If you’ve never heard of Bobotie, it’s a lightly curried lamb and beef mixture with a chutney sauce and almonds as the primary ingredients. This dish was also popular in Europe in the Middle Ages, after the Crusaders introduced Turmeric from the East. Bobotie was traditionally made with the meat left over from the Sunday roast.
In a large mixing bowl, combine all of the ingredients above except for the 2 eggs, 1/2 of the Almonds, the Olive Oil and Base Quiche Mix. Mix thoroughly. In a large skillet over medium high heat drop in the Olive Oil and when hot enough, add in the meat mixture and cook until lightly browned. Try to keep a few large chucks of the mixture together will help, but is not necessary. Remove, drain and allow to cool. Properly store until final assembly.
Final Assembly and Cooking
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Coat the pie pans lightly with oil (I like coconut oil for this) or butter. Place the meat mixture evenly into the two pie pans. Prepare the usual base quiche mix and add the two extra eggs. When fully whipped, pour gently over the mixture in the pans. Sprinkle the remaining Almonds over the fillings and transfer to the oven. Cook for 30 -40 minutes or until the egg portion of the dish is starting to brown. Remove from the oven and serve or wrap in foil to transfer to the rink.
Halloween Frittata with Zombie Chunks and Cheesy Maggots
Here is an early Halloween themed frittata. The ingredients include a whole bunch of Zombie Chunks, everything from random body parts to eyeballs. And somehow it’s been infected with a small colony of Cheesy Maggots. Just what you want to eat around Halloween. In spite of the way it looks and whats in it can be eaten. Only because its cooked enough to finally destroy all the Zombie and Maggot power.
Serves: 16 – 22 (2 frittatas)
Ingredients
1/2 lb Hamburger
1/2 lb spicy Italian Sausage
1/2 Yellow Onion, chopped
4 tsp Olive Oil
6 extra Eggs
3 Green Olives with Pimento
1/4 cup Sun Dried Tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup Orzo Pasta
1 cup Sharp Cheddar Cheese, shredded
1 cup Gruyere Cheese, shredded
2 Tbsp Ground Black Pepper
1 Tbsp Salt
2 pie pans
Preparation
In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly mix together the Hamburger, Sausage and chopped Onion Chill these in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. While these are cooling, hard boil the Eggs in boiling water for 8 – 10 minutes. While these are cooking, take the olives and cut them in half through the middle so that the pimento is in the center of each piece of olive. Remove the eggs from the bowl and place in cold water. When cooled enough to handle, peel them and halve them. Then carefully using a knife hollow out the end of each egg half to the diameter of each cut olive. Place the cut olives into the hollow of the eggs. These will look like eye balls sliced in half. Put these in the refrigerator until ready for final assembly.
Remove the Hamburger and Sausage mixture from the refrigerator and form into patties that shouldn’t be thicker than 3/4 inch or 3 inches in diameter. In a skillet over medium high heat, use 2 teaspoons of Olive Oil and allow it to get to full heat. When ready, cook the patties in the skillet until the each side is starting to char, about 5 minutes per side. Remove and place on paper towels to drain and cool. When cooled tear the patties up into random sized chucks. Chop up the Sun Dried Tomatoes and mix them in with the meat chunks. Put these away until ready for final assembly.
Prepare the Orzo Pasta as directed on the package and when done and drained, transfer to a container and add 2 teaspoons and mix thoroughly. Place in the refrigerator until ready for final assembly.
Final Assembly and Cooking
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Oil or butter the bottom of your pie pans. Them take the Egg eye balls and arrange them equally into each pie pan, Olive iris side up. Then equally arrange the meat and tomato mixture around them in the pans. Prepare the usual base quiche mix, and add to this the Pepper and Salt. For an extra flavor add 1 tablespoon of Truffle Oil. Whisk this up until fluffy. Pour this over the ingredients in the pans and sprinkle about half of the Orzo Pasta over the top. Then add on the mixture of the two cheeses. Then finish topping with the remaining pasta. Sprinkle a little more pepper over the top and pop them into the oven. Cook for 30 – 40 minutes or until the cheese is just starting to turn golden brown. Remove from the oven is either serve or pack up for the rink.
Georgian Sausage and Walnut Sauce Quiche
While in the country of Georgia, not the state, the country over just South of Russia, I got to experience a lot of different foods from around the region. The culture is very diverse and has a wide range of really good organically grown food. Additionally some of the best wine I’ve every had is grown and made there!
But back to breakfast. This dish is made with Georgian Sausage, or as best as I can get it with the limited access to Silk Road spices, and Georgian farm fresh ingredients. Topped with a little Sulguni Cheese, it’s quite tasty. And for those of you doubter out there, the one in the picture above is not burnt. The Megrelian ajika and the Walnut Sauce turned it this color. This is also best eaten as a frittata.
Serves: 16 -22 (2 frittatas)
Ingredients
Georgian Sausage
1 – 1/2 lbs Ground Pork
1 large Onion, finely chopped
1 – 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
1 tsp freshly Ground Black Pepper
2 cloves of Garlic, minced
2 Tbsp chopped fresh Dill, or 1 tbsp of dried Dill
1 Tbsp ground Coriander
1 tsp dried Red Chile Flakes
4 oz Pomegranate Juice
1 tsp Cooking Oil
Megrelian Ajika
2 – 4 Hot Red Chile Peppers
1 – 2 Sweet Red Peppers
1/2 cup chopped Parsley
1/4 cup chopped Celery Leaves
1/4 cup of chopped Basil
1/2 cup of Garlic (about 6 cloves)
1 1/2 Tbsp Fenugreek
1 1/2 Tbsp Coriander
1 1/2 Tbsp Marigold
1 Tbsp Dill
1 tsp Salt
Walnut Sauce
1/2 cup finely ground Walnuts
1 tsp Coriander
1 tsp Fenugreek
1 tsp of Marigold
1/2 tsp of Cinnamon
2 crushed Garlic cloves
2 tsp White Wine Vinegar
The Rest
1 cup shredded Smoked Sulguni or Smoked Mozzarella Cheese (or plain Mozzarella if you can’t find it smoked)
1/2 White Onion, chopped
1 tsp Cooking Oil
1/2 cup pomegranate seeds (optional)
Preparation
Georgian Sausage
In a large mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix thoroughly. Add the Pomegranate Juice in last but make sure everything is thoroughly mixed. The traditional method would have this mixture in casings but since this all gets chopped up anyway why bother. Make into 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick patties (should make about 8 – 10) and refrigerate for about 30 minutes to firm them up. Prepare a skillet on medium high with with a dash of cooking oil (I use olive oil) and when ready, place in and cook all of the patties that you’ve prepared for about 5 – 6 minutes per side. They should be just a little charred on the outside. Remove from the skillet and allow to drain onto some paper towels until cool. When cooled chop them up into 1/2 inch pieces and refrigerate until ready for final assembly.
Megrelian Ajika
This will make a little over 1 1/2 cups of this seasoning. Remove the tops of all the peppers and remove all the seeds and stems and discard them. Quarter cut the peppers so they’ll fit into a food processor. Fine chop the parsley, celery leaves, basil and garlic. Put each of previous ingredients into a food processor and pulse until you have a finely chopped mush and everything is fully mixed. Add into the processor the fenugreek, coriander, marigold, dill and salt. Continue to mix by pulsing the processor until everything is fully mixed. Remove from the processor and store in a container until ready to use in the final preparation.
Walnut Sauce
This will make a little over 1/2 a cup of this key ingredient. Using a food processor finely chop walnuts until you have at least 1/2 cup of finely chopped or ground walnuts. Then add in the other ingredients, except for the White Wine Vinegar and thoroughly mix in the processor. This powder should be easily removed for the processor and placed in a bowl. Add the White Wine Vinegar in and mix well. Then you should simply add a little bit of water and mix until the mixture is a thick paste. When you get the right consistency, put it away until final preparation.
The Rest
Shred your cheese and chop your 1/2 onion. In a pan, put a little cooking oil and when hot, add the chopped onions and cook over medium high heat until they turn translucent. Remove from heat and put both away in separate containers until ready for final preparation.
Final Assembly and Cooking
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Line your pie pans with a little oil or butter to help the frittata release. Take the chopped sausage and chopped onions you’ve prepared and roughly mix them together and place equal parts into your two pie pans. Prepare the base quiche mix, but reduce the amount of half and half to 1/4 cup. Add into this mixture the Ajika and Walnut Sauce and mix well. Pour this over the sausages and onions in the pie pans. Top this with the shredded cheese and cook in the oven for 30 – 40 minutes, or when the cheese is starting to turn golden brown. Remove from the oven and either serve or pack them up for transport to the rink. Also, if you want to add a pleasant surprise, drop on some pomegranates on top of each pie after about 20 minutes of cooking.
I was at the local Asian market on afternoon to pick up some “special” mushrooms and decided to wander the isles for a bit. While carefully giving the fish section a little extra nasal space, I stumbled across some Filipino breakfast sausage called Longanisa, and since I didn’t have my wife with me at the time, I had no idea what this was except it was made from meat and came in a wide variety of meats and spices. The most appealing one at the time was the hot pork version, so I picked some up to experiment with. And after consulting the internet and a few of my Filipy friends I concocted this Longsilog Torta which is a lot like a frittata. WARNING – there is enough garlic in this to scare away vampires, thus it’s nickname or Vampire Repellant Torta.
Serves 16 – 22
Ingredients
2 pkg – 12 oz Frozen Hot Pork Longanisa
6 slices – uncured Bacon (optional)
2 tomatoes – diced
1 cup – rice
12 cloves – garlic chopped (should be about 1/4 cup)
4 tbspn – cooking oil (I use coconut oil for this)
1/4 cup – Fish Sauce
1/2 cup – shredded White Cheddar Cheese
2 pie pans
Preparation
Cook the rice as directed by the package. Prepare the tomatoes and garlic by getting all the chopping done. In a large pot, but in the cooking oil and heat on medium high heat. When it’s hot enough add in all the garlic and stir until its all starting to brown. Remove half of the garlic and set aside till final assembly. Drop in the rice with the remaining garlic and stir while frying for about 5 -10 minutes or until the rice is just a little browned. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Put this away in the fridge until ready for final assembly.
Chop up the longanisa and bacon into 1/2 chunks and then cook in a skillet over medium high heat until it’s all thoroughly cooked. Remove from the skillet and place on a paper towel to drain. Raise the heat to high and the skillet is still a little greasy add in the tomato chunks and cook until they start to wilt and get browned edges. This should take about 6 minutes. Remove and mix together with the meats from above. Refrigerate until ready for final assembly.
Final Assembly and Cooking
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Apply a thin coating of coconut oil to the bottom of the pie pans. Mix all of the previously prepared ingredients together thoroughly and place equal portions into each oiled pie pan. In a mixing bowl, prepare the standard quiche base mix but add in the Fish Sauce as well. Whisk until frothy while adding a little salt and pepper to taste (I use 1 teaspoon salt and 2 teaspoons pepper) and pour over the fillings in the pie pans. Put on a thin coating of a white shredded cheese on top and then add the remaining fried garlic. This all goes in the oven for 35-40 minutes or until its starting to brown on the top. Remove from the oven and it’s ready to serve as soon as it’s cooled down a little. Or pack it up a blanket for the rink.
