Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

I totally have a sick fascination with cleaning out squid. I never buy pre-cleaned squid tubes or rings. There is no fun in that. I like to buy a whole squid from a fish monger and then clean it out myself. I like the sliminess of ink sacs, cardboardy backbone and half-digested fish.

Anyway, enough about my ridiculous seafood habit. Yes I started this post ages back and no now is not the time. While we are back to the normal aesthetically pleasant white background, I bring bad news. My grandmother is really unwell so I’m off to Thailand for a week or for as long as it takes. Good news is I will be surrounded by family and all the lovely Thai food but bad news is it won’t be a good family moment.

I leave you with a simple, classic Thai dish since I have written most of it before now anyway:

Serves 1 or 2 as shared meal

1. 1 fresh squid, cleaned and sliced into bite-sized pieces
2. 2 large cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
3. 2 large cloves of garlic (again)
4. 1/2 tsp of white peppercorn
5. 2 fresh coriander roots, cleaned
6. 1 tbsp of fish sauce
7. a pinch of sugar
8. 2 tbsp of coriander leaves, chopped

Fry the sliced garlic in some oil until golden. Set aside. Pound the rest of the garlic, peppercorn, coriander into a paste. Heat oil in a wok until smoking, add the garlic/coriander/pepper paste and stir fry for half a minute. Add the squid, stir. Add fish sauce and sugar and stir fry for about another minute. Sprinkle with coriander leaves and crunchy garlic.

Be back when I’m back.

I am totally going through an asparagus phase at the moment. Every market I go to, they’re selling beautifully fresh, plump asparagus. Who am I to refuse these little beauties?

This soup was adapted from Skye Gyngell’s My Favourite Ingredients, which is really a beautiful cookbook. She writes cookbooks like she writes poetry. It’s great. As Skye said, this recipe is more like a wet, sloppy risotto rather than a soup. It is substantial for dinner.

Hearty Soup for 2:

1. 8 fat asparagus, tough parts peeled back and chopped into 3 cm pieces
2. 1.5 cups of risotto rice
3. 1 spanish onion, finely chopped
4. 3 slices of mild pancetta (about 80g), chopped
5. 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
6. 3 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked
7. 5 fresh sage leaves, chopped
8. 2 slices of dried porcini or 2 dried shittake mushrooms
9. 750 ml of hot water + 1/2 cube of Massel vegetable stock + 1 tsp of Vegeta Gourmet stock*
10. a pinch of salt and pepper
11. parmesan, shaved to serve

Heat up 1 tbsp of olive oil and slowly fry off the onion, pancetta, sage and thyme for about 10 minutes on low heat until the onion turns clear and translucent. Add salt, rice and garlic and fry until the rice is too hot to touch. Add the stock and dried mushrooms and bring to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add asparagus and bring back to boil for another 2 minutes. Turn off the heat.

Serve with freshly cracked pepper and shaved parmasan.

* Or use whatever light (vegetable/chicken) stock you have. I rarely do my own stock but I have started a freezer bag of off cut vegetables so once that’s full I might do up a batch of fresh stock.

This is one of those incredibly easy Thai dishes to make. It’s one of those dishes I make when I basically can’t be bothered. The original version uses yellow bean sauce but since I’m so in love with the Chinese chilli bean sauce, I used that here.  It’s also easy to omit the oyster sauce and turn it into a vegetarian dish. Serve with rice. I have never tried substituting this recipe with other types of basil but I can’t imagine they will work.

1. 1 eggplant, cut into 3cm  cubes
2. 3 tbsp of vegetable oil
3. 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
4. 1 red chilli, sliced
5. 1 green chilli, sliced
6. 4 stems of Thai basil, leaves picked
7. 1 tbsp of oyster sauce
8. 1 tbsp of chilli bean sauce
9. 1 tsp of tomato ketchup*

Heat up the oil until hot, add the eggplant pieces and stir-fried quickly. Turn the heat down slightly and keep frying until the eggplant is browned, soft and silky. Add a little of water if it becomes too dry. This takes about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and chilli and stir for a minute or so. Add the sauces and a bit of water if necessary. Add the basil leaves and turn off the heat.

* I use tomato sauce instead of sugar to round off the flavours in stronger-flavoured dishes. The tomato won’t come through, neither will the sweetness but you’ll taste the difference.

Just to prove to you how seriously behind in my blog posting I am, I would like to draw your attention to my Mother’s Day Roast Lamb post. Now you might also recall that Mother’s Day is actually in May here in Australia. Just before, I bought a whole leg of lamb (because the butcher wouldn’t sell me half) so I had the other half chucked into the freezer.

Less than a month later, I roasted the other half and turned it into this very blog post. Yay.

I got this idea from Tessa Kiros’ first book Falling Cloudberries, which is one of my favourite food books of all time. She had the idea to slow roast the lamb with lots and lots of lemon and oregano with potatoes and it sounded delicious so I gave it a go and it was a bit of a hit. Even the Kiwi visitors thought it was all right!

Lemon and Oregano Lamb:

1. Half a leg of leg
2. 1 tbsp of dried oregano
3. 2 lemons
4. 50 g. of butter
5. Salt and pepper to taste
6. Drizzles of olive oil

Preheat the oven to 220′c Stab the leg of lamb with a little knife. Season with plenty of salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Drizzle over some olive oil and massage the lamb with a bit of love. Sprinkle the oregano and squeeze the lemon juice all over the leg. Cut up the butter into little cubes and dot it on the lamb.

Place the lamb on a baking tray and pour a bit of water at the bottom of the making tray (about 1 cm). Bake for about 2.5 hours. Turn the heat down to 180′c after 15 minutes. Keep topping up water if necessary.

Garlic and Yoghurt Sauce

1. 1 cup of Greek style yoghurt
2. 1 small clove of garlic, crushed
3. generous pinch of salt
4. a drizzle of olive oil

Combine the garlic, yoghurt and salt togther. Drizzle with olive oil.

(Josh’s wrap, see how he lines everything up? Aww bless his cotton socks)

Salad

1. Cos lettuce (or any crunch lettuce)
2. Spanish onion
3. Cucumber
4. Flat-leaf parsley (important, don’t skip)
5. Tomato

To serve, warm up some pita bread in the oven (wrap in foil and then place in the oven with the lamb at the end for about 10 minutes). Place some salad and lamb on the pita bread and drizzle with garlic & yoghurt sauce. Dig in.

This dish is based on the recipe from Jamie Oliver’s Happy Days with the Naked Chef book. Have I mentioned I absolutely love Jamie Oliver? Maybe not.

(served with soft polenta)

It was quite easy to make. Basically, you put two chicken breasts with various ingredients in a foil bag and bake them in the oven until it’s nice and juicy.

For two people, you’ll need:

1. 2 chicken breasts – about 500 g. (if they are skin on, use less butter)
2. 4 button mushrooms, sliced
3. 4 Swiss brown mushrooms, sliced
4. 3 dried porcini mushroom slices
5. 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
6. 1 tbsp of butter
7. 4-5 sprigs of thyme
8. 1/3 cup of white wine
9. 1/2 tsp of Vegeta gourmet stock powder
10. Good pinches of salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 220′c. Line a baking dish with two pieces of foil (about the size of a shoe box). Place chicken breasts on the foil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, stock powder, garlic and thyme leaves. Top with butter, mushroom slices and pour the wine over the chicken and mushrooms. Fold the rest of the foil over the chicken to cover them and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes. Check the chicken breasts half way through and turn them over so they cook evenly.

I served them with polenta which was just cooked in vegetable stock with butter and grated parmasan added to it. Simply cook 1 cup of polenta according to packet instructions and add butter and cheese.

This is my Garlic Prawns #2. I usually do this in a microwave but it’s perfectly acceptable to do it on a stove stop. Less washing up with the microwave, that’s all.

For two people as a starter:

1. 10 large prawns, peeled and deveined (or however many you want to eat)
2. 2 large cloves of garlic, finely sliced
3. 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil
4. 2 good pinches of salt
5. 2 good pinches of cracked black pepper
6. 1/2 tsp of chilli flakes
7. 3 tbsp of chopped fresh parsley

Heat up the olive oil in a microwave-safe bowl on high for 1 minute. Add chopped garlic and continue cooking on high for 30 seconds. Add prawns to the garlic oil, cook for 30 seconds. Turn the prawns over. Add salt, pepper and chilli flakes. Mix. Cook for another 30 seconds. Turn the prawns over again and add fresh parsley. Cook for another 30 seconds.

It’s important you prepare your ingredients ahead of time so you can keep adding each ingredient when the time is required. Don’t overcook the prawns. I overcooked mine a bit because I kept taking pictures and wasn’t prepared well in advance. Be very careful with hot oil when you handle the bowl.

Serve with fresh warm Turkish bread. Or you can even toss through pasta. That works well too.

I can’t believe I’m posting this late and I have plans early tomorrow later today morning.

I usually do two types of garlic prawns, one with creamy, garlicky sauce with pasta and another with olive oil sauce to be eaten with bread tapas style. I love them both. I bought some nice prawns the other day and so I made two separate batches of garlic prawns.

This post deals with the creamy saucey, pasta one.

You’ll need, for two people:

1. 8 large prawns, peeled and deveined (or however many you decide to eat)
2. 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
3. 1/2 onion, very finely diced
4. 1/3 cup of white wine
5. 1/2 cup of cream
6. A slice of butter*
7. 1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
8. 1/2 chicken stock cube
9. 3 tbsp of chopped fresh parsley
10. 1 tsp of plain flour
11. Spaghetti, fettucine, etc.  or cooked rice to serve

Put butter and olive oil in a small frying pan on medium heat, add onion and fry very gently until the onion softens. Add the garlic and prawns. Stir. Fry till the prawns colour, turn the prawns over. This shouldn’t take more than a minute on each side. Add the chicken stock cube and wine. Stir to dissolve the stock cubes and the wine evaporates. Add the cream and heat until the cream bubbles.

Take the flour and sprinkle them with your finger onto the sauce, bit by bit (to avoid the flour forming lumps) until the sauce reaches the desired consistency. Add water if necessary.

Serve on top on cooked pasta or rice and sprinkle with parsley and freshly cracked pepper.

* A slice of butter = a normal 250g block of butter sliced cross-wise 2.5mm thick

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

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I think I may have to make this whole roast thing a weekend staple – although for this particular instance it’s an early Mother’s Day celebration for Lyn – except she likes her meat cremated and I cannot go past medium rare! But she did seem to like the coconut slice I made for her.

So the roast potatoes are basically the same as the roast potatoes in the previous roast chicken post. The carrots, peas and cauliflowers are just steamed in the steamer – add the carrots first and the peas last.

Let’s talk about the lamb. I bought a full leg of lamb from the butcher but that was way too big so I asked him to cut the leg in half and chucked the other half in the freezer (probably more roast next weekend!). The favourite lamb flavouring is of course rosemary and garlic. I’m left with 1 kg of lamb on the bone. Plenty for 5-6 people. We end up with a lot of leftover.

First things first, preheat your oven to 200′C.

Slice an onion and a carrot thickly and line up a baking tray with them. Smash up some garlic cloves (maybe 4-5) and scatter them around as well.

Start with making some incisions in the lamb leg so you can insert some garlic slivers (I use about three cloves) and rosemary. On go the salt & pepper and a bit of olive oil. Give everything a bit of a rub. Then stud the incisions with garlic and rosemary. Turn it over and do the same on the other side.

Into the oven for about 1 3/4 hours at 200 ‘c with the fan on for medium.

If the onion/carrots are starting to burn, add a bit of water to the tray. When you have about 1/2 hour to go, put your potatoes in. See how to roast potatoes.

And the gravy. Again see the last post on gravy.

Leave the lamb to rest for about 10 minutes before carving it up.

Plate it up! Happy Mother’s Day! (Although my family doesn’t celebrate Mother’s Day in May – we do it in August)