Whippersnappers

The Fillet-O-Fish is a main-menu item with neither "Mc" nor "burger" in its name, which strikes me as anomalous.

I was in my neighbourhood Macca's the other day (according to the average Aussie, "Mickey D's" sounds dumb and they are right), and lady at the next counter got her three young children to give their own orders to the cashier. It was all very adorable until the eldest girl - she can't have been older than fourteen - asked for a chai latte, and then her mother corrected her and ordered three chai lattes, one for each of her children.

I...children are drinking caffeinated beverages with Italian names now? In public, as opposed to stealing a sip from their father's mug while their mother was looking the other way? Was it always like this, and I simply never noticed?

Why does my supervisor's five-year-old daughter have her very own mobile phone?

MENTAL BREAKDOWNNNN!!!

11-11-11

It's full of ones!

Ninja Storm

6:00 pm. A bright sunny afternoon, a few white clouds in the sky. A light wind, nothing too severe. Temperature at about 34 degrees C.

6:15 pm. "The Bureau of Meteorology has advised us of a major storm. Please close all your windows and stay indoors."

6:40 pm. Still bright and sunny, maybe a few grey clouds on the horizon.

6:50 pm. Thick black clouds immediately overhead, resembling a mass of angry charcoal scribbles.

7:00pm. Heavy rain, strong winds and significant loss of visibility. Temperature at 16 degrees C.

Melbourne weather is sneaky. Sneaky.

10/11/11 EDIT: Check out this awesome photograph of the storm!

Recipe: Laminated Pastry Dough (and Two Uses)

This is not so much a recipe as a technique. The idea is that once you know the principle of making puff pastry, you can make many things from it. Things with French names. Muahahahaha!

Villainous cackling aside, it really isn't too hard to make puff pastry. All you do is start to make brioche, and then get sidetracked. I'll even prove it by using my brioche recipe!

(No photographs at the moment. All the pastries I made were consumed within three hours of leaving the oven.)

(Recipes adapted from multiple sources, but especially this one and also this one.)

Laminated Dough

1 sachet (7 g) active dried yeast

1/4 cup warm milk

1/5 cup caster sugar

2 4/5 cups bread flour

1/4 tsp salt

3 eggs, lightly beaten

125g butter, softened

1/4 cup plain flour

Combine yeast, milk and 1 tbs of the caster sugar in a small bowl. Leave for 5 minutes until it turns frothy and the yeast floats to the top.

In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and the remaining sugar. Make a well in the centre. Stir in the yeast mixture first, then gradually add the beaten eggs. Stir until just combined; a rather tough dough will form. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes, until smooth.

(This is where the sidetracking happens.)

Transfer the dough to a lightly-floured baking tray. Cover with a flour-dusted piece of cling wrap. Allow to rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. While waiting, beat the butter and plain flour until smooth. Keep the butter mixture at room temperature.

Turn out the chilled dough onto a floured surface and role into roughly 30 by 45 by 1 cm rectangle (1). Spread the butter mixture over two-thirds of the dough. Fold the unbuttered side to the middle, and then the remaining half of the buttered end on top, lining up ends such that the dough is folded evenly into thirds (2).

Return the dough to the refrigerator and chill for 30 to 60 minutes, until it has risen somewhat and stiffened. Roll out the dough again. This time, fold it into thirds at a 90 degree angle from the previous fold. Refrigerate for another 30 minutes. Repeat this process two more times (3). After the final fold, refrigerate the dough overnight.

The dough is now done. Time to use it!

Pain au Chocolat

Roll out the dough into a rectangle, somewhat less than 1 cm thick (don't worry about it being too thin, the dough will rise later). Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into roughly 10 by 5 cm rectangles. Place a small pile of chocolate chips or chunks near the end of each dough rectangle (leave some allowance from the dough edges, so that the chocolate doesn't spill out during baking). Carefully roll up the dough around the chocolate. Place each pastry, seam-side down, onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper, spacing them about 3 cm apart. Cover with a clean tea-towel and proof at room temperature for 1-2 hours, until the pastries double in size.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees C. Brush the top of each pastry with an egg wash (4). Bake pastries for 15-20 minutes, until golden-brown.

Pain aux Raisins

About 24 hours in advance (i.e. on the same morning that you start making the dough), mix 1/3 cup raisins, 1/3 cup water and a shot of Cognac (5). Leave to soak in the refrigerator.

Roll out the dough into a rectangle, again less than 1 cm thick. Drain the raisins well, and mix with 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder. Sprinkle the raisins evenly over the dough rectangle. Carefully roll up the dough into a log, keeping the roll tight. Using a sharp knife, slice it into 1 cm thick spirals. 

Arrange the pastries, about 3 cm apart, onto a baking tray lined with lightly-greased baking paper. Cover with a clean tea-towel and proof at room temperature for 1-2 hours, until the pastries double in size.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees C. Brush the pastries with an egg wash (4). Bake for 17-25 minutes, until golden-brown.

During baking, prepare a sugar glaze. Mix 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup hot water (for dissolving) and 1/8 tsp vanilla extract. After removing the pastries from the oven, immediately brush with the sugar glaze. Allow to cool.

Additional notes:

(1) Dough tends to roll into an oval shape. To get a rectangle, first shape the dough roughly into a cuboid shape. Set the rolling pin in the middle of the dough and roll it away from you. Return it to the middle and roll it towards you. Return it to the middle, position it at an angle and roll towards a corner. Repeat for the other three corners.

(2) Most recipes liken this to folding a letter.

(3) The dough ends up having 81 layers (3 to the power of 4).

(4) To prepare the egg wash, lightly whisk 1 egg, thinned with 1 tbsp water or milk.

(5) About 35 ml. For a non-alcoholic substitute, mix 30 ml water with 2 tbsp brandy flavouring.

Zombie or Not to Be

I meant to join in the Melbourne Zombie Shuffle, but the bad weather put the kibosh on those plans. Oh well.

Dressing up as something dead is unreasonable amounts of fun. I enjoy making the dark circles under my eyes more prominent as opposed to concealing them. And decent fake blood (hot water, plain flour, instant coffee and red food colouring all mixed together) makes everything better, pervasive coffee smell notwithstanding.

Anyway! Next year. Next year.

The Fall of the Axe

There's all kinds of family. There are the ones tied to you by blood, the ones which are hard to lose. And then there's the people you drag into your circle. They're there because they want to be, and in a way that makes them even more precious.

Except they aren't really yours. And sometimes they have to leave.

Disaster has struck. It's money - always the money - and four of my impromptu family will have to leave. The quiet, staunch older cousin. The carefree aunt. The snarky, no-nonsense aunt. The beloved older sister.

I have so many good memories, of all the times they gathered around me, of the support they gave just by being. Those memories only hurt now, because I'm greedy for more of them and they can't happen.

They aren't going to be dead. They'll be out there, coming over for the odd coffee or meeting but it won't be the same. Because they'll find their own family, they'll build it again just like I built mine when I first came here, and call me selfish but that thought hurts even more, the thought that they'll come back all detached and distant and not family anymore.

It's going to be so quiet next year. There won't be replacements for them, because money. There will be gaps and nothing to fill them in, nothing but the ones left huddling together as close as we can.

When the news first fell, I ran around, trying to be comforting to both those who had to go and those who would be left. One thanked me three times for coming to talk to him; he was quietly, sadly happy to speak to me. I moved to pat another on the shoulder. He immediately got up for a hug.

One I had to leave for a while. She was staring and not listening to anything I said and not moving.

I don't know what to do except be my usual, clownish self. It's what I'm good at - distract, make them laugh for a while, so they don't think of what is happening.

The clown wants to cry too.

Lunch

Cheese, plain omelette, lettuce, tomato and roast chicken on poppyseed brioche with a mug of fruit juice on the side.

I. Can't. Move.