A week in the life of ....

These few weeks have been hectic. After our holiday in Hanoi in February, we really needed to catch up with our friends. I realised that I don't really talk about what I eat on a weekly basis... Let's give it a try and see if it is interesting for you or not.

Here is a brief of where we've been in the last week:

Monday: Lunch was a sashi don from Don-Don on Swanston Street. For dinner, I made a beef stew using Harumi Kurihara : Harumi's Japanese Home Cooking cook book. It was a little bit salty, so I think I will cut down on the soya sauce a little.

Tuesday: Lunch was at Groove Train, Melbourne Central. My colleague recommended the smoke salmon salad there, and indeed it was fantastic. Roasted potatoes in a smoke salmon salad - yum!! For last minute dinner out, we were recommended to go to Olive Tree Bistro in South Melbourne for steak. It's near Tempura Hajime. We cheekily went to Hajime to see whether there were any spots before heading to Olive Tree. No luck... The steaks at Olive Tree were not bad... 400g steaks!!! .

Wednesday: Lunch was at Tokio, in the city. Love their ebi-don! For dinner, we ate at home, not very healthy but had roast chicken drumstick, Vietnamese style stir fried mung beans with onion, bean sprout, and mince pork, with fluffy rice. Made a mojito but didn't have soda or lemonade so substituted it with white wine... hehehe

Thursday: Lunch was at A1 Cafe on Russell Street, one of my favourite Chinese cafe. I had the lemongrass chicken and pork on rice. Delicious! For dinner, I had a work function at Centro Ristorante, South Melbourne. It was nice to catch up with my colleagues socially. I had the fish of the day, which was grilled ocean trout. That was followed by banana souffle. I liked to banana souffle better than my main.

Friday: I usually have home-made dumpling in my fridge when we don't want to eat out... So Friday night dinner was simple, boiled pork and shrimp dumpling and edamame with a little twist - sprinkling of sesame seed, dried sea weed and sea salt ... Best edamame so far is from Fuji Mart.

Saturday: Lunch was at Aka Tombo Sushi Bar in Prahran. My sister ordered the Sushi & Sashimi Bento, and I had the Tempura Bento. Aka Tombo can do no wrong :) I think next time I really want to try the special bentos that you have to pre-order... For dinner, my sister was kind enough to cook for me. We bought mussells and other ingrediants from Prahran and she cooked a lovely batch of steamed mussells with a chili coconut tom yum sauce to go with it. She's got magic hands :) I made rosemary and garlic roast potatoes to go with it (following Stephanie Alexander : The Cook's Companion recipe) and some roast corn corbs. Why I made rosemary potatoes for an Asian dish, I don't know. *Sigh*

Sunday: I love the weekend, don't you. Yummy food all day long.... We had yum cha at David's, Prahran. The tea there is really nice. We had the Jasmine and Pu-Er tea. Sometimes the dumpling can be over steamed... but the atmosphere there is just so inspiring. After that my cousin bought a roll for his sister at Amici Bakery Cafe (-love their breakfasts) while I went to look at a few houses around the area before heading off to a baby's 1st birthday. H was very cute and endearing.

That was all for last week.... this week also promises lots of yummy food, good company and good wines.

Have a great week!

Ripe Bananas

Having bought some bananas a few weeks ago... they have been sitting on my fruit bowl slowly going black... Panic set in, I had to do something with it... So I made banana pancake for breakfast.... then I made a banana cake.....all recipes were based on Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion.

Banana Pancake

250g plain flour

60g butter

a pinch of salt

1.5 cups of milk

3 eggs

2 (over) riped banana sliced

Instructions

• Put flour into a large bowl and make a well.
• Warm butter, salt and milk until the butter melts.
• Break the eggs into the well and work in some flour.
• Add warm milk mixture and whisk until smooth.
• Refrigerate for 1 ~ 2 hours before cooking.
• The result should be a mixture like thin cream. If not, add more milk.
• For cooking, wipe the pan with some butter/olive oil, what ever you prefer.

Moist Banana Cake

125g softened unsalted butter
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
2 ~ 3 mashed ripe banana
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
250g plain flour
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon powder
A pinch of all spice
1/2 cup of milk or buttermilk

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 180C.
• Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
• Beat in eggs, banana and vanilla.
• Sift dry ingredients and add to the mixture, alternating with the milk.
• Spoon into cake tin and bake for 45 minutes or until cake tests clean.

Red-Cooked Pork Belly with Mushroom & Fried Tofu

I made this two weeks ago with a modified recipe from "The Food of China" cookbook. I thought I had better catch up on my blogging now, otherwise I will never catch up!

Ingrediants

500g pork belly, rind on

3 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine

3 slices of ginger

2 tablespoons of soya sauce (or 3 tablespoons of dary soya sauce)

3 hard boiled eggs, peeled (optional)

25g of white sugar (or 50g rock sugar)

6 - 8 pieces of Chinese shitake mushroom (if bought dried, remember to soak these in water first to soften)

1 stick of spring onion

Serves 4

Instructions:

Cut the pork into about 2 cm strips cutting across the layers so that all pieces have rind on them.

Then I put the pork belly into my thermo cooker with enough water to cover the pieces.

Add the soya sauce, sugar, rice wine and ginger and bring the liquid to a boil. Then simmer for about 10 minutes.

I then remove the cooked pork belly with the sauce into a casserole dish and placed the mushroom, spring onion and eggs in it and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Before serving add sugar or salt to taste. You can add dried chilli to this dish as well if you want it a little spicy. It's great with fluffy short-grain rice... that just soaks the sauce up like a sponge...

Feeling Rundown

I've been feeling run-down, possibly from a little cold that I caught from my little nephew. He's so cute! It's getting better today... On Monday, not having much enthusiasm and energy for cooking, I decided to go for something easy while we took a break from watching episodes of Heroes.

First, I made a soup base from Daishi and Bonito flakes to taste, once boiled I carefully slided some bought pork and chive dumplings into the soup. In the meantime, I cut some spring onions and cleaned some king prawns that I bought from Footscray market. When the water boils again, I put the prawns in to cook until crunchy. In the serving bowls, I placed the chopped spring onion, ready for the dumplings and noodles.

The dumplings were accompanied by Taiwanese Japanese tea, I served this is the brown ceramic teapot I made when I was studying in Japan many years ago (I can't believe it can hold liquid!). I reclaimed this from my cousin. The tiny tea cups and saucer, I bought when I went to Taipei at Carrefour at the end of last year.

We still had Chinese lychees left. These were the $20 per kg ones that M's mum bought for us, as oppose to the smaller $10 per kg ones I bought in Footscray. It's worth spending the money if you love lychees, these ones were definitely much more juicer and the seeds smaller.

Taiwanese Egg Pancakes for Breakfast

Every year when I go to Taipei, a visit to the local breakfast stall near my Grandparents house in Ximending is essential at least once. There, we usually get a few scorching sweetened soya bean milk in large paper cups or in clear plastic bags to go, Chinese Fried Doughnut sticks (YouTiao) and fried egg pancakes, all made fresh to order. I've gotten my husband hook on these local delicacy as well that he reminds me if we are close to the end of our trip in Taipei and we haven't gone to the stall yet.

In Melbourne, you can get these in Taiwanese cuisine cafes but they are not the same... somehow the Taiwanese ones are more fluffy and floury. I've watched them cook it a few times, and I believe the fluffiness comes from adding a little surplus egg mixture into the pan while the pancake is cooking.

My version is not as authentic as they make the thin pastry from scratch. I use the widely available plain roti bread from Asian grocery stores. The important thing here is to take the roti bread out of the fridge about 30minute earlier so that they soften. Also unfold them to get as thin a roti slice as you possibly can so you're getting more egg than pancake per serve.

Once you have prepared the roti, dip the slices into your egg mix (I used two eggs in this instance). Let it soak for about 10 sec and make sure that the whole of the roti bread is soaked with egg mix. For pan-frying and for Asian cuisine I usually use peanut oil for flavour.




After you've placed the egg pancakes on the pan, add a little egg mixture on time. Preferably more evenly than I have!



End result - fluffy Taiwanese egg pancakes! Usually you should have this with thick soya sauce, but I didn't have any so I had it with Maggi Seasoning, which is just as good. I wished I had a nice cold soya bean milk drink too! Oh well.. two additional items for the grocery list.

At Grand Taipei Restaurant in Box Hill, they serve theirs with spring onion and garlic in their egg mix. I must to make this next time.

Hainanese Chicken Rice & Chicken Vegie Soup

Mucking Around Part II

I was craving for hainanese chicken rice... but I don't like the ones served in the restaurants because I actually don't like to eat chicken still on its bones and skin on. I bought a bottle of hainanese chicken rice mix just for this purpose. The mix is for adding to raw rice and water in a conventional rice cooker... It will give the rice a oily ginger and chicken flavour. I found the mixture a bit salt so I reduced the quantity to add in my rice...



You can get this and similar products from any good Asian groceries.



Following roughly the recipe on the back of the bottle, I used the pressure cooker to cook my Lilydale organic chicken breasts in.. It took less than 10 minute and the meat was falling about. I then soaked the chicken in cold boiled water.

I mixed 1 part sesame oil to 3 part sauce sauce together and added some cropped spring onion as the sauce to add to the chicken pieces. Experiment with the sauce to taste. Break up the cooled chicken into bite-size pieces... pour the sauce over and serve it with the rice I had it for lunch the next day.



Then what to do with the filtered chicken soup??



I cropped up one onion, two carrots, and two potatoes.



Soaked a few dried shitake mushrooms and put the soup and all the vegetables back into the pressure cooker to make a chicken and vegie soup... When it's boiled and the vegies are all soft. Add salt to taste...



My Impromptu Chicken and Vegetable Soup.. look at the chicken oil Yum!

Mucking Around

I've been doing a bit of this and that these few weeks.... Mainly stressing about a dinner party in Hampton last Sunday. I was in charge of the dessert, and I decided to use the pannacotta and crostoli recipes from Maurizio Terzini: Something Italian. The pannacotta recipe is not easy as I found out.... My first attempt, without any proper measurement and not all the ingredients... came out too creamy and little stiffer than I wanted. I even wasted cream because I whipped it too hard with a hand beater and turned the cream to butter... I had to send M out for another tub. Likewise, the crostoli had a bitter lemony taste to it.... Armed with the right ingredients, I was suppose to prepare the dessert on Saturday ready for Sunday but had been so busy doing other things that I remembered at 12am Sunday that I needed to make the pannacotta for it to set properly in time!

So in my pajamas, I made the pannacotta...while waiting for the pannacotta mixture to cool, I hand-whipped the cream.... I think this is really the only way to whip cream.. it takes a lot of effort but the result is worth it - smooth soft cream at just the right consistency. I actually changed the recipe a little - decreasing the sugar, adding one 1/2 more vanilla sticks and instead of 8 gelatine leaves I used 7. I also put the Bortylis in the cooking part rather than at the end. I read an article in Epicure today about the Innocent Bystander Pink Moscato 2006... I might make a pannacotta with lots of that... as it sounds delicious... "A naughty pale pink with sweet grapey, apple flavours, seductively presents as a subtle, low 6.4% alcohol, mouth tingling, crown sealed fizz. Drink this summer when young and fresh. Yummy with strawberries and ice cream or just to sip on around the pool."


OH yes, the pannacotta and crostoli were a success... (I served chilled thin slices of riped mangoes with it) even after a multi-course dinner they was a refreshing dessert and helped us slow the absorption of some very delicious red wine that night. Anna and Dave made fantastic side dishs and slow cook mains... My favourite was the roast duck where the meat just fell off the bones and melted in your mouth. Second was the dumplings modified from a recipe from Harumi Kurihara: Harumi's Japanese Home Cooking... Of course third was the pannacotta!

Here is the official menu from Sunday:


*We didn't make the linguine because we decided that there was too much food already.

No pictures from the night, sorry... we ate everything too quickly...

New Food Blogs added to List

After devouring the latest on the Obachan's Kitchen and Balcony Garden blog, I decided to click through her large food blog list and found some gems, which I have added to my own list:

1) Bento News / Tokyo Food Page - The Tokyo Food Page is a complete guide to Japanese cuisine and eating in Japan. With great recipes, tours of Japanese markets, and tips on the best places to eat in Tokyo and Yokohama.
2) Blue Lotus - A Canadian girl eats her way around Tokyo and showcases her daily meal(s).
3) Kuidaore - Beautifully pictured and wonderful culinary creations by Joyce Lyn in Singapore.
4) Nordljus - This site is just breathtakingly beautiful. Keiko's photos of her life in UK is art. Her culinary creations are imagination.
5) Ono Kine Grindz - Detailed reviews and pictorials of mainly Hawaiian eateries.
I was so inspired by the content and format of these blogs that I decided to change the layout of mine. I tried to add a background image to my Title but found that I couldn't do it in Spaces. Oh well.
I also borrowed Maurizio Terzini's "Something Italian" from my Italian colleague today. She swears by this book. It's the only Italian cookbook that she uses. This was in preparation for a European dinner to be cooked at a friend's house early March. I am thinking of owning the dessert. I started to think about the Cafe Vue Chocolate Tart and searched for a recipe for it. I found a delicious one on Chocolate & Zucchini for Clotilde's Absolute Chocoalte Tartlets. I will attempt these on the weekend once I get hold of the tools and ingredients! However, if in the end the mains are heavy dishes, I will opt for a seasonal fruit pannacotta, using the vanilla pannacotta recipe in "Something Italian".

Brown Garlic & Parsley Butter Sauce Swordfish

We were eating in last night and I wanted to have seared tuna, with potato salad. I saw these chunky pieces of tuna at DJ food court last week and the gentleman before me took them all.. so I was kicking myself for letting him go before me. But DJ didn't have any tuna today so I settled for swordfish for pan-frying. I got some potato bacon and mustard salad, some pine nuts, a little tiny jar of salmon roe and skipped home.

Stephanie Alexander's "A Cook's Companion" is just a fabulous book for a novel cook like me. I looked up the "Fish" section and found a recipe for Brown butter sauce for pan-fried fish. I varied it a little as I didn't have any fresh lemons in the house... to make it a garlic sauce.

M & I prepared some baby spinach for sides, and I pan-fried some onions and brown mushrooms with lots of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

M then pan-friend the swordfish to perfection in half butter half olive oil. It took probably about 10 minutes to cook each piece. While M did that, I made the sauce with unsalted butter, fresh chopped parsley and lots and lots of chopped garlic. Cook until brown and serve on top of swordfish piping hot!

Last but not least, we placed some delicious salmon roe on top of the swordfish to flavour and garnish. Don't need salt if you have the roe.

Delicious!

Perfect Paella

My sister came over for dinner and I saw an article a few days before about how to cook the perfect paella, so I thought I would give the dinner a Spanish theme.

On the Menu

Pan Fried Saganaki Haloumi

Garlic Brown Mushrooms and Chorizos (with lots of extra virgin olive oil)

Spanish Omelette

Chicken, Chorizo and Mixed Seafood Paella (about 20 saffron strains )

All the ingredients were bought from the DJ Food Court. We followed The Age recipe with some creative liberty.

We cooked the paella in my sister's scanpan. Fantastic tool, got to get me one of those. I should have put the seafood just before I put the paella in the oven.It took us 2 hours to cook but then I am a slow cutter. Hopefully it will take less time next time. A great success - yum!!!

Mishaps in the Kitchen

Recent "unsuccessful" stints in the kitchen

I had some fresh creme in the fridge that I wanted to use so I decided to make pannacotta, one of my favourite desert. Unfortunately, no vanilla bean or normal gelatin.. so had to make do with orange blossom flavouring and green gelatin.. yes green.... It turned out okay... just a little more gelatin next time I think...*sadly* if it weren’t green it would have been more yummy!

Next time I want to try Bills' recipe of rose yoghurt pannacotta... bought lovely vanilla beans yesterday... expensive but well worth it - smells divine!

Great pannacottas so far:

- Brunetti's vanilla pannacotta with white and brown chocolate – yummy!

- Grosso Florentino's rose pannacotta

Last night, I made fried calamari and prawn rocket salad with garlic & rosemary angel-hair yesterday… man did I splatter when I fried the seafood! Hmm.. should have separated the egg dip and takoyaki powder (yes I used left over takoyaki flour !) It was a funny sight! But it turned out quite yummy!! HAPPY!

Barbecued Prawns with a Fresh Green Salad

Took this out of a spam I received. Sounds yummy! Great for a lovely outdoor dinner party.

Ingredients:
2 tbs fresh lemon juice
1 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs olive oil
4 kaffir lime leaves, deveined, finely shredded crossways
2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 small fresh red chillies, deseeded, chopped
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 kg (about 12) large green king prawns, peeled leaving head and tail intact, deveined
2 tbs roughly chopped fresh coriander
Green salad, to serve
Lemon wedges, to serve (optional)

1. Combine the lemon juice, fish sauce, oil, lime leaves, garlic and chillies in a large ceramic or glass bowl. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Add the prawns and toss gently until the prawns are coated in the marinade. Cover and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to marinate.

3. Heat a barbecue grill or chargrill on high. Cook the prawns in batches of 3-4 on preheated grill (depending on available space), brushing with the marinade, for 2-3 minutes each side or until they change colour, curl and shells are browned. Place the cooked prawns on a plate and cover loosely with foil to keep warm while cooking the remaining prawns.

4. Place the prawns on serving plates, sprinkle with the coriander and salad and serve immediately with the lemon wedges if desired.

Conversation with Sis "Master Chef"

Email to Sis:

The favour was fantastic, just right! Do you have the recipe?? Can I
share it on my blog??

Message from Sis:

And it even has heaps of eggplant in it too! [I don't really like the taste of Eggplant - KC] Can you believe that there is only about 1 teaspoon of salt in the white sauce and there's no salt in the rest of the lasagne? The salt comes from the bacon I added in the meat sauce and the cheese on top.

You can put it in your blog but I don't have any quantities cos it depends on how much you make. I just do it by ear. I'll give it a go anyway:

Grilled eggplant:
sliced eggplant
olive oil
paprika
rosemary

Brush eggplant slices with oil and dust with paprika and rosemary. Grill
until soft. Put aside.

Slice tomatoes for layering.

Meat sauce:
mince beef
diced bacon, capsicum (I didn't add it in cos I was lazy but I think it
would taste nice), onion and mushroom
minced garlic
italian herbs
paprika
chilis
canned tomato
tomato paste
stock (beef or vege)
water
pepper


Cook all dry ingredients and then add the wet ones. Set aside.

White sauce:
butter
plain flour
sour cream
milk
nutmeg
salt & pepper

Melt butter and add flour and cook almost to a paste consistency (use a
whisk). Add in sour cream and thin it out by adding milk. Add nutmeg,
salt and pepper. Set aside.

Layer sheets of lasagne pasta first in baking dish. Then put layer of
meat sauce, then tomatoes, then eggplant and then white sauce. Another
layer of pasta, meat sauce etc. End with pasta and enough white sauce
to cover the pasta REALLY well. That's important. If you don't, the top
pasta will be crunchy and uncooked. Top it all off with some sort of
cheese (tasty, mozarella, cheddar).

Put it in if you like. The trick is to make sure the eggplant is cooked
through before you put it into the lasagne.

My favourite Japanese dish

It may be strange but everytime I go to Japan, I have to order Mentaiko Spagetti This is usually a wafu cafe/izakaya dish. Mentaiko is walleye pollack roe pickled with salt and chili powder. This Hakata specialty was inspired by Korean daily cuisine, and is now appreciated and enjoyed all over Japan.

The preparation of this dish is very simple. Cook your spagetti the way you like it. Cut unsalted dried seaweed into thin slices (sometimes you can buy pre-sliced dried seaweed). Remove the mentaiko from its protective skin, use 1/4 to half piece for each serving. After the spagetti is cooked, put the mentaiko onto the spagetti, and then the dried seaweed. Mix well and serve with roasted sesame seeds.

So far, I haven't seen fresh mentaiko available in Melbourne, but there are prepackaged Mentaiko mix available from Japanese and Chinese groceries. My favourite brand is "Mama" - they are not tight on the mentaiko ! With this prepackaged mix, you simply cook the spagetti and put the mentaiko and dried seaweed strips over it.

For a gourmet mentaiko spagetti dish, you can add your selection of seafood by stir-frying the cooked spagetti with the seafood in olive oil for a few minutes. Then put the mentaiko and seaweed on the seafood spagetti.