This week I have the privilege of writing from Mawson station and since I’m the chef here there will be no photos of penguins, icebergs, auroras, amazing sunrise, or those breath-taking sunsets. Instead it will be all about food and hydroponics. I will be sharing two recipes one is the Station’s favourite cookie and the other is deep fried onion rings which is great for bar snacks or a steak and chip dinner.
The team here has many, many favourite meals, sweets, and snack food which keeps me busy as I do like to cook different types of food for them all.
Before the recipes; a little about Hydroponics. We have a separate building for hydroponics and we are very lucky to have so much produce from it. Each week I do a harvest and we receive plenty of lettuce for the week, herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and lots of chillies, mainly jalapenos which I stuff and deep fry (another favourite snack food). I have a great team of helpers that look after hydroponics each week, by checking the water level, PH levels, nutrients and also they have to be a bee by pollinating the cucumbers.
Ok, now to the cookie recipe. The favourite is Chocolate Chip which they call "crack cookies". Some weeks I make this twice a week on Tuesdays and it’s all gone by Saturday so I make another batch.
200 g butter soft
200 g brown sugar
200 g white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 eggs
400 g flour
5 g baking soda
5 g baking powder
pinch of salt
600 g chocolate chips
Method
- Beat butter and sugars together until light in colour about 5 minutes.
- Add vanilla essence and eggs, beat until combine.
- Sift flour, salt, baking soda and powder and place into the mixer in two batches.
- Then add chocolate chips beat until just combined.
- Preheat oven to 180 C.
- You can roll a spoonful of the dough in your hand and place it onto a grease baking tray it can be as big or small as you want.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes
Onion Ring recipe is next, but first a big shout out to Tom Lievense's two favourite girls back home... he loves these onion rings!!!
2 large onions
¾ cup flour
¼ cup cornflour
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon garlic powder
250-350 ml of cold water
panko breadcrumbs
Method
- Peel the onion and cut 1.5 cm rings.
- To make the batter, place flour, cornflour, cayenne pepper, salt and garlic powder into a bowl and slowly whisk in the cold water. You are wanting a thick batter.
- Place the breadcrumbs into a tray.
- Now to start the crumbing, place an onion ring into the batter and then into the breadcrumbs. Making sure the onion ring is coated evenly and then place onto a tray. Repeat this until all onion rings are crumbed.
- Preheat a pot of oil to 185C and place three or four onion ring into the pot at a time. Cook until golden brown.
I serve these onion rings with garlic aioli or a spicy mayonnaise as a dipping sauce.
Hope you try these recipes and enjoy!!!
Donna W