Steamed Barramundi - Cantonese Style

This dish reminds me of the special family dinners at a Chinese restaurant when I was little , they would be typically lavish affairs - banquets more like - with plates of food following one another until the turn-table was laden with delicious things. I think my favourite dishes were salt & pepper fried prawns (prawn heads with lovely juices ;), sweet & sour pork ribs and this Barramundi dish. Whoever got to sit with the kids (ie. me and my siblings, plus the siblings of another younger Uncle) was considered fortunate..because well we ate less! This dish is a cantonese mainstay and my mother would always say, the reason why it tastes so good is because of the oil you know? Apparently everything that tastes good is essentially bad for u (I love you mum). I disagree. There's not that much oil to it. Read on!

1 Whole Barramundi (Saturday one week we got one from Victoria Markets. Can't recommend it more highly, fresh, sweet and succulent whole fish, the fishmonger should clean and scale it for you).
Handful of fresh coriander
Handful of thinly sliced spring onions (white and green parts)
Small handful of thinly sliced ginger (young ginger is best, sweet and tender - the old stuff is like bark)
4 tblsp Soy Sauce
Sesame oil to sprinkle
3 tblsp peanut oil (ok traditionally you use peanut oil, but i used canola and it's Fine)

Select a plate with a shallow recess to lay your fish on. Hopefully you have a wok and steaming stand to accomodate it. Make 3-4 slices into the fish on either side. Dot the fish with sesame oil all over and rub into the cuts and on the skin. Pour the soy sauce all over and rub into the fish and scatter the ginger on top. Steam for 15mins on med-high heat. When the fish is almost done start heating up your oil gently in a small saucepan/pot. Take out your fish and lay the mixed fresh herbs on top. When the oil is hot pour carefully over the herbs. The smell will be Amazing.

Serve with some rice, and other little dishes. We did a chinese egg & onion omellette and some bokchoy in garlic and oystersauce.

I love you Barramundi. You are so sweet and delicious.

Tea Time! Mushroom Panda Green Blend

"i puff the rice but rice no puff"



I love me a cup of tea. English breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Jasmine, Chrysanthemum, Oolong & Peppermint are favourites. Tea's meant to be good for you. But not just any old tea, green tea in particular for its high antioxidant content, but you know what...plain old green tea actually tastes really bland to me. Unless it has bits of puffed rice in it, then its delicious. So I've decided to turn my hand in creating a blend at home by puffing my own rice.
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Rice doesn't actually puff I've found - not with my domestic grade appliances anyways. It just expands very slightly in size, and turns a toasty golden brown, this is what imparts the lovely flavour, the toasted effect. I puffed my rice in the microwave (just 2 tablespoons in a brown paper bag folded up abit for 1.30min) and on the stove (same quantity in a small covered pot on high till browned).

The Mushroom Panda Green Blend is born!
(the following was found in the pantry, some jars have indecipherable Chinese lettering)
Mainly:
Japanese Green Tea
Jasmine Green Tea (not the black please too much tannin - scorched tongue effect)
Sparingly:
Some kind of Chinese black tea
And lots of puffed rice!

A little tip for brewing a nice cuppa without bitterness: After the water boils resist tempation to pour it into the teapot, let the water cool for a couple of mins (this avoids burnt tea => bitterness) then brew your tea for a further couple of mins.

Sweet Plum Chicken

We ordered a tasty little dish called "Taiwanese Chicken" during a visit to a local Cantonese restaurant a few weeks ago. It came in a hotpot with chicken wing pieces in a sweet brown sauce and some chopped spring onion for garnish. I'm not sure just how "Taiwanese" this dish is but who cares when it tastes good.

During dinner, the conversation turned to what's actually in this dish and how it was made. We came to the conclusion that it was probably chicken coated in flour and fried lightly with a sweet plum sauce poured over the top. We should try that out at home sometime!

So we did. I picked up a jar of SPC Plum Sauce with a recipe for "Chicken Tenderloin in Sweet Plum Sauce" on the back. It sounded very similar to the Taiwanese Chicken dish so we used it as a rough guide ontop of which we did our own customisations. Without further ado...

1.2kg of chicken wingettes and drumettes
1/4 cup port
1/4 red wine (or just go with 1/2 cup of the one port or red wine)
1/2 plum sauce
1 tbsp seeded mustard
1/4 olive oil
and some plain flour

Coat the chicken evenly with plain flour and place on an oven tray. Place the tray in the oven for around 20 mins at 210C, turning it once half way through. What that should result it chicken that it just about cooked through.

In the meantime, prepare the sauce but mixing the port, wine, plum sauce, olive oil and mustard seed in a bowl. Mix and put it aside.

Next place a frypan on the stove, turn the heat up to high and cover the pan with cooking oil. Throw in your chicken pieces and cook until it's golden. When done place the chicken pieces into a crock pot or similar and put the lid on to keep it warm.

In your frypan, put a small splash or plain flour over the existing oil and cook for a minute or two. Turn the heat to low-medium and pour in your sauce mixture. Simmer for a minute or two then pour over the chicken in your pot. And voila. Serve with rice and a vegatable stir fry for a balanced meal. For 2-3 people. A very nice little homely dish we both enjoyed before heading off to see The Dark Knight.

So how does it stack up to the myserious Taiwanese chicken dish? The dish at the restuarant was more subtle in taste, and upon reflection the sweetness didn't come from plum sauce alone. There was definately some honey in there was well. Tweaks to the second version is already planned - use a chinese plum sauce and not as much, add some honey, and perhaps use a chinese cooking wine instead of port/red wine.

Lamb Rogan Josh

Slow simmered lamb in a fragrant, mild and creamy tomato based sauce. Delicious.

INGREDIENTS
1kg lamb cubed/sliced
10 Spanish onions(red) sliced thinly
1 400g can of tomato puree OR 3 tomatoes pureed in food processor (our choice)
2 tomatoes diced
1/4 cup cream or natural yoghurt to stir through at end

SPICE MIX A
3 Bay leaves
8 Whole cloves
3 Brown cardamom pods
8 Green cardamom pods
1 Cassia bark piece
1 tsp fennel seeds
3 dried chillis (split them and deseed them if you aren't a fire fiend)

SPICE MIX B
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp chilli powder (to taste)
3 tsp ground coriander
1 heaped tblsp fresh crushed ginger
1 heaped tblsp fresh crushed garlic

1. Pour enough oil (about 1/4cup) to cover the bottom of heavy based pot or deep pan and heat med-high, try not to let it get too hot and smoke. Add SPICE MIX A and stir around for 30seconds - the green cardommon pods will explode with force, so be a little carefull incase this is in your face.

2. Add the sliced onions and a good pinch of sugar to help with the caremalization process. Cook until the onions are softened down, brown and caremalized.

3. Add the meat and brown on all sides. Then add SPICE MIX B and the tomato puree and stir through. Simmer on very low for 50mins, stirring occasionaly. You could simmer without lid for the last 20mins if you find that there's too much liquid to your liking. Then turn off heat and stir through the cream/yoghurt (we went with cream).

Serve with some naan, rice and red.

Self-saucing chocolate pudding

It's a winter night and you want something gooey, warm and CHOCOLATEY...This hits the spot.

Can't remember how the recipe goes exactly...but here's the pics for now =)

Butter Chicken Curry (Murgh Makhani)

Making a curry from scratch at home will blow your mind, beats anything you could order out hands down.

Ingredients:
800g chicken thighs (6-8pieces), cut into small pieces.

MARINADE
2/3 cup plain yoghurt
2 tsp tandoori masala
1 tsp crushed garlic
1 tsp crushed ginger

SAUCE
2 tblsp butter
2 tsp crushed garlic
2 tsp crushed ginger
1 bay leaf
3 green cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp chilli powder (to taste)
1 400g can crushed tomatoes
1 cup thick cream
1 tsp sugar

1) Mix all the marinade ingredients together and coat all the chicken pieces well. Set aside overnight ideally, but it's okay for as long as you can manage. (we only did 30mins and it was fine)
2) Fry up your chicken pieces on high heat in your largest pan, if you need to - do it in two batches so that it browns more easily. This process should take about 8mins each time. Set aside and covered with foil to keep warm.
3) Heat a large pot to medium with the butter. Then fry the cinnamon, bay leaf and cardamom for 1 minute.
4) Now add the garlic and ginger and fry for another 30 sec
5) Add the garam masala, chilli powder, sugar and crushed tomatoes and bring to a boil, now simmer.
6) Add the chicken back in and simmer on low for 10mins.
7) Add the cream and bring to a boil then turn off.
9) Serve with rice and naan/chappati bread

Bloody excellent with a glass of robust red.

Enjoy!



I'm not a curry connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination - although I used to do a regular early-week curry and red wine lunch with a group of workmates in Prahran - but I must say this is the best curry that I've ever had. So rich and flavoursome, it's just to die for.

I particularly like how with a home cooked curry you can add chilli to taste. Normally the spicy factor of butter chicken I've encountered is a pretty mild to near-non-existent affair. By adding the extra kick really makes the dish and especially with a nice red wine. God I love curry with a glass of red.

We had our curry with some garlic chapati bread found at the local supermarket. Although the garlic was pretty non-existent, it complemented the dish perfectly. We did have a peek at the naan breads for sale, but they didn't look particularly appetising. If anyone knows of any places to acquire good naan, or even an easy way to make it, please leave a comment and let us know :)

Overall, best curry that I've tasted and we'll be sure to cook some more curries in the coming months. 4.5 stars.

Sunday Lamb Leg Roast

2kg x lamb leg
10 x garlic cloves
1 x rosemary sprig
sea salt
black pepper

Slice the lamb across multiple times (1.5inch apart and 1cm deep) then do it again in reverse, like a criss cross pattern (see below).

Crush your black pepper and sea salt a liberally rub all over the lamb.
Crush all the garlic and embed along the grooves you've made and every so often pull a couple of leaves off the rosemary sprig and insert those too.

Bake at 220C for 30mins. Then lower heat to 170C and back for 1.5hours. When it's finished let the lamb stand for 10mins before you carve it up.

Bean & Vegetable Soup with Chorizo

A hearty, delicious soup that's perfect with some crusty bread and a glass of cheery red on a cold night in.

3 carrots, diced into small pieces
4 celery sticks, diced into small pieces
1 chorizo sausage, diced into small pieces
1 onion, finely diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
10 small mushrooms, sliced
6 potatoes, 3 of them chopped into medium pieces, the other halved.
2 cans of beans - we used a combo of butter beans, borlotti beans and cannellini beans
500ml stock - chicken or beef is fine but get the liquid packs instead of stock powder.
1 bay leaf
cream to taste.

Boil the 3 halved potatoes in a pot and get on with the rest of the recipe (when they're cooked you want to mash them and set aside).
Now fry the onions, garlic and chorizo over a medium heat in your largest pot until the onion is softened. Then add the carrots, celery and potato and fry for 10mins, stirring now and then with the lid off. After the 10mins is up, pour in the stock and add the mushrooms and bay leaf and bring to the boil the lower and simmer with the lid on until the vegies are done, about 25mins.
After this stir in the mashed potatoes until well combined into the liquid (this will make a creamy thick soup) and stir in the drained beans. Lastly turn off the heat and stir in a few tablespoons of cream to taste and seasoning too.

Lasagna with Bechamel Sauce

This lasagna is rich and flavoursome, and makes great leftovers too.
If you use pork mince instead of beef mince, the other flavours in the sauce are a lot more apparent and you avoid an almost overwhelming flavour of beef, so we do that all the time with our spaghetti bolognaise recipe. It's really up to you what you prefer, but we used a 50/50 mix of pork and beef mince for this recipe, which kept the beef taste rich enough without it dominating everything else.

Meat Sauce:
800g mince (50% pork 50% beef)
1 cup red wine
2 celery sticks, chopped into small pieces
1 large carrot, chopped into small pieces
1 onion, finely diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 rashers bacon, chopped into small pieces
10 mushrooms, sliced
2 large jars pasta sauce (plain tomato, and I think they're 700ml or something)
1 tblsp dried oregano
1 dried bay leaf

Bechamel Sauce:
100g butter
1/2 cup plain flour
3 cups milk
100g grated parmesan

Lasagna pasta sheets (we ended up using 2x250g packs but most likely you'll just need 1)

1) Make the meat sauce first. Over medium in a large pan/wok heat fry onions, carrots and celery till softened. Then add bacon, mushrooms and garlic and fry till the mushroom is softened - couple of minutes. Transfer to a large pot. Now fry the mince in the pan until cooked through, taking care to break it up into small pieces throughout the frying process (the finer the mince the better). Drain off the mince liquid if there's a lot of it. Add the mince to the large pot, add the wine, pasta sauce, oregano and bayleaf and bring to a boil then simmer on medium heat stirring every 5 mins or so (make sure bottom doesn't burn) till it reduces down abit. This will take about 35-45mins.

2) With about 10mins to go on the meat sauce, preheat your oven to 200C. Now we make the bechamel sauce. Over a smaller saucepan melt the butter down over low heat, careful not to let the butter burn and brown. Then gradually add in the flour, stirring into the butter until it's all mixed through. Keep stirring this doughy mixture for 2mins. Now pour in the milk, a little at a time and keep stirring. This will make it easy to keep the mix smooth and lump free. At the end you'll have a very liquidy sauce, and keep stirring on med heat now and it will thicken. When it's thick enough (consistency like pouring custard) remove from heat and add in the grated parmesan and stir through.

3) It's time to layer the lasagna. Start with a layer of pasta sheets then a 1/3 of the meat sauce followed by a layer of pasta sheets. Then 1/3 of the meat sauce, followed by 1/2 of the bechamel sauce and then a layer of pasta sheets. Then the last 1/3 of meat sauce, the last layer of pasta sheets, the last 1/2 of bechamel sauce and sprinkle a nice layer of mozzarella cheese over the top of all this. Bake in the oven for 50mins with aluminium foil covered over it. For the last 10mins take off the foil so the cheese can brown.