Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

I had this a few times at Thai’s Vietnamese family meals. I loved these DIY rolls. It’s totally one of those really awesome communal eating occasions that I love so much. The idea is you prepare all the salads, noodles and sauce and get everyone to help themselves with the rolls. Genius. Entertain guests without lots of efforts. Amount of ingredients listed here are for abou4 people.

(my roll. nom nom)

There are quite a few combinations of these rice paper rolls. Beef and onion rice paper rolls go with nuoc cham sauce. Simple boiled, sliced pork, cooked prawns or steamed fish go well with the hoisin/peanut sauce. I quite like the beef & onion combination a little more so I make that a bit more often. Read the rest of this entry »

Hopefully everyone has realised by now that good food is all about love. The food is only as good as the love and care that has gone into it. It’s not about how exclusive and trendy the restaurant is, or how many types of purees there are on the food or how artful it is.

Why is this the best lasagna in the world? It’s because it’s made by one of the person who loves me the most in the world. And, that, is worth everything.

Josh first made this for me about three dates into our relationship. That was the day I distinctly remember as the day I totally fell in love with him. It was a lovely summer day, his plum trees were full of red plump fruits, the sky was bright blue, his roses were in full bloom and the bees were going crazy on the flowers, and I had the best comfort food in the world, lasagna, without the luxury of having an Italian mother.

This is the way Josh makes his lasagna:

He would heat up a tablespoon or so of olive oil, to which he would add half an onion that has been carefully diced. He then adds two chopped rindless bacon.  He would slowly cook it until the onion goes all soft and translucent and the bacon slightly coloured. Then, he would take about 300 g. of good minced beef (not the fatty horrible supermarket one) and two cloves of crushed garlic and add that to the mix.

He would stir until the mince browns and all the juice evaporates. He would add a can of diced tomatoes and two tablespoons of tomato paste (he usually buys those sachet ones that individually contain two tablespoons per serve).

He would then pick leaves from two or three sprigs of fresh oregano and add to the mince sauce.  Sometimes he would put other fresh herbs in. He likes to grow rosemary, sage and thyme together because the combination amuses him (greensleeves, geddit?) When we have some fresh parsley growing, usually in summer, or I bought a bunch from the market, he would chop a handful of parsley stalks in, reserving the leaves for later.

He would then turn the heat down to simmer and let it stew over for twenty minutes. This is where patience comes in. He doesn’t rush. There’s no rushing, no shortcuts to good food for him. He would give it a stir once in a while but mostly just let it sit there, bubbling.

After twenty minutes, he would chop up the reserved parsley leaves and add that to sauce and stir it through. He would get his old faithful glass baking dish and spoon the mince sauce onto the bottom of the baking dish and layer instant lasagna sheets on, ensuring every inch of the sauce is covered, breaking off bits of the sheet if he has to. He would repeat this until the baking dish fills up. There’s no bechamel sauce. No creme fraiche. No cheese in between the layers. Just the mince sauce that had been patiently stewed until it’s just right and the pasta sheets.

He would cut a few slices from a ball of good quality mozzarella cheese, not a fresh white ball, the normal pale cream diseccated one that you get from a deli (or a supermarket with good selection of cheese) and top off the last layer of the lasagna. He would grate a thing sprinkling of parmesan cheese as well. There’s no buying of pregrated icky supermarket cheese, of course.

He would then carefully cover it with a layer of foil, then off it goes into the oven at 180′ c for another good twenty minutes. He would then uncover the lasagna and turn the heat up to 220′c and bake for another ten minutes until the cheese is golden brown.

He would then cut up a good section and plonk a good portion of it for his hungry wife (who would usually be very hungry by now because he needs at least two hours to ‘make it properly’) Sometimes he would do up a nice green salad with various ingredients that take his fancy (I once discovered strawberries and pineapple in his ‘green’ salad, ‘it’s half way fruit salad, isn’t it awesome?’) to go alongside the lasagna.

There’s always leftovers to take to work the next day.

Last post on my Central Australia trip. Yay! Are you guys bored of reading about it yet?

(Bush food – an Aboriginal survival presentation at Alice Springs Desert Park)

We spent the last two nights in Alice Springs before travelling back to Melbourne. We drove from Alice Springs to Adelaide (yes in one day) before a stop over in Adelaide and then back to Melbourne the next day. I don’t think I can ever drive that much in one day again.

(Joshua’s kinda carbonara)

Just some quick pictures of a few meals that we cooked ourselves in Alice Springs as we were back to having a fully equipped kitchen. We did a round of fresh food shopping at Coles in Alice Springs, which was rather big and very stocked.

(the carbonara sauce, recipe here)

Josh made spaghetti carbonara, his usual way with mushrooms and capsicum. We had it for lunch back at the apartment one day.

I made stir-fried beef with onion, chilli and snow peas (recipe here, just add snow peas).

The snow peas were nice at the supermarket so I bought them instead of green beans. I served it with rice and omelet soup.

(omelet soup)

Omelet soup!?! Yep. Omelet soup. I might talk about it sometime later to include recipe but now is not the time.

Also made some more pasta sauce (with broccoli, zucchini, olives, bacon and capsicum) using the Leggo’s stir-through sauce for lunch on the road.

(rock wallaby)

And that concludes most of the foods that had been consumed during my time away from home! I shall leave you with some pictures of a cute rock wallaby at the Heavitree Gap resort in Alice Springs and Adelaide’s West Beach.

More Melbourne eating from now on!

Quick as flash lunch, this one. I usually get the budget porterhouse cut for all my stir-fries.

For one, you’ll need:

1. 100 g. of budget porterhouse steak, sliced
2. a handful of green beans
3. 1 red chilli, sliced (be careful, some red chillis you get at Safeway are ridiculously spicy nowadays)
4. 1/2 onion, sliced length-wise
5. 1 tbsp fish sauce
6. 1 tbsp oyster sauce
7. a pinch of sugar

Heat your wok really nice and hot and add a tablespoon of cooking oil. Throw in your beef, onion, and green beans. Stir quickly and keep the food moving (heat remains the highest you can get) for about 2-3 minutes. Add the chilli, sauces and sugar and a bit of water if required. I like the green beans a bit firm. If they are very fresh (and you should only buy them if they are fresh and crunchy), it’s okay to slightly undercook them.

Serve with freshly cooked rice.