Catering Melbourne Blog

Coconut Balls Cookies For those looking for an excellent dessert cookie to go with your Italian Coffee or meal, Coconut ball cookies are exceptionally yummy and very simple to prepare. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients to Use: - 3 large eggs - About 3 cups of shredded coconut (packaged is fine) - 3 cups of graham crackers - 1.5 cups of sugar - 1/3 cup of cocoa

Preparation: To make this tasty Italian dessert recipe, stir together the butter and sugar in a large bowl. Make sure they are well blended. Add in your 3 eggs. It is suggested that you add each egg in one at a time and incorporate well before adding the next in. Now add the 1/3 cup of cocoa, shredded coconut and graham crackers. Before adding the graham crackers make sure they are crushed. Combine all ingredients well and roll them into small balls. Once rolled, refrigerate for about 2 hours before serving. Most people also might want to add a little rum, generally a recipe such as the one we’ve listed requires about 1 to 3 tablespoons of rum.

Italian food definitely has its fans and one of the several tasty types of Italian foods are the desserts. Italian deserts generally come in a wide assortment of options from cakes to cookies to yummy desserts that are made for adults with wine and liquors. If you are looking to make an Italian masterpiece for dessert, here are two excellent recipes.
Tiramisu Ingredients to Use:

- 1 pound of mascarpone cheese - About 40 lady fingers - 3 cups Italian coffee - 6 eggs - ¾ cup of Marsala wine - 12 tablespoon of sugar - 4 tablespoon of coca (power form)

Preparation: Use an electric mixer to combine both the egg yolks and sugar until the mixture becomes light and fluffy. Save egg whites for later. Add mascarpone cheese and incorporate it in to this mixture as well. Once these three ingredients are well mixed, now add the 6 egg whites. Add the 4 tablespoons of cocoa and mix it in as well. Once it is all mixed place half of the ingredients into a cake dish.

Dunk lady fingers into Italian coffee and then set them on top of the mascarpone cream. Cover this up with more contents to create layers. You will want to create about two layers. Once you placed two layers of lady fingers in the cake dish spread with remaining cream. Sprinkle some cocoa powder on the top of the cream. Set the cake dish into the refrigerator for about 24 hours. Enjoy!

If this dessert is created for kids, sub the Marsala wine with just the coffee.

CHICKEN AND BROCCOLI CASSEROLE

2 10oz. packs frozen broccoli

3 chicken breasts, boiled, boned, and shredded

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 cup of mayo

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon curry powder

1 cup shredded medium cheddar cheese

1 cup Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix

3 Ts. margarine, melted

Cook broccoli by package directions and drain. Arrange broccoli in a 9×13 casserole dish and top with chicken. In a separate bowl, combine soup, mayo, lemon juice and curry powder. Spread on top of chicken. Sprinkle with cheese and bread crumbs. Drizzle melted butter all over. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes or until golden brown. Serve when cooled. Easy, quick and just great!

BBQ salads are the easy accompaniment to an outdoor cookout and do work really well because there’s many free barbecue recipes out there on the internet but sometimes I like my barbecue menu ideas to be a little different. In fact, not just different, something that can become a bit of a talking point too.
My inspiration comes from cooking corn cobs. When doing them on the barbecue grill it’s important to soak the husks for a good 30 minutes in water so that when heat is applied the leaves steam and cook the kernels. Having tried the corn over charcoal idea a couple of times, sparks of inspiration started to fly in all directions as I thought about how we might steam other vegetables on the outdoor barbecue grill. No sooner had I tried the base concept and the menu ideas came thick and fast.

Essentially were going to steam the vegetables in foil packs and the real beauty of cooking this way is that you can put the foil packs on the grill while the charcoal is still settling down and because of the foil protection there’s no chance to burn the food. By the time the vegetables are cooked, the charcoal is ready for the meat, do the remainder of the cookout and while the meat is resting for five minutes simply slap the foil parcels back on to warm through.

Let’s take carrots as an example. Take a rectangular piece of foil, chop the carrots finely and place them in one half of the foil rectangle. Season with salt and pepper and fold the foil over and “scrunch” the sides together just leaving a hole at one point where we can add water. Pour in half a cup full of water and make the final scrunch to seal the package. Slap it on the grill and 15 minutes later you’ve got beautifully delicious steamed carrots. A knob of butter and “Bob’s your uncle!”

The same logic can be applied to many vegetables so why not experiment? The only thing to remember is to slice the vegetables thinly so that there’s a good surface area for the steam to work on.

For an easy variation on the theme, rather than water, why not try a little dry white wine? It adds and certain “je ne sais quoi” to the recipes and sure makes for some interesting questions when your guests see you filling foil parcels from a wine bottle. They really know that they’re in for a treat!

Alternatively how about potatoes? Again, slice them thinly, place them on one half of the foil and season, now add a tablespoon of crème fraiche and start the scrunching. Finish off by pouring a good lug of white wine before sealing the parcel and then it’s onto the barbecue grill. You’ll need to be a little more careful with this bbq menu idea because too much heat can burn the cream so be a little gentler with the cooking and go for about 30 minutes cooking time.

One last tip - it’s also great to make individual packages so that everyone can rip into their own parcel and enjoy. It also makes it easy because all we have to do as the chef is throw a foil parcel onto each plate — how’s that for presentation? Healthy and tasty outdoor barbecue recipes

The wisdom about healthy eating changes frequently, and it can be hard to keep up, but one consistent thing is that many studies point to there being health benefits from drinking red wine. Red wine is said to aid digestion, as well as help keep your arteries and heart healthy. Red wine also enhances the flavor of certain foods. Fans of red wine often like to talk about the ‘legs’ and ‘body’ of their wine, and enjoy the full flavor and texture that red wine has to offer.
White wine is really just a mix of alcohol, water, and flavoring ? the grape juice that the wine starts off as is oxidized by the yeast added in the wine-making process, and the sugar is converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide. If you are on a diet, it is best to choose a low alcohol white wine.

That said, both red and white wine have a positive effect on the digestive system in moderation ? one glass of wine with your meal will probably be beneficial to you.

How Is Red Wine Good?

Red wine is not a ‘cure all’ but it can be a good preventative for a number of diseases, including heart disease and certain forms of cancer. Some studies show that drinking a glass of red wine each evening can reduce the risk of heard disease by as much as 30%. It can also have a positive effect on cholesterol and blood pressure.

What is In Red Wine?

Those who live in France and many parts of the Mediterranean region have a lower rate of heart disease than certain other parts of the world, even though they consume a relatively high fat diet. It is though that this is because there are certain anti-oxidants found in red wine. These anti-oxidants increase the amount of HDL cholesterol in the blood. HDL is the ‘good’ form of cholesterol, and can help prevent blood clots and plaque from forming on arteries. The anti-oxidants also have anti-cancer properties.

How Much Should I Drink?

The important thing to remember is that red wine is good in moderation ? it only takes a small amount of red wine to see the health benefits ? one glass of wine per day for women, and one or two for men. A glass is typically four ounces, so a ‘home measure’ of wine in most cases is probably more than enough.

Drinking too much red wine can eliminated the health benefits. Red wine is also not advised for people with a history of alcoholism in their family, or those who have health conditions that could be made worse by the consumption of alcohol.

Somehow when you do a little research on the cuisine of an individual country it is quite easy to come up almost with a common theme, a common name for the food for that country. Such as English food, German food but when you consider Spanish food or if you wish to be a bit more accurate about how you look at it, food and recipes that originate from Spain there is a very convincing argument that would say it’s not that simple.
The relatively recent unification of Spain as a single political entity is really the main driving force that lies behind this theory as the country is an amalgamation of the various autonomous regions that lie within it. These autonomous regions have been slowly amalgamated through a number of different processes throughout history but have all kept their own distinctive features.

There are 17 different autonomous regions that come together to form modern-day Spain and the majority of these regions have their own cultures that is the majority of them have their own linguistic variations and in some cases different languages and they certainly have their own individual cuisines.

One of the most distinctive of the autonomous sub regions is that of Galicia which is Spain’s most north-westerly region. Spain’s most westerly autonomous region it is surrounded on two sides by the Atlantic Ocean and as you can imagine for a region that has so much rugged coastline a lot of Galician cuisine is very much based on seafood and seafood based recipes.

That having said not all of Galician cuisine is all seafood based and the region can lay claim to some quite gorgeous recipes and provincial dishes and are all well worth trying out.

Lets top talking about the food and get down to business. Let’s eat!

Here we are going to take a look at an Empanada, a Galician Flat Pie.

The thing about an empanada is that once you have got the concept just right and you’ve managed to get the texture and the flour correct for the crust then you can add almost anything to it that you like. It really is one of the most versatile things going and is as it was originally designed, a meal in itself.

So the ingredients we would need would be as follows:

20 g of fresh yeast or 1 teaspoon of easy blend dried (active dry) yeast. 350 g of strong white flour. 125 g of corn meal,, “masa harina” or finely ground “polenta”. ½ tbsp salt Generous 1/3 cup of white wine. 50 g of lard or vegetable fat. 8 tablespoons of olive oil 1 medium egg, lightly beaten Water to bind the dough 1 medium egg, lightly beaten to seal and glaze the Empanada.

Again the name of the game here is preparation. Take the yeast with about three tablespoons of hand-hot water and mix it all together to a paste. Take the flour and corn meal and pour into a large bowl and add the salt, the wine, the lard the olive oil, the egg and the yeast paste and add enough water to make it all come together into a soft but not too sticky dough.

Still this mixture well and then start to pull it together with your hands. If there is any dried flower left in the bowl and add a touch more to bring it all together. The thing to remember here is if the dough is too dry it would be too difficult to roll out thinly later on.

Take the dough and knead it together for a couple of minutes until it is smooth and well mixed. Then take the dough put it back into a bowl and cover with cling film or plastic wrap. The important bit here is that you should let the dough rise for at least an hour or until it has doubled in size.

Decide upon what filling you want to include within the empanada and bring everything together. Take out half of your dough and roll it out until it’s about approximately 5 mm thick. Oil your baking sheet and lay this dough on top of it.

Next add your filling and spread the filling evenly leaving about a 2 cm margin around the age of the dough. Brush the edge of the dough with a little beaten egg.

Take the rest of you at the road at approximately the same size as your original piece and lay this on top of your filling. Take the top and the bottom pieces of dough and start to pinch the edges together and then twist the dough over to make a rope like texture around the edge.

Take the remainder of your beaten egg and brush this all over the empanada and then take a fork and pierce the top of the empanada all over with little holes.

Leave the empanada to rest for about 10 minutes and then leak this in a halt often for between 20 to 30 minutes or depending on your oven the crust is really crisp and golden.

Today we are going to take a look at an Empanada, a Galician Flat Pie but in this case we are going to add a Tuna filling to it.
The thing about an empanada is that once you have got the concept just right and you’ve managed to get the texture and the flour correct for the crust then you can add almost anything to it that you like. It really is one of the most versatile things going and is as it was originally designed, a meal in itself.

So the ingredients we would need would be as follows:

20 g of fresh yeast or 1 teaspoon of easy blend dried (active dry) yeast. 350 g of strong white flour. 125 g of corn meal,, “masa harina” or finely ground “polenta”. ½ tbsp salt Generous 1/3 cup of white wine. 50 g of lard or vegetable fat. 8 tablespoons of olive oil 1 medium egg, lightly beaten Water to bind the dough 1 medium egg, lightly beaten to seal and glaze the Empanada.

Again the name of the game here is preparation. Take the yeast with about three tablespoons of hand-hot water and mix it all together to a paste. Take the flour and corn meal and pour into a large bowl and add the salt, the wine, the lard the olive oil, the egg and the yeast paste and add enough water to make it all come together into a soft but not too sticky dough.

Still this mixture well and then start to pull it together with your hands. If there is any dried flower left in the bowl and add a touch more to bring it all together. The thing to remember here is if the dough is too dry it would be too difficult to roll out thinly later on.

Take the dough and knead it together for a couple of minutes until it is smooth and well mixed. Then take the dough put it back into a bowl and cover with cling film or plastic wrap. The important bit here is that you should let the dough rise for at least an hour or until it has doubled in size.

Decide upon what filling you want to include within the empanada and bring everything together. Take out half of your dough and roll it out until it’s about approximately 5 mm thick. Oil your baking sheet and lay this dough on top of it.

Now we turn on attention to getting the filling and in this particular case we are looking to take a fairly basic Tuna filling. Now for this the ingredients we will need will be as follows:

150 ml of olive oil 4 onions finely sliced 1 red pepper or finely sliced 1 green pepper or finely sliced 1 teaspoon sweet um smoked paprika 170 g of canned tuna in olive oil Salt 3 hot boiled eggs (optionally sliced or diced)

Take the olive oil and heat it in a frying pan and then add the onions and fry until the onions are nice, soft and golden looking - almost transparent in fact. Next add the peppers and gently fry, in fact the longer and more gently you fry these ingredients the better as you’ll end up with a much sweeter and more delicious result.

Take this mixture sprinkle the paprika on top and stir in the tuna and cook for a further two minutes. At the end of this remember season to taste if you think you need to. At the end of this if you are going to use the eggs and you don’t have to but if you are then slice them or dice them and lay them gently on top of the tuna filling that you’ve already put into the empanada and then follow the instructions below.

Next take your filling and spread the filling evenly leaving about a 2 cm margin around the age of the dough. Brush the edge of the dough with a little beaten egg.

Take the rest of you at the road at approximately the same size as your original piece and lay this on top of your filling. Take the top and the bottom pieces of dough and start to pinch the edges together and then twist the dough over to make a rope like texture around the edge.

Take the remainder of your beaten egg and brush this all over the empanada and then take a fork and pierce the top of the empanada all over with little holes.

Leave the empanada to rest for about 10 minutes and then leak this in a halt often for between 20 to 30 minutes or depending on your oven the crust is really crisp and golden.

I have written several articles on the empanada. Basically these articles all said the same thing about how it is really a meal in itself and you can add a multitude of filling. Well today the filling we are going to look at is a fairly basic pork recipe that actually is delicious.
So the ingredients we would need would be as follows:

20 g of fresh yeast or 1 teaspoon of easy blend dried (active dry) yeast. 350 g of strong white flour. 125 g of corn meal,, “masa harina” or finely ground “polenta”. ½ tbsp salt Generous 1/3 cup of white wine. 50 g of lard or vegetable fat. 8 tablespoons of olive oil 1 medium egg, lightly beaten Water to bind the dough 1 medium egg, lightly beaten to seal and glaze the Empanada.

Again the name of the game here is preparation. Take the yeast with about three tablespoons of hand-hot water and mix it all together to a paste. Take the flour and corn meal and pour into a large bowl and add the salt, the wine, the lard the olive oil, the egg and the yeast paste and add enough water to make it all come together into a soft but not too sticky dough.

Still this mixture well and then start to pull it together with your hands. If there is any dried flower left in the bowl and add a touch more to bring it all together. The thing to remember here is if the dough is too dry it would be too difficult to roll out thinly later on.

Take the dough and knead it together for a couple of minutes until it is smooth and well mixed. Then take the dough put it back into a bowl and cover with cling film or plastic wrap. The important bit here is that you should let the dough rise for at least an hour or until it has doubled in size.

Decide upon what filling you want to include within the empanada and bring everything together. Take out half of your dough and roll it out until it’s about approximately 5 mm thick. Oil your baking sheet and lay this dough on top of it.

Now we turn on attention to getting the filling and in this particular case looking to take a fairly basic pork filling. For our purposes here we are going to need the following ingredients:

150 ml of olive oil 450 g pork loin cuts into fine strips 4 onions finely sliced 1 Red Pepper 1 Green Pepper 2 Garlic cloves — crushed 1 tbsp sweet smoked paprika ½ tsp dried oregano 2 tbsp tomato puree (in paste form) Salt and freshly ground black pepper.

As with all these recipes thing you do is heat your olive oil and take this and add your pork strips. Now be sensible here and don’t add them all at once and allow them to brown slightly and then when ready take them and remove them from the pan.

In much the same way that you cook the pork strips cook the onion in the same way; that is to say gently until the onion is itself almost transparent or has a slight golden touch to it.

Next up is to add the peppers to the onion and continue cooking until these too are also soft. Re introduce the pork strips and take the paprika and the garlic and add these to the mixture and cook for a while so that the ingredients start to blend in with each other and then add the oregano and the tomato purée.

Finally season with salt and pepper to taste.

Next take your filling and spread the filling evenly leaving about a 2 cm margin around the age of the dough. Brush the edge of the dough with a little beaten egg.

Take the rest of you at the road at approximately the same size as your original piece and lay this on top of your filling. Take the top and the bottom pieces of dough and start to pinch the edges together and then twist the dough over to make a rope like texture around the edge.

Take the remainder of your beaten egg and brush this all over the empanada and then take a fork and pierce the top of the empanada all over with little holes.

Leave the empanada to rest for about 10 minutes and then leak this in a halt often for between 20 to 30 minutes or depending on your oven the crust is really crisp and golden.

Follow the five important steps below to produce fantastic tasting espresso.
Keep things hot

The key thing to remember is that espresso cools quickly as it is a small volume of liquid ? therefore it is essential to maintain everything coming into contact with the coffee at a high temperature. Make sure the machine and group handle (porta-filter) are hot by running a few dummy espressos before making one for real. Cups should be kept on the warming shelf on top of the machine. If you are making the first few espressos of the day before the machine has seen much action, it is an idea to warm the cups with a little hot water before commencing.

Crema is King.

The best indication of good espresso is the crema. It should be a light caramel colour with enough consistency to hold half a teaspoon of sugar on the surface for 3 seconds or more. The appearance of the crema is an excellent indication of the quality of your espresso. If the crema is more white than brown, the coffee is under-extracted and needs either a finer grind and/or firmer tamping. If the crema looks burnt or is very dark in the middle, the coffee is over-extracted; perhaps the grind is too fine, the dose too large, the tamping too hard, or too much water has run through the coffee.

Under Pressure.

Tamping the coffee is the process of compacting 7g of ground coffee in the porta-filter with a tamping device. Use the tamper on the underside of the grinder or a hand held tamp. Apply firm pressure - enough to hold the grind when the porta-filter is turned upside down, but not too firm, otherwise this will lead to a longer extraction time.

All in the Timing.

Perfect espresso takes 18-23 seconds plus 2-3 seconds pre-infusion time - too long means your coffee grind is too fine, the coffee should be the texture of coarse sand. If the coffee is too fine your espresso will be harsh and bitter from over-extraction. Less than 18 seconds means either your coffee grind is too coarse or the tamp pressure is insufficient. An under-extracted coffee will result in a thin bubbly crema and weak espresso.

The Mouse’s Tail.

Look at the flow of the liquid when making an espresso - it should be constant and resemble a mouse’s tail. If the tail is too thick, the coffee grind is too coarse or the tamping is too light. If the tail drips and bubbles, the opposite applies.

Follow the above tips and enjoy delicious tasting espresso every time.

Throughout the world there are only four actual kinds of tea that come from actual tea leaves, and those are; white, green, oolong and red or black. There are numerous variations that individuals throughout the years have created so that there is some variety to the tea menu.
For example, individuals have been known to come up with their own kinds of herbal teas from bush or tree leaves which in reality are not related in any way to the one true tea tree, which is those of the camellia sinensis. One specific variation is known as the cocoa tea, which is further elaborated on here in this article.

Where did Cocoa Tea Actually Come from?

Being a regional delight, cocoa tea came from and was initially made popular in Soufriere St. Lucia, in the West Indies in the Caribbean. Cocoa tea promptly came into existence back in a time when an entire meal may have consisted of a drink accompanied by some extra filling parts.

So the result of this drink was to fit such a need. Citizens of Soufriere St. Lucia, at approximately the time of cocoa tea’s inception, essentially needed to create or find foods which were efficient, economical and which were created to feed all members of their family properly. Cocoa tea was therefore essentially made up as a breakfast delicacy that fit this bill.

What Precisely is Cocoa Tea?

Cocoa tea is in truth not actually a tea at all and in fact does not even incorporate any tea at all. It is cited as a tea nevertheless because a cinnamon stick and bay leaf are steeped in boiling water in a similar way which an individual would steep genuine tea leaves in order to create regular tea.

In addition to the traditionally utilized bay leaves and cinnamon , the conventional cocoa tea recipe likewise includes that of cream or milk, as well as sugar, water, nutmeg, cornstarch vanilla. Today, cocoa tea might be served on a side of bread. In a previous era, however, flour dumplings were boiled inside the drink in order to make it a complete meal.

Thus as you can see, cocoa tea is not actually a tea, not even truly in the loosest sense. Nor is cocoa tea even thought of as a meal in a beverage like the locals people at first claimed it started as. Cocoa tea, while still served as a breakfast meal, may quite easily be treated as a dessert treat or even perhaps a pleasurable snack.

It may likewise be unbelievably filling if served with bread or even in the conventional way with dumplings floating inside. However, for the most part it is just an gratifying, albeit rich and sugary, local delight that a person will run across particularly if voyaging through Soufriere St. Lucia in the Caribbean. Listen to Korbin Newlyn as he shares his insights as an expert author and an avid writer in the field of food and drinks.