Cheese Puffs (Revisited)

Inspired by Paul Jaminet's post on Brazilian Cheese Puffs (also known as Pão de Queijo) I made some up: Cheese Puffs and they were great, although perhaps a little heavy?

After some tweaking and experimentation, I think I have come up with a method which is very simple, quick to undertake and delivers a more pleasing result - this may well be the exact texture that is achieved with Paul's method, but not having any cultural reference for this bread I'm guessing.

Perhaps the key difference between my first attempt and this very successful recipe is the starch itself - I have tracked down a source of Yoki brand and use their Polvilho Azedo, or sour starch.

While I am happy with many dairy products, especially fermented dairy and the fattier products, milk is not something I routinely ingest, nor would I suggest it to others - this is the one area of dairy that remains contentious, even for a paleo plusser like myself.

Previously, I have used soured cream, buttermilk and other fermented dairy, but this time it was milk. If you can get raw milk, great! The combination of milk and butter makes the soft centres much akin to croissant, in terms of flavour.

This is practically baking, so recipes do matter ... well, the ratio does, anyway.

Formulation

2 measures of Polvilho Azedo and Cheese (as 3:1)
1 measure of Milk and Butter (as 2:1)

You also need an egg and some baking powder.

So, using a cup, take one and half cups of flour, half a cup of grated cheese, two thirds of a cup of milk and one third of a cup of butter. Makes 12.

Got it?

Warm the milk, or buttermilk, or coconut milk, or water, or whatever liquid it is that you want to use, melting in the requisite amount of butter, coconut oil, lard, dripping, olive oil, or whatever fat it is you want to use. Butter is good!

Pour that over the measured amounts of flour and grated cheese - again, cheese can be Cheddar, Parmesan, Pecorino, Manchego, whatever you fancy. I find sheep cheeses work out best for flavour and passing through a fine grater for texture.

Entirely different flavours can be made up by varying the ingredients, but the key thing is to keep to the ratio: 2 measures of solids to 1 measure of liquid.

Crack in an egg and sprinkle in some baking powder - half a teaspoon, or so, per cup of flour.

Mix together to form a wet batter.

It is not imperative, but letting the batter stand for an hour seems to really improve the overall texture.

Pour out into greased cupcake moulds and place in a pre-heated over set to 200C for about 15 minutes, during which time, they will rise and crisp up.

Removed on the scant side, the balls will drop but will be more chewy and something like mini-Yorkshire Puddings. Less baking powder and they won't rise so much. Left until fully crisp, the centres will be soft and fluffy and the balls retain that inflated shape. Less batter per mould will rise better.

You'll get to find exactly how you like them, but there's a couple of tips to get started with ...

Scallop & Chorizo

"I've deleted references to legumes other than avoiding soy and peanuts, as other legumes seem more and more benign to me." Dr Kurt Harris - Archevore

The Paleo Diet (that's capitalised) considered all legumes to be off the table - anti-nutrients and the organism's defence mechanism make them potentially bad for human consumption.

Not all legumes are the same!

Mark Sissons gives us the lowdown on legumes from a primal perspective and comes to a similar conclusion to  Kurt Harris - they're okay, not ideal, but not bad.

Soaked, pressure-cooked and re-cooked, they're fine.

Let's give 'em a try ...

This dish is an onion, garlic, chilli, tomato and chorizo base with cannellini beans and scallops flashed in butter over cauliflower rice.

Let's get cooking ...

Begin with some good fat to soften some roughly chopped onions - I used pork fat collected from cooking.

Toss in peeled and sliced chorizo and allow the paprika to just colour the onions. Peeled? Yeah, the skin that chorizo comes in can be peeled off.

Add a couple of cloves of minced garlic, a carton of chopped tomatoes poured over along with a good half pint of water and the canned or pre-soaked cannellini beans.

Bring the pan to the boil and cook through on a good boil for maybe half an hour?

Add more water and toss in some green beans, reducing the water while you prepare the rest of the dish.

For cauliflower rice, don't bother with all that grating or food processing - it's much nicer just trimmed from the stalks and steamed so that it is just cooked but has not lost all its texture. Turn out into a bowl and break down with a fork into rice.

Boil an egg, too ... half a boiled egg over the top is perfect!

When you are just ready to serve, soften some butter in a frying pan or skillet and toss in some scallops. Cook enough just to colour - scallops are best soft and juicy with as little cooking as possible; over-cooked and they're like rubber!

Fold the scallops into the the rest of the dish, serving out over the cauliflower rice and garnish with shredded spring onions, half a boiled egg and some parsley.

Gorgeous!

Beef, Spinach & Egg Broth

Leftovers are great!

All manner of fun, fast combinations can be made from leftovers and this was one such dish.

With some beef left over from the previous Sunday and some poaching liquor reserved from the previous day's salmon, I set about putting together a quick, nutritious broth.

Use whatever broth you have to hand - bone broth would be excellent, poaching liquor, or just make up a stock on the fly.

Finely slice some pieces of meat and drop these in - for me, it was beef ... which worked curiously well in the fish stock!

Add some bulk to the broth with seaweed, spinach, shredded greens, kale, something green anyway. I love the combination of beef and spinach, and spinach is right in season at the moment, so spinach it was.

Flavour up with finely sliced chilli and fresh ginger chopped into thin sticks.

Make up a Japanese omelette.

One egg, touch of water, whisked thoroughly and poured out into a frying pan to make a thin, almost crêpe-like omelette. Set aside.

Once the meat has softened, greens wilted and flavours combined, serve out into a bowl.

Roll up the omelette and slice up, dropping the little rolls into the broth.