Red roasted lamb cutlets

I’ve previously mentioned that I don’t like lamb that much. But I do cook it occasionally for friends.

Red fermented beancurd

Red fermented beancurd tinges these lamb cutlets a ruddy red-brown and the end result is deeply savoury but with a mild sweetness. There are two main kinds of fermented beancurd; white and red. The white variety is commonly used to flavour a simple stir fry of water spinach, also known as kang kong. The red kind is the stronger flavoured of the two and probably more of an acquired taste.

I roasted these lamb cutlets in the oven but they’re really great cooked on a grill or a BBQ too. Since I don’t like lamb much am such a good person, I let everyone else devour the lamb. An empty platter was all that remained at the end of the night.

Ice cream sandwich fail

I love the power that knowledge grants you. Not in a crazy take over the world way but it helps with decision making. This may be the control freak in me speaking.

Crazy thick for ice cream sandwiches

You learn all the time when you cook. The smallest tweaks can change the result dramatically. Not all of the things I create turn out well at all.

I planned to serve ice cream sandwiches (made with dairy free gelato) last weekend. However I wasn’t sure if they would turn out well so I gave it a test run the week before when I had friends over for pulled pork. I used the peanut and honey cookies, and sandwiched them with dairy free chocolate gelato that I bought from a local gelato place. Then I wrapped each sandwich individually and returned them to the freezer.

So how did they turn out? Not so pretty. Gelato is softer than ice cream so it didn’t really hold its shape and it ended up oozing over the cookie. Not being a dessert person, I hadn’t done enough research, ie. eaten enough ice cream sandwiches or thought it through.

But look how cute they were when I initially put them together!

Ice cream sandwich squished and ready to eat

Lessons learnt:

• Make your cookies thin enough so you can bite through them once frozen
• Few people can eat an ice cream sandwich elegantly
• Use ice cream, not gelato. Otherwise assemble and serve immediately
• I don’t really like dairy free chocolate gelato
• No one is ever as critical of your food as you are
• Make your ice cream sandwiches small and not resembling The Hulk

A little forlorn, I made a batch of flourless hazelnut brownies to serve last weekend instead which I’ve already written about.

No one should be too disheartened when a cooking adventure doesn’t turn out well. I felt like a failure but I’m sure this will help me with my dessert instincts next time.

Meatballs in a spicy tomato sauce

Everyone has their food predilections and eating quirks. Maybe you insist on drinking straws and only eat pizza with a knife and fork.

I will eat a bowl of boiled baby potatoes dressed warm with a soy sauce and Tabasco dressing and call that a happy meal. It’s not particularly nutritious or even a taste sensation. What I like are the flashbacks to the hours spent pottering around the family vegetable garden when I was little. We grew peanuts, water chestnuts, snow peas, beans, marrows, chillis, herbs and potatoes amongst other things. There was such joy in yanking out potato plants and digging around in the cool, damp earth for those elusive potatoes.

My grandma would cook the tiniest potatoes for my brother and I as an afternoon snack. Doused in just soy sauce and perhaps a tiny drizzle of vegetable oil. The Tabasco sauce was something I added when I was older. So I eat for the memory I guess and it’s a potent one for me.

Individual food preferences are something I usually remember. I can still recall a colleague’s dislike of mandarins and cucumbers, yet intense love for fresh figs. It’s been about 10 years since we’ve worked together and when I think of him, it’s his food preferences that leap first to my mind. Not his slow cowboy swagger or machine gun laugh.

Flourless hazelnut brownies

I seem to know many people that can’t eat dairy or are lactose intolerant. These rich hazelnut brownies have the benefit of being gluten and dairy free but none of the drawbacks with texture and taste.

I challenge anyone to try these and tell me that they’re not as good as ordinary brownies. They’re better.

Petaling Street, Sydney

With all the fine dining places I’ve written about, you might conclude that I’m fancy schmancy! I’m not.

My friend Queen Pea was in town for a medical conference this week and wanted to meet up for dinner. She requested somewhere cheap and cheerful so I suggested Petaling Street in Chinatown. Petaling Street is the fourth restaurant of a Malaysian hawker food chain that started in Melbourne, Australia. It’s the first for Sydney and opened up late last year. The restaurant is named after Petaling Street, a real street in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown.

Sriracha mayonnaise

Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.

So said Socrates, the famous ancient Greek philosopher. Methinks someone didn’t have much in the way of good eats back then.

I wasn’t aware of this in high school otherwise I might have had a smackdown about a certain philosopher with my history teacher.

Socrates was wrong. Food has the ability to give great joy, evoke a memory and temper an angry spirit.

Fennel and snowpea slaw

I’d been saying for ages that I’d make pulled pork for my friend Luce. Today I made good on my promise.

I did a play on the pulled pork I’ve made before but added a teaspoon each of smoked paprika and cumin to the marinade this time to punch up the spicing. We ate the pulled pork in white corn tortillas with fennel and snowpea slaw and sriracha mayonnaise (recipe to come!). The aniseed scent of the fennel really went well with the sweet pulled meat.

Refreshing and sweet fennel and snowpeas

The dressing is just olive oil and a tiny squeeze of lime juice just before serving. Note that the lime juice does discolour the snow peas slightly over time so it’s important not to dress it too early. Is it still technically a slaw without cabbage? Oh well, I feel the julienned slices make it slaw-like so that’s what I’m calling it.

I rarely buy fennel to use at home and after making this, I think I should utilise it more.

A simple slaw

Feeds: 4 people as a side dish
Start cooking: 15 minutes before eating

Fennel and snowpea slaw

Ingredients:

• 1 x large fennel bulb, with fronds reserved
• 200 grams x snow peas
• 1-2 tablespoons x olive oil
• 1 x tablespoon x lime juice
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Vary the amount of snow peas and fennel according to your tastes. Using a mandoline or vegetable peeler, shave the fennel bulb into your serving bowl.
2. Top and tail the snow peas and blanch in boiling water for 1 minute. Immediately refresh in cold water until cool.
3. Julienne the snow peas length wise and place on top of the fennel. The little peas inside may pop out but this will just add more texture to the salad.
4. Drizzle the olive oil over the mixture and toss.
5. Just before serving, add in the lime juice and salt and pepper to taste and mix again. Sit the delicate reserved fennel fronds on top and serve.

Celery leaves (the baby ones near the heart) and apple would be a great addition to this salad too.

Spencer Guthrie

A couple of years ago I took my brother to Marque for his birthday dinner. To begin the meal we sampled the house baked bread. As the waiter recounted the flavours, I clapped my hands with excitement when he mentioned the rye bread with caraway. To my embarrassment, the waiter responded by saying: ‘Calm down, it’s only bread’.

Spencer Guthrie logo

On Sunday at Spencer Guthrie, I gasped and grabbed my upper chest when I saw caraway crackers accompanied the cheese plate. It looks like I can’t be taken anywhere without making a small spectacle of myself.

The galley like entrance

Lavender shortbread

Recently I was reminded of how fun Transformers are. The toys, not the live action films.

Last Saturday I had lunch with my friends Liz and Treens at a cafe near a park. Afterwards, we sat in Treens’ courtyard and wiled away the hours in the afternoon sun with some beer. Her five year old son Sam jumped around us, showing off his Lego helicopter and Optimus Prime in robot form. Fiddling around trying to shift Optimus Prime back into a truck, I failed miserably.

My brother had the most amazing Transformers collection when we were kids. Make no mistake, it was his collection and not ours. Back then, my dad seemed to buy my brother a new Transformers toy every fortnight. Or at least it felt like that to jealous ol’ me. I couldn’t understand why he kept getting presents for no reason.

My dad’s a bit of a collector; someone who doesn’t like throwing things out, much to my mother’s continuing despair. In hindsight, he was just creating another collection and living vicariously through my brother. I can still recall the look of absolute glee on my dad’s face when he had a new addition for my brother’s collection.

I returned home Saturday evening clutching sprigs of lavender from Treens’ garden. This was combined with grapefruit zest to flavour shortbread. Buttery and crumbly, it’s everything shortbread should be. I was cautious about the lavender but next time would add in up to almost 2 tablespoons. Use only a scant tablespoon if you have dried lavender (making sure it’s pesticide free).

Feeds: 20 people
Start cooking: About 1 hour before eating

Lavender shortbread

• 1 1/2 cups x plain flour
• 220 grams x unsalted cutter, softened
• 1/2 cup x golden caster sugar
• 1/2 cup x cornflour (or rice flour)
• 1-2 tablespoons x fresh lavender flowers, picked and lightly chopped
• 2 tablespoons x grapefruit zest (optional)
• Additional caster sugar to sprinkle before baking (optional)

1. Sift the plain flour and cornflour into a bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until pale.
3. Stir the lavender and grapefruit zest into the creamed mixture .
4. Then fold through flour mixture. Gently knead the dough on a clean surface until smooth.
5. Separate the dough in half.
6. Shape each half into a log about 5cm (2 inches) in diameter. Wrap each log in baking paper, twisting the ends. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
7. Preheat the oven to 160 C (320 F) and prepare two baking trays with silicon baking mats or baking paper.
8. Unwrap the logs, slice into 1/2 cm rounds and place on the prepared trays. Roll the logs in sugar prior to slicing or just sprinkle the cut rounds with extra caster sugar for additional sweetness and crunch if desired.
9. Bake for 12 minutes or until still pale but just cooked.
10. Rest for 2 minutes before moving to cooling racks.

The grapefruit was a little distracting and it might have been better to keep the flavours separate but it was received well by my work colleagues. They’re getting used to regular batches of baked goodies. It’s too dangerous to keep these things in the house.

Chinese egg noodles | Salted duck eggs

Waste not, want not. Who hasn’t heard that kids should be grateful and finish their meals because ‘think of all the starving children in Africa!’.

But how does eating your food help those hungry kids? It doesn’t. Until you experience true hunger yourself, it’s hard to feel grateful.

 

If you minimise wastage of fresh ingredients then you’re making the most of whatever you have. For me, that applies to eating as much as possible of a whole animal too. If you’re going to eat meat, then you should at least try to be open to that idea.