All posts filed under: Recipes

Hoisin Pulled Pork

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The Koala asked me if I had any plans for the weekend. I replied “pulled pork” which he thought it was code and I that was feeling frisky. To be fair, he wasn’t disappointed with what I had in mind. I frequent blogs and forums with US inhabitants and I often suffer from major food envy. Pulled pork has been the object of my affection. Pulled pork is not a common dish in New Zealand though this is slowly changing. There are American-Mexican joints in Auckland now who all serve slow cooked pork in tortillas. This recipe is incredibly easy to make and could be doubled or even tripled if you are feeding a larger group. This recipe fed five adults for dinner but judging by how quickly it disappeared, it would be better suited for four. Pork has this annoying habit of shrinking which is a good reason to buy slightly more than you think you need. No one ever complained about pulled pork leftovers! Hoisin means “seafood” I added a Chinese touch by …

Smoked Salmon and Urenika

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If you like colourful, accessible food, this one is for you. This recipes shows off the lovely purple Urenika potato but you can substitute any good quality potato and the flavours will be the similar. Coloured potatoes contrast beautifully with smoked salmon and lemon so if you can, opt for colour potatoes. The deep purple Urenika or Maori potato is precious here in New Zealand. They are pretty boring looking the outside, and their secret is within. The small knobbly spuds can be found at most farmers markets but are absent from supermarket chains and as there is no mass farming of these potatoes. It’s as shame as they are quite beautiful to look at and taste earthy. I guess their rarity makes them more special. I’ve heard these potatoes can be quite easy to grow. In any case, at the end of summer, I poked a few sprouting potatoes into a planter box. The tomatoes were finished so I figured I had nothing to lose. A plant that looked liked nightshade sprouted up and …

Make Risotto

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I go weak in the knees for smoked salmon risotto. If it’s on the menu at a restaurant, it is what I’m going to order. Still, I always did feel a little naive paying $20 for a rice dish. After I ordered some Aoraki Hot Smoked Salmon from Naturally Organic, I figured it was finally time to attempt risotto. I used the stainless steel sauté pan that Mum gave me and it was perfect for the job. You need something with decent sides but also plenty room for the rice to absorb liquid in. While it might be possible to use a skillet, you would have to be extra careful while stirring. In hindsight, I could have added a little more stock at the end. While the rice was cooked, it absorbed even more liquid on standing. Some sources say to stop just before the rice is cooked. Once upon a time, you could only get cold smoked salmon but now you can find both in equal abundance. I prefer hot smoked salmon but I …

Bunny Eats Design at Ang Sarap

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When Raymund from Ang Sarap invited me to write a guest post for him, first I felt honoured and then a little petrified. What could I possibly write that he hadn’t already covered? Raymund is an accomplished home cook right here in Auckland, New Zealand and has a huge following. His posts are frequent and expert and always with gorgeous photos. He cooks many kinds of Asian dishes and makes challenging ingredients accessible. I wanted to cook something original and inspired by Cantonese cuisine but relevant to what I like to eat. I considered a few things but in the end went with something I’m comfortable cooking with a new twist. Visit Ang Sarap for my write and and recipe for Pork and Apple Wontons with Balsamic Reduction.  

The Shanghai Chicken Project

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The premise I’ve followed the blog Sybaritica for a while and I enjoy John’s experimental and honest love of Asian cuisine. It was there I found out about The Shanghai Chicken Project and his buddy Stefan’s Gourmet Blog. The Shanghai Chicken Project is based on a mysterious chili chicken dish of dubious origin with pine nuts and broccoli leaves. If you have been following my blog for a while, you’ll know I love a good foodie challenge. I also happened to have some premium New Zealand pine nuts and a fermented chili paste I was hoping to play with so it like it was meant to be. The Shanghai Chicken Project rules: Prepare a dish inspired by Bamboo Restaurant’s Shanghai Chicken. It has to include chicken, chiles of some sort, vegetable greens, and nuts. It could be a known recipe or one of your own — traditional or newly invented. Blog about your dish or send Stefan photos and a description of what you did. Lee Kum Kee’s Chili bean sauce (Toban Djan) Toban Djan …

One pot wonder: Chorizo and Prawn Rice

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This is a great one pot wonder. Warming, with a little kick and full of flavour. Fresh chorizo sausages are popping up everywhere. Unlike the traditional chorizo which is firm and cured, fresh chorizo look like regular snags, filled with soft sausage-meat and must be cooked thoroughly. Similar to paella rice or claypot chicken, the prize in this dish is the tasty hard cooked rice at the bottom of the pan. Still delicious even as leftovers the next day. I used a stainless steel pan for this job. Avoid using a non-stick pan so that you can scrape those tasty bits to your hearts content. I happened to have saffron needing to be used up but I’m sure you could make this dish without it. Saffron isn’t exactly an economical ingredient. One Pot Wonder: Chorizo and Prawn Rice  Serves 4 Ingredients 4 chorizo sausages (500grams/1lb) 250g peeled prawns (1/2lb) 1 tablespoon capers 2 cups rice, rinsed and drained (used a mixture of red rice and white rice) 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 onion, diced 3 cups …

Tomato Soup

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It’s been raining all weekend and we spent a hungover day holed up at home, wrapped in blankets, watching movies and feeling pathetic. It’s not super cold yet, but when you are feeling fragile, comfort is priority. Soup and grilled cheese sandwiches was just the ticket – pretty easy to make and to eat. I always have canned tomatoes in the pantry. I buy 3 to 4 cans at a time because one brand or another will have a special deal on. Canned tomatoes are a handy base for pasta dishes, nachos, stews and more recently, tomato soup. In terms of equipment, you really need 1 large saucepan and a stick blender. You can use a regular blender if that’s all you have. I would use 1/2 a cup of milk minimum. If you’re prefer a bit more milk or even full fat cream, go for it! Tomato Soup Serves 4 Ingredients 1 tablespoon cooking oil 1 onion 1 clove garlic 2 cans of canned whole or diced tomatoes (400 grams/14.5oz each) 1 can of …

Simple Hash Browns

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Who thought that something so simple would be so popular? I cooked this for The Koala on the weekend and shared a photo on this blog and the response was overwhelming. So here is my recipe. Easy enough for a man or a child accomplice…or a man-child accomplice. This recipe made two large hash browns, but you could easily divide it into four thinner hash brown, just do not cook as long. Simple Hash browns Makes 2   Ingredients 3 medium potatoes 1 free range egg Pinch of paprika Generous grind of sea salt Dried or fresh herbs of your choice (chopped) 1 tablespoon oil Preparation  Peel potatoes and grate. A handful at a time, squeeze all the liquid from the potatoes, discarding the liquid (I do this over the sink) and put squeezed potato into a mixing bowl. Add the egg, paprika, salt and herbs. Mix well. Leave for 10 minutes. More liquid will be expelled. Squeeze liquid from potatoes again, discarding the liquid. Divide the mixture into two and in your hands, press …

Chinese Tea Eggs

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When I was a little girl, I knew that every now and then, a magical pot of tea eggs could be found steeping in the fridge. We used to eat these yummy, beautifully marbled eggs as a tasty snack. I never really thought about where they came from or how they were made. Tea eggs or “cha yeep dahn” in Cantonese literally translates to “tea leaf egg”, is a traditional Chinese snack and big metal tubs of tea eggs can be found all over China by way of street venders and market stalls. Easily portable, pre-cracked and already wrapped in a natural casing, tea eggs are a wonderful whole food. The yolks have the grey outer due to being cooked for a time but this in no way affects the flavour. Tea eggs can be eaten hot, warm, at room temperature or cold. If you prefer cold or hot boiled eggs, then proceed as per your preference. Chinese tea eggs taste mildly salty-sweet, aromatic like aniseed with a good dose of “egginess” of course. Now that …

Banana Hakanoa Mini Cakes

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I’m one of those optimists who buy fruit with hopes of eating well, but the moment the fruit gets home, it loses it’s appeal. The longer I leave it, the less I want to eat it. It’s a problem and I’m working on it. The four bananas on the banana stand were queuing up to enter the blacklist so I decided to quickly do something about them. I heard rumours that banana cakes and muffins were good for baking noobs like me. Baking isn’t my thing. I am slowly but surely getting there. I admit, I’m not a natural. I’ve raved about Hakanoa Ginger Syrup before and gave away a big bottle to celebrate this blog’s second birthday. This organic sugar syrup is really versatile and delicious and makes a great gift for yourself or for a ginger loving foodie in your life. I have to be honest, I usually use this syrup to add dimension to savoury dishes. Equal quantities of Hakanoa Ginger Syrup, soy sauce and oil make for a quick and yummy marinade for …

Deal to a freshly caught fish

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The Koala, Tofu and I are lucky to have lovely neighbours who we share our yard with. They have been fishing this summer and this week we were gifted two red snapper. I was stoked to able to cross off a bucket list item: Deal to a freshly caught fish. First I scaled both fish. With the fish and your hands in a plastic bag seriously cuts down on flying scales and mess. From what I’ve read, it’s also a good idea to scale fish outside, but I prefer to be by our sink. Our neighbour had kindly gutted one fish so I used that as a template. In case you didn’t already know, fish guts are disgusting. To be honest, I never gave it much thought. All the fish I’ve cooked or eaten have come to me sans guts. Fish guts look like a mini version of the people guts that you might glimpse in a zombie movie. It’s not all pink and red, but some orange and yellow hues. Gruesome. As revolting as …

Easy Stroganoff

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The other day, I made the bold claim that my parent’s stroganoff was the best stroganoff I ever tasted. There are few problems with this bold claim: I was immediately challenged to a dual (or a stroganoff off) I hadn’t tasted this stroganoff in a good 15 or so years When I last ate it, I didn’t really know what a stroganoff was When I asked mum for her recipe, she gave me a basic low-down rather than a step by step So, armed with mum’s rough guide and my own experience with cooking by feel, here’s my adaptation of the recipe. Use rump or sirloin steak with white button mushrooms. My family always had stroganoff with rice because dinner without rice is not really dinner at all. Feel free to use pasta if you prefer (I did). Did it live up? Yes. Is it the best? I’ll have to test out more recipes to be sure. I see a few slow cooker recipes out there which leads me to imagine you could make a …

Try A New Grain

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I get bursts of foodie enlightenment from non-foodie movies. Years ago, when I watched the Japanese epic film Seven Samurai, I learned that  millet was a food. In the movie, the poor, desperate villagers offer their precious white rice to the samurai when they could only afford to eat millet. I always wondered what could possibly be less precious than rice? In my life, rice has always been cheap. Many people will screw up their noses at millet as it’s known as bird feed. Not so glamourous and hardly something today’s foodie would choose to eat, right? Millet is technically a seed but used as a grain so for blogging purposes, I’m calling it a grain. Millet is gluten free and being a seed, it holds decent nutrients and makes a great substitute for pasta, rice etc. It’s very easy to cook, lasts in the pantry for ages and fairly versatile it seems. Tomatoes are in season here but if they are not, feel free to omit them or replace them with capsicum (peppers). I used …

Dumpling Wrapper Prawn Ravioli

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I have an open relationship with dumplings. I adore them, but sometimes I get busy and we see less of each other but when we’re together it’s phenomenal. My maternal grandmother made dumplings for us and my parents also made them us. For most of my life, my dad owned various eateries and wontons or dumplings were always on the menu. Dumplings travel well too. No, I don’t mean fill your pockets and go for a run, but that dumplings in one form or another appear in many cuisines. The concept travels well and has wide appeal. Naturally, as an adult, I’m more curious and experimental when it comes to my dumplings. If it tastes good, authenticity is nothing. Because I never ate ravioli until much later, ravioli will always be just an Italian dumpling to me and I make ravioli using dumpling wrappers. Sure, you can make pasta from scratch, but taking this shortcut will save some time and it’s not like you’re going full lazy. There’s still at least half an hour to …

Awesomesauce

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Every New Zealand household must stock tomato sauce at all times or risk village ridicule by vegetable flinging and it is without a doubt, our national condiment. In New Zealand, ketchup is tomato sauce. Marinara is what we call pasta sauce. So when a kiwi wants tomato sauce, it’s always the condiment, not the stuff you eat with meatballs and pasta. It calms him The Koala loves tomato sauce more than anyone I know. He can’t eat a pie or steak without it and pasta dishes (even marinara) need tomato sauce applied liberally on top before he can enjoy it. I recently read that tomato sauce calms people. The Koala eats a lot of tomato sauce and he’s pretty calm so I guess it explains a few things. Perhaps I should keep a little bottle of sauce in my bag as “rescue remedy”. I’ve always wanted to try making tomato sauce because I never knew what went into it and we go through a lot of sauce on a regular basis. The recipe This recipe …

Cream cheese stuffed mushrooms

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I have no idea when I moved from the mushroom hating camp to the mushroom loving camp, but I love them fiercely now. There’s something uniquely satisfying about popping a whole stuffed mushroom into your mouth. Maybe it’s the piggish feeling that I like so much. I first tried these stuffed mushrooms when my sister cooked for us a couple of summers ago. My sister Joey can bake and cook. Her version had streaky bacon weaved throughout but I decided to try and make something similar sans-bacon. Not because I’m against bacon, not at all. But even a meat eater can enjoy these tasty vegetarian morsels. Mushroom hating camp may still not be convinced. These stuffed mushrooms are a summer BBQ winner. These can be made a day ahead and they cook quickly on the BBQ so you can pop these on the BBQ just before everything else as a tasty pre-dinner snack. They’re easy to make ideal if you want to employ any idle hands floating around your kitchen. My 30 mushrooms is just …

SweetNZ: My First Carrot Cake

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Our oven has been cold for a week and I hope a new oven is on it’s way soon. Not new new, but newer will do. Until then, no oven-based recipes. At least I can bask in the glory of this wee cake that I baked over my holidays. I’ve been meaning to make an “easy” cake for a while now. Those I know who bake always say to start with a banana cake or a carrot cake. Tofu the bunny adores carrots and carrot cake sounded delightfully blog worthy. When we eat carrots, Tofu gets the tops and the peel. Carrots are gold in this house. I also figured it was worth finding out what exactly was in the cream cheese frosting that I adore so much. I used Mama Dorosch’s Carrot Cake recipe from KitchenTrials.com and it was a successful first go. The cream cheese frosting is as follows. Cream Cheese Frosting Makes plenty for one cake  Ingredients 250 grams cream cheese 100 grams butter  2 cups icing sugar (powdered sugar) Preparation Bring …

Caprese Salad

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This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event I have started to encourage us to try new food related things. If you have a blog and have tried something new this month, come and join this event. I put Caprese Salad on my Summer To Do List because I always loved the simple, contrasting ingredients. Summer tomatoes + soft milky mozzarella fior di latte + green fragrant basil. It looked easy but I’d never made it before. Since I just made mozzarella fior di latte from scratch, Caprese seemed to be the perfect way to enjoy it. The gist of it: Cut the mozzarella and ripe truss tomatoes into thick slices. Alternate slices on a platter. Tuck fresh whole basil leaves here and there. Finish off with a drizzle of good quality extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt and black pepper. Dig in with forks 🙂 Check back tomorrow to see what I made with the rest of the mozzarella.

Macadamia Pesto (by hand)

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Pesto is one of those things I buy all the time and I often wonder if it’s worth the price for what you get. Pine nuts are ridiculously expensive and with a macadamia nut tree in our backyard, I figured I should try to make some macadamia nut pesto. The macadamia nuts I harvested from our tree about 6 months ago are now dry are ready for eating. The nuts haven’t been roasted, but in their raw state, the are great for pesto. Let me start off by admitting I don’t own a food processor. I had one once but I never used it so I gave it away. This pesto recipe is all choppped by hand which doesn’t take long at all, but would be faster if you let a machine do the chopping. Saying that, it’s also really satisfying chopping up a whole bunch of stuff. I mixed this batch of pesto with a pan of whole button mushrooms and baked for 20 minutes in an 180°C / 350°F oven but this would …

Scallops Bacon, Bacon Scallops

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Is there anything quite as decadent as a mouthful of scallop and bacon? A fresh, sweet scallop and a smokey salty streaky bacon. Oh gawd. Scallop season here in New Zealand starts from late August and runs right through until February. The most common is known as the Nelson scallop, though most people here just call these “scallops”. Now that I’ve had both the tiny queen scallop and the popular Nelson scallop, I am confident that the Nelson scallop is lovelier by miles. They are our default scallop for a good reason! Market value is roughly $1NZ / $0.82US per scallop which makes them a treat, but affordable every now and then. Part of what makes them good value is how easy they are to cook. I don’t like things that are both expensive and difficult to cook. Nelson scallops are sold and eaten with the bright orange coral or roe. When at their peak, they are both rich and sweet. Nelson scallops are small, averaging just 30 to 40mm (1.2″ to 1.6″) and are …