A ROSELLE CORDIAL ~

There is something about a crimson coloured drink that makes it desirable and irresistible. 

I knew I had to make this when I saw it on The Hungry Caterpillar. The Roselle cordial is made from the sepals of the Roselle flower. A species of the hibiscus which is a plant native to the Old World tropics. It is of a deep plum colour, fleshy and crisp in texture, bizarre, kinky, alien-like, seemingly ready to scamper, creep, plunge, squeak, squeal and rule the world through my poor little chocolate addicted body.

H thought they looked weird, and winced when I offered him the cordial. I looked at him as adamantly as I was allowed to and, to my surprise, he relented and took a sip. Then he waved the half full glass of roselle out of my reach. I smacked his arm with my paw. As hard as I was allowed to. We grappled. We drank. We were in ecstasy and in joyful worship. Of Rosella. (Dionysus... move over)

Obviously it passed the test. So now it's bottled. Like a Genie.

It has a lovely flavour that hovers between a grape juice and a Ribena (a blackcurrant cordial). It has a slight tang to it too. It contains lots of vitamins and goodness-ess. Then I gave some to my mother.

 

Cordials are popular in this hemisphere. They are very sweet concentrated fruit flavoured syrups that need to be diluted with cold water, topped with ice cubes and then served.  In short, it contains copious amounts of sugar. It's the poor man's alternative to fruit juices. They are very refreshing.

The seeds found inside the sepals contain natural pectin and if these roselle sepals are to be cooked into a jam the seeds are boiled seperately in some water, drained, the seeds discarded and the gel like liquid that remains behind is added to the boiled sepals-sugar mixture to give it the final gel-like quality of jam. Fascinating.

PS ~ What a lovely and natural way to color cakes and icing.

The recipe ~ an approximation ~

300-350 gm roselle sepals

3 cups of granulated sugar

5-6 cups water

Rinse rosella sepals until clean. Drain. Pluck the sepals and remove all the seeds. 

Place water in a pot. Add sepals and bring to a boil and then a medium simmer for about 8- 10 minutes. The water will turn crimson immediately. Add sugar and simmer again until the sugar dissolves. Give it a stir. When sugar has dissolved and the syrup is a gorgeous crimson drain through a sieve and discard the sepals. 

Cool and store the syrup in a sterilized bottle.

To serve ~  

Pour about an inch and a half of the Rosella syrup into a glass and then fill up to 3/4 way with chilled water. Add ice cubes if you like. Taste for sweetness. Add more of the syrup if not sweet enough or more water if too sweet. Add a squeeze of lime and some slices if desired. Drink and be refreshed. 

It's a beautiful and gorgeous drink. How could one resist ?

STARBUCKS BANANA WALNUT BREAD

I am not the only one who has been puzzling over the difference between a banana bread and a banana cake. Even David Lebovitz is as perplexed as I am. Yes I have, in total, spent between 1800-2100 seconds over the past ten years trying to sort out the difference between the two. 

An American friend of mine had offered me a slice of "banana 'bread' " one morning. I studied it and it seemed to me, in all its look and texture, a banana cake. At the time I didn't give it much thought. A shrug was all the puzzle had got out of me. But since I started this blog the question has become more immediate and urgent. I feel stupid. I feel shallow. I feel I should know. 

But then I thought, surely, it cannot be as perplexing as confronting the fifth dimension of wormholes and parallel universes or, at the least, cataloging the properties of subatomic particles such as quarks and gluons. Then.... Why?...People?....Have I not found the answer? Help. Michio Kaku? Einstien?

And I have also just learnt...yes ...learnt.... that Rose Beranbaum has a recipe for banana bread in her book The Bread Bible. She used a plain white bread recipe, added some milk and a couple of bananas to it and called it Banana Bread. Now that makes complete sense no? Yes. 

Yes it makes so much sense that I can almost write an algebraic formula for it. Like...........Bread + Banana = Banana Bread. Check. A++

But Ho No.....banana bread to the rest of the universe is simply banana cake. Eat your banana bread up Rosie. You're alone.  

So here I am I am.....with a Banana Bread recipe called Starbucks Banana Walnut Cake .....oops...Bread.  

Okay...I'll admit ...it's little bit denser than my banana cake, firmer perhaps, cuts more neatly, is more domed and uses oil instead of butter (but hey...a carrot CAKE uses oil too) and it's got stuff on top of it but is just as sweet, moist and delicious. 

This . just .  cannot . be . for breakfast. I forbid it! Banana 'Bread' indeed! Hmmmph!

The recipe ~ adapted from food.com.

I tweaked it a little by adding the zest and juice of an orange and instead of bananas I had used plantains. Because that was what I had darkening in the refrigerator. 

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

1 1/8 cup sugar  (you could reduce this to 1 cup)

1/2 cup vegetable oil 

2 T buttermilk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I omitted) and used instead the 

Zest of 1 orange and juice of half an orange

3 large ripe bananas or 1 cup mashed bananas

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Some rolled oat to top the cake with

Grease and flour a loaf tin measuring 9x5x3 inches. Pre heat oven to 350 F.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Keep aside.

Beat egg, sugar and oil in another bowl until pale and well combined. Add flour mixture to egg/oil mixture and mix well, adding buttermilk as you go along and then the mashed bananas. Add in teh 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts. Combine.

Pour batter into the prepared loaf tin. level out and scatter 1/3 chopped walnuts and then some rolled oats over the top.

Bake for 50 - 60 mintes or until skewer inserted in teh centre comes out clean. If the top gets too brown before its done tent it with a piece of foil.

PINEAPPLE POP TARTS

I wish this house was constructed of grilled meat, roast chicken, steamed red snappers, cemented with sambal belacan, furnished with rice and it's roof tiled with pop tarts. So that Starvers will be distracted while The Starvee photo shoots.

Pop tarts are what I made. And as a Malaysian, tarts only make sense when paired with pineapple jam. These........they were very good. The crust was crusty and buttery. And the jam.... it was obligingly sticky and subtly sweet. And the whole...it was out of this world. 

This just cannot be a breakfast food. I refuse to serve it for breakfast. I would probably refuse to share these next time too.

I checked out the recipe for the pop tart crust on Smitten Kitchen and then at Joy the Baker and realized that they were exactly the same. So the credits go to two of my favourite blogs.

Because I live in a green house it was very difficult to keep the dough cool and firm while rolling, filling and sealing it with jam. Constant refrigeration in between tasks was totally necessary. I made this in the evening when it was cooler. (Don't even think of working with this dough on a hot afternoon). I had also rolled out the dough between sheets of baking paper so that I could easily lift them on to a tray to chill in the refrigerator. It was worth it.

But I was not about to pause, evaporate, melt and take photos of the process. So do go here if you would like to see the step by steps. Photo-parantheses is for plants.

The recipe ~ Smitten Kitchen & Joy the Baker
  
Of course you could fill this with anything, ranging from Nutella, sugar and cinnamon, any jam, anything.

Crust

2 cups plain flour 

1 T sugar

1 tsp salt

1 cup butter, cut into cubes

1 large egg

2 T cold milk

1 extra egg for brushing

Whisk flour, sugar and salt in a medium bowl. Work in cold butter using a pastry knife or your fingers until pea sized lumps of butter are still visible and mixture just holds together when squeezed.

Whisk egg and milk and pour into flour mixture mixing until cohesive and the dough comes together in a ball. Divide into two and chill in the refrigerator until firm ..maybe 20 -30 minutes.

Lay a largish sheet of baking paper on the table and roll out one half of the dough until it becomes a rectangle of about 9 x 12 inches and the dough sheet is about 1/8 inch thick. Cut the rectangle into 9 equal sized smaller rectangles. 

Brush the sheet with beaten egg and plop some jam on each rectangle. Place the jammed dough rectangles  into the refrigerator while you roll out the other dough.

Roll out the other dough half (also on baking paper) to the same size as the first dough and cut them up in exactly the same way. Keep aside.

Take out the jammed dough rectangles and place them next to the blank rectangles. Lift each small blank rectangle and place it over a jammed rectangle and press down the edges with a fork to crimp. Finish off the rest in the same way.

Bake in a preheated  oven at 350 for 25 - 30 minutes or until golden brown.

RED & YELLOW WATERMELON GRANITA

I know....... summer in some parts of foodie world is over. But in my world ~  summer is forever. 

So there is nothing like an ice cold headache-inducing water melon granita to keep those heat waves at bay. This was just so refreshing that when my daughter and I mouthed the first few scoops of ice cold crystallized melon juice aka as granita while watching tv the heat outside just seemed to dissipate into a mirage-y blur and I felt transported to several degrees below 100. 

It was a continuous effort between cooling down and an ice cold headache. At times it was like my brain was being flashed frozen and the next minute relieved of it. It was a foodie's fight against nature. As hard as that may sound I would do granita again and again if the heat keeps up. Rain? Come again? Pretty please?

Of course granita turned to pleasant slush afterwards and I wished I had one of those big fat drain pipe straws then. Slurpy slurp.

I used red and yellow seedless water melon for these granitas. Since the watermelon was so sweet I cut it down with a few squirts of lemon juice. While I was at it I chopped some mint and threw it into the red watermelon slush/soon to be granita.  Gosh it was so good. These granitas.

So......

When you're feelin' kinda hotta 

Grab an ice cold and crunchy granita.

The recipe ~ serves many or when summers are forever

1 red watermelon

1 yellow watermelon

Juice of 1 or 2 lemons, if desired

pinch of sea salt

some chopped mint, if desired 

Scoop out the red watermelon meat. Place in a blender and blitz. Add a pinch of sea salt, lemon juice if desired. Swish and pour into a tub and when half frozen take out from the freezer and agitate it with a fork. Do it a couple of more times until you get granita according to the texture that pleases you. Scoop granita into individual glasses, layering the red and yellow granitas if you fancy, garnish with a sprig of mint and serve yourself and others. Best served when the sun is relentless and totally beating down on you. Mmm-hmmm. ~ Cooool ~

Ditto for the yellow watermelon granita.

Photographing these granitas was a nightmare. They slushed on me.