All posts tagged: Recipes

Humpty Dumpty and the King (of Salads)

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We don’t eat salads over winter, but now that it is spring, it’s supposedly time for lighter eating. That bikini body isn’t going to appear from nowhere. Just kidding. This is not that kind of blog. I invested in a one piece last year and I don’t think I’ll be getting a bikini any time soon. Caesar salad is a gutsy dish that should not be reserved for summer. It’s odd that while I love Caesar salad, I’ve never tried to make it before. The anchovy mayo is inspired by this rich anchovy mayo from The Fridge, Kingsland. Caesar salad is one of those salads that shouldn’t really be classed as a salad in case it gets confused for rabbit food or something else particularly healthy. It tastes amazing because of all the kick ass ingredients like parmesan, Worcestershire sauce, bacon, olives and anchovies. Parmesan and anchovies When it comes to pungent foods like anchovies and parmesan, buy the best quality version you can afford. I always thought I hated parmesan, but I’ve recently realised it’s cheap parmesan …

Live Below The Line Recipe: Satay Fried Noodles

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In two weeks I will be eating my way through the Live Below The Line Challenge. This challenge will see me allocating $2.25 a day for food and drink. Considering I spent $15.50 on my lunch the other day, it makes me nervous to imagine spending just $11.25 over 5 days. The current Live Below The Line recipe collection has only 4 recipes. I think it needs some filling out. Maybe they will want to add my recipes to the list one day. I am determined to have variety, so a pot of dahl for 5 days doesn’t appeal to me. I’ve been looking up cheap recipes and asking friends and family for their suggestions. I’ve been price checking weighing, measuring and working out what foods get me the most bang for my buck. My local Chinese supermarket has been incredible for bargains. A bag of 8 dried egg noodle bundles came in at just 99 cents. Score! Yesterday I tested one of my recipes based on the stuff I’m gathering for the challenge. These …

Roast Pork With Crackling

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Ah pork crackling. Crunchy and salty with a layer of slightly gooey richness just below the surface. It’s that still chewy layer that gets me. Crackling shouldn’t ben bone dry and crunchy all the way through. Unctuous and flavoursome, that layer of fat before the meat is glorious. My parents opened a roast dinner shop in Bayswater when I was in high school and I was always spoilt with roast meat sandwiches. We had roast chicken, roast lamb, roast beef and the king of roasts, roast pork with crackling. I didn’t take it for granted if that’s what you’re thinking. After all these years, roast pork is still my number one choice when we get roast dinner takeaways. I’m ashamed to admit I never tried to roast a pork with crackling. Until now. I searched far and wide for the crackling recipes known to man. And then of course, I took the best recipes and I took a few shortcuts. The recipe below is based mostly on the hands down, best recipe you can find …

Chocolate Fondue

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Part 3 of 3 Unlike cheese fondue, chocolate fondue is a fairly new invention, credited to a Swiss restaurateur Konrad Egli who invented the dish in 1964. To finish off our fondue night last week, we had a chocolate fondue. Unlike cheese fondue, chocolate fondue can be cooked in the fondue pot as it chocolate turns liquid at a much lower temperature than cheese. I cut up some fruit (from our CSA box) and my sister, Joey and her boyfriend, D brought marshmallows and mini cinnamon donuts. These were great skewered and dipped into the melted chocolate. While waiting for the chocolate to melt, we pretended to toast them in front of the crackling fireplace video. The fruit also went down well and was a burst of freshness to cut through the heavier stuff. Chocolate Fondue Tips Joey, our resident baker and chocolate scientist, recommended that we didn’t add cream to the chocolate fondue in case it made the mixture seize up. Seized chocolate is when your smooth, silken chocolate transforms into a grainy, hard …

Apocalypse Spaghetti is for Sluts

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The Koala’s fascination with conspiracies and the end of the world coupled with my love of survival tips and post apocalypse fashion mean that post apocalyptic movies and TV programmes are held in high regard around here. I don’t truly believe that shit is going to hit the fan in our lifetime. But I guess the old adage, “Prepare for the worst, hope for the best” works in this situation. Before shopping day, or before OOOOBY box Tuesday, when I’m scraping together what little fresh food we have to make a meal or even using pantry only or freezer only ingredients, I always think to myself, “I hope society doesn’t crumble tomorrow, I’m not prepared today”. I hope that when it all comes crashing down, we will have a full fridge and pantry. Being city dwellers, there will be little fresh food at the end of days and while looting will be a popular past time, so will eating food from cans. Being able to conjure a few meals from pantry only ingredients is a …

Cauliflower Soup

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This cauliflower soup was quick to make and well received at our house. Being fairly restrained on the ingredient list means that you can really taste each of the flavours. Get a good caramelisation going in the pan before you add water to intensify the flavours. This soup is perfect with  garlic butter toast or fresh buttered rolls. Cauliflower Soup Ingredients 1/2 a head of cauliflower 2 potatoes 3 cloves of garlic 2 tablespoons olive oil 1/4 teaspoon brown sugar 2 bay leaves 4 cups water 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 rashers streaky bacon (omit for vegetarian version) 1 cup of milk 2 teaspoons sour cream Preparation Cut the cauliflower into bite sized pieces. Peel and cut the potatoes into 3cm chunks. Heat the olive oil in a hot pan and add the cauliflower and potatoes. I wouldn’t use a pot as you don’t want to overcrowd the vegetables, but you could cook in batches if you prefer. Peel and crush the garlic cloves and add to the pan with the brown sugar and salt. Resist …

Brown Sugar Stewed Apples

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With all the delicious winter apples we’ve been receiving in our CSA box, I wanted to do something with them that was easy and warming. It’s hard to eat cold fruit when you feel cold yourself and stewed apples are a great way to use up apples. My simple recipe uses ingredients you probably already have. I did a similar treatment to rhubarb last summer and you can see that recipe here. Brown Sugar Stewed Apples Makes 2 to 4 servings Ingredients 2 apples 1/2 cup soft brown sugar 1 tablespoon cornstarch Optional: 1 shot limoncello  Preparation Peel apples and cut into quarters. Slice off centre, pips and discard. Cut the remaining quarters into 5 or 6 pieces each. Add apple and the other ingredients to a small saucepan on medium heat. Cook for 10 minutes stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Be careful not to burn the sugar, so if the sauce becomes thick and sticky, it is done. Serve on porridge, cake or ice cream. Refrigerate what you don’t use. Note: Under no …

Cook Curry Goat

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Since I saw Hugh Fearnley-Whittinstall’s curry goat episode on River Cottage, I’ve been obsessed with trying curry goat. Curry goat is curry goat. Do not call it goat curry. There’s a difference. I’m not sure what the difference is, but asking for goat curry at any Jamaican eatery is sure to have you ridiculed and branded as a floundering noob. I tried a delicious Carribean curry goat over the summer at Splore Festival (pictured). The food stall was run by catering company Jamaican Me Hungry and the goat was divine (though it could have done with a little food styling). I couldn’t wait another two years to try curry goat again so last week, I made curry goat at home. Goat Meat Goat meat isn’t popular here in New Zealand. No, our prized beast here is lamb. But as tasty as lamb is, it can can be expensive and often reserved for special occasions. I have never cooked with goat meat and I can’t say I’ve eaten it many times, but I’ve enjoyed it every …

Dried mushrooms and a recipe from my childhood

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Like many Cantonese children, I grew up regularly eating what I we call Dong Gu. Dong Gu literally means “winter mushroom” and is also known as a Shiitake or Chinese Black Mushroom. Dried Shiitake mushrooms are used in various asian cuisines and are inexpensive, easy to use and if stored correctly, last a long time. Dried Shiitake mushrooms taste nothing like fresh Shiitake. Dried have an intensely savoury earthy flavour and the fresh stuff tastes weak in comparison. Do not substitute fresh for dried! My family always bring back a bag or two of dried mushrooms back from trips to Hong Kong, but New Zealand customs can be frightful to deal with so it’s not really recommended. Luckily, you can buy dried Shiitake at any Asian grocer these days, perhaps even at your general supermarket. Dried Mushrooms Tips: Once open, store mushrooms in the freezer. While they will last outside the freezer, they can inevitably attract moths and other nasties. No need to thaw before rehydrating as the lack of water means these don’t really …

Make A Chowder (Salmon Head and Mussel Chowder)

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Salmon. I love it raw. I love it cooked. I love it smoked. I love it poached. I love it pan fried. I love it baked. I love it steamed. It is creamy, fishy and super rich. Everything I’ve read says that salmon makes too strong a stock. I’m not afraid of a strong fish stock, but if a strong stock makes you queasy, this recipe is not for you. I’ve wanted to make a chowder for the longest time and a quiet, Autumn weekend at home last month was a good time for it. You can easily spend too much on seafood for a chowder. Sure, it will be delicious, but what about making a delicious chowder using cheaper ingredients? I picked up 2 salmon heads for cheap at my local asian market. Fish heads are usually cheap and I’ve been eyeing these up for a while now, wondering what to do with them. To prepare, make sure the gills are removed – they usually are. Cut the fins off with a pair of …

Make a feijoa preserve

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The first fruit to drop from our feijoa tree went unnoticed by us, but Tofu the bunny sniffed it out and ate half of it before I caught him. Considering Tofu is blind, that is top marks to the  bunny. Tofu loves feijoa and we have to check the backyard daily to clean up all the fallen feijoa or else he will eat more than is good for him. For those outside the loop, feijoa (Pronounced fee-JO-ah) are a guava with a perfumey, tart flavour and a grainy texture similar to pear. The originated in South America and I’m not how they found their way to Auckland, New Zealand, but the feijoa season here is short, intense and adored by many. We count our lucky stars that our rental has a thriving feijoa tree in the backyard. I have fond memories of feijoa season, we would sit around the table, eating feijoa and stacking up the emptied cups as we ate until the towers bent and swayed. In Cantonese, we call them “FEE-jo. To eat a feijoa, …

Individual Steak and Guinness Pies

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In honour of  St. Paddy’s Day, I invited my friends over for a pot luck dinner. The theme for the dinner was green or Irish and we had a pesto green starter and several green desserts. I made individual steak and Guinness Pies and we also had a green hued potato and pea mash. I confess. I’m not a huge fan of Guinness. I can drink it, but I find it heavy and savoury and pint or bottle is usually enough for me. I do however, enjoy it in a pie. You will need a lidded pot for this recipe (I used a dutch oven) and a 6up muffin tin. This is not the time for a dainty cupcake tin. My muffin tin makes large muffins about 3 inches or 8 cm wide at the base. To measure out how wide I needed the pie cases, I first measured across the wall+base+wall of a muffin tin with the edge of a teatowel and matched this measurement across the mouth a bowl. This bowl became the “cookie …

Farmhouse Pasties

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I’m glad I gave the traditional Cornish Pasty recipe a whirl already this autumn. Now I’m inspired to do some weird, non-authentic pasties. This next recipe uses some of the original ingredients like beef, lamb, onion and potatoes, but also puff pastry, bacon, carrots and cheese. You can put the cheese inside the pastie if you prefer, but I’ve sprinkled cheese on the outside. I thought it would look prettier, but it only looks ok.  I’m loving smoked cheddar at the moment. It has a distinctive smokey flavour that is divine with streaky bacon. I’m buying ethical meat when it’s convenient, even though free range vs organic vs free farmed can be confusing to the average home cook. It’s nice to remember that at least here in New Zealand, lamb and beef are free farmed at minimum. At best, they’re free range. I don’t think there are any wild cows or wild sheep out there. Although that might be interesting! Lamb and beef I consider my “happy meats”. It’s only chicken and pork you have …

Make Cornish Pasties

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After trying both venison and beef versions of Sarah’s Cornish Pasties at Splore a few weeks ago, I was hell bent on making some of my own. For those that aren’t familiar with Cornish Pasties, they’re a submarine-shaped pie and traditional ingredients include beef or lamb, potatoes, swedes and onion. These  parcels of goodness were originally baked for tin miners who worked underground and didn’t come up  to air at lunch. They ate these pies and with their dirty, arsenic laden paws. They clutched the crust, ate the pastie and discarded the soiled crust at the end to avoid poisoning. Cornish pasties are baked from raw ingredients and it surprised me that both the meat and the vegetables cooked perfectly in these parcels. Short crust pastry is traditional but after eating these, I may retry with puff pastry because I adore puff pastry. I find short crust to be a bit heavy. I used both lamb and beef (why pick one when you can have both), potato, swede and onion. This recipe adapted from the NZ …

Make a big pot of chili

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I’ve made various short-cut variations of chili over the years, always in a frying pan, always just enough for two and always with a minimum of fuss. I wanted to make a bit ‘ol pot of the stuff so we could eat our way through it for as long as we could bear. Chili con carne literally translates to “chili with meat”. You know, carne, as in carnivore. Looking online, there are many variations and I was quite surprised that beans in chili is not regarded as authentic. Chili always appears with beans around here and I’ve never had chili without beans. It seems that in poorer areas, beans were added to make the dish go further and it became more common. A chili purist’s proverb goes “If you know beans about chili, you know chili ain’t got no beans”. My chili is mild and includes beans. Add more hot sauce or chili if you prefer something with more kick. A Big Pot of Chili Makes about 3 litres or 12 cups. A serving is …

Roll Sushi

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In the very early ’90s, sushi became popular in New Zealand and I found out the sushi that I already loved, wasn’t cherished among my peers. Not then anyway. Before this discovery, my sister and I had been happily enjoying raw fish sushi in uncool bliss. At school, instead of bags of chips, we snacked on small packs of dried seaweed. When The Koala and I visited Osaka, Japan in 2008, we were surprised to find sushi we are familiar with here in NZ, is quite different to Japanese sushi. Like so many imports, sushi has morphed away from tradition. Tried and true is great, but weird reproductions can be great too. NZ was not ready for raw fish in early ’90s. There had to be another way. Chicken sushi, which is novelty in Japan, converted hoards of New Zealanders to sushi and it’s unlikely you’ll find a sushi joint in NZ that doesn’t offer it. Where would we be without wacky combinations to humour our palates? Some less than authentic sushi I’ve enjoyed over …

Summer is Peachy

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As we officially set upon the final week of the New Zealand summer, it feels like the climate is stubbornly refusing to let go of the heat. Sometimes I can’t decide if it’s hotter inside than out. Things are sticky. Especially after a hot afternoon nap. We’ve been cheated of summer this year with monsoon rainfall that is common in other exotic islands. So while Autumn will hit us in a couple of weeks, it still feels like mid-summer. Who knows? Maybe we’ll still be picnicking in April. It is peach season and I have no hard feelings for the fuzzy skinned fruit. I can eat it without peeling. But the salsa I made this week is more about flavour than the texture. This salsa tastes zingy and fresh. I haven’t added any chili to it, but you can add a sliced chili if you prefer. Serve with fish, chicken, steak or sausages. Tasty enough to add just a spoon but moorish enough to eat like a side salad. Use a nectarine if that’s all you have handy. Peach Salsa …

Summer Rolls with Surimi and Nectarine

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When I was a kid, many weekends involved a family visit to at least one fish market. Sometimes, cousins, uncles and aunties and grandparents came along. It was a social occasion. It was sight seeing. A big aquarium alternative where everything can be fashioned into a meal. To quieten us and keep us content until our yum cha lunch or dinner, our parents would buy us crabsticks to snack on. I think they were 50 cents and I’m sure we knew they weren’t real crab, but it didn’t matter. According to Wiki, the word “surimi” literally translates to “fish puree or slurry” and I suppose things like other kiddie favourites like chicken nuggets, hot dogs and cherrios (saveloy) are similar in build. These days I forget often about surimi as an ingredient. At my market, surimi comes in frozen vacuum sealed packs of 500 grams ($4) and 1 kilo ($7). This week the big Australian supermarket chains have frozen 1 kilo packs for just $5. Maybe that’s too cheap. You can often find surimi from …

Salad for Super Skin

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With my skin still in the wars and a list of things NOT to eat, I decided to eat foods I should include. Most of the stuff I read about eczema is about stuff to avoid, but finding foods to eat is much more fun. I really enjoy cooking from a list of superfoods that I keep stored in my memory and more so when they’re delicious superfoods. There are a few foods out there that are good for your skin. These include salmon, avocado, olive oil and pinenuts (in pesto) which are all in this recipe. With half a bag left of orzo, I made this delicious salad for super skin. For those not on a restricted diet, some halved cherry tomatoes would be a lovely addition. Add some parsley too and hey look! You got yourself a red and green festive looking dish just in time for Christmas. Is this health food? Maybe. Does it work on eczema and other skin problems? I don’t know. Would I eat it regardless? Yes. Orzo Salad with smoked …

Cook Ribs

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Ribs The ribs at Al Brown’s new restaurant, Depot are incredible. Lamb ribs with harissa sauce sounded great and I liked the inclusion of roasted capsicum. Al’s recipe can be found on his restaurant website for those that live outside of Auckland or just want to be able to make the dish at home. What a giver! I also have a soft spot for Lonestar ribs. It’s the only thing we go to Lonestar for these days. Ribs shouldn’t be a special occasion food, so I figured that was time to attempt to cook ribs at home. I put together this recipe after reading a bunch of recipes online and also incorporating some flavours that would work well with pork. Roasted capsicum is easy to do. Just cut a capsicum into quarters, remove the seeds, smear with a little oil and bake at 180°C for 40 minutes. In hindsight, this sauce would be badass with a slow cooked hunk of pork. Think pulled pork with coleslaw, potato salad and fresh buns. Oh boy. Kaitaia Fire Kaitaia Fire is …