A Few of My Favourite Things !

Last Saturday, we got to visit some of our favourite Melbourne CBD and Carlton places. It was too lovely a day to spend driving around so we parked on Rathdown Street, Carlton and blazed a trail around Carlton and Melbourne CBD. First stop was La Parisienne Pate, a French charcuterie that supplies homemade saucisson, pates and terrines, pies and a selection of cheeses. We picked up some duck & orange pate, cornichons, Cantal Entre-deux cheese, muscatels and a French Fantasies baguette.

We then mosied up Lygon Street to La Latteria, known for their fresh Italian-style cheeses. I wish I had a cheese stomach (and a larger enough wallet) to try one of everything in the shop, but I guess this leaves something new to try for next time. More Scarmorza for our homemade pizzas and this time some cream-filled burrata too.

From there, we dropped off our ice-packed goods in the car boot and went for our first coffee of the day at Seven Seeds. Another one of those warehousey cafes, the wait for a table near lunchtime was around 15 minutes. The takeaway line was only about 5 minutes shorter and the plates that were going pass looked pretty tempting but we wanted to continue with our jaunt, so takeaway coffee it was. A. ordered, so instead of my usual three-quarter cappuccino, I had a three-quarter latter – a little on a milky side for me but good otherwise.

Realising that we were a stone’s throw from Victoria Market at that point, we dropped by to pick up Thai basil, Vietnamese mint, coriander and some soft, thin slices of bresaola and Serrano ham. Vic Market is an old favourite for watching locals shopping and visitors doing the touristy thing. It seems to that that ability to cater for everyone and everything.

Ready now for our second coffee, we trekked south to Thousand £ Bend, a large space that is part cafe, part gallery and part events space. They are also starting to host live gigs as more bands are requesting use of their venue. Entry to these events is round the back through Heape Ct. I got to have my cappuccino – I love spooning the chocolate froth off the top, my main reason for ordering- and enjoyed just chilling out in a space that made me feel like I was at someone’s grandma’s place. In a good way.

3pm and we were finally ready for some lunch after nibbling and sampling our way through the morning and early afternoon hours. North-east back up Lt Lonsdale St took us to the Laksa Bar, a little shopfront that we had passed many times, each time vowing to head back so that we could try it. After seeing the size of the servings at adjoining tables and determining that dinner would only be a few hours away, we decided to make do with one bowl And what a bowl it was. You know how you get those oversized parmas at pubs? Well, this was possibly the largest bowl of laksa I’d ever seen and definitely not the kind of serving you’d get in Malaysia. The regular house laksa came with generous pieces of roast chicken, fried tofu, bean shoots and a slice of lemon.

Finally time to head home, so back up Lygon Street. But wait, what’s this here? Helados Jauja!!! We bought a takeaway tub of 3 flavours for $15 – Argentinian Yerba, 80% chocolate and salted caramel. This was my first experience with Argentinian ice cream and I really don’t know how I could go back to anything else. I loved that every flavour shone through authentically without an overpowering sweetness. This comes high on my list of recommendations for anyone travelling through. And if you’re not travelling through, make a special trip!

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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

Melbourne has been surprising us with some amazing weather of late – a sunshiny, blue-skied 21C in winter – and pulling me out of the winter food rut. I’ve been trying to increase my protein intake so today, I marinated a 500g rump steak in 1 tbs palm sugar (finely grated), 1/4 cup fish sauce, 1/4 cup lime juice, 2 tbs soy sauce, 2 cloves of garlic (crushed) for the afternoon while my 3yo and I had fun at the playground.

Upon our return, I sizzled the steak on high heat for a few minutes on each side, as I like it quite pink/red, then left it to rest while I collected the washing from the line (yay, a day when I can hang the washing outside!). The extra marinade was used as a dressing for the salad of mixed leaves, thai basil and mint on top of which thinly sliced beef strips were laid. It was cool enough to light a fire by that time so we sat down in front of its warmth for our dinner. We also baked a couple of small, cored apples filled with sultanas in the coals for dessert. A diverse menu for diverse weather conditions.

A friend of mine is currently in Tokyo. Don’t ask me why but he decided to bypass all the ramen places and visit a French restaurant. Here’s the menu:

I’ve been a slack little blogger! I have been doing the occasional surfing through the Australian blogs but honestly there are simply too many for me to keep up with everyone now. Of course, I’ve still been taking the odd picture here and there – either of something I’ve cooked or when I’ve been out for dinner. I just haven’t been putting any of it here.

Then this week, I took my 2 year old to Prahran Market and saw someone peeling apples in preparation for her demonstration of A Thousand Layered Apple Cake. I had seen her before on Masterchef and a photo from I can’t remember where, and just this week was reading about the gourmet sandwich bar that she and her husband were about to open up on Bourke St. It was none other than Jackie Middleton, who also confessed that she had fallen off the blogging bandwagon, although not nearly as badly as I had.

I’ve been distracted by all the things you do with a toddler but I have been doing some important baking which is due in 2 months. Yes, a rather long time in the oven isn’t it?

I got to do some cooking for little people this week as our playgroup has decided to do a foodswap on Monday. I figured that there would be a few meatballs and frittata recipes so I went with fried rice, cooked with peas, corn and good ol’ spam – the way I remember it from my childhood. I used to dash on some tomato sauce for additional flavour….. mmmmm. To accompany, chicken nuggets marinated overnight in yoghurt then dipped in beaten egg and flour peppered with five spice powder – enough to tantalise but not overwhelm delicate taste buds. Some of the chicken nuggets were dredged in dessicated coconut instead of the five spice mixture. Either way, they turned out great and one piece even obligingly too on the appearance of a drumstick.

We have been awaiting the opening of Old Town Kopitiam in QV for the last few months, especially after spending a couple of weeks in Malaysia recently and reacquainting ourselves with the joys of kaya toast. Finally made it there for breakfast this morning, which actually turned out to be lunch when I couldn’t get out of bed before 10:30am. This also meant that we had to forgo the kaya toast in favour of something more substantial – roti chanai with curry sauce, Siamese Laksa and ban chang kueh. All great and we’re heading back really soon to try the rest of the menu.

This post is SO late that the lovely Suj’s “I’m in my 8th month of pregnancy” tummy has become a gorgeous 2-month old daughter. I’m not sure where her appetite is at these days but during her pregnancy she was indulging her hormonally-directed food cravings with varied meals of Nandos, Hungry Jacks and Yum Cha. This very belated post is about a meal she & hubby had back in April this year. Thanks for your contribution!

Today Ben and I finally thought we would try out a relatively new place in Glen Waverley on Springvale Road called Yum Cha Inn. We checked out the menu, and it seemed an interesting concept where the yum cha menu is on a sheet of A4 paper and you get to select how many serves of each item you would like to order. The idea then is your order is made up for you and brought directly to your table, so the food is nice and hot off the steamer, stove, oven, etc.

So Ben and I went through the list and picked our favourites like the “siu mai”, and “har gow”, “char siu sow”, “loh bak gou”, another scallop dumpling (my Cantonese fails me here) and custard tarts (“dan tart”). And proceeded to wait in anticipation.

And we waited.

And waited.

Finally a dish appeared about 30 minutes later, it was “ham sui gok” and I thought, huh, did we order this? Perhaps we did, perhaps my English interpretation of “char siu sow” was actually “ham sui gok” so I thought ok, never mind, we’ll accept the dish. And we ate it. It had just the right amount of pork filling inside, not too much and not too little. The pastry was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside with a delicate sweetness that offset the savoury filling.

And then we waited again.

Finally another two dishes appeared, a green-coloured dumpling dish and another with beancurd. Now I was definitely certain I didn’t order these and so we checked with the wait staff, and sure enough it wasn’t our’s. My heart sank as I realised we’d have to wait again for the rest of our meal.

An hour after we had walked through the door, I finally asked about our order and made it quite clear that the wait had been unacceptable. We were assured our order was only 2 minutes away and they apologised for a mix up in the kitchen. Strike 1, they had not kept the customer informed regarding the unusual delay.

We finally got our dumplings and remaining order, except the “loh bak gou”. Upon enquiry we were told they had run out of that particular dish. One would have thought that they would have informed us earlier so we could order alternatives. This was strike 2. Our “char siu sow” then surprisingly made an appearance! We were informed the “ham sui gok” we had earlier wasn’t actually our’s. Oh well, so be it, they had made the mistake and it was not our fault that we had already eaten it. Pretty sure they charged us for it anyway.

When we did make alternative orders of “char siu bau” and the lotus wrapped steamed glutinous rice to replace the “loh bak gou”, the order only took 5 minutes to arrive at our table, proving that the 50 minute wait was simply unnecessary.

Apart from the terrible wait time, the food in general was only fairly average. The highlight was the very flaky pastry on the custard tarts which I loved.

The restaurant gave us complimentary drinks and took 10% off our bill to compensate for the very long wait we had to endure. However needless to say it will be a while before we will venture into Yum Cha Inn again.

An oldie that I’d forgotten about (blush)…

Chickpeas and chorizo are not the most asian of ingredients are they? but they do cook well in the old claypot regardless!

We were facilitating The Marrige Preparation Course a couple of weekends ago which meant that I needed to prepare a quick and easy lunch that could be had between a couple of the sessions that were being held on Sunday. I took inspiration from a recipe Matt posted late last year, one that had been on my mind since that time, and threw together a chickpea and chorizo hotpot.

Using my trusty chinese claypot, I fried the chorizo with some garlic and onion, added some passata, tin of chickpeas and some spices then simmered for 20 minutes. It was as easy as Matt had promised and absolutely delicious with crusty white bread. Best of all, the claypot made it easy to transport.

This place deserves a post of its own. Serving the kind of food that we travel for, Ibu Oka in Ubud is patronized by locals as well as tourists. They do one dish and they do it incredibly well – Babi Guling. You point to what everyone else on the communal table is having and it’s plated and served in about two minutes flat. Help yourself to the prawn crackers in the basket and everything just gets tallied up at the end of your meal.

Too good and had us licking our lips for the rest of the trip. It’s a pity we didn’t get to go back for seconds =(