Taste of Sydney 2012

While torrential rains of the past week caused dams to overflow and threatened to make this year’s Taste of Sydney into a Woodstock/Glastonbury, the sun has at least shown its face enough to sufficiently dry things up at Centennial Park to allow this market stall-style restaurant festival to proceed following the cancellation of the initial Thursday evening session.

Ormeggio: “Aperitivo Stuzzichini Sciatt” (8 Crowns)

The Montpellier Public House

On those rare weekdays you have off from work, what do you choose to do with your time? Those precious daylight hours which you would otherwise spend commuting to work, doing work and trekking home from work. A sleep-in perhaps, followed by a lazy day lounging about home? Or a day of being out and about enjoying the sunshine?

The husband and I had one of these rare days to ourselves just before going on a recent holiday, which provided the perfect opportunity to try The Montpellier Public House’s $35 lunch special. Yes, really – three courses of food for only $35, available Mondays to Fridays from 12 til 3pm, at Matt Kemp’s revamped Balzac.

Christmas 2010

*knock knock knock* “Hello? Anybody home…?”

It’s been a month of non-activity around here but all that means is that other parts of life have been far from quiet. Just when I thought things were returning to some semblance of normality, someone made a last minute decision to head overseas which resulted in rushed arrangements. Then someone else fell ill – a trip to a hospital emergency department, urgent surgery and a one-week stay in hospital, a few days discharged home then back to the emergency department followed by a few days of in-hospital observation before, thankfully, being discharged again partway through Christmas Day. In between were many visits to the hospital, a cancelled weekend trip to Melbourne for a friend’s wedding, a cancelled family dinner for Winter Solstice and a pre-Christmas party with friends being rescheduled to a post-Christmas one. *exhale*

It’s been hectic. It’s been harrowing. It’s been exhausting for Monsieur Poisson and I, but it really rings true that good health plus family is a combination for happiness.

Christmas lunch in the Poisson/Délicieuse household was served at almost 4pm after we had collected someone from the hospital with the good news they were allowed to go home. Food was much the same as Christmas last year and seems to be the only time when I cook a rolled chicken roast! This year, however, was the exciting addition of it being served on a proper dining table instead of the small round table-for-two in the kitchen corner.

A party for friends planned for Christmas Eve was delayed until a couple of days after Christmas and was the first event staged on the new dining table. It was filled with retro prawn cocktails, roast chicken drumsticks – some with skin and some without (hello, Dr King…), roasted vegetables, salad and kransky-topped roast potato with garlic, onion and rosemary.

Sweets in the order of coffee macarons (made with this recipe but with instant coffee in place of cocoa powder, and Tia Maria in place of the Baileys), raspberry friands and gingerbread (recipe from Phuoc’n Delicious) decorated with white chocolate heralded the start of our blind Kris Kringle. It’s always a fun exercise to see what creativity comes of having to choose a purposeful, unisex and sometimes quirky/funky gift in keeping with the price limit and not knowing for whom you are buying. Monsieur Poisson scored this cute-as cherry-pitter from Mistress for which, of course, I ultimately benefit! I haven’t brought myself to take it out of its box yet, as the packaging is adorable in itself. And the red, felt, stencil table-runner on which it’s sitting? A most thoughtful gift from Mistress for our new dining table.

So that wraps up Christmas for another year but the decorations will dot the place for a little bit longer still.

a belated merry Christmas & happy eating!

Epicure Recipe Card #17: Spring chicken with asparagus, peas and broad beans

My first ventures into ‘cooking’ involved grilling cheese on toast around the age of 13. It was an interesting experience as, up until that point, we had only ever had ‘plastic’ cheese in our household. You know, the smooth but saggy type that comes individually enveloped in plastic wrappers? And although I would have consumed it without knowing, it would be several years later before I discovered ‘real’ cheese and how it would brown and melt with stretch as opposed to the strange plastic stuff which would go goopy and form a skin when I went to grill it.

And then I started baking, from packet mixes at first before slowly becoming more adventurous. It stemmed from my love of cakes and the fact that my Chinese mother does not bake.

At all.

The light in the oven had died so many years ago that I don’t have any recollection of it ever working, but no one cared too much as the oven had mostly just been a tool with which to heat up frozen pizzas and fish fingers. Oh, how I envied other kids at school when we had fundraising cake sales on. Them with their plastic containers full of yummy sweet goods prepared lovingly (or, perhaps, cursedly – you never know) by their mothers and me with my packet of whatever purchased from the supermarket.

Along with no baking, there was also no roasting in our household. Our poor neglected oven! However this also meant that our oven remained remarkably clean even as the rest of our kitchen grew more and more used. Not that I had a chance to experiment with our oven for savoury dishes as ours was pretty much strictly a Cantonese food household. So picture my delight when Monsieur Poisson and I were dating and I started frequenting his place to discover a pristine oven due to his no-cook (skills and) habits. I am proud to say that I christened his oven and have been using it on a regular basis ever since.

So when this recipe card said to pan-fry then oven-cook the cuts of chicken, I thought that I’d just throw it in the oven from the start to save myself the trouble. Of course if I had bothered doing this step then I would have ended up with much crispier skin but I am lazy, you see. The recipe also asks for spring vegetables to be blanched then dressed with a walnut oil vinaigrette. Not being the correct season for these vegetables and with me not wanting to invest in a bottle of walnut oil for which I would have limited future use, I instead roasted some vegetables I had in the crisper and threw in some walnut pieces for toasting at the end. (Not actually following these recipe card recipes is starting to turn into a habit of mine, hmmm.)

We had a serve of vegetables left over as we had some bread with our meal as well. The bread you see above alongside the chicken is from my wonderful baker friend, Ms Sourdough, spread with the remains of anchovy chilli butter.

Roast Chicken with cauliflower, beans and peas (serves 2)

(adapted from The Age – Epicure 50 Best Recipe Cards, recipe by Jill Dupleix)

Ingredients:

·         2 chicken Marylands

·         1 tbs olive oil

·         1 tsp mixed dried herbs

·         ½ medium cauliflower, separated into florets

·         250g round beans, topped and tailed

·         1 cup frozen peas

·         handful of walnut pieces (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 220°C. Rub skin of chicken Marylands with olive oil and dried herbs before placing cut-side down in a roasting pan. Season liberally and roast for 35 minutes.
2. Add cauliflower and beans, season, and roast a further 10 minutes. Throw in peas and walnuts (if using), turn the oven off and allow the lot to sit in there for 5 minutes. Remove the roasting dish from the oven and let sit 5 minutes for the chicken to rest before serving. 

happy cooking!

Epicure Recipe Card #14: Roast Chicken and Chips

So after a one-week break from the recipes cards to discuss the piggy, we’re back into it with a simple roast chicken dish. I don’t tend to roast whole chickens as usually there’s only the husband and myself to feed, so I roast segments on-the-bone instead. I prefer not to have too many leftovers otherwise we keep eating the same things repeatedly during the week. Chicken drumsticks and Marylands are great to use because they have plenty of skin to hold in the meat juices and a nice proportion of fat for flavour as well as being forgiving to a bit of over-roasting.

The chicken specified below serves 2 but the quantity of vegetables serves 3. This was not done on purpose; rather it just happened to be what I had in the vegetable crisper at the time. So throw in another Maryland and you have dinner for 3 or some leftovers for one. I served crusty bread rolls alongside but there’s nothing to stop you making a gravy to go with it as well.

Roast Chicken with Vegetables (serves 2)

(adapted from The Age – Epicure 50 Best Recipe Cards, recipe by Jill Dupleix)

Ingredients:

·         200g chat potatoes

·         ¼ onion, finely sliced

·         1 tbs olive oil

·         2 tsp mixed dried herbs

·         salt and pepper

·         120mL water

·         2 chicken Marylands

·         1 carrot, cut into wedges

·         ¼ medium cauliflower, separated into florets

·         1 cup frozen peas

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 220°C. Peel potatoes and cut into wedges. Toss potato and onion with the oil and 1 teaspoon of the dried herbs. Season with salt and pepper and arrange in a roasting dish in a single layer. Pour over the water and roast for 10 minutes.
2. Turn wedges of potato over and loosen any bits of onion which may be catching to the bottom of the dish. Rub skin of chicken Marylands with a little extra olive oil and remaining dried herbs before placing cut-side down amongst the potato. Roast 20 minutes.
3. Add carrots and roast 15 minutes before adding cauliflower. Roast a further 10 minutes, add the peas then turn the oven off and allow the lot to sit in there for 5 minutes. Remove the roasting dish from the oven and let sit 5 minutes for the chicken to rest before serving. 

happy cooking!

Here piggy, piggy, piggy!

Of the many weddings I attended in the past two years, only two have been Chinese banquets. There are typically many small courses much like a degustation menu and usually starts with roast suckling pig. There is something rather special about this fine, tender, young meat which doesn’t taste as strongly of pork as its older cousins and has a thinner layer of skin which yields a smoother, crispier crackling. It tends to be reserved for special occasions in Chinese tradition and is not always readily available in Cantonese barbeque stores.

At one of these weddings where Mr Awesome was also a guest, we were discussing our love of the baby pig when I mentioned it was common practice for guests to ask for the roasted head and trotters to take home to be used in a soup base or congee much like you would a ham hock. We were most disappointed when we brought this up with our waiter and were met with the response that all uneaten parts had already been thrown out. What an absolute waste! Mr Awesome then had a most brilliant idea – for his next birthday he would eschew the usual birthday cake and cut open a roast piggy instead. Mmmm…

A couple of months later and we were met with the most amazing sight of Mr Awesome being wheeled in his birthday pig on a trolley and taking to it with a heavy meat cleaver from head to tail. The crunch of beautiful crackling was heard by all as he was doing so and, afterwards, I was duly offered the head and trotters to create something beautiful.

You may find the above picture disturbing and/or confronting but it is a reality that all meat-eaters should face. Meat comes from animals and these animals are raised and slaughtered to give us the meat; just because it comes neatly butchered or pre-packaged should not sanitise this fact. Nevertheless, I found myself face-to-face in my kitchen with said piggy and didn’t quite know how to tackle it – it’s not everyday that I have a roasted pig’s head sitting around!

So if you find yourself with leftover roasted suckling pig parts on your hands this Chinese New Year, here are a couple of ideas. I decided the trotters would be used for congee and trimmed away any large fatty chunks. From the head, I removed the cheeks and then the lobes of fat from those before finely slicing the remaining skin and meat to be used in a noodle stir-fry. Although the cheeks were not terribly large once the fatty bits had been trimmed away, they did produce a handsome tub of sliced meat.

The congee did require some seasoning as the marinade for the roast pig is rubbed in the cavity of the pig and not on the limbs, which mainly just taste of roasted smokiness. The noodle stir-fry was done in two batches due to its size but apologies as we hungrily dug into it before any photos were taken. You’ll just have to imagine and visualise how it tasted and looked!

Roasted Pig’s Trotters Congee (serves 4-5)

Ingredients:

·         1 cup of long grain rice (unrinsed or rinsed only once), soaked in 2 cups of cold water in a large pot overnight

·         4 roasted pig’s trotters from a suckling pig, fat trimmed

·         1 tsp finely shredded ginger

·         salt, to taste

Method:

1. Add a cup of cold water to the pot of soaked rice and bring to the boil over medium heat. Add ginger and stir a few times to prevent sticking at the bottom.
2. Add pig’s trotters and increase heat to high to bring back to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook, half covered, for about 45 minutes. Stir the bottom occasionally and skim any large charred bits which float to the top.
3. Remove pig’s trotters to a chopping board to cool a little but keep the congee simmering on a low heat, stirring occasionally. When cool enough to handle, remove meat from trotters and roughly chop before setting aside. Return pig’s trotter bones to the pot and simmer for another 30 minutes or so until the mixture is fluffy and there are no discernable grains of rice. You may need to add water if you prefer a thinner consistency.
4. Remove bones and return chopped trotter meat to the pot. Stir through and season with salt to taste. Serve in bowls with ground white pepper and finely chopped spring onions alongside for sprinkling on top, if desired. 

Roasted Pork Cheek Noodle Stir-Fry (serves 4-5)

Ingredients:

·         500g pack of Hokkien noodles

·         2 roasted pig’s cheeks from a suckling pig, fat trimmed, cut into strips

·         finely shredded ginger (optional)

·         1 small red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped (optional)

·         2 tbs hoisin sauce

·         ⅓ medium Chinese cabbage (‘wom bok’/’wong nga bak’), shredded

·         4 tbs hoisin sauce

Method:

1. Bring a large pot or wok of water to the boil and briefly blanch the noodles to remove its excess coating of oil. Do this in batches if necessary. Drain and set aside.
2. Heat a wok over medium-high heat and briefly stir-fry the pork cheek strips until lightly browned and some of the fat is released. Toss ginger and chilli with this, if using. Add 2 tbs hoisin sauce and toss until evenly coated before setting aside.
3. Increase heat to high and add cabbage to the pan. Stir-fry until wilted and set aside.
4. Place half the noodles in the pan and toss briefly to evaporate any clinging moisture before adding half the pork cheek strips and half the shredded cabbage. Stir-fry until well mixed, adding a tablespoon of hoisin sauce if needed. Repeat with the remaining ingredients. 

happy chinese new year & happy cooking!

Christmas Day, 2009

With Mother and Mother-in-law, multiple friends and other relatives all overseas for Christmas this year, Monsieur Poisson and I knew we were in for a quiet affair. While Ms Physio came over for lunch and Mistress joined us for dinner, it still only took the headcount for each meal to a grand total of three. You would assume that I would keep things simple, with only so few people to entertain, but this is Christmas we’re talking about here and I’m not sure I am ever capable of keeping things simple when it comes to cooking for others.

Because Christmas was never celebrated in my family as a child, I’m a bit freeform when it comes to ‘Christmas’ food. I have yet to serve a whole roast bird, as I rarely have many people to feed, but I do usually roast a few cuts of chicken instead. This year I decided to make a rolled chicken roast. Had I ever made one before? No. Did I know for how long or at what temperature to roast it? Er, no. And did I even know how to tie a rolled roast? Um, again, no. But, as with most things these days, the internet is the beholder of the answers to many a mysterious question!

The chicken was paired with many roast vegetables (I almost ran out of room in my baking dish), a couple of salads, some bread rolls and a few slices of deli-bought ham. Dessert was profiteroles made from a trusty packet mix (I know – tsk, tsk! – I have yet to attempt making them from scratch), but not quite following the packet instructions, served filled with vanilla ice-cream and a drizzling of a cream-free chocolate sauce (for those times when I want chocolate sauce when there is no cream to hand). Ms Physio unfortunately missed out on these as I didn’t remember them until after I had served dinner. (PS. Thank you again for your gift – I was very much covered in glitter after opening it!)

Christmas dinner consisted of reheated leftovers from lunch which, thankfully, Mistress didn’t mind. Some of the excess cooking ingredients from Christmas Day then made it into our pizza dinner on Boxing Day, but more about that in a post to follow.

I hope you had a wonderful time sharing food, conversation, laughter and good times with whomever you chose to share Christmas. It was the very first Christmas for this here humble blog. It was also Monsieur Poisson and my first Christmas together as husband and wife, so it was definitely a special time for us.

Rolled Chicken Roast with Chorizo and Pine Nuts (makes approx 9 pieces to serve 3 adults)

Ingredients:

• 3 large chicken thigh fillets
• 1 chorizo sausage (not the dried type)
• ½ cup fresh breadcrumbs (I process leftover bread crusts and keep them in a container in the freezer for when needed)
• ¼ onion, finely chopped
• ¼ cup pine nuts, toasted (optional)
• butcher’s/cotton string 

Method:

1. Remove the chorizo sausage from its casing and place in a medium sized bowl. To this, add the breadcrumbs, onion and pine nuts (if using). Feel free to add any fresh or dried herbs and mash the lot together with a fork until evenly combined. Set aside. 

2. Lay chicken thigh fillets on a chopping board with the smooth-side (the side where the skin was) down. Trim any straggly bits of meat so that you have relatively flat fillets – you may find that you have to butterfly open thicker parts of the fillets. Flatten the fillets with a meat mallet or the back or a meat cleaver until fairly uniform in thickness.
3. Lay down a large sheet of plastic wrap and arrange the fillets smooth-side down, overlapping slightly into a rectangular shape. Arrange the chorizo stuffing lengthways on top of the chicken fillets, leaving about a 1 inch margin from one of the longer sides. 

4. Using the plastic wrap, roll up fillets to enclose the stuffing into a log shape and twist both ends of the plastic wrap like a bonbon to seal. (Note that the plastic wrap should NOT be rolled into the chicken log itself.) Wrap in a double layer of foil and place in the freezer to firm up for easier handling (anywhere from 1-2 hours). 

5. Take chicken roll from freezer and remove layers of wrap. Tie up chicken with string as per guidance in this video. If not roasting straight away, rewrap in plastic wrap and foil before placing in the fridge.
6. To roast, preheat oven to 200°C. Bring chicken roll to room temperature and brush surface with a little oil before roasting for 50-60 minutes. Remove from oven and rest 10 minutes, loosely covered with foil, before untying and slicing into thick pieces to serve. 

I roasted pumpkin and carrot pieces alongside the chicken for the same amount of time, corn for around 30 minutes, zucchini pieces for around 20 minutes and asparagus for around 10 minutes. All vegetables were tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper prior to cooking. The cooking times given for the chicken and vegetables are all approximate as they were quite forgiving to being slightly overcooked or kept warm in the oven whilst covered with a layer of foil.

My Potato Salad

Ingredients:

• Chat potatoes, halved or quartered depending on size
• hard boiled eggs, sliced
• frozen peas
• bacon, roughly chopped
• mayonnaise
• seeded mustard 

Method:

Mix together cooked potato, egg slices, cooked peas and cooked bacon. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix thoroughly with mayonnaise and mustard to taste. Chill prior to serving. Amounts of ingredients required will depend on how many people you are feeding and personal tastes.

Cheat’s Profiteroles with Chocolate Sauce (makes about 25 profiteroles)

Ingredients:

• 1 pack of ‘White Wings’ profiterole packet mix (you only need the pastry mix, not the custard mix nor the chocolate chips)
• 2 eggs
• 165mL water 

For the chocolate sauce:

• 125mL water
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• 60g unsalted butter
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 150g dark chocolate, chopped 

Method:

1. Mix together profiterole ingredients (can be done by hand) until well combined. Preheat oven 220°C and line a baking tray. Shape rounds of batter using a two-spoon method, or pipe 25 profiteroles of about 1 inch in diameter 1 inch apart on the tray. 

2. Bake for 15 minutes before reducing heat to 190°C and baking a further 20 minutes. Remove tray from oven and let profiteroles sit for 10 minutes before splitting in half with a knife to release any steam. 

3. Prepare chocolate sauce by stirring water, cocoa powder, butter and brown sugar together in a small saucepan over low heat until combined and just starting to boil. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate pieces until melted, smooth and glossy.
4. To serve, fill profiteroles with small scoops of vanilla ice-cream and arrange on a plate. Spoon over as much chocolate sauce as desired and enjoy! 

merry Christmas, happy cooking, happy sharing & happy eating!