Mr YouTube entertained me with growing beans and legumes. I thought I'd give them a try.
This rather disrupted my other plan of making some spring rolls. I'd bought some Spring Roll pastry from the asian shop next to Pak'n Save in Kilbirnie, I bought the smaller ones to try out. I'd fried up some mince and then after finding the sprout jar I thought I'd hold off until I grew some mung beans. That did not work out, I'm still waiting for the mung beans so went ahead with the spring rolls.
Sprouts
The growing jar says soak beans overnight (1 cup), rinse, then leave jar at a draining angle. Rinse 2-3 times a day and by day 4-5 you have beans.Yes, they have sprouted but are very small.
I think the jar one is for small sprouts for salads, I was expecting full mung beans.
There was a small, one cups worth of mung beans with the jar, so I went and bought some more. They were not cheap. I ended up spending over $9 for the mung bean seeds (I'd filled up a bag with about 2 cups worth!) from a health food shop in Kilbirnie (I looked in Pak'n Save but none there).
So, after soaking overnight in water, then washing 2-3 times a day for about 4 days I'm moving over to the strainer method with a plate over it.
I can't seam to find that video at the moment.
The plate/weight on the mung beans makes it stronger. Still rince a couple of times a day. Also day 5-6-7 is when they are ready. So a bit more work to do.
The new beans are blasting along a lot faster than the original batch. Also, the original batch that I've put into the Sieve with a plate on top to encourage stronger stems, the seeds are looking quite pinkish. I think the bag of beans are old and possibly past their due date. They are both kept in dark places. I will see how the process goes. The ones I tasted from the strainer had an oddish flavour, but as the others are growing so fast I will do a comparison test later.
Gerbanzo or Chickpeas
I used to eat these raw as a kid in Lebanon with a little salt. I found the dried packet and put a cup in to soak overnight. Drained the water the next day, they'd doubled in size, then kept rinsing them the same time as the Mung beans. After a couple of days they still hadn't sproated tails but tasted yummy. So I used them in a chickpea curry. I added coconut cream to the sauce and cooked the chick peas in the sauce so they would absorb the flavour (rather than cooking in water separately). I had enough for 2 servings so froze one.Spring Rolls
In the end I didn't wait for the bean sprouts. I had the cooked mince (with onions and garlic) that I thawed overnight. I had 500g of mince so a reasonable amount.I had capsicums, carrots and cabbage and bought some spring onions(3) and chopped up all the veges finely and then fried with a minimal amount of sesame and soy sauce.
They recommend a dry mix for the veges so that the spring rolls don't get soggy.
I also soaked some vermicelli in water and cut in half (so strands were not too long- next time cut into quarters)
After the veges cooked a bit and looked shiny I put in vermicelli and mince and carried on heating. I added 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce. I did not want to over spice them.
Then I put in strainer and left over sink (just to drain any liquid in the mix (there wasn't any).
I had about 30 pastries so first tried rolling them with the ends folded. These ended fat in the middle and short. So I just rolled them with filling all along the edge and if it came out the ends I'd poked that back in.
I put them on trays and put them in the freezer to get them to hold their shape.
The air fryer would take 5. I sprayed them with Canola oil spray and did them for 15 minutes and turned them over half way. I had them with sweet chilli sauce. Yum
Things for next time:
Bigger pastries as it was fiddly with the small ones and I couldn't fold the ends. Although, there was minimal pastry and lots of filling in the taste. I will have to try out the thicker ones to see if it enhances or detracts from the flavour.
When putting the mixture in, the meat fell to the bottom, so more vege ones at the beginning and more meaty ones at the end. Maybe a better mixing of the filling prior to doing the rolls.
Overall, an enjoyable snack and meal.
I ended up making about 30. I cooked in batches of 5.
Mini Calzones
I go to techy talks and they all have pizza for the snack at the beginning. I'd made 4 dough balls and had eaten 3 a while back, so thought I'd better use the last one as it had been in the freezer for over 6 weeks. I didn't want the yeast to become totally inactive. So I thawed it overnight.I came across Stromboli, such a cool sounding word, and looked at what it is, which is a rolled pizza, a bit like a Swiss roll. Challenging as there is dough in the middle,so you have to cook at a lower temp for longer so you can cook the pastry in the middle. On one vid it also talked about Calzones. So I wondered if you could do mini calzones in the Air Fryer. So I tried it out.
I split my dough, which was based on a large pizza into 3 pieces and rolled that out. Then put ham, mozzarella cheese and some bruchetta tomato mix on top.
It is suggested that for calzone you make the mix drier, and if you have sauces, that you put them on the top, rather than the base, to keep the pastry dry.A bit like a toasted sandwich with melted cheese in the middle. I used a fork to seal around the folded edges and pressed over the middle to let all the air out. I then used the fork to make holes in the top of the pastry to let any steam out.
I put in the Air Fryer, I think 7 minutes at 200 Deg C. Check after 4. That is the great thing about the air fryer, its easy to check on how its cooking. I spayed the basket and the top with canola oil spray (the olive oil in squirter will not mist so I went to the air spray).
A bit like an empanada, but the pastry is pizza dough, so not as thick or sweet.
Very successful, apart from I had forgotten olives. I will try and remember next time.
Quicker than heating up the oven. The pastry tasted fine and as I cooke the first one through most of the cycle, I added the 2nd while prepping the 3rd, so when the first came out you put in the 3rd and so you could eat each as they came out hot and yummy.
You could also prep them and have them ready in the fridge for snacks the next day as the ingredients were mainly dry (a test for another time).
Fritata
I watched a couple of vids on breakfast fritatas using air fryer. I had some beef filling left over from the spring rolls, and I went to the Warehouse to buy a rammekin to cook in but came back with 4 pie dishes (2 x as much ($4) but 4 of them and they are bigger, so better value).I mixed a couple of eggs, I'd bought some Garlic pepper the day before (Garlic salt with a few grains of pepper, quite salty) and added that to the eggs , and then put the beef and vege filling at bottom of the pie dish and eggs over. 10 minutes in the air fryer. I think it could have done with a couple of more minutes. I let it stand for a couple of minutes, so it could cook through in the air fryer.
Ciabatta toast and a hash brown and the fritata. A nice breakfast.
The egg goes to the bottom too so the filling gets pushed to the middle, even though it was placed at the bottom to begin with.
A nice savory breakfast. I will try with some other fillings too. Could make a nice lunch snack too.
I did these again, at 180 deg C and 7 minutes but really runny. The top crust was very cooked.
I think a lower heat and longer. Another test required. Try 160 deg C at 12 min- check at 9 min
No comments:
Post a Comment