Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

We made this when we were desperate to get rid of the frozen salmon fillets that we bought from Ikea. Please don’t ask me why I decided that it was a good idea to buy frozen Nordic salmon fillets instead of perfectly fresh Tasmanian salmon. And no, they were not good. They were kinda terrible compared to the fresh Tasmanian salmon you can get at the market. But at least I learned, right?

Once again this is an impromptu dinner – frozen salmon to get rid off, tick. Spaghetti, tick. Lemons we got a heap of from my father-in-law’s garden, tick. Butter from the fridge, tick. Parsley growing out in our herb pots, tick. Four Ingredients can kiss my butt.

Fishy dinner for two (and a bit of leftover):

1. 2 salmon fillets at room temperature
2. zest and juice of a small lemon
3. About 50g butter
4. salt & pepper
5. 3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
6. 2 serves of cooked pasta

Preheat the oven to 200′c. Add butter, lemon juice, lemon zest and lots of salt and pepper to a baking tin.  Place in the oven until the butter is melted. Add the fish fillet and turn over a few times. Bake for about 10 minutes or until cooked to your liking. I like them a bit pink in the middle.

Mean while, cook your pasta. Drain and add the buttery, lemony salmon to the pasta and toss through. Add chopped parsley and season to taste if required.

Last time this year I made: Insalata di Strada (Italian Street Salad)

Book: Mediterranean Street Food by Anissa Helou Theme: Hor d’oeuvre Recipe: Stuffed Mussels

And we’re up to Week 3 of the Cookbook Challenge already! The theme is hor d’oeuvre. Not a word I can spell without help, to be perfectly honest. Nor am I so much of a finger food person either. But one day I was flipping through a few of my ‘street food’ type books and figured hey I could just work on that angle.

Slightly fiddly – having to make the stuffing and cooking the mussels but the effort is well worth it. It was so good. I suspect the key reason was that I had some truly good mussels. These are the Spring Bay mussels (their mussel fact sheet is a good read) I bought from a fish monger at Queen Victoria Market. I have to go back to the market every week for my seafood.

Mediterranean Street Food: what a great book. It’s all black & white and very few pictures but the travelling stories and the recipes are well worth reading from cover to cover. That’s a hall mark of a good book: the ability to read from cover to cover and not get bored. Josh bought me this book as a birthday present last year. I love it.

As usual I changed the recipe a bit to suit what I have on hands but the gist of it is still the same. It’s well worth the effort to source the best live mussels you can find. You need large-ish mussels to be able to stuff successfully. I had 20 mussels for 1/2 kg. That’s the size that’s perfect for the amount of stuffing I have given here. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

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.

This comes about as an emergency lunch as we have nothing left in the house and we were too hungry to go shopping. I always have some Ikea meatballs hanging around in the fridge because they make really good spaghetti meatballs. I also have a packet of the Ikea instant meatball sauce lying around so I give this dish a whirl.

Parsley Rice

1. 1 cup of long grain rice
2. 3 cups of filtered water
3. 2 tbsp of chopped fresh parsley

Wash the rice thoroughly until the water runs clear. The reason for this is to get rid of excess starch. We are going to serve this rice with a saucy dish so you want nice and fluffy rice that does not stick together.

Bring water to boil, add the rice and stir. Keep boiling for ten minutes. Stir every 20-30 seconds for the first few minutes or so to prevent the rice from the stick to the bottom. Stir occasionally after that. After 10 minutes, drain the rice. Add the parsley, stir through and cover for a few more minutes before serving.

Ikea Meatballs and Cream Sauce

Bring to boil a cup of milk, add three tbsp of sour cream. Add the half a packet of the Ikea Meatball cream sauce and whisk vigorously until the sauce is smooth. Add additional water if the sauce is too thick. Add the frozen Ikea meatballs to the sauce. Bring to boil then simmer for 10 minutes on low.

That’s it. Didn’t I mention it’s an emergency lunch?

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

This is also known as What To Do When You Still Have Leftover Roast Lamb.

If you think the ingredients are a bit questionable, just so you know, this soup is totally in the spirit of desperate food day. I basically start off by tossing the leftover leg of lamb (there wasn’t much left of it), bone and all, into a boiling pot of water and let it stew for about 20 minutes and went from there.

This is literally what happened/my line of thoughts:

• ‘Hmm. Oh! I have corn. That really needs to be used up! They make soup out of corn cobs in Singapore.’ *chop up corn cob into 4 pieces and toss into the pot*
• *consult cookbook for Lamb and Chickpea Soup* ‘Oh they add canned tomatoes and parsley’ *add a can of diced tomatoes and a handful of chopped parsley*
• *find some carrots* ‘Oooh, let’s toss that in’ *chop up and toss in a carrot*
• ‘Maybe something starchy? Oh yeah, I have potatoes!’ *toss in a skin-on, cubed potato*
• ‘Should probably tear the meat of the lamb leg…’ *fish out the lamb leg and shred out the leftover meat, return the meat back to the soup*
• *taste* ‘Hmm, that doesn’t taste very much’ *add a vegetable stock cube*
• *taste* ‘That still doesn’t taste very much’ *add salt and pepper*
• *taste* ‘I think it needs spices. Oh damn. The spice collection is two years old’ *rummage around in the fridge and find instant Japanese curry roux blocks, toss two small blocks into the soup*
• *taste* ‘Hey! Not bad! Need more tomatoey flavour though.’ *add a tbsp of tomato paste, leave to simmer 15 more minutes.

It really wasn’t bad. Seriously.

Note: the ‘spicy’ bit in the title is a total lie. The words Japanese curry and spicy do not belong together in a sentence. Ever. But I would totally have added some coriander, cumin and cayenne pepper if I had any.

In reference to the challenge, I settled on butchering Jamie Oliver’s courgette carbonara from his Jamie at Home book. Well, I have to make do, don’t I? I have previously talked about making carbonara but I figure it’s worth repeating.

I chop up a green, medium sized zucchini, two cloves of garlic and two rashers of bacon. I put about 2 cups of wholemeal penne* in boiling water.

Meanwhile, I slowly fry off the garlic and bacon in a little bit of olive oil and butter. I mix together 1/3 cup of cream, 3 eggs and a big handful of grated parmasan cheese with a bit of salt and pepper. As zucchini is pretty fast to cook, I add the slices into the bacon/garlic mixture after the bacon fat has been fried off quite nicely. I toss the zucchini in and cook until it’s golden.

I then drain my pasta (which by now should be cooked) and toss that into the bacon/zucchini mixture and stir around until the pasta has absorbed all the sauce and become hot. I then turn the heat off and stir in the egg/cream/cheese mixture and toss around until I get a nice carbonara consistency.

I have some fresh parsley so I chop some up and threw them in last minute. It’s not the flowering thyme Jamie has asked for, but I think it will do nicely.

Note: I have found that wholemeal pasta tastes pretty much the same as the white pasta so I have taken to buying wholemeal pasta where available. However, I find that in a dish delicately flavoured as this carbonara, it’s better to stick with white pasta. Also remember that wholemeal pasta takes longer to cook. I have been caught out undercooking wholemeal pasta once. Never doing that again!