cuisine

April 11, 2010

Cookbook Challenge: Week 21, Thai

Agnes cookbook challenge, cuisine, recipe, thai

Recipe: Chinese Chive Cakes
From: Thai Street Food

Second recipe: Son in law eggs
From: The Cook’s Companion

It’s Thai week for the Cookbook Challenge! I received a copy of Thai Street Food for Christmas, and it is a rather large, but gorgeously presented tome. I read it cover to cover last night in preparation for the Thai challenge (obviously I’m still having issues with being better organised) and I want to eat everything that’s in there!

I really wanted to make something from Thai Street Food this week, but all the recipes seem very complicated. They all have big blocks of text and specialised ingredients, and many of them need to be started the night before. So I choose the easiest recipe I could find, which was Chinese Chive Cakes…….. I know, I know, it’s THAI week, but it’s in Thai Street Food and they’re commonly sold in Thailand, so I think I’m still good with the theme.

If you have a look at the recipe down below, it’s rather long, even though I did simplify it a lot. I must say that the recipe looked more complicated than it actually was. I made the dough, then the filling, then placed the filling into the dough, similar to making dumplings. After the chive cakes were made, they were steamed – they could have been eaten at this point or shallow fried. You can guess which option I took, can’t you? I fried the suckers!

The chive cakes have a chewy pastry, and fried you get little firm, crisp parts. My filling had a fair amount of pepper, so they were salty and peppery and rather tasty. I can definitely see myself making these again.

My second recipe was from the always reliable Cook’s Companion – son-in-law eggs. They are just basically deep fried hard boiled eggs, with a sweetish, sour, salty sauce that’s made of fish sauce, palm sugar, tamarind water and lime juice. After I made the sauce, Alastair walked downstairs into the kitchen and exclaimed, “It smells like Asian cooking in here!” and Bro asked if I had used shrimp paste. I blame the fish sauce – it was pretty pungent!

The sauce was great though, quite strong, but addictive. But I wonder if the recipe would work with a soft boiled egg – it would be nice to have the eggs with a still slightly squishy yolk. I’ll have to keep that in mind for next time!

See previous Cookbook Challenge posts here.

Update: See the round up for this week at My Food Trail.

Chinese Chive Cakes

From Thai Street Food

Makes 9-10 cakes

Pastry

1 cup rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour, plus a couple extra tablespoons for dusting
2 tablespoons sticky rice flour
large pinch of salt
3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Filling

400g Chinese Chives, cut into 1cm lengths
4 tablespoons oil
1-2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2-3 tablespoons light soy sauce
pinch of ground white pepper

Making the pastry:

In a bowl, mix together the flours and salt. Work in the oil, and then add enough water to make a thick but wet dough (the book specifies 1 & 1/2 cups water but when I added all the water I had a very thin batter rather than dough and had to start again! Mine took about half that amount of water.)

Place a frying pan or wok on a low heat and add the pastry, stirring constantly (you may need to use a whisk). When the pastry is half cooked, it will be very sticky and have an opaque sheen. Take it off the heat and set aside for a couple of minutes.

On a clean working surface, sprinkle on the extra tablespoons of tapioca flour. Add the dough on to it, and work the flour into the warm pastry. Knead for about five minutes, until it is firmish and clean to the touch. Roll the pastry into ten balls and rest for at least ten minutes under a clean, damp cloth.

Next, make the filling. Give the Chinese chives a good wash, and drain well. In a wok or pan, heat the oil and fry the garlic with the pinch of salt until beginning to colour. Add the chives and cook until wilted. Season with the sugar, soy sauce and white pepper. Taste to make sure it is well seasoned but not too salty. Transfer to a sieve or colander to drain and cool. You don’t want too much liquid, so give the filling a squeeze with your hands after it’s cooled a little to get rid of some of the juice.

Give the pastry balls a light knead, then press out into thin discs that are slightly thinner at the edges and about 10cm in diameter. Place a pastry disc into the palm of one hand and spoon 2 heaped tablespoons of filling into the centre. Light the edges of the pastry up and fold and crimp together, pushing the edges up into the centre. Custom says that there should be ten folds! Pinch the edges together in the middle, twist them together and then press down and seal. Repeat with the remaining pastry balls and filling, keeping them covered with a damp cloth as you make them.

Steam the cakes for about 15 minutes on a banana leaf or baking paper. Either cool for a moment before serving – or you could pan fry them (YES).

If pan frying, let the cakes cool for a bit after steaming. Heat a heavy frying pan until quite hot. Add a couple of tablespoons of oil and then add the cakes, shallow frying over a low-medium heat. Turn them a couple of times until they are golden on all sides. Remove and drain on a paper towel.

Serve with soy sauce and chilli.

Son-in-law eggs

From The Cook’s Companion

1/2 cup palm sugar
1/4 cup fish sauce
1 tablespoon Tamarind water
juice of 1 lime
vegetable oil
4 hardboiled eggs, peeled
1 tablespoon friend sliced garlic
fresh coriander leaves

In a saucepan, combine the palm sugar, fish sauce and tamarind water. Simmer, stirring, until all the sugar has dissolved. Stir in the lime juice and taste – it should have a balance of sweet, salty and sour. Adjust the seasoning to taste.

Heat the vegetable oil and deep fry the eggs for several minutes until they are golden brown. Drain on paper towels, cut into quarters, and dip into sauce and eat with the fried garlic
and coriander.

March 31, 2010

The Abyssinian: Week of Eats

Agnes african, cuisine, dinner, eating out, flemington, restaurant, suburb

After our short trip to Sydney, we returned to Melbourne with my in-laws, Annette and Terry in tow. Terry in particular really loves food, so I was keen to take them out for some good meals.

One evening we went to the Abyssinian – and because Terry is outrageously well travelled, he has actually eaten Abyssinian food before…. IN Abyssinia (what’s now known as Ethopia and Eritera). Well. At least Annette had never experienced it before!

The Abyssinian is a very popular restaurant that does food from the Horn of Africa, serving traditional Ethiopian and Eritrean cooking. Every time we go there, it is always packed. We normally order the combination platter, but this time I decided that we should order dishes from the menu.

We had a couple of starters to whet our appetite (not that our appetites needed whetting!). We had the Melaznzany ($6.00), which were cubes of grilled eggplant that had been seasoned and marinated with fresh garlic, olive oil and chillies.

We also had the zucchini starter ($6.00), which was sautéed zucchini with a light, spicy berbere and tomato sauce that had been sprinkled with crushed chillies seeds.

(Note: berbere is a hot spice mixture that is a key ingredient in Ethiopian and Eritrean food. Injera is a sour, pancake like bread that is traditionally made of teff – a grain that isn’t available in Australia. At the Abyssinan it’s made with self raising flour, rice, red sorghum and corn flours. To make injera, the flour is mixed with water and allowed to ferment for several days, before being baked into large pancakes. It comes out soft and spongey, with lots of air holes on one side.)

Both starters came with injera bread rolls. They were fantastic – spicy and packed with flavour. They were oily though. This is not a place that does diet food!

For mains, we ordered five dishes to share between us. A large platter of injera was brought out and the stews were tipped on top. The food is eaten by ripping off small pieces of injera and using the bread to pick up stew.

We had:

The shiro ($15) which was finely ground spiced chickpeas that had been cooked and simmered with olive oil and chopped garlic. Mhmm mhmm, check out that oil. I did say already that it’s not diet food! It made for a spicy, nutty sauce, although I would have loved it if some pieces of chickpea had been left in for texture. This was served in a little pot, and we spooned the hot sauce spooned over the injera as we ate.

The dubba ($18) consisted of large cubes of pumpkin in a thick berbere sauce. This was great, rather spicy, with the pumpkin lending its usual sweetness.

The dorho kulwha ($18) was strips of chicken breast that had been marinated in ghee and African spices and sautéed. It was topped with pureed tomato and simmered in a light creamy sauce with turmeric.

My favourite dish of the night was the derek tibs ($18) – strips of marinated lamb that had been seasoned with spiced clarified butter, green chillies, onions and rosemary and then grilled on a hot pan. The meat was cooked until very dark – and almost burnt – which gave it a deep, almost bitter flavour. It was also very spicy, which I loved! To keep the meat hot, this was also served in a little pot, and we spooned some on to the injera as we ate. I also appreciated the fresh tomato that was a touch cooling against all the spiciness.

And last, we also ordered the goat on kemmam sauce ($20). The goat had been slow cooked with a tangy sauce made of lemon, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. The meat was tender in the moreish sauce.

We also ordered an extra serve of injera ($1) so we could keep mopping up the stews. The problem with having the stews directly on the injera is that the parts below get all soggy and hard to pick up. So extra injera was essential!

I really like the Abyssinian. The food is inexpensive, filling and flavoursome. If it’s your first time, the combination platter is hard to beat, but otherwise I think ordering off the menu is the way to go.

Read about a previous visit to the Abyssinian here.

The Abyssinian
277 Racecourse Road, Flemington
Phone: (03) 9376 8754

March 28, 2010

Cookbook Challenge, Week 19, Rice

Agnes cookbook challenge, cuisine, recipe, thai

Recipe: Sticky rice with mango
From: Ballymaloe Cookery Course

The theme for this week’s Cookbook Challenge is “rice”. Being Chinese, I eat a lot of rice, so I wanted to make something that I wouldn’t normally try and decided on sticky black rice. I read the recipe this morning, just as we were about to go out and purchase black rice, and realised that I was meant to soak the rice overnight. Gaaaah. So much for my intentions of being better organised!

That led me to flick through several of my other cookbooks to find a new recipe – and I came across this recipe for white sticky rice with mango that didn’t need overnight soaking. As a bonus, I already had glutinous rice in the pantry as I normally use it to make a savoury one pot dish with Chinese sausage and shiitake mushrooms.

After the hour of soaking, I put the rice on to cook. At the same time, I started baking a cake and was gathering ingredients, when the phone rang. It was my mum and dad, so I was juggling flour, sugar and butter while chatting to them on the phone. This meant that I totally forgot that I had the rice on the stove! Fortunately, I remembered it just in time, and managed to get to it just as all the water had absorbed. Phew!

Since it’s no longer mango season, I served the sticky rice with peaches instead and poured over some extra coconut milk. Tastewise, the rice was okay – it was mildly sweet, and had a faint fragrance and flavour of coconut. I would have preferred it sweeter, as it mostly just tasted like glutinous rice and it all seemed a bit wrong.

I doubt I’d make it again. I guess I like my glutinous rice to be savoury!

See previous Cookbook Challenge posts here.

Update: See the round up for this week at My Food Trail.

Sticky rice with mango

From: Ballymaloe Cookery Course

Serves 4-6

400g of white glutinous rice
285ml coconut milk
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons caster sugar (I would recommend more sugar. Double it!)
300ml water

4 small or 2 large mangoes, peeled and diced (I used peaches)
lime juice and sugar
mint leaves to decorate

Soak the rice in cold water for at least an hour and drain. In a saucepan, place the rice, coconut milk, salt, sugar and water and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat to a simmer, and let it simmer uncovered until all the water has been absorbed.

Remove from the heat, place the lid back on the pot, and let stand for five minutes.

Transfer the rice to a steamer or a double saucepan and steam for 15-20 minutes.

Serve with the diced mango sprinkled with lime juice and a little sugar. Decorate with mint.

March 28, 2010

Collins Kitchen, Grand Hyatt: food bloggers dinner

Agnes bloggers banquet, cuisine, dinner, eating out, melbourne, mod aus, restaurant, suburb

Last MONTH (I cannot believe how behind I am!) I had the pleasure of attending a food bloggers dinner hosted by Nuffnang at Collins Kitchen, Grand Hyatt.

You can read other recaps of the dinner at:

Nuffnang
Food Rehab
Half Eaten
Hot or Not
The Gourmet Challenge
Addictive and consuming
I eat therefore I am
Iron Chef Shellie
EssJay Eats

We started with a tour of the kitchen, which might sound dull to non food lovers, but to a whole gaggle of food bloggers, a kitchen tour is a VERY EXCITING THING (yes, so exciting it deserves caps!). The kitchen is open to guests, so people eating at Collins Kitchen can go for a wander and watch the chefs at work at the five cooking stations – sushi, deli, wok, grill and patisserie.

We oohed and ahhed at the fresh ingredients on display, the sexy red meat cutting machine in the deli section, and all the super shiny clean surfaces. Whoever cleans that kitchen – please come and clean mine!

In the wok section, there were two turbo jet wok burners. When they turned on, they sounded like a jet taking off. I didn’t take a photo of them because I was transfixed with a serious case of lust over the burners – I WANT.

There was also a steaming station for fresh dim sum with artfully arranged steamer lids. I wonder who has the job of arranging items in the kitchen in an attractive way?

And now for some food pics! We started with a sushi/sashimi platter. It was all very fresh and good. The fresh wasabi was amazing.

And you can bet that I totally ninjaed the unagi – yum!

Next up was the antipasto platter with rockmelon, prosciutto, liverwurst, mini gherkins, deli meats, roasted vegetables, and tomatoes with buffalo mozzarella and basil. I didn’t try everything on this platter, but the liverwurst was fantastic, all smooth and rich.

The tomatoes with buffalo mozzarella and basil were also very good.

Next was a tomato, olive and basil foccacia, very so cheesey and soft. I restrained myself to only one piece because I knew there was lots more to come.

Moving along, we received a plate of Asian roast meats with roast pork, roast duck, soy sauce chicken and char siu. I only tried the crispy pork and char siu, but from other reports I should have tried the chicken as well! I thought the crispy pork and char siu weren’t bad, though the crispy pork could’ve been crispier.

There were sauces to go with the roast meats – plum sauce, chilli sauce and a ginger and spring onion one.

As well as a plate of Asian vegetables, which I didn’t eat because I was trying to keep some stomach space spare.

With the roast meats, there was also received a plate of fried rice. The rice was fine, and this is probably just me, but I would normally never eat fried rice with other dishes. To me, fried rice is a meal in itself. So I was kind of wanting plain rice with the roast meats….!

And now for the big guns…. this was the grainfed porterhouse steak, which had been aged for 30 days on the bone, and grilled to medium rare. This was some gorgeous steak, tender and full of flavour.

The steak was served with creamy, buttery, mashed potato, very tasty mushrooms, broccolini and a couple of sauces – a red wine reduction and bernaise.

And finally to end the savoury courses, there was also a mixed seafood platter with grilled scallops, salmon, tuna, Moreton Bay Bugs and large prawns. The sweet, plump scallops were a highlight, as were the Moreton Bay Bugs.

For dessert, a gorgeous looking dessert platter came out. On the platter was a banana millefeuille, chocolate fondant, and various flavours of ice cream – pistachio, passionfruit, strawberry and vanilla. The pastry in the millefeuille was particularly good, and I adored the pistachio the most out of all the ice cream flavours.

And on the other side was a rhubarb crumble with custard and peach melba. I actually thought the peach melba was a pannacotta until I dipped my spoon into it and found it very runny. No one seemed particularly enthused about the peach melba, poor little dessert! Too retro for us??

As you can see, there was a lot of food! The only part that was a bit disconcerting was jumping from one cuisine to another to another, but I realise that was so we experienced a cross selection of dishes on the menu. And I soon got over the cuisine changes once the plates of food were placed in front of me. 😉 It was fantastic to spend the night chatting to fellow food bloggers, so a big thanks to Nuffnang and the Grand Hyatt for the evening!

Disclosure: I dined courtesy of the Grand Hyatt and Nuffnang.

Collins Kitchen, Grand Hyatt
123 Collins Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone: (03) 9657 1234

March 24, 2010

Beer DeLuxe: Shinobi Japanese Secret Beer Garden

Agnes cuisine, japanese, melbourne, suburb

Shinobi Japanese beer garden at Beer DeLuxe

In support of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, Beer DeLuxe at Fed Square have set up a Japanese “secret” beer garden with a special menu and beers imported from Japan.

When I received an email inviting me to check it out, I was sold at Japanese beer garden. I took Alastair along with me to have a look, and we walked in from the Flinders Street entrance. The outdoor area facing Flinders Street has been modified with a structure of bamboo screens and a noren curtain. Past the curtain, is a courtyard, with an outdoor bar to one side and tables and chairs on the other. It made me wonder where the secret part came in.

We met up with Janis from Beer DeLuxe, who took us on a quick walk around. It turns out that apart from the entrance and the outside bar, there was a small part hidden off to one side, behind white Japanese curtains – ahh I got the secret part then! We were told that it was modelled on a Japanese tea garden, and it was much quieter than the rest of the bar.

I particularly liked the lanterns hanging up in the area, which were surrounded by hand folded paper cranes. Cute!

After our little tour, it was time for food. Quentin, the chef, came out and we had an enjoyable discussion about the menu and the simplicity and flavours of Japanese food, and the importance of presentation. A big thanks to Quentin for taking time out from his evening to chat to us.

This was the gyu tataki – very lightly seared eye fillet with citrus ponzu dressing and a small smattering of Japanese chilli flakes. The quality of the meat was evident – there was nothing to hide behind in this dish. The meat was very rare, very tender and delicious. I could have eaten buckets of this!

We tried the gyuniku negimaki, which were thin slices of grilled eye fillet wrapped around spring onions in teriyaki sauce. I loved the crunch of the spring onions with the meat.

Another item I really liked were the skewers of grilled salmon coated with a mixture of teriyaki and yakitori sauce. The salmon was good, perfectly cooked, with the subtle sauce not masking the flavour of the fish. Behind the salmon we had some crunchy seaweed salad.

We also tried the karaage, little tender and moist pieces of fried chicken which had been marinated with soy, garlic and ginger and then deep fried. You can’t go wrong with fried chicken, no you can’t.

We had the opportunity to taste a couple of the beers available as part of the Japanese beer garden. One was the Temple Soba ale, which is made with toasted buckwheat! Did you know that Australia is apparently the third largest producer of buckwheat? The buckwheat gave the beer an interesting nutty aroma. We also tried the Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale, which I seem to recall being told that it was made with rice (someone correct me if I’m wrong!). This was particularly interesting, ever so slightly fruity and very drinkable.

Not that we got sick of beer, but if we had, we could have moved on to these Japanese soft drinks. Alastair loves these because the bottles use marbles as a plug – such a gimmick (but I must admit it’s very cool).

Alternatively, we could have hit the cocktail list. One we tried was the Ginger Ninja, which was made with jasmine tea infused with 42Below Vodka, sake, cucumber and ginger beer. This was very sweet – possibly a bit too sweet – although I did like the cucumber that came through at the end.

Speaking of sweet, when we were chatting to Quentin, he recommended dessert – which turned out to be mochi ice cream.

Have I mentioned how much I love mochi before? My mochi love also extends to mochi ice cream, which is a small ball of ice cream surrounded by a thin layer of chewy mochi. (You can also buy these at Asian grocery stores around the city.)

As we were eating the mochi ice cream, one of the staff members folded an origami flower. Isn’t it gorgeous? I was so impressed that I had to take it home and it’s now sitting on my book shelf.

And finally, just before we left, Alastair and I both chose a fortune paper. As we were leaving we tied our fortunes on to the robes hanging by the entrance. I can’t recall what my fortune said now, but hopefully it said something about a long life filled with love, good food and many more trips back to Japan. 😉

It’s a shame that the structure is being taken down at the end of March, but I’m glad I got to see it and try some of the food and beer. A huge thanks to Janis for taking time out from her evening to show us around and chat with us.

Disclosure: Our food and drinks were courtesy of Beer DeLuxe.

Shinobi Japanese Secret Beer Garden at Beer DeLuxe
Federation Square,
Cnr Swanston & Flinders Street,
Melbourne.
Times & Dates: 12 noon – 11:45pm, daily until Sunday, 28 March 2010.
Telephone: 03 9663 0166

March 19, 2010

Sydney: Doyles on the Beach

Agnes australia, cuisine, eating out, lunch, mod aus, restaurant, sydney, travel

To complete our weekend of sea, sailing and sun in Sydney, Alastair and I went to Watsons Bay with my MIL Annette, her husband Terry, plus Alastair’s Uncle Ken and Aunt Rayleen.

Being in the stunning Watsons Bay, we went to Doyles on the Beach for lunch. I hadn’t heard of Doyles before, but Terry told us that he had eaten there previously – 30 years ago. While that may sound like a while ago, seafood has been sold on the site since 1885 and the restaurant has been owned and operated by the family for over 5 generations. Amazing!

We had a quick wander around Watsons Bay prior to lunch to work up an appetite. It was another beautiful Sydney day, warm and still.

When lunch time came, we were seated at one of the tables under the verandah looking out to the ocean.

The tables had a rather fabulous view for lunch. It was only slightly marred by people lining up for tables, but they soon dispersed.

We were given some nice crispy bread rolls before the food arrived.

I had the Doyles selection ($39) – which came with blue swimmer crab, a stuffed jumbo prawn, a couple of King prawns, some fried whiting fillets, smoked salmon, and a small amount of chips. Everything was really good and a good balance of deep fried versus non deep fried. Don’t you hate it when you order a seafood selection and it’s all deep fried?

Alastair had food envy when he saw my meal, particularly with the crab, which was particularly moist and sweet. Being a good wife, I did share. Here’s a shot of the inside of the stuffed jumbo prawn. It was filled with bacon, sultanas, egg, spinach, leeks and pine nuts and covered in beer batter. It was really tasty, with a great crispy batter and not at all oily. Same for the whiting fillets. Chips were good too.

Alastair ordered the Tasmanian Atlantic salmon fillet, which was pan fried and served on a dill and potato galette with lemon infused olive oil ($36.90). He said it was okay, but he had food envy which caused post ordering regret, I think!

I didn’t take a photo of all the meals, but I snuck a shot of Rayleen’s meal – she had the barramundi fish and chips (you could also order whiting, snapper, flathead, or john dory at various prices). It was HUGE. It could possibly be the most expensive fish and chips ever at $40.30 but it did look fantastic.

We finished with sticky date pudding to share. Everyone was far too full to do this justice. I would advise against ordering dessert and ordering a serve of prawns to share instead!

Oh, and we received some chocolates with the pudding – they had fish stamped on them. Cute!

We had a delightful lunch at Doyles. It’s fairly pricey, but… do you need to scroll up and look at the view again? That’s the price to feel like a fancy schmancy person for a couple of hours, my friends. Plus the seafood was good, so it seems to be the case of “do one thing, do it well”. However, it does mean that if you’re not a seafood eater, there’s no love for you here – with ONE dish on the menu for non seafood eaters (steak) it’s incredibly slim pickings.

After lunch it was time to head to the airport and say farewell to beautiful Sydney. We returned to Melbourne with Annette and Terry, who had spent four weeks in NZ previously and stayed with us for a week before heading home to the UK.

And so began a week of eating…. which I will eventually post about! I have a huge backlog, but will try and find the time to clear it as much as possible.

Doyles on the Beach,
11 Marine Parade,
Watsons Bay NSW
Phone: (02) 9337 2007

March 14, 2010

Cookbook Challenge: Week 17, Vietnamese

Agnes cookbook challenge, cuisine, recipe, vietnamese

Recipe: Vietnamese chicken salad
From: AWW’s Kitchen

Second recipe: Vietnamese creme caramel
From: Ballymaloe Cookery Course

The theme for this week’s Cookbook Challenge is Vietnamese and I considered making pho, but when I saw that the recipe started with “roast your beef bones for 1.5 hours” and continued with “cook your stock for 4 hours” I couldn’t be bothered going through with it! Perhaps if we had spent the weekend at home, but life is rather busy at the moment and I didn’t have the time to spare. That and pho costs $8 a bowl up the road in Footscray….. and I doubt that I could do it better. (Did anyone else make pho? I applaud you if you did!)

Instead, I made a Vietnamese chicken salad from AWW’s Kitchen. I don’t know how authentic it is (not very, I suspect) but it was delicious. One of the good things about doing this Cookbook Challenge is that it has encouraged me to make recipes I wouldn’t normally make. I’m sure that if it hadn’t been for Vietnamese week, I would never have made this recipe. But it’s such a good salad that I’m going to add it to my salad rotation!

The salad consists of poached chicken, pickled carrots, onions and bean sprouts, and then cabbage, Vietnamese mint, coriander, and a fish sauce and lime dressing. It’s all crunchy and fresh, and I loved the tangy sweetness of the pickled vegetables. The herbs were fantastic in it, giving the salad a fresh pepperyness. I highly recommend trying this recipe!

For dessert, we had Vietnamese creme caramel. It was just like a regular creme caramel, except the caramel was made with palm sugar, and there was coconut milk in the custard.

It was a nice variation on the French dessert, with the coconut milk giving a faint coconut flavour. I did find it a bit eggy though, and (since I’m being critical right now) I should have pushed my caramel further. It wasn’t quite caramel enough, but it was hard to tell the state of caramelisation with the palm sugar when I was cooking it. To be honest, plain old sugar would have done the trick just as well.

I enjoyed the theme for the Cookbook Challenge this week since I hardly ever cook Vietnamese food. The theme for next week is “BBQ”… hopefully the weather stays nice!

See previous Cookbook Challenge posts here.

Update: See the round up at My Food Trail.

Vietnamese chicken salad

Adapted from AWW’s Kitchen

500g skinless chicken fillets (I used thigh)
2 shallots, peeled
2cm knob of ginger, peeled
1 large carrot (180g)
1/2 cup (125ml) rice wine vinegar
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons caster sugar
4 stems of spring onion, washed and sliced into small pieces
1 & 1/2 cups (120g) bean sprouts
2 cups (160) finely shredded cabbage (I used wombok)
1/4 cup firmly packed Vietnamese mint leaves
1/2 cup firmly packed fresh coriander leaves
1 tablespoon crushed roasted peanuts
2 tablespoons fried shallots

For the dressing (you could get away with making half this amount)

2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/4 cup (60ml) water
2 tablespoons caster sugar
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 clove garlic, crushed

In a medium saucepan, place the shallots, ginger and water (enough that you think will cover your chicken). Bring the water to the boil and put the chicken into the pot. Bring the water back up to a boil, and then cover the pot and turn the heat off. Let the chicken sit in the water for 10 minutes, and then return the pot to the heat and bring it back up to a boil. As soon as it comes up to a boil, turn the heat off, and let the chicken sit in the poaching liquid for at least another 10 minutes. The chicken should be cooked at this stage – take it out of the liquid and shred it coarsely. Discard the liquid.

Meantime, cut the carrot into matchstick sized pieces. In a large bowl, add the vinegar, salt and sugar, and stir to combine. Add the carrots to the vinegar mixture and let it sit for five minutes. Add the spring onions, and let it stand for another five minutes. Finally, add the bean sprouts and leave it for three minutes. Drain the pickled vegetables, discarding the liquid.

Place the pickled vegetables in a large bowl with the chicken, cabbage, mint and coriander.

To make the dressing, add all the ingredients into a screw top jar and shake well. Pour the dressing over the salad, toss to combine, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with the nuts and shallots.

Vietnamese creme caramel (Due Kem Caramen)

From Ballymaloe Cookery Course

Serves 6

110g palm sugar or golden caster sugar
100ml water
225ml water
225ml coconut milk
4 eggs
50g golden caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla essence

6 ramekins

Put the sugar and water into a heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. After the sugar has dissolved, brush the sides of the pot occasionally with a wet pastry brush, and cook the sugar until it is a rich brown caramel.

Pour the caramel into 6 ramekins, swirling it around so that it coats the side a little as well as the bottom. I find it easier to do each ramekin at a time, otherwise the caramel sets too quickly for swirling!

Preheat the oven to 170°C.

In a different saucepan, heat the milk and coconut milk until it starts to bubble around the edges. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs with the caster sugar and vanilla essence. Remove the milk mixture from the heat and pour into the egg mixture, whisking constantly.

Strain the milk and egg mixture into a jug, and then pour it into the ramekins. Place the ramekins into a tray with boiling water to half way up the side of the ramekins. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes or until just cooked (mine were cooked after 35 minutes).

Remove from the oven and cool. To serve, run a knife around the edge of each one and dip the bottom of the ramekins into hot water. Invert on to individual plates.

March 9, 2010

Provenance: Valentine’s Day Berry degustation

Agnes collingwood, cuisine, degustation, dinner, eating out, mod aus, restaurant, suburb

On Valentine’s Day, Dany, the Boys and I headed to Provenance for a berry degustation. The original plan had been to hold the event as a picnic in the Edinburgh Gardens, but with the weather forecast predicting showers, it was held inside the restaurant – picnic style on astro turf!

Berry degustation at Provenance Food & Wine

Thanks to Dany for the pic!

All the tables and chairs had been moved out, the entire floor astro turfed, and everyone sat on “picnic blankets” (I think they may have been tablecloths!) for the duration of the meal – fun!

The theme being berries, everything we ate involved berries of some kind. When we arrived, we were greeted with a bottle of Point Leo Road Salmon Blanc de Noir, and warmed ciabatta along with raspberry infused salt and strawberry infused olive oil.

I couldn’t really taste the raspberry in the salt – it just seemed really salty! But it was a lovely colour. The olive oil did have a faint strawberry flavour, and the bubbly went down rather well.

Next up were grilled chicken skewers with strawberries, balsamic vinegar and rocket salad. I’m not a huge fan of fruit with meat, but found that the balsamic vinegar really brought the strawberries and chicken together.

After that we received venison skewers on celeraic mash and blueberry sauce. I wasn’t too sure about the venison and blueberry sauce combo, but I LOVED the sauce with the celeraic mash.

After that it was time for dessert – not one dessert. Not two desserts. THREE desserts.

The first dessert was a divine summer pudding. Summer pudding has always sounded odd to me – white bread soaked in berry juice? How could that possibly be good? Well, it was. Really good. The bread was all moist and juicy with the berries, and just lovely with a dollop of cream. (I ate all that cream. Hell yeah.)

Dessert #2 was pannacotta with berry compote. It was a good pannacotta – creamy and smooth, with the berry sauce providing some tartness.

And finally, dessert #3 was a bluberry tiramisu topped with shavings of white chocolate. It was a berramisu really, as there didn’t seem to be any coffee in it? It was my least favourite of the desserts, but that could have been due to already eating two rich desserts and three bottles of bubbles (between the four of us). Phew. I was a bit weary by this stage and ready for a nap!

We had a great time though – hopefully there will be another event soon to look forward to.

Provenance
288 Smith Street
Collingwood
Phone: 03 8415 0700

March 7, 2010

Cookbook Challenge: Week 16, Noodles

Agnes chinese, cookbook challenge, cuisine, recipe, vegetarian

Recipe: Chinese mushrooms with cellophane noodles
From: Chinese, the essence of Asian cooking

The theme for this week’s Cookbook Challenge is “noodles” and for the recipe I’ve gone very Chinese. And by very Chinese, I mean – I’m not sure anyone but us Asians would eat this. :p

This week I made Chinese (shiitake) mushrooms with cellophane noodles. This is a very hearty vegetarian dish, that contains shiitake mushrooms, bean curd skins, fermented bean curd and wood ears/black fungus. It’s very filling. I ate a bowl of it and felt like I had eaten a seven course banquet!

Left: dried wood ear. Right: rehydrated wood ear

Are you wondering what wood ears are? They’re an edible fungus, commonly sold dried, and they’re used for their texture as they don’t have much flavour on their own. The texture is firm, gelatinous and slightly crunchy and they soak up the flavours of whatever they’re cooked in.

Chinese mushrooms with cellophane noodles

I love the strong, meatiness of shiitake mushrooms, so I really enjoyed them in this dish. I’ve never been a huge fan of dried bean curd though, and I think there was far too much in this recipe. It made it all taste very “beany”. I think halving, or even quartering the amount specified in the recipe would be a good idea.

But I’ll just have to get over the “beaniness” of the dish since I have rather a lot left over. Alastair tried it and didn’t like it, so it looks like it’s up to me!

See previous Cookbook Challenge posts here

Update: See the round up at My Food Trail.

Chinese mushrooms with cellophane noodles

From Chinese, the essence of Asian cooking

Serves 4

115g dried Chinese mushrooms
25g dried wood ears
115g dried bean curd, broken into small pieces
30 ml vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 slices fresh ginger, finely chopped
10 Szechuan peppercorns, crushed
15ml (about 1 tablespoon) red fermented bean curd
1/2 star anise
pinch of sugar
15-30ml soy sauce
50g cellophane noodles, soaked in hot water until soft
salt

In separate bowls, soak the Chinese mushroom, wood ears and dried bean curd in plenty of hot water for 30 minutes.

Strain the mushrooms, squeezing out as much liquid as possible, and reserving the liquid. Discard the stems and cut the mushrooms in half if they are vey big.

Drain the wood ears, rinse thoroughly and cut into 2-3cm pieces.

In a heavy based pan, heat the oil, and add the garlic, ginger and Szechuan peppercorns. Fry for a few seconds, then add the mushrooms and red fermented bean curd. Stir and fry for several minutes.

Add the reserved mushroom liquid to the pan, with enough liquid to completely cover the mushrooms. Add the star anise, sugar and soy sauce, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the chopped wood ears and reconstituted drained bean curd pieces to the pan. Cover and cook for another 10 minutes.

Drain the noodles and add them to the pan and cook for another 10 minutes, or until tender. Add more liquid if necessary. Season with salt to taste and serve.

February 28, 2010

Gnocchi party: potato gnocchi with blue cheese sauce

Agnes cuisine, incident party, italian, recipe

Welcome to the gnocchi party! I am just turning up on time to the party – but in my defense it has been a busy week. My mother-in-law Annette, and her husband Terry, have been visiting, and so we have been out all week (it has been a major eating week!).

A few weeks ago, Penny from Addictive and Consuming rounded up several interested bloggers for a gnocchi party. Everyone was to make gnocchi, following the theme “unami”, and post it oh, right about now!

I have never made gnocchi before, but being a carboholic, I love it. The recipe I followed was from The Cook’s Companion, and it was very straight forward and easy to make for a gnocchi beginner.

Potato gnocchi with blue cheese sauce

Adapted from the Cook’s Companion

Serves 6-8

For the gnocchi:

salt
1 kg potatoes – Stephanie recommends Toolangi delight, desiree or nicola
300g-325g plain flour

For the blue cheese sauce:

125g blue cheese
1/2 cup milk
20g butter
freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons cream

Give the potatoes a good wash, and then place them in a large pot of water until tender. Drain and peel.

Pass the potatoes through a food mill or ricer directly on to a clean work surface and sprinkle with salt. I don’t have a food mill/potato ricer so I used a steamer basket that has large holes. It took AGES. But my arms got a good workout!

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil in preparation for cooking the gnocchi.

With one hand, sprinkle the potato with flour and, using the heel of the other hand, work it in. Be as quick and deft as possible (I wasn’t either of these things!). Continue until all the flour is incorporated – I only used 2/3 of my flour. Having never made gnocchi before, I wasn’t sure how stiff/sticky it was supposed to be, so I just stopped when it didn’t seem to want to take any more flour.

When the cooking water is boiling, roll the potato mixture into a long rope and cut into 1cm pieces.

Roll each piece across the curved side of a fork using one finger to create the traditional shape. I had NO IDEA what I was doing here so my gnocchi were all weirdly shaped!

Lower the heat for the pot of water until it is simmering. Drop in some gnocchi, and wait a few minutes until they rise to the surface. Lift them out with a slotted spoon, drain for a moment over the pot, and tip into a bowl (into a warmed oven to keep warm if you’re making lots). Repeat with the remaining gnocchi.

I served the gnocchi with a blue cheese sauce. The sauce should be hot on the stove while you’re cooking the gnocchi. Here’s the recipe for the sauce:

Combine the cheese, milk, butter and pepper in a heavy-based frying pan over a gentle heat and cook until thick and creamy. Add the cream, increase the heat a little, and cook, stirring, until the sauce starts to thicken. Keep warm while you cook the gnocchi.

When all the gnocchi is cooked, pour the sauce over it, shake gently and serve.

For my first time making gnocchi, I was rather pleased with them. They were (relatively!) light, and delicious with the blue cheese sauce. I did find the sauce rather strong so a bit less blue cheese or less sauce over the gnocchi would be a good idea next time. And I’m sure there will be a next time – since I now know how easy gnocchi is to make. I might buy a potato ricer first though!

Check out the other gnocchi party attendees:

Gnocchi Gnudi made by our lovely host, Penny from Addictive & Consuming
Braised Beef Short Ribs Adobo on Potato Gnocchi made by Divina from Sense & Serendipity
Pan-fried Pumpkin Gnocchi with Truffle Paste and Basil made by Mardi from Eat, Live, Travel, Write
Chocolate-filled Plantain Gnocchi, with chillies for Dessert made by Ozoz from Kitchen Butterfly
Malfatti a la Al Di La made by Trix from Tasty Trix
Tuna & Anchovy sauce gnocchi with roasted vegetables made by Conor from Hold the Beef
Gnocchi di Patate con Funghi e Salvia made by Mellie from Tummy Rumbles
Gnocchi Chicken Tikka made by Shirley from Enriching your kid
Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Nori Butter made by Natasha from Five Star Foodie
Gnocchi in creamy mushroom sauce made by Christine from Christine’s Recipes