A Few of My Favourite Things !

We only spent 1.5 days there but I think we manage to fit an admirable amount of food in during this short period! On our first night, we visited Guerney Drive. It was pouring with rain so we wandered through the shopping centre next door until the skies let up. As soon as the rain eased, we were out of the shopping complex and in amongst the stalls. Good timing because we managed to get seats just before the crowd descended.

We started with Assam Laksa, one of A.’s favourite dishes, and boy was it good. Fantastically sour and spicy, the only thing it was missing was the black sauce - what’s that called again? We also tried a cuttlefish salad (Ju Hu Eng Chai) and I cannot recommend this dish highly enough - I just couldn’t get enough of it!

Of course, after reading so much about Poh Piah, we had to try this as well. Nyeh, wasn’t the greatest poh piah that I’ve had. A little on the soggy side.

This was washed down with soya bean milk, which we kinda had to order whether we liked it or not because the tables belong to that stall. Good thing that we did like it. I was told off at another table because I didn’t want to order freshly squeezed fruit juice and the guy grumbled that I couldn’t just sit there and not order from them! Ooops!

A. decided that he couldn’t leave without tasting the satay too so here’s the picture.

We came back to Guerney drive another night, after spending a couple of days in Langkawi, and ordered the Assam Laksa from another stall. This one did come with the black sauce but A. thought that the Laksa from the first stall was better.

The ice kachang served in Penang is also slightly different, made more decadent with the addition of ice cream. The one you see here had peanut icecream. Yum, I love ice kachang. I used to just eat the shaved ice sweetened with rosewater and evaporated milk from the top and leave the other stuff at the bottom of the dish for dad. Naughty, huh? I didn’t like all that red bean, corn and attap although the grass jelly was okay. Now, I’m happy to try some of it but my favourite part is still the flavoured ice.

One of my other favourites is Ban Chang Kueh, a pancake sprinkled with crushed peanuts and sugar. I had a really hard time tracking them down both this trip and the last, especially the thin crispy ones, so when we came across this stall selling Apong Manis and Apong Balik, we got a serve of each. The Apong Manis just consisted of batter spread very thinly over the little wok so it’s very light and airy. Didn’t love it. The Apong Balik was better though and I think it was filled with corn and coconut.

A. loves anything with peanuts so we tried these thingys as well. I cannot remember what they are called although I’m sure some Malaysians could help me out with this. We really liked this version cos the pastry was really thin and it was choc full of peanuts (makes it sound like a Snickers bar, doesn’t it?).

I’ve always wanted to try cooking with zucchini flowers but I’ve also always chickened out at the last minute. Not today though. Today, we visited the Abootsford Convent market and we happened to stop by one of the stalls to ask if they were selling mulberries. Only ones that had gone mouldy unfortunately but they did have zucchini flowers, 10 heads of which came home with us.

What to do with them though? We didn’t have any ricotta or fetta but I remembered some home-made babaganoush and parmagiano reggiano sitting in the fridge. So, our zucchini flowers were filled with a mixture of these two ingredients before being battered and fried. A sprinkle of fleur de sel from Ginny together with some lemon wedges on the side and voila! Serve and eat immediately!

While the boys were enjoying the zucchini flowers, I prepared the salad. While browsing at a book sale a couple of days ago, I was instantly smitten by the beauty of Julie Le Clerc’s cookbook ‘Taking Tea in the Medina’. The vibrant photo of this particular cucumber and fennel salad scattered with torn mint leaves and pomegranate seeds made me buy the book. Thumbs up for this salad. The pomegranate seeds are a little pale but they were revived from the depths of our freezer so you will have to forgive them for looking a little anaemic.

I also grilled some chicken thighs which had been marinated in a Jamaican Jerk spice mix for about 30 min. The thighs were basted with a sauce of brandy, lime and more of the spice mix while grilling. Serve with a wedge of lime.

Battered Zucchini Flowers

3 egg yolks
2-3 tbs flour
1/2 cup cold mineral water

3 egg whites

1. Remove stamen from centre of flower, wash gently in cold water and pat dry
2. Fill flowers with mixture of babaganoush and shaved parmagiano reggiano
2. Beat the egg yolks with flour. Season with salt & pepper then add mineral water and mix until smooth
3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold into egg yolk mixture.
4. Dip flowers into batter and shallow fry for a few minutes on each side until golden brown.
5. Sprinkle with salt and serve, with a side of lemon wedges, straight away

Of course, the change in season also signals a change in the type of food that we want to eat. Our favourite foods in the last couple of weeks have leaned more towards picnic fare.

Slashfood’s Sandwich Day is giving us yet another opportunity to indulge in this spring fancy of ours, allowing us to celebrate the humble sandwich. We choose to use rib-eye steak rounds (upon recommendation of the butcher) sand a cute little ciabatta roll, both from Queen Victoria Market, spreading the lightly toasted roll with Olio Bello’s tomato jam and serving it with tomato and lettuce.

We sat with the balcony door flung wide open (if you can fling a sliding door!) and had this sandwich with a side serve of salt & vinegar chips. Finally, wash it all down with an Asahi.

Technorati Tags:sandwich day, steak sandwich, food & drink

Our friends, P & S, who moved to Australia from Strasbourg about 2 years ago recently returned home. But before they left, S gave me her mother-in-law’s recipe for making tarts. The recipe for the pastry listed 250g flour, 125g margarine, 1 egg and in a post script, S instructed me to add some sugar if I wanted a ’sweety pie’ instead!

When Tami announced that this ‘Hey Hey It’s Donna Day’ theme as savoury tarts, I rummaged through my folders to pull out the handwritten sheets. I also remembered the Alsatian onion tarts that we enjoyed on our trip to Strasbourg, so it didn’t take long to decide what filling to make. Caramelised onions, bacon, creme fraiche with nutmeg, salt and pepper.

We brought this along yesterday when we went for a drive through the Pyrenees region - mmmm, perfect picnic food!

Dumplings are ubiquitous in Asian cuisine, from the dainty steamed morsels that we enjoy at dim sum lunches to the oversized tai pau filled with chicken, pork, mushrooms and egg. As I am starting to realise with a number of other food types though, dumplings are not unique to Asian cuisine. We found this out on our visit to Prague earlier this year whereupon ordering houskove knedlíky with our goulash, thinking that we were be tasting a unique Czech dish, we discovered much to our surprise that they tasted (& looked) exactly like mantou buns.

A quick search reveals that dumplings abound - there is the Russian perogi, German klöße, Austrian knödel, Japanese takoyaki and British dumplings just to name a few. Of course, this list does not even start to cover dumplings of the sweet variety. Chinese steamed paus filled with sweet red bean paste, lotus paste or egg custard (A’s favourite!) are also popular, especially as a dessert following yum cha. In other cultures, sweet dumplings often consist of fruit wrapped in dough.

My personal favourite in the world of dumplings is char siew pau (also known as roast pork bun), both the steamed and baked variety. Whenever I walk past Nam Loong Restaurant on Russell Street, the stacks of bamboo steamers cradling warm fluffy char siew paus call out my name. My head turns to gaze in through the window as I move past and it takes real strength not to succumb.

I had some chicken fillets in the freezer to use up so I pulled out the trusty ‘Making Dumplings’ book to look up the dough recipe again. Last time, I made it with a mix of whoel wheat and white flour, but this time I followed the recipe straight - 500g flour, 40g sugar, 2 tsp dried yeast, 1/4 tsp dough improver, 260-280ml water and some oil. Knead and leave to prove until double in size. Meanwhile, I cooked and cooled the filling of chicken with corn and peas in char siew sauce.

The fun part is filling the dough! I remember watching mum expertly dollop a spoonful of filling before nimbly wrapping the dough around and pinching it together at the top. I guess it must have eventually sunk in because I don’t think mine look half bad They tasted pretty good too - nice meaty bits of real chicken. I used the two pieces of left-over dough to make kaya paus - mmmm, these were great too, especially for dessert!

Rich Maha specialises in Malaysian, Indian and Sri-Lankan fare from their bain-marie and ala carte menu. Although they have delicious hawker-style offerings, the real attraction for my family has always been the fish head curry for take-away from either the Vermont South or Hawthorn restaurants. We would order it, bring a pot for them to fill then take it home to enjoy (read on to discover why). Discovering that they opened a CBD branch just a few weeks back, I immediately contacted some like-minded friends for a Fish Head Curry night and the responses were fast and furious, mostly with comments like “Yum - count us in!”.

Now, this Indian curry smells fantastic and will leave you wanting more but it should come with a warning label! It is a highly confronting meal, especially if you are new to it, as googly-eyed fish with sharp teeth stare out at you from the pot. It is certainly not a dish to have if you are in any way squirmish about real food for true connoisseurs will slurp and suck their way through the bones in search of the flavoursome flesh. I must admit that I much prefer soaking up the rich, orangey and very liquid curry sauce with my roti and satisfying my apetite that way instead. I get all the flavour without the additional labour

To cater for my vegetarian friend, I made a mild dahl and gado-gado. I also made the star fruit chutney from Mangoes and Curry Leaves by Alford & Duguig. I love the presentation of this side dish and the flavour certainly complements the spiciness of the curry.

Rich Maha

Vermont South: Shp 3/ 499 Burwood Hwy, (03) 9887 7663 /(03) 9802 6658

Hawthorn: Hmm, I’m thinking this one may have closed or changed hands as I can’t find the address inthe White Pages

Melbourne: Equitable Lane

Mussels are so incredibly easy to cook, it’s hard to go wrong. After debearding them and giving them a once over with a brush, these mussels were thrown into a pot with some sauteed onions, parsley and white wine, steamed until they opened. Serve immediately with a crusty baguette! Mmmmm….

Armenian Apricot Soup

1 tbs olive oil, 2 onions (diced), 3 carrots (chopped), 1 tbs groud cumin, 3 cups red lentils, 10 cups water, 375g dried apricots (chopped), salt & white pepper

1. Saute onions in carrots in olive oil for around 10 min.
2. Add cumin and stir well before decreasing heat and sweating vegetables for 10 min
3. Add lentils and enough water to cover. Bring to a simmer and cook for 20 min until softened. Top up water as required
4. Remove from heat and stir in apricots, remaining water and season. Puree until smooth and serve hot (although I think room temp is fine too)

We held an office lunch and took part in the World’s Greatest Shave to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation a couple of weeks back. It was a pot-luck lunch so everyone brought something along to share. A. marinated some chicken wings and drumettes which I helped him to bake in a slow oven with a couple of glugs of Coca Cola (yes, you read that right!). Mmmm,dish of the day! Just have a look at that picture - doesn’t it make you drool? I made a pasta-bake with a bolognese-type sauce that included peas and sweet corn, and buffalo mozarella melted through.

So, now A.’s hair is short - down to a 1 - and I think he looks great, as always! My hair got a colour - blue and glittery-silver vertical stripes.

I was thinking about the Manakeesh (pronounced ‘m-naeesh’) bi Zatar from Sydney Road and decided that some home-made ones were in order. After mentioning this to A., we decided on M’naeesh bi Za’atar, bi Feta, bi Salami/Tomato/Jibne (cheese) and bi Zaytoun (olives).

I followed the recipe from Arabesque by Greg & Lucy Malouf and also compared it to a different one that was pretty much just flour and yoghurt. I much prefer this recipe as the dough is more pliable and the other dough tasted a little too sour for my taste.

1. Mix yeast, sugar and water and let sit 5 min until foamy.
2. Add this to flour & salt mixture and mix with dough hook. Knead for 5-10 min until smooth, glossy dough forms.
3. Cover with cling wrap and leave in warm spot until dough doubles in size.
4. Knock dough back & divide into 16 balls. Roll each out into a round ~15-20 cm in diam.
5. Top as you like and bake at 180C for around 10 min.

Okay, remember my great-looking ribs which did not taste as good as they looked? Well, the leftovers turned out WONDERFULLY!

The day after our dinner with W&W, I placed the left-over ribs in a Le Creuset pot, sprinkled lightly with some 5-spice powder and filled the pot up half-way with water. The ribs were slow-cooked in the oven for several hours until the meat was meltingly tender. I pulled the meat off the bone with a fork and served it with noodles. Just fantastic!

Well, I guess I know how to cook them next time :->