Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

I made this last week and I’m having a hard time trying to remember how I made it! I always order Vegetable Biryani at Indian restaurants and they are always so yummy and buttery and somehow I haven’t been able to replicate that. I guess I’m not game enough to put in more oil and butter! But also I don’t cook the hell out of my vegetables the way it’s done (properly I guess) because I like the crispness in the veggies. So feel free cut them in smaller pieces and cook them for longer if you like softer veggies.

Roughly, from my hazy memory, I use (for four):

Garnish

1. 1 onion, sliced
2. 1/2 cup of cashew nuts
3. 2 tbsp sultanas
4. 2 tbsp of vegetable oil

Rice

1. 1 cup of basmati rice, rinsed well to get rich of excess starch
2. 1 tsp of turmeric powder (I’m unemployed and cannot afford saffron!)
3. 1 tbsp of vegetable oil

Vegetables and Sauce

1. 1/2 broccoli florets and stems, sliced into bite-sized pieces
2. 1/2 cup of cauliflower florets and stems, sliced into bite-sized pieces
3. 1 small carrots, cut into chip size
4. 5 long beans, sliced
5. 5 button mushrooms, cut into thick slices
6. 1/3 cup of frozen peas
7. 1/2 cup yoghurt
8. 1 tbsp of crushed ginger
9. 2 cloves of crushed garlic
10. 1 star anise
11. 5 cloves
12. 5 green cardamon pods
13. 2 sticks of cinnamon
14. 3 dried bay leaves
15. 1 tsp garam masala
16. 1 tsp Vegeta vegetable stock dissolved in 1/2 cup of hot water
17. 2 tbsp of butter

First things first, we need to make the fried onion garnish. Fry the onion slices in low-medium heat in the vegetable oil until it’s very brown. Set aside. Leave the leftover oil in the frying pan. Read the rest of this entry »

I generally don’t order Butter Chicken when I eat at Indian restaurants here in Melbourne because I get the impression that they are westernised rubbish. And they generally are. Until I went to Bombay By Night in Caulfield who did a really nice Butter Chicken. I realised then that the main difference is that the chicken pieces must be marinated and grilled before putting them into the butter and tomato sauce. They called it Chicken Makhani. I then realise that generally the restaurants that call it Makhani make better Butter Chicken that others! Strange but true.

I consulted many, many Butter Chicken recipes out there on the web and I decided that the one on VideoJug seems to be most authentic one. But it seems a little bit too fiddly so I add my own short cuts here and there.

There are two parts to the Butter Chicken: the Chicken Tikka and the Makhani sauce. Yes it does make it fiddly but it is very good!

Chicken Tikka

I use (for four people):

1. 4 chicken thigh fillets (about 450 g.)
2. 1/2 pack of Patak’s Coat + Cook Tikka (I thought I might give it a try but it’s not really necessary)
3. 2 tbsp of yoghurt
4. 1 tsp of crushed ginger (I use garlic crusher)
5. 1 clove of garlic, crushed
6. 1 tsp salt
7. 1/2 tsp powdered garam masala
8. a sprinkle of hot cayenne pepper (it’s very hot so I went a bit easy on it)

Trim off any excess fat on the thigh. Mix the rest of the ingredients together to make the marinade. Add the chicken to the marinade and massage the marinade into the chicken. Leave to marinate for about 1/2 hour. Grill under medium/high grill until browned on both sides. It takes about 10 minutes on each side on my grill.

Makhani Sauce

Read the rest of this entry »

I based this on  Kylie Kwong’s recipe in her My China book – it didn’t really turn out the way I thought it would be. It’s a bit plain on its own so it’s best served as a side dish. The recipe was called stir-fried rice noodles with bean sprouts and ginger but it, strangely enough, didn’t contain any ginger in it!

Instead of normal mung bean sprouts, I use the soy bean sprouts – I like the nutty flavour that it has and it makes the dish a little bit more substantial. I start by adding a bit of oil to a very hot wok and stir fry the soy bean sprouts with a little bit of salt. The soy bean sprouts will take substantially longer than normal bean sprouts to cook. I just keep tasting it as I go along. Add a little bit of water, if necessary.

Once the sprouts are cooked, add 1 tbsp of chopped ginger, 2 tbsp of soy sauce, 1 tbsp of sugar, 1 tbsp of oyster sauce and 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar. Add the rice noodles and stir quickly until the noodles are coated with the sauce. Have a quick taste and adjust the flavour as necessary.

Push the noodles aside, add a bit of oil and crack an egg onto the hot bit of oil. Let the egg set for about 1/2 a minute before scrambling the eggs into the noodles. Sprinkle the noodles with 3 tbsp of chopped coriander leaves and 1 tbsp of chopped spring onions.

Serve as a side dish. I had it as a main dish and I think it would be better off alongside something else.

I decided that for my,  err, 21st birthday (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it), we need a bit of nice pub grub, lots of beers and karaoke. All of this can be found at Coopers Inn in the city.

For starter, I had the Greek Salad ($4.00). There’s not much to say about it except it’s a bit of green. It breaks the Greek salad rule more than I ever did by including spinach, rocket and had not a single piece of tomato or cucumber in sight. So basically more like green salad with feta and olives. But it was something that went down very nicely as a starter with a glass of Asahi.

Most of my friends went straight into main meal (I didn’t manage to take a picture of everyone’s meals, only a few people).

Josh (and three others) ordered the Crispy Skinned Atlantic Salmon ($16.90) which was salmon fillet pan fried with crispy skin on a bed of mashed potatoes and steamed bok choy and topped with avocado salsa. The fish was nicely cooked and went well with the salsa and the mash. It was very popular and everyone who ordered it really enjoyed it. Read the rest of this entry »

No recipe here. I just used the pre-packed Homebrand chocolate cake mix with some added melted cooking chocolate. I have to say, it’s totally rubbish. I dust them with icing sugar to make them feel more palatable!

This is basically the easiest chicken stew in the world. I hope so anyway. I made this once for a friend who was very impressed with it and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it’s just fried chicken with canned tomato soup.

This is for two people (plus leftovers):

1. 2 pieces of chicken maryland, cut into drumsticks and thigh pieces
2. 1 can of condensed tomato soup*
3. 1 onion, chopped
4. 2 small carrots, chopped
5. 3 small potatoes, cubed
6. 1 can of champignon (optional), drained and rinsed

Take a large non-stick frying pan and drizzle it with a tiny bit of oil. You won’t need a lot of oil at all because the chicken pieces will render more fat. Trim off any excess fat on the chicken pieces. Read the rest of this entry »

This is very yummy. If I may say so myself. And it’s fabulously easy. I base it on the master muffin recipe in Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion.

This makes 12 mini muffins or 6 standard-sized muffins.

Standard sweet muffin batter

1. 220 g. self-raising flour
2. 1/2 cup of raw sugar
3. 3/4 cup milk
4. 3/4 cup of vegetable oil
5. 1 egg
6. butter to grease

Blueberry and walnut muffin addition

1. 150 g. frozen blueberries
2. 2 tbsp walnut, lightly crushed

Basically, you can use the standard muffin batter and add any ingredients you want. Stephenie recommends 150 g. of berries, if you’re making a berry muffin. And I added 2 tbsp of walnut for the texture and this proportion works out well. Read the rest of this entry »

I love Greek Salad. I was watching Food Safari season 1 on DVD the other day and the guy was going on about how you shouldn’t have lettuce in Greek Salad. Well, he is Greek and I am not.

But this is my Greek Salad. So nuts to him! Bwahahaha!

Salad Ingredients (for two):

1. 2 leaves of cos lettuce (I do agree that you need the crunch though, so no iceberg, oak, etc. for me)
2. 2 very ripe, small-ish tomatoes
3. 1/4 Spanish onion, sliced thinly, soaked in lightly salted water for 15 minutes*
4. 12 small Kalamatta olives
5. 1/2 Lebanese cucumber, half-stripped and sliced
6. 50 g. of feta cheese (I use goat cheese here though)
7. 1 inner stalk of celery, including the tender inner leaves, sliced**
8. a very light sprinkling of dried oregano

Read the rest of this entry »

Is what I call this breakfast. I always like a bit of nice cooked breakfast on the weekend.

It’s made up of:

1. 2 scrambled eggs
2. fried tomato
3. buttered spinach and pinenuts
4. mushrooms
5. toasted sourdough corn bread

Start by putting a little bit of butter in the non-stick frying pan and add mushrooms. On one side, add two tomato halves, cut side up. Keep moving the mushrooms and tomato around until the mushroom is browned. Turn the tomato halves over. Remove the mushrooms. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, I admit it, it’s autumn and not spring here in Melbourne and the asparagus comes from Peru. But I just got some really nice marinated goat cheese from Jenny which goes so well with my spring risotto recipe!

(marinated goat cheese)

Risotto is totally one of those comfort food and this is my favourite risotto. It has that clean, simple flavour that goes down really well after a tiring day.

So you start by making the base, risotto bianco. You will need (for two):

1. 1 cup of risotto rice (I use arborio)
2. 1/2 onion, finely chopped
3. 1 celery stick, finely chopped
4. 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
5. 1/4 cup of white wine
6. 1.5 litre of hot vegetable stock Read the rest of this entry »