Our dinner tonight – seared Australian scallops with a pea puree and diced mushies cooked in butter with a little soy sauce. The giant cows cous is from Jones the Grocer and it was simmered in mum’s pork soup for around 30 minutes. We also had grilled orange roughy which didn’t photograph well.
For his 3rd birthday, he chose a strawberry cake so I was not in the least surprised that the request was for an orange, yoghurt, strawberry, apple, marshmallow cake for his 4th birthday. What a combination though! After putting some thought into it, we baked his cake together – a flourless orange cake topped with a tangy yoghurt icing, decorated with marshmallows, diced apples and strawberries and surrounded by apple cars.
I’ve made a 2-egg flourless orange cake before but this one from the SBS website called for 6 eggs, resulting in an ultra-moist mouthful. I encountered one potentially horrendous error, which was not greasing the bundt tin well enough before pouring the batter in. When I turned the cake out the top layer was left sticking to the tin and I had to scrape it out and place it gingerly atop the base of the cake. Fortunately, it was not obvious once I poured the thick yoghurt icing over it. As fate would have it, I also come across a great idea for making little cars out of apple slices and grapes that week and so could incorporate his apple request.
Another party on the weekend with family came with a request for exactly the same cake, but I managed to get him to agree to a banana cake instead (and I conveniently had 6 blackening bananas in the pantry). I also carved a whole watermelon into a T-Rex dinosaur head based on a picture from the Watermelon Promotion Board site. Some great ideas that you have to make use of over summer while watermelons are in season. Messy though the watermelon carving exercise was, the delight on his face made it worthwhile.
Yoghurt Icing
1. Strain greek yoghurt overnight
2. Add a splash of lemon juice, a few drops of vanilla extract and enough icing sugar to sweeten to your liking
3. Mix and pour over top of cake, allowing it to drip down sides enticingly
No recipes, just a super-quick post. I found some purple Tasmanian carrots this weekend and was par-boiling them before a quick grill on the BBQ. When I looked in the pot, the carrots were sitting a deep purple pool of hot water and I just couldn’t waste it so I quickly pulled out a bag of jasmine rice and threw a couple of handfuls in. How gorgeous are these colours?
This weekend, I decided to pull out a couple of old recipes from the time I visited the Baipai Cooking School in Bangkok. I haven’t made these in a while but I really should keep them in my current repertoire – they are winners. The pictures aren’t as pretty as they ones I took at the cooking school but the flavours brought back memories of my visit to Thailand. The recipe cards that Baipai gave us for these recipes serve one – yes, one (1). I know that some people do need to only cook for one, but I have NEVER seen a recipe that provides measurements for serving one. So, I did some guess work and threw in what I thought was reasonable for serving six, however as I didn’t write the measurements down, you can do the sums for yourself if you’d like to try these recipes!
(Please note that I haven’t poured the tamarind sauce on yet in this photo)
Pandanus Chicken
(makes 5 pieces)
70 grams chicken thighs, cut into 5 bite-sized pieces
5 scented Pandanus leaves
1 clove garlic
1 coriander root, roughyl chopped
10 black pepper seeds
1 lemon grass stalk, cut into pieces
1 tsp sugar
1.5 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp white sesame seeds
2 cups vegetable oil for deep frying
1. Pound garlic, coriander root, black pepper seeds and lemon grass together well
2. Mix the wet ingredients and sugar and sesame seeds with the chicken pieces and leave to marinate for at least 1 hour
3. Wrap each piece of chicken with a pandanus leaf
4. Deep fry the chicken on medium heat, turning regularly until cooked. Remove and rain well. (NB. I shallow fried them for a minute on each side then drained and put them in the oven to bake until cooked)
5. Serve with a dipping sauce of 1 tbs ketchup manis and 1/4 tsp roasted sesame seeds if you wish.
Prawns in Tamarind Sauce
3-4 medium prawns, shelled and deveined
1 tbs wheat flour
1 cup vegetable oil for deep frying
1 tbs shallots, finely sliced
2 tbs tamarind paste/sauce
1 tbs palm sugar
2 tsp fish sauce
2 tbs water
1. Coat prawns with flour and deep fry until just cooked. Set aside.
2. Stirfry shallots until crisped
3. Add tamarind paste, palm sugar, fish sauce, water and stir well until sauce is thickened
4. Arrange prawns on a plate and top with tamarind sauce. Serve with coriander leaves and chilli
