Pasties, sausage rolls and sheep dogs

Country Frog: Hearty fare, and simple to make, our farm-style Aussie Pasties, like pies and pizzas, can be made with ingredients to hand, including left-overs, and with plenty of improvising from fridge or pantry. They are fun for children to make and, being Australian, of course they can be cooked on the barbeque.

Town Frog: Our version of pasties evolved over time. It all began once upon a few years ago when I dropped the children, who were quite small tadpoles back then, to the farm to spend the day with Country Frog while I drove to Brisbane to pick up a new dog. He was a two-year old male Australian Shepherd, and very gorgeous.

I had only ever seen one Australian Shepherd in the past, a liver/brindle naturally tail-less female. She was having a farm-stay break with CF while we were also staying there, and we immediately fell in love with her. She had looks and personality - everything a girl could want in a family pet.

The legend of the Aussie Shepherd runs like this… In the early 1800s when sheep were new to pioneering Australians, a few squatters shipped over flocks of Spanish sheep, and these merinos came with experienced sheep herders and their dogs. Then gold was discovered across the ocean in California and every man and his dog, literally in the case of the Spanish shepherds, set sail from Sydney Cove to join the 49er gold rush (that’s 1849). When they had recovered from gold fever, the sheep men and their dogs took up what they did best, sheep herding, and there, in America, the dogs came to be known as Australian Shepherds. The breed did not come back to Australia again for another 130 or so years.

On the day that I collected our first Aussie Shepherd, I returned to the farm to find the tadpoles and Country Frog at the barbecue making sausage rolls - basically cooked sausages and fried onion wrapped in damper dough, and re-cooked on the hotplate until the dough was crisp all over. We called them Australian Shepherd Rolls in honour of our lovely new dog, and have been refining the recipes and techniques at every farm-stay break ever since. Now we have the Aussie Shepherd Pasty, and we think this is the best version with a combination of vegetables and minced meat, or vegetables and lentils. Curried Veg and Lamb is perhaps the favourite. So far.

AUSTRALIAN SHEPHERD PASTIES

Makes 4 generous pasties, enough for six serves

The filling for these pasties is a simple combination of pan-cooked diced vegetables and mince, or lentils for a vegetarian option, with flavours of your choice. We swing towards curry spices, but fresh herbs and tomato for an Italian accent are delicious as well.

For the filling you will need: Chopping board and sharp knife; frying pan or wide saucepan.

Ingredients: 

200gm mince – lamb, beef, pork or chicken

&/or ½ cup brown lentils soaked in 1 cup boiling water for 30 minutes

1 large onion, peeled and diced

1 large carrot, diced

1 cup green seasonal vegetables (try diced fresh beans, peas, shredded cabbage, broccoli etc)

2 – 3 medium potatoes, washed or peeled and diced

2 tsp mild curry paste or good curry powder

½ tsp salt and ½ tsp freshly ground pepper

Splash of cooking oil

1. If using lentils, soak in hot water (to reduce cooking time).

2. Heat small amount oil in pan; add diced onion and cook until just coloured.

3. Add curry spices and pepper; mix up well.

4. Add minced meat/chicken and cook, stirring, until browned.

5. Add all other ingredients (add lentil and soaking water at this point). Stir up well; turn pan to medium-low heat; put the lid on and simmer ten minutes or until vegetables are soft.

6. Remove lid and continue to cook until the mix is fairly dry. Or if you prefer a gravy, sprinkle on 2 teaspoons plain flour or 1 teaspoon corn flour (use a fine sieve or tea strainer to sprinkle), and mix in well to thicken any liquid.

7. Set the pan aside with the lid off to cool slightly while making dough.

For the dough you will need: Medium mixing bowl; bread and butter knife for mixing; rolling pin or clean bottle for rolling.

Ingredients: 

2 cups self-raising flour (a mix of white and wholemeal flour works very well and makes a firmer dough)

¼ cup olive or other vegetable oil

¼ tspsalt

About ½ cup water at room temperature

Optional: 1 egg

1. Place flour, oil, egg and salt in bowl.

2. Make a hollow in the centre of the flour and pour in water. Mix with a knife, working from the centre out, to form a stiff dough. Add extra water if needed, but don’t worry if all the flour is not incorporated. Add extra flour if the dough is too soft.

3. Turn onto floured surface and knead lightly until fairly smooth.

4. Divide into four portions. Roll out each until the size of a bread and butter plate.

5. Place filling onto one half in a semicircle, keeping 1 cm of outer edge clear.

6. Damp that part of the edge with water (using your finger, to ensure edges will glue together), then carefully fold the bare half over. (If dough has stuck, use an egg lift). Press the edges with finger or fork to seal. 

7. Repeat for remaining dough. 

Frogblog Tip: Once filling has been added, the bottom of the pastie will become quite soft, so it is a good idea to lift it onto a lightly floured plate at this stage. When ready to cook, slide from the plate into the pan or onto the barbecue. If cooking in the oven, place onto the tray as soon as the pastie is filled, or place the rolled dough onto the tray and then put on the filling.

To cook:

In a fry pan – heat a heavy-based pan over medium heat with the lid on; place in two pasties, back to back. Replace lid immediately. Cook 7 minutes or until base has browned and turn over with egg lift to cook second side until brown (the filling is already cooked, and still warm, so will heat through nicely in that time).

On the barbecue hot plate – Pre-heat the plate to the temperature for cooking sausages (not as hot as for steak). Place pasties on back to back and cover with an upturned baking tray to form a mini oven. Flip when base is brown, and repeat for second side.

In the oven – Pre-heat oven to 200 C (moderately hot). Brush the top of the pasties with a little milk or cream. Cook 15 minutes or until top is golden brown.

  

Country Frog says that next time we make these we will do a version that honours the true history of the dogs now called Australian Shepherds, by adding finely chopped chorizo, crumbled sheep-milk feta and a handful of sliced black olives. We’ll call it Spanish Shepherd Traveller’s Pie.

Written and compiled by two frogs

Pot roast veal and hot pot casserole of shoulder pork...

These two recipes are equally easy to prepare, both using the very old and failsafe cooking method of sear-and-simmer. Impossible to go wrong - as long as you allow the meat plenty of time in the pot. So, relax; unwind. You cannot rush slow cooking.

Frogblog Tip: For all stovetop slow cooking, use a saucepan with good heavy base and well-fitting lid. A saucepan of thin steel, such as a soup pot, makes it difficult to maintain a slow simmer necessary for tenderness. Match the pot to the size of the meat. Small piece of meat/small pot, so that less water is required, resulting in a richer fuller flavour for the finished dish. 


POT ROAST VEAL and VEGETABLES with lemon zest and spices

Serves 4 - 6.
Time: 10 minutes preparation; 1½ -2 hours stovetop; 6 hours slow cooker.
You will need: Heavy cooking pot with lid; cutting board and sharp knife; grater; lemon squeezer; wooden spoon.

Ingredients:

1.5 - 2 kg piece of roasting veal (blade or rump)
2 large onions, roughly chopped
Double-handful cherry tomatoes or 400 gm can chopped tomato
1 red or green capsicum/bell pepper
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tsp coarsely grated lemon rind
2 tsp garam masala, or 1 tsp Chinese 5-spice
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 tsp salt (½ tsp if using canned tomato)
2 - 4 cloves garlic, crushed
Fresh herbs or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
Enough root vegetable for as many people as you wish to feed (as a guide - ½ large carrot per person, medium potato per person, 1 piece parsnip/turnip … etc), roughly chopped into chunks.
Water
Optional: 1 - 2 small hot chillies

Easy Method.
1. Add everything to the pot with enough water to come just under halfway up.
2. Bring to boil; reduce heat to simmer 2 - 2½ hours or until meat is tender. Serve.


Better Method.
1. Trim any excess fat from the meat.
2. Heat a good splash of olive oil in the pot and sear two sides of the meat on high heat until well browned (5 minutes at least before lifting or turning to the second side). If some fat remains on meat, place the fat-side down first.
3. While meat is browning, add roughly chopped onion and brown off as well.
4. Add garlic, pepper, spice and lemon zest; stir up with the browned onion.

Note: If using a slow cooker or cooking in the oven, do this in a stove-top frying pan first then transfer browned meat and onion to the crock.

5. Place root vegetables (except potato) around the meat. Add herbs, any other vegetables and tomato. Lastly, place quartered potatoes on top (so they will steam rather than boil and won’t be as mushy). Sprinkle with salt.
6. Add lemon juice and just enough water to come a little under halfway up the pot.
7. Turn the heat to low for a slow cook, with the lid on.
8. Check after 1 hour, and give the vegetables a bit of a push around with a wooden spoon. They should now be sitting well into the cooking juices. Continue to cook until meat pierces easily with a sharp knife.
9. Turn off the heat and let the pot sit for 10 - 15 minutes before carving the meat to serve with crusty bread, rice, pasta or soft polenta.

SOFT POLENTA

Serves 4 - 6 as a side dish.

In a medium saucepan, bring to boil 4 cups water with ½ teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon fresh pepper. Reduce heat to low and, while stirring the pot, slowly pour in ¾ cup dry polenta. Keep stirring until polenta thickens (a few minutes) then put the lid on and continue to cook over very low heat for a further 10 minutes, stirring now and then. Add a little chopped parsley or coriander just before serving.


HOTPOT OF SHOULDER PORK with orange wedges and star-anise

Star-anise and juicy sun-ripened oranges were made for each other. Aniseed and citrus. Add some red chilli, and that combination means you’ll just have to rush out and kill a pig (or slip to the butcher and ask for a lean piece of shoulder pork with the bone in and the skin scored).

Serves 4
Time: 10 minutes preparation; 2 - 2½ hours slow cooking
You will need: You will need: Heavy cooking pot with lid; cutting board and sharp knife; grater; lemon squeezer; slotted spoon; deep bowl to put hot stock.

Ingredients:
1.5 - 2 kg shoulder pork, skin on (a flat piece is better than a chunk)
2 onions, roughly chopped
1 orange cut into thin wedges, skin on
+ juice of 1 orange
6 whole star-anise
1 tsp Chinese 5-spice
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp salt
2 rounded tsp sugar or honey
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 - 4 mild to hot red chillies, sliced into 4 lengthways
1 cup water

1. Trim excess fat from pork. If the fat under skin is thick, peel back the skin and remove fat, but keep the skin for the pot.
2. Heat pot over medium heat and add place pork in, flattest side down, to sear until well browned.
3. Add all other ingredients; turn pot to low and simmer 1 hour, lid on.
4. Carefully turn the pork after 1 hour, and continue to cook for further hour or until edge of meat easily pulls apart.
5. Lift pork from the pot to a plate, and drain most of the cooking liquor from the pot into a small deep bowl. Retain orange segments and onion to dress the pork when served.
6. Return pork to pot, with the heat off, to rest before carving.
7. Meanwhile, cook pasta or prepare couscous.
8. Carve or pull pork, according to your pork-eating tradition, and serve with crisp green vegetables.

Now, remember the cooking juices in the small deep bowl? Pop the bowl in the fridge to set the fat. Lift off and discard. The pork and orange jelly/aspic in the bowl can be served cold next day on a sandwich with sliced leftover meat. Or use as the liquor for a batch of aromatic couscous or steamed rice. Or - best of all - make…


PICNIC POTATOES

1. Cook scrubbed unpeeled baby potatoes in the juice from the pork.
2. Cut potato into four pieces and simmer until soft.
3. To complete the dish, top with sliced hard boiled egg. Serve warm or cold.



Written and compiled by two frogs

Lamb on the barbecue (lunch with lizards)

It is a great privilege to live calmly and quietly close to nature. This evening, as I write, it is raining softly and the only sound is the trickle of water running in the roof gutters and into the tanks that feed the house and garden. It is the beginning of winter. Mild as winters are in our part of the world, the habits of the wildlife are still subject to seasonal cycles - so there is no cacophony of frogs and toads as there would have been with night-time rain a month ago. The little creatures have gone to bed; hibernating in leaf litter and hollow logs. Most of the snakes have gone to sleep as well, except for the Yellow-faced Whip Snake, which likes to stay out and about later than his friends if he can find a warm spot under an iron roof or among the rocks near the fish pond.

Yellow-faced Whip Snake

And, in the house, where it is warm, a few geckos are still poking around, hunting for moths. We do not (yet) have the introduced Asian House Geckos in residence here in the bush - this pale pink intruder tends to be the gecko most commonly seen in town. Ours are much more interesting, and rather distinctly Australian-looking. Most are Velvet Geckoes - Spotted Velvets, Clouded Velvet and the Robust Velvet Gecko. In my house, they are quietly territorial - silent, unlike the noisy Asian House Gecko - each with its own night-time hunting patch and daytime sleeping spot.

Asian House Gecko

I have a favourite, Gregory Gecko. He has been here for several years, camping behind the bathroom mirror where he sometimes leaves his delicate pure white shed skin, like a perfect little present for us. We named him when he was barely 2 cm long, and he is now a monster of 10 cm - or he was until I accidentally shut his tail in the window. Alas, I thought I’d killed poor Greg. He skulked away looking very unwell, leaving his tail wriggling on the sill, and wasn’t seen again for 2 weeks. Then, one night, Gregory came back to his spot, sporting a rather odd new appendage. 

Australian Velvet Gecko (with new tail)

Because living calmly and quietly with nature is such a privilege, I want to share the experiences with friends and farm-stay visitors. Unfortunately, though, when two or more humans gather together, they make a lot of noise. So, no Whip Snake. No Gregory. Instead, we had to settle for lamb chops with barbecue stir-fry and the sound of ourselves! (Helped along by some serious glasses of Aussie red wine.)
 

COUSCOUS and YOGHURT-CRUSTED LAMB CHOPS or LEG STEAK
Very easy
Time: half an hour
Serves 4 - 6.

The meat is best prepared several hours ahead, and refrigerated until 30 minutes before barbecuing or pan frying. The recipe will coat 4 - 6 lamb loin or BBQ chump chops.

Ingredients: 
½ cup dry couscous
¼ cup water
½ cup plain yoghurt
1 tbs shredded fresh mint (or coriander or rosemary)
1 small lemon, juiced, and 1 tsp grated rind
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
¼ tsp salt

1. Combine all ingredients in small bowl and let stand for 15 minutes until couscous has softened.
2. Coat lamb on either side, patting crust in place. Refrigerate several hours to allow crust to firm and flavours to infuse.
3. Cook on medium-hot, on well-oiled barbecue for 7 - 10 minutes on each side. Or pan fry. Or oven-bake on wire rack for around 30 minutes at 200° C.
4. Serve with salad or barbecue stir-fry.

STIR-FRY ON THE BARBIE
Very easy
Time: 10 minutes
Serves 4 - 6.

Ingredients: 1 large onion, peeled, halved, then sliced lengthwise into straws
2 carrots, unpeeled, cut into straws
double handful of green beans, topped and tailed (or use any other seasonal vegetables)
slurp of cooking oil

1. When the lamb chops have been turned, toss oil and vegetables onto the hottest part of the barbecue plate.
2. Stir-fry, turning a few times with long-handled barbecue spatula or tongs.
3. Serve hot from the barbecue or add to a platter with the lamb to take to the table. 
 

Sand Goanna

The day was warm and sunny, almost sultry. T-shirt weather. After lunch we were lucky to spot another lizard. At more than 1 metre in length, ever-so-slightly larger than Gregory and friends, this goanna was literally ambling up a gumtree where he settled down for a snooze, well camouflaged on a branch. I expect he also had been indulging in a heavy lunch - raiding the hen house for a few fresh eggs, perhaps his last feed before he too finds a hollow log for the winter.


Next: Town Frog and family will be bringing an exchange student to the country for Sunday Dunch. Like brunch, DUNCH is a hybrid meal. It is eaten in the mid-afternoon and borrows the best bits from lunch and dinner. Afterward, around sunset, we will go walking in the bush. The Town Froglets, frequent visitors, know to talk in whispers as they pass lightly across the landscape.

Compiled and written by two frogs.

Sticky pork belly without any fuss...

Recently, flipping through a lifestyle magazine, I saw a recipe for sticky pork that asked for 3½ hours of cooking and two changes of liquor before finishing off with a third, discarding the previous pan juices (ie THROWING THEM AWAY!) All that beautiful stock down the drain? Such a waste of flavour and goodness.

So, here is a farm-frugal, no-waste recipe that takes an hour to cook and gives a lovely piece of sticky pork that is soft but not too pretentious. It combines the classic four flavours - sweet, sour, salty, spicy - which is all one really needs.  For time management, the pork can be marinated a day ahead; or cooked one or two days beforehand for picnic fare. 

PORK BELLY from the farm
Easy.
Time: 10 minutes to prepare; 1 hour to cook
Serves: 4 - 6
You will need: Heavy-based frypan or large pot; bowl; plastic bag; spoon.

Ingredients:

1 kg lean pork belly (skin on)

Use a marinade of:
½ cup honey
¼ cup lime or lemon juice
¼ cup soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, crushed
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp5-spice powder
(Options: Instead of soy, use water with ½ teaspoon salt. Apricot or plum jam does just as well as honey.) 

To marinate:
1. Place pork in a plastic bag; add well mixed marinade; slip-slop the bag about to coat the pork then squeeze out the air and twist up to close the bag.
2. Place bag in a dish, in case there is a leak, and refrigerate for 30 minutes minimum. (Overnight is better.)

To cook:
1. Remove pork from marinade; keep the liquid in the bag to use in Step 3.
2. Place pork skin-side down in dry frypan on moderate heat. Cook 5-10 minutes with lid on until skin is blistery and sticky. Turn the meat; brown flesh-side about 1 minute only.
3. Add ¾ cup water to marinate in the bag; slosh it around to mix and pour into the pan (snip off a corner to make a spout).
4. Bring to boil and drop heat back to simmer with lid on 30 minutes.
5. Turn the pork skin-side down; cook further 20 minutes until liquid has reduced to consistency of thick sticky sauce. Add more water if needed.
6. Lastly, let meat rest in pan and juices, lid on, for 15-20 minutes to firm up slightly before slicing.

Serve hot in thick chunks with rice; or cold next day, sliced thinly. Excellent in rice paper wraps or on fresh bread rolls for a picnic, or for the lunchbox. 

Here are some quick-and-easy marinading alternatives. Mix-and-match according to flavours you like or ingredients in the cupboard.

• For a most robust marinate try ½ cup soy, ½ cup plum jam, 1 teaspoon 5-spice and chopped or dried red chilli to taste.
• For a very simple fruity marinate add ½ cup pureed mango or peach to the base marinade (a jar of baby mash does if the fresh fruit is not to hand).
• And, easiest of all, with just two ingredients: ½ cup pureed fruit and ½ cup brown BBQ sauce. 

FROGBLOG TIP: Tasty food doesn’t have to be complicated.



To prove the point, here is the world’s simplest side dish to serve with your piece of picnic pork. With just two ingredients, the recipe is in the naming. 

Cucumber and red onion salad

Next: Continuing on with the theme of “simple”, we’ll take a walk around the garden to look at some of our wonderful frogs. Then we’ll find time to sit by the pond for a simple bowl of country-style vegetable soup.

Written and complied by two frogs.