Thermomix Pizzoccheri Soup

Well, the first time that I remember seeing Pizzoccheri soup prepared was by Valerio Nucci, when he was at The Boulevard Restaurant in Studley Park road in Kew, Melbourne.

Nucci had been at Cafe di Stasio from its inception and has been in various restaurants and catering businesses, more recently the Grand Hotel in Richmond.

The buckwheat noodles can easily be sourced and it is a great winter soup.

Pizzoccheri Soup

Ingredients:

200g green cabbage
2 cloves garlic
1 onion, peeled and quartered
1 large potato, peeled and cubed
3 Tbsp olive oil
1000g vegetable or chicken stock
100g buckwheat (pizzoccheri) noodles or wholewheat spaghetti,
broken
300g Fontina, Jarlsberg or
Gruyere cheese, cubed
Salt and pepper, to taste



Method:

Clean, trim and thinly slice the cabbage and place into the Varoma dish and tray.

Place garlic cloves into TM bowl and chop for 5 seconds on Speed 7. Add the onion and chop for 5 seconds on Speed 5. Add the potato cubes and oil and sauté for 7 minutes at 90°C on Reverse + Speed 1.

Place stock into TM bowl, place Varoma on top and cook for 10 minutes at 100°C on Reverse + Speed 1. Add the broken pasta pieces and cook for another 10 minutes at 100°C on Reverse + Speed 1.

Check to see how soft the cabbage is. It depends on how thickly you have cut the cabbage. If necessary, place the soup into a Thermoserver to keep warm while finishing the cabbage. You may need to add some water to the TM bowl and cook the cabbage for a bit longer on Varoma Temperature on Speed 1.

Once the cabbage has cooked, place into a serving bowl, sprinkle cheese over the cabbage and then top with the soup. Check for seasoning and serve.

Thermomix Moroccan Chickpea and Pumpkin Stew

This recipe is from Allan Campion and Michele Curtis' wonderful cookbook "In The Kitchen"

It is a great book with over 1000 recipes and presented in simple easy to follow ways.

I was fortunate enough to first meet Michele and Allan at Howquadale in 1997 at a cooking class featuring Greg Malouf. They have been a constant source of inspiration and have done a great deal to promote good food in Melbourne and Australia. They had a monthly newsletter that took the form of a blog, well before that term existed.

Pumpkin & Chickpea Stew

Ingredients:

100g chickpeas, soaked overnight ( or 400g can chickpeas)
700g water
1 clove garlic
1 cm piece fresh ginger
1 large onion, peeled & quartered
1/2 capsicum (preferably red), diced
2 Tbsp oil
500g butternut pumpkin, peeled and
cut into 1cm cubes
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 Tbsp tomato paste
300g vegetable or chicken stock
salt & pepper
fresh coriander to garnish

Method:

If using the soaked chickpeas, place into the TM bowl with the water and cook for 45 – 50 minutes at 90°C on Reverse + speed soft. Drain and set aside.

Place garlic and ginger into TM bowl and chop for 10 seconds on speed 7. Scrape down after 5 seconds. Add onion, chop for 5 seconds on Speed 5, add capsicum and oil to the TM bowl and cook for 5 minutes at 80°C on speed 1.

While onion mixture is cooking, peel pumpkin and cut into cubes.

Add pumpkin and spices and cook for another 5 minutes at 80°C on reverse and speed 1. Add the tomato paste and cook another 3 minutes at 80°C on reverse and speed 1.

Add the drained chickpeas, stock, salt and pepper. Cook for 12- 15 minutes at 80°C on reverse and speed 1.

Check to see if the vegetables are tender enough at this point, you may need to add some water and cook it for another 10 minutes, but you do not want them to become mushy. The sauce should be thick.

Sprinkle with coriander leaves and serve with steamed rice.

Thermomix Moroccan Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Stew

This recipe comes from the Murdoch cookbook "A Little Taste of Morocco"

It has been adapted for the Thermomix and is simple.

It would be possible to cook the vegetables in the Varoma so that a larger meal could be made.

Thermomix Moroccan Pumpkin & Sweet Potato Stew

Ingredients:

few threads of saffron
400ml stock, chicken or vegetable
2 cloves garlic, peeled in the Thermomix
1 large onion, peeled and cut into quarters
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp harissa, or pinch of cayenne pepper
400g butternut pumpkin, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
400g orange sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
60g raisins
1 Tbsp honey
Salt and pepper to taste
coriander leaves

Method:

Place saffron threads into some of the stock and keep aside.

Place garlic cloves into TM bowl and chop for 10 seconds on speed 6. Add onions to TM bowl and chop for 10 seconds on speed 5. Add oil and sauté for 5 minutes at 100°C on Speed 1.

Add spices to TM bowl and cook for 3 minutes at 100°C on Speed 1. Add stock, honey and saffron in stock to TM bowl, place pumpkin, sweet potato and raisins into the steamer basket, place into TM bowl and cook for 10 - 15 minutes at 100°C on Reverse and Speed 3 with the MC in place.

Remove the steamer basket and then remove the cinnamon stick from the stock mixture. Place the Butterfly over the blades and tip the pumpkin and sweet potato mix into the TM bowl. Cook for 5 minutes at 80°C on Reverse and Speed Soft.

Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle coriander leaves over the top.

Thermomix Onion Jam

This recipe is based on Greg Malouf's recipe in Arabesque. It is an accompaniment to a vegetable cous cous.

The jam matures and develops more flavour after a few days covered in the fridge.

The Thermomix does a wonderful job of constantly stirring to prevent the onion sticking.

Sorry to those who have been patiently waiting for this recipe.



Onion Jam

Ingredients:

5 medium red onions, peeled & quartered
1 Tbsp oil
1/2 tsp salt
250g dry sherry
250g tawny port
50g currants, soaked in an extra 50g sherry
freshly gound pepper

Method:

Place onions into TM bowl and chop for 10 seconds on speed 5. Scrape down after 5 seconds. Add oil and salt and cook for 4 minutes at 90°C on speed 1.

Once onion has started to soften, add sherry and port, and cook for 20 minutes at 100°C on Speed 1 with the MC out of the lid and basket over the lid.

At this stage, add the currants and increase the temperature for 30 minutes at Varoma temperature on Speed 1, with the basket over the lid.

Once they are cooked add the pepper and cook for 3 minutes at 90°C on speed 1.

Use to accompany dishes, including cous cous with vegetables.

Thermomix Cabbage Soup

This is a simple, budget buster style dish, but with Antonio Carluccio’s name attached it more likely to attract attention.

The recipe came from a book called Soup Kitchen by Annabel Buckingham & Thomasina Miers.




Zuppa di Cavolo Valtellinense
(Cabbage Soup, Valtellina Style – Antonio Carluccio)

Ingredients:

700g Savoy cabbage
200g Fontina, Jarlsberg or Gruyere cheese
1000g vegetable or chicken stock
Chicken bones, (optional, if you have them)
for extra flavour
Salt and pepper, to taste
6 slices of day old bread, cut into cubes
50g butter


Method:

Clean, trim and slice the cabbage and place into the Varoma dish and tray.

Place stock into TM bowl and, if you have any chicken bones left over from somewhere, place these into the TM basket in the TM bowl.

Place the lid on and position the Varoma. Heat the stock and cook the cabbage for 20 - 30 minutes at Varoma temperature on speed 1. It depends on how thickly you have cut the cabbage.

Once the cabbage has cooked, remove the Varoma and test the stock for seasoning. You can cook the stock for a little longer while preparing the bowl with the other ingredients.

Place some of the cabbage into a large bowl or individual bowls. Then place a layer of bread on top, then some cheese, cabbage, bread, cheese, until it is all finished. Gently press down on the ingredients. Pour the stock over the other ingredients and allow to blend while preparing the butter.

Remove any unused stock to a bowl and roughly clean the TM bowl. Place the butter into the TM bowl and cook for 2 minutes at 90°C on Speed 1. Pour the hot butter over the soup and serve.

Thermomix Watermelon Soup

Well, in the hunt for seasonal produce for the Thermomix in Australia Monthly Mouthful competition, I found watermelons going very cheaply. It seemed a bit early in the year for them, but decided to try a couple of recipes for the competition.

This soup is based on a Charlie Trotter recipe that used both rockmelon and watermelon - so one half yellow and the other half red. But the rockmelons were not in the fridge, so just watermelon for now.

You can make the soup without the seeds, but they look cute. You can just grate chocolate over the top of the soup.



Watermelon Soup with chocolate seeds.


Ingredients:

60g dark chocolate, buttons or chunks
60g sugar
1kg watermelon, seeded and cut into chunks


Method:

Place chocolate into TM bowl and melt for 4 minutes
at 60°C on Speed 1.

Place chocolate into piping bag and make little seeds,
or just place little blobs onto baking paper and mould into
shapes like watermelon seeds.

Place sugar in TM bowl and blitz for 20 seconds
on Speed 9.

Add watermelon chunks and blend for 1 minute on
Speed 6.

Serve chilled. Very simple, but very refreshing.

Thermomix Mascarpone Ice Cream

This recipe came from a cooking program on TV - Chuck's Day Off - it is very basic but it has a really has good texture.

He used frozen bananas but other fruit will work.

Hope you give it a go.



Mascarpone Ice Cream

Ingredients:
30 - 60g sugar - depending on the sweetness of your fruit
4 bananas, cut into chunks and frozen (or 400g seasonal fruit - frozen in chunks)
1 & 1/2 cups (sorry forgot the weight) mascarpone cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract (or seeds scraped from the bean)

TM method:

Place sugar in TM bowl and blitz on Speed 9 for 15-20 seconds
Add remaining ingredients and blitz on Speed 9 for 20 - 40 seconds.

Place into moulds or tray in freezer and leave for at least 6 hours.

Take out of freezer and allow to sit at room temp for 5 mins before serving.

Thermomix Croissants

This all started after seing the post by Tenina about her Masterchef Challenge with Chocolate Frangipane Croissants for George Calombaris.

I had heard that there was a croissant recipe available for the Thermomix - but NOBODY was willing to reveal the recipe as it had been placed under embargo from HQ.

So, always one for a challenge I decided to go back to the vast array of books and magazines to find a suitable recipe.

Loretta Sartori (who is doing a hands-on pastry class at Diana Marsland's next February) has 2 recipes in her marvellous book Patisserie . The first appears to be a version of that of Joel Bellouet, who demonstrated at French Kitchen in 1984.

Pierre Herme's recipe requires the dough to be placed into the freezer and then the fridge between rollings, while Christophe Felder, of l'hôtel de Crillon à Paris fame preferred to make a paste of butter and flour and envelope it, as in Loretta's second recipe. Both of these methods were discarded as too difficult for me.

Some preparatory words of warning:

This is a full day's work (or over 2 days) - but there is a lot of time between rolling to do other things, so it is not constant.

In terms of timing - you need about half an hour from starting until you do the mix
with all the flour and milk etc. Then there is 15 minutes before the dough goes into the fridge, then 2 hours resting and 15 minutes rolling, 2 hours resting and another 15 minutes of rolling before allowing another 2 hours of resting, then 15 - 30 minutes of rolling and cutting and rolling, before another 1 to 2 hours of proving before just 15 minutes of baking. So, be prepared. One of the two hour resting sessions can be done overnight, but only one.

This is NOT a bread and the dough should NOT be kneaded more than is necessary to combine the dough. It is essentially a puff pastry with yeast to aid leavening. Treat it as a pastry - NOT a bread - you DO NOT want the gluten to be activated - be gentle. Do not leave it kneading past the point that it has become a ball of dough.

Once the dough has been rolled it can be frozen or it can be filled with sweet or savoury fillings and the shapes may be the regular croissant or more in the pain au chocolat (square shape).



Slow proving of the croissants before baking produces the best results. An ambient temperature of about 22°C is best over a period of an hour or more.

Good luck.

Thermomix Croissants

Ingredients

45g sugar
175g milk
50g butter
10g salt

75g bakers’ flour
20g fresh or 7g dry yeast (1 sachet)
100g tepid water

500g bakers’ flour

180g butter, softened (this can be done at 37°C in the Thermomix)

1 egg and 30ml milk for egg wash

Method

Place sugar in TM bowl – grind for 30 seconds on speed 9 until fine.

Add milk, the 50g of butter and the salt to TM bowl and heat for 5 minutes at 70°C on speed 3. Remove and set aside.

Place 75g flour, yeast, and water into the TM bowl. Mix for 2 minutes at 37°C on speed 3. Leave in the TM bowl and allow to rise and develop for about half an hour, until the leaven becomes frothy.




Add the 500g flour and the milk mixture and mix for 20 seconds on speed 5.

Knead for 45 seconds on interval speed. Do not overwork the dough as you do not want to activate the gluten. Remove dough from the bowl, place onto a lightly floured board and gently shape into a flattened rectangle and let it rest at room temperature for 10 - 15 minutes (to allow the yeast to start working).

Then place dough into some plastic wrap and cover to prevent dehydration and place in the fridge for approx 2 hours.




Take the dough from fridge and place on a floured surface. Using a floured rolling pin, roll into a rectangle about three times the length of its width (approx 17cm x 50cm).

Place half (90g) of the softened butter onto one end of the rectangle and smooth it out over two-thirds of the rectangle.



Now fold the unbuttered third of the rectangle over the centre third



and then the remaining buttered third of the rectangle over the doubled section.



Now turn the dough so that the open fold is to your left


(the photo is taken looking from the chef's side of the table)
and roll the pastry again trying to maintain the shape and ending with a rectangle three times the length of its width. Fold the top third over the middle third and then the bottom third over the other section. Place in plastic film again and return to the fridge for another rest of two hours. It may be left overnight at this stage rather than just for 2 hours.

The dough is again rolled out to a triangle and the bottom two-thirds covered with softened butter. The unbuttered section is folded over the middle third and the bottom third folded back on top of the other section.

Again turn the dough so that the open fold is to your left and roll the pastry again trying to maintain the shape and ending with a rectangle three times the length of its width. Fold the top third over the middle third and then the bottom third over the other section. Place in plastic film again and return to the fridge for another rest of two hours. It may be left overnight at this stage rather than just for 2 hours, but you can only rest it overnight on one occasion.

After the final resting, roll the dough into a rectangle with a 3mm thickness.

Pre heat oven to 240°C (220°C with fan).

Prepare silicone baking sheets or ordinary trays using silicone baking paper.

Cut the dough into triangles with a width of approximately 17cm and length of about 35cm



With the points of the triangle facing away from you, place a cut into each triangle – this reduces the bulk in the centre of the croissant and ensures more even baking.




Roll from the base of the triangle towards the point firmly but do not stretch it lengthways and place onto baking sheet. It is actually best to place the croissants with the tail underneath to prevent it unravelling as in some pictured.



Leave croissants to rise for approx 1 & ½ to 2 hours at approximately 22°C before glazing each gently with egg wash.

Place in oven and turn down to 200°C (190°C fan-forced) for 15 minutes until golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack with legs to avoid condensation.


Freezing croissants.

If you want hot, fresh croissants for breakfast then place the rolled croissants before they are allowed to rise onto trays lined with baking paper and cover before freezing.

Once frozen the croissants may be stored in airtight plastic bags until required.

Remove the croissants from freezer the night before and place on a tray lined with baking paper at least 5cm apart.

Cover with a damp tea towel and leave to stand overnight.

In the morning the croissants will have risen and be ready for cooking.

Pre-heat the oven and follow the normal cooking instructions.

Thermomix Varoma Steamed Dumplings

This is part of the recipe that I had prepared last year, and then forgot to put on the blog!!

The basic recipe can be altered with different fillings.

Chicken and Pistachio Dumplings in the Varoma

makes 20


80 g unsalted pistachio nuts
1 clove garlic
300 g chicken thighs cut into 2cm chunks,
and partly frozen
2 tablespoons mint
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
Salt

20 round gow gee dumpling or wonton wrappers

sauce
1 small onion, quartered
1 red chilli, seeded and roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons dry white wine
400 g tin chopped tomatoes
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce (optional)


Place the pistachios in the TM bowl and chop for 10 seconds on speed 7. Add garlic and chop for another 5 seconds on speed 7. Add chicken, mint, lemon zest, allspice, cinnamon, Tabasco, black pepper and some salt to TM bowl. Chop and combine the chicken by hitting Turbo 4 or 5 times. It should still have some texture and not look like a paste.

Line the Varoma dish and tray with some baking paper and punch with holes. Spoon the mixture into the centre of the gow gee wrappers and bring the edges up around the filling, pleating as you go to encase the filling (leave the top open). Place the dumplings in a single layer on top and cover with the lid. Leave aside while preparing the sauce.

Place the onion, chilli and garlic in the TM bowl and chop for 10 seconds on speed 7. Add oil and cook for 5 minutes, or until the onion has softened. Add the wine, tomatoes, cinnamon and Tabasco, if using, set the TM for 20 minutes at Varoma temperature on reverse and speed 1. Place the Varoma on top and allow the dumplings to steam while the sauce is cooking.

You may need to check after about 10 minutes and move some of the dumplings from the main Varoma dish to the tray and vice versa to ensure even cooking. If the dumplings start to dry out during cooking, brush generously with water.

After the dumplings have cooked, remove the Varoma and leave aside covered to keep the dumplings warm. Open the TM lid and remove the cinnamon stick. Place the MC back in lid and slowly bring the speed up to speed 9 and blend for 40 seconds, or until smooth, then season well.

To serve, spoon the sauce onto serving plates and place the dumplings on top, or arrange the dumplings on a platter and use the sauce for dipping.

Thermomix Beetroot and Chocolate Custards

A dish using the combination of chocolate and beetroot in a sweet custrad that cooks well in the Varoma. So you only need the Thermomix to prepare these little delights

Sweet Beetroot and Chocolate Custards


Ingredients:

rind of half an orange
100g sugar
300g beetroot, unpeeled, cut into chunks
1 MC (100ml) orange juice
1/2 tsp salt
90g dark chocolate, Melts or broken
roughly into chunks
3 eggs
6 greased dariole moulds
600g water

Method:

Place orange rind and sugar into TM bowl and chop for 30 seconds on Speed 7.

Add beetroot to TM bowl and grate for 20 - 30 seconds on Speed 8. The pieces should be similar in size to rice grains. Add orange juice and salt and cook for 20 - 30 minutes at 90°C on Speed 1 with the MC in place.

Add chocolate and blend for 10 seconds on Speed 5.

Add eggs and blend for 10 seconds on Speed 4.

Place mixture into greased dariole moulds and position in the Varoma. Place the 600g water into the TM bowl (no need to clean) and set for 20 minutes at Varoma temperature on Speed 1.

Serve with whipped cream, yoghurt, yoghurt ice cream, ice cream, ….