Lavender and Blueberry Macarons

Lavender and Blueberry Macarons

 

Ahhh the french Macaron! (Pronounced “Mah-cah-rohn” – Not to be confused with ‘Macaroon’, which is a coconut based cookie)

A delectable treat to suit any occasion. These sugar filled clouds of flavor are definite crowd-pleaser’s.

So what makes them so special, apart from the great taste, you ask? Making Macarons involves a good level of technical skill, patience and TLC. It certainly has been on my list of “I wonder if I will stuff these up when I try to make them” recipes – but I decided to take the plunge and finally make my very first batch of Macarons. I remember the first time I tasted a macaron at a french bakery in Brisbane – the combination of soft, chewy and crumbly textures, the high concentration of flavor, it was all very fascinating and unique for a cookie – needless to say, they made it very quickly to my list of favorite foods!

Macarons are a meringue (Italian meringue (with sugar syrup) or French meringue (with sugar gradually added in)) based cookie made of egg whites, caster sugar and TPT (‘Tant pour tant’- mixture of equal amounts of almond meal and icing sugar). Macaron’s typically comprise of smooth shells, characterized by their smooth top with feet (ruffled bottom) and flat base, and a ganache, buttercream or jam filled center. The shell’s are generally the same for every Macaron, with the exception of a change in color to represent the filling. The filling is what contains all the flavor.

I decided that I wanted to try making a unique flavour of macaron, instead of a common flavor. While sifting through several recipes, I felt the urge to have a Lavender latte. I first came across Lavender latte’s at a Japanese tea place in Sunnybank, and it was love at first taste. This was always my delicious “pick me up” cup of tea that I consumed quite frequently when I lived close to Sunnybank. You wouldn’t think the lavender flower would make a great flavor base, but it is really good with milk products and a sweetener. In fact, for a while now, I’ve been wanting to make some sort of dessert with lavender. So I thought – why not try to look up a Macaron recipe that includes lavender? And with that thought, I stumbled across an Adriano Zumbo recipe for Lavender Blueberry macarons!

While Zumbo is a highly acclaimed Australian patissier and chef for several of his amazing dessert creations, he is most popularly known for his incredible ‘Zumbarons’. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Zumbo or ‘Zumbarons’, I highly recommend that you sample some of these and other goodies at his stores the next time you’re in Sydney or Melbourne. If you aren’t convinced as yet, here are a few photos that might help from my visit to Zumbo’s in Melbourne with K and C:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zumbarons

Soooo – yeahhhh – a Zumbo recipe – phew! – I knew it wasn’t going to be easy and it was going to be a bit of a challenge. But I have to say, if you follow each step precisely, you’ll be laughing! I did change up the filling recipe a little bit, but it worked out well.

A couple of pointers-

• I recommend measuring the suggested quantities precisely – you need a kitchen scale.
• I recommend a kitchen thermometer to make sure you attain the appropriate temperature with the sugar syrup prior to combining it with the egg whites to make the meringue.
• I recommend a piping bag and appropriately sized nozzle to pipe the macaron shells and filling – this ensure’s a perfectly smooth shell and even piping out of the filling. I didn’t have these, so I improvised by using spoons and tried to smooth out the shells as much as I could.
• If you don’t know where to find dried lavender flowers, try a specialty tea shop. I obtained a box of “Lavender tissane” from T2.
• I did use aged egg whites, but there is a lot of debate about if it makes a difference or not. Personally I feel that it does because the texture of my macaron’s turned out quite good. The reason for aging egg whites is to reduce the moisture content as much as possible from the egg whites while keeping its protein bonds the same. This is thought to increase the whites’ elasticity, better for whipping.

This recipe makes 11 -12 large Macarons. You can vary the macaron’s size as you desire by creating the macaron template to your desired sized. I recommend 1, to a maximum of 2 macaron’s per person, as they are quite sweet due to their high sugar content. Be sure to adjust your quantities according to the servings you require!

 

Adapted from “Zumbarons” by Adriano Zumbo

(Serves 11-12)

Ingredients – Macaron Shell

150 gm Almond meal (fine preferred)
150 gm Icing sugar
150 gm Caster sugar
38 gm Water
Food coloring (as per your desired color)
2 x 55 gm egg whites (at room temperature)

TPT, Blueberries, Eggs, Caster Sugar and Lavender

 

Method – Macaron Shell

Grease a baking sheet and line with appropriately sized non-stick baking paper.

Create a circular template with a diameter of 8cm and cut out an inner circle of diameter 4 – 6 cm. I cut it to 5 cm. Use this template to draw circles on the curvy side of the baking paper, with enough of spacing (use the template as a guide). Flip the baking paper over and set the prepped baking sheet and paper aside.
Note: Using the curvy side ensures that the paper stays in place when flipped over for piping. You can also seal the paper to the baking sheet temporarily by using some of the macaron shell batter in all 4 corners.

Combine the almond meal and icing sugar in a bowl (TPT mixture). Using a spoon or nylon/ silicone kitchen scraper to push this mixture through a fine sieve into a large bowl. This ensure a smooth mixture.

150 gm Icing sugar

150 gm Almond Meal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Passing the TPT mixture through a fine sieve with a spoon

Passing the TPT mixture through a fine sieve with a nylon scraper

 

 

 

 

 

 

Put 55 gm of the egg whites in an electric mixer (or by hand) with a whisk attachment and begin whisking until the egg whites are frothy and lightly peaked – keep an eye on this.

Egg whites and yolks seperated

Whisking 55 gm of the egg whites

Whisking egg whites

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While the eggs are being whisked, put the caster sugar and water in a small saucepan over low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved completely. Then increase the heat and bring to the boil while stirring constantly. Any desired food coloring should be added in at this stage. I added in 1 Tbsp of red food coloring and 1 Tbsp of blue food coloring to create a purple sugar syrup. Continue to cook the mixture until the mixture reached 118ºC. Turn off the heat and stir well, in preparation to be added to the whisking egg whites mixture.

Measured out caster sugar for sugar syrup

Dissolved sugar syrup and red and blue food colouring

Boiling sugar syrup to 118 deg C

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this stage the egg whites should be frothy and lightly start to peak. Increase the speed of your electric mixer speed to high and add in the sugar syrup slowly, a little at a time, down the side of the electric mixer, until you have added in all of the sugar syrup. You should start seeing a beautiful lavender color come through and the meringue starting to form. Mix for about 5 mins until the mixture reaches about 55ºC and forms a nice and glossy meringue mixture forms stiff peaks.

Adding sugar syrup to frothed soft peaked egg whites

Meringue being formed

Bring meringue to about 55 deg C

Glossy stiff peaked meringue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add the remaining 55gm egg whites to the center of the TPT mixture.

Remaining 55 gm of egg whites

Next add the meringue and use a large spatula to gently fold the mixture through. Mix until the batter has been mixed evenly and is smooth and like the consistency of lava. You’re looking for the batter to fall into itself – this is important for piping.
Note: It is possible to over mix and under mix the batter, so be careful.

Glossy prepped meringue added to TPT and egg whites

Mixed macaron batter to consistency of lava

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this stage –

If you have a piping bag:

With a 13 mm (1/2 inch) plain nozzle, at this stage you would fill the mixture into the piping bag and pipe the mixture onto the baking paper, using the drawn on 5 cm circles as a guide. Leave a 3 cm gap between each macaron (this should already be allowed for when you have drawn your circles using the macaron template). As you finish piping each macaron, move the nozzle from a 12 o’clock to 6 o’clock position quickly to finish piping action. If your macaron texture is perfect, the tip left on the top should soften and drop down, giving you a smooth top.

If you do not have a piping bag:

Take 2 Spoons. Use one to scoop up a sufficient amount of the mixture and the other to drop the mixture into the drawn on circle to take the shape of the circle. Continue until you have used up all the batter and filled in all the circles.

Spooned mixture

Spooned mixture with all batter used up

Tapped out batter with air released, prepped for skin formation

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tap the bottom of the tray (or tap the tray onto your kitchen work bench carefully) well a few times until you see the air bubbles pop out of the macarons and the mixture settle down into perfectly smooth tops. Leave the macaron at room temperature for a minimum of 30 minutes until the skin forms. This is important as the formation of the skins ensures a good shell structure and the formation of the distinctive macaron feet.

Preheat the oven to 135ºC. To test if the macaron skins have formed, touch one lightly with your fingertip – the macaron’s should not feel sticky. If the skin has formed, put the baking sheet into the oven and bake for 16 minutes, until they have formed a firm outer shell with the beautiful soft center. Make sure to keep a watch on these because if the macaron shells overcook, they get dry and crack and if the macaron shells are undercooked, they would be too soft.
Note: If you are baking larger quantities and have more trays of macaron shells, make sure to only bake one tray at a time.

Macaron shells being baked

When they are ready, remove the baking tray from the oven and set aside for 2 minutes. Carefully lift each macaron shell to make sure it’s cooked. If it is still slightly sticky, return the macarons to the oven for 2 to 3 minutes, the check again.

Cool the macarons completely prior to adding on the filling. Select matching sets and set aside prepped for the macaron assembly.

 

Ingredients – Lavender and Blueberry ganache (filling)

38 gm of thickened OR pouring cream
2 gm of dried culinary lavender flowers
125 gm of white couverture chocolate, chopped or buttons
38 gm of blueberries

Method – Lavender and Blueberry ganache (filling)

I started to make the ganache while the macaron’s were being baked.

Put the cream and lavender flowers in the same saucepan that you did the sugar syrup in, the residual sugar and color should infuse with the filling mixture. Bring the saucepan over medium heat to the boil. Turn off the heat and set aside to cool.

Lavender and cream mixture, being brought to the boil.

Measure out the white chocolate and keep it prepped in a bowl with a strainer OR fine sieve.

125 gm white chocolate

Prepped white chocolate with strainer

40 gm Fresh Blueberries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mash up the fresh blueberries to a fine pulp. Add this mixture to the lavender cream mixture and bring to the boil on medium heat until the mixture reached 60ºC.
Note: Should you wish to modify the colour of the ganache further, this would be the point to add the color in, prior to bringing the mixture to 60ºC.

Added blueberry pulp to lavender and cream mixture

Lavender, cream and blueberry pulp mixture being bought to the boil

Strained mixture into white chocolate

Lavender and Blueberry white chocolate ganache mixture

 

Pour this entire mixture through the strainer OR sieve over the white chocolate. Push as much as you can through the sieve and discard the remains in the sieve.

Mix the white chocolate and hot lavender and blueberry cream mixture well to form the ganache. Set the ganache aside to cool and become firm enough to pipe.

 

 

At this stage:

If you have a piping bag:

Fill a piping bag with a 7 mm plain nozzle with the ganache and set aside.

If you do not have a piping bag:

Set aside until you are ready to assemble the macarons. Again you can use 2 spoons to fill in the mixture by scoop an appropriate amount of the mixture with one spoon and pushing it out onto the macaron shell with another.

Prepped, cooled and thickened Lavender and blueberry white chocolate ganache

 

Method – Lavender and Blueberry Macaron

When your macaron shells are sufficiently cooled, take one pair of matched up macaron shells that you have set aside, and pipe OR spoon in a good amount of the ganache.

Gently press the macaron shells, while avoiding cracking the shells, squeezing the ganache filling to evenly spread out in the center.

Baked macaron shells left for cooling

Assembled macarons

Ganache just filled between macaron shells

Beautiful layers of a macaron – light crumbly outside, soft middle and chewy ganache center

 

Put the assembled macarons in the refrigerator of 24 hours to set. Bring them to room temperature prior to being served.  Refrigerating these also ensures the filling flavor infuses the macaron shells as well.

Note: I only refrigerated these for about 8 hours prior to sharing these with my work mates and they seemed quite happy.

Any spare macarons can be refrigerated in an air tight container. These are best consumed withing 3 to 4 days.

Do let me know if you try out this recipe and how you go with it!

Refrigerated macaron with set ganache

Purple

Ready to serve!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bon Appetit!

Lavender and Blueberry macarons – Bon Appetit!

 

Pork and Spinach Gyoza

Pork and Spinach Gyoza

Who doesn’t love a good dumpling?

On any given day – if I get asked what I feel like eating, there’s a good chance that answer, 8 out of 10 times (if not more), would be “dumplings” – particularly duck or pork dumplings, especially if they are pan fried – I do love me a good duck or pork dumpling!

To make pan fried dumplings, I usually purchase frozen dumplings from an Asian grocer at our version of “China town” and steam these, followed by pan frying them to obtain a delicious and lightly crisp result. However, traditionally, ‘pot stickers’ are usually done the other way around i.e. pan fried to lightly brown off the base, and then water is added in after and allowed to cook until the dumplings are steamed to perfection and get that traditional beautiful caramel color on the bottom.

On this occasion, I decided to make them from scratch – dough, filling and all.

If you’re wondering about the difference with a Chinese dumpling and Japanese gyoza, as they are quite similar (like I was, because I wanted to make certain I got the recipe and terminology right), there are a few distinctive characteristics that make them different. Both are made with a flour dough, pinched and can include either a vegetarian or meat filling. However, the Chinese refer to them as “Jiaozi” (Dumpling) or “Wo tip” (Pot stickers), which can be eaten either boiled, steamed, pan fried or deep fried, while the Japanese generally only pan fry these. Also, the Japanese gyoza’s tend to be smaller, have thinner skins and the fillings tend to be lesser and include garlic. The ‘Gyoza’ also tend to be slightly elongated.

With both the pan fried versions, while the Japanese consider ‘gyoza’ as a side dish to compliment rice, the Chinese often consume ‘wo tip’ (Pot stickers) as the main course.

After determining the differences, I decided to dub this post’s recipe as – Pork and Spinach Gyoza!

While this is a time consuming recipe, the results are delicious! It is possible to reduce your prep time down by purchasing frozen gyoza wrappers from an Asian grocer store.

This recipe makes about 30 pieces of gyoza. I would allow for a minimum of 6 – 8 per person if it is being served as a main course meal.

Be sure to adjust quantities accordingly!

 

(Serves 4)

Ingredients – Gyoza Dough:

2 cups All purpose flour
1 tsp Salt
1 cup Water (boiled)

Potato starch or Corn starch (Optional – for dusting – I used All purpose flour)

Gyoza dough

 

Method – Gyoza Dough:

Mix the flour, water and salt – begin with the flour and salt mixture and keep adding the water, a little at a time, as necessary and knead to form the gyoza dough. The dough will lighten spring back when you have reached the correct consistency.

Set aside covered in cling wrap or a damp tea towels (or damp paper towels) to ensure the dough remains moist while you prepare the filling.

 

Ingredients – Gyoza Filling:

500 gm Pork mince
100 gm Baby Spinach (finely chopped)
2 Spring Onions (reserve some of the chopped green stalk for garnish – Optional) OR 1 Onion (finely chopped)
6 cloves of Garlic (finely chopped)
1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1/2 tsp Five-spice powder
100 gm Canned water chestnuts (drained and chopped)
1 Sliced red chilli
3 tsp Cornflour
2 Tbsp Water
Chili oil OR Sesame oil OR Olive oil OR Vegetable oil (for cooking)

 

Method – Pork and Spinach Gyoza Filling:

Combine all the pork mince, spinach, spring onion OR onion, garlic, soy sauce, five spice powder, chestnuts, 1 tsp cornflour and chili in a bowl and mix well and evenly. Cover and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Pork and Spinach filling with onion

Pork and spinach filling

 

Method – Pork and Spinach Gyoza:

Unwrap the prepped cling wrapped or dough covered with a damp tea towels or damp paper towels.

Dust some potato starch, corn starch or all purpose flour onto your work surface. Divide the dough in half, and roll one half out into a log about 4 cm in diameter. Cover up the half currently not being used to avoid the dough drying out.

Cut out pieces from the log, about the width of your finger, and leave covered with cling wrap (OR a damp tea towel OR damp paper towel) until you need to roll out a piece.

Rolled dough into a log

 

Cut up gyoza dough portions

Covered gyoza dough portions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roll a cut piece into a ball. Roll out the dough into a circular shape and as thin as you can (about 1mm thick).

Rolling out the cut piece of dough

Rolled out as thin as possible

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using a 8cm cookie cutter, cut to form a perfect circular shaped gyoza wrapper. Combine the scraps with the covered second half of dough.
Note: You don’t have to use a cookie cutter if you don’t have one, just roll the dough into a circular shape about 8cm in diameter.

Cutting with a cookie cutter

Place wrapper on a plate and dust the plate and between each gyoza wrapper with sufficient potato starch, corn starch or all purpose flour to ensure the stacked wrappers don’t stick together. Ensure wrapper stack is covered with cling wrap while not in use.

Continue the above process until all the dough has been used up.

Remove the refrigerated Pork and Spinach gyoza filling. Mix the remaining 2 tsps of cornflour and water in a small bowl into a paste.

Take a gyoza wrapper and place onto your work space. Brush the edges of the wrapper with the cornflour paste. Place a heaped teaspoon of the filling in the center.

Filling placed in the center of gyoza wrapper

Folded in half

Pinching little pleats onto the gyoza

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seal the gyoza by folding it in half and pinching the edges together with tiny folds.

Folded gyoza piece – top view – notice the slightly concaved shape

 

 

Folded gyoza piece – back

Folded gyoza piece – front

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place on a plate, a good distance apart, and dust with some potato starch, corn starch or all purpose flour to prevent them from sticking together. Cover with cling wrap until you need to use it.

Gyoza lined on a plate

Continue until all the wrappers are filled.

Note: If you aren’t going to cook all the dumplings, freeze meal portions of some dumplings in a freezer bag or container, with sufficient potato starch, corn starch or all purpose flour sprinkled through (to void them sticking together), for another time.

 

To cook:

Heat a pan to medium-high heat with 3-4 Tbsp of oil (preferably chili oil or sesame oil). Pan fry the dumplings, until the base is lightly browned.

Add in water to just fill in the bottom of the pan, roughly about a 1/2 cm deep. Cover the pan and steam on low heat until the gyoza are lightly translucent and cooked.

Gently lift each dumpling with a suitably sized spatula or rubber encased tongs to make sure it is not sticking and has attained a beautiful golden brown color and is just lightly crisp.

Remove the cooked golden brown based gyoza carefully.

 

And you’re done! The Pork and Spinach gyoza are ready to be served!

Pork and Spinach Gyoza plated

 

Dumplings are generally served with Soy sauce or a Soy sauce based dipping sauce. Might I suggest a simple Soy Chilli Dipping sauce? (Click for recipe!)

Do let me know if you try out this recipe and what you think about it!

Yummy little gyozas in a row

Delicious homemade gyoza

Gyoza Plated

 

Chicken Lollipops with a Soy Chilli dipping sauce

Chicken Lollipops with a Soy Chilli dipping sauce

 

During my childhood years in Mumbai, it was a rare ritual at our household to dine out. But, whenever we did, one of my family’s favourite restaurant to dine at was called “Uncle’s Kitchen”, which specialized in ‘Indian – Chinese’ cuisine.

Whatever the occasion, this would always be our first restaurant of choice. We didn’t mind the long lines or wait time – the whole experience was something we did together as a family. And of course, we had our favourite dishes that we would order at the restaurant, without fail, with every visit or take away order.

At Uncle’s Kitchen with Mum, 2013

 

Our favourite entrée was called “Chicken Lollipops”, which is generally served with a Schezwan sauce (a spicy sauce, made with dried Kashmiri chillies, used quite liberally in Indian- Chinese cuisine). However, when I made this dish, I served it with a quick and simple Soy chilli dipping sauce as these Chicken lollipops are quite flavourful and spicy on their own.

Every now and then I tend to crave food that is not easily available to me here in Australia and what better way to indulge in a craving than to recreate it?

This recipe requires chicken wings to be ‘frenched’ (to look like a chicken lollipop). Each wing would give you 2 chicken lollipops when broken down at the movable joint and frenched; one very meaty piece, with a single bone and one not-so-much, with two parallel bones of which the smaller bone should be removed. This step can be a bit time consuming.

‘Frenching’ these wings involves cutting the ligaments near one end of the bone, carefully separating the flesh from the bone and rolling it over towards the other end to form a ‘Chicken Lollipop’.

My trial of this recipe was with 2 chicken wings, so I got 4 pieces of Chicken Lollipops. I would allow for a minimum of 2 chicken lollipops per person as these delicious little blobs of spicy heaven go down quite easy. Be sure to adjust the recipe quantities accordingly.

 

Chicken Lollipops

(Serves 2)

Ingredients:

2 Chicken wings – ‘frenched’ into 4 pieces
1 tsp Garlic paste
1/2 tsp Ginger paste
1/2 tsp Chilli powder
1 tsp Soy sauce
1/2 tsp Chinese Rice wine vinegar
1/2 tsp Sriracha sauce OR Chilli paste
1/4 cup corn flour
1/8 cup plain flour
1 egg
Red food colouring
Salt to taste

2 Chicken Wings

4 Frenched Chicken lollipop pieces

Method:

Mix the frenched chicken, garlic paste, ginger paste, chilli powder, soy sauce, chinese rice wine vinegar, sriracha or chilli paste, egg and salt.

Mixing the ingredients in a bowl

 

Add in the corn flour followed by the plain flour, a little at a time, making sure to coat the chicken evenly while avoiding any lumps being formed by the flour. Lastly, add the red food colouring and mix well.

Batter prepped to be left to marinate for an hour or more

 

Leave the chicken to marinate in this batter for a minimum of an hour (which is what I did and the chicken was still quite well flavoured). Refrigeration overnight is preferred.

Deep fry the chicken lollipops (well covered in the batter) in medium heat until the chicken lollipops turn into their distinctive beautiful brown toned red colour, slightly crunchy on the outside and juicy and tender on the inside.

Deep frying the Chicken lollipops at medium heat

Chicken lollipops – about half cooked

Cooked Chicken lollipops

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Serve hot with a Soy chilli dipping sauce (recipe below) or a Schezwan sauce (bottled Schezwan sauce is available at certain Indian stores).

*ahhhhhhhh*

 

Soy chilli sauce

(Serves 2)

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp Soy sauce
1 tsp Chinese Rice Wine Vinegar
1 Green Chilli finely chopped OR 1 pickled green hot pepper finely chopped
1 Garlic clove, finely minced

Pickled green hot pepper

 

Method:

Mix all ingredients thoroughly in a microwave safe bowl and heat  in the microwave on high for 30-40 seconds prior to serving.

 

And you’re all set to enjoy this delectable treat:

Plated

 

Delicious crunchy chicken lollipops with a Soy Chilli dipping sauce