All posts tagged: Recipes

Roasted Garlic

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Garlic is always unreasonably cheap and I use a lot of garlic in my cooking. Sometimes though, I do buy too many bags of garlic to use before it starts sprouting, so roast garlic is a great way to eat up garlic quickly. Roast garlic is some kind of voodoo magic where the flavour vastly differs to the raw stuff. Roast garlic is really mellow, smooth and sweet. The cloves shrink inside their pods making them easy to remove from the paper. They are squishy, so you can either dig each clove out with a butter knife or use your fingers to squeeze them from of their papers. Or as I do, squeeze them out and pop them into my mouth. To use, mash with a fork, or crush with a knife to make a roasted garlic paste. If you are smearing into toast, you can just spread a whole roasted clove as you would a pat of butter. This recipe makes 4 bulbs of roast garlic but you can easily do more or less, just …

Buttery Golden Pan-Fried Flounder

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When I was a little girl, a single steamed flounder, a plate of vegetables and plenty of rice would feed our family. My parents would allocate me and my sister a flounder roe each. Since flounder come with two roes by default, it was lucky they stopped at two kids. The roe was a treat!  The roe itself isn’t a thing of beauty, but I loved biting into it and imagining I was eating thousands of tiny fish at once. If you’re wondering what flounder roe tastes like, I find it mild and slightly creamy with a only hint of fishiness. The fish eggs are tiny – much smaller than other fish roe. Salmon is my number one fish, but if I must pick a white fish, it’s got to be flounder. I adore flounder but I usually steam or baked it. Flounder has a sweet flavour and a delicate texture. When cooked, it flakes with a little pressure and the large bones make it easy to eat whole. As a kid, my parents never shied away …

Lemonade

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A friend brought over a bag of real lemons. Real lemons are large, a deep yellow colour, with bumpy, thick skins. They smell super lemony – nothing like the anemic fake-looking lemons you get from supermarkets these days (what are they?!). Supermarket lemons make me frown. I was thirsty for something sweet and tart, so I made lemonade. I used a little of the J.Friend and Co honey that I received from a goodie bag for covering Out Standing In Their Fields a few weeks ago. The one I got is Vipers Bugloss. Don’t know what the heck that means? Me neither. Luckily, their website fills in all the gaps (it’s an alpine wild flower). It’s pretty awesome. You even get to know who the beekeepers are (Lucy and AJ), the vintage (2009) and where it is made (Clarence Valley, Muzzle Station). I’ve never needed to know that much about my honey, but it’s a nice touch. Especially in an age were ingredients come from all over the place. The first glass no doubt will …

Eleven Eleven Eleven. Stolen Hakanoa

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Everyone should invent a cocktail on their birthday. What a way to start the day right? Yesterday morning, the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year of the century, I celebrated my birthday with a cocktail at 11 minutes past 11. For my birthday, The Koala bought me a bottle of Stolen Rum in gold. I first had this rum at Taste at the Cloud in a cocktail called Stolen Summer. It was delicious. Stolen Summer is STOLEN white rum infused with Manuka wood smoked Apricot, Peach and Nectarine, fresh lime and ginger beer. I’m still experimenting with Hakanoa Ginger Syrup at the moment so I thought why not pair them together? Stolen Eleven Eleven 1 shot Stolen Rum (or any smooth golden rum) 1/2 shot Hakanoa Ginger Syrup A squeeze of lemon A lemon wedge A sprig of mint Ice Add the rum, ginger syrup into a glass of your choice. Top with a squeeze of lemon juice and ice, a sprig of mint and lemon wedge. Sip in the sun.

Hakanoa (Ginger Syrup) Braised Pork Belly

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I’m quickly falling in love with Hakanoa Hand-made Ginger Syrup. “Made from filtered water, organic fairtrade raw sugar, fresh ginger, organic dried ginger, organic sultanas and fresh lemon juice,” this syrup ticks all the boxes ethically and best of all, it is delicious. More info on this product can be found on their website hakanoa-handmade.co.nz. I’ve used it to make sangria as well as ginger flavoured milk. Don’t know it until you’ve tried it. It is amazing. Best of all, I like to use it as a marinade in meat dishes and my favourite meat and cut has got to be the delicious pork belly. Free range pork belly should be available where ever you find free range pork. Maybe you are bored of pork belly these days. No problem. Hopefully the world gets tired of pork belly and it will return back to being a cheap cut of meat. More for me! If you still have room in your life for another pork belly recipe, try my Hakanoa Braised Pork Belly recipe. The addition of cornflour …

Tofu Tuesday: Sangria

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One of my “To Do” activities this spring was to make white sangria. I first tried it this year at Urbis Design Day and thought it was a lighter, refreshing version of red sangria (which I also love). We had a few friends over in the weekend so I made both red and white. The white was yummy, but the red was even better. I’ve grown out of love with white wine over the last year or so and while I don’t like chardonnay, I picked it because it’s less acidic to me than the other whites. Thanks Mum for this cool blue drink set for my early birthday present! I’ve put it to good use already. I made a simple sugar syrup with 2 cups of sugar dissolved in 2 cups of water. Boiled for 5 minutes (stirring occasionally just for fun) and then cooled and stored in a glass bottle. I used fresh strawberries (sliced) and canned fruit salad with additional canned mixed berries for the red sangria. Tofu the bunny gets the green …

Spiced Carrot & Coconut Soup

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With the amount of eating over the last 7 days, I’ve been craving some simple vegetable dishes. I had half a loaf of Blackwoods Bakeries focaccia from the weekend and my parents had just given me a big bag of carrots. What started off as a pauper’s dinner got fancy real quick. Don’t let the carrots full* fool you. This is a rich and satisfying soup. *Edit: Wow, genuine Freudian slip. Spiced Carrot & Coconut Soup Dinner for 2 or a starter for 4. Ingredients 5 carrots 3/4 can coconut cream 3 cups stock (I used chicken but use vegetable if vegetarian) 1 teaspoon green curry paste (check if vegetarian) 1 tablespoon olive oil Sage garnish  *Use vegetable stock if you want to make this vegan or vegetarian Preparation Chop the ends off the carrots and cut into bite sized rounds. I didn’t see any point in peeling these ones, it’s up to you. In a large pot, quickly brown the carrots in olive oil. Add the green curry paste and stir through. Add stock, bring to …

Forage something and cook with it

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There is loads of onion weed in the garden again and a recent post on Alessandra Zecchini’s blog reminded me of the onion weed dumplings I made last year. I’m loving daylight savings time and it’s nice to be able to cook and photograph in natural light after work. I made these potato cakes for a pre-dinner snack but I think it will be easy to find another reason to eat these. I used the bottom 10cm of the plant which is the white/green base. It’s crisp rather than stringy. Thoroughly wash the onion weed and don’t use any that may have been sprayed with yucky chemicals. Otherwise, happy foraging! Onion Weed Potato Cakes Makes 8 Ingredients 2 large potatoes 1 egg, beaten 1/2 cup chopped onion weed 3/4 cup grated cheese salt (garlic salt optional)  black pepper Oil 8 onion weed flowers for garnish  Preparation Preheat oven to 180°C. Peel the potatoes and remove the skin. Continue peeling the potatoes until it gets too hard to grip. Reserve for another use – about a …

Lemon Sugar and Elephant Ears

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This post has been written as part of the new Sweet New Zealand blogging event founded by Alessandra Zecchini. It’s a chance for kiwi bloggers to share their sweet treats, so if you are a kiwi blogger and are interested in participating, check it out for this month. This month’s event is event number 2 is hosted by Allison at Pease Pudding and more information can be found here. Lemon Sugar I’ve been wanting to make flavoured sugar for a while and with our lemon tree growing some beautiful, thick skined beauties this spring, I knew I had to do something with the zest. Using my microplane zester (I love that thing), I lightly scraped the outside layer of a lemon and let the zest dry for about an hour on a chopping board. I then layered zest and white sugar into a jar. Leave the sugar for at least a few days for the lemony oils to permeate into the sugar. The result is pretty, but I haven’t used this sugar just yet. With the zest that was …

The secret to making Vietnamese Spring Rolls

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Vietnamese spring rolls (or summer rolls) are one of my favourite things to eat and I always order this as starter when we visit a Vietnamese restaurant. The light, refreshing roll contrasts with a punchy sauce and I feel like I never get enough of these things. The beauty of making food at home is you can have as many pieces as you like. You can eat as many as you like for a main course without confusing your poor waiter. I’ve made these rolls once before but it was a messy failure. My mistake was to soak the rice paper in hot water and for too long. By the time you roll up, it disintegrates and you can forget about trying to eat them with any ounce of dignity. I have found the secret which I will share with you below. When we were eating in Hanoi, Vietnam at the start of this year, I noticed that the rice paper rolls were a tad under softened. That led me to believe that the rolls …

Whitianga Scallops

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The seafood people came bearing scallops that had been plucked fresh from Whitianga. I can’t resist a fresh scallop so I bought a bag of them for $26. I was hungry and fresh seafood is a weakness. When they are fresh, the are sweet, tender and not at all fishy. They have this this flavour that reminds me of oysters and lobster. I wish there were more words in our vocabulary to define the difference. Scallops are one of those seafoods that I have yet to overindulge in. Even when we’ve travelled to destinations where scallops are plentiful, we haven’t eaten to our limit. In New Zealand, we eat both the white adductor muscle and the orange/white coral. They are sold as one. Both the orange and the white part are equally delicious. I would feel cheated if I were served scallops with only the adductor muscle. I might eye the server suspiciously and impore, “Where is the rest of my scallop?!”. Scallops in the morning? I woke up thinking about scallops. The Koala asked, …

A Tasty Hole

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Beef osso buco was on special at Nosh this week so I bought a couple of medium sized pieces before I knew exactly what to do with them. Like many odd ball cuts, osso buco can refer to both the cut and the dish. Meaning “bone with a hole”, osso buco is traditionally a braised meat and vegetable dish and there were many variations to be found online. It is pronounced exactly the way it is spelled and I admit, I bought this cut for the marrow. I’ve never cooked marrow before, but if you enjoy eating savoury, rich, fatty, buttery food then you will probably like marrow. I read a few recipes and articles and then did my own interpretation of osso buco. Chinese celery, soy sauce, avocado oil…I can vouch for it’s inauthenticity. Onions, carrots and celery are referred to as mirepoix (pronounced Mer-pwa) in French cooking or “the holy trinity” in Creole. Both parsley and celery were on my shopping list but when I saw chinese celery which looked like a cross …

Salad, pie and pudding

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Easy mid week 2 course dinner. This is the second Maketu Pie I’ve had and like the mussel pie, this smoked fish pie is flavoursome without being too salty. Salad Lay down a handful of spinach leaves, top with 2 slices of peppered havarti and 2 sundried tomatoes. Drizzle with french dressing. Pie Unwrap a Maketu smoked fish pie. Bake for 30 minutes at 180°C. Pudding Pear Pudding: Melt 2 tablespoons of butter with 1 cup of milk. Sift 1 cup of self raising flour and about half a teaspoon of cinnamon, mix with half a cup of sugar. Mix liquid with flour. Beat in 1 egg. Pour into 2 buttered ramekins. Slice 1 ripe pear and arrange in a circle on top of batter. Sprinkle with more sugar if desired. Bake for 40 minutes at 180°C. Since the pudding will take longer in the oven than the pie, you can put the pie and the pudding in the oven at about the same time. Serve with custard or ice cream or be greedy like us and …

Special Salmon

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I love when salmon fillets are on special at Nosh. I buy salmon when it is on special so it’s good that it seems to happen fairly regularly. To keep each fillet in one piece, I fry it on the skin side only. It gets a little steam session so that the top and inside gets cooked too. Teriyaki Salmon Fillet Ingredients (for one portion) 1 salmon fillet 1 tablespoon teriyaki sauce A tiny bit if oil for the pan Salt (optional) Preparation Brush the fillet with the teriyaki sauce and marinade for an hour or so. Add oil to a hot pan, carefully lay the fillet skin side down and sprinkle with sault. Fry for several minutes. You should see the cooked colour (less bright) of the fish rise up the side. When it reaches the top, Add up to half a cup of water to the pan and cover. Allow steam to cook fish through (about 10 minutes depending the thickness of your fish). Remove lid and continue cooking until all the water is …

When it rains, it pours.

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I had never made lasagna before but in the last few days I got 2 lasagna pins on my foodie sash. I don’t think The Koala minds the new lasagna obsession one bit. My first was a classic attempt. The meat sauce made in the morning so the flavours had all day to develop. This time being a weeknight, I wanted something much, much faster. I had 2 lasagna sheets left over from the other night and only 200 grams of lamb mince so I bulked up the meat with bacon. Lamb and bacon are two of the tastiest meats around. Using white sauce and a vintage cheddar made for a strong tasting sauce rather than the mild ricotta based sauce I made the other night. Bacon and Lamb Lasagna for two Ingredients 2 sheets fresh lasagna Meat sauce 250 grams (half a pound) lamb mince 4 strips streaky bacon, chopped into postage stamps 1 onion, diced 4 garlic bulbs, chopped 1/2 a cup tomato paste 1/2 cup red wine Salt (about a teaspoon)  Cheese …

Like a Chinese Paella

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The other night, The Koala and I got takeaways from Love A Duck on Dominion Road. While waiting for our meals, I was pleased to see that during winter, they offer a range of claypot cooked dishes. Claypot Chicken Rice Claypot Chicken Rice is popular in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. For those not familiar with this style of cooking, rice, chicken and various sauces and flavoursome ingredients are cooked in a claypot. The rice sticks to the bottom resulting in a fragrant, delicious mess like a Chinese version of paella. Chicken Can’t have this dish without the hardcore marinated chicken. Cantonese love bones and I always make this with chicken wings but you could use boneless thigh or breast to make this a kid friendly dish. Lap Cheong Chinese dried sausages or Lap Cheong are dry cured sausages normally made of pork and fat. These are smoked, sweetened, seasoned and taste like awesome. The sausages I buy from my local are vacuum packed and hail from Canada. You might like these if you like streaky …

A Dinner inspired by South East Asia

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  I had a hankering for the stuff we ate while in South East Asia. Hot, sour and savoury soups, banana pancakes were eaten in balmy countries. But what about on a cold winter’s night? I thought they would translate quite well so I made a brothy soup with noodles with some nice sirloin steak. I made this up on the fly using some of the flavours I enjoyed in South East Asia. This was followed by a dessert of asian-inspired banana pancakes with melted chocolate. Yum. Bok choy is cheap and it is super easy to grow. I know this because I’ve grown it before. But at $0.50 for a bag of 2 or 3 bok choy at my local Chinese supermarket, I don’t bother to grow my own. So easy to prepare, just wash and slice into quarters lengthwise. Good rabbit food too. When we have bok choy, Tofu the rabbit also enjoys bok choy. Beef Noodle Soup Beef Ingredients 1 piece of sirloin steak enough for 2 (200-300g) A little sesame oil …

Wedges Are Friends With Homemade Burgers

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  As much as I like fast food, homemade burgers with real beef patties you have formed yourselves are world apart. Every time we make burgers (and it’s becoming quite a regular occurrence) we manage to find this and that in our fridge until the burger becomes a towering monstrosity. So this time, even though I thought we had virtually nothing, there was still cheese to be melted, an onion to be sliced and fresh rocket from the garden. Not a towering world wonder, but still mighty good. With plenty of practice, I’ve perfected oven baked wedges. These are a perfect friend for your homemade burgers. Oven Baked Spicy Wedges Ingredients 3 large potatoes 1 tablespoon oil 1 tablespoon flour 1 tablespoon chili seasoning* (Mild, try 2 tablespoons for medium) Salt Pepper Preparation  Pre-heat oven to 200°C / 390°F.  Cut potatoes in half lengthwise and then into quarters and then eighths. All lengthways. You know, like wedges.  Place in a clean, airtight plastic bag.  Add all the other ingredients, twist the top tight and give …

Looks like poo, tastes like awesome.

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I did my best to make this look pretty, but there’s no two ways about it, stewed fruit and melted chocolate looks horrible. I made this recipe up based on what I had on hand. No reason why you can’t do the same. By all means, experiment! And eat the evidence. Feijoa  (pronounced fee-jo-ah) can be replaced with berries or stone fruit. Feijoa Custard with Chocolate and Cointreau Makes 2 Ingredients 12 feijoa 1 tablespoon sugar 1 shot of Cointreau 12 chocolate buttons plus 4 extra for garnish 1 cup of custard (chilled) Preparation Cut feijoas in half and scoop fruit out and into a small sauce pan. Add sugar and Cointreau. Simmer for 5-10 minutes. Stirring with a wooden spoon and breaking up the fruit as you go. When the fruit is all broken down and resembling baby food, drop in 12 chocolate buttons. Give the mixture gentle mix and divide into 2 ramekins. Top with custard and make a butterfly garnish on each dollop of custard using 2 extra chocolate buttons.

Unbelievably Easy Feijoa, Chocolate & Custard Pastries

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Tofu the bunny has been eating feijoas (pronounced fee-jo-ahs) and I have to check the lawns every day so that he doesn’t over eat. I toss any half eaten feijoas into the worm bin. The uneaten feijoas get turned into all sorts of yummy things. I made these babies for Natahma’s baby shower last week. It was the first baby shower I’ve ever been to and it was mostly just eating yummy food, talking about girl stuff and drinking champagne and feijoa wine. We didn’t play any silly games and the experience didn’t put me off having babies for life. These pastries are really easy to make and if you have a heavy feijoa tree in your yard, this is a good way to get rid of some. If you don’t have feijoas, I’m sure you could experiment with other fruit. I considered using plums and maybe still will at a later stage. I made something similar over a week ago but the latest ones are much, much better because they have chocolate in them. …