on toast
- tinned sardines with diced onion and tomato on toast
- cinnamon and sugar toast dipped in Milo
- toast with tahini and ground linseeds and a drizzle of honey (this is gluggy as hell and you won't feel hungry again for at least a week)
- welsh rarebit made with the remains of old blocks of cheese, mustard and beer, melted until bubbly and poured over, you guessed it, toast
- fried egg on toast with homemade chutney
- toast dipped in eggy milk mixture (there was only one egg and two people, and this seemed the fairest way forward) cooked on the grillpan with jam dregs on top.

If I had time, I would soak some legumes and get some carrots and marked down vegies and make a soup or something. I do honestly believe that you can eat healthily on ten/twenty dollars a week if you have the time to go to the market late on a Sunday and soak beans and buy wholesale and split between ten people and slowcook shitty bits of meat. But with exams pending and the craziness of work (why does family law pick up in the springtime? relationship springcleaning? the thought of another Christmas with their partner's family?), my meals are basically limited to something that can be put together in the time it takes for the kettle to boil for another cup of tea.

But it hasn't been without cause. For N's birthday, I got him two tickets to the mini-Meredith that the festival peoples are holding in a carpark in Chinatown on the Sunday that the real Meredith finishes. Cut Copy won't be there but the Avalanches and Sons and Daughters will, and its going to be the most wonderful summer Sunday afternoon of dancing and merriment.

I might drink to that thought with another cup of tea.

This is what love tastes like

A meal for one, sourced from the love of many.

Asparagus and broad beans with olive oil, lemon juice and pecorino.

Pod the broad beans that you bought from the CERES market on an expedition with your brother which culminated in long blacks, a pile of weekend papers and a quarrel about the Family First party. Boil the single-podded broad beans in boiling salted water for about three minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon keeping the saucepan on the stove, rinse under cold water in a sieve, then “double pod” the larger of the beans. With homegrown broad beans, normally only about 30% will need double-podding, with Coles Homebrand Frozen, about 80% will. It won’t kill you not to double-pod – they will just be a bit chewier and more fibrous.

Take 5 or so spears of asparagus from the bag of vegetables grown and delivered by N’s parents. Cook in the boiling salted water for about three minutes until they turn a delicious green. Do not rinse with cold water as this will impact the eventual flavour. This is normally done to stop the cooking process of vegetables (or to cool them down to enable podding, as above), but I don’t think it should be done with asparagus. It is better to allow for some cooking after removal and cook it for a minute or so less than you would otherwise. On this note, drain the asparagus then put it back in the saucepan with the broad beans, on a lower heat than before.

Drizzle with the best olive oil you have (for me, a birthday present from the step-mother), the juice of a lemon (from N’s grandmother’s tree), salt that N hand-ground in the mortar after I gave him a serve for buying salt crystals when we don’t have a salt grinder, and black pepper. Quickly toss, then put in bowl and grate pecorino on top (parmagiano if it's on special or Homebrand tasty if it’s rent week).

You could add the cheese whilst it is in the saucepan but it will set like glue and make for stressful washing.

Sit, eat and feel the love.

A Birthday Cake

Yesterday was J’s birthday, a date of much culinary importance to catonthebench, up there with “First Peach of Summer Day’ and very close to ‘Hot Cross Buns Featuring in Bakeries Day’.

The gastronomic significance of October 7 started the year that J and I were about to go to India and the Commonwealth Bank made their regretful decision to give us both credit cards. J took me out to dinner at Chocolate Buddha in Fed Square and signed the bill like she had been doing it her whole life. The practice then developed into the non-birthday party organising for the two of us to have dinner somewhere wonderful that we couldn’t really afford. The birthdaying party can make suggestions but the onus is on the other to organise.

The tradition has altered somewhat of late, me being in London last year and the invitation of others to the Kent for my birthday this year. For J’s birthday, the plan was to go to Claypots on Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, along with J’s intimidatingly beautiful housemates, and then to the Lambsgo Barr on Greeves Street.

But, come four o’clock, catonthebench finds herself with food poisoning and a text message advising that birthday cake plans had fallen through. Pots of seafood were looking less and less likely. There was only one thing to do. Grasping her bucket, she heads into the kitchen to bake . . .

catonthebench’s adapted version of Jill Dupleix’s adapted version of Elizabeth David’s Flourless Chocolate Cake

250 grams of the best dark chocolate you can afford this week. I used the last of a packet of Lindt 85%, a 75g packet of 72% and Cadbury’s Old Gold (which is about 45% cocoa butter) for the rest.

150 grams of castor sugar (if you use 100% Old Gold, use a bit less sugar)

150 grams of unsalted butter

100 grams of almond meal

5 eggs, separated (if I am using eggs from N’s aunt’s chickens and they are small, I  use 6)

Melt chocolate, sugar and butter in a bowl sitting in a pot of simmering water. I use a pasta bowl because it is the only bowl I have that fits over the saucepan (other than the cat’s water bowl, which I have been forbidden from using).

Remove from heat, stir thoroughly to combine, mix in almond meal, then beat in the egg yolks, one by one. If you used a pasta bowl to melt the chocolate, you may need to transplant the mixture into something bigger to do this.

Beat egg whites until stiff and peaky. The bowl must be absolutely clean to begin with to do this. Stir a couple of spoonfuls of egg white into the chocolate mixture to lighten it, before gently folding in the rest.

Turn into a buttered and floured 20cm round cake tin and bake at 180 for 40-50 minutes, depending on your oven and whether you like a more muddy or crumby cake. I do 40 minutes and rotate the pan halfway.

Leave to cool before removing from tin. Dust with icing sugar to serve with sparklers and a round of 'Happy Birthday' (get the DJ to pause the music for maximum embarassment of the cake receiver). You will get six big or 12-16 little wedges.

Tell any precious law students in attendance that it is a gluten-free high-protein 'torte' (it is!) and come midnight you can stumble home in the rain with an empty cake tin.

The wrongness of yesterday

A list of wrong things:

1. Meredith Music Festival sold out the day before I get a bonus from work, and I discover there won't be a second release and scalpers are charging criminal amounts on ebay.
2. My exam timetable - two three-hour exams on consecutive days
3. The realisation that I am never going to be able to come up with a test to prevent child abuse cases slipping through the Family Court. A year's work resulting in . . . a discussion about the limits of rights theory. What a contribution.
4. Bali
5. Last night's dinner

Quasi-Schnitzels
A friend who has turned strict vegetarian after his stint at the Castlemaine Bacon Factory had come over to perv at the new printer. I had a block of tofu, a packet of soba noodles and some broccoli from the CERES market. I had been stuck with the tofu for a while, stirfrying being a bit of a non-event on our electric stove, but was stumped how to cook it. Solution: faux chicken schnitzels.

I cut the tofu into three slabs, and marinated it in the dregs of a bottle of mirin, soy sauce, the juice from two lemons, some minced garlic and a finely chopped chilli.  I left it there for about twenty minutes, then dredged it in polenta, and grilled it on the Beautiful Birthday Grillpan. 

Sounds good, you're thinking, but then the incredible wrongness of yesterday came into play.

I didn't put any oil on the pan for the first 'steak' - as with meat - but because there is no inherent fat in tofu, it caught and burnt really quickly. I didn't want to oil the tofu itself because all the polenta would fall off, so for the second steak I put a bit of oil on the pan. But it just smoked out the kitchen and burnt the second steak.

I then decided the pan must be too hot and adjusted the temperature, resulting in the third steak barely colouring at all.

In retrospect, they might have been better cooked in a normal frypan given the delicateness of tofu. Or maybe it would have worked on a stove that allows a spectrum of temperatures.

Or maybe I should have just retreated with Milo and sardines on toast and waited for the wrongness to pass.

Word of the day

Procrastifornication. Hee hee hee.