Cup Cakes with E

 Well this entry is less about what I have cooked and more a big up for my sister E and her cup cake making and decorating skills. In the month it has been a little like a cup cake factory around here with cupcake getting made for a number of different birthdays. Cakes have been  marbled versions of the Donna Hay cup cake recipe, chocolate cakes with jaffas and most recently a white chocolate mud cake cup cake.

White Chocolate Mud Cup Cakes (Women's Weekly Easy Cup Cakes)

125g butter, chopped coarsely
80g white eating chocolate, chopped coarsely
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
1/2 (125ml) milk
1/2 cup (75g) plain flour
1/2 cup (75g) self-raising flour
1 egg

Preheat oven to 170 (150 fan forced) and line cupcake tin with paper cases. We used the mini size cupcake tins. Combine the sugar, milk, butter and chocolate in a pan over low heat until smooth and let cool for 15 minutes. Whisk in the flour and then the egg. The mixture will be quite runny. Fill the cases about 3/4 full as they will still need room to rise. Cook for about 15-17 minutes, or until the tops are slightly golden. Remember to let your cupcakes cool completely before you ice them or the icing will melt.

But the real interest is in the icing and decorating of the cakes, 90% E and about 10% help from friends and myself. No points for guessing on the lolly covers cakes how many of the prepared lolly decorations ended up getting eaten before the cakes were finished! Delicious cup cakes E and can't wait to try the latest ones!

Thai cooking Ox style

David Thompson is well regarded as one of the foremost non-Thai chefs of Thai food in the world. So it is with both excitement and some trepidation my girlfriend Hellraiser (HR) and I embark upon an afternoon of menu planning with Thai cookbooks lined up on the kitchen table. To make it more of a challenge we have invited friends along to the dinner party which means both Coconut cream and Prawns / crustations are off the menu – no mean feat as we start reading through the recipe books, especially when it came to choosing a curry.

 The date is set, the guest list set (7 all up), the menu is set now it is time for shopping! There is something fantastic about a trip to my local Asian Grocers – you never know what obscure ingredient you will be able to find as you browse up and down the aisles. My trips always ending with a walk to the back of the store to the drinks fridge to try some crazy Asian beverage – these can be hit and miss but you never know if you don’t try!! I managed to try 2 this week Yeo’s Lychee drink and a crazy Black Bean Soy Drink. One safe and one out there - I was pleased to discover that the later didn’t have whole beans in it as I feared it might - it did have a strangely beany flavour – though maybe that isn’t so strange give in it is a Black Bean Soy drink.

 Following that it was trips butchers and fruit and veg to pick up the few vegies that HR couldn’t get at the markets – including around 25 red shallots and we still ran shy! Then Sunday prep day! Spending the day in the kitchen with the music going and a girlfriend prepping with you – sounds like a perfect Sunday to me.

Making curry pastes from scratch gives you a whole new appreciation for the effort that goes into making the tasty curries (and gives you a fantastic work out for your arms!). We settled on a Chaing Mai Pork Curry - which could possibly also be renamed as a garlic and ginger curry! Making a double dose of the curry paste meant a double dose of pounding with the mortor and pestle. But the work didn't start there, prior to the pounding was peeling 52 cloves of garlic, roasting and grinding star anise, cummin and coriander, peeling red shallots and chopping lemongrass, ginger, galangal and red tumeric (shown above). A process which took a couple of hours - good thing it was a leisurely Sunday morning! However the smell of the freshly made curry paste was well worth it and the aroma of the roasted spices in the house made the whole place smell entirely delicious. You can't beat fresh made curry paste.

Herbs were chopped, citrus zested, juiced and segmented, shallots, ginger, garlic and chillies thinly sliced, sauces made, noodles soaked, eggplants charred and peeled, Chang Mai pork curry on the stove and all the early prep was done and it was time for prepping the house, setting the table and generally getting ready until it was time for all the last minute frying, heating, cooking and assembling that is needed as your guests arrive to make your Thai feast beautifully fresh.

Hot and sour soup of chicken and lemongrass - HR made a beautiful light chicken stock from scratch which was the base for this awesome soup starter. The hot and sour elements play off against each other perfectly with the fresh herbs, lime juice providing the sour, birdseye chillies (fresh from HRs garden) adding the hot and the poached chicken balancing this soup! Relatively simple the soup was a hit and a beautiful way to get the meal started.

Chiang Mai Pork Curry - As mentioned above this curry has a curry paste that was made with love and an obscene number of garlic cloves - a number of garlic cloves that only multiplies in the cooking of the curry where more are added including 1 cup of pickled garlic cloves (from the Asian supermarket where else). The curry uses both pork belly and pork ribs which are cold blanched before adding to the curry - a technique I hadn't tried before which involves bringing the pork and water to the boil from a cold start. This reduces the richness and fattiness of the pork. The flavours in this curry just intensify over night so it makes pretty good left overs the next day too so make plenty. 

Minced Beef with chilli thai holy basil leaves with a hot fish sauce dressing - This is from the Thai Street Food cook book Stir fried mince beef with chilli and holy basil. Pretty quick and easy I think my seasoning lacked somewhat and it didn't end up quite as saucy as I imagined it might - it wasn't until the next day that I remembered that I did have additional basil in the fridge I could have used rather than skimping on the amount as I thought I had run out. This is so quick I will give it another go hopefully a little more successfully. The side sauce with hot birdseye chillies in it got the sweat flowing from many a brow around the table and no doubt increased the beer consumption but in a positive kind of a way.

Duck Salad with Citrus and Star Anise dressing - This was the one dish that we cooked that was not from David Thompson.  A fresh leafy salad with soft bean shoot vermicelli, bean shoots, plenty of coriander, orange and pink grapefruit segments and roast duck breast. The real punch in this salad though came from the dressing which was infused with star anise and reduced resulting in and almost candied orange zest and a rich thick dressing.

Grilled eggplant salad - This salad provides a great offset to the meatiness of curries and stir fries. A similar recipe inspired by the David Thompson recipe we used can be found here Smokey Eggplant Salad with shallot and mint. I have made both versions and they are both tasty - it is surprising how good this salad looks given the appearance of charred eggplant. Typical thai salad style dressing where fish sauce meets lime juice. I love these types of dressing something about the salty and tartness of them really appeals to me especially when teamed with fresh herbs. I'll be making this one again. 

Pat Thai - This David Thompson recipe for Pat Thai (found here) I had made before - this time however it was without the dried prawns of course. I am a little disappointed in my second effort - leaving the noodles to soak far too long resulted in the noodles breaking up during the cooking process and the larger quantity of  noodles meant that the sauce didn't mix through as well - however with the fresh bean shoot and the squeeze of fresh lime (essential) it was passable. That said my last effort on this recipe was fantastic and the photo from this effort is shown. (As an aside on this the last occasion that I cooked this I also cooked this quick and tasty Thai Chicken Curry which my brother and AC gave the thumbs up to).

Desert was set as Pomegranate agar - agar with thai inspired sorbets.

Pomegranates what an amazing fruit - so shiny and apple like on the outside and so full of juicy fleshy little seeds on the inside - juicy seeds that some how manage to spread that bright red juice all over your kitchen. 

Once I had managed to spread pomegranate juice all over the kitchen the next step was to channel some of that juice into a bowl to go in the Pomegranate Agar - Agar. Having never cooked with agar-agar it was an experience and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Agar - agar is a heat activated setting agent so different from making desserts with gelatine. Panadaus leaf is simmered with water and the agar-agar before sugar, pomegranate juice and pomegranate molasses are added, then poured into individual moulds with some whole seeds to set! These looked fab but didn't turn out from the moulds quite as I had expected. The 1/2 cup moulds were a good size for the agar-agars as the flavour is quite intense. The texture is something best described as an "Asian dessert" texture - not quite jelly but yet not really something else.

HRs husband was on the sorbet duties and the sharp and tangy Lime, Lemongrass and Lemon sorbet that he put together was the right amount of sharpness to offset the sweetness of the pomegranate agar-agar. I was also pretty happy that there was some of this left over in the freezer which I have been testing out since - fantastic!! Big thumbs up from me! 

A lovely night with friends and all helped along the way with some Singa Beer to get the full Thai experience - perfect with the heat of the meal.

Mad for Melbourne

Flinders St Station

Well April seems to have disappeared in a haze of weekend trips and eating out - next thing you know it is late May and it is ages since I have posted so time for some retrospective posts.

Perhaps part of the reason for this lack of posting is also due to the lack of cooking that I did in April - so I have decided instead to focus in this post on some of my experiences in one of my favourite Australian trip destinations - Melbourne. 

A weekend in Melbourne in early April was a culinary extravaganza with a few awesome bars thrown in there as well. 

Hot Chocolate at Hardware Society

Highlights included eating flavoursome Chinese at Neil Perry's Spice Temple (at Crown Casino) though found the Hot and numbing pork perhaps a little numbing but it was made up for by all the other dishes on the banquet menu and some Chinese Zodiac inspired cocktails. Long Friday lunch at Vue de Monde - decided to go for the a la carte 3 course meal rather than the degustation due to shopping plans but still ended up in Vue du Monde for hours enjoying our meals, chatting to the sommelier and maitre d' who were attentive without being intrusive, the meal was topped off with a tour of the kitchen facilities, certainly a highlight. It's not a trip to Melbourne with out some interesting and cheap Melbourne breakfasts this time at Cumulus Inc. and Hardware Society, see the amazing hot chocolate photo from Hardware Society - was great coffee too - we need more of these great little breakfast places in Perth. Afternoon tea was yet another stop on the non-stop eating and drinking weekend - my first visit to Hopetoun Tea Rooms was an experience I'll be keen to repeat - the tea rooms are decked out in a bright green and white wallpaper which you can't fail to notice and the selection of cakes and teas on offer are to die for - I am unsure how anyone walking through the block arcade can walk past the window display which showcases the days cakes and treats! Drinks are always a welcome part of any trip to Melbourne and it is always great to find some of those tucked away little bars that Melbourne is famous for - this trip included drinks at The Toff in Town (private booths with call buttons for staff - intimate), The Waiting Room (mirrored opulence in our own reserved area)  , Golden Monkey (Asian inspired decor and small eats) and Siglo (quintessential Melbourne style hidden roof top cigar bar) rounded off the Melbourne experience with a recovery Chicken Parmigiana at Transport before an arvo of footy at the G. Perfect Melbourne weekend!

Transport

Cake Selection in the Hopetoun Tearooms

You say Tajine I say Tagine

A few years ago I discovered the joy of Tagines cooking a few fairly basic recipes out of a couple of cook books such as The Cooks Companion - Stephanie Alexander which has a fantastic lamb and quince tagine. This love of Tagines inspired me to take a side trip on my most recent trip to Europe to cross over into Africa and spend some time in Morocco where I tried as many different tagines (or as is interchangeably used in Morocco Tajines) as possible.

Morocco is a pretty interesting place and was certainly a culture shock having spent the previous 2 weeks in France and The Netherlands. The market places were bustling with people trying to make a living and trying even harder to convince you that what ever they had you needed even if you didn't know it.  The market place was seething with stalls selling all manner of dried fruits - such as the stall shown to the left - spices, food, beverages, henna tattoos, knock off watches etc and that was before you even worried about heading into the labyrinth of Sooks surrounding the market square.

Away from the market places Morocco was rich in ornate tile and plaster work - particuarly through the old parts of Marrakech and in the Kasbahs and old palaces. It was amazing to come out of the dusty busy streets and into old no longer occupied Palaces - generally packed with tourists but covered in the most amazing tiles, archways, carved plaster walls and ceilings.

This week I decided it was about time to dust off my tagine and relive some of the delicious flavours from my trip. Although Chicken and preserved lemon or Lamb and apricot / quince are some of the tagines that come most readily to mind there is a huge variety of tagines through out Morocco, one that was a great revelation to me on my trip was the Kefta Tagine - the one I had came with eggs as well as Keftas and was fantastic. What is a Kefta - well as you might guess from it's similarity to the word Kofta it is a meatball - in this case poached in the tagine juices.

The recipe I decided on was Tagine of spicy kefta with lemon from the recipe book TAGINE spicy stews from Morocco by Ghillie Basan - this little cookbook is packed full of a wide range of easy tagines full of flavour. I used lamb mince for the keftas they were spiced with cinnamon, cumin, coriander and cayenne pepper. They were then poached in a mixture of water, garlic, ginger, onion, chilli, mint and coriander. Right at the end you add some wedges of lemon in to the mix which turn out beautiful and soft and add flavour packed mouthfuls. Fresh mint and corriander sprinkled over last.

Tagines are generally meat driven perhaps with fruit and unlike a lot of stews generally contain very few vegetables so accompaniments are important. We had a Country salad with peppers and chillies and a Melon and mint salad with orange flower water and couscous to soak up the tagine liquids. The Country salad was crisp and fresh tasting a great juxtoposition to the stew and contained red and green capsicums, celery, green chilli, garlic, mint and parsley. The melon salad is made with honeydew melon and the orange blossom water and mint add some extra flavour to what can sometimes be quite a bland melon.

Natures air freshener

Mint is quite important in Moroccan cuisine as you may be able to geuss by the amount of mint the sellers in the photo bellow have. It is used in both food and drinks and occasionally as natures air freshener is some of the less desirable smelling areas of Marrakech such as the tannery which we unfortunately managed to get shown around.  

Mintox - mint sellers in Marrakech

Of course it isn't a Moroccan meal unless accompanied by the ubiquitous Mint Tea. The way it is served is quite an entertainment in itself with the tea being poured from the teapot into the glasses starting close to the glass and moving the pot away so the stream of mint tea is allowed to cool somewhat on its way to the glass. My Moroccan tea pot and tea glasses set were brought in a sook in Marrakech and surprisingly made it home in the post with only one casulty - one out of six of the tea glasses broke. For the mint tea I used a gunpowder green tea brewed with sprigs of fresh mint and then served in the glass with additional sprigs of mint. The mint tea often came slightly sweetened which changes the flavour slightly however I don't necessarily think this is required depending on your tastes.

At taste of Morocco at home.

The blue-washed building of Chefchaouen

Fish in a bag

On Wednesday it suddenly occurred to me that as much as I felt like the lamb chops and watermelon salad that I had planned to eat that night it was Ash Wednesday and perhaps something more fishy would be more appropriate. I settled on an old favourite - Olive and Herb Fish Parcels from the August 2004 Delicious. I have been cooking this dish for the last 7 years but it always surprises me just how awesome it tastes - so much so that I didn't even bother to take a photo for the blog!!!

A quick trip to Kalis Bros on my way home and picking up a few of the usual fresh herbs and I was all prepared. The beauty of this dish is that it is quick to prepare, quick to cook and tastes fantastic - it looks pretty cool too when you serve it in it's aluminium and baking paper parcels opened up to expose the cooked fish and vegetables.

In the absence of a photo I'll give a brief description - The fish is cooked on a bed of spinach and with thin sliced zucchini and black olives on top - all seasoned with salt and pepper, olive oil and a mixture of lemon juice, lemon rind and mixed herbs - in this instance chives and basil but I have mixed the herbs on other occasions when I have made it. I used a lovely fresh dhufish fillet - quite thick so it required a little extra baking and served with small roast potato cubes with rosemary and pepper and blanched green beans and asparagus.

For someone like myself who doesn't often cook fish this is a great recipe to get your confidence up on fish cooking. Give it a try yourself Olive and Herb Fish Parcels

Portable food and festival films

Picnics and festival films are together one of my favourite activities associated with summer in Perth - and the weekend was to end with with a viewing of Baaria with some friends. Picking out some tasty looking portable food and adapting one my stock standard salads gave me a nice mix on the Sunday afternoon of trying out new foods and making easy classics.

February GT has a whole section on Zucchinis and things to do with them so decided on the zucchini fritters as they looked like perfect picnic food. I don't know how often I need to make things with zucchini in them before I realise that even when the recipe doesn't mention squeezing the excess moisture out of the zucchinis that it is still a good idea. This was probably the major flaw with this recipe in my opinion however even with the excessively runny mixture which I squeezed the liquid out of as I made the fritters they still turned out pretty well. The combo of dill and mint offset the zucchini nicely to give a lovely fresh summery flavour. Recipe can be found here Zucchini and Dill Fritters.

Chickpea salads are a pretty standard salad in my throw together salad range. They are easy to make and can be varied easily depending on the ingredients in the fridge at the time so I always have a tin of chickpeas in the cupboard to get me half way there to a quick salad. This time I opted for feta, Cherry tomatoes, marinated roasted capsicums which I had made previously, flat leaf parsley, salt and pepper. The marinated capsicum provided all the dressing needed in this case.

To top off the picnic I decided to make a cake - not that common an occurrence for me unless I am on morning tea at work. Belinda Jeffries Mix and Bake has a plethora of amazing looking cakes and one of my girlfriends is a massive advocate of this book. One of her recommended cakes was the Really Beautiful Orange Cake and this is the cake I opted for being much more of a fruit / citrus in my sweets kind of a girl than a chocolate kind of a girl. Unfortunately I missed the part of the recipe that said it needed concentrated orange juice so had to settle for a Beautiful Orange Cake instead but it was still great. The dried cranberries (or Craisens) gave little bursts of flavour to the cake so although the recipe states that these are optional I would highly recommend including them.

Portable Picnic Fare

It was a tasty picnic and a lovely night catching up with friends I hadn't seen in ages! Love these warm summer nights for outdoor activities.

Superbowl and US inspired food

Wow where did Febuary go - wizzed by in a blur of festival and sporting events and as I look back I realise how long it has been since my last post so I better get on to updating my blog.


What better excuse to theme up your weeks eating than a sporting event. The other week it was the NFL superbowl so this inspired a week of eating US style. Monday night during the superbowl it was Ribs and Samuel Adams beers - the perfect way to watch the game - though alas I was going for the Steelers who in the end went down.

Baring this theme in mind on the weekend I got to cracking on making some pickles for our mid week open steak sandwiches. I opted for the Zuni style pickles from the January Gourmet traveller. Made from zucchini and onions they were pickled in a mixture of apple cider vinegar, sugar, mustard powder, mustard seed and turmeric. They looked great and still managed to have some crunch and definitely jazzed up the open steak sandwiches which were also served with semi-caramelised onions.

Recipe can be found here  Zuni Style Pickles