Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Paper Chef #16

Even though I'm judging this event I enjoyed myself so much last time that I've decided to do some dishes just for the fun of it.

With the movie theme and oscar night what could be more fitting than oscar crackers - or to avoid any legal problems OzKar crackers

oscar crackers© by haalo



I had fun making these using a stencil I'd cut out from cardboard in an Ozkar shape and a simple cracker dough, that's spiced with freshly ground pepper.

I served these with a "Prawn Tapenade"

1prawn tapenade© by haalo

For the tapenade I first marinated prawns in garlic, chilli and basil, then quickly sautéed them in a hot wok, before deglazing with Verjuice.

Then in a small processor I added the prawns, more basil, parsley, olives and a squeeze of lime and roughly processed them.

This was served with the 5 Oskars, 5 stars and 5 hearts - five being the olympic number, stars because we are dealing with hollywood and the movies, and hearts because we looove them so.

prawn sausage© by haalo

This dish is my olympic rings inspired dish.

To the side of the plate I have basil oil - a simple puree of fresh basil and oil - once again served in 5 rings of dimishing size.

The olympic rings are a case of recycling. Using the previous tapenade mix I've added egg to it then placed the mix in baking paper and rolled it up to form a sausage shape. It was then steamed until firm.

While it's cooling, I've made a very thin potato roesti. I've grated one potato, then squeezed all the excess moisture from it before salting it slightly. I then press this mix into a heated and oiled frypan to form a very thin round. The starches in the potato will hold this together.

When both sides have been cooked I then place it on another sheet of baking paper and place the prawn sausage along the side, before rolling the roesti around it. As it cools, the potato will stick together, helped by the tightly wrapped baking paper.

It only takes a few minutes and you can unwrap and slice to serve.

prawn sausage© by haalo

Finally, what's a party and a hollywood party without a drink.

Leonardo d'Caprioska© by haalo

This is the Leonardo d'Caprioska.

I slice 1 lime into 8 pieces, place 6 pieces into a dish with 1 tablespoon of sugar and muddle together to extra the juice. Place this in a cocktail shaker with crushed ice, 60ml of vodka and 15ml of a Verjuice sugar syrup (this was made using equal parts of verjuice and sugar and letting it reduce and thicken over a medium heat). Shake well and strain into a sugar rimmed glass, add ice and the 2 spare pieces of lime to garnish.


8 comments

  1. This is superb!!! Great inspiration

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  2. Hi Bea

    Thanks for the comment!

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  3. Wow, I'm completely in love with your "Ozkar" crackers, I would love to do something like that - next year!

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  4. Hi Erin

    Thanks for the comments!

    The hardest part was making the cutout but once that's done it's fairly simple. I'll be posting the cracker recipe itself probably next week.

    Haalo

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  5. I like the idea of rolling the prawn sausage in the rosti!
    Emma

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  6. Hi Emma

    Thanks for the comment!
    I was quite pleased at how the sausage turned out - it's something I'd do again and it turned out to be a nice idea for fingerfood.

    Haalo

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  7. Those crackers are a great idea. I've been meaning to try soday crackers every since I had "homemade" ones in Atlanta as an appetizer along with homemade peanut butter. Sounds strange, but they were very good.

    I also like the inspiration of using the rosti as a wrapper. I bet that tasted wonderful.

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  8. Hi B'gina

    Thanks so much for the comments.
    The ingredients for this month's Paper Chef were great and looking at all the entries, you can see how versatile they are and it really highlights what makes Paper Chef so interesting.

    Haalo

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