Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

A short and sweet post about one of my current favourite pasta recipes. This has become one of our favourite Summer dishes over the past weeks. It’s a warm pasta dish and there’s not much cooking required. Excellent for one of those hot days that you don’t want to do much cooking but a salad is just not substantial enough. Unfortunately I can’t claim credit for its recipe. This is one of the recipes from one of my magazines I’m subscribed to this year and it’s a really good one. Of course you can use any pasta but I find the short pasta works much better.

Pasta for Two (and maybe leftover for the lunchbox the next day)

1. 10 green prawns, shelled
2. About 10 cherry tomatoes, halved
3. 1/4 Spanish onion, very thinly sliced
4. 1 chorizo (from the deli but I’m sure fresh works as well), thickly sliced
5. 1/2 cup Kalamata olives, pitted
6. 2-3 servings cooked penne
7. Plenty of chopped fresh parsley to serve

Start by cooking your pasta according to packet instructions until al dente. Meanwhile in a non-stick drying pan, fry the chorizo slices until slightly browned. Toss in the prawns and stir until they are cooked. Add the cherry tomatoes and remove from the heat immediately. Add the cooked pasta with a little bit of cooking water and stir. Toss in the olives and onion slices. Sprinkle with lots of parsley. Serve.

So simple and good.

Green beans are one of the most underrated vegetables. They have become an all-year-around staple in supermarket here in Melbourne and have sold out its virtues of wonderful seasonal vegetables.

That’s not to say they aren’t good out of season. I know. You seasonal eaters will scream at me. We do live in a subtropical country afterall and we are blessed with vegetables all year around. Green beans, when cooked well are crisp and sweet, bursting with flavours. Of course, always buy the freshest green beans you can find.

We are starting to see new season’s green beans on the shelves now. Hoorah.

Stir-fried Green Beans and Prawns for Two

1. 200g green beans, trimmed and halved
2. 10 raw banana prawns, peeled with prawn butter reserved
3. 1 onion, slice lengthwise
4. 2 cloves garlic, chopped
5. 1 tbsp good oyster sauce
6. 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
7. 1/4 tsp sugar
8. 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil

Add vegetable oil to a hot non-stick frying pan on highest heat possible for your frying pan. Add garlic and prawns and fry until the prawns start to change colour. Add green beans and onion. Cook, stirring for 2 minutes. Add oyster sauce, soy sauce and sugar. Add water if necessary. Toss around for another 1-2 minutes until the beans are cooked but still crisp.

Serve with freshly cooked rice. Midweek dinner for the win!

Cookbook Challenge Week 20

Book: The Food of China: the Journey for Food Lovers Theme: Tangy Recipe: Sweet-and-sour Prawns and Vegetables

Who came up with this bloody stupid theme? Oh wait, it was probably me. Anyway, I had capsicums lying around the house from Jim’s garden and since I have everything else around the house, I figured I should kill two birds with one stone (hang on, this sounds a lot like the last post, doesn’t it?) Although I hardly think sweet-and-sour prawns could pass for ‘tangy’ theme but it’s better than being yet-another-week behind, which I’m about to be,  since I’m off to Vanuatu for a week next week. Yay!

Sweet and Sour Prawns (for two)

1. 12 large green prawns, shelled, deveined and semi-butterflied*
2. 1 small red capsicum, diced irregularly
3. 1 small green capsicum, diced irregularly
4. 2 slices of ginger, chopped
5. 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
6. 4 white parts of the spring onions, chopped
7. 2 tbsp of chopped spring onion leaves (green part

Prawn marinade

1. 2 tbsp Shao Tsing rice wine
2. 1 tbsp corn flour
3. 1 tsp sesame oil
4. 2 slices of ginger, bruised

Add the ingredients together and mix well. Add prawns, toss and leave to marinade for 15 minutes.

Heat 3 tbsp of oil in a wok until very hot. Remove the ginger pieces from the prawns and drain. Fry the prawns in hot oil for a few minutes until the prawns changed colour. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Remove some of the oil until there are about 2 tbsp of oil left.

Fry the white parts of the green onion, garlic and chopped ginger until fragrant. Add the capsicums and fry quickly for two or three minutes. Add the prawns back. Make sure you keep the heat nice and high all the time and stir quickly. Read the rest of this entry »

I miss the proper Indian mee goreng that you get in Malaysia and Singapore. It’s always spicy and rich and just bursting with flavours. Most of the mee goreng you get in here in Melbourne is just not spicy enough. There needs to be that element of dried spices: chilli powder and tumeric. And sometimes they get it so red, it’s scary!

I can’t say I have successfully replicated the real Indian mee goreng yet. In fact, it tastes just like most mee goreng you get at restaurants here in Australia. But it’s all right, it’s still quite good.

For 4, you’ll need:

1. 1 pack of Hokkien noodles (500 g.)
2. 10 medium-sized prawns
3. 5 fish balls, sliced (or 100g of fish cake, sliced)
4. 2 medium potatoes, peeled
5. 1 onion, sliced
6. 3 cubes of fried tofu, sliced*
7. 2 cups of beansprouts
8. 1 tomato, diced
9. 5 spring onions, sliced
10. 2 tbsp dark soy sauce (or kecap manis)
11. 2 tbsp soy sauce
12. 2 tbsp sambal oelek (reduce depending on taste)
13. 1 tsp chilli powder (reduce depending on taste)
14. 1 tsp tumeric powder
15. 3 tbsp of tomato ketchup
16. 1 red chilli, sliced (or yellow)
17. 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
18. 2 tbsp of fried shallots
19. 1 egg

Boil, steam or microwave the potatoes until cooked. Cut into 2cm cubes and sprinkle 1/2 tsp of tumeric and mix well. Separate the noodles and set aside.

Add 2 tbsp of oil onto a large heated non-stick frying pan. Add the fish cakes and fry until browned. Add prawns, garlic and onion. Fry for a minute. Add the noodles and fry until the noodles become well heated and starts to char in places. Add tomato ketchup, dark and light soy sauce, the rest of the tumeric, chilli powder, sambal oelek. Fry well until the sauces and the noodles mix.

Push all the noodles to one side. Crack an egg onto an empty space on the frying pan. Scramble the egg slightly and pile the noodles back on top of the egg. Wait for a minute or so before stirring everything together.

Add beansprounts, potato cubes, fried tofu and tomato and stir fry until everything comes together. Turn off the heat, add chilli slices and spring onion. Stir through until the spring onions wilt.

Served topped with some fried shallots and a wedge of lime.

* I didn’t really have any so I used supermarket-bought firm tofu. I cut them into slices and fry in a non-stick pan with a bit of oil until well browned on both sides and just placed them on top of the noodles.

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

Leftover rice that has been sitting in the fridge works wonders. Fry in a really hot wok with some oil, prawns, onion, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, a dash of soy sauce, a dash of oyster sauce. Serve with a slice of lemon.

It takes 10 minutes. Tops.

So I’m new to Singapore and its food. I do make it my life ambition to try all the local cuisine wherever I go and since I will be in Singapore for a while, I figured I should blog about all the unique Singaporean food that I try along the way. Although I make it a point not to eat out too much, I still have food out quite regularly. The reason being it’s readily available, cheap and relatively decent.

Singapore has this hawker culture where a lot of food vendors come together in a single building and each set up their own specialty. I generally eat at a hawker centre near work (at lunch time when I don’t bring lunch) and a market near where I live. I don’t really venture out of my way for hawker food, since I find them all very similar. That, and the fact that I’m too lazy to travel!

In Australia we have this dish called ‘Singapore noodles’ which differs slightly from place to place but the gist of it is fine rice noodles (sometimes referred to as ‘vermicelli’ but as far as I’m concerned ‘vermicelli’ is a shape of Italian pasta) stir fried with egg, prawns, char siu pork, beansprouts and has a bit of curry powder in it for flavouring. My friend Kenneth told me that this dish does not exist in Singapore. He’s right. I have yet to find ‘Singapore noodles’. So I suppose if there’s a dish that can be classified as Singapore noodles, this fried hokkien mee thing might be it.

I was watching ‘$2 Wonderfood’ today and they were talking about fried hokkien prawn mee. I thought that sounded interesting. Let’s try that. So off I went to a nearby hawker centre and ordered my own plate of fried hokkien mee. Surprisingly enough, I found it to be really good. As Josh commented, it doesn’t really look all that appetizing. I think that’s probably the main reason why I haven’t tried it until today! He reckons it looks like worms swimming in sauce.

What fried hokkien mee is from what I gathered, is two types of noodles (egg and rice) stir fried with beansprouts, prawns and squid (sometimes with pork and fish cake) flavoured with prawn stock. They serve it with some chilli and a little lime on the side which I ignored because I thought the flavour of the dish was already pretty good without the added conditions (which I feel would somewhat ruin the flavour).

But hey, I have to say, it’s pretty good! Definitely something I’ll have again.

Oh yeah, I LOVE fresh sugar cane juice. If there’s one thing I really like about the Singapore food scene, it’s the fresh sugarcane juice.

I’ll admit it. This is a sort of bastardisation of Thai food. Why? I shall comment as I go along. So after my perfect rice experiment, I decided to make something relatively simple to go with it. Thai curry is one of those super quick things you can knock up in no time at all, I think it’s even simpler than a stir-fry as there aren’t as many ingredients.

So we start with some fresh seafood – in this case I have prawns, which I peeled and deveined. And some calamari (also known as squid or sotong here in Singapore) which I cleaned, removed the ink sacks and whatnots. I scored the calamari and slice it into pieces (so one small calamari and about five large-ish prawns). By the way this ends up being a lot of food for one person. I have a lot of leftover. For vegetable, I use round Thai eggplants. I have to say they’re not my favourite vegetable in the world, but Thai curries feel so un-authentic without them so I quartered them in. Some slice fresh red chilli and a lot of Thai basil leaves (you don’t really need that much but I have a plant and it needed pruning) and a bit of carrot to add colour (no carrot in an authentic Thai curry ever. I’m sorry I don’t care if you’ve had it in some hotel in Thailand. Carrot in curry is not authentic.) To complete the curry, we also need a little container of coconut cream (200ml), a tablespoon of red curry paste and some fish sauce and sugar for seasoning.

Now a note about Thai curry paste. They can be vastly different. Some of them are hot as hell and just generally really strong whereas some of the exported varities tend to be much milder. If you buy them at a supermarket outside Thailand, they’re relatively mild. I recommend you start with half a tablespoon and add more if you need to. This is meant to be a very mild curry.

So add the coconut cream to the pan and stir in the curry paste over low heat. If this was proper Thai cooking, you’ll be stirring it over the medium high heat until the coconut cream splits. When the coconut cream splits, a layer of oil forms at the top. Hence you’ll see the red attractive layer of oil on many curries. But I don’t like that with seafood. I prefer it to be creamy (and this is generally the style of curries served in Australia hence the reference to bastardisation) so we’re going with low heat. The coconut cream should already have a mild sweet flavour. We’re not talking about sweetened coconut cream here. We’re talking about the natural sweetness of the coconut itself. So when you season it, bear this in mind before adding any sugar.

Once the coconut cream and the curry paste is nicely blended together, add your vegetables. If there is one thing I really hate is overcooked seafood. Stir around until the vegetables are almost cooked. Taste if you’re unsure. Add your seafood and the rest of the coconut cream (at this point if it were proper Thai cooking, you’ll be adding coconut milk or water). Cover and simmer on low heat for 2-3 minutes until the seafood is cooked through. Don’t overcook the seafood. Don’t overcook the seafood. Oh please don’t overcook the seafood and ruin it.

Now taste. This is important. As I mentioned earlier, the curry paste can be vastly different. Some are already pretty heavily salted and sometimes your seafood can be quite salty. Add a little bit of water if you think it’s too dry and keep stirring. Round off the taste with a pinch of sugar and some fish sauce if required. Today, I didn’t have to add either. It was already perfect, the coconut cream was already sweet and the curry paste was quite salty. So let your taste guide you. Don’t even think about adding things like tamarind. I saw this idiot chef on Asia Food Channel and he was throwing in every single bloody ingredient he deemed to be Thai. No, honey, there is no tamarind or lime juice in a red curry. There. I said it. The end.

Top off with the sliced red chillies and basil leaves. Serve on the perfectly steamed rice (below).

Some full-sized images here, if you’re so inclined.